TheRPGSite

The issue of houseruling systems has started to emerge in the Bottom 10 Games (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4868) thread, so I thought it might be relevant to start a new thread.  Personally, for some reason I really dislike houseruling games.  If a game requires fairly heavy tweaking in order to work, then I'd rather play a different game.  If it only requires minor tweaks, then I'd rather play the game "as is" - unless of course the minor tweaks result in a vastly improved game (which has never really been my experience).  

If the rules tend to have weaknesses that players can exploit, I prefer GMs to devise in-game responses.  For example, many people agree that d6 Star Wars had some wonky damage rules, with high strength wookies being indestructable.  And yet, in my Star Wars game it never seemed to be a problem.  Sure, the wookie in the party could shrug of blaster bolts, but he was always the one being targetted by opposition grenades and thermal detonators.  The GM always seemed to have the best answers for difficult, rule-busting characters.  

Also, if I feel that I really do need to tweak the rules, I prefer to give the system a fair chance first.  This is based on my experience with Savage Worlds which, IMHO, runs a lot better than it appears on paper.  Whilst reading it, I frequently felt inclined to change the rules.  But in actual play, it worked very nicely.  I figure I should at least give the author the respect of trying their game as written before I presume that my changes would make it better.

So how do others feel about houseruling?

We play as close to RAW as we can in any game, but some things almost always need house ruling.

Currently of the games I am running I have not introduced any houserules.  

First one is a Classic D&D (red box) game for my brother and his kids.  Going straight by the rules with it, probably going to be running mostly straight out of modules also.  So far I've seen no need to change anything.

The second is Sla Industries.  The rules can be a bit wonky but are quite workable.  In the past I've houseruled the autofire rules a bit so they make a bit more sense but I'm not worried about it now.  The only thing that could use a change actually needs a complete makeover in my opinion and that's the Ebb (magic type ability) Powers.  They work but most just don't like how they work.

Other games we've ran without houserules or with very few.

Twilight 2000.  Changed the damage for the weapons, that was it.

Kult.  I ran it straight by the book for years.  Only rules I came up with were for things of my own creation (new lores, new archetypes).  Came up with a lot of my own setting info also but that was by choice and nothing else.

Little Fears.  Right out of the book.

Cyberpunk 2020.  As written for years.  In the end the only thing our group modified was the damage system and that was near the end of my run as a GM for it.

That's all I got right now.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkSo how do others feel about houseruling?

Few designers are objectively perfect, fewer still are going to have my exact tastes and hangups in mind.

I do try to keep house rules minimal so as not to confuse players, but I've never felt any special aversion to house ruling.

Quote from: peteramthorFirst one is a Classic D&D (red box) game for my brother and his kids.  Going straight by the rules with it, probably going to be running mostly straight out of modules also.  So far I've seen no need to change anything.

Have you reached a point yet where you had to create rules to cover something that wasn't there yet? Although, I guess that raises the question of whether rules that fill holes are house rules.

Quote from: James McMurrayHave you reached a point yet where you had to create rules to cover something that wasn't there yet? Although, I guess that raises the question of whether rules that fill holes are house rules.

Not yet.  But then since it's a game for younger group than I normally have I'm running a pretty straight up dungeon crawl type game with it.  All other stuff has just been interactions within the two towns that are closest to.

Houserules are a pretty normal part of optimizing any game for your group. The idea that houserules are somehow something that must be avoided at all costs is a Forgism that ignores the reality that most games are made to appeal to broad groups of people, with varied styles of play, and not obsessive little microgames made for anally-retentive fanatics.

RPGPundit

Nope, no houseruling here. Most games I've played for long periods of time are pretty good right out of the box. If it isn't I don't play it. BTW I like the acronym RAW for rules as written. It works real well.


I have, however, swapped systems and settings.

House rules are good. They allow me to fine-tune the game so that it better matches the group's preferred style of play.

