[Ari Marmell's blog] To House Rule or Not to House Rule

[delericho]

I've gone back and forth on this issue several times, and I eventually (late in 3e) came to the conclusion that it's usually better to use only minimal house rules - easier for the players go grasp that way. For much the same reason, I'm inclined to stick with well-known systems where possible, rather than going for niche games (unless I'm running something that is tailored for a niche system, of course).

(3e and 4e are also more resistant to house rules, IMO, because each loses a lot when heavily house ruled. With 3e, there's just so much stuff that heavily house-ruling the game may mean missing out on a massive library of feats, spells, monsters and adventures. And with 4e, the online tools are so useful that house ruling the game becomes similarly undesirable.)

However, I have recently concluded that while 4e is emphatically not for me, it is good enough (especially in some key areas) to leave me really dissatisfied with 3e/Pathfinder as written. Consequently, I am giving some serious thought to the possibility of putting together my own game.

 

[Nightson]

Well let's see, I run a 4e D&D game that's been going for over a year now.

I simply haven't felt the need to houserule the system much at all, but I do have some.

-When a multiclass feat grants you a skill you already have it counts as skill focus for that skill.

-Expertise feats for free (doesn't really count)

-Rituals can be learned and cast by anybody, the ritual caster feat gives a number of benefits instead.

-Aiding in a ritual has a scaling DC (pretty sure updates made this houserule RAW)

-I also cribbed a houserule I saw on this forum where beating the skill check DC by a significant amount could reduce the action cost.

I also don't have any problem with creating custom stuff. Some of my players have custom powers, usually reskins of existing ones. One player (at least) will have a custom paragon path when we hit paragon.

And sometimes I throw balance out the window. When my players freed the primordial spirit of fire, I gave them all 15 fire resist. Certainly not balanced as a mechanical option, but I'm not worried giving it to one group.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Looks like there's a bit of a misunderstanding.

I vehemently disagree.

Knowledge of a media may prevent you from enjoying the lowest common denominator of that media, but what it grants you is the ability to appreciate things which are better.

A knowledge of art history -- and a significant amount of time spent painting -- has not dulled my ability to just draw a friggin' picture[/u]. Quite the opposite.

Oh, I'm not saying it's a causal relationship or anything. Sorry if I implied that. I'm just saying that it can happen. It's a risk, when you intellectualize things. It becomes about the intellectualization, and not about the thing.

I'm sure you know art folks who are much more concerned about the context of their work then the work that they're doing. Heck, the creative types I associate with all come to that bridge sooner or later, they all have moments of it, and some never really move past those moments.

A work can be too self-conscious, too aware of itself. This is part of what the hodge-podge of movements under the postmodernist (and post-post?) banner are aware of. This is meta-recursion -- references about references, rather than things. Heck, a huge chunk of modern art of all genres falls into this abyss sooner or later, but that's a whole different bucket of worms.

As it applies to gaming at the table with your buddies, though, the expression is this: being so worried about getting something right, according to certain definitions of right, that you loose sight of what it's actually supposed to do for you in the moment.

I also disagree with your assertion that unbalanced = fun.

IMHO 4e is very hard to house-rule (relative to other editions of D&D), so the fact that Ari has suffered frustration trying to house-rule it makes total sense to me -- and has nothing to do with over intellectualization, or with balance being some kind of boogieman.

I don't think unbalanced = fun is necessarily true, just that you can have fun without things being cautiously balanced. So being balanced isn't a prerequisite for fun, nor does balance, in and of itself, make fun happen.

Balanced things can make things more fun as well -- just as education about context can make creative art more fun, too. But I think we'd both agree that there is a point at which, as Vonnegut said, it disappears up its own *.

Just before that quote in the Paris Review, Vonnegut talks about how writers don't come from the English department at your local college. Much more likely from chemistry, zoology, anthropology, physics, astronomy, medical school, and law school.

The point here is not that education is a bad thing, just that it can overshadow what you do, and if it does that, then it becomes a bad thing. If you're thinking about rules more than about if your players are cheering and whooping, you're probably not thinking about the right thing. You've disappeared up your own *. Balance can help you achieve that cheering and whooping, but it is not the thing you should be thinking too much about.

