"Just House Rule It" and the New DM

[Rallek]

I think you're creating a false dichotomy. "Normal gaming" includes "house ruling." Very few (if any) gamers play by the official rules only.

You know I think that this used to be universally true.

I also think that it is becoming less true as time goes on. Adherence to the rules as written seems to be an emerging expectation in the player community, at least judging by the content of internet message boards...


and we all know that they are infallible.

 

[Cadfan]

This is silly. The problems for which people are being told "just house rule it" are not the sorts of problems that new players have. They're the sorts of problems that older players with idiosyncratic demands have. You aren't going to find new players who see that magic rings are designed for high level play, and who react with TOTAL RAGE. That's not a new player kind of problem.

Honestly, lets name some issues that a new player might want houseruled, and have a hard time houseruling. Here's the criteria.

1) If its a matter that no one would likely care about unless they had knowledge of previous editions, it doesn't count. New players don't have nostalgia for older editions, and therefore don't want to houserule the game to resemble older editions. As an example, the fact that the game hasn't got brass dragons would fail this test. No one is going to be demanding brass colored dragons unless they've become accustomed to older editions of D&D, and if they're accustomed to older editions of D&D, they're not new.

2) It has to be difficult for a new DM. "We're not using dragonborn" fails this test because any fool can say "we're not using dragonborn."

3) It has to be a real houserule. Certain matters are considered to be the DMs decision within the core rules of the game. Designing places, NPCs, plotlines, cosmologies, and so forth is not houseruling. It is being a DM.

 

[Nymrohd]

People who ask for said adherence usually had their DMs pull some kind of trick on them. D&D is not an easy game to play, and it is not for everyone, especially DMing. D&D is a live roleplaying game with a storyteller DM. Too many people DM as antagonists and it is clearly in WotC plans to enforce the storyteller style of gaming for D&D.

 

[FireLance]

Bringing up the Lego analogy again:

If you have one of those themed sets, you can follow the instructions to make it into whatever it was designed to be. However, there is nothing to stop you from putting the blocks together differently to get something else.

A new DM using the built-in assumptions will find the game easier to run. A more experienced DM who wants to change the built-in assumptions will find it easy to do so. I see no contradiction.

 

[StarFyre]

my thoughts

Let me try and fill in some reasons, i think, for house ruling.

I've been thinking alot recently about the aspects of 4E that I like, and the stuff I don;'t like (either due to prior editions or decisions that just don't like/make sense but may be better for the majority, etc).

To the first question, in terms of how does all the house ruling affect the gaming community as a whole. Honestly, it doesn't matter. When we play for example, we play since we all love the game and RPGs in general. However, with all the experience in a multitude of games, some more 'hardcore' than others, some all combat, some almost none, we all find what we prefer. Me, as the DM, am not going to cater to WotC or anyone else online, etc. I'm going to do what my players, and then myself find fun. Groups that have implemented house rules are all like this. They are used cause something isn't liked or doesn't work in their opinion so they want to change it. I recently suggested some changes that are upcoming, for our 3.5E campaign and thus 4e (since I will be converting our game direct from 3.5E to 4E and converting/recreating anything that may not be in 4E yet (ie. half orc for example)) and player i talked to loved the idea and agrees that now is the best time to test new ideas.

As well, I will only DM live; not online. I may do small sections online for when a player leaves the group for a bit or gets separated, but currently we do that by emails. That might be ok to do online but will see.

On the definition of house rules, I always took it as anything that is not like the standard rules. So, giving every pit fiend wizard levels is not house ruling since that is still part of the rules (although rules may assume added levels would be only for unique leaders). If, instead, you created 10 totally new custom spells and gave these to the pit fiend in your campaign and then increased it's damaged, lowered it's AC, etc..these would be house rules. Fluff changes can also be house rules.

I also don't think new DMs will house rules much. Most new Dms and players I know prefer to use the official rules to make things easier for them. It takes time to get used to any game system and to learn it well enough so that you can easily judge changes and see if they are good or not.

