How Long Do You Wait Before You Houserule a New TTRPG?

[aco175]

I plan and intend to wait until after a campaign. I would like to give the designers a bit of credit for their work and see how they intend things to play before changing for my table. Reality is more likely that it is already changed before I start. I mean, who reads the rulesbooks since I tend to play just DnD and a new edition that tells me how to play is meh. We started 5e with the intention to play as written, and then just started to use flanking because we liked it in 4e and thought is was still in the common rules and not an option. Likely some things will just carry over with the 5.5 books as well, but we play on not using flanking to start.

I'm a fan of the AD&D 1e Assassin's Backstab, which had a 50% chance of outright slaying the target regardless of its Hit Points Should be revisited with the Rogue subclass IMO.

This exact thing killed one of my PCs back in middle school. We were just playing along and a note was passed to the DM and before I knew anything, the DM told me that I died. Too bad. I think I hated that rule since then, mostly since there was no check or anything I could notice or do before just dying.

 

[Greg K]

It depends upon the game.

Before purchasing or after purchasing, but before reading:
I might house rule after I read/ watch online designer interviews, reviews, or excerpts, but before buying the book- especially, if the game is an iteration or variant of a game that I have played. The same for when I read online discussion and see the same house rule(s) being proposed or a proposed house rule that gets a lot of likes/agreement.

After reading
I might house rule after reading the rules and encountering a rule or mechanic that I do not like, because I have seen it in play in other games. Or I might see something missing. In this this instance, I will look in the rules for variant rules and/or online for discussions and posted house rules/Homebrew to see if others have addressed the issue and to my satisfaction.

During play and or after play
I might house rule during play, if a situatiion is not covered by the rules or upon encountering a rule in play that I do not like. In the former instance, I will make up a rule. In the latter instance, I may make a change or go with the existing rule for the session(usually the latter). Under either of these conditions, After the session is over, I will begin online searches for both discussions regarding the issue and posted house rules for fixing the issue in question. If fixes exist that I like, I will adopt one.

 

[aiouh]

As an example of the kind of thing I discovered I did not need to houserule after a number of sessions, that many folks houserule off the cuff: Shadowdark lethality.

Shadowdark is not particularly lethal, assuming your players aren't acting like they are playing 5E. First level is fragile, of course, but I would argue first level is fragile even in 5E. It supposed to be. It is "first level" for a reason. But after running a bunch of mid level Shadowdark at cons (so with people not especially inclined to want their character to survive) I discovered that because of the way the game is built, 4th and 5th level SD characters are pretty tough relative to the opposition.

People can and should do what they want. But I do think a lot of times people make big assumptions and start turning dials and tweaking settings prematurely.

I misunderstood the thread question. I had ran Shadowdark vanilla before but just apply houserules to different tables and one shot settings because I will most likely never play with these players again and want them to experience a ‘vertical slice’ without contriving the pressing quest by letting them rest for 8 hours

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah and I always find it pretty funny that 5E does that given that like, 2nd edition realized that was a problem and so started Dark Sun characters at L3, and indeed, post-Dark Sun, a lot of AD&D campaigns I played or ran in, we just started at 3rd. I guess one can do the same with 5E, but like man, what a weird issue to intentionally retain!

There are several "Hmm, that's odd" choices in D&D 5e...
That's one. That some classes don't is yet another... one way or the other, dudes.

I've lost my nostalgia for older D&D, too... too many things to houserule to make it viable for me as a GM.

I'll note that I don't mind the Pugmire & Monarchies of Mau variant.