What's the strangest house rule you've ever heard of?

[Robbert Raets]

Disclaimer: I do not hate men, nor am a feminist male basher. I am just a smartass - I was just trying to piss off this guy in particular.

Good for you!

 

[Westwind]

In one campaign we all had to roll a libido score (on a d12 no less), which affected how we interacted with members of the opposite sex.

My all-time worst campaign (and I was there for only one session) required me to:

Roll 3d6 on all stats, in order. Then roll to select two stats and random and add a d8 to one and subtract a d8 from another. This is, of course, after character concepts.

Mages keep track of all material components. Every last one. Like the number of pins you have for lightning bolt. And the setting wasn't even Dark Sun or some other bleak place where it might make sense.

There was a purple gas (from some PC game I never played) that sprung up from time to time and it would morph you into really strange things. We had a purple cactus-looking character and a samurai who looked like a cross between a pig and a demon.

The players were all around 7th level. I was forced to start at 1st and, to no one's great surprise, spent a lot of the session somewhere between -10 and 0 hps.

Everyone was evil. But not interesting, sophisticated evil but mindless selfish evil. Why were they all working together? No clue. Maybe it was the purple gas.

 

[WayneLigon]

Finally remembered another couple:

1.
Roll Initiative.

Everyone gets up and switches chairs so that you're sitting in Initiative order highest to lowest, right to left.

Every. Single. Init. Roll.

2.
DM decided to use the damage location charts from Stalking the Night Fantastic. You know the ones. The ones so detailed that it tells you what organs have been damaged. And even has locations on most of those organs. So, yes, you could lose 20 HP ' in the lower right half of the large lobe of the liver'.

 

[JayOmega]

Finally remembered another couple:

1.
Roll Initiative.

Everyone gets up and switches chairs so that you're sitting in Initiative order highest to lowest, right to left.

Every. Single. Init. Roll.

Man, that'd be a gas in 3rd edition.

"I refocus." Sit on the lap of whoever's in the first chair.

"I delay my action." Start circling the table like a game of duck-duck-grey-duck (or duck-duck-goose, depending on where you're from.) Helpful if you delay to the end of the round, and get to walk behind the DM and peek at his notes.

Jim: "I ready an action to do something when Bob acts." Bob: "I ready an action to do something when Jim acts". They keep swapping seats to the DM's right until one of them hits minimum initiative.

If you get a lot of delaying and readying and refocusing going on, and it would look like a game of full-contact musical chairs.

ObOnTopic: I've never played with any truly bizarre "house rules". I did once play in a campaign doing the play-as-yourself thing. In a time-traveling campaign where we wound up on Earth during WWII. In retrospect, that would have made sense as a Rifts campaign, but it was a bit weird in D&D.

 

[Vocenoctum]

in 1 & 2 e
Elves were 90% immune to sleep. Each night you'd roll 1d10. If you rolled 1-9 you were awake. If you rolled 10, you slept for 1d30 hours, and nothing could wake you.

 

[Chimera]

2.
DM decided to use the damage location charts from Stalking the Night Fantastic. You know the ones. The ones so detailed that it tells you what organs have been damaged. And even has locations on most of those organs. So, yes, you could lose 20 HP ' in the lower right half of the large lobe of the liver'.

And then the bad guy yells;

"We've come for your Liver!"

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: House Rules IRL

edited because someone already posted what I said.

 

[Angcuru]

Re: Re: House Rules IRL

edited because someone already posted what I said.

and that was....?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Re: House Rules IRL

and that was....?

Well, telling would be really redundant, now, wouldn't it?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

By the way, I love the "Call" rule. The group I'm gaming with would love it. Fun stuff.