History Main / RulesLawyer

** The Codex Astartes places strict upper limits on the Table of Organization and Equipment permitted to an Astartes Chapter. But there is also a clause in the book stating that TOE restrictions can be temporarily waived during Crusades. Since the Black Templar Chapter was ordered to be perpetually on Crusade by their Primarch, Rogal Dorn, during its founding, the Black Templars have used that clause to completely ignore the TOE restrictions of the Codex for thousands of years, to the point where they'd probably count as a small Legion in their own right if they all gathered in one place.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'', when faced with devious genie Norm, realizing he wasn't a match for [[JackassGenie the 5,000-year-old trickster]], Timmy wishes for a ''literal'' lawyer to help him get what he needs. It works.

* [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Union]] General Benjamin Butler was a general... ''and'' a lawyer... ''and'' a politician, so he was awfully good at this. A full year before the Emancipation Proclamation, he made it policy to never return runaway slaves who made it into Union lines. It was a sort of "emancipation lite" for the area. When Butler was scolded for playing with the political powder keg of slavery, he logically, and with tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek pointed out that [[IronicEcho slaves were no more than animals]], and like any animal being used by the enemy, were legitimate contrabands of war. The ex-slaves stayed in Union lines, often took paid jobs, and got a basic education. 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: rules-lawyering. (Everyone forgets this, but before he was a politician, Lincoln was a top-flight and very successful lawyer.) It also made this massive change easier to swallow in the slave states that stayed in the Union.

* HarlanEllison once had an IncredibleHulk story of his plagiarized, and threatened to sue Marvel Comics. As part of the settlement, he would receive one of everything Marvel produced. Not comics, ''every'' thing - posters, post cards, down to Marvel branded order forms. If Marvel made an alarm clock that only sold in Singapore, Ellison would call Marvel Direct Sales and extremely politely ask the rep (who happened to be Creator/KurtBusiek, who related this anecdote) to find and send him one of those clocks, if he would.

* '''Dumb Rules Lawyer''': Always insists on following the rules [[LawfulStupid even when it's clear that doing so won't work]].
* '''Helpful Rules Lawyer''': Always plays by the rules, even if that would put themselves at a disadvantage. They'll also often use their knowledge to help out other players.

Rules Lawyers can come in many different flavors, ranging from obnoxious, to helpful, to just plain dumb. What unites them all is a nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of every single aspect of the rules of the system. Where they differ is in their attitude and how they use that knowledge.

* '''Helpful Rules Lawyer''': Always plays by the rules, even if that would put them at a disadvantage. They'll also often use their knowledge to help out other players.

The Dumb Rules Lawyer is [[HanlonsRazor incompetent instead of malicious]]. They'll constantly grind play to a halt to make sure that everyone is following the rules, even if it makes no difference to the end result. They won't allow any technique to be used that isn't specified in the rules, causing the game to become rigid. If the GameMaster decides to make some well-designed and balanced homebrews then this lawyer will start [[BerserkButton throwing a fit]].

However, Rules Lawyers aren't always a bad thing - having one can be an real asset to a gaming group too. They can easily spot a cheating player and force them to play fair. They're also invaluable as game guides, since they can quickly explain any aspect of the gameplay no matter how obscure, which avoids the need to look up rules and helps the game to move along at a good pace. They may also know about the potentially-wonky interactions of various expanded and optional rules sets and how to handle these, which frees the GM to focus on creating a rich world, vibrant characters, and compelling narrative for the players to interact with.

* In ''Fanfic/SpiderManFindingHome'', the [=LARPers=] who helped Kate and Clint in the original series have become a semi-vigilante group essentially ‘led’ by [[spoiler:Kate's former stepfather, Jack]], taking care to only react in self-defence rather than go around actively fighting people.

* In the Creator/RobertAHeinlein novel ''Literature/SpaceCadet'', one of the heroes early in the story attempts to exploit military regulations to make it too inconvenient for his superiors to give him orders he does not like. He is soon warned about what happens to "space lawyers".

* In the ''Series/{{Heroes}}''/''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'' crossover "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12045706/1/Dark-Days Dark Days]]", Bella and Peter rely on this to avoid a conflict between the Cullens and the Quillettes. The treaty between the two prohibits the Cullens turning anyone else, but although Bella was changed by Elle Bishop (who has become a vampire and Edward’s mate), she feels that this doesn’t break the treaty as Elle isn’t technically a Cullen, and Peter in turn feels that the Cullens aren’t responsible for Bella’s change as it only happened because she suffered injuries due to Peter’s own inability to control his powers causing the injuries that necessitated Bella’s change.

* In 1994 the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was enacted in the United Kingdom, which attempted to ban raves where music was played. Music was defnied in the act as "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". British electronic music duo Music/{{Autechre}} responded by releasing a track [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZFmZ0gZNZI where not a single measure has the same sequence of beats]].

