Obvious Rule Patch: Difference between revisions

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Note that issuing an Obvious Rule Patch for a competitive multiplayer game too soon can damage the evolving [[Metagame]], which can often bring potential Game Breakers back into balance. And just so we're clear, "Obvious Rule Patch" refers to the rule that obviously exists solely to patch up something rather than the something that "obviously" needs a rule patch. "Rule" here is a simple adjective- the Patch is the focus, and the Obviousness is what makes it this trope. For the obviously needed patches, see [[There Should Be a Law]]. Sort of.

This sometimes is a result of [[Executive Meddling]] - showing once more that despite the negative press it gets, the trope is not always a bad thing.

Compare and contrast [[Nerf]]. May, if the situation is enough of a corner case, result in [[That One Rule]].

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** The "small blind", "big blind", and "dealer button", used in cardrooms, particularly in Texas Hold'em, ensure that the action moves in an orderly manner, as opposed to previous opening rules like "forced bring-in" (the lowest showing card has to open, common in stud games) or "jackpots" (common in draw games, requiring a hand of certain strength, often a pair of jacks, to begin the betting).

** Most cardrooms have special "house rules" to ensure speedy play and/or ban unethical maneuvers. Among these are:

** "Cards Speak": A hand does not have to be declared at the showdown to be played (ie, your flush still beats their three of a kind even if you don't know its a flush when you show it down).

** "Table Stakes": A player cannot be forced out of a pot due to lack of money (extra bets go into a side pot), and a player can't reach into their pocketbook/offer up their Aston Martin keys and/or the deed to the ranch to call a hand.

** Anti-collusion rules such as: banning cellphones tableside, requiring cards shown to another player to be shown to the rest of the table, and banning languages other than English at the table. The last one often doesn't cover [[Signed Language|ASL]], in order to avoid violating ADA requirements.

* One of the most obvious examples is [[Collectible Card Game|Collectible Card Games]] and their restricted/banned lists.

* Lists in the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game]]'' started as just the Limited List: normally, you can have up to three of any one card in a deck, but for game balance reasons the Limited List mandates that only one (Limited) or two (Semi-Limited) copies of certain cards can be included in a deck. Before long, players were discovering interesting ways to break the game using card combos the game designers hadn't foreseen, resulting in absurdly powerful decks that could force a win in a single turn (or even the first turn). Thus the Limited List was expanded to include Forbidden Cards, which cannot be included in a deck at all. The list is changed roughly every six months, with cards being both added to and sometimes removed from it.

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** Also, the "Archfiend" cards, an issue resulting from [[Bowdlerize|bowdlerization]] of card names. In the Japanese version, several cards used the word "demon" in their names, and this word was changed into a bunch of different words in the initial American releases: "Demon's Summon" became "Summoned Skull", "Demon's Axe" became "Axe of Despair", and so on. This worked fine until a series of cards that dealt with "demon" cards started to come out, so a ruling had to be issued to declare "Archfiend" as a "special category of card" which included all the cards that had "demon" in the Japanese name. From then on, "demon" would always be translated as "archfiend".

** With the recent release of Xyz Monsters, there was a brief period where there were very few written rules about how they actually work - one key problem was the fact that the monster used for Xyz Summoning stayed on the field until "detached" by an effect. Fine, but when does "leave the field" effects trigger? [[Word of God]] said when detached, and ''all hell broke loose''. Two already powerful cards got so absurdly broken that a copy could easily fetch well over 100 dollars. Konami quickly made an rule change: These cards ''never'' trigger their effects because they aren't treated as cards anymore. It's just as weird as it sounds.

* The DCI banned / restricted lists from ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', introduced soon after the first major tournaments.

** The Urza Block is particularly infamous for producing massively overpowered cards and card combinations, to the point that one card [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=8841 Memory Jar] was banned ''before it was even released'', after it was realized just a bit too late what could be done with it.

*** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in the series' own Unglued and Unhinged expansions, with cards like [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=9771 Look At Me, I'm The DCI!], which featured current Head Designer Mark Rosewater's stick-figure drawing of a blindfolded figure picking what to ban by throwing darts at cards pinned to a dartboard. Other Unglued cards have 'errata' printed on the card.

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*** [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159249 Animate Dead] has always worked (generally) functionally as it was originally intended: it enchants a creature and [[Animate Dead|brings it back from the dead]], but the creature dies if the Enchantment does (just like the various Necromancy spells from [[Dungeons and Dragons]]). However, the exact mechanics of this process, if and how a creature that would otherwise be immune to a Black Enchantment can be affected and targeted by this, etc., have caused Animate Dead to be another nightmare of errata and Magic legalese. There's a reason only 2 other cards like Animate Dead have ever been made, and every other Reanimation spell thereafter are Instants and Sorceries. Damn!

