Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,85 (click to see context) from:
* As a genre-wide example — if you ever wonder why a tabletop game is seemingly over-wordy on their explanation and being very precise, even spelling out things that seem like common sense; you have the mentality behind this trope to thank for that.
* 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.....)
* Apparently, the official rules of TabletopGame/{{chess}} once had a loophole that rendered the game [=1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qxf7 mate=] a victory for White[[note]]if you can't read Chess directions, this is a variation on the famous Scholar's Mate; white is cheating by moving his Queen in a direction other than a straight line[[/note]]. Although the White Queen cannot move this way legally, checkmate ended the game. The other side could only claim an illegal move while the game was ''still in play''. After a checkmate, legal move or not, it was too late to penalize the cheater for cheating. This is just the most famous example of how this major flaw in the rules could be exploited.
** 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.
*** There is a similar case of promoting a pawn into a ''king''. (Some stories have this "loophole" as a misunderstanding of the rules by a newcomer, caused by an incomplete explanation by his opponent, and the newcomer insisting on following the rules as first explained.) Although technically, this makes it worse for the player, as the rule is that someone whose king has been checkmated has lost the game, so having two kings is just two ways to lose. (Although if you were very clever, you could combine this with the previous loophole and promote a pawn into an [[HilarityEnsues enemy king]]. Bonus points if it's in a position already in checkmate.)
*** Castling can be performed with a king and a rook which have never moved from the position they were placed. Which led to someone promoting their king's pawn into a rook and using it to castle ''vertically'', [[ObviousRulePatch until the rules were rewritten to prevent this]].
* In TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}, it is technically ''perfectly legal'' to [[ScrabbleBabble play words that don't exist]] — you just have to pay the penalty if you're challenged. If you can [[MagnificentBastard bluff your opponents]] into thinking it's a real word and not challenging, you're good to go.
** An episode of CSI featured a LawyerFriendlyCameo Scrabble player who used this as his play style. The Cameo, we'll call him Player One, would play [[BlatantLies a fake word (in this example: "exvin") and bluff his opponent]] (the justifying definition: "a wine aficionado that no longer drinks"). When the opponent, Player Two, [[IronicEcho extended the word ("exvins")]], Player would call a challenge, at which point Player Two had to pick up all the offending letter tiles in addition to the one he played and take a penalty. Yes, Player Two takes the penalty alone. [[AssholeVictim Player One]] ended up [[QuipToBlack choking on his words]].
* There's a reason the comprehensive rules and errata for ''MagicTheGathering'' is [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRules hundreds of pages long]] and [[{{Doorstopper}} reads like a federal tax code]]. The rule-makers are constantly having to close odd loopholes the players figure out with each new batch of cards and the [[ExponentialPotential thousands]] of possible interactions that open up.
** One of the most (in)famous examples of ''Magic'' rule bending is such: the [[http://magiccards.info/un/en/236.html Chaos Orb]] can take out of play any card(s) it lands on after you flipped it in the air. One [[MagnificentBastard clever player]] TORE UP his Chaos Orb and [[GameBreaker sprinkled the pieces all over his opponent's playing area]], thus effectively [[HilarityEnsues 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.
** Another possibly apocryphal tale about the card is that one player put all his cards into magnetic card sleeves ''and played his cards underneath the table.''
** If there was such a ruling (they weren't systematically recorded in those days), it was overturned in 1994 with a WordOfGod [[ObviousRulePatch ruling]] that tearing up the card made it "marked" and you would lose the match for playing with a marked card. You would then be required to replace it with ''another'' Chaos Orb before the next round started or you would lose ''that'' match for illegally changing your deck configuration. Loophole Abuse cuts both ways.
** This was subsequently parodied in ''Magic: Unglued'' with the card "Chaos Confetti".
*** Ironically, errata for that card explicitly ruled that you couldn't ''not tear it up'' '''by tearing it into "one piece".'''
** When used as intended, Chaos Orb spawned another loophole: players would spread their cards out over a ludicrously large area so Chaos Orb couldn't touch more than one when it landed, or would lean their cards against things so that it was impossible to land on top of them at all. A ruling has since been made that you can't rearrange your cards after Chaos Orb enters the game; also you must not have your cards stacked or in places where your opponent can't read their name or count them.
** There are a lot of [[http://www.westley.org/infinite.html looping combinations]].
** An urban legend claims that in one tournament, a player cast a spell with the effect "Target player loses the game," then pointed at a completely different table and said "That guy." You can't do that, even if nothing in the rules state the target must be in the game you're playing. That's not something necessary to state explicitly. You can't cast a Lightning Bolt at a player in another game either, or cast Control Magic on one of his creatures, or Counterspell one of his spells.
*** And just like with the Chaos Confetti, Wizards of the Coast make fun of such urban legends with their "un-sets". In Unhinged, there is a card that specifically lets you destroy any silver-bordered card (only the un-cards have silver borders, regular cards have either white or black borders) in any game that you can see from your seat. Some players have used this to destroy cards from completely different card games because they are still, technically, legal targets as long as they have silver borders. And with the right card, you can [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sleight%20of%20Mind change the card so it affects black/white-border cards instead of silver-bordered cards]] and set it so that [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Radiate it affects all cards that you can see]], allowing you to wipe out entire tournaments.
** The cards of the Wish cycle specify "You may choose a card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand." This doesn't require it be a ''Magic'' card, so what's to stop you from grabbing an UNO Skip card, or [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Prof. Oak's New Theory]]? If you don't want to be that ludicrous, why not pull joke cards into serious games? (Errata for tournament purposes limit legal targets to cards in your sideboard, and the Comprehensive Rules do specify that "card" refers exclusively to ''Magic'' cards. But you don't have to tell anyone that.)
** The card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46724 Mindslaver]] had to have an entire rulebook printed for its original incarnation due to players using it to do things like forcing their opponent to concede the game. In the some two dozen sets that have come since then, only three other cards have ever used those rules (those cards being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=238330 Sorin Markov]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=380528 Worst Fears]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=414295 Emrakul, the Promised End]]).
* The list of errata and clarifications for specific situations for the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Trading Card Game'', known as the Rules Compendium, is comparable in length to the ''Magic: The Gathering'' one and requires hours to read.
** Outside of the Compendium, there are also some rules for tournaments not directly related to the card text itself. Unique to the ''Pokémon Trading Card Game'' is a rule stating that artwork for card sleeves must have a continuous solid-color border (which was previously a rule banning all artwork and restricting card sleeves to transparent or solid colors, then changed to allowing only official Pokémon Company issued sleeves); this was due to rampant subtle marking of cards by taking tiny trims off the sleeves' edges, sometimes using artwork that made it hard to notice by opponents.
** There are a few cards that ask opponents to play RockPaperScissors. In response, some players learned techniques to detect which hand gesture the opponents will use (techniques used in official Rock Paper Scissors competitions), allowing them to consistently win except against someone who knows these techniques too. The designers didn't realize players would go to these lengths, and as a result, there was a two-fold ObviousRulePatch: The first is that the only allowed means to play Rock Paper Scissors in ''Pokémon TCG'' tournaments is to write down the choice under the table and present it simultaneously with the opponent. The second is that there are no longer any Rock Paper Scissors cards that are tournament-legal.
* {{Munchkin}}s in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' are worse than {{Rules Lawyer}}s: some players go for full-blown LoopholeAbuse. The DM can, of course, veto any action you do or change the rules at any time with RuleZero, but it is not necessary to mention this for every example (D&D players have a penchant for seeking out loopholes for fun, without ever expecting to get away with abusing them).
** Perhaps the classic example was the 3.0 Edition "Bag O' Rats Fighter." This involved a Fighter using the ''Whirlwind Attack'' and ''Great Cleave'' feats while dumping a sack full of live rats at his feet to get an Attack of Opportunity for each of the rats he killed -- gaining a dozen or more extra attacks against his opponent in a single combat round! While technically legal according to the rules as written, no sane and reasonable DM should allow it. In 3.5 Edition, it got an ObviousRulePatch stating that when using Whirlwind Attack, the character wasn't allowed to make bonus attacks from other sources, like the Haste spell or Great Cleave feat.
** It was long believed that players can theoretically turn ''Locate City'' into a nuclear bomb. This turns out to not actually work, for fiddly technical reasons, but by the time that was discovered, the theory had been developed well enough to be quickly applied to a different spell that lacked those problems.
** Others recovered from infinite damage by drowning themselves. Taken literally, the drowning rules set your hit points to zero, even if they're negative.
*** And then ''[[FanNickname It's Wet Outside]]'' lets someone make a heal check to stop drowning.
** Passing an item hand to hand is a free action (doesn't take up time), so if you line up a few thousand people you can get an object to travel miles in six seconds. Then the last person throws it. This is commonly called the "Peasant Railgun". [[note]]The end result is a regular thrown object, since ''Dungeons and Dragons'' only bases thrown-object damage on the strength of the thrower and size of the object.[[/note]]
*** You can also have one player stand on another player's shoulders and pick him up as a free action. Then the other player picks him up. Since this is all a free action, there is no time for them to fall, and thus they can fly by repeatedly picking each other up in midair.
*** If you have someone in a grapple, you can move them at a fraction of your normal movement speed, assuming they fail (or don't try) to resist. So if you have a half dozen people or so in a group hug and none of them resisting, they can travel faster than running speed. Get enough people and you can break the sound barrier.
*** Further, all characters in a grapple are in the same square. There's also a rule that up to three people can grapple with one target. With some creative planning on the part of the grapplers, you can get it so that the entire population of a planet is in one square, which is 5 feet in game terms. There's also a rule as to what happens when players break a grapple (each member of the grapple is shoved to the nearest empty square immediately). This can result in characters going faster than the speed of light in order to land on a properly empty square.
** Dropping an item is a free action, as well. And if you happen to be fireproof and are standing next to an enemy while carrying, say, five hundred units of [[GreekFire alchemist's fire]]... Though the logistics of actually carrying all of it is a bit screwy in and of itself (seriously, you normally only have two hands with which to drop them).