Why not find another game which matches it perfectly? Because no game does match it perfectly, every group is different. One player leaves, another joins - now it's a different group, and probably needs some different rules or emphasis.

Why not give it a go as is before changing it? Well, I think I've enough experience of different game systems to have a fairly good idea how they'll turn out in play. I can at least tell the difference between a minor tweak which won't change much, and can easily be changed again later, and a major tweak which will entirely change the game. So for example giving players more or less points on which to build their characters is a minor tweak, because you can always give them more later if it wasn't enough, or slow down advancement if it was too much. But changing how many actions they get in a combat turn is a major tweak, and could make the difference between characters living and dying, between struggling through a fight or cruising through it.

I think most GMs ar fairly switched-on with their house rules, and don't do anything too crazy. The major difference is whether they change the rules to suit what the GM wants, or to suit what the group wants. Those who change things just to suit themselves, generally it's not because they're arrogant or something - it's just that often the GM asks players "what do you reckon?" and players just shrug their shoulders and say, "whatever..." Most players don't care unless the rule fucks them up. Most players are like most drivers - they don't think about how the thing works until it ends up with the bonnet up beside the road with smoke pouring out ;)

So sometimes the GM has to fine-tune things so that the vehicle really does run along smoothly. "Why not just drive it for a bit and see if it goes okay? Why not get another car?" Well, we're driving this car now, and I know that if we don't adjust that fan belt, a couple of kilometres down the road the thing is going to pack up.

In the end, I am the game master. I master the rules, the rules do not master me.

House-rules?  Oh that's just tweaking a game to make it work better.  Like tuning up a car engine, or optimizing your computer's settings.  Ain't no reason to do it if things're working well, but they may work better for you if you do.

Now if something's outright broken, well hopefully I can come up with a good fix.  If not, I hope I can take it in to the dealership and get it sorted out (ask the game designers).  If all else fails, well...  that game needed to be put down for its own good.

Until you've got mastery of the system, hold off and stick to the RAW.  Once you know why it is as it is, then you can change what you need to change to get your intended effect with as little hassle as possible.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIf the rules tend to have weaknesses that players can exploit, I prefer GMs to devise in-game responses.  For example, many people agree that d6 Star Wars had some wonky damage rules, with high strength wookies being indestructable.  And yet, in my Star Wars game it never seemed to be a problem.  Sure, the wookie in the party could shrug of blaster bolts, but he was always the one being targetted by opposition grenades and thermal detonators.  The GM always seemed to have the best answers for difficult, rule-busting characters.

That's pretty much the explicit solution in Over the Edge--it warns players up-front, "You can go ahead and powergame the system and go on a rampage, but you'll attract the attention of all kinds of powerful folks and go down in flames. :cool:

I look at RAW play as somewhat ideal--I'm not above houseruling, but I'd prefer not to have to. HRs aren't a feature of RPGs. .. they're either a pragmatic necessity, or a sign of flawed design, depending on your point of view, but I don't see them as something to be embraced or anything.

'Course, if you're tinkering for the sheer joy of "hmm, what would this do, then cool. That's not what I'm talking about. Rules-tinkering for its own end, or to achieve a particular effect, is pretty rocking. But "Damn, this doesn't work, better tweak it," is not something desirable. Whether it's a minor or major problem is a matter of opinion.

Me, I'm humble enough, now, to recognize that a rule (or a set of them) may have effect on play that I can't foresee without trying it, so that I prefer to give the RAW a fair go before tweaking. I say "now" because I spent years of play where we'd look at a rule, go "that sucks" and change it without trying it out, and in the process we'd often miss out on some cool feature of the game. Of course, perhaps just as often the rule would turn out to truly need tweaking, but how would you know without testing it? I prefer to assume that a game designer had something cool in mind when putting the rules together in a certain way, and I'd like to discover that cool something.

