So this differentiates itself from Rule of Cool by basically being Rule of Cool but justified in it's own universe?
Wouldn't that just qualify as an "Awesome" moment? With only three examples given, this trope actually confuses me. If my interpretation is correct, when wouldn't every incident of a hero or otherwise doing something neat which fits into the universe and rules/laws of that particular fiction fit? Wouldn't this become an Omnipresent Trope?
I am legitimately confused.
It's supposed to be Rule of Cool's opposite, The former has things happen because they look cool, not because they make sense, or even if they make any at all.
In the reverse, the rules in question are integral to the work being considered entertaining in the first place, and failure to make everything work within the rules drains all the entertainment value out of the work.
The catch is that the rules in question are highly specialized to the particular work, and the trope applies if they are consistently obeyed without flaw in the story progression.
An aversion of this trope would be Harry Potter which, despite having a firmly established set of rules for how magic works, has been proven to have a tons of holes and logical errors in those rules that make them far less integral to the 'coolness' of the work than they appear to be required for, even though many of those rules are critical to the plot progression.
I think it's more, accomplishing the awesome honestly even though the rules would seem not to permit it -- or at least make it very difficult. Creative loopholing for outstanding results? Awesome in spite of the rules?
But yeah, with only three unsorted examples it's hard to get a handle on it. TVT's version of the page has only 8 examples on it, suggesting it's rare regardless. But one of those examples is Sue the Zombie Tyrannosaurus from The Dresden Files -- who is indeed awesome because she is an unexpected application of well-understood magic and gets around the rules against necromancy by not being a human being. So she's simultaneously an incredible exploit of the rules, and an end run around them. And if that's not a good example of what this trope is supposed to be about, I don't know what is.
You might want to add your explanation to the page itself because re-reading the OP doesn't make what you say obvious at all.
EDIT: I only saw Geth's response when I posted this.