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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8705326" data-attributes="member: 50987">What makes me change a rule?Usually it's a style choice: usually I'm trying to make the game behave in a manner more closely resembling an older edition of the game.  Very rarely, I will stumble upon a better way of doing things...the RAW is great and all, but they aren't perfect for my group.I started playing D&D with the red box rules, and I don't need to tell you how much the game has changed since then.  Well, every now and then I'll encounter a rule that departs from the way I used to play, the way I remember playing, or my expectation of how they should work.  Gargoyles are forever Constructs in my game, and kobolds are more like dogs than lizards, and gnomes are just dwarves.  That is how it will always be at my table, because that's how it will always be in my imagination.Most of the changes that I make to the rules aren't even changes, though.  Usually I just implement some of the optional rules in the PHB and DMG and call it good.  Spell points instead of "Vancian" magic.  Feats and multiclassing.  Honor.  Point buy instead of 4d6.  Gritty Realism.  Mixing potions, scroll mishaps, wands that don't recharge...it's all in there.  I just flip the switches and turn the dials until the game runs the way that I want it to.About the only true "house rule" I have written is the one where healing potions always heal the maximum amount, but cost 50% more.  (So a potion of healing always heals 10 hp, and always costs 75gp.)  I did this to make potions more reliable in combat, a purely stylistic choice.What makes me craft different lore for my world?Lorecrafting is the best part of D&D, to me.  If I wasn't excited about writing my own stories, drawing my own maps, and inventing my own villains, I don't think I would enjoy being a Dungeon Master.  I have a deep and abiding love for the classic D&D modules like "Keep on the Borderlands" and "The Isle of Dread," but I don't treat them as holy writ.  I regard them more as 'good staring points,' and not really 'the way things should be.'What makes me not allow or insist on the presence of certain races and backgrounds?The players.  At Session Zero (we call it a "rolling party") everyone rolls up new characters--any character they want, using all of the WotC materials that I own (Xanathar's, Volo's, Tasha's, etc.)  Now I have 5 players, so at the end of the night I have up to 5 different races and subraces.Those five races become the major 5 races in my campaign, and all others can be ignored, or removed completely.  I'm not going to write 30 pages of lore for tabaxi if none of my players are interested in the tabaxi, for example.  Unless something is going to be a major villain or faction in my game world, I drop them.  Sure, there might still be tabaxi in the world, but if there are they're just hanging out in the background more like scenery than anything else.I've never heard of people not allowing certain backgrounds until I read this thread, though.  This is a first for me; I'm not sure how to comment.What makes me not allow certain combos?Nothing.  (shrug)I've read lots of stuff online about "game-breaking combos," especially on Reddit, where people will go into great detail about synergy between certain race, class, feat, and multiclassing options...but I've never seen it in real life.  The worst I've seen was a "CoffeeLock" inspired warlock that someone put together from a guide they found online.  It was fine for 2, maybe 3 gaming sessions, but the player quickly got bored with it and asked to roll up a different character.  So I guess these 'combos' aren't really a problem for my group, or at the very most they seem to be self-correcting problems.What makes you use certain books and not allow others?The players again.  When we're rolling up new characters, I pull out all of my books and add them to the game Compendium (we play over Roll20).  The players can pick anything they want to use, from all of the sourcebooks.  If nobody chooses anything out of Fizban's, I remove it from the campaign.  Unless I need something for a particular NPC or Faction, the players pretty much control what gets added and what gets removed.</blockquote>

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