I think the most important issue, though, is that all the participants have a clear understanding of what the rules and system expectations are. Thus I prefer to have all houserules out on the table in front of God and everyone, and not play the little shadow game of "well, of course the GM can tweak a rule as he sees fit without telling anyone" if I can help it. That's not to say I never want to play using GM discretionary power over ambiguous or problematic situations, but I'd much rather be up-front about it so that players know what their options are, and can avoid confusion or hurt feelings.

Peace,
-Joel

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerUntil you've got mastery of the system, hold off and stick to the RAW.  Once you know why it is as it is, then you can change what you need to change to get your intended effect with as little hassle as possible.

Bollocks! What's "mastery" of a game system? A good part of the time it goes like, "okay, here are the attributes, the skills, the advantages and disadvantages... are there character classes? levels? is it point-buy or random roll? Are personality-type things part of the game system, or are they just part of the background colour? Rightyo, here's the basic dice mechanic... okay, combat? well, same basic dice mechanic, but is there a separate roll for hit location, and for damage? Okay, now how do the characters get better? Are there xp? Can they spend their xp to do heroic stuff, make up for bad die rolls?"

And that's it. There are some very common patterns in rpg design. It doesn't take long to figure them out. Sure, sometimes they try to fool you that they're super-unique. "PP? What's that? Physical Prowess? That's... read the description... okay, it's strength. Why didn't they call it strength? Fuckin' game designers!"

An rpg in design is like a lego set. Each new set only has one or two new parts. Most of the parts are old ones, they're just put together in a new way, so that you can make a little house this time instead of a car like with the old set. At some point the person putting it together this time is going to say, "maybe if I took that other new part from that other set... yeah, cool. Now I just need one or two old parts from the other set... awesome! Now it's a boat. From the models of the car and the house I made a lego boat! I wonder if it'll sink."

Sometimes they give you charts and things to make their game look more complicated than it really is. It's all smoke and mirrors, though, don't let it fool you. The game systems and layouts are pretty similar from game to game. Mostly the same old pieces put together in a new and different way.
That doesn't mean that games aren't really different - a lego house is different to a lego car. But it's all pieces of lego. Once you're used to the different bits, once you've experience of a few different game systems, you should be able to make your own little game from the different pieces, and even make up a new piece or two for yourself.

Saying that you shouldn't house rule a game until you've played it as-is, is like saying that I can't use the pieces from the lego car and the lego house to make a lego boat until I've built, pulled apart and rebuilt the car and house several times. It's silly.

Quote from: JimBobOzSaying that you shouldn't house rule a game until you've played it as-is, is like saying that I can't use the pieces from the lego car and the lego house to make a lego boat until I've built, pulled apart and rebuilt the car and house several times. It's silly.

No... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  It'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

IME, tinkering with a system is often (though, not always) a sympton of one or more of the following;

1. The GM actually wanted to play a different system,
2. The GM thinks they know better than the game designer
3. The GM is a frustrated game designer themselves

None of these scenarios bodes well.

After a couple dedicated read-throughs, I find myself ready and willing to get in under the hood with a hacksaw and a welding torch and go to town. I'll read it again, jotting down any variant rules that come to me. Sometimes, there are design issues I simply disagree with, and I'd say it has nothing to do with wanting a different system, or thinking I'm a better designer than the other guy.

ORE comes to mind - in particular its skill list. The first skill is Athletics, which includes the suggestion that one with this skill would be "good at sports, even those you've never played before". Sounds good, right? Except Catch, Run, Throw, Jump, Climb, Swim, hitting things with a stick, or tackling other people are ALL separate skills. What sports, exactly, am I good at without any of those skills? So, in I go to cut down the skill list and keep in mind to reduce the dice totals of characters to compensate, because spending 50d on 50 skills is much different from spending those 50d on 20 skills.

I'm also in no way above stealing the posted house rules of those with more experience in the system. The Blackhammer Archive's CP2020 house rules, for example, are all improvements in my eyes.

I always try to run a game with the rules as written before tinkering. Makes sense to me.