*** Before [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=131 Time Walk] was released, it was phrased "Target opponent loses next turn", which itself needed to be rewritten after people started misinterpreting it as "[[Game Over]], you lose". (It's still massively overpowered though.)

** The standard Constructed Deck construction rules of today (at least 60 cards, no more than 4 copies of any non-basic card) are a major obvious rules patch. Originally, the only rule was a minimum of 20 cards per player in the game, theoretically allowing for decks that could win on the first turn nearly 100% of the time (assuming somebody willing to hunt down the requisite number of rare cards to make them work).

** Speaking of [[Magic: The Gathering|Magic]], a few powerful creatures ([http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=5713 Serra Avatar], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=191312 Darksteel Colossus], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=140214 Purity], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=140168 Dread], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=189213 Guile], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=140227 Vigor], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=189214 Hostility], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=179496 Progenitus] and ''[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193632 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth]'') have an ability that prevents them from going to the graveyard, shuffling them back into the deck instead. While this looks like an advantage, that just hides a darker motive: it prevents players from discarding the creature cards ''on purpose'' so that they can revive them using ''way'' cheaper [[Animate Dead]] spells. (This is not an idle concern, as entire decks are built around this very tactic.)

*** Note that only the Colossus and Proggy actually avoid hitting the graveyard; the other 6 simply don't stay there for very long, meaning that aforementioned shenanigans are still possible, albeit a bit more difficult.

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** There's a law in the UK which specifically bans the operation of a hand-held digital voice recorder while operating a motor-vehicle. Can't help but get the feeling this was only enacted due to someone being a wise-arse with a particularly powerful police officer.

** In Canadian law, it's illegal to give alcohol to a moose. You have to wonder...

** If stating what a law does sounds ridiculous (such as "you can't put an ice cream sandwich in your back pocket"), it's probably one of these. The given example came about because of horse theft, which is a crime (understandable, since it's theft). If an animal wanders onto your property, it's yours. So if you want a free horse, all you have to do is bait it in a nonobvious manner (such as allowing it to smell the food in your pocket), and walk home, allowing it to follow you.

* Even science and math have been known at various times to have Obvious Rule Patches. A couple of the famous ones:

** Euclid's ''Elements'', which was '''the''' geometry textbook for 2,000 years, begins by assuming some axioms and postulates that are obvious enough to make a solid foundation -- with one exception. [[wikipedia:Parallel postulate|Euclid's fifth postulate]] is clumsy and not at all self-evident. Countless mathematicians over the years tried to derive the "parallel postulate" from the others instead of assuming it. But the old Greek's intuition was right. The postulate ''can't'' be proven or disproven that way; if you choose a contradictory postulate, you get a "non-Euclidean" geometry that's perfectly consistent.

** Betrand Russell essentially broke set theory with his [[wikipedia:~~Russellchr(27)~~s paradox|paradox]]: does "the set of all sets that don't contain themselves" contain itself? To escape this paradox, mathematicians had to put restrictions on what constituted a set. The current system basically says ''no'' set can contain itself -- anything big enough to do that is too big to be a set, and has to be a "class" or some such. Some mathematicians find this unsatisfying, and the debate over whether there's a better solution continues.

** Betrand Russell essentially broke set theory with his [[wikipedia:Russell's paradox|paradox]]: does "the set of all sets that don't contain themselves" contain itself? To escape this paradox, mathematicians had to put restrictions on what constituted a set. The current system basically says ''no'' set can contain itself -- anything big enough to do that is too big to be a set, and has to be a "class" or some such. Some mathematicians find this unsatisfying, and the debate over whether there's a better solution continues.

*** The [[wikipedia:~~Cantorchr(27)~~s diagonal argument|underlying nature]] of Russell's paradox unfortunately indicates that any better solution will ''also'' need to be logically "patched".

*** The [[wikipedia:Cantor's diagonal argument|underlying nature]] of Russell's paradox unfortunately indicates that any better solution will ''also'' need to be logically "patched".

** Should the number 1 be counted as a [[wikipedia:Prime number|prime number]]? There's a case to be made either way, and in fact it was widely considered prime until quite recently, per the classic definition ("a number whose only factors are itself and 1"). But 1 doesn't act like a prime in most of the ways we need primes to act; in particular, it has to be left out if we want the [[wikipedia:Fundamental theorem of arithmetic|Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic]] to work. Thus we now define primality in ways that are less intuitive but exclude 1, such as "a number with exactly two factors" (and hence, 0 is right out).

* The [[Discworld]]'s Assassin's Guild Diary has School Rule 16: "No boy is to keep a crocodile in his room." Followed by rules 16a to 16j to counter various forms of [[Loophole Abuse]], from the obvious ("16a. No boy is to keep an alligator or any large amphibious reptile in his room"; "16c. Nor in the cellar.") to the outlandish ("16h. No boy is to convert to Offlerism without permission in writing from the Head Master." [Offler is the Discworld's Crocodile God])

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** This is surely a [[Historical In-Joke]] referring to Lord Byron. He wanted to keep a dog when he was at Cambridge, but school rules forbid it. He inspected the rules carefully and found there was nothing prohibiting [[Everything's Worse with Bears|pet bears]], so he got one. It's unknown when Cambridge applied the highly-necessary patch.