* During 2016 when he held the World TagTeam Title belts with Wrestling/FrankieKazarian and his run as World Champion in 2017, Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels developed a reputation for stealing pin falls during three way+ dances ([[CatchPhrase smartest man in the room!]]). When he retained this way against Wrestling/CodyRhodes and Wrestling/JayLethal at ''War Of The Worlds'', Rhodes actually hired a lawyer, who provided replays and timing down to ''milliseconds'', to prove the pin fall should have been his in order to force ROH to give him a rematch at ''Best In The World''.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1479582/1/The-Curse-of-the-White-Sword The Curse of the White Sword]]'', Jack Sparrow invokes this when Gibbs points out that it’s bad luck to have a woman on board; as Jack argues, it’s not bad luck to have ''two'' women on board (Anamaria and Elizabeth).

* In the last season of ''Series/BlackAdder'' Captain Blackadder ignores a direct order to charge a German position on the grounds that the order is addressed to "Catpain Blackudder".

*** Another example is the infamous "Going to Combat" incident. In a different tournament, a player had a [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?multiverseid=423806 Wildfast Engineer]] on the board, which had a mandatory beneficial effect that triggered at the beginning of Combat. The player said he was "going to Combat", and tried to crew a vehicle based on Engineer's triggered effect. However, his opponent called the judge, invoking an incredibly obscure rule which said that saying "Going to Combat" meant the player was skipping the "Beginning of Combat" phase entirely and instead counter intuitively going to the "declaring attackers" step. It was seen as targeted Rules Lawyering, as the Wildfast Engineer player was not a native English speaker, and most of pros noted they had never heard of this rule and routinely declared "going to combat" with the understanding they are going to the "Beginning of Combat." Wizards of the Coast threw out the shortcut after this debacle.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'', when faced with devious genie Norm, realizing he wasn't a match for the 5,000-year-old trickster, Timmy wished for a lawyer to help him get what he really wanted. It worked.

* In the ''Series/{{Heroes}}''/''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' crossover "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12045706/1/Dark-Days Dark Days]]", Bella and Peter rely on this to avoid a conflict between the Cullens and the Quillettes. The treaty between the two prohibits the Cullens turning anyone else, but although Bella was changed by Elle Bishop (who has become a vampire and Edward’s mate), she feels that this doesn’t break the treaty as Elle isn’t technically a Cullen, and Peter in turn feels that the Cullens aren’t responsible for Bella’s change as it only happened because she suffered injuries due to Peter’s own inability to control his powers causing the injuries that necessitated Bella’s change.

* ''Film/Dodgeball'': Gordon is a helpful example of this as he saves the day with the rule book.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E16Ethics Ethics]]", Worf is paralyzed by a falling cargo container. He intends to commit ritual suicide in accordance with Klingon tradition (by their standards, being disabled such that one cannot fight is a major dishonor), and asks Riker to help with the ritual. Riker is outright appalled at the thought of Worf killing himself, but does not want to disrespect his friend's beliefs. He researches the tradition in question, and discovers that it is the duty of a family member to assist, preferably the oldest son (in this case, Alexander). Worf says Alexander is just a boy, but Riker notes that Klingon males are considered men the moment they can hold a weapon. As Riker expected, Worf does not want his son to watch him stab himself in the chest, and so he instead opts for an experimental procedure to replace his damaged spine.

* In ''Series/TheOffice'', Angela becomes this when she makes a highly abnormal sex contract with Dwight. It becames one of the show's main plot points

* ''Fanfic/TheMermaidAndTheGenie'';
** Genie basically serves as one to himself when he "replays" an earlier conversation with Ariel and must concede that she didn't use her second wish to save Sebastian as Ariel never actually said "I wish".
** Ursula basically shows herself to be this when [[spoiler:she uses her third wish to wish that Genie must obey her so long as she's holding the lamp, thus not technically wishing for more wishes but rather indefinitely drawing out her third wish.]]

* Do you want your ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'' game to last under six hours? You ''must'' become a Rules Lawyer (and not use any HouseRules).

** A rather famous (though not particularly serious and now outdated) bit of rules-lawyering is the "Villager Railgun", which abuses the mechanics behind "free actions". Basically, a free action is any action which takes so little time/effort, it can be done virtually instantaneously - examples include gestures, dropping items, and, of course, [[TalkingIsAFreeAction talking.]] Free actions are, well, free - a character can use any number of them, even if it's not their turn. Older editions allowed characters to pass suitably light objects to someone standing right next to them as a free action. Players with a working knowledge of physics quickly stumbled upon a loophole - line up a few thousand villagers in a straight line, all standing right next to each other, with one end of the line next to a pile of light objects and the other close to the designated target. Have the villager on one end of the line pick up a light object and, on the "firing" turn, have them pass it to the next person in line as a free action. Then have that person pass it to the next person as a free action. Repeat until it reaches the other end of the line, at which point the receiver throws it at his target. Physics indicates that the object just travelled several thousand metres in less than six seconds (the length of a round in D&D), giving it enough kinetic energy to destroy pretty much anything it's thrown at (Although by the actual rules, it will only deal 1 or 2 damage - the trick relies on real-world physics being applied selectively in a very specific and nonsensical manner).