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

[Fifth Element]

In a way, I agree with you. The term "hit point recovery" would have been a more accurate description of what is actually going on. I guess "healing" is used because it's shorter and covers most (though not all) cases of hit point recovery.

Agreed. "Healing surge" was a poor choice of terms, since 4E really emphasizes the abstract nature of hit points. They don't represent physical wounds only, so "healing" really should not be involved in the terminology.

 

[Nifft]

Agreed. "Healing surge" was a poor choice of terms, since 4E really emphasizes the abstract nature of hit points. They don't represent physical wounds only, so "healing" really should not be involved in the terminology.

Recovery of HP has always been called "healing", even though HP themselves have never been well-defined.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Fifth Element]

Recovery of HP has always been called "healing", even though HP themselves have never been well-defined.

That's true, but 4E was the first edition to make non-magical healing standard.

Although hit points have always been abstract, you've largely been able to ignore that fact if you wanted to because the only sources of healing were divine magic and rest. In 4E, a warlord shouting at you gives you hit points. The abstract nature of hit points is much more front-and-centre, and difficult to ignore.

 

[Nifft]

That's true, but 4E was the first edition to make non-magical healing standard.

Mmm. Do you mean "... to make non-magical healing fast"? There have always been rules for non-magical healing, so far as I recall, but they worked on a much, much slower scale.

Although hit points have always been abstract, you've largely been able to ignore that fact if you wanted to because the only sources of healing were divine magic and rest. In 4E, a warlord shouting at you gives you hit points. The abstract nature of hit points is much more front-and-centre, and difficult to ignore.

What about the 3.5e ToB:Bo9S healing maneuvers?

Cheers, -- N

 

[FireLance]

What about the 3.5e ToB:Bo9S healing maneuvers?

While popular with some gamers (and criticized and vilified by certain other gamers ), the Book of Nine Swords probably wouldn't be considered part of the "core" rules for most definitions of the term "core".

 

[AllisterH]

Seriously? How about Duke Nukem. Or Doom. Or a gazillion other games.

Your definition that it has to have all the specific features of the 4E healing surge may limit the scope, but what I (and many others) recognize is a quick way to suddenly gain your health points back so you can keep killing mooks even though you have gotten shot a hundred times yourself.

This has a 'video gamey' feel to me yes there I said it. I see a link.

G.

This is kind of funny as many hardcore videogame afficiandos (aka the guys who hang out and post blogs like we are doing here) point to HALO's self regenerative shield as a CLEAR difference between previous FPS and part of its success.

For the vast history of videogames, the STANDARD way to recover health (especially in videogames) was to have healing packs/stim pack/potions of healing/dedicated healing person/medic a.k.a the standard D&D method

Part of HALO's success many critics argue was removing that and moving towards the self regenerative method which has been duplicated endlessly.

Ironically...this LATTER method is seen as more "realistic" in videogame circles than the classic "break a barrel, find a healing potion".

Arguing that the two are the same would get you many a funny look in videogame websites/blogs as they produce two DIFFERENT effects in game play. It would be akin to someone arguing that 4e and 3e are the exact same games

(HALO, thanks to its self-regenerative shields was noted NOT to present as much turtling as say DOOM since players knowing that they could recover from injury by themselves were more likely to take chances and thus be aggressive)

 

[Desdichado]

The OGL opened the door wife open of course, and yes of course they published lots of optional rules and splat books (though I didn't even know unearthed arcana were actually houserules... I never bought it since I wasn't interested in it) but as per the blog linked in the OP, even while the D20 explosion was happening, the balance obsession was tightening things up dramatically, making it more and more of a nuisance to make houserules for D20 let alone publish any. The formula for what was acceptable had become much tighter partly because any change in the system had a huge cascading effect on all kinds of other parts of the game.

So... in other words, house rules suffered because the expectation on how good those house rules had become was higher?

I guess I only see that as a problem if you had a habit of developing really bad house rules or something.

I've houseruled my 3.5 game so much that I hesitate to even call it D&D at all. I never thought it was difficult, or a nuisance, or anything.

Apparently, neither did an awful lot of publishers who kept putting out alternate rules like crazy.

In other words it's not that houserules were impossible, nor third party products since everyone knows that D20 created a huge overwhelming flood of material for the game (too much, it could be argued). It's that the creative open-ended type of modifications had become more difficult, all the variation was inside a sort of cone from which 4E emerged. And yes I'm aware this is a subjective opinion and I'm sure you will mathematically prove me wrong to the ninth decimal point. You won't convince me any more than I can convince you.

