D&D 5E Do You Even Homebrew

[Jester David]

Quick poll out of curiosity.

How much do you include homebrew and house rules in your game. Including your own, but also from social media (Reddit, here) or the DMsGuild.

 

[flametitan]

I haven't had a chance to actually include what I've written or found, but I look through it from time to time (And tried to write an Aasimar variant of my own, only for it to be superceded and incompatible with what's in Volo's)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Game rules, yes. E.g. spell points, initiative systems, ability check resolution, effects of obscurement, etc.

New character classes/subclasses/feats/etc., no.

Magic items, sometimes. Especially the really strange ones from OSR like the Infinity Rings.

Monsters, sometimes. I rarely create monsters out of whole cloth, but I sometimes tweak lore or stats and I'm perfectly willing to use monsters from Fifth Edition Foes or Tome of Beasts or any other reasonably-good source.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In the game I ran, I intentionally avoided house ruling as much as possible, because I was trying to establish a baseline for the edition so I would know what might need to be changed in the future. I did take a liberal interpretation of the item interaction rules, though, to allow sheathing one weapon while drawing another one.

There's enough in the game already that I don't see much added benefit to homebrewing, aside from the occasional unique monster or magic item.

 

[MostlyDm]

Rules: Depends. I run a game with some 5e elements, but it's so homebrewed as to barely be recognizable. Other than that one, most of my 5e games have fairly light homebrew when it comes to rules. But I'm eager to try some more in depth 5e homebrews.

Classes/Player Options: As needed. I'm flexible, so if a player wants something nonstandard, I'll work with them to find an alternative. But I don't do much independent of player request.

Setting/Magic Items/Monsters: Constantly. Even if I give out a vanilla magic item, I spice it up with additional minor effects (both positive and negative). Most of my settings are pure homebrew, and I enjoy tweaking monsters.

 

[Jer]

Really depends on what you mean. Monsters and magic items? All the time. New character options? No in general, though I work with players to reskin existing options to be closer to what kind of character they want to have. Rewriting the grappling rules or coming up with new magic systems? Not these days. In fact I'd say all of my homebrew these days amounts to reskinning existing stuff to use wherever I need it. Even the magic items and the monsters amounts to pulling mechanics from other magic items or monsters and putting them together in other ways. It's not the same kind of thing that I used to do back in the day where I was worried mostly about game mechanical issues and big systems instead of just the tiny bits and bobs I need to worry about to run my game.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes. Lots. Just about every facet of the game, but mostly adventures

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think of house-rules and home-brew as separate things.

To me, a house-rule is something like which of the default or optional rules a game presents in its own text you are using (example: my group uses the cleaving rules in the DMG), plus any changes that you have made that don't fall within the home-brew category (example: my group rules that material component needs are entirely covered by having a spell component pouch or spellcasting focus; no expensive or consumed components to track). And I don't stick with games if my list of house-rules for them gets longer than a page or two - I go looking for a game that fits my group's desires better before alterations.

And to me, home-brew is something that adds more options to the game without altering or invalidating any of the default or optional rules present in the game's text (Example: adding new classes, sub-classes, spells, feats, magic items, monsters, and races). I home-brew any time that my players or I want something in the game that isn't already covered, and I could probably fill at least a book if I were to put all those elements together (they usually exist as little notes in a character sheet's margin, or a post-it, or index card).

 

[aco175]

I had mostly homebrewed the campaign world over the last 15 years. I liberally took kingdoms and piecemailed things together to fit my map and style of play. It was ok. There was never more detail than what we needed. Dukes were detailed, but the king was not since the party never met him. Monsters were modified but few were written wholecloth.

In 5e we have only played LMoP and the homebrew adventures I made to further the party from there. Some of the things were made up in a few of the towns. Maps and NPC mostly. Stuff is taken from 2e as far as names of stores and NPCs in Waterdeep. I would buy an updated guide to the North with towns and stores.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I picked "a lot," but I could be bordering on "barely even use the official rules," depending on how we count it.

I disallow most character options from the Player's Handbook, allow and use a host of 3rd Party material (I run a Primeval Thule campaign, liberally adapting World of Xoth and other OSR type material, intermixed with old alternate rules from the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana book amongst others).

But I don't fiddle with the core mechanics of the game at all aside from adding a custom Sanity system and expanding the capabilities of the Warlock class a bit (as it's the only caster class I allow for PCs). So how much is core and how much is homebrew? Does 3rd Party stuff count as homebrew here?

It doesn't really keep me up at night, to be honest. This is how D&D has always worked for me, it's just back to being easy again like it was in the pre-WotC days.