Understanding Athelind's Argot: "Beware of the Leopard!"

[athelind]

"Beware of the Leopard!": When vital information is hidden in obscure locations, esp. when the people who require that information are blamed when they can't find it.

From Douglas Adams:

"But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a torch."

"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Exempli gratia, from a discussion on FurryMUCK:

Leonard proposed The Rules Lawyer's Maxim: Where there is no Text, there is an Argument.

normanrafferty countered with Rafferty's Extension to the Rules Lawyer's Maxim: Stopping at the end of the line and not cross-referencing is NOT a lack of text.

Your Obedient Serpent responded with athelind's Commentary on Rafferty's Extension to the Rules Lawyer's Maxim: If you can't FIND the rule, you don't HAVE the rule. Lack of cross-referencing IS a lack of text.

The Beware of the Leopard school of game design scatters vital rules for important situations -- say, combat -- all over the rulebook, with neither repetition for emphasis nor cross-reference. If important rules appear in the Index, you will only be able to find them if you know in advance what specific game-jargon term the system uses -- and that term will only be used in the Index and in the single obscure entry that's a footnote to a seldom-used table in the back of the book.

This is in no way a reference to actual leopards.

Comments

[vrghr.livejournal.com]

A most excellent dissertation, and one with which this wuff agrees in every detail (including the 3-part "Rules Lawyer" statements). Bravo, Sir Dragon. Bravo!

Ah, if only such conditions were limited to such innocuous endevors as rules for gaming. As such, they would be a serious nuisance, but have relativly little premanent impact. Unfortunately, "Beware of the Leopard" situations are rife throughout more serious climes, such as public law and policy, business, and even scientific discussion. In these circles, this condition can have life-altering, even fatal consequences.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Full Thrust (tabletop wargame for those who don't know) has this problem to some extent, but mostly because the game as it stands today is a set of core rules with three expansions added over the years. The problem with this is that the expansions each have sections that tweak, nullify, or supercede some proviso in a previous book, and amongst them all pretty much everything from ship design to turn sequence to movement types have been adjusted or replaced. While the rules are very clearly laid out and are easy to find in every volume, one still ends up having to give at least a cursory glance at all four to make sure one has the "current" version of any given rule in mind before play. The author of the game has been promising a Third Edition for some years now (it's sometimes said to be in version 2.5 these days) but myself and fellow players are still waiting. Of course, I imagine v3.0 will give me yet another gaggle of new changes to adjust to. At least they'll all be in the same book (I hope?) then.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I am almost 100% sure there's some vital piece of information I'm missing that would contextualize this post for a much deeper meaning.

But it's probably in the basement. With the leopard.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

At least the leopard should be easily spotted.

[ladyringo.livejournal.com]

RAWR! *leopards you*

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Hafoc's Corollary to Athelind's Commentary on Rafferty's Extension to the Rule Lawyer's Maxim: If you have a rule that is written in a manner that attempts to cover all possible contingencies and avoid any possible ambiguity, you don't have the rule.

The proof is obvious. Anything written in such a way is so complex and convoluted you can't find what you need in it. And "if you can't FIND the rule, you don't HAVE the rule."

Vrghr said these observations pass over into public law, something I have to use (or rules made under public law anyway). There's a reason for that. You think you have trouble dealing with rules lawyers, try dealing with LAWYER lawyers sometime. And consultants eager to earn three times my salary by finding ways for Honest Businessmen to avoid and evade the law by means of creative misinterpretation. So everything has to be spelled out explicitly. Everything has to be defined exactly. What should be a simple "Don't be a jerk" ends up being a thousand-page rulebook.

Depressing, ain't it? Sorry. :)