I'm not interested in you proving me wrong or vice versa; I'm just curious if there's actually anything at all you can point at as an example of this. Or if this is just an argument that you're emotionally invested in for some reason.

See, for me, even for my subjective opinions I can at least describe how I arrived at them and why I have them. For example, I strongly disagree with your assertions that house rules were difficult 3.5 because 1) I have an entire bookshelf full of, basically, house rules published by various sourced, both official and non, and 2) I've house ruled by game out the wazoo and found it absurdly simple to do so.

I'm especially curious how we come to the paradox that you admit to having plenty of house rules in your own game while simultaneously calling it a nuisance to houserule and something that WotC has discouraged.

The OP described a false pressure to adhere to some kind of imaginary balance. It's a psychological pressure based Mouseferatu's perceptions about balance in the game. There's nothing about the game itself that requires that. And the idea that "Oh, back in the day before we had balance and our games were crappier, things were better! Now that we've discovered balance, suddenly I have no confidence to play around with the game because the balance is so fragile that I have to step on eggshells" doesn't make a lot of sense to me, frankly. If you don't particularly value balance, then why are you so worried about it? If you do value balance, then of course wouldn't you rather have a more balanced baseline to start from? If you think 3.5's balance was illusory anyway, then why do you care?

Where did this false, psychological pressure to create ultimate balance with every single houserule come from? Certainly, I've never felt it. I don't believe anything inherent in the game itself caused it. I was part of the same online community as everybody else during that age, and I didn't get it there either.

So, yeah--I'm honestly mystified as to the souce of this "balance pressure."

I'm not getting the vibe you are really interested in my assertions, as opposed to just winning an argument. Once one of these discussions reaches this level of vitriol online, I've yet to see anyone suddenly "see the light" or even actually seriously consider anything the other person is saying. What you call 'vague and snarky insinuations' somebody else might just see as the inevitable subjective part of an argument.

I'm not interested in winning any argument at all. I don't even believe that we're arguing. I'm just trying to drill down through your position and understand it, and move past the emotional assertions that don't actually demonstrate anything. If you get that vibe, that's because you're overly defensive and emotionally invested in your position.

I don't want to go into huge detail because I know from experience that does spark even more crazy arguments, flame wars and edition wars, all of which I find incredibly tedious. This conversation was pushing into edition wars territory first with 4E, now it's back to 3.5. You really can't make any criticism of DnD in this forum without being assigned a whole slew of labels and annoying some fanatic fans of this or that edition. They all have big problems in my opinion, so you can all hate me.

I agree; they've all had big problems. I've thrown up my hands with frustration with D&D more times than I can count. Ironically, I think they may have many of the same problems that you think they have.

My solution to that is to houserule it into the shape I want it. I've found it an easy thing to do, and had great success with it over the course of several campaigns. You're solution to it is to tell me that what I've done many times successfully and easily is impossible.

This seems rather contradictory.

It's not. I can recognize a label as insulting and dismissive without being personally insulted by it. Surely that's not a new idea to you?

Especially since I'm not a comic book, nor even really a comic book fan; why would I be insulted by that particular insult?

This sounds like you are trying to assign my arguments to somebody elses pattern, which since we are slinging around accusations of intellectual dishonesty here is a facile (if lazy) way of trying to dismiss them.

No, it doesn't. Go read it again if it's confused.

I admit that's the weakest part of my own post, where I start to tread into ascribing motive to you. But something has to explain why you're making nonsensical assertions and getting really defensive about it when I call them nonsensical. If it's not some kind of heavy emotional investment behind your opinions, then I'm at a loss as to what else it could be.

I suspect this is the reason for your ire, you like comic books, and you detected an insult toward comics in my posts. It's true, you busted me, I don't like comic books, and I really don't like superhero powers in fantasy RPGs. And I'm certain you like a totally different type of game than I do. That's fine with me. I just think people should be able to play other ways, and sorry I don't think you can do that in a certain version which will not be named.

See, here, you're no longer off the rails anymore... you can't even see the track at all you're so far away from the rails. No, I have no ire, I don't particularly like comic books, you have no idea what kind of game I like if you think I want a superhero D&D game.

And the notion that you're just a poor guy advocating gamer diversity and getting nothing from the current edition because it's just got it's One True Way™ is absurd. And I've got the personal experience (mine and my friends) to back it up. My 3.5 game is more like Call of Cthulhu than it is comic book superheroes, and has been for the better part of 8 years. I don't play 4e, but I know plenty of people who have a low fantasy sword & sorcery vibe to their 4e games, and in fact will swear up and down that 4e is easier to bang into that mold than any other version of D&D ever.