I suppose that the closer a game is to something you've played before, the easier it will be to predict how it will play by reading the rules. The more unusual a game is, however, the more difficult it will be to predict the experience of play.

I'd like to think that every game I buy has been thoroughly playtested and that there are good reasons for the rules being the way they are. Caveat emptor.

I think that with only the exception of CoC, i've houseruled every single game i've ever run, and CoC didn't get it because i haven't played it as often as other systems. Most often, my house rules are simply to add detail or definition to a section of the rules that are missing altogether or are light on detail. The sort of thing that will be important to the current campaign and the players. If one of the PCs needs some sort of crafting rules and there aren't any or they are very perfunctory, then the campaign and the player will suffer for their lack. So i houserule them. The same goes for any other kind of activity that is relevant to the campaign and players that isn't covered by the ruleset.

The actual instances of repairing 'broken' rules or those that are needlessly complicated are very rare for me. Although i did tinker with Rolemaster a bit for that reason.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  

Thing is, most people who play with lego sets have more than one set. So they've got the pieces from several different sets - they don't only have the car set. Likewise, most people who roleplay have played more than one roleplaying game, so they've got the pieces from several different game sets.

So what you're saying is that if you've only ever played one roleplaying game, it might be a bad idea to houserule it. Maybe, maybe not. Let's grant that you're right about that. Still, most gamers have played more than one - so they've got the pieces to use.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIt'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

Because maybe you want something like the boat, but not exactly. Maybe what you want, they don't make. You want to make a change which is so minor, they never thought to produce a set for it. But that small change is important to you.

For example in GURPS the game's random dice rolls can be pretty harsh on PCs. Hell, I heard a rumour about this one game where a PC cut his own arm off due to a combat fumble roll. That's pretty random. Now there's random, and there's random-stupid. Most gamers like random, it's why they roll the dice. Random-stupid, they're not so fond of. So what can we do about that? Well, PCs get awarded xp, maybe 2-7 a session, and they use those to improve their characters. So how about we take those xp, and say, "you can spend them as hero points - use them to turn a critical failure into a plain old failure, or a failure into a success, or a success into a critical success."

Well, with that we've lowered the chance of the "random-stupid" from happening. The player gets to decide - something just happened, was it just random, or random-stupid? If they think it was stupid, they can spend that xp as a hero point, and voila, stupidity gone. We just changed the game.

Now, that's a pretty minor change. Let's suppose we love everything about GURPS, except the "random-stupid" that sometimes pops up. Should we go looking for another game system exactly the same as GURPS, but with that one minor difference, the "xp as hero points"? They don't make that game, mate. So either we toss aside this game we think is 99% perfect, just because of that miserable 1% random-stupid, or we... house rule.

There's the thing. We can be forever searching for the One True Perfect System. "This one, if you follow the rules exactly, doesn't do what I want. This other one, if you follow the rules exactly, that's fucked, too. Better keep searching..." How long we going to search for? John Kim lists 1,101 different roleplaying games published for money, and over 500 free ones. There's got to be another 400 he never heard of, or which were only published as pdfs and he never noticed. So that's over 2,000 published rpgs.

How many of those do we have to try before we're allowed to say, "well, I could just take this almost-perfect-for-us game and houserule it"? How many sessions for each one? How many lego sets should I buy before I make my own design, or take an existing design and alter it slightly?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIME, tinkering with a system is often (though, not always) a sympton of one or more of the following;

1. The GM actually wanted to play a different system,
2. The GM thinks they know better than the game designer
3. The GM is a frustrated game designer themselves

None of these scenarios bodes well.

Of course, sometimes the players wanted to play a different system. Or this system, but slightly altered.

Yes, the GM does know better than the game designer. The GM knows their group and their wishes better than the game designer. So a wise GM houserules a game to produce the kind of game that is a compromise between what the GM and each of the players wants. Maybe player A will never use xp as hero points, but players B, C and D will. That's the way it goes.

