Do you let your players know your House Rules?

[swrushing]

in terms of rules, i tell them my house rules beforehand.
Why? because when i started this game up, i already told them what system it was using, which is me telling them the rules. if i intend to change those, i ought to be telling them.

BTW, i have had house rules for every game and every system i ever ran.

When it comes to adding new material, like new monsters or new spells and so forth, i make a decision based on its role. If its a unique or "new to the area" thing, than it comes as a surprise to them, unless one of their backgrounds is relevent. if it is an old existing part of the setting, i give them an event in gamr to make sure they get "reminded" of it, like the old woman who rattles on after the first mangled body is found about the legends of the beasts in the hills.

 

[Voadam]

Yes, I tell my players about any house rules I plan on using before we play. Few things are more irritating to players than having the DM suddenly spring a house rule on them in the middle of a session...

DM: Okay, the ogre swings his club at you... *rolls dice* ...and scores a critical hit. *rolls percentile dice* Also, your armor has been damaged and will have to be repaired.

Player: What the hell?!

DM: It's just a house rule I decided upon before the session started.

Player: Are there any other house rules I should know about?

Rules? Yes. But how about monster characteristics?

DM: tonight I'm going to be adding a new rule to the game,

Player: OK what is it?

DM: It's called magic absorption, when a creature with magic absorption is hit with magic the magic is dispelled and gives the creature temporary hitpoints equal to the level of the spell. Also when you use a magic weapon against the creature, the enhancement bonus does not cause damage to the creature but adds temporary hit points to it.

Player: Uhm OK.

DM: Here is another rule, the world has a creature called the manavore that has magic absorption, it looks like a glowing rust monster and has 6d8 HD and blah, blah, blah.

Player: uhm OK, I guess my fighter buys a bow, mundane arrows, a non-magical reach weapon, and a normal club as a backup. Gee, I wonder what surprises that monster creating wizard we were hired to track down might have come up with.

 

[StalkingBlue]

I'm pretty transparent as to my GM-side houserules.
(And completely transparent as to all houserules that directly affect the PCs, which should go without saying really. All my player-side houserules are in writing and up on some forum where players can reference them.)

For GM-side new rules:
I'll let the players wonder and gnaw their fingers the first time round they meet something new that isn't easy to judge level-wise and can't be explained out of the Monster Manual. After they've dealt with the threat I'll be happy to discuss the mechanics, especially if it was a one-off.

If it's a recurring threat, I'll still let the information filter through gradually if my players are interested in learning it. Mechanics-smart players will always end up figuring out the mechanics of things by reverse-engineering the results of their die rolls.

Not to mention I find that everyone gets more fun out of a game when I'm open towards my players. Disclosing Behind-The-Screen Information(TM) helps build player-GM trust, signals to players that they are welcome to "own the game", and often sparks cool ideas and input from people that would never come up if I kept all my GM cards close to my chest. Even with talking about my GM-side house rules I can still keep more than enough secrets for the players to discover, or make new secrets to my heart's content.

It's up to individual play style I reckon. For me being transparent is more enjoyable and leads to the best fun I know how to help create, which is what counts in the end.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Knowing how the basic DR system works and knowing stats on any particular monster are different to me. I think it is fair to tell the players whether or not the 3.0 or 3.5 DR rules apply in a game. Same with scent, since animal companions could very well have the ability. Better to let the players know the stats on an animal before they make the choice, I say.

 

[rangerjohn]

Hardly wasted. That +4 adamantine flaming burst greatsword is going to come in handy a lot. It just might not work against one or two particular creatures you thought it would.

And it's not like my players are ignorant of the fact that there's some risk. Sure, if I had a brand new player and sprung this on him with no warning, that would suck. But I tell people from the beginning "A few details are changing on monsters, and that might include weaknesses/vulnerabilities." So they know not to count anything as a given.

This is one of those areas where I, and my group, prefer to try to make the world as emersive as possible--and that means that not even the experts get everything right. Sometimes you have to try a few times to see what works.

I'm not saying I might not enjoy your game as a simple fighter. The kind that blunders his way through life. But anyone who plans is going to be thrown for a loop. This seems to be intentional, because the planner isn't going to be any better at knowing about monster a, than the bumbler, its all experimentatiion. You mentioned an admantine weapon earlier, just why would such a weapon be crafted? If vulnerablities are not known why did the crafter go through the expense of regular steel.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm not saying I might not enjoy your game as a simple fighter. The kind that blunders his way through life. But anyone who plans is going to be thrown for a loop. This seems to be intentional, because the planner isn't going to be any better at knowing about monster a, than the bumbler, its all experimentatiion. You mentioned an admantine weapon earlier, just why would such a weapon be crafted? If vulnerablities are not known why did the crafter go through the expense of regular steel.

Hmm... Maybe I'm still not getting the point across.

Most of this information is available. Wizards and sages know that most golems are vulnerable to adamantine. They know that some dragons are vulnerable to magic weapons, or that some fiends are vulnerable to a combination of magic and holy energies. The PCs have access to the generalities of monster capabilities.

