Amount of DnD Tampering you're willing to tolerate...

[Doc_Klueless]

After reading so many threads about how "I changed this" or "I changed that" (admit it. All DMs are guilty of this in some way. Some ways good, some ways bad), I've started to wonder about something.

When you join a group or, for those who DM the vast majority of the time, pretend you're joining a group, how much tampering with the Core DnD rules, races, etc. would you tolerate before you wouldn't join/participate in a group?

Myself, I like games I participate to have no more than 10-15% tampering. So, I'd fall into the "Some tampering, but it better still mostly resemble DnD!".

 

[Dalenthas]

Hey, I got a full third of the votes so far! WOOHOO!
Lots, but there better be a reason I bought the PHB!

 

[Doc_Klueless]

So far we've gotten one purist. I'm not sure if s/he was joking when s/he voted like that, but I find it interesting that the majority of the votes offer at least some tampering. Not surprising, but interesting. I wasn't sure if I was in the majority (tampering with) or not. It's hard to tell when you've only encountered maybe 30-35 gamers out of the reported 1,000,000+ who play DnD.

I've also noticed that there is far less tampering in other games than DnD. I've played in two Shadowrun campaigns. Very, very little tampering. And one Vampire game with NO tampering.

Anyone else experience this trend or am I an isolated individual.

 

[wolfpunk]

I personally have lots of tampering in my campaign. Third edition is the first version of D&D I have done that with though. I have never even thought to tamper with another rpg. I either liked it or I didn't but usually trying to make changes in the other systems was to difficult to bother with it. So needless to say I am very happy with the user friendly openess of 3rd edition to changes.

 

[Turlogh]

I was the purist (at least the first one) I find that keeping the rules as written easier and less argument causing. Everybody has the PHB and can read and learn the rules, not everybody has a copy of my new house rule of the month. I find that alot of house rules are inconsistantly applied and not always well thought out. I also like the kiss theory (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID).

 

[Maerdwyn]

Well, I tamper with lots of games, at least once I've run them enough to know them well enough to know what I don't like. I've have also, for some reason, found that it is easier to find multiple players for a heavily modified D&D campaign than it is for something like a straight Pendragon or Ars Magica campaign.

I love Pendragon's character development system. I don't like its combat system, and found only 2 area players willing to play Pendragon. So, in my current D&D campaign, I scrapped alignment and almost all CHA effects for Pendragon's Traits and Passions system, and easily found more players than I could accept.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Turlogh: Completely understandable. And, perhaps, makes the most sense.

Now to reveal my motive: I'm rewriting my campaign world. Well, actually, I'm scrapping the whole thing and starting over and I'm trying to get an idea how much I should deviate from the rules as written to appeal to the most gamers. Since this group is larget collection of gamers I had to poll, I posed the question here. This might also explain the two Race and Class polls I also started. Well, this and boredom. heh, heh, heh.

 

[BronzeDragon]

So far we've gotten one purist. I'm not sure if s/he was joking when s/he voted like that, but I find it interesting that the majority of the votes offer at least some tampering. Not surprising, but interesting. I wasn't sure if I was in the majority (tampering with) or not. It's hard to tell when you've only encountered maybe 30-35 gamers out of the reported 1,000,000+ who play DnD.

I've also noticed that there is far less tampering in other games than DnD. I've played in two Shadowrun campaigns. Very, very little tampering. And one Vampire game with NO tampering.

Anyone else experience this trend or am I an isolated individual.

You are right about this. D&D (and AD&D before it) do see more tampering than other RPGs.

This is due, I believe, to the fact that D&D rules are more flexible in terms of how they can be bent or changed.

Shadowrun, as an example, is hard to tamper with. Those piles of dice tend to clutter the rules up, and make them less flexible.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

As a player I don't mind at all if the GM wants to go wild ... as long as there is a reason behind it. If the GM is going to add a cat-race or a dog-race or an armadillo-race I want a little something more than a different discription and attribute modifiers. If the GM is going to create a different magic system I want to know why he's doing it and why it has a different flavor than the old one.

These don't have to be 20 page thesis papers. A simple "I added in the armadillo-race because this game takes place in an alternate Texas" is fine. I'd like more info, but it's fine.

As for myself, I stick to the core rules as much as possible because I want my setting to be compatible with Neverwinter Nights when/if it comes out.

 

[Deadguy]

Because D&D Lets You!

I know that there are some limits built into the way D&D3e is structured: note the number of dicussions about low magic campaigns and the difficulties of balancing them, as an example.

But D&D3 is different from earlier editions in that it sets out upfront that it's a toolbox to allow the DM to build a wildly divergent set of realities and thus campaigns. It can be easily tweaked here and there, and it's transparent enough that most changes are calculable in advance. That's why I like it so much! I can build the fantasy campaign I want, rather than have to essentially create a set of rules up front to fit my world view!