In terms of combat damage, spells, etc. After a long time of such games, what you'll get used to, and this is what I refer to, if I ever say "advanced DM/experienced DM", the ability to visualize what something will do, or how hard it is or could be after changes. This can be done in a couple of methods; playing the game for a while and then slowly making changes OR make changes when you want too, and let the player/DM use the changes and modify them as needed in between sessions. This may seem like undesireable, but it depends on the play group. For our sessions, after each session or prior, we have a quick 15 min discussion on stuff that people had fun with, didnt like, etc and I also have several spreadsheets made up that do comparisons and flows for how I am awarding experience, etc. I use this to rate myself and how I am managing the players expectations. I think this is important. I also let players refuse any house rules, but so far this hasn't happened.

As for house ruling before rules for 4E are fully available. If someone wants to change grapple...yeah, that;s; not really happening well since we have no idea how the new grapple works. However, the cleric and wizard for sure will be a total re-write I am sure for us and a couple players are happy; of course, I will tweak them over time as needed...but the 4E versions from what we know, I know won't fit with my players visions of these classes or how magic is used in my "Universe of D&D."

A major change will be done for my friends wild mage as with all the house rules we have for it now, I want to totally dumb the 2E and 3.5E hybrid we made, and go totally to the 4E design method; think of the concept of what you want; what you truly imagine, and try and make it do that.

I can post the ideas if people want to know, but I don't think I should waste space here.

Sanjay

 

[Reynard]

This is silly. The problems for which people are being told "just house rule it" are not the sorts of problems that new players have. They're the sorts of problems that older players with idiosyncratic demands have. You aren't going to find new players who see that magic rings are designed for high level play, and who react with TOTAL RAGE. That's not a new player kind of problem.

Honestly, lets name some issues that a new player might want houseruled, and have a hard time houseruling. Here's the criteria.

Not the point and not the subject of the thread. The subject of the thread is how house-ruling/"modding" experienced DMs and new DMs will interact with the game and with one another. Everyone who has posted on this thread is by definition a part of a larger gaming community -- no one here can claim that their gaming experience is limited to the basement (even if their actual play experiences are limited to the basement). Given that there should, if things work out the way WotC wants, be an influx of new DMs into the community come June -- after all, 4E is web-enabled and finding EN World after finding WotC/Gleemax is almost a certainty -- these two groups are going to come into imemdiate conflict. Sure, there's always a new DM asking for help, but in June or July there should be lots of them.

"Just houserule/change it" means something to an experienced DM (exactly what depending on what the issue at hand is). What does it mean to a new DM looking for advice or to understand why things may be the way they are? In addition, there is the issue of these two groups of DMs interacting in direct play with one another as the VTT takes off (assuming it does).

So, despite Cadfan's attempt to handwave the subject, it actually matters and will have an impact on not only those new and experienced DMs, but on our community as a whole.

 

[StarFyre]

CadFan

Hi Cadfan,

I must say I disagree with the statement.

Even when we started playing D&D back in 1991 or 1992 (whichever), there were stuff that immediately popped to mind.Some of it we used house rules, most we didn't and over time, we slowly changed things that we wanted.

The reason we had those opinions was our vision of stuff or even logical ideas that we thought made sense. A basic example would be, there could be a crushing trap that does 10d6/round as it smushes you. For us, unless you got str of a giant or something, you CAN'T stop the solid steel walls, and thus its instant death. Techncially in the above paragraph, if you somehow had 100000 hp, you could live for a long time until someone found you; in our version, uhm..No. Unless you are truly that strong, you can't and thus won't survive.

VEry basic example but just trying to think of a quick one.

While house rules for stuff like how spells or monsters or items work is more in the realm of long time players, there are still some stuff (probably more basic concepts) that Dms want changes.


Sanjay

 

[Anthtriel]

My personal experience is that houserules (and real houserules, not just fluff changes), are pretty common even among beginners. For example, I ruled out level-limits the moment I saw them, without even thinking about any consequences.

after all, 4E is web-enabled and finding EN World after finding WotC/Gleemax is almost a certainty

That seems like a stretch to me. Of all the groups I have participated in, I'm the only one who frequents RPG message-boards. And even if people take to the messageboards, it's likely that they will stay at the offical boards instead of going to Enworld. I was under the impression that even people who started with 3E are a small minority here. At least they should be, judging by the age polls.

