Home-brewing Rules

[Vegepygmy]

I was curious who would go with the DM is god options

I answered DM is God as DM and RAW only as a player, and here's why:

My real answer (which wasn't an option in the poll) is that I'm fine with house rules as long as they are (1) carefully considered by someone who possesses sufficient system mastery not to make a mess of things, and (2) made as few in number as possible.

 

[korjik]

First-Fun
Second-Plot
Third-Rules

With the qualifier that plot be a major thing, not whim.

If a rules is not fun, it goes, no questions asked. 'Everybody roll climbing enough times to climb to the bottom of the cliff' is not going to happen when I know that it is tedious roll-playing that is almost guaranteed to kill a character for no reason.

If I want to make a plot point I will change the rules. If there are no sorcerers then the players cant make a sorcerer. This isnt normally a problem, as I generally would just use an unused class for the plot point, instead of telling a player no.

It isnt random, or just DM fiat tho. The first is as much due to discussion as fiat, and the second, like I said, I try to avoid player conflicts.

 

[The Shaman]

Do you ever home-brew rules in your game which has numerous sources of rules, optional rules, and other splat books that offer variations or do you go strictly RAW for all of your games regardless if you feel it may be broken or wrong?

This is all over the map.

Making rulings during the game, allowing splat books, and creating house rules aren't the same thing, in my experience, but in the post and the poll, these seem to me to be conflated into the same thing.

Yes, I make rulings during the game; it's one of the reasons I prefer the word 'referee' rather than 'x master.' No, I don't defer to player consensus on my rulings, though I may solicit opinions.

Yes, I allow splat books and other non-core material into a campaign. No, I don't defer to the players in deciding what's in and what's out, but the players are certainly welcome to ask and I'll happily hear them out.

Yes, I make extensive use of house rules, which I make available to the players, usually electronically. No, I don't make the adoption of house rules conditional on player consensus generally, though I'm glad to answer questions and discuss suggestions, and I have put new rules before the players for feedback before implementing them, particularly after we've started playing.

I seek out and appreciate player feedback on all aspects of the campaign, but at the end of the day I am the final arbiter of the rules of the game.

And no, that doesn't make me 'GOD.'

 

[S'mon]

I voted the GOD options, with one proviso - it's important the DM tells the players about his house rules. And don't pretend your house rule is actually RAW. If you claim to be running RAW, you should be open to correction. If you have a house rule, it should be a defined rule you can explain to the players.

 

[steenan]

As long as the house rules are prepared before the game and presented to players before the game begins, the GM is free to modify whatever they like and however they like. House rules are a part of the game, they are functionally not different from rules in the books. There is no difference between asking "Who wants to play in my campaign using X system?" and "Who wants to play in my campaign using X system, with house rules Y and Z?". I may not want to play in a house-ruled game if I don't like the house-rules, but I may as well not want to play in a RAW game if I don't like rules in the book.

If house rules are created during the game, they need to be discussed with all players and may only be introduced if everybody agrees. That usually means that the person that proposes house-ruling something (not necessarily the GM) must present their reasons for wanting the change and the reasons must be really good.

 

[delericho]

The options don't quite fit for me.

As a DM, I house-rule sparingly. I'll almost never run strictly RAW, because there's usually something I really don't like (or want to change for flavour reasons). However, I have found that house rules tend to gum up the works, even house rules intended to simplify things. So, I use them sparingly.

As a player, I don't mind if the DM uses RAW, house rules heavily, or even completely rewrites the system, provided he tells me. I expect to be told about changes to the rules before I create my character, and I really dislike it if the rules subsequently change. But that's about communication, rather than the specifics of the rules themselves.

(Oh, and incidentally, this applies both the house rules and also the use of supplements. As a DM I find that too many supplements make the game worse, and as a player I like to know up-front what is and is not included.)

 

[delericho]

Incidentally...

I'll try to summarize our discussion:
A few weeks ago our paladin refused to climb down a cliff because he had a large chance of falling to his death even with no enemies around as per what the DM interpreted the RAW to be. He felt that he could "take a 10" and just climb down slowly, but didn't do it at the time because of the DM's call at the time. We revisited the rule and the DM looked it up a bit later and stated that he was wrong and the paladin should have been able to take a 10 on the climb down so that he wouldn't fall to his death. [Okay, cool he was wrong and admitted it later on after a bit of discussion and re-reading the rule].

...

Our DM's opinion is that he's trying to really get into Pathfinder and will not stray from the rules at all if a situation is covered in the rules, he stated that the 500-page book is sort of a contract between player and DM stating that they will all abide by the rules within and that if he home-brewed or DM-fiat'd rules that'd be breaking his contract with his players. He said that with 500+ pages, that every situation would be covered, even if loosely, within the rulebook(s).

