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

[Oofta]

Yeah, that would have been silly. Now if only Gandalf knew some large flying creatures that were friendly to him and the hobbits that could have flown Frodo and the ring to Mount Doom, that would have been much better.

Hey now, don't be dissing my man Gandalf for the one thing he was actually good at - convincing other people (well creatures in this case) to do stuff for him. If the eagles had flown while Sauron was alive they would have been killed [... snip page long rant written with the eloquence of a 7th grader who thinks he's writing a thesis ...] just like the Balrog.

Well I've made my point. Good day!

 

[Igwilly]

Hey now, don't be dissing my man Gandalf for the one thing he was actually good at - convincing other people (well creatures in this case) to do stuff for him. If the eagles had flown while Sauron was alive they would have been killed [... snip page long rant written with the eloquence of a 7th grader who thinks he's writing a thesis ...] just like the Balrog.

Well I've made my point. Good day!

I remember in The Hobbit that the giant eagles could only fly inside a certain territory. An eagle said he/she could not fly further than a certain point because it's "men's territory". I still didn't read LotR and I refuse to see any movies until I read.

 

[dkmurphy]

Pet Peeves I've house ruled in other editions:

No Paladins. I have only been in a group with 1 person who played a Paladin well. Most were lawful STUPID or lawful annoying. Those players were more disruptive than any other player/class combo I ran. So I'd let the one guy run a paladin and he ran it well and it was the only class he liked. He usually DM'd so when he got to play that is what he wanted and did it well. Anyone else, yeah, not so much. I'm going to be running a 5e game here and there for our group and I might/might not allow it. I'll probably discourage it, but not ban it unless a player really annoys me with it.

Item weights. Seriously how hard is it to look up how much weapons weigh? They got better with 5e. In prior editions, they had weights 2-5 times actual item weight, yes including scabbards. I used to be a knife maker and I had many weapon reproductions from historical weapons, and the historical weapons made properly were WAY lighter than listed in the book. And don't give me a line about size making it effectively heavier.... Some editions stated that certain things were more cumbersome, and other editions did not. 2e & 3e were really bad about this. Not that we ever paid too much attention to encumbrance rules, it just seemed really sloppy. It is easy enough to find out an average weight for stuff that is basically real. I didn't bother house ruling any of it when I ran games most games I ran and played in did not take encumbrance into account very much. Only when we would get a dragon horde or something. It was just a splinter that bugged me though.

 

[Igwilly]

Pet Peeves I've house ruled in other editions:

No Paladins. I have only been in a group with 1 person who played a Paladin well. Most were lawful STUPID or lawful annoying. Those players were more disruptive than any other player/class combo I ran. So I'd let the one guy run a paladin and he ran it well and it was the only class he liked. He usually DM'd so when he got to play that is what he wanted and did it well. Anyone else, yeah, not so much. I'm going to be running a 5e game here and there for our group and I might/might not allow it. I'll probably discourage it, but not ban it unless a player really annoys me with it.

Sorry the trouble, but you got my curiosity: this player - who roleplayed a Paladin right - how he roleplays/roleplayed this class?
As you can find at the beginning of this topic, I love classic, LG-only Paladin but I think the armies of Lawful-Stupid pseudo-paladins do not show the class' strengths. So I'm always searching for rp-ing one well, and now I'm curious, so if you want to, explain it ^^

 

[smbakeresq]

I remember in The Hobbit that the giant eagles could only fly inside a certain territory. An eagle said he/she could not fly further than a certain point because it's "men's territory". I still didn't read LotR and I refuse to see any movies until I read.

That's simply unbelievable.

 

[innerdude]

I don't know that too many of my "pet peeves" are capricious. I'll certainly restrict races/classes, depending on the setting, but that's always for continuity/campaign reasons.

The one pet peeve that's definitely capricious with me is I simply don't allow animal companions. You can have a mount, but no animal companion. This is always one of my up front, Session Zero explanations to my players. And yes, I realize this does limit some ranger and pretty much all druid character concepts. And I truly don't care.

Animal companions in my experience are among the worst time-wasters in actual play. Since they regularly disregard standard PC action guidelines, you're constantly having to look up how far they can move, arguing over how simple/complex commands can be, what happens when they get hurt or die, whether they're capable of being used as an ally for flanking, etc.

Yes, I realize I could just read up on every little detail around all of this and let it slide, but I truly just do ... not ... care. If you want to play with a dog, go home and take your pooch for a walk; don't waste my RPG time trying to recreate your "secret life of pets" fantasy.

