Why are house rules bad? Why are people proud of having few house rules?

[Odhanan]

From a game's table point of view, there's nothing wrong with houserules (provided the DM knows what s/he's doing, of course).

The problem comes from the "shared experience" that stems from the reasons behind Advanced D&D. AD&D was meant to be a shared experience, to allow advanced play between players using the same set of rules. Hence the very hardcore quotes from Gary Gygax you can see popping up here and there in various grognards' threads.

It's all about the shared experience really. The more you houserule the game, the more you deviate from the shared experience. If you don't think that's worth the trouble when compared to the pleasure you and your buddies have playing the game, then there's nothing wrong with houserules indeed!

 

[Jdvn1]

I use house rules when needed for what ever reason. Nothing bad about them in general. But I do see a lot of house rules that are not well thought out.

But, everyone thinks their own house rules are well thought out.

Personally, I like the balance of D&D RAW. It's not perfect, but I think it works really well. Any rule that changes that irks me, but I can play with it. Moreover, I like being able to just jump into any D&D game and know what the rules are and how a situation will tend to play out.

 

[Terwox]

Most houserules I've encountered are GM's trying to "fix" aspects of the game that aren't broken, while breaking other aspects of the game along the way.

 

[Odhanan]

But, everyone thinks their own house rules are well thought out.

I don't think everyone's convinced their houserules are motivated by subjective yet balanced reasons. I believe some DMs out there just houserule the game to suit their own tastes. Sometimes it'll mesh with the players' tastes, sometimes it won't, and when it doesn't, it often has to do with a complete disregard for the players' side of the screen, really, which is a basic no-no of DMing for me.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I grew up playing earlier editions of the game and yes, we had our house rules also.

That said, I found that with the release of Third Edition there came to be online a whole lot of rules proselytizing going on (read: these rules are new, but I know what’s going on and my interpretation is right ---even if it wasn’t). It also seemed like many regulars were more interested having the “right” reasoning for the new rules, as opposed to the most practical ‘what works best in play’ sort of reasoning.

Wherever I’d go online I’d bump into folks in rules discussions where phrases like, “Oh, well that’s just a house rule, we’re talking about the RAW here.” were common responses to otherwise creative/thoughtful rules interpretations.

I.E. the blatherings of self-anointed rules gurus, not necessarily Dungeon Masters.

This lame sort of “there’s only one way to do it” attitude used to always put me off. After all, up until that point one could talk about D&D rules online (on old fashioned mailing lists and bulletin boards, at any rate) by contributing custom rules and house rules ideas with the understanding that such responses were just as valid as the RAW at that time.

I think this attitude killed the concept of house rules being valid.

I’ve yet to figure out exactly where or how the mindset changed, much less where this uncreative attitude came from, given that many 2E and older edition players converted to 3E (so you’d think a more free-form attitude would carry over), 3E doesn’t tell you to go the RAW only route and 3E is made to be expanded on at length.

With all that said I do believe a flaw of 2E was its lack of completeness; too many situations were not covered in those rules. 3E’s completeness doesn’t leave as much room (that is, need) for house rules.

Yet my six years running 3E Realms campaign has its share of house rules.

Around here I get the impression that around these parts there’s a (mistaken, IMO) idea that if you monkey with 3E rules the whole thing comes crashing down. Wasn’t there some sort of get it off your chest thread recently that espoused this idea?

Anyway I just don’t see that idea as true, inasmuch as my campaign/DMing experience is concerned.

My take, at any rate.

J. Grenemyer

 

[Jdvn1]

I don't think everyone's convinced their houserules are motivated by subjective yet balanced reasons. I believe some DMs out there just houserule the game to suit their own tastes. Sometimes it'll mesh with the players' tastes, sometimes it won't, and when it doesn't, it often has to do with a complete disregard for the players' side of the screen, really, which is a basic no-no of DMing for me.

Well, for you, but other DMs have their own opinions of what "well thought out" constitutes. "Their own tastes" is "well thought out" for some people.

 

[Jdvn1]

But, everyone thinks their own house rules are well thought out.

Caveat: I must admit that I'm one of those GMs too.

 

[Odhanan]

Well, for you, but other DMs have their own opinions of what "well thought out" constitutes. "Their own tastes" is "well thought out" for some people.

Indeed. This is the definition of an objectively wrong opinion.

 

[Glyfair]

That said, I found that with the release of Third Edition there came to be online a whole lot of rules proselytizing going on (read: these rules are new, but I know what’s going on and my interpretation is right ---even if it wasn’t). It also seemed like many regulars were more interested having the “right” reasoning for the new rules, as opposed to the most practical ‘what works best in play’ sort of reasoning.

Wherever I’d go online I’d bump into folks in rules discussions where phrases like, “Oh, well that’s just a house rule, we’re talking about the RAW here.” were common responses to otherwise creative/thoughtful rules interpretations.

Honestly, I think that a lot of that is the nature of discussions in rules forum, especially here with the dicotomy of a rules forum and a house rules forum. If someone asks a rules question on the rules forum, he isn't looking for a "this is the house rule we use" answer. He's looking for "what is the intent of this rule" or "how does this rule technically work" answer. Answering a question about how LA works with your personal house rules is out-of-place there, but proper for the house rules forum.

The rules forum would be a difficult place to post on if everyone had to caveat every single answer with "but your DM and your group can house rule this if you wish." I think that's assumed in almost every single answer (there are always a few stubborn people who think there is only one right way to run something, but I they really are the exception). I know every comment I make on that forum has that as a subtext.

 

[drothgery]

Around here I get the impression that around these parts there’s a (mistaken, IMO) idea that if you monkey with 3E rules the whole thing comes crashing down. Wasn’t there some sort of get it off your chest thread recently that espoused this idea?

Probably. Something along those lines usually comes up in 'low magic games' threads. And that's because it's true -- except at low levels, radically changing the power and availability of magic* and magic items does throw the whole game out of whack unless you're very, very careful. Or trying to remove AoOs -- there's tons of mechanics that depend on AoOs.

* Psionics and any other source of supernatural abilities are counted as 'magic' for the purposes of this paragraph.