No, it's just that the discussion is tedious enough already, and once the posts get this long with this many quoted backs and forths most people reading the thread have tuned out already, and I've got zero chances of convincing you of anything, so it's all kind of pointless. Don't you think?

Yes, I do. I didn't think this was a discussion about proselytizing, though. Why does convincing each other of anything have to be a goal here?

We both have utter contempt for each others point of view, and we've made that clear.

I don't have contempt for your point of view, but thanks for letting me know how you feel about mine. That certainly explains a fair amount of your tone. See, all this time, I thought this was a virtual example of sitting on the back porch with a beer after sunset talking about gaming with some buddies. Here, you are so emotionally invested in your position, which you can't even bother to frame or explain in a way that makes any sense, that you're going on as if this is some bitter argument between two people who feel contempt for each other. We are so fundamentally not on the same page at all here.

I've said my piece, either some people will recognize what I'm saying or they won't. I know you and I will never see eye to eye on anything and I'm ok with that.

You haven't really said much of anything yet. You've basically made three assertions, all three of which are ... poorly supported, to put it as charitably as I can manage. Let me rephrase them as I understand them: 1) If your game is already well balanced, then it's difficult to houserule. Houseruling only flourishes in a poorly balanced environment. 2) 3.5 and 4e are comic book superheroes games, and you can't possibly play the game any other way. I certainly wish that I could! 3) Like-minded people will flock to this statement and understand it.

The ironic thing is that I'm probably one such like-minded person, with the exception that I've seen firsthand: 1) how easy it is to houserule, and how much houserules have flourished in official and unofficial publications, to say nothing of personal campaign websites and notes, and years and years of my own personal, successful campaigns which feature extensive houserules. 2) How easy it is to keep the game from become fantasy superheroes. Heck, all you have to do is confine your gaming to certain levels. Easiest houserule to implement I've ever heard of.

 

[Desdichado]

... but frankly yes I just don't get how "non-magical" instant healing is even supposed to work, outside of comic book or video game logic. In video games they don't really bother to explain much how the medikit or the glowing green dot heals you, it just does. In comic books it's usually some mutant power or psionics or something.

At least those bother to try and explain it. How does it work in... say, pretty much every action movie where the hero is beat to within an inch of his life, suddenly gets a determined look on his face, and then gets up and continues fighting at full capacity with no other hint that he was ever wounded in the first place except maybe blood spots on his clothes if the continuity editor is on top of his job?

I think that's a much more likely source for that trope than video games.

 

[BryonD]

This is kind of funny as many hardcore videogame afficiandos (aka the guys who hang out and post blogs like we are doing here) point to HALO's self regenerative shield as a CLEAR difference between previous FPS and part of its success.

For the vast history of videogames, the STANDARD way to recover health (especially in videogames) was to have healing packs/stim pack/potions of healing/dedicated healing person/medic a.k.a the standard D&D method

Part of HALO's success many critics argue was removing that and moving towards the self regenerative method which has been duplicated endlessly.

Ironically...this LATTER method is seen as more "realistic" in videogame circles than the classic "break a barrel, find a healing potion".

Arguing that the two are the same would get you many a funny look in videogame websites/blogs as they produce two DIFFERENT effects in game play. It would be akin to someone arguing that 4e and 3e are the exact same games

But he did not argue those two are the same. He gave completely different examples which you choose to ignore and replace with your own example.

If you want to submit that as a counter-example, then fine. But trying to set it up as a straw man substitute for his actual point is silly.

No one ever claimed that video games were monolithic. Pointing out an exception doesn't really contribute.

And, I would 100% agree that in a sci-fi type game having a technology based shield that recharges is far more "realistic" than finding a +20 health pot. The idea of a belt of batteries that could be slammed into a shield system to instantly recover the shield power (surging it) makes total sense.

But if at some point in the game the character losses his shield, yet can continue slamming batteries into his own leg to recover, then that would be stupid.

If the Gamma World game includes healing surges to recover force shield devices, I will call that cool. If the Gamma World game includes healing surges to recover hit points, I will call that lame.

 

[Fifth Element]

Mmm. Do you mean "... to make non-magical healing fast"? There have always been rules for non-magical healing, so far as I recall, but they worked on a much, much slower scale.

Of course. My example clearly referred to on-the-battlefield instantaneous non-magical healing, not resting-for-a-week non-magical healing.

What about the 3.5e ToB:Bo9S healing maneuvers?

Once again, this is very easy to ignore when playing 3E since it's not in a core book.