Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 1626782" data-attributes="member: 4720">No, I'm lashing out in irritation at myself for wasting effort on this.  But, yes, I do use house rules.  Not the ones you seem to think I should be using to have a "mature" game, but I have a number of them.  Dodge gives a flat +1 bonus to AC against everyone (simplifies bookkeeping).  Half-orcs don't have a -2 to intelligence, as they really were too weak for a PC class in a game that does something other than kill things and take their stuff.  I've also played all manner of games with the orc and kobold racial traits.  I've made it a skill check to ID items and detect magic, as it seems silly to have the wizards preparing spells to do that.  If they have an elaborate understanding of magical principles, they should be able to work these things out in other ways.  And it freed up our wizards to diversify their spell selection without having to blow a day to go into "study mode."With my first campaign as DM, I played with detect evil and other alignment stuff.  This was based on my experience with groups who used them as a crutch and/or their only moral compass.  My solution was to make one detect alignment spell available to divine casters, and it worked more like Bruce Willis' detection ability in "Unbreakable."  i.e. they got flashes of the person's history and motivations, but not a lot to go on, and it was a full-round action.  It didn't last long as a rule, and I went back to a simple core rules system for two reasons, 1) it was a nightmare to come up with unique and representative images every time it was used, and 2) it wasn't necessary.  I had assembled a much more mature group than I had ever gamed with before.  They don't run off and kack everything that detects as evil.  They chase down the complex motivations of complex characters.  It's refreshing to see it in person.  This board has been telling me for years that there were in fact people out in the world who played that way.  I just couldn't find any of them in real life.  So I took one other disaffected player, and we created a bunch of them from a few of our non-playing friends.Which leads me back to the point... the rules aren't the problem.  The biggest problem with D&D is the people you generally have to play with (the majority of this board excluded, as far as I can tell, thankfully).Outstanding.  I hope it changes quite a bit.  There's always room for improvement.  But the fact of the matter is that you're suggesting that wizards needs to put out a book that is guaranteed to be unprofitable to fix a problem that almost no one is having and you could fix yourself with 3 or 4 house rules.Very much the way deadguy did.  My players know how the rules work, and it fosters trust among us that I won't screw their characters over for the sake of my plot.  They know what the DC is to perform tasks under normal conditions and can therefore intelligently decide courses of action for their characters, knowing that I will adjust the DC in a consistent and fair way.  The only one besides myself who has played before, like me, played with GMs who would set DCs on a whim and favor certain players and all that nonsense.  They know I won't show favortism, even with my fiancee sitting at the table, because my rules are transparent to them.Besides, I'm trying to get all of them trained up in the rules, so I can take a turn on the other side of the DM's screen.  It's been a long time since I played as a character.</blockquote>

Verification