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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2239750" data-attributes="member: 4937">Back in 1st edition, I generally didn't present my house rules to the players.  Since the only rules that I figured that the player's needed where those on character generation, I think that the only document on the house rules I ever handed to the players was a sheet on the abilities of evil humanoids for a 'from the other side of the dungeon' campaign. 3rd edition is alot more player centric, largely because players have so many more choices in how they create and advance thier characters.  For example, in 1st edition, I could keep spells I created for the campaign secret until I wanted to reveal them to the players.  In effect, this let me keep new spells back as 'treasure' for the party spell caster.   In 3rd edition, I can't completely do that because Sorcerer's need to know what options are available to them whenever they gain a level and some of the spells I've created are rather generic and appropriate for sorcerer's.   So, the player gets more options, but I the DM get to present the PC's with fewer surprises, and fewer 'oooohhh neeeeatttt' moments of discovery.   And it goes on and on. The mechanics of combat manuevers have to be explicitly spelled out to players, because the players need to be able to evaluate whether or not to take feats that enhance thier ability to use those manuevers.   The full range of abilities available needs to be shown, because players need adequate time to prepare to climb a feat tree.   This means I have to be fairly careful about deciding what feats - if any - I will hide from the players, which in turn means that the players will face fewer foes whose abilities seem new and fantastic to them.   Altered spells need to be explicitly tabulated, because I can't always wait until the players find and can cast the spell to tell them that it works differently than the books.   So, for the first time ever I'm drawing up a list of house rules to present the players.  Right now, its in three or four documents that are totalling close to 100 typewritten small font pages.  I suspect its going to get larger.  Part of the problem is that I'm so picky about the things that I let into the game that I can't just point to a few books and say 'Everything in there is OK', because outside of the PH, I can't think of a book that most everything is ok - and even the player's handbook has some revisions under the rules.   PArt of the problem is that and Ranger, Druid, Monk, Paladin have been dropped from the class list, and I've got eight classes (six homebrew) to put in thier place, and Halfling, Gnome, and Half-Orc are gone and I've got at least four homebrew races I have to detail to put in thier place.  In other words, after several years of playing generic 3rd edition, I'm finally trying to go through the work of fully converting my homebrew 1st edition world over to 3rd.  I'm trying to put everything in the same order it would appear in the PH.   Honestly, 15 years ago, I wouldn't have been going to all this work even if 3rd edition had come out then, because in the age before easy to use and widely available word processors it would have just been too much work.  Even so, I doubt that I'd be going to this much work except that I need the results every bit as much as my player's will.I draw a line at presenting the players with any alteration in monsters, treasures, etc. in the campaign.   For one thing, I tend to think of the monsters in my campaign as being unique - either unique individuals or truly unique creatures - and believe that monsters should almost always have surprising (and terrifying capabilites).   I strongly want to avoid the, "Oh, its a slobbering hairy multi-tentacled mound of fanged mouths, breathing fire.  These things only have 12H, no sweat, we can take it." syndrome that seems to plague groups of players that have been playing a while.</blockquote>

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