House Rules: Choose Em, Don't Use Em, or Abuse Em?

[Mark]

Some people play the game as purists, some tweek and house rule everything, some fall somewhere in between: Who are YOU?

 

[maddman75]

My list of house rules fit on a single page, mostly lifting class restrictions and fixing some 'issue' spells. Harm and polymorph are altered, Time Stop banned.

 

[Mercule]

My list basically consists of picking and choosing the "variants" from the DMG, picking which PrCs and expansion spells are used, banning Rangers (use Woodsman from WoT), and give Sorcerers 4 skill points.

A few others have come and gone, but the above are the staples.

Of course, the homebrew I'm setting up will be fairly radical. More of a d20 game than D&D: mostly new classes, change the magic system (prompting most of the class changes), modified monsters, custom races, etc.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Rewrote it. Low Magic. Needed rebalancing. 'Nuff said.

 

[HellHound]

Depends on the game system.

I run D20 pretty much by the book - mind you, a lot of third-party material goes into my games, which is basically published "house rules" anyways.

I run CyberPunk 2020 with a BOOK of house rules, about 300 pages total.

I ran Vampire 2nd ed House-Ruled to the ends of the earth.

I run Vampire 3rd ed by the book.

 

[Mark]

More votes, please (I'm mainly interested in d20/D&D campaign situations)

 

[Petrosian]

i change rules as i see fit.

I usually end up changing things for two reasons...

1. the balance seems inappropriate for my campaign.

2. the rule does not add the proper flavor for my campaign.

I view both of these as part of the same phenomenon...

A punlished rulebook is a set of rules intended for broader market appeal... they are compromises to appeal to a broader swath of potential buyers. This goes even as far as the setting specific stuff.

I know the story/campaign i want to play.
I know the preferences of my players.
I know the specifics of their characters and character's backgrounds.

I know all of these much better and in more detail than the guys who wrote that rulebook for mass market who never met me or my players.

Therefore, i do not expect the rules to be a perfect fit.

balance and flavor are very dependent on those things I know that the designers did not.

So, where I see fit, i change things.

Now, when i change things, i post it ahead of time. My players are informed. I also do my best to make these changes before the campaign starts and hold the mid-campaign switches to smaller things if any at all.

 

[MarauderX]

I change things to make the game easier to play IMO. I take out detailed encumberance, spell components, other small stuff that gets in the way of the role-play or combat. I also change some of the spells for casters, and let the players know how things will work. I also let them know that monsters and other typical rules may be altered and it is up to the party to discover them - it leads to even more paranoid players, but when I let them know XP is adjusted accordingly they don't mind one bit.

I think the 3E rules are really good, but I still feel the need to tweak things a bit, such as how sound & sight work for spotting one another for an encounter. The DMG does a so-so job of incorporating things well, but still doesn't think ahead to cover some things, such as hearing a waterfall in the distance as soon as the party enters a dungeon. Such things affect how the game 'models' reality, something I like to aim for more than the game currently does by having things make sense - no retarded dungeon crawls IMC.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I change things to fit what I want out of a game. I often will increase skill points or give bonus skill points for knowledge type skills. I always tweak the magic system, I hate item creation. I don't like the tumbling rules........(you don't want to hear it all) I rewrote the book.


I can play and am happy to play by the book, I have always played home brew games (rules and worlds) and like to tweak things.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The only thing I have houseruled is the ranger, because he pretty much sucks. I do, however, put money on free parking.