* In 2008 when the State of Nebraska tried to implement a [[wikipedia:Safe-haven law|Safe Haven Law]] it neglected to notice that its definition of "children" included anyone 18 or younger which resulted in 36 teenage children being driven in from out of state and abandoned at Nebraska hospitals. The law was patched to exclude older children later that year.

* In 2010, the polar bear was granted the status of Threatened under the Endangered Species Act...with a rider attached by Secretary of the Interior stating that the bear's new status couldn't be used to sue oil companies or greenhouse gas emitters (arguably, the two biggest threats to the species). The environmental activist organizations that had planned to do just that were not amused.

* In many places, there are obsolete, oddly specific, and/or downright weird laws that are still on the books, many of which are clearly patches created due to some [[Noodle Incident]] or another. One has to wonder what prompted lawmakers in San Francisco to prohibit [http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/california?page=80 elephants from strolling down Market Street unless they're on a leash or wiping one's car with used underwear.]

* The [[wikipedia:World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction|World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction]] is an extremely prestigious award intended for short stories, but was originally only defined as "speculative fiction under 10,000 words". That is, until 1991, when the judges selected [[Neil Gaiman]] and Charles Vess' "A Midsummer's Night Dream" issue of [[The Sandman]], which (horror of horrors) ''[[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|is a comic book]]''. The World Fantasy Convention sniffily [[Executive Meddling|changed the rules]] almost immediately, relegating any future graphic novel submissions to the Special Award: Professional category. This means the [[The Sandman]] is the only comic book that ever has or ever will win this particular award.

** According to Gaiman, "It wasn't like closing the stable door after the horse had gotten out, it was like closing the stable door after the horse had gotten out and won the Kentucky Derby."

* In 2011, UK supermarket chain Tesco ran a promotion that if whatever they had happened to be cheaper at its competitor Asda, they will pay you double the difference (e.g., an item that costs 8 pounds but is only 5 at Asda would earn you 6 pounds). However, the difference in prices could be big enough that shoppers would get back more money than they spent. Naturally, many [[Genre Savvy|savvy]] shoppers exploited this by finding products they didn't even need but potentially gave them the biggest profit and using that to do their actual grocery shopping. Tesco had since put the difference cap to 20 pounds.

* In 2009 a large German electronics chain ran a promotion where you could buy any product without the Value Added Tax (currently 19%). It turned out, however, that a company can't just waive the VAT, they had to pay it nontheless. The products were just discounted by the amount of the VAT. Customers looked at their receipt and found that they indeed payed the tax, so they went back to the markets and got _another_ discount for the taxes. Needless to say they added a clause for that in their next promotion.

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* In ''[[Survivor]]'':

** The hidden immunity idol mechanics were changed. First making it so that you could play it after the vote. Then, putting the limitation that you couldn't use it beyond the final six because it more or less gave Yul a free ride to the final three, since everyone was afraid to cast a vote against him for fear of the idol being played. Then, changing how the clues were hidden due to Russell's obsessive idol hunting. (Except they appeared to have forgotten it in ''Redemption Island'' and later; or later players were just ''that'' good to have found them in the first couple episodes.)

** After "Purple" Kelly and NaOnka quit in ''Nicaragua'', the rules were amended so that quitters can be banned from sitting on the jury if production felt it was appropriate. And typically; you can guess that unless you're trying to pull a [[Thanatos Gambit]] or are having a severe physical or mental breakdown, that'll probably be...never.

** Reducing the eligible age to 18. (Although this hasn't really affected gameplay; you'll notice that several contestants have been below 21 in the game after ''Fans vs. Favorites''.)

** Not using the "purple rock" tiebreaker (where, in the event of unresolved tie, elimination is by random chance with everyone ''but'' those voted for at risk) in the final four because the one time it was used in ''Marquesas'', Paschal was eliminated without having a single vote cast for him in the entire game.

*** Tiebreakers in general; although the spectre of the Purple Rock (as well as confirmations/sepculations by Cirie that they still ''do'' use it outside the final four) causing people to betray their alliances to avoid it. You'll notice that for some reason, people are ''quite'' afraid of forcing a tie outside of the final four that can't be solved by a simple revote (such as John changing his vote for Laura in ''Samoa'', [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Russell being voted out first from his tribe]] in ''Redemption Island'', and Cochran turning on his tribe in ''South Pacific'').

** Supposedly, someone smuggled something into the game in their luxury item (or used their luxury item in a rather creative way) to have fire.