** Perhaps the most true-to-form example of this trope (at least by the old name, Ain't No Rule) is that while the state of "Dying" is explicitly defined in the rules as far as what actions are acceptable, the state of "Dead" has no restrictions. There Ain't No Rule preventing a freshly-killed player from standing up and continuing the fight. Amazingly, this turns out to accidentally be patched by a literal reading of a completely different rule -- since a dead player has -10 HP, and -10 is less than 0, dead players are technically "incapacitated by nonlethal damage" at all times.[[note]]This is, of course, unnecessary, as RuleZero means the DM can just say "that doesn't work and you know it", but if you ever get into a fight with a RulesLawyer...[[/note]]
** There's no official restriction preventing you from using the spell ''True Creation'' to make planet-destroying quantities of antimatter.
** The various settings tend to have in-universe cases ''somewhere'' in all the history and organizations. For instance, [[TabletopGame/{{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 djinn), but they should always be met with caution. It is explicitly stated in the rules that wishing for anything too powerful can result in a perverted or partial wish fulfillment. 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 its undead guardians.
** In the universe (or {{multiverse}}) there's also the case of the DealWithTheDevil (more or less literally). These vary, but may involve a MagicallyBindingContract that the fiend itself also has to follow, but which will ''definitely'' be written with loopholes to turn against the mortal party -- at least as much so as the fiend can make it, and they'll typically have centuries of experience. Both the LawfulEvil devils and the ChaoticEvil demons do this. (However, in an interesting interpretation, [[http://www.pathguy.com/baator.htm some guy who thinks about this stuff a lot]] claimed that Lawful Evil creatures will follow the spirit of the contract, not just the letter, since [[ExactWords twisting the wording]] would be Chaotic. This is still presumably meant to allow a higher-level Loophole Abuse. However, this is not the way it's usually seen.)
** In an earlier version, there was an item which made the wearer immune to ''death''. Not ''death-effects''. '''''Death'''''!
** Practically every rule in 5th Edition is open to discussion. Some examples include (and some may also apply to other versions):
*** The list of weapons you're proficient with states which weapons you know how to use, but not HOW to use them. Rogues in 5th Edition cannot use a club, but there's no rule saying they cannot hold their shortsword by the blade and use it to whack the enemies ''as if'' it was a club.
*** This is basically what medieval knights did when fighting other knights in platemail. The blade couldn't pierce the armor, so they used their swords as clubs instead to much greater effect.
*** Nowhere in the rules does it say that you have to actually fire an arrow to deal damage with a bow. Of course, it's assumed that a player who wields a bow would fire arrows from said bow, but the rules don't specifically state that this is a requirement.
*** They don't state that you ''have'' to use a bow as a ranged weapon either. A Longbow is still a Longbow, even if you use it to hit your enemies in melee, so according to the rules, it still deals full damage, not just 1 (Improvised Weapons are anything that doesn't outright resemble a common weapon-type. A Longbow will always resemble a Longbow which is a common weapon-type, thus preventing a Longbow from being an Improvised Weapon, and thus keeping its damage to 1d8 or 1d10 instead of just 1).
*** The rules aren't specific about ''how'' to actually use alchemical items, meaning you could easily get away with administering a vial of Holy Water to an undead or Acid to the guy you just beat up in a bar-fight. this way, you can save the vials for later use (like making your own alchemical items) or sell them and get a little money back.
*** The alignment table is a bit ambiguous at times. Particularly, it doesn't say that a Lawful Good Paladin (the typical paragon of al that is good and just) cannot start a crowdfunding campaign to help a village... using the villagers' own money! The rules just say that Lawful Good characters have to act according to local laws, be good towards others and bring evildoers to justice.
*** Furthermore, there's no rule saying that a Chaotic Evil character cannot have sympathy with the people he wrongs... or donate to charity.
*** Due to the fact that alignment-restrictions on classes doesn't exist in 5th Edition, Paladins are allowed to be Chaotic Evil but still serve justice and protect the weak (Oath of Devotion), while Warlocks are allowed to be Lawful Good mages whose powers come straight from Hell.
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}'' card game, some people think you can freely equip and use items you are not legally able to, [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught as long as you don't get caught]]. As in any game, this is cheating if made on purpose.
--> "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.
*** There's no rule anywhere saying you ''have'' to use a six-sided die. It's usually just written as "Roll a die". One card specifically says "Roll a die. Any die."
** ''Munchkin'' is made for this. Literally. The rules are full of ambiguities, because it's supposed to recreate the experience of playing with (and as) a rules-lawyering, loophole-abusing dyed-in-the-wool [[TitleDrop munchkin]]. It may not be legal to cheat, but you're encouraged to take advantage of every ambiguity possible and if you can convince the others (or at least the owner of the copy being played) then you're free. The "legal to cheat" legend comes from another Steve Jackson Games card game, ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'', where it really is NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught, because why the hell would ancient conspiracies play by the rules if they didn't have to? (A munchkin's true power comes from abuse of the rules, not just ignoring them, after all.)
* The Lore of ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' 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 [[ScaryImpracticalArmor 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 more byzantine).
* [[MagicallyBindingContract Pledges]] in ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' practically beg the player to use this trope, which TheFairFolk love. There's no such thing as "the spirit of the agreement", and parties can be bound to a Pledge without understanding the terms or even knowing they're entering a contact. For example, the Hag of Henslowe Park infamously offers a year of good fortune in exchange for a year of enslavement -- a fate that can be averted by thanking her for her aid, not that she tells people about that part.
* An in-universe example from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'': following the Age of Apostasy, the new Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor declared the Decree Passive, in which the Ecclesiarchy was forbidden to maintain men under arms. Thor's predecessor's BodyguardBabes, the Brides of the Emperor, were allowed to continue operating as the ''Adepta Sororitas'' because Thor knew the Ecclesiarchy needed a militant arm and internal regulation; they were not "men" under arms, even though it violated the spirit of the decree.
** The FAQ articles have had to correct some in the past. The Swooping Hawks's Intercept rule reads "the unit never requires worse than a 4+ to hit an enemy vehicle," which means, for instance, that the WS 4 Swooping Hawks could hit a WS 5 Venerable Dreadnaught on a 4+ instead of a 5+ as the normal Weapon Skill table would indicate. 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.
** Units may fire out of the windows of a building. The rules don't prevent units with "barrage" type weapons, like mortars, from firing "through" the roof or windows of the building their operators are in.
** In an older edition, you could hold any number of your units in Reserve, so that they came in later during the game. Nothing said you couldn't do this to your entire army, thereby denying your opponent a first turn AND strategic deployment as he won't even know how your units will come in. However, one savvy player managed to turn this loophole on its user; nothing said you couldn't just deploy your entire army along the enemy's table edge (where reserves come onto the board) and prevent his units from ''ever entering the game''[[note]]Any unit coming in from reserve must "move onto the board" with their movement phase allowance. But units cannot move through an enemy unit, no matter the circumstance. Also normally you're restricted to your own deployment zone, but in this case the other player used Infiltrators, which had to be set up 12" away from any enemy with line of sight to it. Since the opponent had no models on the board...[[/note]]. Later editions decided to make this entire process shorter by making anyone who, at the end of any turn without a unit on the board, automatically lose (Reserve units, unless specifically stated, don't come in until turn 2 at the earliest).
** Related to the above, units normally have to remain in coherency. However "coherency" is only defined as "being within 2" of the nearest model". This lead to a tactic known as "daisy chaining", whereby the entire unit is stretched into a single filed line with 2" between each model. Technically no model is more than 2" from the nearest one (especially when the definition of "nearest" is vague at best). This tactic is largely used for area denial (as in the above example, using a single unit to cover the entire edge of a board) or if units have different movement speeds then the ones moving faster can proceed to charge the enemy while going through the chain, then "dragging" everyone else along as technically the were one unit and the entire unit charges and making them invulnerable to enemy shooting in the next turn, as you can't fire into combat. The most hilarious use of this was in 5th edition, where Canoptek Spyders could generate a single Scarab Swarm base and attach it to an existing unit; nothing ever said that the base had to be near the Spyder that created it. Cue players using the daisy chain to literally "walk" an entire unit of scarabs to the enemy's deployment zone. ''On the first turn.''
** One pretty infamous example of rule abuse in ''40000'' was the so-called "Fish of Fury" tactic. A Tau player would park two of his Devilfish in a V shape in front of two Fire Warrior squads. Opposing fire couldn't hit the warriors without going through the hover tanks, but the warriors themselves could fire "under" the very transports that were shielding them, and melee units couldn't assault the tanks at all, forming a sort of unassailable mobile bunker for the infantry. While some really firepower-heavy lists could swat away the [=APCs=] and deal damage, it rendered melee armies like the Orks and Tyranids utterly useless, which is bad seeing as ''being attacked in melee is the Tau's main weakness''. The tactic was a massive GameBreaker and it dominated tournaments for ages until the rules for hover vehicles were mercifully changed. It got so bad that in an attempt to distance themselves from "Fish of Fury" stigma, some Tau players ''completely'' removed Devilfish from their lists (even though the Tau army really needed them in their intended function) and slogged their squishy ranged infantry across the field on foot.
** One infamous incident most often cited as when GW no longer had any proofreaders was the entry for the Nemesis Force Falchions in the 5th edition Grey Knights Codex: The rules for the Falchions state that they grant +1 attack. This is because in-lore they are always wielded as a pair. But because the rules specifically state that you get "a pair" of Falchions, this means that technically you have two identical weapons, which also grant +1 attack. This meant that the Falchion option actually granted +2 attacks...that anyone in the army could take. Suddenly every single Grey Knight in Power Armor could be wielding a Heavy Bolter (with the Psybolt Upgrade) and each had more attacks than most ''units'' could put out. The FAQ later clarified that the +1 attack wasn't the weapon's special ability but rather for having 2, and the 7th edition update completely eliminated the issue by not giving the Falchions ''any'' special abilities from the standard Force Sword (you still get a pair of them).
** Deathstrike Missiles are one particularly AwesomeButImpractical Imperial Guard vehicle that's more-or-less an ICBM launcher mounted on a truck, boasting a spectactularly large blast zone, absurd amounts of damage to anything caught within it, and previously ''unlimited range''. Yes, unlimited. Its minimum range already rendered it difficult to use on most tables, and unlimited is simply overkill. Nothing states that you necessarily have to fire it at the same table, however, and in theory a Deathstrike launch ''could'' hit another game, even across real-life continents. See [[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19749704/ this]] story for amusing results of cross-Atlantic carnage that can ensue if everyone feels like playing along. It has since been changed to a limited 200" range, still far enough to reach anything but the largest table, but not far enough to hit another real-life building [[RuleOfFun unless everyone agrees to it]].
