Have you ever made thigns out of rule to improve gameplay? (as a DM)

[Ran]

Originally Posted by Jester:
Changing the abilities of a monster to spruce it up is a time-honored tradition; check out the "voice of the wood" or whatever Piratecat called it in his story hour; mechanically it's a balor whose abilities focus on woodland powers rather than on fire and stuff. Cool stuff

And where can I see that Wood Balor?

 

[Sanackranib]

rules . . .

it really comes down to are the players amused or intrigued by the change or do they all feel like you just bent them over and gave them the shaft for your own amusement. if its the former it will never be a problem, continused use of the latter will often result in you running a very short lived game.

 

[the Jester]

And where can I see that Wood Balor?

It's in P-Kitty's zip file; if you go to the first page of his story hour (here) and download the zip, look on about page 72 or 73 for the fight with the Voice of the Wood...

If you haven't read PCat's entire story hour already, I highly recommend it.

 

[Psion]

I generally take care to ensure that anything that appears in the game can be explained by rules, albeit possibly rules with extended options that the players may not know about.

I think of the rules as the "laws of reality" and if you get too out of hand, it is really easy to leave the players grasping for stability. Therefore, I think every rules change should be sensible and purposeful. I do not want my games to run like "Brazil" or "Jacob's Ladder."

 

[mkletch]

I think of the rules as the "laws of reality" and if you get too out of hand, it is really easy to leave the players grasping for stability. Therefore, I think every rules change should be sensible and purposeful. I do not want my games to run like "Brazil" or "Jacob's Ladder."

Wow, I haven't heard of Jacob's Ladder in a long time. That was the movie my wife and I went to on our first date (she picked it). Man, was that a screwed up flick. If I was in a campaign like that, I'd probably have nightmares....

(No, not becasue of the association with my wife )

-Fletch!