The relevance of house rules

[Andor]

There have been several articles, and threads of discussion lately about how easy it is to make house rules 4e.

What is the point of these? Any system can be house ruled, there isn't anything suggested in these articles that couldn't be done of 3.x, or 2e, or 1e, or GURPS. Furthermore ease of houserulesing isn't why people play D&D. There are better games out there for customizing your game to suit your playstyle, from the 'Build your own game' approach of the HERO system to the modular approaches of GURPS or the FUZION system.

People, as far as I can tell, play D&D becuase they don't want to do that kind of work. They want a system where they can pick up a module and play it with minimal prep work, or reply on encounter tables and guidelines to let them wing encounters without a TPK.

So why all the gushing about a game designer hinting it's easy to change things?

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Malleability and modularity with uniformity is what drove 3rd edition and the market for roleplaying games during the 90's. Fourth edition seems to be embracing this as well., and that's a good thing from both a marketing and sales perspective.

 

[Mallus]

People, as far as I can tell, play D&D becuase they don't want to do that kind of work.

As far as I can tell, the people you're talking about are only one segment of the D&D player base. There's another sizable chunk that mod for love of modding.

 

[Grymar]

it is the ease of house rules that might make it nice. For instance, in 3.5 I would have loved to have been able to strip alignment out of the core rules, but it wasn't an easy solution. Too many effects depended on it. A simplified rule system with open math can more easily be tweaked to fight any campaign feel I might want to focus on.

it isn't a huge deal for me, but it is a bonus.

 

[kennew142]

People, as far as I can tell, play D&D becuase they don't want to do that kind of work. They want a system where they can pick up a module and play it with minimal prep work, or reply on encounter tables and guidelines to let them wing encounters without a TPK.

So why all the gushing about a game designer hinting it's easy to change things?

That may have been your experience. I have never encountered any GMs who've wanted to do nothing more than pick up a module and run it, or to 'wing it' without any prep time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There are better games out there for customizing your game to suit your playstyle, from the 'Build your own game' approach of the HERO system to the modular approaches of GURPS or the FUZION system.

That's the precise opposite of house-rules, to me. In those games, I typically have no or extremely few house rules (usually relating to objectionable powers, if they exist at all), simply using the extant rules framework with various "dials" and "add ons".

D&D has never, that I'm aware of, been much of a game for "dials" or "add ons" per se, even with 2E's whole Skills & Powers deal and the options presented in PHB2 and the Unearthed Arcana 3E. Instead, one tends to have a selection of personal rules (in all editions), some woven from the whole cloth, as it were, others simply adopted from suggestions in official or semi-official material.

I guess the big difference is this - a "virtual tabletop" equivalent of HERO or FUZION would probably work fine, whereas it's unlikely in the extreme that "house rules" will work on the official 4E D&D virtual tabletop. Makes no odds to me, as I won't be using it anyway, but there's a big difference between an expansive system that has dials, settings, buttons and add-ons or whatever you want to call them and a highly specific system that is simply easy to modify. I actually personally perfer the latter.

Presumably 4E will be easier to "house-rule" than 3E, as the consequences of your changes and additions will be more immediately obvious due to the more "straightfoward" nature of the system and it's mechanics, and it sounds like the DMG will be more friendly to people wanting to house-rule.

People, as far as I can tell, play D&D becuase they don't want to do that kind of work. They want a system where they can pick up a module and play it with minimal prep work, or reply on encounter tables and guidelines to let them wing encounters without a TPK.

I'm not sure I see the connection. They shouldn't have to do that kind of work. It's entirely optional. If that kind of work is easier, it's a good thing, isn't it? No-one is saying "Zomg 4E will REQUIRE house-ruling! GREAT!". Are they?

 

[Drkfathr1]

I pretty much add house rules to any game I play. I definately don't play D&D because I think all the rules are okay "as is". I like D&D for what it is beyond the rules. If simplicity and elegance of rules were the only reason to choose a game, D&D wouldn't be it.

Star Wars Saga would be. Which is what gives me great optimism for 4E.

 

[Andor]

As far as I can tell, the people you're talking about are only one segment of the D&D player base. There's another sizable chunk that mod for love of modding.

People mod for a variety of reasons. Few of them do it just because. And while it's not that difficult to make a system with the intent of modding it, as I mentioned it's been done before, such a system woud probably fail the "Is is still D&D?" test.

3.x was not a difficult system to mod frankly, but I don't think that's what drove sales.

 

[Mallus]

Few of them do it just because.

I probably should have said "people houserule because they enjoy customizing, sometimes without the explicit intent to fix any perceived problems with the system". How's that?

such a system woud probably fail the "Is is still D&D?" test.

I've never quite understood the point of that particular test.

3.x was not a difficult system to mod frankly, but I don't think that's what drove sales.

Who said anything about driving sales? You offered the opinion that D&D was essentially viewed as a 'pick-up-and-play' game. I disagreed.

 

[Mark Hope]

...Furthermore ease of houserulesing isn't why people play D&D...

For me, the customisable, modular/moddable nature of the 3e system is pretty much its #1 draw for me. From the variant rules in the DMG and Unearthed Arcana, the different approaches of Arcana Evolved, Conan d20, articles in Dragon and Dungeon to cool stuff ripped from teh internet - all of these get hoovered up by me and spat out in various combinations. I did this less in earlier editions, but I've always been fond of getting under the hood and tinkering. It's not just D&D either - I do this with WoD as well (I have to, or I couldn't play the damn thing!) and most other systems I play. I'd say that the willingness to mod and houserule is a playstyle thing, not an edition or system thing. Some of us just can't leave well enough alone .