* This trope is [[Blog/ThingsMrWelchIsNoLongerAllowedToDoInAnRPG Mr. Welch's]] bread and butter, even if the GM doesn't tend to be cooperative. The phrase "even if the rules allow it" and variants thereof appear no less than 47 times throughout the ever-growing list.
* There are a ''lot'' of infamous combinations which resulted in continuous loops in ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' that result from this. The vast majority of them involves exploitation of the ruling that, except in very rare cases, a monster's effect is "reset" when it is flipped face-down or removed from the field temporarily, allowing you to reuse the same effect multiple times in one turn, with the right setup. There were even entire decks constructed around this.
** Before it was banned, the card Last Turn was the subject of quite a few loopholes, mainly because it didn't negate monster effects while it was in use. To wit, when it's activated, both players choose a monster to be on the field (the activator from their field, the opponent from their deck) and battle; whoever has a monster remaining on the field after the battle wins, otherwise it's a tie. Thing is, the monster left on the field doesn't have to be the one the player chose for the battle, and the card doesn't negate monster effects, so if you have a monster on the field that can prevent Special Summons (thus, preventing the opponent from getting out their chosen monster), or one that can summon out a monster when destroyed (thus leaving you with a monster after the battle), you can easily screw over the opponent with it.
** Lava Golem is a card that requires you to tribute two of your opponent's monsters to summon it to your opponent's field. Because Lava Golem's effect is technically a cost to play it, rather than an effect, and because it technically doesn't destroy the tributed cards, it's attained a level of fame as one of the only monsters that can kill literally ''anything'', regardless of circumstance.
** A couple of cards were introduced with the ability to return from to play from the graveyard under certain conditions/costs, but then banished when they left the field to prevent them from coming back more than once. Later, the XYZ mechanic gave players the ability to easily move cards from the field to the graveyard without ever triggering effects which would otherwise trigger when they left the field, by using them to create XYZ monsters, then detatching them.
*** Speaking of XYZ monsters, XYZ monsters have "ranks" instead of "levels" unlike every other monster card in the game. This allows them to dodge effects that depend on levels such as Gravity Bind. Because of these loopholes, XYZ monsters are not commonly liked by casual players.
* in the ''TabletopGame/AxisAndAllies'' miniatures game, air units were a late addition, meaning a lot of previous cards weren't prepared for their entry. Thus, units that should not be able to attack planes, like mortars and certain assault guns, can. Worst of all, [[LandMineGoesClick land mines]] can affect planes. Those are some ''epically'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_Betty bouncing betties]].
** Errata dictates that units with the "bombardment" ability can no longer attack planes, eliminating most ground artillery from the equation, but mines and mortars are still okay.
* A robot-class player or NPC in ''TabletopGame/MutantUA'' could have drones as an "option." Maximum would be 4 without any penalties for too many options, but drones could have their own options, deliberately so for the sake of being useful, but nothing states ''they'' couldn't have drones as well. Cue infinite horde of massively powerful drones! (although rule 0 almost always stops this as it's crazy-powerful).
* In the CCG "EVE: The Second Genesis" one of the main ways to gain money (used to play further cards) are location cards. One such location has the effect "When this card comes into play, sacrifice a location". The officially sanctioned loophole around this is to play the card into an uncontrolled region. Because the region is uncontrolled, the location is uncontrolled too and the effect does not activate...
* During the [[TheNewRockAndRoll "D&D Satanism"]] panic of the 80s, some schools banned ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. Roleplayers, being [[RulesLawyer what they are]], noted that the ban applied '''only''' to D&D, not to other [=RPGs=]... such as ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''.
** Speaking of ''Call of Cthulhu'', player character FanFic/OldManHenderson infamously exploited a loophole in the setting rules to [[spoiler: summon Hastur in a weakened and temporarily-mortal state]]... [[TakingYouWithMe in a skating rink rigged with "enough explosives to make Michael Bay blush"]]. /tg/ declared that Henderson actually won ''Call of Cthulhu''.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', the laws of the Corporate Court are interpreted to mean "If you damage another corp's property, you have to pay for it." Therefore the {{MegaCorp}}s use shadowrunners as PlausibleDeniability to [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught spy on, steal from, and sabotage each other]].
* ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'' had a particularly legendary example during its first tournament. The final match dragged on for a long time, until one of the players offered half the prize money if his opponent would forfeit just to end the stalemate. They shook on the deal...and then the first player used the card "[[http://www.911truth.ch/illuminati_card/i_lied.jpg I Lied]]". The judges ruled that the move was well within the spirit of the game and, over his opponent's voiciferous protests, declared him the winner.
* Many conditional modifiers in [[TabletopGames/HoylesRulesOfDragonPoker Hoyle's Rules of Dragon Poker]] are so vague as to almost require this.
* In ''TabletopGame/NinjaBurger'', one card allows you to use your highest skill in any skill check, so long as you can think up a plausible explanation for why you'd be able to use that skill to solve the problem. For sufficiently creative players, it's a total GameBreaker... if the other players at the table let them get away with it.
* Long-running Canadian strip cartoon ''Webcomic/LarryLeadhead'' deals with the trials and tribulations of the tabletop wargaming community. Practically every character has resorted to Loophole abuse, and one in particular, Dave, habitually goes beyond this into [[RulesLawyer Rules Rapist]] territory. Many actual examples of competitive gamesmanship encountered by the authors have been immortalised, or at least made notorious, in the form of strips.
* A fairly minor and specific but still noteworthy example from ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' about the Ferocity special ability: a monster (because it's mostly a monster thing and very rare among PC races) with Ferocity doesn't fall unconscious and start dying at negative HP, instead gaining the staggered condition (limits actions per round to one standard or one move action, other quicker actions aren't affected) and losing 1 HP per round until killed when its HP drop too low. The problem is that the description didn't take nonlethal damage into account at all, meaning that by the rules as written, a creature with Ferocity cannot fall unconscious from lethal damage but can be neutralized with [[ScratchDamage 1 point of nonethal damage,]] making the ability totally useless since anyone can deal nonlethal damage with an unarmed strike or by taking a penalty to attack rolls with any melee weapon. Some players even say that a creature at negative HP obviously has more nonlethal damage than current HP and then should fall unconscious even with Ferocity. Needless to say, this subject has been quite debated on forums.
----
* 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.....)
* Apparently, the official rules of TabletopGame/{{chess}} once had a loophole that rendered the game [=1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qxf7 mate=] a victory for White[[note]]if you can't read Chess directions, this is a variation on the famous Scholar's Mate; white is cheating by moving his Queen in a direction other than a straight line[[/note]]. Although the White Queen cannot move this way legally, checkmate ended the game. The other side could only claim an illegal move while the game was ''still in play''. After a checkmate, legal move or not, it was too late to penalize the cheater for cheating. This is just the most famous example of how this major flaw in the rules could be exploited.
** 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.
*** There is a similar case of promoting a pawn into a ''king''. (Some stories have this "loophole" as a misunderstanding of the rules by a newcomer, caused by an incomplete explanation by his opponent, and the newcomer insisting on following the rules as first explained.) Although technically, this makes it worse for the player, as the rule is that someone whose king has been checkmated has lost the game, so having two kings is just two ways to lose. (Although if you were very clever, you could combine this with the previous loophole and promote a pawn into an [[HilarityEnsues enemy king]]. Bonus points if it's in a position already in checkmate.)
*** Castling can be performed with a king and a rook which have never moved from the position they were placed. Which led to someone promoting their king's pawn into a rook and using it to castle ''vertically'', [[ObviousRulePatch until the rules were rewritten to prevent this]].
* In TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}, it is technically ''perfectly legal'' to [[ScrabbleBabble play words that don't exist]] — you just have to pay the penalty if you're challenged. If you can [[MagnificentBastard bluff your opponents]] into thinking it's a real word and not challenging, you're good to go.
** An episode of CSI featured a LawyerFriendlyCameo Scrabble player who used this as his play style. The Cameo, we'll call him Player One, would play [[BlatantLies a fake word (in this example: "exvin") and bluff his opponent]] (the justifying definition: "a wine aficionado that no longer drinks"). When the opponent, Player Two, [[IronicEcho extended the word ("exvins")]], Player would call a challenge, at which point Player Two had to pick up all the offending letter tiles in addition to the one he played and take a penalty. Yes, Player Two takes the penalty alone. [[AssholeVictim Player One]] ended up [[QuipToBlack choking on his words]].
* There's a reason the comprehensive rules and errata for ''MagicTheGathering'' is [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRules hundreds of pages long]] and [[{{Doorstopper}} reads like a federal tax code]]. The rule-makers are constantly having to close odd loopholes the players figure out with each new batch of cards and the [[ExponentialPotential thousands]] of possible interactions that open up.
** One of the most (in)famous examples of ''Magic'' rule bending is such: the [[http://magiccards.info/un/en/236.html Chaos Orb]] can take out of play any card(s) it lands on after you flipped it in the air. One [[MagnificentBastard clever player]] TORE UP his Chaos Orb and [[GameBreaker sprinkled the pieces all over his opponent's playing area]], thus effectively [[HilarityEnsues 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.
** Another possibly apocryphal tale about the card is that one player put all his cards into magnetic card sleeves ''and played his cards underneath the table.''
** If there was such a ruling (they weren't systematically recorded in those days), it was overturned in 1994 with a WordOfGod [[ObviousRulePatch ruling]] that tearing up the card made it "marked" and you would lose the match for playing with a marked card. You would then be required to replace it with ''another'' Chaos Orb before the next round started or you would lose ''that'' match for illegally changing your deck configuration. Loophole Abuse cuts both ways.
** This was subsequently parodied in ''Magic: Unglued'' with the card "Chaos Confetti".
*** Ironically, errata for that card explicitly ruled that you couldn't ''not tear it up'' '''by tearing it into "one piece".'''
** When used as intended, Chaos Orb spawned another loophole: players would spread their cards out over a ludicrously large area so Chaos Orb couldn't touch more than one when it landed, or would lean their cards against things so that it was impossible to land on top of them at all. A ruling has since been made that you can't rearrange your cards after Chaos Orb enters the game; also you must not have your cards stacked or in places where your opponent can't read their name or count them.
** There are a lot of [[http://www.westley.org/infinite.html looping combinations]].
** An urban legend claims that in one tournament, a player cast a spell with the effect "Target player loses the game," then pointed at a completely different table and said "That guy." You can't do that, even if nothing in the rules state the target must be in the game you're playing. That's not something necessary to state explicitly. You can't cast a Lightning Bolt at a player in another game either, or cast Control Magic on one of his creatures, or Counterspell one of his spells.
