History Main / RulesLawyer

** This logic was eventually adopted by the whole Union Army, and was made general policy in the Emancipation Proclamation. Yes, ''this'' is what Lincoln's famous freeing of the slaves is based on: lawyering. It also made this massive change easier to swallow in the slave states that stayed in the Union.

** The Westboro Baptist Church mixes this trope with a fair amount of cherry picking to justify its founder's hatred for Jews, homosexuals and pretty-much every sentient being that is not part of the church. It doesn't help that said founder is actually a (disbarred) lawyer, and a peculiar number of his followers are members of the Bar as well.
** There's a sect of Christianity which preaches teetotalism as holy. And since it's holy, clearly it's in the Bible. Oh wait - there's all kinds of verses talking about Jesus and everyone drinking wine. No, they're drinking ''unfermented grape juice''; that word only means "wine" when it's talking about how alcohol can be bad.\\
This neglects of course to acknowledge that unfermented grape juice makes no logical sense; it doesn't keep, is less sanitary, and grape juice naturally ferments. Grape juice as it exists today is pasteurized, that is, heated till the yeast dies.

*** (Also, you would not BELIEVE the drama surrounding which day marks the end of Ramadan. Muslims worldwide basically pick one of like three days to start Eid on. Somehow we manage to agree on every single other day of the calendar, but Eid? Never.)

*** This also however, seem to be an artifact of South Asian Muslims, who has a predisposition towards being "Lawful" above all; other Muslims in other regions (particularly Indonesia, being notoriously syncretist) are much more relaxed. Despite fatwas are meant to be only softly-binding resolutions (Fatwa does literally mean "opinions") from scholars who are more knowledgeable about the rules, some have sworn oaths (sometimes literally) to defend a fatwa no matter what and ''will'' get into flame wars on questioning the authenticity of contradicting fatwas, or worse, ad hominem attacks on other jurists/scholars.

** Similarly, the 'birther' movement surrounding Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency. Most of the movement centred the argument around his birth certificate and the claim that he wasn't born in the United States. When Obama produced his birth certificate, they largely either backed down or claimed the certificate was a fake. But an even more extreme section of the movement insisted that the birth certificate was irrelevant because according to the constitution a president must be a ''natural-born'' citizen, whereas Obama is only a ''native-born'' citizen (yes, apparently these are different things). This is apparently because Obama's father was from Kenya, then a British colony, and British law at the time said that all colonial subjects and their children were British citizens. Apart from this not in any way affecting Obama's US citizenship, Britain retrospectively repealed the British citizenship of colonial subjects after those colonies became independent (unless they were eligible for British citizenship on other grounds, which neither Obama nor his father were).

** Similar, equally unsuccessful, claims are made against courts. [[InsaneTrollLogic One example is claiming that since the flag on display has gold trim, which is not officially listed as part of the flag of the United States, it isn't officially a US Flag, and therefore the court has no legal authority]]. For the record, while a legally-constituted American court may normally hold session in the presence of a US flag, it may also do so in the presence of a Canadian flag, or a British flag, or a Brazilian flag, or a Jordanian flag, or the flag of Tuvalu, or the flag of Tarissia (a country I made up five minutes ago), or for that matter no flag at all: the flag really doesn't matter, as it's just decoration.

*** At the time of writing, Westhampton on Long Island is in a religious debate over the construction of an eruv, a small string which Orthodox Jews use to signify areas where some Sabbath laws can be tweaked[[hottip:*: Essentially, the area inside the eruv counts as being "at home", thus increasing the range one can walk or carry things without violating restrictions on traveling or working on the Sabbath]]. The Orthodox want to put a small, relatively inconspicuous string around town. The opponents, many of them Reform Jews, do not want this eruv built. [[http://www.hamptons.com/detail.php?articleID=4814 One of many articles on the topic.]] [[Series/TheDailyShow Jon Stewart]] naturally had a [[http://westhampton-hamptonbays.patch.com/articles/john-stewart-show-spoofs-eruv-proposal-in-westhampton-beach field day]] with this on The Daily Show, mocking the "Thin Jew Line."

