What level of house rules are you comfortable with?

[S'mon]

With all the talk of house rules this week...

You are looking to join a new game, and you ask the DM about his house rules.

"I have no house rules. We play straight out of the core books."

"I have no house rules. We use the core books plus A, B, C, D, E, . . . X, Y, and Z books."

"I have a few [less than a dozen] house rules, but they are mostly minor tweaks [clubs can deal non-lethal damage with no attack penalty]."

"I have a few [less than a dozen] house rules, and most are major alterations [new magic system]."

"I have a 23-page document explaining my house rules."

"I have a 256-page document explaining my meshing of several editions of the game into a barely-recognizable hybrid."

What level of house rules are you comfortable with, as a Player? What level of house rules would turn you away from a game? Is there one particular house rule that would turn you away?

Quasqueton

I would be extremely wary of the "I have no house rules" GMs. I suspect their style of play would not suit me at all. I'd worry it would be a "The Rules are God" type GM. I would be wary of the 256 page guy, if he expected all his players to read that & memorise it. That's about the size of OGL Conan or Grim Tales, basically it's a different game than D&D. OTOH if he said "This is a game based off D&D, here's the 1 page intro, give it a try & see if you like it", fine.
23-page is a good level for tweaked settings like Midnight, probably the ideal level to be readily comprehensible but give a very different flavour. Under a dozen house rules seems very few but might be ok for a GM deliberately choosing to stick as close as possible to default 3e and only change things where absolutely necessary. Presumably he'd be willing to add additional house rules if stuff came up in play.

 

[S'mon]

How comfortable I am probably depends on how much I agree with the house rules. Probably up to the 23 page document level - more than that and are you still playing D&D?

Yep, I agree with that - most GMs' house rules should fit in 2-6 pages I'd guess, fewer when they first start GMing. Some house rules may be warning signs indicating a failure to understand the 3e system, like limiting Rogue sneak attacks or uncapping fireball damage.

 

[S'mon]

This is my max level of house rules comfort. Anything much more than that and I'll find another game or group. I usually find that major house rules fix what ain't broke, or break further what was only marginal to begin with. Rarely do major house rules (in my experience) add much to the game except more complexity.

You don't sound very Chaotic, Emirikol.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I would be in the middle. No house rules may imply to me someone who is so strict with the rules as written that there is no flexilbility. I would be wary, but wouldn't just run. Too many house rules and I won't want to try and keep track of them all. I'll need a really good reason to stay.

I expect a certain amount of house ruling, and if it goes beyond a couple of small tweaks, I would hope it is written out and given to new players as a reference.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

However it is quite arrogant from a DM to believe that he's so smart to have figured out all the game's problems and a better solution than experienced designers...

Maybe. But it's quite a different matter when the DM in question has access to a group of bright gamers (or even more helpful, a community like EN World). How many DMs don't recognize that there's a problem with HP rolls on leveling up? How many DMs fix the problem with house rules (many of which are, not coincidentally, strikingly similar)? And yet that problem, which has existed since 1E, continues to elude the game designers. (Monte Cook apparently addresses it in Iron Lore.)

I might distrust a DM who makes house rules without input (I have, in fact, distrusted such DMs in the past), but there are problems with the game that can be addressed by house rules, and EN World and other groups of gamers are very, very good at finding them and proposing solutions. The real question is "When does the volume of house rules outweigh the benefit of fixing what's broken?" In my case, I decided it was when I started to forget my own house rules.

 

[Desdichado]

So, is this like a poll without the poll?

My thought exactly; we've got all the poll options, yet no poll? WTF?

Anyway, this is probably closest to my position: "I have a 256-page document explaining my meshing of several editions of the game into a barely-recognizable hybrid."

I don't really have anywhere near 256 pages, but I do have a barely recognizable hybrid. Zappo makes a really good point, though --house rules have to have a good reason. In my case, it's because I wanted a darker, scarier --yet at the same time with more swashbuckling-- experience rather than the standard D&D one.

 

[Desdichado]

However it is quite arrogant from a DM to believe that he's so smart to have figured out all the game's problems and a better solution than experienced designers...

It is quite arrogant for a game designer to believe that he's so smart to have figured out what all the players of the game want from it.

Then again, I don't think many game designers feel that way anyway. Nobody is an expert on a particular groups desires from the game than that particular group.

 

[Ace]

there are no rules. the sky is the limit.

players get no books to use.

they play their characters and the referee worries about making the calls.

That requires a lot of trust and IMO works better in rules lite systems-- I might try that with you in an OD&D game FREX but not with most of my local GM's running 3.x

As a player I can tolerate a lot of house rules if I like them and they are in writing

Also I don't consider "add on" rules the same way -- saying "we use the Wanderer class from WOT, a bunch of 3rd partys PRC's, my homebrew spells and Bastions Arms and Armor" doesn't phase me as long as the rules in the book are as written or are as on the house rules .doc

I need to know how the games "physics" works to play it if the game is complex

 

[Joshua Randall]

The longer I play, the fewer house rules I use (or want others to use).

I embrace the system, warts and all, because it gives everyone a common language with which to describe the game. So, I would definitely not play in any weird hybrid games. And I probably wouldn't play in the A-Z sourcebook game either.

 

[Desdichado]

The longer I play, the fewer house rules I use (or want others to use).

The longer I play, the more I want to play the game I want to play, not the game some designer wants me to play.

I embrace the system, warts and all, because it gives everyone a common language with which to describe the game. So, I would definitely not play in any weird hybrid games.

Common language? I'm not sure I see what the advantage of that is, though.