Those rules we tend to ignore and how they impact play.

[Particle_Man]

I don't know how many DMs make players roleplay the eating of a live spider to cast the spider climb spell.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I don't know how many DMs make players roleplay the eating of a live spider to cast the spider climb spell.

I love that one.

 

[Klaus]

Definitely encumbrance and any cheap spell components. Ammunition. Food. We're not big into the micromanaging (although I realise some poeple enjoy that aspect).

We don't even bother with basic adventuring gear - we have a 25gp "adventurer's backpack" which means that you always have a rope, lantern, torch, or any other mundane item of equipment.

I agree. And I really love the "kits" found in Dungeonscape (such as the "cleric in a box").

One day I'd love to play a D&D survival game, where the characters are shipwrecked in an island and must make do with what they find.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I'll point out that under 3.5e, ignoring specifics of cheap components is the rule; no ignoring or handwaving required:

I know that's the rule, but my preference is to ignore the very existence of material components. I use the BECMI approach, where all spells are assumed to have verbal and somatic components, but material components are ignored (modified for expensive spells, because I want wishes and resurrections to be rare). That's a minor rules change, but it means that spellcasters can cast in virtually any situation -- even when you take away a cleric's holy symbol or a wizard's bag of spell components.

 

[Croesus]

Hope I'm not derailing, but lots of people have mentioned wanting to track mundane and minor equipment but finding that they either forget or get tired of it. Has anyone tried using item cards? You know, when players get a piece of equipment, they get a card with the equipment on it (a tiny one for an arrow, a fair sized one for their 200' rope, and a honking big one for their +2 full plate) to make it easy. So when your archer rapid shots, he just chucks two arrow cards into the pot.

You could even use this for money, in the same vein as games like Monopoly. Anyone tried using cards for equipment, and how did it go?

Using item cards for consumables, such as potions, works well. The problem we found is when characters are walking around with so many minor items, that their stack of cards is literally larger than a MTG deck. Adding mundane items to the deck just makes it that much less useful, IMO.

If tracking arrows is important, the best suggestion I've seen is using toothpicks.

Concerning the overall question, it depends on the players what rules get ignored. My group from high school and college were all avid wargamers, so used the weapon vs. AC rules from 1E, even though we knew they made no sense in play, and a complex initiative system suggested in a Dragon article. But we ignored the level limits for non-humans and used a spell point system instead of vancian. (Choosing which spell to use in a situation added to the tactics we used, "guessing" what spell we would need that day...not so much.)

My 3.x group is all casual gamers and many "nitpicky" rules get ignored or modified: no multiclass restrictions, ammo, rations, upkeep, etc. ignored. Dodge is +1 AC against all opponents. AoO's are gone. Pretty much anything that saves time and allows us to concentrate of the fun bits...

The only time we don't ignore such things is if that's the whole point of the adventure (party has to struggle through arctic area to rescue some kids).

 

[Particle_Man]

Oh, in 3.x, most DMs in my neck of the woods ignore the "Dodge only gives +1 AC vs. one opponent" and simply make it the easy to precalculate remember +1 vs. everyone.

Also when DMing, I don't figure out the exact xp award -- I pull it out of my assumptions about how quickly I want the player characters to advance.

Also in my campaigns, greataxes do 2d6, dammit!

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'll point out that under 3.5e, ignoring specifics of cheap components is the rule; no ignoring or handwaving required:

This is true. However, I've broken the rule in the reverse (counting the PCs as having the individual components) when a new player tried to do something cool--they were going up against harpies, and she knew that she had squares of wool for one of her spells in the component pouch, and so she asked if she could use the wool to block her ears so she wouldn't hear the song. I agreed and gave a +4 circumstance bonus to the save.

 

[Reynard]

I bought the Rules Compendium yesterday because I realized that if I wasn't moving to 4E (which I am not) something like that would actually be of some use to me in the long run. I just now finished reading it and got to the essay on how rules come about, change and die at the end of the book. Very interesting and very germain to this subject.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't know how many DMs make players roleplay the eating of a live spider to cast the spider climb spell.

We LARP that one. Doesn't everyone?














What?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Weapon type versus armor class. It is one of those rules from AD&D that often got ignored to speed up play.

We actually always used this, and really enjoyed the element of weapon choice that it caused. It basically just required a line for each weapon the character sheet stating the modifications to the die roll, and didn't take long.

We did extend it to various monster types too (extrapolating from existing armour). From memory I think the monster armour types we included were

Hide (== leather)
small scales (== chainmail)
large scales (== scale)
huge scales (== plate)
shell (== field plate or whatever the top example was)
incorporeal (blunt weapons tended to be good here - to tie in with the cleric thematically)
'nonphysical' (e.g. elemental creatures. Don't remember what we used here)

I'd be happy to use something like that in 3e - I prefer it as a weapon differentiator to the crit range and multiplier from 3e, which doesn't reflect the historic viability of different weapons against different types of armour. In 3e only the numeric value of armour actually makes a difference!

Cheers