** Do the updated rules specify the maximum width of the line?

Rules Lawyers come in different flavors; from LawfulEvil, LawfulGood or LawfulStupid, although the term usually carries a negative connotation. What all versions have in common is a nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of every single aspect of the rules within the game system. The difference between the two is largely down to attitude and how it affects the overall game. Lawful Evil Rules Lawyers manipulate the rules to give themselves advantages even if it ruins the game for everyone else, while Lawful Good Rules Lawyers play by the rules even if that puts them at a disadvantage, and generally try to use the rules to make things more fun for everyone.

Rules Lawyers come in different flavors; from LawfulEvil, LawfulGood or LawfulStupid, although the term usually carries a negative connotation. What both versions have in common is a nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of every single aspect of the rules within the game system. The difference between the two is largely down to attitude and how it affects the overall game. Lawful Evil Rules Lawyers manipulate the rules to give themselves advantages even if it ruins the game for everyone else, while Lawful Good Rules Lawyers play by the rules even if that puts them at a disadvantage, and generally try to use the rules to make things more fun for everyone.

*** A famous example of a judge cracking down on rules lawyers occurred at French Nationals when a few players discovered that the DCI (ruling body of sanctioned tournament Magic) made a mistake when posting updated card wordings on their webpage. One card was posted with an old, obsolete wording which allowed for a obscenely powerful combo. Since the wording on the webpage was considered to supersede any other wording the players tried to used it in the tournament. The Head Judge disallowed the combo and when some of the players played it anyway, he expelled them from the tournament. The DCI backed him on it and upheld the penalties.

** The most famous being that paying income taxes is optional because the U.S. code uses the word "voluntary" to refer to the system. In this case though, "voluntary" does not mean "optional" it means "You are going to volunteer (i.e. provide) your information to us. The IRS is not going to compute your taxes for you and send you a bill. You have to do your own paperwork."

** The Westboro Baptist Church mixes this trope with a fair amount of cherry picking to justify it's founder's hatred for Jews, homosexuals and pretty-much every sentient being that is not part of the church. It doesn't help that said founder is actually a (disbarred) lawyer, and a peculiar number of his followers are members of the Bar as well.

** Some of the more complex strategies involve using one's (secret) knowledge of the rules to either manipulate an enemy into break a rule or to make ''them'' look like they've read the rules. The rulebook encourages this, as "reading the rules and lying about it" is ''perfectly'' in the spirit of the game.

** [[http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861942/Chuck_E._Cheese Chuck, The Fastest Metal Man]]. Rules Lawyering = '''''[[YouFailPhysicsForevermoving faster than the speed of light]]'''''.

** [[http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861942/Chuck_E._Cheese Chuck, The Fastest Metal Man]]. Rules Lawyering = [[YouFailPhysicsForever '''''moving faster than the speed of light''''']].

*** This makes a great amount of sense, considering the explicit connections between Islam and Judaism. Jewish law and Islamic law work more or less the same way: rabbis and imams are basically all lawyers and judges in the courts of God's Law; the spiritual-advice thing started out as secondary. Or to be more succinct: Christian seminaries teach theology, with a bit of religious law on the side. Islamic and Jewish ones tend to focus more on religious law, with theology on the side. Additional problems in Islam appear because there are literally over 1,000 times more Muslims than there are Jews (13 million vs. 1.6 ''billion''), and there are correspondingly more religious opinions (even with the [[JewsLoveToArgue Jews working overtime]] on having opinions), codified into four major Sunni schools of jurisprudence, plus one major Shiite one, plus several smaller Shiite ones, plus dissenters, and of course every Muslim is perfectly free to pick and choose from the smorgasbord of opinions, so long as they don't contradict each other (except for Shias, who typically follow one ''marja'' or ayatollah, but tend to pick and choose on the more minor matters addressed by lesser clerics).