*** And just like with the Chaos Confetti, Wizards of the Coast make fun of such urban legends with their "un-sets". In Unhinged, there is a card that specifically lets you destroy any silver-bordered card (only the un-cards have silver borders, regular cards have either white or black borders) in any game that you can see from your seat. Some players have used this to destroy cards from completely different card games because they are still, technically, legal targets as long as they have silver borders. And with the right card, you can [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sleight%20of%20Mind change the card so it affects black/white-border cards instead of silver-bordered cards]] and set it so that [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Radiate it affects all cards that you can see]], allowing you to wipe out entire tournaments.
** The cards of the Wish cycle specify "You may choose a card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand." This doesn't require it be a ''Magic'' card, so what's to stop you from grabbing an UNO Skip card, or [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Prof. Oak's New Theory]]? If you don't want to be that ludicrous, why not pull joke cards into serious games? (Errata for tournament purposes limit legal targets to cards in your sideboard, and the Comprehensive Rules do specify that "card" refers exclusively to ''Magic'' cards. But you don't have to tell anyone that.)
** The card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46724 Mindslaver]] had to have an entire rulebook printed for its original incarnation due to players using it to do things like forcing their opponent to concede the game. In the some two dozen sets that have come since then, only three other cards have ever used those rules (those cards being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=238330 Sorin Markov]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=380528 Worst Fears]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=414295 Emrakul, the Promised End]]).
* The list of errata and clarifications for specific situations for the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Trading Card Game'', known as the Rules Compendium, is comparable in length to the ''Magic: The Gathering'' one and requires hours to read.
** Outside of the Compendium, there are also some rules for tournaments not directly related to the card text itself. Unique to the ''Pokémon Trading Card Game'' is a rule stating that artwork for card sleeves must have a continuous solid-color border (which was previously a rule banning all artwork and restricting card sleeves to transparent or solid colors, then changed to allowing only official Pokémon Company issued sleeves); this was due to rampant subtle marking of cards by taking tiny trims off the sleeves' edges, sometimes using artwork that made it hard to notice by opponents.
** There are a few cards that ask opponents to play RockPaperScissors. In response, some players learned techniques to detect which hand gesture the opponents will use (techniques used in official Rock Paper Scissors competitions), allowing them to consistently win except against someone who knows these techniques too. The designers didn't realize players would go to these lengths, and as a result, there was a two-fold ObviousRulePatch: The first is that the only allowed means to play Rock Paper Scissors in ''Pokémon TCG'' tournaments is to write down the choice under the table and present it simultaneously with the opponent. The second is that there are no longer any Rock Paper Scissors cards that are tournament-legal.
* {{Munchkin}}s in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' are worse than {{Rules Lawyer}}s: some players go for full-blown LoopholeAbuse. The DM can, of course, veto any action you do or change the rules at any time with RuleZero, but it is not necessary to mention this for every example (D&D players have a penchant for seeking out loopholes for fun, without ever expecting to get away with abusing them).
** Perhaps the classic example was the 3.0 Edition "Bag O' Rats Fighter." This involved a Fighter using the ''Whirlwind Attack'' and ''Great Cleave'' feats while dumping a sack full of live rats at his feet to get an Attack of Opportunity for each of the rats he killed -- gaining a dozen or more extra attacks against his opponent in a single combat round! While technically legal according to the rules as written, no sane and reasonable DM should allow it. In 3.5 Edition, it got an ObviousRulePatch stating that when using Whirlwind Attack, the character wasn't allowed to make bonus attacks from other sources, like the Haste spell or Great Cleave feat.
** It was long believed that players can theoretically turn ''Locate City'' into a nuclear bomb. This turns out to not actually work, for fiddly technical reasons, but by the time that was discovered, the theory had been developed well enough to be quickly applied to a different spell that lacked those problems.
** Others recovered from infinite damage by drowning themselves. Taken literally, the drowning rules set your hit points to zero, even if they're negative.
*** And then ''[[FanNickname It's Wet Outside]]'' lets someone make a heal check to stop drowning.
** Passing an item hand to hand is a free action (doesn't take up time), so if you line up a few thousand people you can get an object to travel miles in six seconds. Then the last person throws it. This is commonly called the "Peasant Railgun". [[note]]The end result is a regular thrown object, since ''Dungeons and Dragons'' only bases thrown-object damage on the strength of the thrower and size of the object.[[/note]]
*** You can also have one player stand on another player's shoulders and pick him up as a free action. Then the other player picks him up. Since this is all a free action, there is no time for them to fall, and thus they can fly by repeatedly picking each other up in midair.
*** If you have someone in a grapple, you can move them at a fraction of your normal movement speed, assuming they fail (or don't try) to resist. So if you have a half dozen people or so in a group hug and none of them resisting, they can travel faster than running speed. Get enough people and you can break the sound barrier.
*** Further, all characters in a grapple are in the same square. There's also a rule that up to three people can grapple with one target. With some creative planning on the part of the grapplers, you can get it so that the entire population of a planet is in one square, which is 5 feet in game terms. There's also a rule as to what happens when players break a grapple (each member of the grapple is shoved to the nearest empty square immediately). This can result in characters going faster than the speed of light in order to land on a properly empty square.
** Dropping an item is a free action, as well. And if you happen to be fireproof and are standing next to an enemy while carrying, say, five hundred units of [[GreekFire alchemist's fire]]... Though the logistics of actually carrying all of it is a bit screwy in and of itself (seriously, you normally only have two hands with which to drop them).
** Perhaps the most true-to-form example of this trope (at least by the old name, Ain't No Rule) is that while the state of "Dying" is explicitly defined in the rules as far as what actions are acceptable, the state of "Dead" has no restrictions. There Ain't No Rule preventing a freshly-killed player from standing up and continuing the fight. Amazingly, this turns out to accidentally be patched by a literal reading of a completely different rule -- since a dead player has -10 HP, and -10 is less than 0, dead players are technically "incapacitated by nonlethal damage" at all times.[[note]]This is, of course, unnecessary, as RuleZero means the DM can just say "that doesn't work and you know it", but if you ever get into a fight with a RulesLawyer...[[/note]]
** There's no official restriction preventing you from using the spell ''True Creation'' to make planet-destroying quantities of antimatter.
** The various settings tend to have in-universe cases ''somewhere'' in all the history and organizations. For instance, [[TabletopGame/{{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 djinn), but they should always be met with caution. It is explicitly stated in the rules that wishing for anything too powerful can result in a perverted or partial wish fulfillment. 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 its undead guardians.
** In the universe (or {{multiverse}}) there's also the case of the DealWithTheDevil (more or less literally). These vary, but may involve a MagicallyBindingContract that the fiend itself also has to follow, but which will ''definitely'' be written with loopholes to turn against the mortal party -- at least as much so as the fiend can make it, and they'll typically have centuries of experience. Both the LawfulEvil devils and the ChaoticEvil demons do this. (However, in an interesting interpretation, [[http://www.pathguy.com/baator.htm some guy who thinks about this stuff a lot]] claimed that Lawful Evil creatures will follow the spirit of the contract, not just the letter, since [[ExactWords twisting the wording]] would be Chaotic. This is still presumably meant to allow a higher-level Loophole Abuse. However, this is not the way it's usually seen.)
** In an earlier version, there was an item which made the wearer immune to ''death''. Not ''death-effects''. '''''Death'''''!
** Practically every rule in 5th Edition is open to discussion. Some examples include (and some may also apply to other versions):
*** The list of weapons you're proficient with states which weapons you know how to use, but not HOW to use them. Rogues in 5th Edition cannot use a club, but there's no rule saying they cannot hold their shortsword by the blade and use it to whack the enemies ''as if'' it was a club.
*** This is basically what medieval knights did when fighting other knights in platemail. The blade couldn't pierce the armor, so they used their swords as clubs instead to much greater effect.
*** Nowhere in the rules does it say that you have to actually fire an arrow to deal damage with a bow. Of course, it's assumed that a player who wields a bow would fire arrows from said bow, but the rules don't specifically state that this is a requirement.
*** They don't state that you ''have'' to use a bow as a ranged weapon either. A Longbow is still a Longbow, even if you use it to hit your enemies in melee, so according to the rules, it still deals full damage, not just 1 (Improvised Weapons are anything that doesn't outright resemble a common weapon-type. A Longbow will always resemble a Longbow which is a common weapon-type, thus preventing a Longbow from being an Improvised Weapon, and thus keeping its damage to 1d8 or 1d10 instead of just 1).
*** The rules aren't specific about ''how'' to actually use alchemical items, meaning you could easily get away with administering a vial of Holy Water to an undead or Acid to the guy you just beat up in a bar-fight. this way, you can save the vials for later use (like making your own alchemical items) or sell them and get a little money back.
*** The alignment table is a bit ambiguous at times. Particularly, it doesn't say that a Lawful Good Paladin (the typical paragon of al that is good and just) cannot start a crowdfunding campaign to help a village... using the villagers' own money! The rules just say that Lawful Good characters have to act according to local laws, be good towards others and bring evildoers to justice.
*** Furthermore, there's no rule saying that a Chaotic Evil character cannot have sympathy with the people he wrongs... or donate to charity.
*** Due to the fact that alignment-restrictions on classes doesn't exist in 5th Edition, Paladins are allowed to be Chaotic Evil but still serve justice and protect the weak (Oath of Devotion), while Warlocks are allowed to be Lawful Good mages whose powers come straight from Hell.
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}'' card game, some people think you can freely equip and use items you are not legally able to, [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught as long as you don't get caught]]. As in any game, this is cheating if made on purpose.
--> "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.
*** There's no rule anywhere saying you ''have'' to use a six-sided die. It's usually just written as "Roll a die". One card specifically says "Roll a die. Any die."
** ''Munchkin'' is made for this. Literally. The rules are full of ambiguities, because it's supposed to recreate the experience of playing with (and as) a rules-lawyering, loophole-abusing dyed-in-the-wool [[TitleDrop munchkin]]. It may not be legal to cheat, but you're encouraged to take advantage of every ambiguity possible and if you can convince the others (or at least the owner of the copy being played) then you're free. The "legal to cheat" legend comes from another Steve Jackson Games card game, ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'', where it really is NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught, because why the hell would ancient conspiracies play by the rules if they didn't have to? (A munchkin's true power comes from abuse of the rules, not just ignoring them, after all.)
