D&D 5E Final playtest packet due in mid September.

[Ahnehnois]

I agree. I've played multiple editions with various groups, and have never seen what Ahnehnois describes as "average".

I've played in multiple editions with multiple groups, and never seen what they're describing as "average". I have yet to meet one DM-any age, any edition, any personality-who does not come in with his own setting and extensive alterations to the rules for whatever game he's using. People call it different things, but whether it's called a houserule or not, I've never seen someone use anything close to the D&D XP system as written, or use the ability score generation methods in the book, or even use the classes without customizing them for one's own needs. A lot of times people say that a reroll here and a custom ability there isn't a houserule.

I'm inclined to put more stock in people that I have met in person than in annonymous internet posters. Of course, I expect everyone else to do the same.

 

[Weather Report]

I've played in multiple editions with multiple groups, and never seen what they're describing as "average". I have yet to meet one DM-any age, any edition, any personality-who does not come in with his own setting and extensive alterations to the rules for whatever game he's using. People call it different things, but whether it's called a houserule or not, I've never seen someone use anything close to the D&D XP system as written, or use the ability score generation methods in the book, or even use the classes without customizing them for one's own needs. A lot of times people say that a reroll here and a custom ability there isn't a houserule.

I'm inclined to put more stock in people that I have met in person than in annonymous internet posters. Of course, I expect everyone else to do the same.

Actually, I can kinda see what you mean now...

 

[Hussar]

Ahn - I'd say that 3e showed just how popular the idea of playing the game out of the box really is. 3e locked down a lot of the fuzzy rules from AD&D and removed the need for DM adjudication from a lot of situations. Without the need for DM adjudication, you generally don't need a lot of house rules. IOW, when the rules work as written, people tend to use those rules.

I think if you were to go out and poll, you'd find that your experience is fairly atypical. Characters generated with standard 4d6 method or point buy seem to be pretty common. "Core Only" games are fairly standard and was the first response to generally any problem posted by someone about 3e.

I'd also point out that both published settings and adventure paths are hugely popular. Massive followings. The idea that the average DM comes with "his own setting and extensive alterations to the rules" doesn't really jive with the popularity of things like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder adventure paths.

And, I would never ignore the hundred thousand or so organized play gamers who actually don't have any house rules. That's the point of organized play.

One of the strongest reactions against 3e and later 4e, was the fact that the rules were so comprehensive. People felt that it lacked flexibility. But, I don't think you can deny that 3e and later 4e were both very comprehensive rulesets that were nowhere near as kit-bashing friendly as earlier D&D. They can't be. They're both far too detailed to be as easily changeable.

 

[Dausuul]

I've played in multiple editions with multiple groups, and never seen what they're describing as "average". I have yet to meet one DM-any age, any edition, any personality-who does not come in with his own setting and extensive alterations to the rules for whatever game he's using. People call it different things, but whether it's called a houserule or not, I've never seen someone use anything close to the D&D XP system as written, or use the ability score generation methods in the book, or even use the classes without customizing them for one's own needs. A lot of times people say that a reroll here and a custom ability there isn't a houserule.

I'm inclined to put more stock in people that I have met in person than in annonymous internet posters. Of course, I expect everyone else to do the same.

Back in the TSR days, my experience was similar to yours. Since then, I've encountered an increasing number of DMs who prefer to go "by the book," with the single exception of XP rules--like you, I've never known a DM to stick with the XP rules as written. (Though I've known several who tried and gave up.) But it's very rare for me to see a DM customizing classes any more, or fiddling with ability score generation. People still make their own monsters and magic items, of course, but that's homebrewing, not house-ruling.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I wouldn't argue that the point of organized play is to not use house rules, as much as it's a necessity of the format.

And I echo that I don't know anyone in real-life who plays without house rules--these elusive beasts I only know of from the internet.

 

[Iosue]

I've played in multiple editions with multiple groups, and never seen what they're describing as "average". I have yet to meet one DM-any age, any edition, any personality-who does not come in with his own setting and extensive alterations to the rules for whatever game he's using. People call it different things, but whether it's called a houserule or not, I've never seen someone use anything close to the D&D XP system as written, or use the ability score generation methods in the book, or even use the classes without customizing them for one's own needs. A lot of times people say that a reroll here and a custom ability there isn't a houserule.

I feel like there's been drastic goalpost moving here.