If the DM is going to take that view (which is entirely reasonable), and especially given that he's pretty new to a very complex system, when faced with the situation as described, the DM should probably have taken the time to look up the actual rule. It wouldn't have been too much of a break, it was at a fairly 'quiet' time in the game, and it would have removed the ambiguity, not just for that ruling, but for any similar ones.

(Normally, I'm in favour of cutting down on look-ups at the table. But this instance really sounds like it was crying out for it!)

 

[Vascant]

We actually got to the point where we have a PDF for the players handbook that contains all of the changes we have made along the way (we are still using 3.5e as the base). So as rules get changed, replaced or added all I do is simply update the PDF and send it to the group. On occasion I may run something past the players to get their feedback or opinion on something but they know I am not looking for a yes or no votes. Granted based on feedback I can sometimes see a new rule will not help game play.

 

[Celebrim]

Your poll is too biased for me to answer.

House rules are the opposite of DM fiat. In fact, going by the RAW frequently will require more DM fiat than producing a codified set of house rules because inevitably situations will arise in which the RAW is vague or can be interpretted differently by two different people (or by the same person on two different occassions!). The house ruler typically will explicitly state what the rule is in those cases and stick with it, often before they come up in play, thereby eshewing DM fiat.

Generally speaking, most people don't consider selecting the system or even which optional rules of that system to worth speaking about as 'DM fiat'. Rather, while no system is entirely free of DM fiat, its generally only when its clear that the outcome of a proposition depends unpredictably on DM fait rather than upon known rules that we speak of DM fiat. DM fiat is particularly spoken about when we are discussing the DM's role as arbitrator, and not that of the DMs role of game planner.

Moreover, most people use terms like 'using RAW' and 'using splatbooks' and 'house rules'. For example, and DM may (rightly IMO) feel that they are playing RAW and selecting and using splatbooks to include in the campaign. A stack of books is still RAW even if some of them are third party. RAW does not mean 'core only' or SRD only. 'House rules' on the other hand may very from the equivalent to a home brewed splatbook to explicitly over turning the RAW.

I suspect that a 500 page rulebook will not in fact cover every situation, and in fact will only cover a very tiny number of situations. It will only appear to cover a large percentage of the situations encountered, if and only if the players of the game treat the rules as a description of the limits of what they are able to accomplish and never offer a proposition not covered by the rules. This rules bias in the player proposition, that is, the player feels that whatever is not permitted by the rules is prohibited generally lies at the root of the sense that the RAW is situation spanning in even a loose sense. And typically, what it results in is not player empowerment, but player disempowerment in as much as the DM is effectively prohibiting everything not covered by the rules. It's the RPG as chess, with a limited set of allowed moves that the player can propose in any circumstance, and anything not one of those rules has either no effect on the game or is met with 'No'.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

This is all over the map.

Making rulings during the game, allowing splat books, and creating house rules aren't the same thing, in my experience, but in the post and the poll, these seem to me to be conflated into the same thing.

I may have phrased it a bit weirdly, but what I meant was if you have all the various options available from the original rulebooks, official player option books, and other 3rd party splat would you still be going RAW using these sources or still go with home-brewing rules not contained within these resources.

Yes, I make rulings during the game; it's one of the reasons I prefer the word 'referee' rather than 'x master.' No, I don't defer to player consensus on my rulings, though I may solicit opinions.

That's cool, a lot of DM's do it this way and that is an interpretation issue not a home-brew ruling thing unless you are changing something in the RAW which would change some mechanics in your game.

Yes, I allow splat books and other non-core material into a campaign. No, I don't defer to the players in deciding what's in and what's out, but the players are certainly welcome to ask and I'll happily hear them out.

I kind of covered this in my first quote of you, which is what I was clarifying. Splat/non-core are different from home-brewing in my opinion. The question at hand is more about if you change things that aren't in these types of books.

Yes, I make extensive use of house rules, which I make available to the players, usually electronically. No, I don't make the adoption of house rules conditional on player consensus generally, though I'm glad to answer questions and discuss suggestions, and I have put new rules before the players for feedback before implementing them, particularly after we've started playing.

This is how I do it when I home-brew as well, if players agree to play in my games and I have certain things I like to change I tell them ahead of time and if other things need to change during the course of the game I will discuss with them. I feel that everyone at the table should have input if something during the game changes and I will not implement if they think (as a majority of players) that it is unfair, silly, or absurd.

I seek out and appreciate player feedback on all aspects of the campaign, but at the end of the day I am the final arbiter of the rules of the game.

And no, that doesn't make me 'GOD.'

I think you took me too literally there, what I meant by that option was that you make all decisions, without any player input ever, and if they don't like it that they can go find another table to sit at because the way you do things is the only way. Being the final arbiter of the rules is not about being god, it's about being well-informed and sticking to what you think is the right call as a judge or referee. That's how I've always felt it should be done that the DM is the rules-judge and players can attempt to sway the judge in their favor if they come up with a good argument on a rule that may be in a "grey area."