Thought about running a poll on this one.

How much do you incorporate house rules into your game?

Are you a purist? Do you play the game basically as is or do you modify the shit out of the thing to fit your own preferences?

"Somewhere in between" is probably the answer for most of us but where exactly do you stand in that in between place?

Im involved with a new game at the moment. The setting has me enthralled and the system is kind of new and fresh (to me, others might feel differently) but I find myself tinkering with it constantly. My house rules document is already several pages and still growing and I see no end in sight. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe another system isnt something I should think about. Apparently this one doesnt fit me too well. But...but.. with just a few more tweaks it would be perfect... yeah right.

I'm wide open to considering house rules and tinkering with the ideas.  I'm careful and hesitant to use them in a game until:

A. I know it well.
B. Critical study of my proposed house rule leads me to believe that it will do what I want with limited side effects.

Then when I do put them in, I evaluate the results.  Sometimes I'm fairly confident that it is thought through.  Other times, we are trying to solve what we agree at the table is a problem, but I'm not so sure the fix is correct.  In that case, the whole group watches it.  

Mainly, though, I house rule for campaign flavor.  I suppose some people wouldn't consider those house rules.  Things like limiting/expanding racial or class choices, or throwing skill X out, and so forth.

Where the rule and setting conflict the referee should rule on how the setting works. Thus giving birth to house rules.

In general, I "modify the shit out of the thing" to fit the setting, the style of play, my preferences, and the special needs of the group I'm running the game for (more or less in that order). I don't think I've ever ran any game RAW -- even if I tried to do so it would end up being "Rules As I Understood and Interpreted Them."

Quote from: rgrove0172;985915Thought about running a poll on this one.

How much do you incorporate house rules into your game?

We run a home brew system (class-less, level-based, careers for skills) I wrote based on how my players like to play. Base (and only) mechanic is opposed single-die rolls.

Ive always felt that the end product is what is important and therefore had no problem house ruling or hell, even rewriting entire sections of the rules if need be. Lately though, Ive begun to wonder why these terribly important and obvious improvements on the game werent included in the first place. The designers and developers have, for the most part, at least as much experience as I do, probably more! Did they leave it out for a reason?

Current game has no rules for critical hits or fumbles in combat. REDICULOUS I say and instantly institute them. But what did that do to the balance of the combat as designed etc.?

A tweak is one thing but when you start monkeying around with core mechanics its something else.

Depends on the system.

I houserule Rifts a lot. I'm not happy with the system at all, aside from the core mechanic of d20 roll over target number. Most of the house rules are tweaks to make combat run smoother, and to shore up certain parts of the game.

I've got a few houserules for 2nd ed D&D as well. I convert everything to ascending "to hit", and proficiency versus DC (instead of roll under stat), including rogue skills.

The few times I've run Pathfinder, I tend to ignore confirming criticals and I don't think I've ever used the CR/encounter creation rules for either 4th ed or Pathfinder.

I run Cyberpunk 2020 and Mekton as written. I haven't had a need to do any houserules there.

So yeah. Depends on the rules.

Playing OD&D and Traveller, rulings not rules is a big thing, but some rulings become house rules.

Up front, for both games, I made a small number of house rules (for Traveller it was mostly picking and choosing between the 4 versions of Classic Traveller, for OD&D, it included a rule on how to handle going to 0 or below hit points).

Otherwise, I've made a decision to run games with far fewer house rules than I used to.

Frank

I have at least a few house rules for every game I like enough to play repeatedly. And this has always been the norm - quite a few pre-1980 games even came with blank pages intended for your house rules, or explanations as to how you should write them into the margins. Creating your own campaign setting, and defining your own house rules have always been core ideas in table top RPG's. How extensive they are is a matter of taste, of course.