Here's what you wrote, which Hussar and then I responded to:

I find both of those statements incomprehensible. Average players try to bring in some custom class from a weird source or that they made up, and then essentially litigate the rules during play and want everything changed. Average DMs are DMs precisely because they're into the game enough to rewrite it. (It has been my observation that many people make alterations to the rules and don't consider themselves to have done such).

Players bringing in custom classes and then litigating the rules during play have certainly existed in the groups I've played in. They've always been the minority. I've seen plenty of DMs with their own settings, and with differing interpretations of the rules. That's not "rewriting" the game. Nor is a few houserules and/or ad-hoc rulings to keep the game moving. And I haven't seen the latter at all since WotC took over the game. A massive binder of houserules, sure, that's rewriting the game. And I certainly don't think such DMs are scarce, but I haven't seen them enough to consider them "average". One DM I had went ahead and wrote his own RPG, but we nonetheless played both AD&D 2nd Edition and the d6 Star Wars RPG by the book.

I'm inclined to put more stock in people that I have met in person than in annonymous internet posters. Of course, I expect everyone else to do the same.

When anonymous internet poster's experiences differ from my own, I'm more inclined to at least consider that my own experiences aren't universal. And when anonymous internet posters claim that their particular, differing experiences represent the norm, I note how my experiences differ so folks can get the wider picture.

My experiences are that even among differing playstyles, RAW are adhered to more often than not, particularly when it comes to classes. Nevertheless, I don't find it "incomprehensible" that no few DMs like houseruling a ruleset to a fare-thee-well, and some players like finding or building unique classes and/or litigate the rules to gain advantage. On average, the tendencies of average people tend to average out.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think if you were to go out and poll, you'd find that your experience is fairly atypical.

The XP example, for one, has been one of ENW's most polled topics over the years. In those nonscientific but large polls, a majority invariably comes down as using something other than the RAW. There's also periodic ENW threads devoted to "tell us your own unique ability generation method". There are innumerable variations on the official ones, often subtle, but still meaningful. If I were to do a large scientific poll of those topics, I would catch a group of people who are younger and more varied than the typical ENW poll participant, and most likely the responses would be even more varied.

The idea that the average DM comes with "his own setting and extensive alterations to the rules" doesn't really jive with the popularity of things like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder adventure paths.

I can only speak to what I know, and I've never seen anyone use anything like that, nor have I seen any data that would suggest that a significant fraction of the gaming population at large does. Even the people who actually purchase those things often say that they read but don't use them, or use them only indirectly as inspiration, which would be very difficult to track. Even if they did use such products, they can still modify what's written while doing so.

One of the strongest reactions against 3e and later 4e, was the fact that the rules were so comprehensive. People felt that it lacked flexibility. But, I don't think you can deny that 3e and later 4e were both very comprehensive rulesets that were nowhere near as kit-bashing friendly as earlier D&D. They can't be. They're both far too detailed to be as easily changeable.

There's some legitimacy to that, and I do remember some pretty freewheeling 2e play. However, the comprehensiveness of d20 rules also means that there are more things that one might seek to change. Unearthed Arcana (and the RC) provide tons of examples of things that the people who wrote the rules changed in their home games, often radically. Many of the explicit rules also encourage further improvisation.

For example, the late-3.5 era trend was alternate class features, which encourage players to essentially design their own class. There's a lot of by the book ACFs, but I found that more and more people would say "can I trade this for that" as the game went on. The expectation became that everything on one's character sheet would be meaningful and useful, and anything subpar was designated for trading in. I cannot recall the last wizard I saw with Scribe Scroll, for example, despite the fact that it is an automatic feat at level 1 in the core rules.

There was also a huge increase in rules for monster customization, and presumably a corresponding increase in practice of "kitbashing" for monsters.

And to top it off, the proliferation of d20 compatible products encouraged people to mix and match rules from different sources.

People still make their own monsters and magic items, of course, but that's homebrewing, not house-ruling.

Sure, but that distinction isn't really relevant to the point I was making. The original point was that the game out of the box isn't-and shouldn't have to be-perfect for anyone. If you have to add elements or change elements to create your desired play experience, that isn't evidence that something is wrong, barring some additional qualifiers.

Players bringing in custom classes and then litigating the rules during play have certainly existed in the groups I've played in. They've always been the minority. I've seen plenty of DMs with their own settings, and with differing interpretations of the rules. That's not "rewriting" the game. Nor is a few houserules and/or ad-hoc rulings to keep the game moving.

