History Main / ObviousRulePatch

* Starting in version 1.3, ''{{Iji}}'' tells you in some places (the arena for [[spoiler:Asha's rematch]] comes to mind) that "there's no need to fire your Nanogun here". Sometimes it was literally true, but in many cases it was because firing your Nanogun there could bug out the game. [[OrSoIHeard Somehow...]]

*** Chinese chess, Xiangqi, is less forgiving of perpetual checks. If you check five turns in a row without pause, ''you lose {{the game}}''. However, in Xiangqi, the general's movement is limited to a small area called the palace, so if you really can't figure out how to checkmate him, you deserve the loss.

*** Even more [[TvTropesWikiDrinkingGame egregious]] is the gp cost for things like golemcraft. It has to be spent, but nowhere does it say on what (since it's additional to the cost of the golem's body ... it would be [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0665.html within the spirit of the rules]] for the PC to pile up the cash and watch it vanish as the spell is cast.

** There was a video posted on YouTube a few years back where a paladin killed, in one move, a raid boss designed for dozens of players to take several minutes to bring down. Within hours, the paladin class was nerfed so hard that it permanently altered the way the class's key skills work.

Compare and contrast {{Nerf}}.

* ''FinalFantasyVI'' had a major issue with Gau, a character who normally can't equip weapons but has a high innate attack power to make up for it, and the Merit Award, an accessory that allows its user to equip any type of armor in the game. When Gau had the Merit Award in the original version of the game, you could equip him with a weapon. Not only did this dramatically boost his attack power, but it also led to some very bizarre GameBreaker combos, such as the legendary "Wind God Gau". Later remakes of the game prevent Gau from equipping the Merit Award, sadly enough.

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

** There's [[http://books.google.com/books?id=IopUJv7-_NYC&pg=PA173&dq=%22three+ king+ circus%22&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22three%20king%20circus%22&f=false one story]] where a student promoted his pawn to a king because his teacher, George Koltanowski, had forgotten to mention this was illegal. George says he responded by [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome checkmating both kings at once]].

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

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

** In the most recent version of the TombOfHorrors, the scepter and crown of disintegration (put the crown on your head, touch one end of the scepter to it, you disintegrate) cannot be removed from the room they're in by any means (the description goes to [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything great lengths to cover any eventuality]]). Earlier versions of the Tomb had no such rule at all. The reason eventually emerged during a conversation on a message board: One of the artists working on an earlier copy of the module was invited to a session of the Tomb DMed by none other than [[WordOfGod Gary Gygax himself.]] The artist took the scepter and crown from the room, then eventually placed the crown on the [[spoiler: fake skull]] of Acererak and touched the scepter to it, disintegrating the lich instantly. Gygax was stunned, as the eventuality had never occurred to him. The artist, on the other hand, [[ChekhovsGun thought that's what they were there for.]] The artist was quite surprised when he was later informed of the rule change.

* {{Pokemon}} Had the problem of Wobbuffet following the introduction of abilities. Wobbuffet and its pre-evolution Wynaut were both equipped with the Shadow Tag ability, which prevents the opponent from switching pokemon in a battle with Wobbuffet/Wynaut until they were either recalled or knocked out or the foe has some other trap-cancel ability that allows them to flee. Fair enough, except in a competitive battle where both you and your opponents have wobbuffets (or the much-less-common Wynaut) who are both equipped with leftovers and facing each other, you can't fight back because Wobbuffets and Wynauts are only able to counter attacks, not dish them out. Their Shadow Tag abilities will also prevent either of them from switching out and even if the two were to wear themselves down enough to use Struggle (the only move Wynaut/Wobbuffet knows that deals damage), leftovers would cancel out what horrendously low damage their moves do, eliminating any chance that either of the two will faint. Following Diamond and Pearl onwards, Shadow Tag was changed so that any pokemon who has the Shadow Tag ability who is locked into battle with a foe who also has said ability can negate the effect and switch out without problems. Also, Struggle now always takes away 25 percent of the user's ''maximum'' hit points, not 25 percent of the hit point damage the user did to the other guy, so every if two trainers wound up with Wobbuffet as each person's last pokemon, once Struggling began the match would end in 5 turns or less (because the 25 percent rounds down, someone with an HP amount that can be divided by four with a remainder of one could last one more turn).

Note that issuing an Obvious Rule Patch for a competitive multiplayer game too soon can damage the evolving {{Metagame}}, which can often bring potential Game Breakers back into balance. And just so we're clear, "Obvious Rule Patch" refers to the rule that obviously exists solely to patch up something rather than the something that "obviously" needs a rule patch. For the latter, see ThereOughtaBeALaw.

Note that issuing an Obvious Rule Patch for a competitive multiplayer game too soon can damage the evolving {{Metagame}}, which can often bring potential Game Breakers back into balance. Also, it's "Obvious Rule Patch" in the sense of "It's obvious that it's a rule patch", not "It's obvious that we should have this rule patch".