* The Lore of ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' 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 [[ScaryImpracticalArmor 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 more byzantine).
* [[MagicallyBindingContract Pledges]] in ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' practically beg the player to use this trope, which TheFairFolk love. There's no such thing as "the spirit of the agreement", and parties can be bound to a Pledge without understanding the terms or even knowing they're entering a contact. For example, the Hag of Henslowe Park infamously offers a year of good fortune in exchange for a year of enslavement -- a fate that can be averted by thanking her for her aid, not that she tells people about that part.
* An in-universe example from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'': following the Age of Apostasy, the new Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor declared the Decree Passive, in which the Ecclesiarchy was forbidden to maintain men under arms. Thor's predecessor's BodyguardBabes, the Brides of the Emperor, were allowed to continue operating as the ''Adepta Sororitas'' because Thor knew the Ecclesiarchy needed a militant arm and internal regulation; they were not "men" under arms, even though it violated the spirit of the decree.
** The FAQ articles have had to correct some in the past. The Swooping Hawks's Intercept rule reads "the unit never requires worse than a 4+ to hit an enemy vehicle," which means, for instance, that the WS 4 Swooping Hawks could hit a WS 5 Venerable Dreadnaught on a 4+ instead of a 5+ as the normal Weapon Skill table would indicate. 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.
** Units may fire out of the windows of a building. The rules don't prevent units with "barrage" type weapons, like mortars, from firing "through" the roof or windows of the building their operators are in.
** In an older edition, you could hold any number of your units in Reserve, so that they came in later during the game. Nothing said you couldn't do this to your entire army, thereby denying your opponent a first turn AND strategic deployment as he won't even know how your units will come in. However, one savvy player managed to turn this loophole on its user; nothing said you couldn't just deploy your entire army along the enemy's table edge (where reserves come onto the board) and prevent his units from ''ever entering the game''[[note]]Any unit coming in from reserve must "move onto the board" with their movement phase allowance. But units cannot move through an enemy unit, no matter the circumstance. Also normally you're restricted to your own deployment zone, but in this case the other player used Infiltrators, which had to be set up 12" away from any enemy with line of sight to it. Since the opponent had no models on the board...[[/note]]. Later editions decided to make this entire process shorter by making anyone who, at the end of any turn without a unit on the board, automatically lose (Reserve units, unless specifically stated, don't come in until turn 2 at the earliest).
** Related to the above, units normally have to remain in coherency. However "coherency" is only defined as "being within 2" of the nearest model". This lead to a tactic known as "daisy chaining", whereby the entire unit is stretched into a single filed line with 2" between each model. Technically no model is more than 2" from the nearest one (especially when the definition of "nearest" is vague at best). This tactic is largely used for area denial (as in the above example, using a single unit to cover the entire edge of a board) or if units have different movement speeds then the ones moving faster can proceed to charge the enemy while going through the chain, then "dragging" everyone else along as technically the were one unit and the entire unit charges and making them invulnerable to enemy shooting in the next turn, as you can't fire into combat. The most hilarious use of this was in 5th edition, where Canoptek Spyders could generate a single Scarab Swarm base and attach it to an existing unit; nothing ever said that the base had to be near the Spyder that created it. Cue players using the daisy chain to literally "walk" an entire unit of scarabs to the enemy's deployment zone. ''On the first turn.''
** One pretty infamous example of rule abuse in ''40000'' was the so-called "Fish of Fury" tactic. A Tau player would park two of his Devilfish in a V shape in front of two Fire Warrior squads. Opposing fire couldn't hit the warriors without going through the hover tanks, but the warriors themselves could fire "under" the very transports that were shielding them, and melee units couldn't assault the tanks at all, forming a sort of unassailable mobile bunker for the infantry. While some really firepower-heavy lists could swat away the [=APCs=] and deal damage, it rendered melee armies like the Orks and Tyranids utterly useless, which is bad seeing as ''being attacked in melee is the Tau's main weakness''. The tactic was a massive GameBreaker and it dominated tournaments for ages until the rules for hover vehicles were mercifully changed. It got so bad that in an attempt to distance themselves from "Fish of Fury" stigma, some Tau players ''completely'' removed Devilfish from their lists (even though the Tau army really needed them in their intended function) and slogged their squishy ranged infantry across the field on foot.
** One infamous incident most often cited as when GW no longer had any proofreaders was the entry for the Nemesis Force Falchions in the 5th edition Grey Knights Codex: The rules for the Falchions state that they grant +1 attack. This is because in-lore they are always wielded as a pair. But because the rules specifically state that you get "a pair" of Falchions, this means that technically you have two identical weapons, which also grant +1 attack. This meant that the Falchion option actually granted +2 attacks...that anyone in the army could take. Suddenly every single Grey Knight in Power Armor could be wielding a Heavy Bolter (with the Psybolt Upgrade) and each had more attacks than most ''units'' could put out. The FAQ later clarified that the +1 attack wasn't the weapon's special ability but rather for having 2, and the 7th edition update completely eliminated the issue by not giving the Falchions ''any'' special abilities from the standard Force Sword (you still get a pair of them).
** Deathstrike Missiles are one particularly AwesomeButImpractical Imperial Guard vehicle that's more-or-less an ICBM launcher mounted on a truck, boasting a spectactularly large blast zone, absurd amounts of damage to anything caught within it, and previously ''unlimited range''. Yes, unlimited. Its minimum range already rendered it difficult to use on most tables, and unlimited is simply overkill. Nothing states that you necessarily have to fire it at the same table, however, and in theory a Deathstrike launch ''could'' hit another game, even across real-life continents. See [[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19749704/ this]] story for amusing results of cross-Atlantic carnage that can ensue if everyone feels like playing along. It has since been changed to a limited 200" range, still far enough to reach anything but the largest table, but not far enough to hit another real-life building [[RuleOfFun unless everyone agrees to it]].
* This trope is [[Blog/ThingsMrWelchIsNoLongerAllowedToDoInAnRPG Mr. Welch's]] bread and butter, even if the GM doesn't tend to be cooperative. The phrase "even if the rules allow it" and variants thereof appear no less than 47 times throughout the ever-growing list.
* There are a ''lot'' of infamous combinations which resulted in continuous loops in ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' that result from this. The vast majority of them involves exploitation of the ruling that, except in very rare cases, a monster's effect is "reset" when it is flipped face-down or removed from the field temporarily, allowing you to reuse the same effect multiple times in one turn, with the right setup. There were even entire decks constructed around this.
** Before it was banned, the card Last Turn was the subject of quite a few loopholes, mainly because it didn't negate monster effects while it was in use. To wit, when it's activated, both players choose a monster to be on the field (the activator from their field, the opponent from their deck) and battle; whoever has a monster remaining on the field after the battle wins, otherwise it's a tie. Thing is, the monster left on the field doesn't have to be the one the player chose for the battle, and the card doesn't negate monster effects, so if you have a monster on the field that can prevent Special Summons (thus, preventing the opponent from getting out their chosen monster), or one that can summon out a monster when destroyed (thus leaving you with a monster after the battle), you can easily screw over the opponent with it.
** Lava Golem is a card that requires you to tribute two of your opponent's monsters to summon it to your opponent's field. Because Lava Golem's effect is technically a cost to play it, rather than an effect, and because it technically doesn't destroy the tributed cards, it's attained a level of fame as one of the only monsters that can kill literally ''anything'', regardless of circumstance.
** A couple of cards were introduced with the ability to return from to play from the graveyard under certain conditions/costs, but then banished when they left the field to prevent them from coming back more than once. Later, the XYZ mechanic gave players the ability to easily move cards from the field to the graveyard without ever triggering effects which would otherwise trigger when they left the field, by using them to create XYZ monsters, then detatching them.
*** Speaking of XYZ monsters, XYZ monsters have "ranks" instead of "levels" unlike every other monster card in the game. This allows them to dodge effects that depend on levels such as Gravity Bind. Because of these loopholes, XYZ monsters are not commonly liked by casual players.
* in the ''TabletopGame/AxisAndAllies'' miniatures game, air units were a late addition, meaning a lot of previous cards weren't prepared for their entry. Thus, units that should not be able to attack planes, like mortars and certain assault guns, can. Worst of all, [[LandMineGoesClick land mines]] can affect planes. Those are some ''epically'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_Betty bouncing betties]].
** Errata dictates that units with the "bombardment" ability can no longer attack planes, eliminating most ground artillery from the equation, but mines and mortars are still okay.
* A robot-class player or NPC in ''TabletopGame/MutantUA'' could have drones as an "option." Maximum would be 4 without any penalties for too many options, but drones could have their own options, deliberately so for the sake of being useful, but nothing states ''they'' couldn't have drones as well. Cue infinite horde of massively powerful drones! (although rule 0 almost always stops this as it's crazy-powerful).
* In the CCG "EVE: The Second Genesis" one of the main ways to gain money (used to play further cards) are location cards. One such location has the effect "When this card comes into play, sacrifice a location". The officially sanctioned loophole around this is to play the card into an uncontrolled region. Because the region is uncontrolled, the location is uncontrolled too and the effect does not activate...
* During the [[TheNewRockAndRoll "D&D Satanism"]] panic of the 80s, some schools banned ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. Roleplayers, being [[RulesLawyer what they are]], noted that the ban applied '''only''' to D&D, not to other [=RPGs=]... such as ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''.
** Speaking of ''Call of Cthulhu'', player character FanFic/OldManHenderson infamously exploited a loophole in the setting rules to [[spoiler: summon Hastur in a weakened and temporarily-mortal state]]... [[TakingYouWithMe in a skating rink rigged with "enough explosives to make Michael Bay blush"]]. /tg/ declared that Henderson actually won ''Call of Cthulhu''.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', the laws of the Corporate Court are interpreted to mean "If you damage another corp's property, you have to pay for it." Therefore the {{MegaCorp}}s use shadowrunners as PlausibleDeniability to [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught spy on, steal from, and sabotage each other]].
* ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'' had a particularly legendary example during its first tournament. The final match dragged on for a long time, until one of the players offered half the prize money if his opponent would forfeit just to end the stalemate. They shook on the deal...and then the first player used the card "[[http://www.911truth.ch/illuminati_card/i_lied.jpg I Lied]]". The judges ruled that the move was well within the spirit of the game and, over his opponent's voiciferous protests, declared him the winner.
