For Players: How do you feel about House Rules?

[ThoughtBubble]

Heh heh. As a player I've had two major brushes with House Rules (three, if you count the one game that was home made). In both cases I was a pain about it. The first was a situation where we needed to wake up because a battle was going. So the DM had us do a Listen Check vs a Fort Save. If the listen check was higher, then you woke up. After the game we had quite a long discussion on that (I tried to convice him to just use a listen check vs. a DC set by the amount of noise). Mostly I was upset because it was punishment for rolling well on the Fort save. Then there was the Rolling on taking 20 (for exceptional results), which went hand in hand with auto successes on a natural 20. I wouldn't have minded that one had he told us up front.

On the other hand, there's a guy I know who does use fairly large amounts of house rules, but they seem allright.

I think it's more about the house rules making sense, and the character altering rules being presented up front (not made up on the spot). I think it also depends on there being a good reason for the rules.

My house rules in my 3.0 game (for the sake of comparison) were one AOO per opertunity (instead of target), Ambidexterity + TWF both placed in TWF, Bluff not making opponents flat footed, Turn undead replaced with positive energy burst (same rules, more side effects), and an unintentional failed tumble check resulting in stopped movement (I just thought that was how the rules worked).

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

We don't have very many house rules in our group, but when we implement one, its usually for a good reason that everyone (or at least almost everyone) agrees upon. Usually we end up trying the "official" rule and if we find we don't like the way it plays we change it. If the DM is the only one who does not like the way it plays, he needs a pretty good arguement to convince the rest of the group. Even though our joking mantra is "its my world so..." if the group won't agree, we won't use a house rule (after all we rotate DMs so he knows he'll be on the other side at some point).

 

[frankthedm]

House rules are only needed where wotc went too far giving too the players in hopes of selling more PHBs

 

[Capellan]

I see there as being three broad categories of house rules: Nerf, Buff and Genre.

Nerf House Rules are indeed designed to do just that - reduce the (perceived) excessive power of a specific spell or ability (commonly used for 3e harm, haste etc).

Buff House Rules do the opposite: boost an ability or class that is seen as too weak. Common 3e examples were giving Fighters intimidate as a class skill, increasing Bards to 6 skill points, and the ubiquitous alt.ranger.

Genre House Rules are included to achieve a certain feel. Adding action points to standard D&D to increase the 'cinematic' feel, changing the XP rewards to slow advancement for a grim'n'gritty game, or making your own rules for black powder guns, cannons and explosives are all genre-based house rules.

Personally, as a player, I am fine with house rules - regardless of type - as long as they are clearly stated in up-front by the DM. Finding out just as you're about to use the ability in question is not much fun

 

[CombatWombat51]

As a player, which is rare, I don't mind houserules if they're clearly written down. This is especially a problem when I join an existing group that's been together for a while, and has a game that's riddled with houserules.

My worst experience was about 6 months ago. It was a 3E game, but it incorporated rules from everywhere. Starting social status from 1E UA. Wild talents from 1e PHB. Hit locations and effects on every hit that was mined from 2e Combat and Tactics. There were many, many others. Not a single one was written down, and the DM was the only one who had a 'firm' grasp of the houserules. They didn't even bust out old books for ancient rules, they just did their best to remember them. And don't make the mistake of thinking that this was a fast and flowing game. No, no, rules adjucation and application were rampant, but didn't involve any sense I could follow. I've played all of the editions that they were using, and was familiar with the rules, but I still couldn't make sense of what was going on. [/rant]

 

[Gnarlo]

Very rare that I play anymore, but when I did on a regular basis I felt house rules had to be stated up front and had to make sense to the majority of the party. A few times house rules were instituted later in the game, but it was with the agreement of all involved. This is pretty much the same formula I use now as a DM in my campaigns.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

THere's a lot of extremism here, so I may as well throw my very blue hat in.

As I see it, these are rules:

Rule 0.
STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA.
Roll D20, higher than a target number.

Everything else... Everything... including all the other rules in the Phb and DMG.. Are optional, and which ones you use, replace, or ignore are house rules.

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

In my opinion, I believe players generally have a "negative" view of House Rules. From my experience, House Rules tend to "fix" a "broken" rule/ability/spell etc.: basically a "nerf". This is a very broad and general statement, but I think almost all players dislike having their abilities "nerfed".

My experience largely the opposite. House rules can serve several purposes.

1. Flavor. I run pretty standard setting, but I've known GMs who did not. A nonstandard setting REQUIRES house rules in D&D.

2. Gamist Choices. If only one "good" choice in character creation, then either weaker choices need strengthened or One True Choice needs weakened. Either way, not to nerf, but to ensure that multiple character ideas are valid (if not necessarily equally valid).

3. Simplicity. Some house rules just chop out unnecessary rules. Not my style, but some people prefer it.

4. Realism. Some house rules don't balance anything! Just help suspension of disbelief. Like alternate armor rules, or feat sets intended to model army organization.

5. Nerf. Some things are broken (in "this breaks the game" sense). And yes, they need house rules.

 

[Liolel]

As a player I've never experienced many house rules but the ones I did were terrible. For a while my DM would do a some things to hinder my rouges chances at sneak attacks, enemies would take 5 foot steps out of turn to avoid being flanked, and I could only get one sneak attack a round no matter how many opponents I had.

But eventually the dm saw that sneak attack didn't need to be weakened and the rules went away.

I've seen other things that might have be considered house rules but they are really just clarifying rules especially conflicts between two or more sources used.

I have been annoyed by the rules that hindered me although I lived through them, and I don't mind the rule clarifications at all.

 

[kamosa]

Fairness policy to house rules

I use the following rules for introducing house rules to the game.

1) I always bring it up before the session. That way it never gets sprung on the party by surprise. If they have qualms, they can bring them up then. If they are legit qualms, I can change the ruling before it gets implimented.

2) Try to be fair to the players. If the house rule is to balance some aspect of the game, try to be fair to players that have created characters that benefit from that rule. Don't just take away, replace or modify so the power works the way it should.

3) Never write a house rule during a game session. If the players beat you in the game with a rule that is broken, take it like the GM you are and get them back in the next game.... After the session discuss the problem and go back to step one.

This seems to prevent most problems with house rules and has helped keep the players faith in me as a tough but fair GM.