D&D 5E (Deleted)

[Lanefan]

Grouping houserules in with homebrew seems ... confusing and not very useful to me. Not sure what the objective of the pole is.

Any change to the game system - be it an actual change to a rule, an added homebrew element, a setting-required deletion (e.g. no Dragonborn in this game) - is in the end a rule change.

The only changes that aren't rules changes IMO are table-level restrictions e.g. no evil PCs, as those sort of things don't change anything in the game or setting (evil characters certainly exist there!) but merely tell players what they're allowed to play.

 

[LordEntrails]

Any change to the game system - be it an actual change to a rule, an added homebrew element, a setting-required deletion (e.g. no Dragonborn in this game) - is in the end a rule change.

Creating new magic items is a rule change? Describing a village or a tribe of marauders is a rule change?

I guess it doesn't matter. To me that are all things that are expected and normal for any game of D&D.

 

[Lanefan]

I am now curious about the campaigns that effectively have their own complete rulebook, but are still consider 5th edition.

Mine's not 5e. I tend to treat nearly all D&D threads as "general" as so many things can and-or do apply to most/all editions - including this poll question.

 

[Lanefan]

Creating new magic items is a rule change? Describing a village or a tribe of marauders is a rule change?

In order: yes; and no.

The magic item list is, technically, part of the rules. Adding an item to said list changes said rules. That said...

I guess it doesn't matter. To me that are all things that are expected and normal for any game of D&D.

...exactly this. Rules changes are expected, to the point we often don't even realize (or care) we're doing it.

 

[Yora]

I feel new magic items and monsters are homebrew within the rules.
Spells and feats might be regarded more as rules additions, as those are character options that chance the game on the players' side

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I know you got frustrated with some of the people here, so maybe try again, but in two separate threads, one for house rules and one for homebrew, since the two are completely different things.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The preliminary questions seem to be:

Do you use house rules?

Do you have written house rules?

Once you cave a yes to both of those, then you can start asking how many pages, specifying you are including homebrew content or not. Although it still may depend more on the size of the writing rather than the number of rules.

My group has house rules that we have all agreed on, but they aint written down anywhere.

 

[Lanefan]

My group has house rules that we have all agreed on, but they aint written down anywhere.

That must be a PitA for anyone new joining your game.

 

[rmcoen]

That assumes new people join the game. I've been with the same crew for 20 years - we've added one and lost one in that time.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I'm finalizing my homebrew rules document. The player options are currently sitting at 175 pages.

 

[Stormonu]

A few hundred pages homebrew - custom classes/races/spells/monsters and around 5 different campaign worlds. All fleshed out to a level with intent to publish.

Houserules is maybe a page.

 

[teitan]

I’ll decomplicate a bit. I have a few. 1. We decided character generation beforehand, either 4d6 drop lowest but keep a 1 unless it takes you over 18 2. Roll hit points, if it’s below the suggested hit points in the PHB take the suggested otherwise keep the roll 3. No rules arguments while playing for more than 3 minutes, after that I make a ruling and we look it up later and change it going forward.

 

[Hussar]

I honestly think one of the biggest gaps in people talking about the game is how often they change players. While I have a couple of players who've now gamed with me for almost twenty years (phew), my longest lived full group was about five years. My first twenty years of gaming saw completely changed groups almost yearly, certainly every 3 years.

The notion of having a totally stable group that has gamed together for decades is just completely alien to me. So, the notion of being able to have dozens, or even hundreds of pages of house rules and home-brew stuff just isn't in the cards for me. I simply can't because how the heck could I convey all that to new players? And, frankly, I've had a new player at my table pretty much every single year (and many years, almost every few months).

My approach to gaming is far more in line with something like RPGA or other public gaming. Which, I think, does explain a LOT of the disagreements that happen on the boards. It's so difficult to explain why I choose to do something to someone who just has zero experience with what I'm dealing with. And vice versa of course. People offer advice and my first thought is, "Nope, that's not going to work" - not because it's a bad idea but because I'll have to explain that idea over and over and over again to every new person who sits at my table and it's just not a viable solution.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think that is a fair assessment. My experience in established groups is the DM basically runs the show, but with groups with higher turnover being more accommodating to the players would have a higher impact.

Most of my groups have averaged about 5 years or more and usually end because I've moved locations. From high school to college to yet another college to overseas to back home. I was fortunate to have one group in graduate school which largely stayed the same (only growing!) for over 10 years.

My current group has barely been for 2 years and still feels "young" to me. I can't imagine playing pick-up games in a hobby shop or something... I think the players would probably just annoy me.

 

[Stormonu]

I think I'm about to start on my 9th "core" gaming group, with members from my 3rd, 4th, 7th & 8th group ranging in age from 17 to 52. Two of them DM in games of their own (that I play in), not related to the campaigns I run. Some of the things I've adopted are based on things I learned in their games, and a lot of their houserules are ports of my own (such as how criticals and fumbles are open-ended rolls using a variant of the "confirm" rules from 3E), and I was their first DM, all the way back to the 90's (my 80's group I left back in California). I prefer to run games from my house (where I've got a whole room of books, miniatures and other supplies), but it looks likely this game will be run at the local game store due to being the midpoint from various houses (and ultimately, less household distractions).

 

[Hussar]

Honestly whenever I hear people talk about how the dm is most important and does most of the work so has the greatest say, it nearly always dovetails with stable group that has gamed together for years.

When you don’t have that and it’s fairly easy to simply find a new group - that approach to the game doesn’t really work.