 

[Igwilly]

That's simply unbelievable.

Ok, I'll respond both possibilities:
1) I do remember reading that quite well.
2) You're saying that because you don't know me hahahahaha. But that's an off-topic discussion.

 

[dkmurphy]

Sorry the trouble, but you got my curiosity: this player - who roleplayed a Paladin right - how he roleplays/roleplayed this class?
As you can find at the beginning of this topic, I love classic, LG-only Paladin but I think the armies of Lawful-Stupid pseudo-paladins do not show the class' strengths. So I'm always searching for rp-ing one well, and now I'm curious, so if you want to, explain it ^^

I was the youngest player there by a couple years. 2 guys who were in their 40's at the time ran those 2 groups. I was advised that they wouldn't allow evil characters when I started gaming with them and they prefered a co-operative play style. So I knew going in what kind of play they prefered and gamed with them for a couple years before I ran a game. The main DM, was a little OCD and put a ton of time into preparing the game and he did a great job, but as the DM rarely got to play a Paladin, so when he played that is what he wanted to play. So I knew before hand what he saw as LG behavior, though we didn't see 100% eye to eye in each and every little ruling it was close enough.

In play he was very good at actually acting like his Charisma score was higher than 2. He played it as if he were trying to live up to the ideals. I hate devolving into religion, but its hard not to. He was a Christian, and in a good way. I'm not, but have no problem with people that are. He was the same way in character. He did what he thought was right and how he saw LG being. He understood what DMing was like and was happy to get a chance to just play. Our group didn't normally just go around killing helpless enemies in general, we tended to run into orc women and children on a regular basis for example. So as a group we tended to like playing heroic characters, so certain situations didn't come up. My friend simply treated people the way he wanted to be treated and did not try shoving his belief system down people's throat, so that part of his personality came through in his portrayal of the character. He was good at tactics, in real life he like reading about medieval tactics so that was fun and he brought that into our game. As a DM I was uninterested in putting him in situations to test his paladin hood. That wasn't fun for me, so he was never in danger of losing it This was 1e/2e era. So some of it was player personality, some was the type of game we enjoyed.

Other players over the years played LG more like LN, at best or LAWFUL good, with good being a very very distant second, where IMHO when there was an alignment restriction, it should be lawful GOOD or GOOD lawful if you get what I am trying to say. Players would try to boss around the other players, force them to do what they wanted to do; generally acted like petulant spoiled brats. They were very disruptive in every aspect of play. In some games I played in evil campaigns, not much or often or in a mixed group and the evil characters were less disruptive than the Paladin, even in an all good group. After a while, I just banned the class unless I had a player that was like my friend, which never happened.

 

[dkmurphy]

I don't know that too many of my "pet peeves" are capricious. I'll certainly restrict races/classes, depending on the setting, but that's always for continuity/campaign reasons.

The one pet peeve that's definitely capricious with me is I simply don't allow animal companions. You can have a mount, but no animal companion. This is always one of my up front, Session Zero explanations to my players. And yes, I realize this does limit some ranger and pretty much all druid character concepts. And I truly don't care.

Animal companions in my experience are among the worst time-wasters in actual play. Since they regularly disregard standard PC action guidelines, you're constantly having to look up how far they can move, arguing over how simple/complex commands can be, what happens when they get hurt or die, whether they're capable of being used as an ally for flanking, etc.

Yes, I realize I could just read up on every little detail around all of this and let it slide, but I truly just do ... not ... care. If you want to play with a dog, go home and take your pooch for a walk; don't waste my RPG time trying to recreate your "secret life of pets" fantasy.

You make some good points.

 

[Arilyn]

This is minor, but the Healing Kit is a problem. Not the kit itself or what it does, that's perfectly fine. My problem is it only taking a round to use. Really? A round to apply bandages or splints? It gets particularly silly with the rogue's ability to use an item as a bonus action during combat. If the rogue has the healing feat, he can attack an orc, and heal a wounded buddy! Is this some kind of magic first aid kit that you can hit someone with and they heal? In my campaign you have to have at least a minute and some breathing space to use a healer's kit.

My other pet peeve is heavy armour. It's not something I would change, however, because it is too entwined with the rules. But seriously, who would go adventuring in dark dangerous dungeons, or wilderness wearing plate? Who would even clank around town in the stuff? Heavy armour was for pitched battles only. Not something you wander around in. I know, D&D is not realistic, and there are lots of silly things in the game. The armour is just the one that has always bugged me.