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

[ExploderWizard]

This is D&D. We're D&D players. The dangerous wilderness should be what we seek out.

And when there's no more dangerous wilderness, it's usually time to retire, at least for a time, to that keep you liberated so long ago.

This is what too many "experienced" gamers often forget.

I also disagree with your assertion that unbalanced = fun.

KM correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't get the impression that this was your assertion exactly.

My own assertion is that rules balance is not required for fun which is not the same thing.

IMHO 4e is very hard to house-rule (relative to other editions of D&D), so the fact that Ari has suffered frustration trying to house-rule it makes total sense to me -- and has nothing to do with over intellectualization, or with balance being some kind of boogieman.

Cheers, -- N

Nope it's simply so involved,complex, and dependent on uncustomizable software tools that the pain in butt outweighs even the satisfaction of getting the game you want.

I still managed to houserule a bunch of stuff. I'm just careful that none of it conflicts with the character builder.

 

[mach1.9pants]

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).

That is a great idea.

 

[Herobizkit]

For the record, I saw Ari's blog on the News page as soon as I accessed the site.

 

[bagger245]

The thing is, will this mentality affect storytelling?

 

[Rechan]

I house rule a lot. I didn't houserule all that much with 3e. Namely it was taste/fluff reasons (no alignment restrictions for class, for instance).

With 4e, I find myself making more mechanical houserules because I find part of the system has flaws and I want to make it more balanced (or, balanced in a better way). Or making adjustments to powers ("Effect: Sure strike gives a +2 to your next attack) that makes them balanced compared to other powers.

The balance is the reason for the house rules, not against them.

And it's easier to add things. Like the "Rule of Cool" and Power Stunts.

I expect the only real problem with making adjustments to rules is that the CB limits you. But I say bugger the CB. I am not its slave!

 

[Odhanan]

The RAW's my b*tch, and I will keep it that way.

Pardon my French, but that's how I felt when I read this blog post.

 

[Lanefan]

For the record, I saw Ari's blog on the News page as soon as I accessed the site.

So did I, but not everyone comes into the site through the front door like we did this time.

I expect the only real problem with making adjustments to rules is that the CB limits you. But I say bugger the CB. I am not its slave!

Call me naive, but what is "the CB"?

As for the actual blog, it seems the writer got caught by the large underlying shift in design philosophy between 2e and 3e: 3e and later are by design just not as tinkerable withable.

Up to and mostly including 2e the rules were presented somewhat as guidelines - OK, here's the system; it's loose, somewhat modular, yet solid enough to withstand some changes: now take it and make it work for you, and have fun. And we did. I'd hazard a guess that among those of us on these boards who play 1e none of us are playing by the exact same rule-set, and so what? Yet we still identify as playing 1e.

With 3e and since came a shift to the rules being presented as Rules, with tinkering (outside of a few limited areas) being at first subtly and later not so subtly discouraged. So the original writer, being used to tinkering all over the place with 2e, had to mostly put away the toolbox. Much of this is due to the 3e (and later) systems being much tighter - unlike earlier systems they played perfectly well as written provided you wanted your game to play that way. If not, the later systems were (are) nowhere near as forgiving of tweaks and changes due to what have been termed "knock-on effects": changing one thing here means something goes sideways there and that in turn causes something over in the corner to explode. And some of it might be a logical business decision: years-later expansions will sell better if everyone's still pretty much using the system as written rather than having tinkered it into unrecognizability.

In a sense, we've gone from a Linux philosophy toward an Apple philosophy.

Lan-"get out and get under"-efan

 

[Rechan]

Call me naive, but what is "the CB"?

Character Builder.

A publisher I respect recently was lamenting about how the Compendium/Character Builder put a real hurtin' on the potential of 3rd party publishers.

 

[Psion]

The RAW's my b*tch, and I will keep it that way.

I like to say "use the rules, don't let the rules use you". (i.e., see sig.)

By extension, this means I don't take the rule as holy writ if they deviate from my idea of the right way to make a game fun. But it also means I won't slave away to pretty up a rule and make it safe for consumption (i.e., house rule out the wazoo) if its too much work.

 

[Desdichado]

Is C&C an OSR game? It felt fairly modern, compared to 1e.

To paraphrase Shang Tsung, it was a taste of things to come.

I.e., I personally don't consider it part of the OSR movement, because I think it predated the OSR movement, at least as a recognizable and labeled phenomena. Certainly, though, it was a hint that there was a significant population of OSR minded people ready to begin a movement.

And the nature of the game itself reflects that; it was dabbling in 1e tropes and conventions without yet fully embracing them. It was like a hybrid of 1e and 3e.