 

[Nifft]

Pardon me but I don't get that at all. Wouldn't exception based design eliminate the need for the process you describe? Unless you were shooting for balance relative to other classes and powers? Or are you saying that by nature of the design if you change something you have to sift thru loads of powers to make it a consistent change?

Many people prefer to only change things that they fully understand. In 4e, fully understanding how a class works requires keeping a lot more words in memory.

It's easier to ban a few problematic feats & powers -- which is pretty much what I do nowadays -- but it's harder to change the feel of the system.

Does that help explain what I'm talking about?

Cheers, -- N

 

[.5 Elf]

Many people prefer to only change things that they fully understand. In 4e, fully understanding how a class works requires keeping a lot more words in memory.

It's easier to ban a few problematic feats & powers -- which is pretty much what I do nowadays -- but it's harder to change the feel of the system.

Does that help explain what I'm talking about?

Cheers, -- N

Only partially. If you're changing things to go for a different feel for instance, wouldn't that be the end state, and you're not worried about any other aspects of your change? I mean to say if balance isn't a factor then why do you need a deeper understanding? I am not trying to be argumentative or obtuse but it seems to me that it really does get back to balance in the examples you illustrate.

Why would many people prefer to have that deeper understanding you make mention of if it's not a balance issue?

 

[Desdichado]

Regarding balance as a governing factor in D&D. I feel that this is one of the true dividing lines between editions and a hidden cause of edition warring. I submit to you that the edition wars, (Not trying to pick a side here or start one so please don't take this the wrong way.) are actually a tag team cage match between OD&D 1st and 2nd ed. and 3.0 3.5 and 4th edition.

Not likely. The OSR vs. modern game "edition war" is a gentle summer rain compared to the storms that raged between 3e and 4e.

 

[Morrus]

I just read Ari Marmell's blog, "I fought the RAW, and the RAW won" and I have to say that my trajectory is rather similar:

Can I ask why you started a thread here rather than replying to the blog itself?

I ask because we pay for the blog posts and traffic there is important; so it helps to understand reader behaviour. You don't have to explain, of course - you can do what you want - but it would be useful to us if you explained the thought processes involved so that we might be able to adjust the system to accomodate them

For example - was it that you wanted more people to see your opinion, and felt that the forum would result in more views? That's understandable. It might point towards us seeking a way to combine blog comments and forum threads into one. Or was it something else that made you read the blog, ignore the reply box, and start a thread elsewhere? (That may have come across snarky - it wasn't meant to be - I'm honestly trying to gather information so that I can improve everything for everyone).

 

[Jdvn1]

The way I think about it is that blog comments are comments made to the blogger, or to commenters on the blog. A thread about the blog in a forum is a comment made to everyone.

Not that I can speak for the OP.

Though, threads being listed as trackbacks might be a good idea.

 

[Steel_Wind]

At what point does allowing an "expansion" book or "official accessory" into your campaign become a "house rule"?

In 4E, is the PHB2 really an expansion book? Does your answer change if it is PHB3 under discussion? Are they both "non-core" -- such that the refusal to accept the class, spell or rule referred to therein somehow gives you an "out" as to whether or not you accepted the RAW? Does that excuse you from the debate?

Is the Rules Compendium in 3.xx really an expansion book? What about the Spell Compendium or Magic Item Compendium? Are they official? If they aren't core, but are official, can you pick and choose and not be "house ruling"?

If I were to allow X and Y spell from the Spell Compendium, but not allow, say, Orb of Force or Downdraft ... is that a house rule?

Seems to me, that the pressure on all RPGs that grow into multi-volume epics of rules available to the players -- such as D&D 3.0, 3.5, and 4E but happily not (yet) Pathfinder (we're getting there soon enough, I wager) triggers a choice:

Do I as GM allow it or not?

Once you even get to the choice part of that decision tree, you are leaving the docks and setting sail for House Rule land, imo. To pretend otherwise and hand wave it away is a disingenuous exercise. You cannot so easily define your way out of that debate by pretending the threshold has changed-- when in pith and substance -- it has not.

I think it would be useful to examine that dynamic in the context of House Rules, when to say "yes", when to say "no", and at what point does not allowing a published official expansion become a "House Rule"?