** In Season 2, ''Australia'', contestants could bring a personal item. Colby brought a Texas flag that doubled as a tarp... It, along with all the other shelter items, got snatched mid-season.

** Making tribal switches more common to shake the game up a bit.

** The Final Two became the Final Three. While not all fans like this, Probst says that this was so people would have to face a competitor and not just drag [[The Load]] into the finals. Chances are, everyone's thoughts towards Courtney in ''Exile Island'' (intending to bring her to the finals because everyone ''hated'' her) made the producers think. Probst has pointed out there have been plenty of seasons where [[Unpleasable Fanbase|everyone complained the final two was a wash anyways]], one of them conveniently being ''Exile Island''. Again, this didn't stop Earl from claiming the first uanimous victory against two disliked players and Rob from pulling the [[Too Dumb to Live|two dumbest and laziest players]] to the finals.

*** This was also done as a result of [[Fan Dumb]] complaining about "Blowout" final twos because people had on ''many'' different seasons said that the winner was pretty obvious, nobody would've voted for [insert second place winner here], and the final tribal council was essentially just [[Padding]] because it was obvious that [insert winner here] had it. Or people just pulling [[What Measure Is a Non-Badass?]] when the fan favourite or most likely winner finished fifth-third place and a person deemed "undeserving" won.

* In the American ''[[Big Brother]]'':

** After Season 3 where the jury voted 9-1 in favour of Lisa, the Jury was reduced to 7 and sequestered away from the game and unable to watch the show. The reason the jury voted in such a way was that they saw what Danielle was saying about them in the diary room and was angered.

** The Power of Veto was made into the Golden Power of Veto permanently after Season 3.

** Another veto example - Backdooring. In season 5, the houseguests realized that you had to pick the veto players yourself so you had full control over the players in the competition. So in order to get rid of Jase, the houseguests made up a plan and nominated two people who would have used the veto on themselves, or their other alliance members who'd have used the veto anyways. They then proceeded to pick players for the veto who would use the veto on their friends or were in on the plan and would use it anyways and evicted Jase without even letting him have a chance. The rule change was that Houseguests actually had to draw names out of a bag and only if they picked a "Houseguests Choice" Token could they choose themselves.

** A very subtle example, but notice that the houseguests are cutting with plastic knives. This was because of a Season 2 incident where Justin held a knife to another houseguest's throat and said "Would you mind if I killed you?"

** If someone is expelled or leaves when evicted players go to the jury, their vote at the end is given to the viewers and is used as a tiebreaker.

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* The England cricket team of the 1930s discovered "Bodyline" - a tactic where instead of aiming for the stumps, the bowler just pitched lots of very fast, painful balls at the batter's body, forcing him to move out of the way or deflect the ball towards nearby fielders. As a result several new rules were brought in, restricting the number of aggressive balls allowed per over and the positioning of fielders.

** Not to mention, the 'underarm incident'. In order to deny the opposition the remotest chance of a drawn match (which would have required a six - difficult even without the pressure), the bowler rolled the ball at the batsman instead of the usual overarm bowling action. The rule disallowing underarm bowling had been omitted from the Australian verion of the rules for some reason... the rule was quickly instigated following this.

** Dennis Lillee's [[Loophole Abuse|heroics]] with an ''aluminium'' bat led to the rule: "The bat shall be made of wood".

** Any rule introduced by the [[Butt Monkey|International Cricket Council]] invariably ends up requiring a patch. The most hilarious example is the so-called "Powerplays". Since the games were becoming boring during the early years of the 1990's, ICC introduced a rule restricting the number of fielders in the outfield in the 1st 15 overs ("powerplay"), encouraging more attacking batting. That eventually led to the game becoming monotonous in terms of strategy, not to mention making it boring during the rest of the innings. This was patched to allow 20 overs of powerplay, but the timing of the last 10 of those could be chosen by the fielding side, which led to nearly everyone invariably getting them done with at the earliest. This was patched ''again'' and now, the batting side was allowed to choose 5 of those overs. This was abused ''again'', and led to another rule patch, which now restricts when these powerplays could be taken. Don't expect that you have heard the last on it.

* Numerous sports - among them football, ice hockey, American football and rugby - have hastily added and often infamously complex offside rules, to prevent the various [[Game Breaker]] tactics employed that allowed the ball to be passed straight to the goal, circumventing the defence.

** Common patch rules have been to force both teams to attempt to score rather than just stall. Football's downs system dates from the 1880s or so (look up the "block game"), pro basketball got the shot clock in 1954 after an infamously stalled game (when the Fort Wayne Pistons outlasted the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 in a 1950 NBA game; the teams scored just four points ''total'' in the final quarter). Few such measures have been really successful in soccer. In league play, making a win worth 3 points rather than 2 (a draw being worth 1), the change being made in 1981 in the (English) Football League. In knock-out tournaments, using the "Golden Goal" in extra time, where the first goal scored ends the match, had the opposite effect; it ended up encouraging defensive play to avoid conceding a match-losing goal.

