D&D General Harshest House Rule (in use)?

[Mannahnin]

So your PCs never step into unknown territory? All your campaigns play in their hometurf? I think its completely normal to interact with NPCs and the world to get more information, I thought thats how in general play people DnD, I am surprised that appereantly some expect to just get a mission briefing by the DM and their character always already knows the important information.

You are confused. Here is the answer to your apparent confusion:

Sure in the beginning the might know something about the "starter area", but if they try to travel to Mt. Doom and ask "what do I know about mordor" the answer is "well its naughty word dangerous, but for details you need to find out for yourself"

Bloodtide has described that their players' PCs do not know anything about the world or starter area, by default. Not even the names of important people in the village they grew up in.

 

[TwoSix]

Far more likely, IME, is that while the campaign might start in or near the hometown of at least one PC it very quickly moves away from there and probably (as in close-to-certainly) never returns.

My experience, both as player and DM, is that players will tend to have their PCs gravitate to either a) a shared home base made by one or all of them or b) the nearest big city they can find until they find a bigger one. Rarely a PC will try to go home, slightly more often a PC will bring its family along to the big city once said PC has made neough wealth to support them there.

Sure, that's the normal progression. I'm trying to hammer down what @bloodtide does at session 1.

And really, no matter where the character starts, they had to get there somehow, right? They traveled, stayed at inns, talked to people. They should know things.

Other than question 3 which I'd hope and assume would be answered by the game's calendar, those are all questions that would be answered when sorting out the character's back-story, either while rolling it up* or at some later point and in any case done out-of-session with the DM.

* - e.g. for birthday in a setting that uses an Earth-like calendar rolling your character's birthday is as simple as a d12 followed by a d30, even if birthdays turn out to be irrelevant in the culture.

Ok, but if a player forgot to define that stuff prior to session 1, would you prevent them from asking questions about it in play?

I mean, we can nitpick details, but the player having no access to character history seems just as much a violation of the sim ethos as it is the narrative one. It would only seem applicable to "no character background at all" dungeon crawl play.

 

[TwoSix]

So your PCs never step into unknown territory? All your campaigns play in their hometurf? I think its completely normal to interact with NPCs and the world to get more information, I thought thats how in general play people DnD, I am surprised that appereantly some expect to just get a mission briefing by the DM and their character always already knows the important information. For me a big fun part of exploration is ... finding out information while playing the game and interacting with the world and not just be "my character knows already what dangers are in this forest".

Sure in the beginning the might know something about the "starter area", but if they try to travel to Mt. Doom and ask "what do I know about mordor" the answer is "well its naughty word dangerous, but for details you need to find out for yourself"

Yea, you're misreading the full extent of the house rule. You literally can't play a scholarly background or even worldly background, because you aren't allowed to even ask for in-game lore unless you, as a player, read it before the game and can integrate it into play.

If you ask the DM, "I'm a ranger, have I ever heard of Mordor?" it's not even that the answer is "No", it's that you're not supposed to even ask because it's a disruption of game time.

Again, this isn't a dogpile, this is simply an evaluation of a house rule in the context of the thread topic "What is the harshest house rule?"

 

[Emerikol]

People in a deep hard core immersive role playing game where everyone is acting out their characters in a simulated world.

See. I consider my own campaign to be deep immersive living world. Mine though is a little bit more like our real world in that experts on history who've gotten history skills actually know something about history. Characters don't have their minds wiped before starting out in the world.

 

[SteveC]

Sure in the beginning the might know something about the "starter area", but if they try to travel to Mt. Doom and ask "what do I know about mordor" the answer is "well its naughty word dangerous, but for details you need to find out for yourself"

I think this is a very telling example. In the case of Mordor, the only people who don't know anything really about Mordor (other than it's a scary place) are the hobbits. Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gandalf all know quite a bit about it. It all depends on who your character is and what their skills are.

 

[Retros_x]

I think this is a very telling example. In the case of Mordor, the only people who don't know anything really about Mordor (other than it's a scary place) are the hobbits. Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gandalf all know quite a bit about it. It all depends on who your character is and what their skills are.

Its telling about my lacking knowledge of LotR. Not about the point I was trying to made though.

Yea, you're misreading the full extent of the house rule. You literally can't play a scholarly background or even worldly background, because you aren't allowed to even ask for in-game lore unless you, as a player, read it before the game and can integrate it into play.

