For DMs only: how much you delight in House Rules?

[Bendris Noulg]

Errmmmm... the trouble with posting late at night is you can't recall what your point is! I guess I am saying that, yes, DMs tend to like House Rules a lot more than the Players do, and that 3e seems to breed a different general tenor of House Rule than maybe earlier editions did.

If you mean that it was easier in 1E/2E to generate player interest by adding options than it is in 3E by taking them away, I'm in full agreement.

(I am voting for the more-than-20 group, but I wish there had been a "re-write" option.)

 

[Deadguy]

If you mean that it was easier in 1E/2E to generate player interest by adding options than it is in 3E by taking them away, I'm in full agreement.

(I am voting for the more-than-20 group, but I wish there had been a "re-write" option.)

Not quite. Looking back on what I wrote I think what I was getting at was that 1E and 2E amounted already to a huge slew of House Rules based on Gary Gyagx's campaigns. Many House Rules were about releasing restrictions or adding further options. 3E has tried to get at an underlying system, but that does mean that many House Rules amount to saying 'in this campaign I won't be using X, Y and Z'. So the House Rules sometimes feel more restrictive than earlier ones, simply because a great many options already are a part of the system.

I must admit I used to go through phases of rewriting rules systems (I morphed Palladium RPG into HarnMaster, after all!). But now I tend to try finding horses for courses. If the rules require that much rewriting, they are probably the wrong ruleset to start off with.

 

[Aezoc]

I'm firmly in the 20+ category. My latest campaign started off as "low magic D&D" and has very quickly turned into a new homebrewed d20 game altogether.

 

[Deadguy]

I'm firmly in the 20+ category. My latest campaign started off as "low magic D&D" and has very quickly turned into a new homebrewed d20 game altogether.

That raises another interesting problem that we DMs seem to suffer from: not knowing when to stop!

I'm not saying that what you are doing is wrong, btw, Aezoc. It just highlights that our urge to tinker can take an extant campaign into unexplored territory. Like I said I morphed an existing Palladium RPG game step by step until to all intents and purposes it was a HârnMaster game (with a few tweaks of course!) Now I thought it was pretty good, but the process so disorientated the players that in due course when a tricky adventure came up, the players became too confused and the campaign collapsed.

Now I am sure that most DMs wouldn't be as dumb as me and mess around with the rules underpinnings of the game as much as I did then. But it is something you ought keep constantly in mind when reworking the rules: am I doing this because it's fun and interesting for the players and me, or am I doing it because I am an inveterate tinkerer. If it's the latter, you run the real risk of derailing the campaign.

 

[ichabod]

That raises another interesting problem that we DMs seem to suffer from: not knowing when to stop!

I'm not saying that what you are doing is wrong, btw, Aezoc. It just highlights that our urge to tinker can take an extant campaign into unexplored territory. Like I said I morphed an existing Palladium RPG game step by step until to all intents and purposes it was a HârnMaster game (with a few tweaks of course!) Now I thought it was pretty good, but the process so disorientated the players that in due course when a tricky adventure came up, the players became too confused and the campaign collapsed.

Another thing you have to consider is how isolated you want your campaign to be. My first set of house rules for Dome of Heaven made all races more powerful, and drastically changed a third of the classes. That made it alot more work to include thing from supplements, because they had to be significantly regeared to fit my house rules. If you're not using supplements, this is not a problem, but I was not happy myself and retuned everything to fit better with standard D&D.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I voted more than 20-- while I've not done any professional game design work, I have a deep understanding of the basic premises of d20 (seemingly moreso than a couple professionals, judging by some products I've read), so I'm pretty capable of getting the desired effects out of rules tweaks. I also fundamentally enjoy messing around with the rules, especially when I can get them to do something interesting.

(Ironically, I don't house-rule Shadowrun Third Edition, which is a far more unwieldly and quirky system, because I simply do not understand it well enough.)

Most of my changes involve either character creation or levelling up, so they're fairly easy to handle without slowing down the game. Actual in-game house rules are relatively rare, except using some unusual supplements.

They're not my house rules, so I'm not sure they count, but I'm also eagerly awaiting Unearthed Arcana so that I can run wild with it.

 

[Desdichado]

How do you count house rules? If I have all new classes (with the exception of Barbarian, Fighter and Rogue), all new races, an all new magic system, etc. do I count those as three house rules?

I guess you could say my game is heavily house ruled, but that's a bit of a misnomer. The gameplay itself is only minorly affected, while a lot of character management rules are different. But they're also not so much 'house rules' as they are alternatives in print from somewhere else.

 

[Nine Hands]

You don't have an option for "rewrote the books". Sorry. Can't vote.

You ain't the only one Thank the gods for the SRD.

 

[Kichwas]

I will not use house rules.

I use d20 and D&D material together - I'll adopt in anything published that does not tamper with anything Core and fits the game, but I won't make house rules that change game play. Nor as a player, am I willing to play under house rules.

 

[Li Shenron]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Li Shenron
when it is done NOT for campaign issues but because you don't like the RULE...

I find this statement intriguing. Could you elaborate a little more on your meaning? It sounds along the lines of what I wanted to get accross in an earlier thread, but was unable to ariculate.

First of all... sorry to come up so late to my own thread, but I don't have web access during weekends (by the way... what the hell happened with these smileys..!).

I found out that it is effectively very difficult to distinguish between altering something in PHB because of a campaign reason or because of a rule-biased change. I thought it was important to point it out in the poll, but I didn't expect too much from voters to distinguish exactly, because it is not easy.

What I meant with this poll was to highlight changes to core mechanics such as the following examples:
- roll initiative every round
- change how critical hits work / use critical fumbles
- change which actions provoke AoO or not
- change a core feat
- change a core spell
There are JUST example of stuff that usually gets changed "because the DM doesn't like it". All DMs I have seen wanted to at least change a bunch of these kind of things. Really, I try my best not to! Not because I think it's wrong to change such things, but just because after all I can't believe that my change would be necessarily better than the core rule. Trust me, there ARE several core rules I don't like, especially when they are all-or-nothing rules: for example, I don't like the spellbook rules and the Spell Mastery feat.

If instead the change is driven by a setting motivation, then you may not consider it a house rule for the purpose of this poll. For example, if you gave the Sorcerer a load of spell-like abilities because in your world Sorcerers are really so infuse with magic that it reflects to more power, then it's ok (consider it a setting issue and not a house rule for this poll); but if you have given the Sorcerer a boost because you simply thought that it was too weak, then consider it a house rule.

Changes to races or classes could be driven by both reasons, but changes to combat or weapons or feats/skills or spells are 99% because the DM think they are too weak/powerful, and you can count them all as house rules here...