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*** Major (five-minute) penalties, however, are still five minutes of game time in the penalty box, regardless of number of goals scored. This was kept knowing that it was a [[Game Breaker]] in order to punish major penalties, which usually involve intentionally endangering an opposing player's safety, and often involve an ejection for the offending player (in which case, one of his teammates sits in the penalty box in his stead). It's common for teams on a five-minute power play to score two or three goals, whereas it is very difficult to score while shorthanded, so a team that commits a major penalty (except for fighting, which is generally a major penalty to the same number of players on both teams, so no power play results) usually loses the game because of it.

** There are also obvious rule patch that are not so much about preventing game-breakers as about preventing injuries or deaths that resulted when they were used. For example, American Football banning the use of the ''flying wedge'' formation in 1894.

** There's also the offsetting penalties rules change, which has gone back and forth. It used to be that two players sent off simultaneously for the same offense (usually fighting) resulted in four-on-four play for the time of the penalties. This was abused by the Edmonton Oilers, who used famed instigator Marty McSorley to lure other players into fights, get matching penalties, and the resulting four-on-four would give plenty of room for Wayne "The Great One" Gretzky to score. To prevent this level of abuse, offsetting penalties would not result in a four-on-four situation (until years later, when the NHL wanted to boost scoring). They also added an instigator penalty, so rather than an even-numbered situation, the instigating team would be on the penalty kill instead.

* Auto racing has a long history of these, [[Older Than Radio|almost from since the car was invented]]:

** The [[Formula One]] rulebook includes a few basics like the driver must be in the car and driving it, the car can't be the same width of the track, and then procedes to specify almost every parameter of dimensions and engine specs to the nearest millimetre.

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** Whenever the ball went out of bounds, it was thrown into field and the first to gain possession got a free throw. This led to both teams madly rushing after the ball -- even into the crowd.

** The shot clock was introduced to counter the four-corners offense, where the team with the lead would position four players at the corners of the offensive half-court and one at the center, then just pass the ball around ad infinitum to maintain possession and eat up the game clock. This made for a slow, low-scoring game that bored the spectators.

** Whenever an offensive player was surrounded by defensive players on the opposing team and couldn't pass (basketball creator James Naismith stated that passing was the only legal way of advancing the ball, plus the early nature of the regulation ball made it difficult to bounce), he would simply toss the ball higher than his head, thus "passing it to himself" and avoiding getting fouled for traveling. This was seen as ridiculous-looking, however, and would soon pave the way for dribbling that would serve the same purpose.

* Game Show Network's ''Extreme Dodgeball'' had a rule amendment only minutes after the exploit occurred. A rule to prevent delay of game would cause a team to automatically lose a player if they had both balls on their side of the court for a given (brief) length of time. David Benedetto placed both balls on edge of the opposing team's side. Thus, the players had to move forward to retrieve the balls, at which point Benedetto could easily pick up a ball without crossing the line and nail them. An all-purpose patch named the "Benedetto Amendment" was placed to prevent any players abusing delay-of-game rules to their own benefit.

* Olympic Fencing descends from fighting with smallswords, rapiers, and sabers. Smallswords and rapiers are both pure thrusting weapons which are almost never used to slash and only really have sharpened edges to prevent foes from grabbing the weapons. Traditionally, touches are delivered by a clean thrust which depresses a button on the weapon's tip, causing a circuit to complete and a scoring light to flare. Due to the exceptional flexibility of fencing swords, sportsmen learned to "flick," or snap the weapon in a manner which caused the blade to bend around an opponent's guard and touch with the tip. The flick looks nothing like a traditional sword technique. Flicks became so dominant, especially in foil, that many fencers started calling it a "flick-fest." The sport's governing body, the FIE, patched timing rules on how long the button has to be depressed before it counts to make flicks much less viable. ''Most'' fencers consider this a good thing. Saber fencers still have a whip-over, where an electrified saber's long blade can bend and touch an opponent. Since sabers are electrified over the whole length, this means an attack which would not cut with an actual saber can still establish contact with the opponent and score a point in competition. Sabreurs are divided over whether whip-overs improve the game or not and referees have a hard time making calls on them. Was it a whip-over, an unsuccessful parry, or a remise? Good luck calling that action when it takes place in a fraction of a second. In 2000, new regulations made sabre blades much stiffer to reduce this, but it can still happen. Nowadays the FIE seems to be moving towards "if the circuit was completed, it counts."

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** 3.0 spellcasters had a bad habit of using summoning heavy creatures in midair, causing them to deal obscene damage as falling objects when they hit opponents. Wizards of the Coast amended the summon spells in 3.5 to prevent creatures from being summoned into an environment that can't support them (i.e., no flying whales).

