D&D 5E Capricious Home Rules and DM Pet Peeves

[manduck]

I used to say this but I don't find alignment to be helpful in 5e. I don't disallow alignment as much as I ignore it. It is about as important on the character sheet as your eye color.

Instead I have some general table etiquette:

1. No sexual violence

It can be part of a backstory, but I have no interest or tolerance in PC's engaging in rape.

2. No detailed sex roleplay

If it ever comes up, my games are "fade to black" when it comes to romance. I'm not going to be roleplaying a sexual encounter with my players. Discussing with a 40-something-old how he touches what is not my idea of a fun time.

3. No harming children

Obviously, it is a dangerous world and children die and get hurt and are used to threaten parents. But I want my players to be the ones that put an end to it, not engage in it. As a father I get irrationally angry just reading about people who hurt kids--I'd be inclined to punch out a player who roleplayed harming kids for the LOLs.

4. Constant backstabbing and PvP

Players have their characters do things in their own interests from time to time, over the party's interest. They keep secrets from one another. They don't all always share treasure equally. But I'm not interested in a PvP game. If the players are spending their time just going after each other, I have other games I would rather play that make that style more enjoyable for me. I've never enjoyed playing in or DMing that kind of game in DnD.

Beyond that, I'm not particularly prudish in my games. But the above rule might seem capricious to some.

This is very similar to my group's social contract at the table. Fortunately I have a great group now and I haven't had to deal with any "evil PC" problems in many years. I actually don't even have to mention this "table rule" anymore, but I did have to stick with it for some years. I like that 5e treats alignment more like a background element. So alignment doesn't come up much in my games anymore. Since we're all pretty like-minded in our fantasy tastes and like fun and heroic adventure, this evil character problem doesn't pop up any more. I'm certainly glad for it. We also tend to treat any romantic moments with a fade to black.

 

[77IM]

I managed to excise most of my "pet peeve" house-rules but I do have this one still remaining:

Knocking a Creature Out. If you are using a slashing or piercing weapon, you must declare your intent to knock out before you attack, and if you roll a natural 20, the damage is lethal.​

It just bugs me that in 5E you can lay into someone with a greatsword and then at the last minute be like, "Just kidding! Non-lethal! We're takin' this guy prisoner!" I'm considering giving non-metal bludgeoning weapons the reverse trait (making non-lethal damage their default) for the sake of "realism" since most people will fall unconscious before dying when taking blunt trauma. But this just starts down the road of calculating more realistic death rules and I'm happy hand-waving those results for NPCs; few players will complain if they club a guy to 0 HP and he turns out to be alive.


I've also considered banning feats as a pet-peeve house-rule, because I hate them. But most players seem to like them, so, eh, fine, whatever.

 

[MNblockhead]

I managed to excise most of my "pet peeve" house-rules but I do have this one still remaining:

Knocking a Creature Out. If you are using a slashing or piercing weapon, you must declare your intent to knock out before you attack, and if you roll a natural 20, the damage is lethal.​

It just bugs me that in 5E you can lay into someone with a greatsword and then at the last minute be like, "Just kidding! Non-lethal! We're takin' this guy prisoner!" I'm considering giving non-metal bludgeoning weapons the reverse trait (making non-lethal damage their default) for the sake of "realism" since most people will fall unconscious before dying when taking blunt trauma. But this just starts down the road of calculating more realistic death rules and I'm happy hand-waving those results for NPCs; few players will complain if they club a guy to 0 HP and he turns out to be alive.


I've also considered banning feats as a pet-peeve house-rule, because I hate them. But most players seem to like them, so, eh, fine, whatever.

I just throw out realism when it comes to this stuff. I go with TV/hollywood realism where a concussion doesn't have tragic, life-long traits (or at least for more rarely than real life).

