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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Humanophile" data-source="post: 1535371" data-attributes="member: 1049">In a way, I have to disagree with prevaling opinion on these boards.  The rules do two very important things, and both are quite necessary to the game.The first thing they do is set tone.  If you're playing one game with action points, and another with VP/WP and bell-curve rolls, they'll feel rather different.  In this sense, I do agree that "the rules should serve the game", but in the sense that the rules engine should be tuned to the style of play given.  This by no means gives carte blanche to tinker with the rules on the fly.And second is a whole ball of balance issues.  If one choice/approach is preferable to others, it effectively limits choice and punishes nonstandard approaches.  (Remember 2e all-elf parties, anyone?)  Furthermore, railroading and selective interpretation of rules are pretty widely agreed on as the mark of a bad DM, and hand-whipped up NPC's tend to be good at whatever they need to be good at, which kind of kills player expectations of balance.  It takes versimiltide out back and gives it a good beating if the player can't do what the NPC does "just because" or some other arbitrary PC/NPC dividing line.  So the DM is behooved to have balanced rules, and apply them equally, in the name of good gaming.  And that's ignoring the versimilitude nightmare when the "laws of reality" work intermittently.Now, I do agree that the ruleset should be twisted six ways to sunday if it makes the game more the flavor that you want.  Custom feats are a great example of this, so long as the players know about them (or have a good reason not to), and can snap them up too.  But the rules are there for a reason, and deciding that (say) the monk's DC to jump a 20 foot chasm is now 30 for no real reason... well... not a good thing, IMHO.-And as to the original post, treating the "core" D&D ruleset as your first principles, and going from there, is an interesting and nifty thing.  You've no doubt seen the countless estimations of how reality would turn out if life were like D&D, another wild crack at the idea is always fun.</blockquote>

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