It's a pretty slippery slope, no matter what side of the debate you are on, in my opinion.

I tried the "allow everything as RAW in every official WotC book" for 3.5. It ended in utter disaster. I'll never do it again.

Which brings us to the balking point: do these designers know what they are doing? Even if they do, do they have their best interests at heart when they publish expansion material -- or mine? Is it both? Really?

Does your answer change depending upon what part of the "expansion cycle" is under discussion?

I know that the nice sidestep to the conundrum raised above is just to hand wave these difficult questions away and attempt to confine the debate to "core rules only". But I would observe that is an arbitrary dividing line without rational substance and is erected not because it is logical or persuasive -- but simply because that's a debate where your point of view can prevail.

I honestly don't think you can sidestep this problem so easily. And once you throw expansion books in to the heap, we pretty much all House Rule our games, don't we?

 

[Nifft]

Oh, I'm not saying it's a causal relationship or anything. Sorry if I implied that. I'm just saying that it can happen. It's a risk, when you intellectualize things. It becomes about the intellectualization, and not about the thing.

I'm sure you know art folks who are much more concerned about the context of their work then the work that they're doing. Heck, the creative types I associate with all come to that bridge sooner or later, they all have moments of it, and some never really move past those moments.

Sure, but there's also plenty of bad art which is bad for reasons that have nothing to do with being intellectual.

I don't think unbalanced = fun is necessarily true, just that you can have fun without things being cautiously balanced. So being balanced isn't a prerequisite for fun, nor does balance, in and of itself, make fun happen.

Mmm. I've found balanced games offer more useful options than unbalanced games -- me & my players tend to gravitate to strong classes.

The point here is not that education is a bad thing, just that it can overshadow what you do, and if it does that, then it becomes a bad thing. If you're thinking about rules more than about if your players are cheering and whooping, you're probably not thinking about the right thing. You've disappeared up your own *. Balance can help you achieve that cheering and whooping, but it is not the thing you should be thinking too much about.

I'm reminded of an argument about character optimization. It was argued that thinking about optimizing your character took away from role-playing -- the idea was that, by being more able to rationally evaluate your character's combat effectiveness, you were therefore less able to be a good role-player. People had some anecdotes about seeing this happen to their groups.

My argument was that there are three stages to being a character optimizer. These stages are:

1 - Mechanically Naive: "My character took Toughness because he is tough!" -- At this stage, the player evaluates options based on how appropriate he finds their names. Mechanical effects are ignored or misvalued. The player may become frustrated when he realizes that his choices do not allow him to exert enough influence on the campaign world.

2 - System Mastery: "I made a half-orc spiked chain machinegun trip monkey. His name? Uh..." -- The player has achieved some system mastery, and his characters derive specifically from that system mastery. He picks options that are mechanically better in what he thinks is an objective sense. He "builds" all his characters.

3 - Optimization Sublimated: "Jaurim answers the bandit with confidant honesty: I do not fear your challenge, rogue, for I am simply the best duelist in the land." -- This is system mastery in service of roleplaying. At this stage, the player is not bound by "objectively stronger" options. Instead, he is interested in taking cool concepts and being able to use his deep knowledge of the system to make those cool concepts work.

Folks in stage 2 are the optimizers that everyone seemed to get upset at. Folks in stage 3 are fun in any game.

- - -

Now, what does this have to do with the discussion of "system balance"? IMHO, D&D is nearing the end of stage 2, which has taken us from 3.0e to 4e.

It seems to me that we are coming to a point where we can reliably make systems to emulate any genre, to facilitate any desired style of play. Sure, some people will fall too far in love with the tools, but that's (hopefully) just stage 2. It's temporary. They'll get through it, and they'll be improved by the process.

If you want to "achieve that cheering and whooping", you'd do well to take advantage of all the tools at your disposal. Balance is one of those tools. Perhaps it's one that seems to drive too much system design these days, but that's just how stage 2 goes: it's driven by mechanical concerns.

With luck, we'll soon enter stage 3, and we'll be able to rationally choose mechanics which best serve our style / genre / "cheering and whooping".

But the answer isn't to turn back, or throw away the work we've done so far. It's to realize that tools can (and should) be improved, but those tools only exist to serve the craftsman.

Cheers, -- N