What's the strangest house rule you've ever heard of?

[Angcuru]

Worst House rule = the DM himself.

I am definitely going to adopt this "Call" rule myself for my campaigns and suggest it to my current DM. You wouldn't believe how bad the OGCs get. Really, we only get in an average of 5 minutes of gaming, only two of which are role play, per hour. And that's on a good day. And the worst part is that the DM is the one doing most of the OGC. Really sux.

And he complains that we don't roleplay well. Honestly, how can you get into roleplaying a character when you only get 2 minutes of roleplay opportunity per session? (4 hour sessions= 8 RP mins/4 chars= 2 min per char.). I swear, the only thing keeping my going in this game is the AWESOME art that one of the players makes for the game.

What's even worse is that the DM seems to go to great lengths to describe things with as little detail as possible, unless he finds it to be hilarious or really, really, evil and/or awesome. This is also one of the factors that greatly impedes the roleplaying.

Of course, there is the occasional awesome, well-described event of goodness, but those are few and far between.

Average description of anything:
EX: Tavern scene: "There's people drinking and lying around passed out all over. What do you do?" - And this is one of the better descriptions.

It's also not that great when he DM is constantly criticizing every character in methods that only amuse himself. I.E. The elf is always a homosexual, etc. Stuff like that.

Player: "I stab him from behind."
DM: "I wanna stab your sister from behind!"

Honestly, how can you get good roleplay done when the DM's an ass and you can't picture the world as anything more than, well, a text adventure?

 

[Velenne]

Oh I'm so taking the Call rule....that's AWESOME and would serve our group very well! GREAT IDEA!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Whenever someone wants to take something from the WotC classbooks (feat/spell/equipment/PrC/whatever) I won't let them unless they tell me I look like Mel Gibson.

And no, I'm not kidding.

-BG

PS well, actually it's more of a comedy thing. But you'd be surprised how many players are hesitant to take something that might be abusive if they have to say that when I take off my shirt I look like Mel in The River or something like that.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Oooh- that Call rule is devious. And me, being a rat bastard DM, will make it even more evil by giving the players incentives to Call each other- say like XP.

 

[Kershek]

Whoever got the killing blow for a creature or npc, got all the xp...

Weird rule, they got more tpk's just trying to kill steal from each other...if they were smart, they all could have gotten the "hook up".

Cedric

I knew a 2E DM that gave you 1 extra XP for each point of damage you did on bad guys that died.

 

[Khenemetsobek]

For every person who said "Oh im gonna use that Call rule" I hope it ruins your game and breaks up your group.

 

[Craer]

For every person who said "Oh im gonna use that Call rule" I hope it ruins your game and breaks up your group.

That was really damn rude. If you're going to post things like this, then back it up with a reason why, at least. There's no reason to act like such a jerk on stuff like this.

-Craer

p.s. If you've got any more issues, feel free to send me a message on AIM. My screename is Archmagus Lewin.

 

[spunky_mutters]

The first group I played with had a house rule that demons caused permanent damage. It could not be healed by any means, ever. We had a poor ranger lord walking around with 12 hps. He ran down his con getting raised pretty quick.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

For every person who said "Oh im gonna use that Call rule" I hope it ruins your game and breaks up your group.

That just screams an "I've been on the bad side of that before"...to each his own. You don't like it, fine, but its very rude and extremely uncalled for to say that. My group is a bunch of friends who love to just get at each other for fun, and this would end up ADDING to the fun. Because...hey, that's what this game is all about in the first place, right? Backstabbing!...errr...fun..right...yeah...

 

[bwgwl]

while i obviously don't agree with Khenemetsobek's method of presentation, i will say that for every gaming group i've been a member of, that "Call rule" would cause more problems than its worth. i must admit i cannot see any positive benefit to it at all. to each his own.