D&D, house rules, and other game systems

[Primitive Screwhead]

I agree with the above posters and have myself HR'd something in every game system I have played in....except Paranoia and Aliens (FASA)... characters were not around long enough to worry about such silly things like continuity or 'organic growth'

One thing not mentioned is that DnD is a generic system used in a number of different settings... where most other systems are only for one setting.

Play CP2020 and Night City is where the party is at.. there are no 'official' variants like Forgotten Nights or City of Dragons. This means the mechanics work well for representing the setting of the game.

DnD takes the other route and any given setting doesn't quite fit the generic rules, so tweaking is done to whittle it into shape.

IMO the HR Tomes used at some game tables are left-over from earlier versions of DnD where a coherent setting virtually required massive adjustments to the rules.

 

[diaglo]

I've houseruled every game system I've ever run.

fifth.
i house rule Monopoly
Black jack
poker
chinese checkers
Scrabble

etc...

ad naseum

 

[Mechnomancer]

We've housed HERO's speed system to D12s (heroic only)

Paranoia XP has mechanical rules for accusing someone of being a traitor. I housed it to, you just do it.

 

[danzig138]

Comparing your experience to my experience: yes, your's is an aberration. I house rule the crap out of almost all my games*, and have almost since I started playing. When I first started playing, the GM ran things BTB, but when I got into gaming a little more, with a different DM, he used an almost completely re-written house ruled version of 1E. He also ran games using a system he devised. So I've always been of the house ruling mindset - it just didn't limit itself to D&D.

It's always been quite common when someone goes to gen a char for a game of mine, I hand them a 1" binder and say "These are the changes." For my Rifts/Megaverse game, it was a 3" binder.


*My current game, Hercules and Xena, has a few house rules, but it's one of the lightest rules mods I've ever done, comparable only to the limited ruling I did for a CoC game.

I've actually been trying to get away from house ruling so much, just to make game prep easier. Plus I get tired of hearing my players gripe about some house rules - always the ones which make things harder for them, because they seem to forget that the game has to be enjoyable for me as well.

 

[Nomad4life]

Also, there might be a few people that house rule Palladium RPGs

I was just about to point this out. I mean, RIFTS was UNPLAYABLE without them, right?

 

[Crothian]

I was just about to point this out. I mean, RIFTS was UNPLAYABLE without them, right?

Wrong, it was completely playiable without house rules. It just took a good GM and a williness to do so. Those are rare so most people house rule.

 

[scourger]

Most house rules for D&D I've seen are because the DM has expectations of how the game "should" work, implicitly or explicitly, usually based on a couple of decades of prior play across many editions. Of course, the players have expectations, too. When expectations conflict, there is conflict in the game. I find it's better to use the rules as written.

I have HR'd WFRP recently, but it only adversely affects the bad guys by taking away all their wounds and making them subject to sudden death criticals. That change makes me more of a storyteller adn less of an accountant since I don't have to track HPs for the foes that assail the heroes. Otherwise, it's RAW. This gives the players a little more assurance that my calls aren't just arbitrary. Of course, they don't have as many expectations for the game. So, there are fewer conflicts. See above.