Most of us just don't have much first-hand experience with violence. That's why so many people discount the dangers of unarmed attacks. A single "good" punch can ruin your life in real life. But almost nobody wants to play with those kinds of realistic rules. We want to be able to punch someone out cold and have him regain consciousness an hour later.

So, if you are going to say that you can hit someone with a wooden bat for non-lethal damage by default, I don't think it is an more unrealistic to say you've fought this guy to within an inch of his life and instead of the coup de grace, you smack him with the broadside of our sword knocking him out.

Yeah, I can accept that but not torches in small, enclosed spaces....

 

[Azurewraith]

Well, in fairness, I think the actual saying is that opinions are like money; everyone has it, but the only money that matters is mine. Pretty sure that's it. Close enough.

Anyway, I look forward to the continuing debate over the Paladin. Was the 1e Paladin the worst ever, or is the 5e Paladin worse-er-er?

Never played 1e so have no opinion sorry.

 

[Celebrim]

Not sure that I see "no studded leather" as being worse than "this is a gritty, low-magic campaign", or this is a goblin campaign--you can only play a goblin. The lack of studded leather affects game play far less than sweeping campaign settings.

Since I'm indirectly mentioned, I should point out that 'no studded leather', isn't intended to throw out an option. It's intended to make the options that exist more something I can get behind. So, 'studded leather' doesn't exist, but 'ring armor' that serves much the same function does. There is a handy handout with the available armors and a description of each. Since only like 2 of my 6 players have prior experience, no one is going like, "Where is the studded leather?"

Now, if you want real peeves, not only is "studded leather" gone, but so are all the introduced 'half-armors' that even though they didn't cover the whole body that mysteriously had superior properties to every other armor in the game. I'm looking at you "chain shirt" and "breastplate". Those sort of things don't belong in D&D. Save your partial armor for systems that support called shots. If you want "partial armor", get a different game system than D&D where called shots make sense (this is me winking at the camera), or else expect me to employ the Gygaxian solution of if a PC tries to wear partial armor, expect X% of attacks against you completely bypass armor (that is me being serious).

Interestingly, I have also run "goblin only" "team bad guy" campaigns, albeit goblin only in that case meaning you could be a goblin, hobgoblin, gnoll, bugbear, or kobold.

 

[JonnyP71]

I've fallen out with RAW 5E for a number of reasons - but I am planning to have a go with AIME... currently running some 1E though and enjoying that a lot more.

If I was to go back to running 5E, these would be my houserules:

- no multiclassing unless the story called for it, and even then just one switch and you can NEVER go back

- Dwarfs and Halflings are not arcane casters

- (the opposite of most here) alignment rules to be enforced akin to 1E

- fantasy racism exists and is rife

- the party is a team - you must all agree beforehand to play similar alignments and stick to them.

- All loot is party treasure. You may steal from a fellow party member but it is pointless, because you'll be stealing from party treasure to put it back into party treasure.

- nothing from UA, if it's not in an official hardback 5E publication it does not exist

I need hit points to be a more precious commodity. I'm toying with more gritty healing - for recovery of class abilities/spells then the standard 1hr/24hr applies, for recovery of Hit Dice/Hitpoints then 1 day/7 days. Also the following changes - a fighter's second wind recovers HD during a short rest, not hit points during a combat. If you are down to 0hp during a fight you will remain unconscious for the duration of the fight, no miraculously bouncing back up at 1hp in the middle of combat.

Magic items will have to be Identified before attunement/use is possible.

Poison effects will be much more lethal and long lasting. Fail the save and you will likely be incapacitated for days. Make the save and (depending on the creature), you may still be out of action for a few hours.

 

[iserith]

I see what you are saying, but in my defense, DMs who try too hard to create a certain atmosphere or want to realize some artistic vision with their home-brew campaign can be just as bad. In my current campaign, I started with a low-magic campaign and severely limited the classes and races that were allowed. I mentioned that in a post on EN World once and was flamed a little bit for it (the quote being: "you're pretty clearly of the "players shouldn't be allowed to enjoy playing things I don't and knowing the setting is cheating" camp, which does indeed make you out of touch." Ouch!).

