Rules -- when do you break 'em?

[ThirdWizard]

I'll break the rules outside of game often. During the game, I don't break the rules.

with rule zero, I'm never actually breaking a rule. But I will when needed.

Wildly misinterprieted.

0. Check with your Dungeon Master
Your Dungeion Master (DM) may have house rules or campaign standards that vary from the standard rules. You might also want to know what character types the other players are playing so that you can create a character that fits in well with the group.

Rule 0 is to find out the House Rules and talk with other players before making a character in a particular game. It makes note that DMs might have House Rules, but it strongly implies that the Players should be made aware of these rules before the game begins. It in no way implies that a DM breaking the rules isn't breaking the rules.

This isn't to say that you can't change the rules whenever you feel like it. Don't use this as an excuse, though.

 

[ruleslawyer]

As a DM:

Like Krypter, I like tinkering with the rules. Thus, I make heavy use of house rules (a/k/a borrowed rules in many cases: my game is a fusion of core rules, AE, IH, and Midnight), but the players had access to all of these from character creation time onward, so there's still a strong sense of consistency. I don't ever change rules on the fly, and I never have; what I do is to note whenever I feel like there's a rule that I don't like in play (usually some application of a particular spell) and then propose a house rule before the start of play at the next session. This is pretty much how I've run games for the last 17 years or so. I also ad hoc rules all the time for tasks that players want to accomplish that aren't spelled out in the books, but that's really just a matter of setting a DC for a skill or ability check not listed in the books.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

with rule zero, I'm never actually breaking a rule. But I will when needed.

Sorry to disagree, but rule zero reads "check with the DM before taking something" not "check with the DM before assuming any of the rules in this book will be in the game".

I figure DMs are well within their right to say "I don't like this feat or this class and we will be using the optional levels of cover from the PHB, and the optional "hitting cover" rules from the DMG."

Beyond that, it isn't a rule 0 issue, it's a D&D variant. IMHO, of course.

Otherwise I could play Risk with the complete satisfaction that I was playing D&D according to the rules.

 

[Eloi]

I talk things over with my players before we play, so they understand my intent and are ready to go. I have a few house rules, a special save, and I like to inform everyone from the outset what we're up to: normal adventuring, High Adventure, or Epic Adventure. In High Adventure, the characters need to be careful, or they will affect the world by their actions; in Epic Adventures, the characters' actions are the stuff of legends, even if they don't understand it at the time, or were planning nothing of the sort.

In Epic campaigns, each character is special, with one (or more) ways in which they can do something with unique flavor. Might be a character whose Charisma is higher if they keep their mouth shut. Might be a physical deformity that they have compensated for in a startling way. Might be a secret that they are desperate not to share - but that accounts for something that they can do, and do with flair. When one character starts doing something "funky", the group is appreciative - and very frequently, the secrets shared (even in little ways) help bind the party together.

And these characters become the characters that the players talk about for years afterward, as "their favorite character" - it's part of the stories you tell over and over.

 

[Xombie Master]

All I got in this world is my balls, and my rules, and I don't break 'em for no one!

In all seriousness though, I don't believe in breaking the rules much. I actually have a house rule that I don't break any rule in the Player's Handbook. It's the only book they have to read, so why make it any more complicated than it has to be.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I don't think we actually use the rules at all very often. They're more of a skin on our cooperative adventure storytelling. More often than not, the character sheets don't exactly add up, and the dice are rolled with a sense of "Looks high enough to me" than any clue what we're supposed to be rolling.

Mostly, we like the way D&D feels, the culture of it. The Storyline we're crafting together is pretty immune to the rules.

 

[Shemeska]

The longer I play the game, the less and less I view the RAW as some sort of holy text to be followed slavishly. I've become much more loose with the rules over time, and I'm inclined to simply ignore rules that I see as superfluous and restrictive. It's gotten to the point that rules lawyering and insistence upon strict letter of the law interpretations of the rules grates on me.

The rules should be beholden to the flavor of the game, not the flavor beholden to the crunch.