I don't think GMs are frustrated game designers. I think all GMs are game designers. GMs

• create campaign worlds,
• explain rules to players
• alter rules to suit people's preferred style of play; adjust rules to get a certain style
• take feedback from players, and adjust things to suit
• write stuff up

Sounds like a game designer to me. Sure, most GMs don't invent systems from the whole cloth, from nothing - but then, neither do most "game designers." Sean Punch didn't invent GURPS, Steve Jackson did. But Sean Punch went ahead and revised it for fourth edition. So you're going to say Sean Punch isn't a game designer, because he didn't make it all up himself?

Come to think of it, what is a new edition of a game - isn't it someone taking the old rules of a game, and... altering them to fit what they think is good and right? What's the difference between a 2nd or 3rd or 4th edition of a game, and J. Random Game Geek's houserules for that game? Only difference is, the first lot got published. So what? Because they persuaded someone to put it in print, it's suddenly holy and good and proper?

If you're going to say no-one should houserule, then you have to reject any 2nd or later editions of games, too. Or at least editions not written by the original writers.

I don't get it, really, this idea that we can't ever change a game system, we can't say, "this one is pretty much right for us, but if we change it a bit, then it'll be perfect for us," and instead should forever be searching for the One True Perfect System. It's ridiculous.

Let's say we devote ourselves to that search. Let's make playing rpgs our full-time job. We'll do it for a nice 40 hour week. Each day we read the system for two hours, make characters for one hour, play it for four, and then have the session postmortem afterwards for an hour. So we play 5 games a week. We love it so much we don't take holidays - so we play 260 a year. We get through John Kim's list of the 1,101 published rpgs in 4 years, 12 weeks. Of course, in the intervening time, given that we had published in the first 35 years 1,101 games, well we'd find another 133 had been published. Better play them! That's another 26 weeks. Woop, another 15 were published in that time, better play them, too... another 3 weeks. Another 1 was published in that time, let's suppose we did some overtime and covered it then. So it took us 4 years 41 weeks to play them all.

What if none of them were perfect? Shall we try the 500+ free games, too? There goes another couple of years... bugger, another 60 games got published...

At what point do we get to say, "I have enough of my own pieces, I'll take this set and make a couple of changes and then it'll be right for us"? When do we get to say, "I'll houserule it"?

While you're at it, please explain to me the difference between taking a "toolbox system" like Fudge or Fate and making your own skill list and combat system for it, and making a houserule in GURPS or AD&D or Hero or Synnibar or whatever?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  It'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

To JimBob's point...

My son, 6, loves Lego; Particularly Star Wars Lego. So for Christmas and Birthdays he usually gets one or more sets.

The first thing we do is build the set as directed. He likes going through the instructions with me and seeing the final product.

Within a day, he's torn that one apart, combined it with other sets he has, and designed his own ships. We almost never go back to the original set, but use all of the sets to design and build other ships.

So is my son:
actually wanting to play a different system, like K'Nex?
thinking he knows better than the Lego designer?
a frustrated Lego designer?

Nah – he's just having fun![/QUOTE]

Quote from: JimBobOzFor example in GURPS the game's random dice rolls can be pretty harsh on PCs. Hell, I heard a rumour about this one game where a PC cut his own arm off due to a combat fumble roll. That's pretty random. Now there's random, and there's random-stupid. Most gamers like random, it's why they roll the dice. Random-stupid, they're not so fond of. So what can we do about that? Well, PCs get awarded xp, maybe 2-7 a session, and they use those to improve their characters. So how about we take those xp, and say, "you can spend them as hero points - use them to turn a critical failure into a plain old failure, or a failure into a success, or a success into a critical success."

Well, with that we've lowered the chance of the "random-stupid" from happening. The player gets to decide - something just happened, was it just random, or random-stupid? If they think it was stupid, they can spend that xp as a hero point, and voila, stupidity gone. We just changed the game.

