[Ari Marmell's blog] To House Rule or Not to House Rule

[catsclaw227]

It's also why I don't subscribe or allow char builder at my table.

I am curious, if a guy wants to make a rogue with powers from PHB and Martial Power, you won't let them build it out in the CB? Why is that?

 

[Riley]

Yup, so I'm thinking making blog comments and forum posts the same thing. That shoudn't be too hard.

When someone makes a blog post, it cross-posts here. When someone responds here, it cross-posts to the blog. They'd be essentially the same data set, but presented in two different ways (i.e. one's blog would be a slection of one's lengthy posts that you'd like gathered together for people to view).

Sounds like a great plan to me!

 

[Galloglaich]

My argument was that there are three stages to being a character optimizer. These stages are:

1 - Mechanically Naive: (snip)
2 - System Mastery: (snip)
3 - Optimization Sublimated: (snip)

Folks in stage 2 are the optimizers that everyone seemed to get upset at. Folks in stage 3 are fun in any game.
- - -
Now, what does this have to do with the discussion of "system balance"? IMHO, D&D is nearing the end of stage 2, which has taken us from 3.0e to 4e.

That was a well written post and a good analysis of the theoretical framework behind the direction DnD has taken I think... the drive for players to houserule and the drive for the developers to make new versions (and new games) are both caused by the disconnect you eloquently described at stage 1.

But I think where your theory breaks down is the idea that we can get to stage 3 from stage 2. I think stage 2 is a dead end. In elevating balance to the sacred cow of game design, WOTC has stripped more than houserules out of the game, they stripped out all the different ways people used to play the game, and all the individual nuances which elevated it above say, monopoly. Broken as it was, you used to be able to play DnD as a high fantasy, dark, low fantasy, historical, literary genre, cinematic genre. Everything from Lovecraft to Lord of the Rings, from Sauron to Samurais... The system has now lost most of that flexibility. You are much more limited to a very specific type of (ultra) high-fantasy / high magic game.

If you will forgive a crass political allegory, I'm reminded of a quote by Martin Buber back in the 19th Century, in critique of Karl Marx "One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves." I think D&D has entered the 'Dictatorship of the Balancariat*" and you will find that it is not, as promised a "transitional phase". It is perpetual (until the collapse).

The other problem I see is that in order to get to stage 2, as a customer of DnD I basically have to learn a whole bunch of what I call "Klingon". DnD was originally based on the literary influences of great writers like Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, HP Lovecraft (all of whom have adolescent appeal but can also be appreciated on an adult level...) and the remainder was filled in by the completely wide open realm of 'real' Mythology and History. Many of the game mechanics were broken, but quite a few could be intuitively picked up based on what you knew from real life, cinema, history or actual literature (as opposed to fanfic, computer games or manga).

Now days you have to be deeply immersed in gamer-geek or MMORPG subculture to understand even the basic concepts of the game. 4E may be a fine niche game for people who like that particular style, but the elements in 4E don't exist in history or in any literary or cinematic genre I have any interest in. So for me it's a closed system, and one which I don't think it's easy to get to from just being a generic person with an interest in fantasy literature or history but no interest in getting invested in 'geek' culture. That to me is the big difference between the type of people who got into the game in the 70's and 80's and the type of people who get into it now.

I think if you want to have a game that is fun and flexible enough to exist outside of the 'klingon' niche, you fix it directly at stage 1, then the DM and the industry game writers like mousferatu can quit worrying so much about game mechanics and explore the limitless possibilities of making fun adventures that grownups can take seriously, whether they be worlds to history and literature or computer games, manga comic books or whatever it is that turns you on.


G.

* Mind you it's not that I think balance is a bad thing, it's not, it's quite necessary, but it is not the only thing. Just like a plant needs water. But if it's overdone everything else get's smothered (and your plant dies).

 

[Teemu]

In elevating balance to the sacred cow of game design, WOTC has stripped more than houserules out of the game, they stripped out all the different ways people used to play the game, and all the individual nuances which elevated it above say, monopoly. Broken as it was, you used to be able to play DnD as a high fantasy, dark, low fantasy, historical, literary genre, cinematic genre. Everything from Lovecraft to Lord of the Rings, from Sauron to Samurais... The system has now lost most of that flexibility. You are much more limited to a very specific type of (ultra) high-fantasy / high magic game.

