GMs: With What Do You Tinker?

[GMMichael]

No role-playing game is perfect, unless you write one for yourself or you mod your favorite RPG to your heart's content. I'd like to see what ENWorlders like to change about their RPGs, since not all changes are equal:

Rules - the mechanisms that make the game go. These are the foundations of RPGs (with the social contract being the soil beneath). Example: your character is fully healed after a long rest.

Lists - the game features that rely on the rules. It's often easier to tinker with lists than rules, since the effects of a change are limited to that list. Examples: monsters, equipment, character classes (that don't introduce class-specific rules).

Adventures - what your group does with the rules and lists. Sometimes these come with the game, sometimes they're sold separately. Tinkering with these means writing your own or modifying pre-made adventures.

 

[BookTenTiger]

All three!

But in terms of most to least tinkering...

#1 - Adventures. I always write my own adventures, have done so since I was in Middle School. At first it was just a way to not spend money, but it's also just how I enjoy playing the game.

#2 - Lists. I really enjoy using established rules, but adding my own flavor on top of that.

#3 - Rules. I'll tinker with this last, since it can impact gameplay in unexpected ways. Usually I'll try to change rules collaboratively with the players rather than on my own.

 

[Maxperson]

No role-playing game is perfect, unless you write one for yourself or you mod your favorite RPG to your heart's content. I'd like to see what ENWorlders like to change about their RPGs, since not all changes are equal:

Rules - the mechanisms that make the game go. These are the foundations of RPGs (with the social contract being the soil beneath). Example: your character is fully healed after a long rest.

Lists - the game features that rely on the rules. It's often easier to tinker with lists than rules, since the effects of a change are limited to that list. Example: monsters, equipment, character classes (that don't introduce class-specific rules).

Adventures - what your group does with the rules and lists. Sometimes these come with the game, sometimes they're sold separately. Tinkering with these means writing your own or modifying pre-made adventures.

I not only tinker with all three, I tinker with that which was not listed. Settings!

 

[Arilyn]

I'll change rules to fit my preferences, although I'll at least attempt to play "stock" first. Sometimes rules that I think I won't like turn out to be valid or even awesome.

I like to use pre-written adventures as springboards but they never survive my table even remotely intact. Other times I create my own or use minimal prep for story now gaming.

Lists are mostly left as is.

 

[Lanefan]

All of it is fair game for kitbashing, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[J.Quondam]

I wanted to vote "I tinker with Players' emotions."

But I settled on "Lists" and "Adventures." I used to tinker a lot with rules, but more recently I try to avoid it, in favor of just using a rules set that better matches whatever I want.

Honestly, it's a truly wonderful thing that there are so many more gaming options today than "back in the day" that the need for rules tinkering isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion.

 

[CleverNickName]

When I first started playing, I didn't tinker with anything. We were running B/X and BECM rules, and that system was fluid enough to handle just about any curve we wanted to throw into it. I used the rules and lists in the books, and played the published adventures.

When we started playing 3rd Edition, I was house-ruling literally everything. That rules system was so rigorous that it seemed like I needed a written rule for nearly every possible situation and circumstance, and my players loved to take me to task about them on the regular. By the time we stopped playing, my collection of House Rules was almost a hundred pages. It had my own classes and prestige classes, my own rules for crafting and naval combat, you name it. And I was writing my own adventures at the time, too.

Nowadays, I create my own lists and I write my own adventures, but I leave the rules alone and play them as-written. My players either love this or hate this, depending on the last number they rolled, but I find that I enjoy the game a lot more. I'd rather be world-building than drafting up new rules.

 

[ART!]

I modify adventures A LOT. I guess I use them mostly as a skeleton of themes and details for me to choose from.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Since I rarely if ever use a setting and system that were made for each other, there always some adjust to the rules, particularly PC creation. There will always be tweaks to combat rules, although if a system requires too many adjustments I just dump it.

I will change lists, but since I avoid games like 5e or Pathfinder, it usually doesn't come up as much. I do rework monsters in order to foil the sort of player who likes to inform himself of stats and specifics.

Scenarios are, to me, just raw material. All I want is the core outline; if I can use more, great, but frequently I simply read reviews of a published adventure, note the core concept, and use that, saving me the expense of buying it. Something just the blub will contain what I need. Too few scenario authors include the stuff I want, or dare do anything beyond the same old tropes, so if you pick out the one spark of innovation there (if there is any), that's all you need. Plus a lot of players are GMs, or just like reading game material, so there is no point in paying money for something that is compromised.

 

[kenada]

I voted for all three, but I’ll also second (third?) that I also do my own setting. It’s all about creating the desired experience, and everything plays an important part in that. The setting drives some of the stuff on the list, but it also influences the stuff I do for my homebrew system (e.g., available ancestries, flavor of classes, etc). I’m running an exploration-driven sandbox, so adventures tend to emerge organically, which I guess that falls under “write your own”.