** The Westboro Baptist Church mixes this trope with a fair amount of cherry picking to justify it's founder's hatred for Jews, homosexuals and pretty-much every sentient being that is not part of the church.

* ''MrWelch'' seems to be a [[TheLoonie loonie]] RulesLawyer. Many of the things he has tried are legal within the rules, which are indicated when he says he can't do something "even if the rules allow it." For example, making a pistol belt fed.

Rules Lawyers come in different flavors; from LawfulEvil to LawfulGood, although the term usually carries a negative connotation. What both versions have in common is a nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of every single aspect of the rules within the game system. The difference between the two is largely down to attitude and how it affects the overall game. Lawful Evil Rules Lawyers manipulate the rules to give themselves advantages even if it ruins the game for everyone else, while Lawful Good Rules Lawyers play by the rules even if that puts them at a disadvantage, and generally try to use the rules to make things more fun for everyone.

* Several of the protagonists in ''Series/BabylonFive'', but most famously, Commander Sinclair, from the first season. Captain Sheridan and Captain Lochley both had their moments as well, and all of the ambassadors were known to twist [[BlatantLies reality]] and [[InsistentTerminology language]] as far as the rules and circumstances would let them for their own nations' political gain.

* A meta-example is [[http://tasvideos.org/2027M.html this]] ToolAssistedSpeedrun of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry 2''. Unlike its predecessor, this run's main trick is using a debug sequence to acquire all the bonus coins early. This does save a bit of backtracking, but ultimately would take longer to reach the end of the credits. The kicker is this allows the speedrunner to get the last DK coin and see the TrueEnding ''[[SequenceBreaking first]]'', then get the normal ending. Since [=TASVideos=] rules state the clock stops when the player loses control for the ending sequence, and this run therefore doesn't have to leave the clock running through the normal ending sequence despite taking slightly more time to do the same things in a different order, it's ''technically'' quicker.

** Similarly, the 'birther' movement surrounding Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency. Most of the movement centred the argument around his birth certificate and the claim that he wasn't born in the United States. When Obama produced his birth certificate, they largely either backed down or claimed the certificate was a fake. But an even more extreme section of the movement insisted that the birth certificate was irrelevant because accirding to the constitution a president must be a ''natural-born'' citizen, whereas Obama is only a ''native-born'' citizen (yes, apparently these are different things). This is apparently because Obama's father was from Kenya, then a British colony, and British law at the time said that all colonial subjects and their children were British citizens. Apart from this not in any way affecting Obama's US citizenship, Britain retrospectively repealed the British citizenship of colonial subjects after those colonies became independent (unless they were eligible for British citizenship on other grounds, which neither Obama nor his father were).

->Hank: You can't get on base if you don't swing.
->Bobby: You can get a base on balls.
->Hank: Do you want to play baseball or lawyerball?

** It's worth noting that Rules Lawyers are considered a ''legitimate demographic'' by WotC (they're referred to as "Melvin").

* Lelouch vi Britannia from ''Anime/CodeGeass'' uses his often applies this to his geass powers (mostly in season 1). Best example (in season 1) would be when he used his Geass on ''himself'' to alter his own memories, so the mind-reader he was fighting wouldn't grasp Lelouch's real plan until it was too late. In season 2 he just out right cheats or at least this is how he sees it. [[spoiler: He atarts commanding people to follow all of his orders. Basically wishing for unlimited wishes]].

The LawfulEvil RulesLawyer is a particularly annoying kind of player who believes that because he can find a rule about some action in one of the manuals, the GameMaster is bound to allow him to take that action, even if it [[AssPull doesn't make sense]], or would [[OffTheRails screw with what's going on]]. He's convinced that, with the power of the ''rules'', he can outmaneuver the GM and get what he wants. He will attempt to employ every loophole, every odd circumstance, and every footnote he can. Expect the Rules Lawyer to have pored over most of the manuals, even those that players aren't supposed to read. And most annoyingly, he seems to remember only the parts that support whatever he's doing at that moment, intentionally ignoring whatever doesn't support his own case. (And insists on ExactWords.)

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