My pet theory/cranky opinion is that the absurd proliferation of game systems in the hobby is mostly the result of people deciding that every time they come up with a half dozen totally ordinary house rules they have effectively invented a new game. Most of the OSR variants I've seen are basically just D&D with a couple of house rules that wouldn't have raised an eyebrow back when these games were in print. The hobby would be better off if people just maintained the habit of cooking up their own couple pages of house rules (or borrowing a friend's), and publishers focused their attention on something that has a little creative content to it, like settings and adventures.

I've made small rules tweaks to all the Rpgs I've run. But, typically, the changes haven't amounted to more than a page. I don't like to tinker that much.

As a player, it doesn't matter to me what changes a GM makes, as long as it doesn't lead to the gameplay slowing down while house rules are referenced. And I don't have to read the GM's house rules manifesto.

My view is that player facing house rules have to be handled very carefully, but GM side stuff like monster stats is fair game.

Quote from: rgrove0172;985924Ive always felt that the end product is what is important and therefore had no problem house ruling or hell, even rewriting entire sections of the rules if need be. Lately though, Ive begun to wonder why these terribly important and obvious improvements on the game werent included in the first place. The designers and developers have, for the most part, at least as much experience as I do, probably more! Did they leave it out for a reason?

I haven't played every RPG out there, and I've cared enough about far fewer to ever get into the weeds of it, and whether or not it was the designers intent or reason, I do feel it is important to understand the rules as is before you go and make changes. If something is an "obvious improvement" odds are it's because you fail to understand and appreciate the rules as is. Again, this may not be true for all RPGs, even most RPGs. I've only gotten into the weeds of those RPGs I actually thought were good. This is true in the case of good RPGs.

As it addresses your original question, I do tailor the game to fit my campaign but I generally tailor it with content rather than rules tweaks. For example, a guy I know who is pretty damn faithful to the 1st Ed AD&D rules feels that level drains are too harsh. Rather than nerfing level drains like later editions did and like a lot of people have house-ruled, he just makes the remedy easier to obtain by making Restoration a 5th level spell. If it were me, I would probably take it a step further and rather change the spell level of Restoration, I'd create a completely new spell that restores lost energy levels, perhaps require it be used within 1 hour per level of the caster rather than 1 day.

Another example....

QuoteCurrent game has no rules for critical hits or fumbles in combat. REDICULOUS I say and instantly institute them. But what did that do to the balance of the combat as designed etc.?

So if I felt this was important, I might have magic weapons create some kind of "crit" effect, where they automatically deal maximum damage if a natural 20 is rolled on the hit roll. Likewise, I might have magic armor that when the attacker rolls a natural 1, the weapon must save vs crushing blow or break as it comes into contact with the magical armor. The cool thing about this is armies of ordinary fighting men don't require these additional considerations of hits and fumbles. The rules are kept simpler. But PCs at mid-level and up who have some magical weapon and some magical defense, for them, crits and fumbles exist.

Another thing along these lines, magic maces can damage plate armor, magic axes can damage shields. I think the weapon mastery rules in RC D&D is pretty cool, but way too much data, rules baggage, and I think it makes characters in general way too powerful (I feel like HD have been inflated for higher level monsters to adjust). So instead of adopting weapon mastery rules, I create magic weapons with similar effects. I can even make the effects more potent without breaking game balance.


I'm all about tailoring the campaign, but it seems almost obvious that what should change most from one campaign to the next is content. If you can keep rules changes minimal to non-existent, it makes campaign cross-overs a lot easier, which is a prospect that has a lot of value to me, especially since I run an open table.

Quote from: estar;985917Where the rule and setting conflict the referee should rule on how the setting works. Thus giving birth to house rules.

O the wisdom of this!

Rulings themselves are more important to me than houserules. But long-standing rulings can cement themselves as houserules out of necessity, so the line blurs a bit.

Rulings are inevitable and you should live and breathe them as a GM, but at the same time I try to avoid adding additional hard-and-fast rules where possible. Customization of a rulesset for a particular campaign absolutely has its place, though.

I have said many times that I have *never* run a game as written - including my own!