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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ggroy" data-source="post: 4856306" data-attributes="member: 83805">Forked from: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?postid=4855872" target="_blank"> What are the no-goes for you? </a>Awhile ago I was DM'ing a 3.5E D&D game, and wondered whether the players would notice if the DM was "secretly" playing with a different set of rules than the official 3.5 rules as written.  I tried an experiment and did exactly that, where I was using a completely different set of rules behind the DM screen while putting on a "front" of "appearing" to play the game with the 3.5E rules.Even with one "rules lawyer" type in the group, I was able to hold my own and win most of the rules arguments this guy raised, by pointing them out in the PHB or DMG.  I knew enough about the 3E/3.E rules in advanced.Obvious stuff like initiative, what was done during turns, etc ... was done more or less as expected in the 3.5E rules.  The "secret" set of rules I was using was mainly in the combat and skills.  To make a long story short, I was basically using a very simple set of rules:- Roll a d20.- If the roll is greater than or equal to the DC, it happens.- If the roll is less than the DC, it doesn't happen.- Rolling a 1 is an automatic failure.DC- 2 for trivial task (optional).- 5 for simple task.- 10 for moderate task.- 15 for difficult task.- 20 for almost-impossible task.Rolling a 20 is a critical success, for tasks which are not almost-impossible.I essentially defined in advanced whether a task was trivial, simple, moderate, difficult, or almost-impossible with respect to a particular player character and what the situation was.  These task difficulties changed during combat or with a particular situation.When the players were rolling the d20, I just watched what number they rolled and largely ignored whatever modifiers were added to the roll.  I largely ignored the damage they rolled too.For the monsters/badguys, I didn't bother keeping track of hit points.  Instead I used a condition bar with health states:- not-hit- bruised- wounded- bloodied- dying- deathEach of the health states had a tally of 1 to 5 ticks (determined by constitution), where a player attack roll of 10 to 14 would knock down one of the ticks.  After all the ticks were knocked down in a particular health state, the monster's health state would be knocked down to the next category.  For example, an orc with 3 ticks which is in a bruised state from being hit 3 times from three previous player attack rolls of 10 to 14, the next hit would drop the orc into a wounded state.Attack rolls which are lower than 10, were a miss.For an attack roll of 15 to 19 (ie. difficult task), it would knock the opponent's health state down one category.  For example, an orc that is in a wounded state would drop down to a bloodied state with a player attack roll of 15 to 19.For a critical 20 (or any other crit), it would knock the opponent's health state down two categories.  The wounded orc would drop down to a dying state on a player rolling a crit.I used the same system for the monsters/badguys attacking the players, but rolled for damage (ie. to keep up the "facade" of "playing" 3.5E rules).Even after the game ended, I didn't tell the other players at first what I was doing all that time.  Apparently they all liked my 3.5E game.  When I finally told them of my experiment, they were quite surprised at how they didn't notice at all what I was doing, while the game had the play and feel of a real legitimate D&D game.  They all mentioned that they probably wouldn't have noticed much of a difference in gameplay, if I didn't tell any of them about my "experiment".</blockquote>

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