On the one hand, one can argue that if you are playing D&D then players should be able to play can class or race in the official rule books. If you want another "flavor", buy another game. I guess that is just not how I learned to play the game. In the AD&D 1e era, every DM I knew had their own settings and home rules. Sometimes players would argue and sometimes the DM would change and sometimes he wouldn't. The group would have to agree to the rules for that campaign or session. Rarely do I recall that ever being an issue.

Not sure that I see "no studded leather" as being worse than "this is a gritty, low-magic campaign", or this is a goblin campaign--you can only play a goblin. The lack of studded leather affects game play far less than sweeping campaign settings.

Generally when I'm talking about house rules, I'm adding stuff, not taking away existing stuff. I added, for example, some oomph to lifestyle expenses in my town-to-dungeon campaign to make it worth paying for more than a comfortable lifestyle. I'm not too into limiting races or classes.

It's the DMs with the restrictions based on some tick they have, usually centered on "realism," that often enough correlates to other personality traits I cannot in my late age tolerate. To be clear, that doesn't apply to everyone who has such concerns and changes their game accordingly, but it's been my experience that more often than not, we're just not going to get along and/or the game is not going to be good enough to retain me as a player.

[video=youtube;pYrRqMHQY7o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYrRqMHQY7o[/video]

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'm very defensive about my changes but:

1) No monks. I just detest the idea that two people could spend the same amount of time trying to learn to fight, only one uses their bare hands and the other an actual weapon, and they end up with the same result. It's nota balance issue. It's not even a setting issue really, as I could fit monks in. I just am annoyed that this 'Kung Fu' class ever became a thing.
2) No hobbits. This isn't middle earth people. I love the good Professor as much as the next guy (or more), but stop being derivative.
3) My falling rules are a picture of baroque complexity because at the same time I'm trying to be a) lethal, so people don't shrug off falling, and b) nonlethal, so people can shrug off falling. It requires a good page or two to even describe how they work, so I won't here unless someone is interested.
4) "Chainmail": It's just 'mail'. And it's plate armor, not "plate mail". And 'studded leather' got thrown right off the table, darn it. Right now the bet is on how long I can go before I finally change the 'longsword' entry to 'arming sword', and convert 'bastard sword' to 'longsword'.
5) Oh, and my 5' step works 'backwards' of the raw, because you shouldn't be able to just step back and fire off an arrow while a guy is trying to poke you with a sharpened metal rod. So you can step in to a fight, but not out of it.
6) When a stirge lands on something it is not "grappling" with the target. It is "clinching" the target. The target may want to initiate a grapple to break the clinch, but the stirge has absolutely no interest in controlling the motion of the target. It just wants to hold on.

I could probably go on and on in this vein. I'm the king of making tons of fiddly little changes because some tiny detail of the rules annoys me.

Sounds like me. I habitually rewrite each edition's rules to tweak out things I don't like and fit my campaign better.

1) No monks right now (or druids, warlocks or barbarians for that matter right now, just NPCs). No dragonborn or tieflings either.
2) I'm very derivative, so you wouldn't like my Realms...it's what I like.
3) Mine are pretty simple, because they work off of my injury rules. That is traps and falling cause injuries (which take at least 3 days, usually longer, often much longer to heal. Uses the exhaustion track.). Happy to share as well if anybody is interested.
4) Agrees, I have padded jacks, brigandine jacks, mail, scale mail, etc. Longsword is actually a proper sword that is longer than a bastard sword, which is longer than an arming sword. That is, an arming sword has a one-handed hilt and is longer than a short sword, a bastard sword has a longer hilt primarily for balance, but could be used two-handed (usually called hand-and-a-half because of the length of the hilt), and long swords have a full two-handed hilt, but could be used one or two handed, unlike the zweihander.
5) I don't use initiative, so generally speaking, if you're in melee and attempt to step back you're usually followed. Attempting to fire an arrow whenever somebody is within closing distance (30 feet for me) is not a great idea, unless your shot happens to kill.
6) Yes.