Actually, you can run a perfectly working 4e game with zero magic. Thanks to the warlord class and the alternative rewards option in DMG2, you can do it very easily and without sacrificing the use of the Character Builder (magic items re-flavored to natural, non-magical abilities). I think this could be the first edition of D&D that supports this since, if I don't remember wrong (little experience with pre-3e D&D), you need a spellcaster to heal the party in earlier editions.

 

[Galloglaich]

Actually, you can run a perfectly working 4e game with zero magic. Thanks to the warlord class and the alternative rewards option in DMG2, you can do it very easily and without sacrificing the use of the Character Builder (magic items re-flavored to natural, non-magical abilities). I think this could be the first edition of D&D that supports this since, if I don't remember wrong (little experience with pre-3e D&D), you need a spellcaster to heal the party in earlier editions.

But you are missing the point. Whether you want to call the mechanics "magical" or not 4E is still a type of supernatural superhero world, a very very specific artificial genre which doesn't really relate to anything outside of the RPG / MMORPG / comic book subculture. Battleminds and Runepriests and paragon class powers don't show up in History, mythology, literature or cinema that I'm aware of. I don't see any Teiflings in Kirosawa Samurai flicks or in the Arabian knights or Robert E Howard or Jack Vance or the Icelandic Sagas or the Ring of the Nibelungenleid.

... you need a spellcaster to heal the party in earlier editions.

No, you didn't. Because in earlier versions of DnD while you maybe 'needed' a healer if you used the RAW and played canned modules, but per Mousferautus blog, you weren't as closely wedded to the RAW or published material as you are now, which is why there was still room for so many other styles and contexts which did have some relation to the world outside of certain cliche fantasy RPG stereotypes.

G.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hey, I have an idea. How about we not turn this into an edition war thread?

Please? It's been a great discussion to this point, and I've been fascinated at the various points/comments/thoughts raised by what I had to say. Let's not ruin it.

 

[Teemu]

But you are missing the point.

All I know is that the rules as presented in 4e books allow for a non-magical game with nothing but humans and no high-magic elements (or tieflings and whatnot), and it still works mechanically.

 

[Jdvn1]

Hey, I have an idea. How about we not turn this into an edition war thread?

Aren't you glad this wasn't on your blog?

 

[The Shaman]

But I think where your theory breaks down is the idea that we can get to stage 3 from stage 2. I think stage 2 is a dead end.

I think Nifft's theory that this is a progression of stages is wrong, though as a description of different states or mindsets I think it's pretty interesting.

I've long disagreed with the notion that charop inhrently inhibits roleplaying, and I agree that it may enhance it. But I think it's a stretch to see it as some sort of evolutionary endpoint in the development of games or gamers.

As for me, I tend to write a fair number of house rules, but usually they either clarify or expand on the rules-as-written, or they are there to add flavor. Only rarely do I feel the need to fix something I think of as 'broken' in the original design.

I've noticed over the years that the more complicated and inclusive the system, the more likely I am to feel the need to house rule one or more core mechanics.

 

[Rechan]

I suppose that there might be a distinction. Ari's blog seems to touch on specialty cases all over the place. Things that were not "balanced" but were off the cuff uniqueness.

Meanwhile, there are house rules you can make within something to create more balance, or that don't effect balance (per se), but can easily integrate within the system - they don't effect the system.

The former I will call House rules Outside the system and the latter House Rules Inside the System.

I can't think of a good outside the system Houserule - a corner case invention off the cuff situation? I donno. But I can think of one that's inside. Taking 4e, there's the notion of Passive Insight/Perception. Well, one house rule I am going to use is having all passive skills. For instance, if a PC with Nature encounters a natural beast, he'd get the monster knowledge info up front as if he had rolled a 10 on his knowledge nature check. A rogue with a passive thievery shouldn't even need to roll to pop open a locked drawer - the DC is underneath his passive thievery.

That sort of rule facilitates an existing rule (Passive Insight/Perception) and merely emulates it in circumstances where other skills would function.