Exactly what game are they playing?

[Majoru Oakheart]

Actually, yes, I do read some boards and wonder what game they are playing, but it sounds like it is for a different reason than you.

It's normally due to so many house rules and 3rd party products that I don't recognize them anymore.

I realized this mostly when I was having a conversation with someone and he was pointing out that a PrC was severly broken. I said I had no idea what he was talking about, it was kind of weak. He then went on to tell me that if you combined enhancements on your weapon from 3 different companies products AND the special abilties of the PrC, you would end up with a threat range on your weapon of 2-20 or something like that. This was caused mostly because of abilities that used unnamed bonuses and were undercosted in 3rd party books. Of course, he blamed WOTC for bad writing.

I play D&D. You know, the game written by WOTC, with a bunch of rules that make up what the game is. There are some times where I've tried playing with complete strangers and they had SOO many house rules that I had no idea which weapon to use in combat, as I wasn't sure that when I swung it, I wouldn't find out that Falchions do half damage to oozes or that in their game Weapon Focus(Falchion) doesn't apply against undead.....or WORSE..."Sorry, you don't get to roll your own dice here, the DM does it for you."

I take the section of the DMG to heart, the one that says that you should think VERY carefully before you change ANYTHING in the book, because it has all been tested for balance. My game has been fun with the core rules the way they are.

You want to know the REASON I'm so obsessed with balance? Mostly because of a couple of years worth of playing 2nd Edition and watching a couple of my more powergaming oriented friends ruining the fun for everyone else at the table because of choosing the most powerful kits for their characters, and most powerful races, and when I tried to tell them no, having to listen to 2 hour long arguements about why they may be more powerful than everyone else in the party, but they promised they wouldn't abuse it, and they wouldn't even talk, they'd leave the role playing to everyone else if they could just be the most powerful combat characters.

I have friends that will sit down at the table and say "How did he just do 30 points of damage in one hit when I can only do 8? You mean there's a prestige class that lets you do that? Why did I take mine then, I never get to use its powers?"

Majoru Oakheart

 

[Greg K]

If a campaign uses house rules, the DM should have the courtesy of supplying new players with a list of house rules so the player can review them in order to decide if they want to join the campaign (and, if so, be familiar with the house rules and which supplements are used).

My players receive the following although in a more expanded format:

Books allowed to players:
From WOTC: PHB, a few variants from the UA, (also see below)
Non WOTC: Psychic's Handbook, Shaman's Handbook, Witch's Handbook

Other source Material
Material from the following sources will not be allowed: Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Divine, Deities and Demigods, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Psionics Handbook/Expanded Psionics Handbook, Races of Stone

Any PrCs or other material from other sources (whether from WOTC or 3rd party) must be approved my me.


House Rules :
1) Barbarians may choose to be a hunter (UA variant) or phb version. The choice determines where you are from. If the hunter is chosen, you get favorite terrain instead of favorite enemy and a weapon style appropriate to the culture.

2) Cleric must have a campaign based deity and the deity determines what type of cleric you are (cloistered, divine defender from UA, or OA shaman variant). The choice may limit or prevent access to the the use of certain spells (list given to players)

3) Druid: The PHB druid is not used. I use my variant druid based on the cloistered cleric (which is posted under House Rules and on Andy's boards. The few responses on Andy's boards and here have all been positive).

4)There are several fighter variants available based off of the customized character example p.94 (3.0 phb)/ p.110 (3.5 phb).

5) No Monks or Paladins. The former are replaced with a cleric similiar to the OA shaman and Paladins are covered by divine defender from UA.

6) Rangers must worship the deity of nature.

7) Rogues: The wilderness rogue variant from UA may be chosen.

8) Specialist Wizards: must use the school specialist variants from UA.

7) The swashbuckler (Complete Warrior) and Healer (Miniatures Handbook) are allowed, but the healer does not get unicorn companion.

8) Magic: Due to the nature of the campaign, some spells are not available while a few (e.g., summon monster) have been slightly altered (details provided to players)

9) Equipment: List of additional weapons and armor allowable from WOTC sources.

 

[Chingerspy]

I agree with the original statement. I've seen an increase in posts related to houseruling spanking new systems immediately. I prefer to play a game out of the box so to speak. I've never really houseruled any game in my life. I prefer to expend energy on trying to create interesting settings and adventures for my players instead. This was the crux of gaming when I started.

Take White Wolfs new Vampire game. While I have written darn near 3 acts of a chronicle I intend running at Gencon UK for it, it seems a good majority of people on the WW boards are chopping and changing the game before they've even played it! If gamers want to change a system that other writers have worked damn hard to get published then they should go write one themselves thats better, not just "improve" this and that.

My games rely very little on crunch, although I like to use a rule that exists when the need arises. Its quite rare for me to have to make a rule up and I usually find that when I do its because I couldn't find it during the game.

That may have been a little bit of a vent Run and play the game people you just may have more fun, unless editing others work really gets you going that is!

 

[random user]

I think that one of the reasons DMs want to make sure things are reasonably balanced, from their perspective, before they go in is because while in an ideal world, what is "overpowered" is commonly understood between the player and DM, in reality one person can feel something is reasonable while another does not.

When this is the case, and the character has invested some time / resources into acquiring whatever is causing the imbalance, the player often feels put off because they now have "worthless" things which have been heavily nerfed.

By ensuring the DM is ok with the material, the player can then freely choose to pursue something or not knowing they know exactly what they are getting, and that if something doesn't work out the way they think it should, that's the player's own miscalculation.

Such things are often impossible to just retroactively change. For example, if a character wants a certain PrC and the party agrees to spend a couple game sessions finding someone to train that character, and then he uses his special powers, if the player doesn't like the newly-changed PrC which was changed by the DM because he realized it was causing a problem, it's quite hard to square that with the previous experiences.

The player may feel miffed because they didn't perceive a problem, and feel that the new changes make whatever he has worthless. While it's in theory possible to reconsile this in-game with a boost to something else, if the DM doesn't feel that there is a problem, that can be challenging as well.

For example, using arbitrary points, let's say that a player takes something that both the DM and player think is worth 100 points. After playing with it a little, the player continues to think that it's worth 100 points, but the DM thinks it's really worth 200 points... or perhaps more realistically, the DM thinks it's worth 200 points, and the player thinks it's a little too powerful... say 120 points.

So the DM changes stuff around so that he thinks it's only worth 100 points. However, the player didn't think there was a problem, and now thinks his new power is only worth 50 or 60 points.

In the DM's mind, everything is fine. But the player is miffed. If the DM gives the player something that is worth 40-50 points of some other power to make the player happy, in the DM's mind, the player now has 150ish points... again a problem. And of course this player (note I didn't say all players) will say, "Well if I knew you were going to halve the power of this ability, of course I wouldn't have taken it."

I'm not saying that this problem is impossible to solve -- but it is a hassle. So it's often more beneficial to stave off any problems by making sure something is clearly specced out and gets buy-in from all parties involved. And of course even if you do this, that doesn't preclude from this problem happening anyways, but hopefully it will be less common.