MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
As a DM, what request for a house or varient rule (or use of RAW instead of your home rule) by one or more players have you refused to change? Are there any rule changes that even if the entire group of players wanted changed, you would instead rather not run the game?
As a Player, what DM-proposed rules change have you refused to go along with? Are they any rule changes that would bother you enough to walk out on a campaign?
Note: for this discussion, I am not talking about a rules change that was voted down. I don't want to go into "I refuse to change a rule for one demanding player where the rest of the player wants to keep playing by the rule." Also, I'm specifically talking about mechanical rules, not play styles. So not really interested in "I wouldn't run an evil campaign."
"Refused" is a strong word for me, because, ultimately, I want to run a game that everyone in the group enjoys. Where I have stuck by a rule, it is generally more campaign specific and not a general stance. I might insist on enforcing encumbrance rules, including coin weight in one campaign, but fudge it in another. It depends on the style and flavor of campaign I want to run.
The following are rules for which I have stuck by my guns. If the players felt strongly enough to walk away, I probably would have switched to a new campaign. But it has never come to that with my group.
Alignment. In my current campaign, alignment is an important mechanic and ties in with the cosmology. Not a particularly deep, philosophical cosmology. This campaign is pretty gameist and alignment is just another part of the game. Many magic items can only be used by characters of specific alignments and may harm those of the wrong alignment. Certain areas buff or debuff characters based on their alignment. And more. I'm not going to go into all the aspects that alignment touches upon in my current campaign. Suffice it to say that is has very real mechanical effects and alignment choices matter. If the players were not cool with that, I would have scrapped this campaign and ran another.
XP for GP. My current campaign just would not work well with traditional XP awards. At least not without a lot of reworking. Milestone advancement could have worked, but it would not have engendered the play style and flavor I was going for in this campaign. If the players were not up for it, I would have ran a different campaign.
Spell components. I have been working on another campaign for years where spell component resource management would be a major element driving the plot. But that, and the class limitations I would want to impose, have not been attractive to my current group, so I have yet to run it.
Character race limitations. In my first campaign, players had to chose from human, dwarf, gnome, or halfling. It was important based on the home-brew campaign world and plot. If the players had insisted on playing elves, dragonborn, etc., I would have run a different campaign.
Critical failures. I don't like them. I use critical hits and for my last two campaigns have used the Nord critical hit cards for both players and monsters. If a majority of my players were to insist on also using the critical failure cards, I would likely relent. But a rule that leads to a greater chance for fumbling the more powerful and experienced you become is annoying to me. There are good, rational arguments in favor of critical failure rules and I know many players enjoy them. I'm just not one of them. But I suppose I would allow them under protest.
Vancian magic. In one campaign, there was a player that thought spell slots were "stupid" and argued for something like mana points instead. I think I would rather change to a different system than take Vancian magic out of D&D.
These are the only ones I can think of where I've taken a strong stance on in my 5e campaigns. What about your?
As a Player, what DM-proposed rules change have you refused to go along with? Are they any rule changes that would bother you enough to walk out on a campaign?
Note: for this discussion, I am not talking about a rules change that was voted down. I don't want to go into "I refuse to change a rule for one demanding player where the rest of the player wants to keep playing by the rule." Also, I'm specifically talking about mechanical rules, not play styles. So not really interested in "I wouldn't run an evil campaign."
"Refused" is a strong word for me, because, ultimately, I want to run a game that everyone in the group enjoys. Where I have stuck by a rule, it is generally more campaign specific and not a general stance. I might insist on enforcing encumbrance rules, including coin weight in one campaign, but fudge it in another. It depends on the style and flavor of campaign I want to run.
The following are rules for which I have stuck by my guns. If the players felt strongly enough to walk away, I probably would have switched to a new campaign. But it has never come to that with my group.
Alignment. In my current campaign, alignment is an important mechanic and ties in with the cosmology. Not a particularly deep, philosophical cosmology. This campaign is pretty gameist and alignment is just another part of the game. Many magic items can only be used by characters of specific alignments and may harm those of the wrong alignment. Certain areas buff or debuff characters based on their alignment. And more. I'm not going to go into all the aspects that alignment touches upon in my current campaign. Suffice it to say that is has very real mechanical effects and alignment choices matter. If the players were not cool with that, I would have scrapped this campaign and ran another.
XP for GP. My current campaign just would not work well with traditional XP awards. At least not without a lot of reworking. Milestone advancement could have worked, but it would not have engendered the play style and flavor I was going for in this campaign. If the players were not up for it, I would have ran a different campaign.
Spell components. I have been working on another campaign for years where spell component resource management would be a major element driving the plot. But that, and the class limitations I would want to impose, have not been attractive to my current group, so I have yet to run it.
Character race limitations. In my first campaign, players had to chose from human, dwarf, gnome, or halfling. It was important based on the home-brew campaign world and plot. If the players had insisted on playing elves, dragonborn, etc., I would have run a different campaign.
Critical failures. I don't like them. I use critical hits and for my last two campaigns have used the Nord critical hit cards for both players and monsters. If a majority of my players were to insist on also using the critical failure cards, I would likely relent. But a rule that leads to a greater chance for fumbling the more powerful and experienced you become is annoying to me. There are good, rational arguments in favor of critical failure rules and I know many players enjoy them. I'm just not one of them. But I suppose I would allow them under protest.
Vancian magic. In one campaign, there was a player that thought spell slots were "stupid" and argued for something like mana points instead. I think I would rather change to a different system than take Vancian magic out of D&D.
These are the only ones I can think of where I've taken a strong stance on in my 5e campaigns. What about your?
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