* Many conditional modifiers in [[TabletopGames/HoylesRulesOfDragonPoker Hoyle's Rules of Dragon Poker]] are so vague as to almost require this.
* In ''TabletopGame/NinjaBurger'', one card allows you to use your highest skill in any skill check, so long as you can think up a plausible explanation for why you'd be able to use that skill to solve the problem. For sufficiently creative players, it's a total GameBreaker... if the other players at the table let them get away with it.
* Long-running Canadian strip cartoon ''Webcomic/LarryLeadhead'' deals with the trials and tribulations of the tabletop wargaming community. Practically every character has resorted to Loophole abuse, and one in particular, Dave, habitually goes beyond this into [[RulesLawyer Rules Rapist]] territory. Many actual examples of competitive gamesmanship encountered by the authors have been immortalised, or at least made notorious, in the form of strips.
* A fairly minor and specific but still noteworthy example from ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' about the Ferocity special ability: a monster (because it's mostly a monster thing and very rare among PC races) with Ferocity doesn't fall unconscious and start dying at negative HP, instead gaining the staggered condition (limits actions per round to one standard or one move action, other quicker actions aren't affected) and losing 1 HP per round until killed when its HP drop too low. The problem is that the description didn't take nonlethal damage into account at all, meaning that by the rules as written, a creature with Ferocity cannot fall unconscious from lethal damage but can be neutralized with [[ScratchDamage 1 point of nonethal damage,]] making the ability totally useless since anyone can deal nonlethal damage with an unarmed strike or by taking a penalty to attack rolls with any melee weapon. Some players even say that a creature at negative HP obviously has more nonlethal damage than current HP and then should fall unconscious even with Ferocity. Needless to say, this subject has been quite debated on forums.
----
to:
* 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.....)
* Apparently, the official rules of TabletopGame/{{chess}} once had a loophole that rendered the game [=1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qxf7 mate=] a victory for White[[note]]if you can't read Chess directions, this is a variation on the famous Scholar's Mate; white is cheating by moving his Queen in a direction other than a straight line[[/note]]. Although the White Queen cannot move this way legally, checkmate ended the game. The other side could only claim an illegal move while the game was ''still in play''. After a checkmate, legal move or not, it was too late to penalize the cheater for cheating. This is just the most famous example of how this major flaw in the rules could be exploited.
** 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.
*** There is a similar case of promoting a pawn into a ''king''. (Some stories have this "loophole" as a misunderstanding of the rules by a newcomer, caused by an incomplete explanation by his opponent, and the newcomer insisting on following the rules as first explained.) Although technically, this makes it worse for the player, as the rule is that someone whose king has been checkmated has lost the game, so having two kings is just two ways to lose. (Although if you were very clever, you could combine this with the previous loophole and promote a pawn into an [[HilarityEnsues enemy king]]. Bonus points if it's in a position already in checkmate.)
*** Castling can be performed with a king and a rook which have never moved from the position they were placed. Which led to someone promoting their king's pawn into a rook and using it to castle ''vertically'', [[ObviousRulePatch until the rules were rewritten to prevent this]].
* In TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}, it is technically ''perfectly legal'' to [[ScrabbleBabble play words that don't exist]] — you just have to pay the penalty if you're challenged. If you can [[MagnificentBastard bluff your opponents]] into thinking it's a real word and not challenging, you're good to go.
** An episode of CSI featured a LawyerFriendlyCameo Scrabble player who used this as his play style. The Cameo, we'll call him Player One, would play [[BlatantLies a fake word (in this example: "exvin") and bluff his opponent]] (the justifying definition: "a wine aficionado that no longer drinks"). When the opponent, Player Two, [[IronicEcho extended the word ("exvins")]], Player would call a challenge, at which point Player Two had to pick up all the offending letter tiles in addition to the one he played and take a penalty. Yes, Player Two takes the penalty alone. [[AssholeVictim Player One]] ended up [[QuipToBlack choking on his words]].
* There's a reason the comprehensive rules and errata for ''MagicTheGathering'' is [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRules hundreds of pages long]] and [[{{Doorstopper}} reads like a federal tax code]]. The rule-makers are constantly having to close odd loopholes the players figure out with each new batch of cards and the [[ExponentialPotential thousands]] of possible interactions that open up.
** One of the most (in)famous examples of ''Magic'' rule bending is such: the [[http://magiccards.info/un/en/236.html Chaos Orb]] can take out of play any card(s) it lands on after you flipped it in the air. One [[MagnificentBastard clever player]] TORE UP his Chaos Orb and [[GameBreaker sprinkled the pieces all over his opponent's playing area]], thus effectively [[HilarityEnsues 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.
** Another possibly apocryphal tale about the card is that one player put all his cards into magnetic card sleeves ''and played his cards underneath the table.''
** If there was such a ruling (they weren't systematically recorded in those days), it was overturned in 1994 with a WordOfGod [[ObviousRulePatch ruling]] that tearing up the card made it "marked" and you would lose the match for playing with a marked card. You would then be required to replace it with ''another'' Chaos Orb before the next round started or you would lose ''that'' match for illegally changing your deck configuration. Loophole Abuse cuts both ways.
** This was subsequently parodied in ''Magic: Unglued'' with the card "Chaos Confetti".
*** Ironically, errata for that card explicitly ruled that you couldn't ''not tear it up'' '''by tearing it into "one piece".'''
** When used as intended, Chaos Orb spawned another loophole: players would spread their cards out over a ludicrously large area so Chaos Orb couldn't touch more than one when it landed, or would lean their cards against things so that it was impossible to land on top of them at all. A ruling has since been made that you can't rearrange your cards after Chaos Orb enters the game; also you must not have your cards stacked or in places where your opponent can't read their name or count them.
** There are a lot of [[http://www.westley.org/infinite.html looping combinations]].
** An urban legend claims that in one tournament, a player cast a spell with the effect "Target player loses the game," then pointed at a completely different table and said "That guy." You can't do that, even if nothing in the rules state the target must be in the game you're playing. That's not something necessary to state explicitly. You can't cast a Lightning Bolt at a player in another game either, or cast Control Magic on one of his creatures, or Counterspell one of his spells.
*** And just like with the Chaos Confetti, Wizards of the Coast make fun of such urban legends with their "un-sets". In Unhinged, there is a card that specifically lets you destroy any silver-bordered card (only the un-cards have silver borders, regular cards have either white or black borders) in any game that you can see from your seat. Some players have used this to destroy cards from completely different card games because they are still, technically, legal targets as long as they have silver borders. And with the right card, you can [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sleight%20of%20Mind change the card so it affects black/white-border cards instead of silver-bordered cards]] and set it so that [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Radiate it affects all cards that you can see]], allowing you to wipe out entire tournaments.
** The cards of the Wish cycle specify "You may choose a card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand." This doesn't require it be a ''Magic'' card, so what's to stop you from grabbing an UNO Skip card, or [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Prof. Oak's New Theory]]? If you don't want to be that ludicrous, why not pull joke cards into serious games? (Errata for tournament purposes limit legal targets to cards in your sideboard, and the Comprehensive Rules do specify that "card" refers exclusively to ''Magic'' cards. But you don't have to tell anyone that.)
** The card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46724 Mindslaver]] had to have an entire rulebook printed for its original incarnation due to players using it to do things like forcing their opponent to concede the game. In the some two dozen sets that have come since then, only three other cards have ever used those rules (those cards being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=238330 Sorin Markov]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=380528 Worst Fears]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=414295 Emrakul, the Promised End]]).
* The list of errata and clarifications for specific situations for the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Trading Card Game'', known as the Rules Compendium, is comparable in length to the ''Magic: The Gathering'' one and requires hours to read.
** Outside of the Compendium, there are also some rules for tournaments not directly related to the card text itself. Unique to the ''Pokémon Trading Card Game'' is a rule stating that artwork for card sleeves must have a continuous solid-color border (which was previously a rule banning all artwork and restricting card sleeves to transparent or solid colors, then changed to allowing only official Pokémon Company issued sleeves); this was due to rampant subtle marking of cards by taking tiny trims off the sleeves' edges, sometimes using artwork that made it hard to notice by opponents.
** There are a few cards that ask opponents to play RockPaperScissors. In response, some players learned techniques to detect which hand gesture the opponents will use (techniques used in official Rock Paper Scissors competitions), allowing them to consistently win except against someone who knows these techniques too. The designers didn't realize players would go to these lengths, and as a result, there was a two-fold ObviousRulePatch: The first is that the only allowed means to play Rock Paper Scissors in ''Pokémon TCG'' tournaments is to write down the choice under the table and present it simultaneously with the opponent. The second is that there are no longer any Rock Paper Scissors cards that are tournament-legal.
* {{Munchkin}}s in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' are worse than {{Rules Lawyer}}s: some players go for full-blown LoopholeAbuse. The DM can, of course, veto any action you do or change the rules at any time with RuleZero, but it is not necessary to mention this for every example (D&D players have a penchant for seeking out loopholes for fun, without ever expecting to get away with abusing them).
** Perhaps the classic example was the 3.0 Edition "Bag O' Rats Fighter." This involved a Fighter using the ''Whirlwind Attack'' and ''Great Cleave'' feats while dumping a sack full of live rats at his feet to get an Attack of Opportunity for each of the rats he killed -- gaining a dozen or more extra attacks against his opponent in a single combat round! While technically legal according to the rules as written, no sane and reasonable DM should allow it. In 3.5 Edition, it got an ObviousRulePatch stating that when using Whirlwind Attack, the character wasn't allowed to make bonus attacks from other sources, like the Haste spell or Great Cleave feat.
** It was long believed that players can theoretically turn ''Locate City'' into a nuclear bomb. This turns out to not actually work, for fiddly technical reasons, but by the time that was discovered, the theory had been developed well enough to be quickly applied to a different spell that lacked those problems.
** Others recovered from infinite damage by drowning themselves. Taken literally, the drowning rules set your hit points to zero, even if they're negative.
*** And then ''[[FanNickname It's Wet Outside]]'' lets someone make a heal check to stop drowning.
** Passing an item hand to hand is a free action (doesn't take up time), so if you line up a few thousand people you can get an object to travel miles in six seconds. Then the last person throws it. This is commonly called the "Peasant Railgun". [[note]]The end result is a regular thrown object, since ''Dungeons and Dragons'' only bases thrown-object damage on the strength of the thrower and size of the object.[[/note]]
*** You can also have one player stand on another player's shoulders and pick him up as a free action. Then the other player picks him up. Since this is all a free action, there is no time for them to fall, and thus they can fly by repeatedly picking each other up in midair.