Most of my rules start with a pet peeve about either the world, or a scene that I'd like to model but can't under the current rules. Starting with "I am not left-handed." Others are modifications to the healing magic to eliminate the meaningless scenes where somebody is too injured to help, but for some reason you can't just cast a healing spell on them. This also applies to poison and disease. My crafting and learning spells rules take a long time, because I think they should. I'm designing and running game to model a world, not add more cool benefits and abilities for characters.

Oh, teleportation or flashy abilities that theoretically don't cause a problem with the game. The teleport 30 feet thing seems to be a favorite of the designers right now. Sure, it's not any more powerful than moving 30 feet, but I don't like the idea that x% of the population now teleports, or flies 10 feet when they cast a spell, or whatever. Same thing with the disappearing weapons. If you have a magic item or a spell, fine, but just an innate ability that every fighter or warlock of the correct class has? Completely changes the world in ways that I don't like.

The other big difference is the rate of advancement. According to the Adventuring Day on pg 84 in the DMG, they go from 1st to 2nd level in a day, 2nd to 3rd the next day, two more days to reach 4th level, by the end of the month, you're 17th level. By day 35 you're 20th level. Even playing the APs you're expected to gain around 15 levels in what takes a matter of weeks, maybe a couple of months of in-world time.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Never going to reach heaven by violence that way (Seriously, KSBD, good stuff, and Throne has almost eclipsed Sigil in terms of my favourite multiversal city. Plus, better angels than D&D has ever done)

My obsessions about rules aren't so much rules as they are descriptions of the animals and how they behave. Especially dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Velociraptor was feathered, pteranadon and quetzalcoatlus would break in half if they tried to skim-feed fish from the water, Quetzalcoatlus was probably a giraffe sized murder-stork (Although a paper's come out today about one of Quetzal's relatives that has some Interesting Implications), a Triceratops was probably not a peaceful herbivore but instead basically an ancient rhino, complete with aggression, all that sort of thing.

Oh, yes, I love making animals much more realistic, dinosaurs included (my daughter love dinosaurs, and she has the only druid in the campaign who became one in Chult, so she can shape change into dinosaurs. She wanted to have a pet deinonychus, but with her story arc, she can be one instead.

One of my favorite encounters is with a bear, lion, or other large animal. They should be frightening, and are at early levels. Most people I know wouldn't want to get in a fight with a bear (or a wolf for that matter), no matter how good of a fighter they are.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I see what you are saying, but in my defense, DMs who try too hard to create a certain atmosphere or want to realize some artistic vision with their home-brew campaign can be just as bad. In my current campaign, I started with a low-magic campaign and severely limited the classes and races that were allowed. I mentioned that in a post on EN World once and was flamed a little bit for it (the quote being: "you're pretty clearly of the "players shouldn't be allowed to enjoy playing things I don't and knowing the setting is cheating" camp, which does indeed make you out of touch." Ouch!).

On the one hand, one can argue that if you are playing D&D then players should be able to play can class or race in the official rule books. If you want another "flavor", buy another game. I guess that is just not how I learned to play the game. In the AD&D 1e era, every DM I knew had their own settings and home rules. Sometimes players would argue and sometimes the DM would change and sometimes he wouldn't. The group would have to agree to the rules for that campaign or session. Rarely do I recall that ever being an issue.

Not sure that I see "no studded leather" as being worse than "this is a gritty, low-magic campaign", or this is a goblin campaign--you can only play a goblin. The lack of studded leather affects game play far less than sweeping campaign settings.

I'm quite restrictive, but my groups like it. And yes, I go back to the AD&D days as well, although the majority of my players don't. As long as they know what options they've got, they run with it. Never had an issue with it.