That sounds like one of those shades of gray distinctions. I interpret the RAW as written very strictly. I also consciously deviate from them a lot. I think even very small deviations can be very meaningful.

***

And that was the original point here. I was saying that the game should not be pushed to the point where it works perfectly for one select group of (CO) people, because all of us use the rules differently and the text in the books doesn't work perfectly for any of us.

 

[Pickles JG]

Here's my Internet anecdote. I have always played D&D with miniatures on maps & I started in the 70s (well 1979). I have dabbled in campaigns where people did not use minis but they folded quickly as they were doing it wrong. Combat has always been the main focus along with taking stuff off the dead corpses.

I played lots of 1, a bit of 2, lots of 3 & when 4 came out it exactly encapsulated D&D as I played it. In fact I described it as more like D&D then other editions. By this I meant that if the fluff described a monster doing something you could just write a power to make it do that. In 3e you were supposed to use the spells & rules for eg grappling to embody a monster ability & they rarely worked as well as you wanted them to.

It turns out from reading the internet (& observing the reaction to 4e) that I am in fact something of an outlier in the way that people play D&D & other (lesser) interpretations of the game are in fact quite popular.

Anyway I don't think of myself as using house rules though I do use a couple - XP ad libbing mostly though I have played mostly OP LFR & PFS in the last few years. I can't remember playing with a DM who created his own world my newest DM has not set his game in any established world but the fact he has not named any of the towns & villages does not lead me to call this an exercise in world building

 

[Dausuul]

Sure, but that distinction isn't really relevant to the point I was making. The original point was that the game out of the box isn't-and shouldn't have to be-perfect for anyone. If you have to add elements or change elements to create your desired play experience, that isn't evidence that something is wrong, barring some additional qualifiers.

I think the distinction between adding elements and changing elements is highly relevant. D&D is, by design, open-ended; building new things and using them in our games is expected. Hacking up the existing things is different.

I think of it like a software development platform. If the platform I'm working with doesn't have a built-in library of classes and methods for playing chess, and I write my own, that's not because the platform is deficient, nor does it mean I'm using it in an "unintended" way. However, if the platform does have such a library, and I rewrite half of it, that suggests there is something wrong with the library. It's not proof of something wrong--maybe I want to create some weird chess variant--but if a lot of people are doing this in order to play regular chess, it's a good bet something in there isn't working properly.

And that was the original point here. I was saying that the game should not be pushed to the point where it works perfectly for one select group of (CO) people, because all of us use the rules differently and the text in the books doesn't work perfectly for any of us.

It doesn't make sense to talk about designing a game to work "for" charop. Charop is an approach to character creation, not a play style, and it works with any system. The value of throwing a system to the folks on the charop boards is that they will suss out which rules elements combine to create unexpectedly powerful combos. That's useful information. It helps Wizards create a balanced game--and speaking as an inveterate tinkerer, a balanced game is great for me. It means I know what my starting point is.

There are two reasons people tinker with the rules. The first is to customize the game to better fit the group's desired play style. The second is to fix rules that don't make sense or don't work as advertised. And the sharp decline in house-ruling since the TSR days strongly suggests that a lot of that house-ruling was driven by the latter rather than the former. Returning to the software analogy, if I want to play chess where the queen moves like a king, it's okay if I have to write my own methods for that. It's not okay if I have to go fix the way pawns move because the computer keeps moving its pawns backward.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think the distinction between adding elements and changing elements is highly relevant. D&D is, by design, open-ended; building new things and using them in our games is expected. Hacking up the existing things is different.

Some people would argue that one; it certainly isn't expected in an organized play context, nor in a "core-only" home game.

The value of throwing a system to the folks on the charop boards is that they will suss out which rules elements combine to create unexpectedly powerful combos. That's useful information. It helps Wizards create a balanced game--and speaking as an inveterate tinkerer, a balanced game is great for me. It means I know what my starting point is.

To a point, I agree with all of that. To a point.

There are two reasons people tinker with the rules. The first is to customize the game to better fit the group's desired play style. The second is to fix rules that don't make sense or don't work as advertised. And the sharp decline in house-ruling since the TSR days strongly suggests that a lot of that house-ruling was driven by the latter rather than the former.

That I don't buy. I don't know anything about a sharp decline in houseruling, and I don't know that the reasons for any such change, if it existed, would be explicable in those terms. If anything, I would guess that this very forum is an example of how the information age has facilitated more tinkering with the game; there's tons of people trading ideas here about how things work and should work.