*** If you have someone in a grapple, you can move them at a fraction of your normal movement speed, assuming they fail (or don't try) to resist. So if you have a half dozen people or so in a group hug and none of them resisting, they can travel faster than running speed. Get enough people and you can break the sound barrier.
*** Further, all characters in a grapple are in the same square. There's also a rule that up to three people can grapple with one target. With some creative planning on the part of the grapplers, you can get it so that the entire population of a planet is in one square, which is 5 feet in game terms. There's also a rule as to what happens when players break a grapple (each member of the grapple is shoved to the nearest empty square immediately). This can result in characters going faster than the speed of light in order to land on a properly empty square.
** Dropping an item is a free action, as well. And if you happen to be fireproof and are standing next to an enemy while carrying, say, five hundred units of [[GreekFire alchemist's fire]]... Though the logistics of actually carrying all of it is a bit screwy in and of itself (seriously, you normally only have two hands with which to drop them).
** Perhaps the most true-to-form example of this trope (at least by the old name, Ain't No Rule) is that while the state of "Dying" is explicitly defined in the rules as far as what actions are acceptable, the state of "Dead" has no restrictions. There Ain't No Rule preventing a freshly-killed player from standing up and continuing the fight. Amazingly, this turns out to accidentally be patched by a literal reading of a completely different rule -- since a dead player has -10 HP, and -10 is less than 0, dead players are technically "incapacitated by nonlethal damage" at all times.[[note]]This is, of course, unnecessary, as RuleZero means the DM can just say "that doesn't work and you know it", but if you ever get into a fight with a RulesLawyer...[[/note]]
** There's no official restriction preventing you from using the spell ''True Creation'' to make planet-destroying quantities of antimatter.
** The various settings tend to have in-universe cases ''somewhere'' in all the history and organizations. For instance, [[TabletopGame/{{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 djinn), but they should always be met with caution. It is explicitly stated in the rules that wishing for anything too powerful can result in a perverted or partial wish fulfillment. 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 its undead guardians.
** In the universe (or {{multiverse}}) there's also the case of the DealWithTheDevil (more or less literally). These vary, but may involve a MagicallyBindingContract that the fiend itself also has to follow, but which will ''definitely'' be written with loopholes to turn against the mortal party -- at least as much so as the fiend can make it, and they'll typically have centuries of experience. Both the LawfulEvil devils and the ChaoticEvil demons do this. (However, in an interesting interpretation, [[http://www.pathguy.com/baator.htm some guy who thinks about this stuff a lot]] claimed that Lawful Evil creatures will follow the spirit of the contract, not just the letter, since [[ExactWords twisting the wording]] would be Chaotic. This is still presumably meant to allow a higher-level Loophole Abuse. However, this is not the way it's usually seen.)
** In an earlier version, there was an item which made the wearer immune to ''death''. Not ''death-effects''. '''''Death'''''!
** Practically every rule in 5th Edition is open to discussion. Some examples include (and some may also apply to other versions):
*** The list of weapons you're proficient with states which weapons you know how to use, but not HOW to use them. Rogues in 5th Edition cannot use a club, but there's no rule saying they cannot hold their shortsword by the blade and use it to whack the enemies ''as if'' it was a club.
*** This is basically what medieval knights did when fighting other knights in platemail. The blade couldn't pierce the armor, so they used their swords as clubs instead to much greater effect.
*** Nowhere in the rules does it say that you have to actually fire an arrow to deal damage with a bow. Of course, it's assumed that a player who wields a bow would fire arrows from said bow, but the rules don't specifically state that this is a requirement.
*** They don't state that you ''have'' to use a bow as a ranged weapon either. A Longbow is still a Longbow, even if you use it to hit your enemies in melee, so according to the rules, it still deals full damage, not just 1 (Improvised Weapons are anything that doesn't outright resemble a common weapon-type. A Longbow will always resemble a Longbow which is a common weapon-type, thus preventing a Longbow from being an Improvised Weapon, and thus keeping its damage to 1d8 or 1d10 instead of just 1).
*** The rules aren't specific about ''how'' to actually use alchemical items, meaning you could easily get away with administering a vial of Holy Water to an undead or Acid to the guy you just beat up in a bar-fight. this way, you can save the vials for later use (like making your own alchemical items) or sell them and get a little money back.
*** The alignment table is a bit ambiguous at times. Particularly, it doesn't say that a Lawful Good Paladin (the typical paragon of al that is good and just) cannot start a crowdfunding campaign to help a village... using the villagers' own money! The rules just say that Lawful Good characters have to act according to local laws, be good towards others and bring evildoers to justice.
*** Furthermore, there's no rule saying that a Chaotic Evil character cannot have sympathy with the people he wrongs... or donate to charity.
*** Due to the fact that alignment-restrictions on classes doesn't exist in 5th Edition, Paladins are allowed to be Chaotic Evil but still serve justice and protect the weak (Oath of Devotion), while Warlocks are allowed to be Lawful Good mages whose powers come straight from Hell.
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}'' card game, some people think you can freely equip and use items you are not legally able to, [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught as long as you don't get caught]]. As in any game, this is cheating if made on purpose.
--> "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.
*** There's no rule anywhere saying you ''have'' to use a six-sided die. It's usually just written as "Roll a die". One card specifically says "Roll a die. Any die."
** ''Munchkin'' is made for this. Literally. The rules are full of ambiguities, because it's supposed to recreate the experience of playing with (and as) a rules-lawyering, loophole-abusing dyed-in-the-wool [[TitleDrop munchkin]]. It may not be legal to cheat, but you're encouraged to take advantage of every ambiguity possible and if you can convince the others (or at least the owner of the copy being played) then you're free. The "legal to cheat" legend comes from another Steve Jackson Games card game, ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'', where it really is NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught, because why the hell would ancient conspiracies play by the rules if they didn't have to? (A munchkin's true power comes from abuse of the rules, not just ignoring them, after all.)
* The Lore of ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' 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 [[ScaryImpracticalArmor 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 more byzantine).
* [[MagicallyBindingContract Pledges]] in ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' practically beg the player to use this trope, which TheFairFolk love. There's no such thing as "the spirit of the agreement", and parties can be bound to a Pledge without understanding the terms or even knowing they're entering a contact. For example, the Hag of Henslowe Park infamously offers a year of good fortune in exchange for a year of enslavement -- a fate that can be averted by thanking her for her aid, not that she tells people about that part.
* An in-universe example from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'': following the Age of Apostasy, the new Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor declared the Decree Passive, in which the Ecclesiarchy was forbidden to maintain men under arms. Thor's predecessor's BodyguardBabes, the Brides of the Emperor, were allowed to continue operating as the ''Adepta Sororitas'' because Thor knew the Ecclesiarchy needed a militant arm and internal regulation; they were not "men" under arms, even though it violated the spirit of the decree.
** The FAQ articles have had to correct some in the past. The Swooping Hawks's Intercept rule reads "the unit never requires worse than a 4+ to hit an enemy vehicle," which means, for instance, that the WS 4 Swooping Hawks could hit a WS 5 Venerable Dreadnaught on a 4+ instead of a 5+ as the normal Weapon Skill table would indicate. 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.
** Units may fire out of the windows of a building. The rules don't prevent units with "barrage" type weapons, like mortars, from firing "through" the roof or windows of the building their operators are in.
** In an older edition, you could hold any number of your units in Reserve, so that they came in later during the game. Nothing said you couldn't do this to your entire army, thereby denying your opponent a first turn AND strategic deployment as he won't even know how your units will come in. However, one savvy player managed to turn this loophole on its user; nothing said you couldn't just deploy your entire army along the enemy's table edge (where reserves come onto the board) and prevent his units from ''ever entering the game''[[note]]Any unit coming in from reserve must "move onto the board" with their movement phase allowance. But units cannot move through an enemy unit, no matter the circumstance. Also normally you're restricted to your own deployment zone, but in this case the other player used Infiltrators, which had to be set up 12" away from any enemy with line of sight to it. Since the opponent had no models on the board...[[/note]]. Later editions decided to make this entire process shorter by making anyone who, at the end of any turn without a unit on the board, automatically lose (Reserve units, unless specifically stated, don't come in until turn 2 at the earliest).
** Related to the above, units normally have to remain in coherency. However "coherency" is only defined as "being within 2" of the nearest model". This lead to a tactic known as "daisy chaining", whereby the entire unit is stretched into a single filed line with 2" between each model. Technically no model is more than 2" from the nearest one (especially when the definition of "nearest" is vague at best). This tactic is largely used for area denial (as in the above example, using a single unit to cover the entire edge of a board) or if units have different movement speeds then the ones moving faster can proceed to charge the enemy while going through the chain, then "dragging" everyone else along as technically the were one unit and the entire unit charges and making them invulnerable to enemy shooting in the next turn, as you can't fire into combat. The most hilarious use of this was in 5th edition, where Canoptek Spyders could generate a single Scarab Swarm base and attach it to an existing unit; nothing ever said that the base had to be near the Spyder that created it. Cue players using the daisy chain to literally "walk" an entire unit of scarabs to the enemy's deployment zone. ''On the first turn.''
** One pretty infamous example of rule abuse in ''40000'' was the so-called "Fish of Fury" tactic. A Tau player would park two of his Devilfish in a V shape in front of two Fire Warrior squads. Opposing fire couldn't hit the warriors without going through the hover tanks, but the warriors themselves could fire "under" the very transports that were shielding them, and melee units couldn't assault the tanks at all, forming a sort of unassailable mobile bunker for the infantry. While some really firepower-heavy lists could swat away the [=APCs=] and deal damage, it rendered melee armies like the Orks and Tyranids utterly useless, which is bad seeing as ''being attacked in melee is the Tau's main weakness''. The tactic was a massive GameBreaker and it dominated tournaments for ages until the rules for hover vehicles were mercifully changed. It got so bad that in an attempt to distance themselves from "Fish of Fury" stigma, some Tau players ''completely'' removed Devilfish from their lists (even though the Tau army really needed them in their intended function) and slogged their squishy ranged infantry across the field on foot.