I'd be very suprised if we would see a significant wave of people come here upon 4E's release.

 

[howandwhy99]

I honestly don't believe those two things are at odds. The initial design includes a number of presumed rules for first time play. House ruling comes in later with changing preferences. You and I've played before, so it's done immediately.

Is the individual group house-ruling something to meet their preferences irrelevant to the larger gaming community, including these new DMs?

Well, yeah. My house rules are pretty much irrelevant to everyone but my friends at the table. Unless you want to hear about my character The community's gonna share their own home rules with each other pretty much regardless of publisher intent.

Is consistency from one table to the next, whether in a basement or at a con, important in any way, or even viable?

No, except in special cases. Tournaments at Gencon use the same game rules in an endeavor for fairness across teams. In other ways, it may just be a market flooding technique, but that's not really my thing. I don't know.

How does the idea of the VTT figure into it, which could potentially get a lot more people playing with a lot broader cross section of gamers?

I'm guessing it will be like most internet games... a mess. Not that the system won't work (that's a programming issue), but that people will run the games they want.

The kicker is: will the software allow for customization?
Will it include the ability for community constructed plug-ins, add-ons, and extensions?
Will it allow licensing for these in parts of its code enabling commercial enterprise by other software companies?
Will it license parts for non-commercial software developers like Firefox does?
Will it go so far as to open source all or part of its' code like the in the free software project?
(I'm gonna guess no on the last one)

Certain things will always make the game harder to play online than off. It remains to be seen how assumptive the game board will be for DDI and how the design (not just the internet) will restrain play.

Actually, I'll start a new thread on this.

And finally, what about the "advanced DM"? Do you think the intent is that more advanced Dming techniques will be the subject of things like the DMG II? Or will the DMG II simply be a book of new crunch/updated and converted old crunch?

Advanced DMing would be like texts for high level art classes. They'll be more about difficult techniques, explorations behind why the basics work, how to find one's own voice, altering the rules while understanding their purpose, modifying printed modules and supplements to fit one's own game. Plenty of etc's on that.

In essence, they'll be more about allowing the DM/group to run/play the game in his/her and their own way. Paint by numbers only works in the beginning when creating a finished work is most important. House ruling is really saying the game is ours.

 

[Vysirez]

Hi Cadfan,

I must say I disagree with the statement.

Even when we started playing D&D back in 1991 or 1992 (whichever), there were stuff that immediately popped to mind.Some of it we used house rules, most we didn't and over time, we slowly changed things that we wanted.

The reason we had those opinions was our vision of stuff or even logical ideas that we thought made sense. A basic example would be, there could be a crushing trap that does 10d6/round as it smushes you. For us, unless you got str of a giant or something, you CAN'T stop the solid steel walls, and thus its instant death. Techncially in the above paragraph, if you somehow had 100000 hp, you could live for a long time until someone found you; in our version, uhm..No. Unless you are truly that strong, you can't and thus won't survive.

VEry basic example but just trying to think of a quick one.

While house rules for stuff like how spells or monsters or items work is more in the realm of long time players, there are still some stuff (probably more basic concepts) that Dms want changes.


Sanjay

I can see what you are saying, everyone has certain expectations and thoughts on how things should go. However I have to say I generally agree with Cadfan. What you are describing is all so individual that there is no way that D&D could cover every POV for every possible player. They have to find things that are common enough that the majority of people are ok with them. Then they need to try to make it so that if it is so different from what you expect that you have to change it, then it's not too hard for you to change.

Generally when I've seen the house rule it comment it was about something along those lines. It's something that a lot of people are ok with, but some people are not. Mabye even a lot of people arent. But if it's something that is easy to change, then the "just house rule it" comes out. Because if it's something that is easy to change, and won't have a huge impact on the game system when changed, then it's pretty much a matter of preference, and WOTC is going to design it they way they think the majority of people would prefer.