Loophole Abuse/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* Old time wargamers of the Avalon Hill type may remember the nightmarish nonsense—like losing all of the British Empire to an attack carried out on London by a single airborne unit—that followed trying to play ''Rise and Decline of the Third Reich'' in its first edition in the mid 1970s. (The game's designer, John Prados, is brilliant at concept but, even in the seventh edition published in 2000, proved that he STILL can't write rules for doodly.....)

** The current FIDE Laws now state that checkmate ends the game, provided the move that brought it about was legal. Which ends that one.

** For a while, there was no rule that you couldn't promote a pawn into an ''enemy'' piece to block the other player's path.

* Scrabble. It is, technically, ''perfectly legal'' to [[Kwyjibo|play words that don't exist]] - you just have to pay the penalty if you're challenged. If you can bluff your opponents into thinking it's a real word and not challenging, you're good to go.

** An episode of CSI featured a [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo]] Scrabble player who used this as his play style. He would play [[Blatant Lies|a fake word (in this example: "exvin") and bluff his opponent]] (the justifying definition: "a wine aficionado that no longer drinks"). When the opponent [[Ironic Echo|extended the word ("exvins")]], the first player would call a challenge, at which point the opponent had to pick up all the offending letter tiles in addition to the one he played and take a penalty. [[Asshole Victim|The player]] ended up literally [[Quip to Black|choking on his words]].

** One of the most (in)famous examples of Magic rule bending is such: There was a card called the [http://magiccards.info/un/en/236.html Chaos Orb] which had the ability to take out of play any card(s) it landed on after you flipped it in the air. One [[Magnificent Bastard|clever player]] TORE UP his Chaos Orb and [[Game Breaker|sprinkled the pieces all over his opponent's playing area]], thus effectively [[Hilarity Ensues|removing most of those cards from the game]]. The Tournament judge ruled the maneuver legal, as nowhere did it say the card had to be in one piece.

*** The other loophole was for the opposing player to catch the card in the air then either hold on to it (thus it never landed), or drop it on any card they choose. Errata for the eventually specified that you couldn't interfere.

** The various settings tend to have in-universe cases ''somewhere'' in all the history and organizations. For instance, [[Eberron|House Jorasco]] healers are not supposed to treat without payment in money... but there is nothing hindering them from ''lending'' the necessary money and then setting a task as repayment in kind for the loan.

** In universe, the infamous ''Wish'' spell. This spell can be cast by high level wizards, or can be granted by a few select creatures (like Djinns), but they should always be met with caution. Too careless wishing can result in getting the exact opposite of what was intended, depending on the maliciousness of the creature and / or the DM. For example, when wishing for a mighty artifact, the caster might grant you the artifact... by teleporting you into the tomb where the artifact is located, in the middle of it's undead guardians.

{{quote| "That's not the purpose of [Go Up A Level cards], but it's so vile and Munchkinly that we love it too much to say no." ''Steve Jackson Games, on whether Go Up A Level cards could be used on enemies to provoke monsters that ignore characters below a certain level.''}}

** People holding as many cards as possible in your hand and doing whatever they can to prevent others from noticing that they're holding more than five are cheating. Contrary to what some urban legend claims, it's not legal to cheat in Munchkin.

** Early versions of the Loaded Dice card did not specify that the value you choose to replace that of a die roll had to be between one and six. And there are plenty of cards to abuse this with, like one monster that gets a bonus to its level equal to the roll of one die.

* The Lore of [[Blood Bowl]] is rife with coaches doing whatever it takes to win. For example, players are strictly forbidden from carrying weapons on the pitch. Where most players figured it didn't count as a weapon if the blades were [[Scary Impractical Armor|fixed to the armour]], the Dwarves argued it meant riding a bulldozer on the field was allowed - it's not carried, is it? The actual gameplay reflects that spirit. In first and second edition of the game, the rulebooks for the various ways a player could cheat were almost as long as the actual game's rules (and even more byzantine).

* An in-universe example from ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. The Ecclesasty cannot have "Men-At-Arms", due to some high mucky-muck trying to take over [[The Empire]]. Cue [[Amazon Brigade]]. (Whether this was loophole abuse or the reason for the phrasing varies by source).

** The FAQ articles have had to correct some in the past. The Swooping Hawks' Intercept rule reads "the unit never requires worse than a 4+ to hit an enemy vehicle", which means that the WS 4 Swooping Hawks could hit a WS 5 Venerable Dreadnaught on a 4+ instead of a 5+ as the normal compare-WS table would indicate, for instance. An Ork list that was designed entirely around exploiting the wound allocation rules in fifth edition by giving every model in every unit different gear was briefly popular on the tournament scene.