Now, that's a pretty minor change. Let's suppose we love everything about GURPS, except the "random-stupid" that sometimes pops up. Should we go looking for another game system exactly the same as GURPS, but with that one minor difference, the "xp as hero points"? They don't make that game, mate. So either we toss aside this game we think is 99% perfect, just because of that miserable 1% random-stupid, or we... house rule.

There's the thing. We can be forever searching for the One True Perfect System. "This one, if you follow the rules exactly, doesn't do what I want. This other one, if you follow the rules exactly, that's fucked, too. Better keep searching..." How long we going to search for? John Kim lists 1,101 different roleplaying games published for money, and over 500 free ones. There's got to be another 400 he never heard of, or which were only published as pdfs and he never noticed. So that's over 2,000 published rpgs.

How many of those do we have to try before we're allowed to say, "well, I could just take this almost-perfect-for-us game and houserule it"? How many sessions for each one? How many lego sets should I buy before I make my own design, or take an existing design and alter it slightly?

Is this not often referred to as "The Perfect being the enemy of the Good?"

Just to chime in again.  I never said houserulings a system was bad or that there was anything wrong with it.  Just that I've ran several games without doing so.  Trust me I've houseruled a lot of games in my time.

Quote from: James J SkachIs this not often referred to as "The Perfect being the enemy of the Good?"

That certainly has the advantage of being more succinct than my rant ;)

But I dunno, really. All I know is that system is the least important part of whether we have a fun, interesting, and fulfilling system.

Recently my game group played HEROES: Unlimited! (TM). The system was stupid, it was crap. We had fun, and asked the GM to run it again.

For a year or two I played a GURPS game, and didn't have much fun at all. Then I played another GURPS game, and had a good time. The I ran a GURPS game, and had the best campaign I've ever run. If system's so important, howcome I've had a good, bad, and okay experience, all with the same system?

Well... people. In a game group, we alter the people, and the people alter themselves. We alter the snacks. We alter the setting. We fiddle with all those to get things just right. Why not the system, too? Why can we say, "send Bob away, bring Jim in," or "no more cheetos, let's have some healthy snacks," or "let's play a setting like the modern world, only with magic existing," - but we can't change the rules a bit? Why are the rules considered so holy and special they can't be touched? It's strange.

Quote from: JimBobOzBut I dunno, really. All I know is that system is the least important part of whether we have a fun, interesting, and fulfilling system.

Actually JimBob, on another thread, you wrote something that echoes my thoughts on the ranking of game elements in the decreasing order of importance:

1) People
2) Snacks
3) Setting
4) System

For me, that's as spot-on as it gets.


And yeah, I usually houserule.  A lot.  Usually bowing at either the altar of Common Sense or The Cool, depending on what the situation calls for.

Yep, and I stand by that ranking.

Note that it doesn't mean that system doesn't matter at all, just that it's the least important of your four basic elements of a game session.

But something can be "the least important" yet still be important. Of upper leg, lower leg, foot and toes, the toes are the least important to my being able to walk. But I walk better with toes than without them. So to say that system is the least important part of a successful game session is not to say that we could pick just any system or any rules and have just as good a time.

Because of the ranking - people, snacks, setting, system - in game groups I have some influence in,
I'll adjust the snacks, setting and system to fit the people;
I'll adjust the setting and system to fit the snacks;
I'll adjust the system to fit the setting;
but I would never change the people to fit the snacks, setting or system;
nor would I change the snacks to suit the setting or system (for example, I'd reject a system which has so many books there'd be no room on the table for snacks!);
nor would I change a setting to fit a system.

System's in there, it matters, it's just not as important as the other bits.

I look at house rules as "hot-rodding".

For example- I collect guitars and play them. I am quite fond of my Fernandes, Ovation, and Epiphones. I owned a Gibson Corvus and a 58 Gretsch archtop at one point.. I loves my guitars.