** One infamous incident most often cited as when GW no longer had any proofreaders was the entry for the Nemesis Force Falchions in the 5th edition Grey Knights Codex: The rules for the Falchions state that they grant +1 attack. This is because in-lore they are always wielded as a pair. But because the rules specifically state that you get "a pair" of Falchions, this means that technically you have two identical weapons, which also grant +1 attack. This meant that the Falchion option actually granted +2 attacks...that anyone in the army could take. Suddenly every single Grey Knight in Power Armor could be wielding a Heavy Bolter (with the Psybolt Upgrade) and each had more attacks than most ''units'' could put out. The FAQ later clarified that the +1 attack wasn't the weapon's special ability but rather for having 2, and the 7th edition update completely eliminated the issue by not giving the Falchions ''any'' special abilities from the standard Force Sword (you still get a pair of them).
** Deathstrike Missiles are one particularly AwesomeButImpractical Imperial Guard vehicle that's more-or-less an ICBM launcher mounted on a truck, boasting a spectactularly large blast zone, absurd amounts of damage to anything caught within it, and previously ''unlimited range''. Yes, unlimited. Its minimum range already rendered it difficult to use on most tables, and unlimited is simply overkill. Nothing states that you necessarily have to fire it at the same table, however, and in theory a Deathstrike launch ''could'' hit another game, even across real-life continents. See [[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19749704/ this]] story for amusing results of cross-Atlantic carnage that can ensue if everyone feels like playing along. It has since been changed to a limited 200" range, still far enough to reach anything but the largest table, but not far enough to hit another real-life building [[RuleOfFun unless everyone agrees to it]].
* This trope is [[Blog/ThingsMrWelchIsNoLongerAllowedToDoInAnRPG Mr. Welch's]] bread and butter, even if the GM doesn't tend to be cooperative. The phrase "even if the rules allow it" and variants thereof appear no less than 47 times throughout the ever-growing list.
* There are a ''lot'' of infamous combinations which resulted in continuous loops in ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' that result from this. The vast majority of them involves exploitation of the ruling that, except in very rare cases, a monster's effect is "reset" when it is flipped face-down or removed from the field temporarily, allowing you to reuse the same effect multiple times in one turn, with the right setup. There were even entire decks constructed around this.
** Before it was banned, the card Last Turn was the subject of quite a few loopholes, mainly because it didn't negate monster effects while it was in use. To wit, when it's activated, both players choose a monster to be on the field (the activator from their field, the opponent from their deck) and battle; whoever has a monster remaining on the field after the battle wins, otherwise it's a tie. Thing is, the monster left on the field doesn't have to be the one the player chose for the battle, and the card doesn't negate monster effects, so if you have a monster on the field that can prevent Special Summons (thus, preventing the opponent from getting out their chosen monster), or one that can summon out a monster when destroyed (thus leaving you with a monster after the battle), you can easily screw over the opponent with it.
** Lava Golem is a card that requires you to tribute two of your opponent's monsters to summon it to your opponent's field. Because Lava Golem's effect is technically a cost to play it, rather than an effect, and because it technically doesn't destroy the tributed cards, it's attained a level of fame as one of the only monsters that can kill literally ''anything'', regardless of circumstance.
** A couple of cards were introduced with the ability to return from to play from the graveyard under certain conditions/costs, but then banished when they left the field to prevent them from coming back more than once. Later, the XYZ mechanic gave players the ability to easily move cards from the field to the graveyard without ever triggering effects which would otherwise trigger when they left the field, by using them to create XYZ monsters, then detatching them.
*** Speaking of XYZ monsters, XYZ monsters have "ranks" instead of "levels" unlike every other monster card in the game. This allows them to dodge effects that depend on levels such as Gravity Bind. Because of these loopholes, XYZ monsters are not commonly liked by casual players.
* in the ''TabletopGame/AxisAndAllies'' miniatures game, air units were a late addition, meaning a lot of previous cards weren't prepared for their entry. Thus, units that should not be able to attack planes, like mortars and certain assault guns, can. Worst of all, [[LandMineGoesClick land mines]] can affect planes. Those are some ''epically'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_Betty bouncing betties]].
** Errata dictates that units with the "bombardment" ability can no longer attack planes, eliminating most ground artillery from the equation, but mines and mortars are still okay.
* A robot-class player or NPC in ''TabletopGame/MutantUA'' could have drones as an "option." Maximum would be 4 without any penalties for too many options, but drones could have their own options, deliberately so for the sake of being useful, but nothing states ''they'' couldn't have drones as well. Cue infinite horde of massively powerful drones! (although rule 0 almost always stops this as it's crazy-powerful).
* In the CCG "EVE: The Second Genesis" one of the main ways to gain money (used to play further cards) are location cards. One such location has the effect "When this card comes into play, sacrifice a location". The officially sanctioned loophole around this is to play the card into an uncontrolled region. Because the region is uncontrolled, the location is uncontrolled too and the effect does not activate...
* During the [[TheNewRockAndRoll "D&D Satanism"]] panic of the 80s, some schools banned ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. Roleplayers, being [[RulesLawyer what they are]], noted that the ban applied '''only''' to D&D, not to other [=RPGs=]... such as ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''.
** Speaking of ''Call of Cthulhu'', player character FanFic/OldManHenderson infamously exploited a loophole in the setting rules to [[spoiler: summon Hastur in a weakened and temporarily-mortal state]]... [[TakingYouWithMe in a skating rink rigged with "enough explosives to make Michael Bay blush"]]. /tg/ declared that Henderson actually won ''Call of Cthulhu''.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', the laws of the Corporate Court are interpreted to mean "If you damage another corp's property, you have to pay for it." Therefore the {{MegaCorp}}s use shadowrunners as PlausibleDeniability to [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught spy on, steal from, and sabotage each other]].
* ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'' had a particularly legendary example during its first tournament. The final match dragged on for a long time, until one of the players offered half the prize money if his opponent would forfeit just to end the stalemate. They shook on the deal...and then the first player used the card "[[http://www.911truth.ch/illuminati_card/i_lied.jpg I Lied]]". The judges ruled that the move was well within the spirit of the game and, over his opponent's voiciferous protests, declared him the winner.
* Many conditional modifiers in [[TabletopGames/HoylesRulesOfDragonPoker Hoyle's Rules of Dragon Poker]] are so vague as to almost require this.
* In ''TabletopGame/NinjaBurger'', one card allows you to use your highest skill in any skill check, so long as you can think up a plausible explanation for why you'd be able to use that skill to solve the problem. For sufficiently creative players, it's a total GameBreaker... if the other players at the table let them get away with it.
* Long-running Canadian strip cartoon ''Webcomic/LarryLeadhead'' deals with the trials and tribulations of the tabletop wargaming community. Practically every character has resorted to Loophole abuse, and one in particular, Dave, habitually goes beyond this into [[RulesLawyer Rules Rapist]] territory. Many actual examples of competitive gamesmanship encountered by the authors have been immortalised, or at least made notorious, in the form of strips.
* A fairly minor and specific but still noteworthy example from ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' about the Ferocity special ability: a monster (because it's mostly a monster thing and very rare among PC races) with Ferocity doesn't fall unconscious and start dying at negative HP, instead gaining the staggered condition (limits actions per round to one standard or one move action, other quicker actions aren't affected) and losing 1 HP per round until killed when its HP drop too low. The problem is that the description didn't take nonlethal damage into account at all, meaning that by the rules as written, a creature with Ferocity cannot fall unconscious from lethal damage but can be neutralized with [[ScratchDamage 1 point of nonethal damage,]] making the ability totally useless since anyone can deal nonlethal damage with an unarmed strike or by taking a penalty to attack rolls with any melee weapon. Some players even say that a creature at negative HP obviously has more nonlethal damage than current HP and then should fall unconscious even with Ferocity. Needless to say, this subject has been quite debated on forums.
----
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
** Deathstrike Missiles are one particularly AwesomeButImpractical Imperial Guard vehicle that's more-or-less an ICBM launcher mounted on a truck, boasting a spectactularly large blast zone, absurd amounts of damage to anything caught within it, and previously ''unlimited range''. Yes, unlimited. Its minimum range already rendered it difficult to use on most tables, and unlimited is simply overkill. Nothing states that you necessarily have to fire it at the same table, however, and in theory a Deathstrike launch ''could'' hit another game, even across real-life continents. See [[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19749704/ this]] story for amusing results of cross-Atlantic carnage that can ensue if everyone feels like playing along. It has since been changed to a limited 200" range, still far enough to reach anything but the largest table, but not far enough to hit another real-life building [[RuleOfFun unless everyone agrees to it]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 83 (click to see context) from:
* A fairly minor and specific but still noteworthy example from ''{{Pathfinder}}'' about the Ferocity special ability: a monster (because it's mostly a monster thing and very rare among PC races) with Ferocity doesn't fall unconscious and start dying at negative HP, instead gaining the staggered condition (limits actions per round to one standard or one move action, other quicker actions aren't affected) and losing 1 HP per round until killed when its HP drop too low. The problem is that the description didn't take nonlethal damage into account at all, meaning that by the rules as written, a creature with Ferocity cannot fall unconscious from lethal damage but can be neutralized with [[ScratchDamage 1 point of nonethal damage,]] making the ability totally useless since anyone can deal nonlethal damage with an unarmed strike or by taking a penalty to attack rolls with any melee weapon. Some players even say that a creature at negative HP obviously has more nonlethal damage than current HP and then should fall unconscious even with Ferocity. Needless to say, this subject has been quite debated on forums.
to:
* A fairly minor and specific but still noteworthy example from ''{{Pathfinder}}'' ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' about the Ferocity special ability: a monster (because it's mostly a monster thing and very rare among PC races) with Ferocity doesn't fall unconscious and start dying at negative HP, instead gaining the staggered condition (limits actions per round to one standard or one move action, other quicker actions aren't affected) and losing 1 HP per round until killed when its HP drop too low. The problem is that the description didn't take nonlethal damage into account at all, meaning that by the rules as written, a creature with Ferocity cannot fall unconscious from lethal damage but can be neutralized with [[ScratchDamage 1 point of nonethal damage,]] making the ability totally useless since anyone can deal nonlethal damage with an unarmed strike or by taking a penalty to attack rolls with any melee weapon. Some players even say that a creature at negative HP obviously has more nonlethal damage than current HP and then should fall unconscious even with Ferocity. Needless to say, this subject has been quite debated on forums.