** You can't sunder armor in 3.5. You can break weapons, shields, even items they're wearing like pendants. Just not armor. It would be easier to just break the fallen paladin's armor and then stab him, leading to silly situations such as the above.

** Another patch was the spell Dimensional Door. In 3.5E its pretty much an early teleport spell, in previous editions (as the name implies) it created a pair of portals through which the [[PCs]] could travel great distances. While that may not sound so bad, [[PCs]] often created [[Portal Cut|horizontal or diagonal doors to bissect enemies (or fortifications!)]] that lead to instant kills. Another tactic was to open a portal into a volcano or sea and use the exit portal to flood an enemy base with lava or drown it completely.

* Fourth Edition ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' errata has had some obvious rule patches: The Ranger ability that let you make continual attacks until you miss was errated to have a 5 attack limit as it was possible to make a build which had an almost zero chance of ever missing, even against the strongest monster in the Monster Manual.

* In most ''D&D''-like games, you can't wear more than one or two magical items of a certain "slot" and benefit from all their powers. While it makes sense that you can't wear multiple pairs of, say, boots, there's no reason for the usual "two rings, one amulet" rule other than balance issues. This is usually justified with a contrived excuse that the magic items will interfere with each other. Even though you can often wear a helmet, armor, and a neck slot item, or gloves, bracers, possibly armor (which probably has gauntlets of some sort included), and a ring.

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* Construction rules in ''[[BattleTech]]'' often have restrictions that often seem arbitrary. For example, Protomechs (not-so [[Humongous Mecha]]) cannot mount Plasma Cannons. This seems to make no sense, as, being only three tons, they seem like perfect weapons to mount on one. Then you think about just how badly five Plasma Cannons would roast any given Battlemech in a single turn.

** There was also an instance where Battle Armor riding on an Omni Mech can be shot off of the 'mech by shots that land on the torso. Doesn't seem too bad, but given that there is no weight penalty for carrying Battle Armor, the [[Human Shield|Battle Armor were always the first to take hits]], and [[Mundane Utility|the 'mech's torso wouldn't begin to take damage until all the Battle Armor were shot off]]... it's understandable why the next rulebook created fixed locations for each Battle Armor.

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'': ''A [[Commissar]] (of any rank) will never [[Ate His Gun|execute]] [[Suicide as Comedy|himself]].''

** "Under no circumstances can any [necron] make more than one teleport move in a single turn... There are no exceptions to this, no matter how clever your logic."

** "Please note that it is ''not'' possible to master-craft grenades!" <ref> However, ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'' has an item (and ''Space Marine'' a Perk) that disagrees with that rather blatantly.</ref>

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* In ''[[GURPS]]'', it is possible to enchant a pair of permanent Gate spells and then arrange them to create a perpetual motion machine using electromagnetic principles that could then be tapped for an unending mana supply. (Click the link in the subtopic below if you're curious as to technical details.) However, due to the various components required, this would need a setting where both modern science existed, magic existed, and the Draw Power spell from ''GURPS Grimoire 3e'' specifically existed. In the one GURPS setting where this is canonical (''GURPS Technomancer''), three guesses which spell has an entire sidebar devoted to explaining how it specifically does not exist. Hint: Four-letter word, begins with "G".

** This probably had something to do with the fact that David R. Pulver, the writer of ''Technomancer'' [http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.gurps/browse_frm/thread/f65e43a91c0ee511/5f5ba1346c6a7203?hl=en#5f5ba1346c6a7203 participated/lurked in a Usenet thread] where the "Infinite Mana Well" construct was first proposed... at the exact same time ''Technomancer'' was in final playtest.

* In ''[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=6 The Trillion Credit Challenge]'' (using [[Traveller]]), contestants had to purchase and field a fleet of ships to do battle with other fleets. Doug Lenat fed the parameters of the tournament into a computer (in 1981) which suggested that instead of sending in a balanced fleet of carriers, battleships, cruisers, and so on, he should instead build thousands of tiny patrol boats. He won in a rout - though he took incredible losses, he overwhelmed his opponents through sheer numbers. The organizers then made their first [[Obvious Rule Patch]] - they added 'fleet agility' as a parameter for the following year's tournament. When Lenat entered again, his computer used much the same strategy with one change - whenever any of his ships was damaged, they would ''sink themselves'', which kept the average mobility of the fleet up. The organizers then made their second patch - tell Lenat that it was weird to have his unorthodox plans keep winning (since, after all, they relied on ordering millions of men to knowing suicide) and say that if he continued to enter, they would [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|stop holding the tournament]]. Lenat then bowed out gracefully.