Well, on the Fernandes I didn't like the volume knob (which doubles as a mod-wheel for the onboard effects) so I switched it out with a bigger one. In fact, I switched it out with this one: Fernandes Skull Knob (http://www.music123.com/Fernandes-Skull-Knob-i100366.music). Now it's easier to reach with my pinky.  

I've replaced the nut on the epiphone and even gone in and tinkered with the wiring in the input jack to fix a buzz. I've adjusted the intonation of each bridge saddle, and done a repair on the plate where the neck bolts on to the body. Now it stays in tune better.

For really advanced stuff, I used to take my Corvus to a professional luthier in Lubbock. I had a hotter pickup installed in the neck position before I sold it. I had my Ovation adjusted there as well, and it plays better now than when it was new.

Making these adjustments and minor repairs and improvements did not suddenly turn my guitars into banjos. They made them into better guitars.

However, if you do this foolishly, or too radically, or without thinking about it, you can certainly break a guitar or make it unusable, or simply degrade it to the point where it wasn't as good as when it was new.

Quote from: JimBobOz- but we can't change the rules a bit?

I guess it depends on what is ment by "a bit". My line has a lot to do with the number at the top of the list. People. I find people get confused when you have two (or more) widely differing versions of the rules plus it cuts into their time to test out new versions of the rules to make sure they work.  That's why I keep changes, and sure I make changes, as issolated as feasible.

Likewise with the details of setting and system. I've often seen people talk about changing the rules to fit the setting it is more about misunderstanding how the setting and the rules match up. I see this all the time on Dumpshock, where you've got a game with setting and rules together.

Sure it's about the people playing.

P.S. I really don't get this obsession you have with "snacks" though. The only correlation between how fun gaming is and food that I've noticed is people thinking about eating if they are getting bored. I'd have to rethink what was going on if people distracted by a lack of snacks.  Now something to wet the whistle, well that's different.

QuoteP.S. I really don't get this obsession you have with "snacks" though.

He's a chef!

Quote from: blakkieP.S. I really don't get this obsession you have with "snacks" though. The only correlation between how fun gaming is and food that I've noticed is people thinking about eating is they are getting bored. I'd have to rethink what was going on if people distracted by a lack of snacks.  Now something to wet the whistle, well that's different.

Snacks, drinks, same thing. But you knew I meant that. You didn't think I was sitting there at the game table every week for years on end handing out cheetos and biscuits, with nary a drop to drink, did you? Of course not. You were just being pedantic. Remember, pedantry is close to pederasty both in the dictionary and morality.

Try serving them the crappest, nastiest snacks you can find, see how the session goes. Try serving them nothing. Try the fanciest, most wonderful food you can imagine. You'll notice a difference.

Sharing food and drink is a social experience, it relaxes people. When people each bring munchies and share them, the act of sharing and exchanging is a bonding one, building trust.

Quote from: JimBobOzSnacks, drinks, same thing. But you knew I meant that. You didn't think I was sitting there at the game table every week for years on end handing out cheetos and biscuits, with nary a drop to drink, did you? Of course not. You were just being pedantic. Remember, pedantry is close to pederasty both in the dictionary and morality.

Try serving them the crappest, nastiest snacks you can find, see how the session goes. Try serving them nothing. Try the fanciest, most wonderful food you can imagine. You'll notice a difference.

I wasn't being pedantic. I suppose serving up some snacks that tasted like ass-crack would go poorly. But that isn't what I was getting from you.  I'm talking about no snacks at all, seems to work just fine. Nothing to drink on the otherhand does not.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  It'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

Wow... what an utterly remarkable lack of creativity this displays, not to mention a connection from how most normal kids I've seen use Lego. It sounds almost autistic.

QuoteIME, tinkering with a system is often (though, not always) a sympton of one or more of the following;

1. The GM actually wanted to play a different system,
2. The GM thinks they know better than the game designer
3. The GM is a frustrated game designer themselves

None of these scenarios bodes well.

