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

[Riley]

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.

Morrus,

Personally, I'm glad he did. The only way I know about anything around here is when it appears on the messageboards.

Waaaaay back when, I used to read the News page - but then I learned that everything was old news by the time it got posted there.

For the last few years, my only regularly used bookmark on ENWorld is this: General RPG Discussion - EN World D&D / RPG News

If you want me to know about the blogs, this is the best place to clue me in - unless you can create another page that I will want to check five (or twenty) times a day.

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EDIT: I just went intentionally looking for Ari's blog by going to "Blogs" at http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/

The only indication on that page that hinted at Ari's Blog's existence was a tiny little clip at the right-hand bottom of the page which said, in its entirety next to a little Morrus Avatar:

As a note - for some reason this blog is being...
I fought the RAW, and the RAW won

I'd suggest that you might want to consider improving the means by which we are able to browse the blogs.

 

[Nifft]

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?

Well, if you want to achieve a specific effect, you need to be able to predict the results of your changes. To be able to predict how any given change will affect a system, you need to understand that system.

In 4e, the system you need to understand is big.

Ooo, there's one other huge thing which makes house ruling 4e very hard: the Character Builder. It's easy to ban things, but impossible to add new things in.

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

Is C&C an OSR game? It felt fairly modern, compared to 1e.

Cheers, -- N

 

[.5 Elf]

Ooo, there's one other huge thing which makes house ruling 4e very hard: the Character Builder. It's easy to ban things, but impossible to add new things in.

Yup, I made a brief mention of it in my original post. Char builder is a double edged sword for sure. The fact that it really only supports the RAW is a huge flaw imo. I sent an email to Mr. Mearls about it in fact.

To me DDI is going to be one of the single biggest things that will kill a lot of would be houserules with newer gamers.

It's also why I don't subscribe or allow char builder at my table.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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

Right. Though I don't think Ari's campaigns suffer from that, if he's lamenting that he can't quite liberate himself from all the rules-stuff he's learned to appreciate.

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

I don't disagree, I just don't consider a lack of balance to be necessarily something against a system. Especially a system that isn't really involved in its own rules.

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

Ari seems a bit stuck in Stage 2 as far as his house rules go.

Though I don't really think Stage 3 is necessarily a natural or even desirable progression, since it is essentially just getting back to Stage 1, but with more jargon.

I think that a player who can say "I'm the best duellist in the land" without having to know exactly the bonii that my seven feats give me and which paragon paths to take and how to position my mini on a map is a great goal for a game that wants to be as accessible as possible.

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.

...and then might hit Stage 4: Re-Streamlining: "Why do I have to have deep knowledge of system jargon to pretend to be a magical elf? Well, I guess I don't. I guess I can be a magical elf without having to read 900 pages of rules and buying $500 worth of minis and mapping tools and special dice. I can just do it by flipping a coin."

...and then the process starts all over again.

Tools need to have a purpose. A hammer is a tool for increasing power. A computer is a tool for processing information. A game is a tool for education. A D&D rulebook is a tool for pretending to be a magical elf. You don't need much in the way of tools to do that. In fact, you don't need any. If you have any, it is only because you want them, not because they are somehow objectively useful in pretending to be a magical elf.

 

[Nifft]

Ari seems a bit stuck in Stage 2 as far as his house rules go.

Yep. That's exactly why I brought up the comparison.

Though I don't really think Stage 3 is necessarily a natural or even desirable progression, since it is essentially just getting back to Stage 1, but with more jargon.

No. It's not jargon. It is being able to make the system serve your flavor. There is nothing undesirable about stage 3, and there is nothing beyond it: this is a simple thesis-antithesis-synthesis progression.

Stage 2 exists because of a specific frustration which stage 1 inflicts.

I think that a player who can say "I'm the best duellist in the land" without having to know exactly the bonii that my seven feats give me and which paragon paths to take and how to position my mini on a map is a great goal for a game that wants to be as accessible as possible.

Do you actually prefer a game where people play without knowing the rules?

...and then might hit Stage 4: Re-Streamlining: "Why do I have to have deep knowledge of system jargon to pretend to be a magical elf? Well, I guess I don't. I guess I can be a magical elf without having to read 900 pages of rules and buying $500 worth of minis and mapping tools and special dice. I can just do it by flipping a coin."

Yes yes, we all love d02. As a joke.

I'm going to assume an abundance of sarcasm in this paragraph.

If you have any, it is only because you want them, not because they are somehow objectively useful in pretending to be a magical elf.

Rules don't exist to facilitate "pretending to be a magical elf". Rules exist to facilitate conflict resolution -- which is to say, when you want your pretend magical elf to do something which conflicts with the goals and aspirations of my pretend magical goblin tribe.

Cheers, -- N

 

[mach1.9pants]

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

Umm never. It is a house rule to NOT allow any official, non-optional core rules. All the 4E PHB etc series are core, not required, but still officially in the game. Therefore not allowing your PCs to use them you are house ruling. Not the other way around.

 

[Morrus]

Personally, I'm glad he did. The only way I know about anything around here is when it appears on the messageboards.

So the answer is to interlink the blogs and the forums more? That helps - thanks! It's fairly easy to output the data in all manner of ways - it's just a case of what would annoy people and what wouldn't.

 

[MrMyth]

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).

Just as a bit of insight from a reader's perspective, Morrus - if this wasn't made as a forum post, I would never have read the blog post article. By posting it in the forums, the blog post was drawn to my attention.

Even if there was a forum post directing people there and encouraging them to comment there, I very likely would have not commented even if I went and read it. The forum is simply more conducive to feeling like an actual conversation is happening - as Jdvn1 says, I might leave a comment on the blog for the specific author, but a forum thread would be were I would post my opinions for general discussion.

 

[mach1.9pants]

So the answer is to interlink the blogs and the forums more? That helps - thanks! It's fairly easy to output the data in all manner of ways - it's just a case of what would annoy people and what wouldn't.

Yeah TBH I would not discuss with forum members the blog on the blog page, that seems to me more to respond to the author direct. Maybe having a sticky at the top of the appropriate forum for x amount of time to discuss the blog. And at the bottom of the blog... a discuss here linky.

 

[Morrus]

Yup, so I'm thinking making blog comments and forum posts the same thing. That shoudn't be too hard.

When someone makes a blog post, it cross-posts here. When someone responds here, it cross-posts to the blog. They'd be essentially the same data set, but presented in two different ways (i.e. one's blog would be a slection of one's lengthy posts that you'd like gathered together for people to view).