* The rules for creating abominations in [[Old World of Darkness|old]] ''[[Old World of Darkness|World Of Darkness]]''. Briefly: if you attempt to turn a werewolf into a vampire, the werewolf gets a skill roll. He wins, he dies peacefully. He loses, he dies horribly but his soul is free. He [[Critical Failure|botches]], he becomes an abomination, essentially a walking [[Game Breaker]] balanced out by [[Heroic BSOD|crippling depression]]. Since there are all sorts of abilities in ''tWoD'' that can cause a skill roll to fail or critically fail, the editors in Revised Edition state that nothing short of divine intervention can affect the roll <ref>except the werewolf spending a Willpower point for an automatic success; this is the "in-character" thing to do</ref>.

* ''[[Pathfinder]]'' is basically a tweaked ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]] 3.5'' and (to make up for an initial lack of content) was said to be compatible with 3.5 which lead to some game breakers. They tend to fix these by introducing their own version of the feat/skill/class ability/prestige class. Especially noticeable with spells. The Irresistable Dance spell used to be a no save incapacitation spell. Now, it allows a save though even those who make it have to dance uncontrollably for one round.

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* In an early version of ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'', a loophole in the rules was found that let monks wear a shield in their offhand, making them virtually unhittable for no real downside. In the very next patch, monks were made unable to wear shields and retain monk dodge / attack bonuses at the same time.

* In an early release of ''[[Battlefield 2142]]'', it was entirely possible for two soldiers with nothing better to do to destroy their own Titan (and thus force their team to lose the round) by forcing a transport through the floor of the hangar bay and into the Core.

* ''[[~~Eve~~ Online]]'' has had several updates that were borderline Obvious Rule Patches. However, the patch that prevented carriers from transporting loaded cargo ships was a glaringly Obvious Rules Patch.

* ''[[EVE Online]]'' has had several updates that were borderline Obvious Rule Patches. However, the patch that prevented carriers from transporting loaded cargo ships was a glaringly Obvious Rules Patch.

** Similarly, nowadays [[Hand Wave|graviton harmonics]] prevent [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|players]] from taking a 3000m^3 cargo container that holds 3300m^3 of cargo... and putting another 3000m^3 container that holds 3300m^3 inside it leaving 300m^3 of free space. With enough cargo containers you could once haul an entire solar system's worth of ore in a single, moderately sized and priced ship.

* A fairly obscure item from ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' called the Luffa would remove any bleed effect. A boss over 20 levels later would put a hefty bleed dot on raid members at fairly regular intervals. Everyone would equip their Luffa and make Moroes a total joke. The next patch put a spell level cap on the Luffa ie. you couldn't remove bleed effects over level 60 anymore.

** Then there's the infamous Corrupted Blood incident from the release of the Zul'Gurub dungeon, which gained enough notoriety to be mentioned in major news media as an example of how populations reacted to the spread of communicable disease. In a nutshell, an exploit of a boss encounter allowed a pet who acquired the debuff to be dismissed and then resummoned in a populated area, instantly spreading it to everyone in the vicinity and decimating entire cities as a result. It was patched several days later so the debuff could not exist outside of the dungeon.

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** The [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]] familiar used to randomly give Meat with a fixed chance of about 1 in 9 per round of combat. Since this made it advantageous to drag out combat to as close to 30 turns as possible without going over and thus using up much more server resources than normal, the NPZR now only gives Meat in the first 10 turns of combat.

** Another much-maligned [[Obvious Rule Patch]] came with NS13: Before NS13, players found that increasing monster level (which also increased XP gains) and increasing noncombat encounter chance were both extremely useful. So when NS13 rolled out, the devs added a rule that made increased monster level cancel out increased noncombat chance. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of making monster level increasers less than useless. Over a year and a half later, the devs realized that [[Scrappy Mechanic|nobody liked this in the slightest]] and removed the rule.

** Another rule is "can't use Double Fisted Skull Smashing to wield a Chefstaff in your offhand." Due to the way DFSS (halves the power of offhand weapons but leaves enchantments alone) and Chefstaves (lowest power possible but incredible enchantments) work, this rule prevents two builds, a rather unpleasant one and a horribly broken one: the former, a weapon/chefstaff combo that makes a [[Magic Knight]] with no detriment for either one, the latter, a Chefstaff/Chefstaff combo that results in spells so powerful that it can take down anything almost in one hit.

** The ''KoL'' staff's usual modus operandi in the event of players accomplishing things they didn't count on players accomplishing is to reward the player for their cleverness/tenacity, then change the game so that the stunt can't be repeated<ref>Or at least, ''theoretically'' can't be repeated; after the first person beat the final boss without the [[Unusual Euphemism|Smurf]], the changes they made turned out not to be sufficient to keep it from happening again. Now you auto-win or auto-lose depending on whether or not you have the item in question</ref>.