What they don't always have access to are the specifics. Do all balors share the same vulnerabilities? Is there a breed of troll that is immune to acid, but vulnerable to cold? Planning is vital, it just isn't always 100% accurate.

To use a real world example, let's say you were about to go traveling through a South American jungle. And your guide tells you "See this container? It holds anti-venom. It's effective against almost every known variety of snake, but it's possible that there's a type of snake in there we don't yet know about, where it doesn't work." It's still worth your while to purchase the anti-venom, since it may well save your life under most circumstances. You just also have that little area of uncertainty where it may not work--but you're still better off with it than without it.

Back to broader game terms. My players know the gist of the DM-oriented house rules. They just don't always know specifically which monsters have changed, or in what specific way they have done so.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

When it comes to setting information, I've put some work into making a player handout meant to be read prior to character creation. It lists the races and classes which are available in the setting, as well as the supplements from which I'll be allowing feats, spells, and the like. House rules which affect the characters directly are included - variant rules from Unearthed Arcana, for example, or my own changes like the conflating of Spot and Listen into a single skill and the abolition of the concept of "class skills".

When it comes to things like damage reduction, I would tell my players that things have changed without going into specifics - but since I would expect them to research specifics even in a by-the-book campaign, it wouldn't matter much anyway. For example, it may be common knowledge that werewolves can shrug off blows that should have killed - but it will take a Knowledge check to remember (or a sage to discover) exactly what kind of weapon will strike true.

If it's a holy weapon in my setting rather than a silver weapon as in standard D&D, what of it? The PCs in a standard game would have to find out about silver weapons just like the PCs in a different setting would have to find out about holy weapons. That's why I wouldn't tell my players the exact details of such changes - their characters wouldn't automatically know about them like they would know about metamagic feats not increasing the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell but only working three times per day.

 

[Guilt Puppy]

Wow, I'm surprised at some of the responses against DM house-ruling. I always, always, always make it clear at the start of a game that, save information in the PHB, the players should never rely on any assumptions outside of what they understand in-game. Usually with the example: "The color of a dragon's scales says nothing about its alignment, or breath weapon, for that matter. Not that your characters would even know for certain that dragons exist. Moreover, if you should someday happen to encounter one, you should definitely not assume that it is of an appropriate CR to your level. The same goes for everything else in this world."

I consider this a service to my players (it's not easy rewriting the rules for monsters, left and right), and for the most part, they seem to understand that. Adventuring is about discovery, about venturing courageously into the unknown. It's not a Math Applications test ("okay, class, I hope you all reviewed pages 113-126 of the Monster Manual last night, because tonight you'll be fighting a Gibbering Mouther"). Usually when I unload the spiel at the start of a game, there's one or two players who seem to appreciate it right away, one or two who groan, and the rest who just shrug and say "hey, whatever." After a few weeks, though, there will be one or two more converts who really like the less bookish feel (sometimes former groaners), mostly people who are still like "hey, whatever," and one final holdout who is especially fed up with it (and eternally surprised by it, for that matter.)

So yeah, so long as you don't deliberately mislead the players about the rules of the game (letting them assume the Books are True when they aren't counts as misleading), I say do what you want, when you want with the mechanics. It's good for the game.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Wow, I'm surprised at some of the responses against DM house-ruling. I always, always, always make it clear at the start of a game that, save information in the PHB, the players should never rely on any assumptions outside of what they understand in-game. Usually with the example: "The color of a dragon's scales says nothing about its alignment, or breath weapon, for that matter. Not that your characters would even know for certain that dragons exist. Moreover, if you should someday happen to encounter one, you should definitely not assume that it is of an appropriate CR to your level. The same goes for everything else in this world."

That's not changing rules, that's changing monster stats.

The example given is: The rules (and not dm-only rules or any other such nonsense - there are spells that players get which use the mechanics) say that with respect to damage resistance, either a weapon is magical, or it is not. It doesn't matter how magical the weapon is.

If you, the DM, decide that in this world, sometimes it matters how magical the weapon is, then I daresay you should probably drop the hint to your group, most likely in the form of "for some creatures, base magics are not enough - only the most powerful of weapons can scratch their hides".

After all - the party wizard will GET a spell that lets him ignore nonmagical arrows. He KNOWS that a certain level of magic is needed to overcome the spell. With the typical wizardly intelligence of 18 or higher, it's unlikely that he's never considered that there could be more powerful versions of the spell around.

But the player doesn't have an int of 18. He's looked at the rulebook, and it tells him how things work.

Make up stuff all you want, but there's a point where you're just screwing with players to irritate and disadvantage them, not trying to produce a more entertaining game.

 

[S'mon]

I aim to tell my players all House Rules as pertaining to the Player's Handbook, but not changes to the DMG or Monster Manual. A possible exception with the PHB would be changes to spells where no PC was able to cast those spells. If I change spells mid-game that PCs can cast the player gets the chance to swap out the altered spell for something else.