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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark Hope" data-source="post: 5197410" data-attributes="member: 27051">I've always seen a distintion between "official" supplements and houserules.  I'd say there were three levels at play here: core rules, supplements and house rules.  I think it's all down to personal definitions, though - for some folks the inclusion/exclusion of a supplement might be deemed a house rule.  For others, it's not.  We would always decide on which core rules, supplements and house rules were in use in any game, viewing each separately.I house rule.  A lot.  Always have done.  And (moreso with the d20 era) I use supplements and 3rd-party material a lot.  My current D&D game is Pathfinder for core, with stuff from 3.5, Conan d20, Malhavoc, Necromancer Games, and Green Ronin all thrown into the mix, in addition to a bunch of house rules.  It's a glorious mish-mash of stuff that gives us the kind of play experience that we want.As for Ari's original post, I felt kinda sad for him reading it.  I've been there - been worried about whether things are balanced or not - and moved on from it as soon as I started to feel it cramping my creative freedom.  The freedom to go wild is part of what makes DMing a joy for me and I'd hate to feel like I had to hold myself to some imagined standard, particularly if that standard made me feel like I couldn't cut loose when I wanted to.  Balance has its place, to be sure, but as DMs we need to be able to step out of bounds and fly by the seat of our pants.  For me at least, that feeling of "no safety net" is kinda exhilarating.  I'd hate to lose it.I'll echo the poster (forgot who - sorry!) who suggested aiming for a little looser feel in your home games and catching some of that clear air again.  Who knows, it might bleed over into your published work, and for the better <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.</blockquote>

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