You are right, I've misread this. I agree this is overkill IMO and seems like an "old school mentality" gone too far. I would never design a scenario where the scholar character just have all the important info at their hand, but disallowing it all is also not a lot of fun. Its like two extreme ends of the spectrum with not a lot of wiggle-room. I like the middleground where interactivity (=gaming) is actually allowed to happen.

But hey, if bloodtide's table are having fun who are we to judge.

 

[SteveC]

But hey, if bloodtide's table are having fun who are we to judge.

This is the key, and the only real answer. Honestly it's the answer for all house rules or different ways to run a game. If your players are having fun (and the DM/GM too) who is it to complain?

When I see discussions like this I think about the games I like to run and to play in. And the one's I'd avoid. And I like reading these threads to learn more. Learn new ways to play or reconsider my own attitudes. And also to advocate for ways to do things that people may not have heard of. But on that, I'm trying very hard to continue "not yucking other people's yum." That was one of my New Year's resolutions for last year that I hope I've kept. Plan on it for next year too.

The reason I've been discussing this particular issue is because I genuinely don't understand how that could work as a game outside of ones where you start with amnesia.

 

[TwoSix]

This is the key, and the only real answer. Honestly it's the answer for all house rules or different ways to run a game. If your players are having fun (and the DM/GM too) who is it to complain?

When I see discussions like this I think about the games I like to run and to play in. And the one's I'd avoid. And I like reading these threads to learn more. Learn new ways to play or reconsider my own attitudes. And also to advocate for ways to do things that people may not have heard of. But on that, I'm trying very hard to continue "not yucking other people's yum." That was one of my New Year's resolutions for last year that I hope I've kept. Plan on it for next year too.

The reason I've been discussing this particular issue is because I genuinely don't understand how that could work as a game outside of ones where you start with amnesia.

Yea, I'm certainly not trying to judge.

There are a lot of people on these threads for whom I would not be a good player at their table (and often vice versa). But that's ultimately just a disagreement on what's fun to do during play, not how to play.

With bloodtide's house rule, I'm honestly stumped as to how I would sit down and play.

 

[bloodtide]

See. I consider my own campaign to be deep immersive living world. Mine though is a little bit more like our real world in that experts on history who've gotten history skills actually know something about history. Characters don't have their minds wiped before starting out in the world.

OK?

Interacting with an NPC and asking questions seems like just an in-game means of you-as-DM being able to dispense knowledge. The only difference between that and the player just asking you "What does my character know about this Forest?" is the underlying assumption that the PC always knows nothing about the Forest before talking to an NPC even if the PC grew up within a few miles of said Forest

There is so much more to this.

And the PCs knowing nothing about anything ahead of time is a bit over the top even for me.

There simply is no way for a player to know even like 1% of what a character would know. I know a lot of games do the handwave of the DM just tells the players everything or takes even more time to have the players 'roll' to know things.

This does not happen in my game.

With bloodtide's house rule, I'm honestly stumped as to how I would sit down and play.

Well, the way a good player in my game does it:

They make their character based on the setting and some small conversations with the DM. They are free to write up a Background and Backstory, working with the DMs advice and final approval.

Before the game, the player will be given a handout about the campaign and local area.

Then the game would start and the player would play their character, using all the above notes.

 

[Lanefan]

So your PCs never step into unknown territory? All your campaigns play in their hometurf?

I was talking about knowledge of their own local or local-ish area.

I think its completely normal to interact with NPCs and the world to get more information, I thought thats how in general play people DnD, I am surprised that appereantly some expect to just get a mission briefing by the DM and their character always already knows the important information. For me a big fun part of exploration is ... finding out information while playing the game and interacting with the world and not just be "my character knows already what dangers are in this forest".

Obviously if-when the PCs venture afield their knowledge of the new areas they visit is going to be both less overall and less accurate.

Sure in the beginning the might know something about the "starter area", but if they try to travel to Mt. Doom and ask "what do I know about mordor" the answer is "well its naughty word dangerous, but for details you need to find out for yourself"

Agreed. The question raised to bloodtide is around the PCs knowledge of the "starter area" as he seems to assume they don't have any. EDIT: and from the post directly above I now see he gives the players a handout describing the local area, which means the PCs do have some knowledge of the area provided the players read the handout.