* In the [[Programming Game]] ''RoboWar'', allowing robots to teleport and fire weapons interchangeably in the same chronon let a robot with sufficient processor speed leap a considerable distance (depending on its current energy) to put a lethal contact shot into another robot, leaving it next to no time to defend or counterattack -- and executing another move after the shot (the "jerker" strategy) made it harder to target for a counterattack. That the robot's energy would already go deeply negative in the middle of the chronon didn't matter much (so long as it didn't fall below -200), since it wouldn't become immobilized by having negative energy until the next chronon. This allowed the "dasher" strategy to achieve considerable dominance, and in time most top-placing robots in tournaments, dashers or not, had to use "anti-dasher" techniques. To rebalance the game, an [[Obvious Rule Patch]] was instated (amid much controversy) to prevent move/shoot in the same chronon.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Rekka no Ken'' had the absurdly broken Luna spell, which has a damage base of 0 but negates enemy resistance to magic when calculating damage, and has a very good base critical rate. For most of the game, enemies have low resistance anyway, and Luna falls somewhere between okay and kind of bad. However, in the last levels of the game, bosses start to have crazy amounts of resistance to counterbalance your ever-strengthening party. The Luna spell, however, just ignores this and allows Canas (who is arguably a broken character to begin with) to completely annihilate the later bosses in just a few attacks. It even makes it entirely possible for Canas to defeat the final boss with just ''[[Game Breaker|two hits]]''.

** It gets nerfed to hell in ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sacred Stones'', where its hit rate is barely half what it once was, is critical rate IS half what it was, and it has less uses. It's made extremely obvious because there wasn't a single change to any other spell.

** There's also the Silencer skill in ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Rekka no Ken'' and ''The Sacred Stones'', which gives your Assassin the chance to instantly-kill any foe, so long as they have a chance to land a critical hit. This allowed them to plow through most bosses with ease. While this was negated by the final bosses of both games, whose equipment automatically reduced the enemy's crit chance to 0, it still left most other bosses vulnerable. It was obviously fixed in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'', where the description of the Silencer skill simply states it doesn't work on bosses without any reasoning or attempt at justification.

* In the [[MMORPG]] ''Lords of Legend'', your level bonus is apparently capped at 5 times the number of troops. Few know about the cap, because in order to get even close to the cap, you have to spend weeks doing the exact opposite of what you are supposed to.

** It is also played straight with the 'invisibility' strategy (You don't show up on attack pages if you haven't won an attack yet), which has been severely nerfed with increasingly harsh and arbitrary restrictions on invisible players.

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* In [[Final Fantasy XI]], you gain tactical points (TP) each time you hit an enemy, the amount varying based on the delay of your weapon (higher = more TP per hit). You have to have at least 100% TP (of a 300% cap) in order to perform a weapon skill. This sounds reasonable, except very early on, weapon skills that hit multiple times gave full TP return per hit, leading to being able to perform these weapon skills back-to-back with no need to accumulate TP in the mean time assuming you used a special type of otherwise useless weapon with almost no damage rating and max delay. [[Square Enix]] patched this very quickly so that only the first hit (first two when you're dual-wielding) give full TP, and subsequent hits only give 1%.

** Don't forget [[That One Boss|Absolute Virtue]], who is for all intents and purposes totally invincible due to his ability to use the most powerful abilities of every job, as well as cast high-level black magic that players don't even have access to instantaneously and frequently, wiping out alliances of players in seconds. Every time a method is discovered to defeat him, Square-Enix will immediately squash it by [[New Powers as the Plot Demands|giving Absolute Virtue new resistances and powers as his flaws were discovered]].

*** When players killed him by attacking him from areas he couldn't fight back, the developers gave him the ability to draw players to him if they got too far away.

*** Later on, the devs were pressured into rethinking the absurd difficulty of some of their bosses after some bad publicity involving an [[Bladder of Steel|18-hour-long fight against a different monster]], so they lowered the HP of both that boss and Absolute Virtue and forced them to despawn if not defeated within two hours. Players discovered that a legion of Dark Knights using a combination of the job ability Souleater [[Cast From Hit Points|(consumes HP to increase damage dealt)]] and Blood Weapon (restores HP equal to melee damage inflicted), he could be bumrushed into defeat. Within days, a patch was made that gave Absolute Virtue (and ONLY Absolute Virtue - other monsters that had previously been defeated with this method were totally untouched) increasing resistance to Souleater damage, making it useless.

*** A theoretical method of defeating him involved using the Scholar's Helix line of spells, which deal a fairly large amount of damage over time. The helix was placed on the enemy, and then a group of Scholars simultaneously use a job ability that doubles the damage dealt by the next tic of damage while halving its overall duration. The result is that most enemies in the game will drop dead immediately, although execution requires very precise timing (and, in most cases, botting). As soon as people discussed how it could be used to defeat Absolute Virtue, "certain notorious monsters" were given a resistance to the use of the JA. Guess who was at the top of the priority list?