Monte At Home
Explorer
It's a pretty interesting question. I've bent or changed the rules in things I've written. For example, I changed the spell-like abilities of dark elves a bit for Queen of Lies, but I made it clear up front that I'd done it.
I guess for me, there's a world of difference between someone that I trust to know how things are supposed to work, and then changes them, and someone else who just makes errors--or can't be bothered to learn the rules--and then claims that he was doing it intentionally.
As has been pointed out earlier in the thread, when someone says that they changed things intentionally to give things a different feel, they often betray a lack of understanding for the rules, because there is often a way to accomplish the same effect--or sometimes to an even better effect--using the rules.
Another danger is that if an author makes things work differently than how the players expect, it can hurt the game. For example, the game already has climbing rules. If, in a module, someone put special rules for climbing a particular wall because of certain special conditions and they didn't rely on the basic rules at all (maybe it's a Reflex save rather than a Strength-based skill check or something), a character who believes he can climb well would enter into the situation, suddenly find that things don't work the way he thought at all, and he would suffer for it.
Basically, the rules are the way the world works. If a player understands the basics of the world, he can make choices for his character based on that understanding. If a game designer then throws that player a curve, and the characters choices were bad ones, that leads to player disatisfaction.
(Occasionally, throwing players a curve is good--it keeps them on their toes, and keeps things interesting--but it should be for a very good, understandable reason.)
But ultimately, are the rules sacrosanct? Of course not. The fun of the game is what's sacrosanct. And d20 is supposed to be all about innovation. If a d20 designer comes up with a variant rule that does something better than the core rules, he should put it out there. But it should be clearly marked and well explained. And, if he wants the product to be successful in the market, the whole product probably shouldn't be hinged on it (to make it more easily adapted to other campaigns), but that can vary on a case by case basis.
I guess for me, there's a world of difference between someone that I trust to know how things are supposed to work, and then changes them, and someone else who just makes errors--or can't be bothered to learn the rules--and then claims that he was doing it intentionally.
As has been pointed out earlier in the thread, when someone says that they changed things intentionally to give things a different feel, they often betray a lack of understanding for the rules, because there is often a way to accomplish the same effect--or sometimes to an even better effect--using the rules.
Another danger is that if an author makes things work differently than how the players expect, it can hurt the game. For example, the game already has climbing rules. If, in a module, someone put special rules for climbing a particular wall because of certain special conditions and they didn't rely on the basic rules at all (maybe it's a Reflex save rather than a Strength-based skill check or something), a character who believes he can climb well would enter into the situation, suddenly find that things don't work the way he thought at all, and he would suffer for it.
Basically, the rules are the way the world works. If a player understands the basics of the world, he can make choices for his character based on that understanding. If a game designer then throws that player a curve, and the characters choices were bad ones, that leads to player disatisfaction.
(Occasionally, throwing players a curve is good--it keeps them on their toes, and keeps things interesting--but it should be for a very good, understandable reason.)
But ultimately, are the rules sacrosanct? Of course not. The fun of the game is what's sacrosanct. And d20 is supposed to be all about innovation. If a d20 designer comes up with a variant rule that does something better than the core rules, he should put it out there. But it should be clearly marked and well explained. And, if he wants the product to be successful in the market, the whole product probably shouldn't be hinged on it (to make it more easily adapted to other campaigns), but that can vary on a case by case basis.
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