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.

 

[Emberashh]

More often than not games of all types are much more fun when you play them as intended.

Its way too easy the suck the fun out of a game by houseruling away frictions or adding things that weren't designed to be there.

Its the same effect outright cheating can have, it that it can actually ruin the fun of the gameplay even once restored.

 

[Distracted DM]

As with most things, I think one should understand and practice the system before modifying it. Also, if you can, understanding why certain decisions were made can help (easier in the ttrpg space to ask designers why they did X instead of Y).

There are exceptions, ofc, but usually that's for 3pp stuff not the core system.

 

[schneeland]

I might houserule early something in D&D that I have years, if not decades, of experience with. In new (to me) RPGs I usually like to kick the tires as written to see how it plays. If something seems off, ill go online and talk to fans of the game and/or designers if they are available. Try and get in the head space of what it is supposed to do before tinkering with it to my own tastes.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good summary of how I handle things - if I know the game engine well enough, I'm willing to house rule early (either after reading or after the first adventure); if it's something new, I try to play RAW at least a couple of times before I make changes (among others, some things really read worse than they play).

 

[The Real Pixie]

It sorta depends on the thing right? Not all rules are made equal.

Something like a character ability I probably won't touch for a while until it becomes very obvious it just doesn't work right, and I'll start by going online to see what other people have done about the issue.

Something like who rolls dice at what time is something I'm far more willing to tweak before the game is even out. For example PF2's secret checks I think 90% of the time should actually just be player rolls because rolling dice is fun. If a game doesn't have rules governing dice rolls (because it doesn't use dice) then there's nothing for me to touch.

Real fencesitter take to say 'it depends', but it all comes down to the experience at the table. Sometimes it's immediately obvious what will make for a better experience before you even start, sometimes it's not obvious until later on. I'm willing to change rules before even playing the first time but in practice I mostly don't change any rules until I have a good dozen sessions under my belt.

 

[MGibster]

I try to avoid houseruling when I can.

I try to avoid house rules where possible even if I think a rule is silly. For Savage Worlds, I instituted a house rule combining Swimming, Climbing, and Throwing skills into the singular Athletics skill long before it became the official. SW skills are supposed to be very broad, and people simply weren't taking Climbing or Swimming because they generally had very, very narrow applications. Even in my pirate campaign very few occasions merited investing points in Swimming.

Broadly speaking there are two reasons why I make a house rule. The nice reason is when I have a specific campaign in mind and I want to make sure the rules reflect that. For example, if I'm running a game where everyone is part of a road warrior type organization, I might tell players they can either start with one level in Driving or a level in Repair representing their shared background.

If I discover a problem with the rules after we've played the game a few times, depending on the severity of the problem, I'll go ahead and issue a house rule. I don't do this very often, because I typically prefer running games with rules as written, but on rare occasion I'll make a change. For Cyberpunk 2020, I don't do critical fumbles (unless you have a friendly in the line of fire). There's a 1 in 10 chance of it happening and it's never fun, so I got rid of them. Bring on those critical successes though.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm generally not a fan of house rules whether I'm playing or GMing.

As a player I don't want to have to remember or adhere to someone else's interpretation of what makes a better game. I once played in a game that the DM would just enforce house rules he had created without telling the group at a session zero, or during the course of the game. It made for a very unenjoyable game as he would just make up stuff on the fly mid game to a point that I never knew what I could do or how he was going to reinterpret some rule. Him and I had words about it a few times until I eventually told him off and quit playing.

As a DM I don't think it's fair to the other players so I generally just play rules as written so everyone is on the same page. On rare occasions I'm sure I've made minor changes here and there but none that come to mind.

IMO if a game has to be heavily modified then I'd rather just play something else.