Why? Did the game designer go to the Game Designer university? Is there some kind of accreditation I haven't heard of that insures that absolutely no RPG game designer will be utter and absolute shitheads; and does guarantee that they'll be smarter or better than the rest of us? And I'm particularly amazed by the rigorous, MIT-like program they must go through to be able to actually know more about my gaming group than the GM does! Amazing!

You git.

RPGPundit

I'll copy the post I just made a few moments ago:

RPGs exist for one reason, and that reason is to give everyone at the table a valid language and method of communication to everyone else at the table. Houserules are like slang. Some slang is widely understood. This type of slang is like minor houseruling. Critical hits on a natural roll of 20 doesn't automatically hinder anyone else's understanding of the game.

But there comes a point where the slang becomes it's own language. Have you ever seen one of those humor skits where someone is talking "jive" and another person can't understand what they're saying at all? Excessive houseruling is about the same thing. There comes a point in houseruling a system where you've eliminated the point of using the system in the first place. You've added so much slang, you're talking a different language.

And you can definitely hold that against a game. When a game requires that much houseruling to make it work, it can certainly be attacked for it. A customer should be able to expect a certain amount of functionality "out of the box."

If we were to expand the geek social fallacies, one new entry which would definitely be appropriate would be, "Just because you can change the parts you don't like doesn't make the original product good."

Well, I think it depends on A) How comfortable with and well-informed of any house rules your group is, as well as B) How much houseruling you have to do.  For me, if you're able to take an Ford Edsel and turn it into an amazing machine, that's fantastic.  Hell, maybe you like the basic look of it, or feel there's enough under that hood that's worth saving.  Other folks will not want to work on their vehicle, other than perhaps minor tweaks, and that's cool, too.  Houseruling helps me tweak the game for the group I have, and, so long as it isn't 44 pages of changes, I'll happily do it.

As an example, I believe you and I, Gabriel, are almost completely diametrically opposed on anything to do with Palladium.  You don't like the system, and don't want to mess with it, consider it a total write-off.  For me, yeah, I've got things I'd change about it, but I've been playing it long enough I've made enough of those changes and tweaks to where I'm comfortable with it, it works for me, and has worked for a majority of all my gaming groups.  For me, the rules had functionality "out of the box", but by playing over the years, I've found plenty of variations and changes that have gotten the game to exactly where I like it.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstAs an example, I believe you and I, Gabriel, are almost completely diametrically opposed on anything to do with Palladium.  

Well, duh.  :p

:D

Quote from: GabrielWell, duh.  :p

:D

It may have been the most obvious statement of all time, I know.  :)

.... Crossposted from the Bottom 10 thread.....hope you find it hear jgants....

Quote from: jgants, with my underliningI don't really houserule much of anything.

What I usually do is use GM fiat a lot to know when to bend the rules or ignore them.

I'm confused by these two sentences? Especially given the two words I underlined. Because you don't write it down you think it is something that is different than a "house rule"?  EDIT: I don't mean this sarcastically. I'm just really puzzled about your apparent definition and understanding of "house rule", trying to figure out how and on what grouds you differentiate the two.

To me, GM Fiat is house rules applied sporadically.

Quote from: James McMurrayTo me, GM Fiat is house rules applied sporadically.

That's one way to look at it I guess. I like Balbius' answer too (hope he transfers it). I've always thought of it as a more confusing version of house rules. You've house ruled the portion in question but even you don't know exactly what with (or maybe you do but you've not bothered to tell anyone).

Quote from: RPGPunditWow... what an utterly remarkable lack of creativity this displays, not to mention a connection from how most normal kids I've seen use Lego. It sounds almost autistic.

Autistic?  Or brain damaged?

Pretty much every kid I've known that owned lego built the set to instructions first.  Usually followed by a couple of the alternative designs included in the instructions.  Then the set gets cycled into their collection of lego to be used for all sorts of wonderous creations.  Which is pretty much what I was saying... I prefer to at least see a system in action, as intended by the designed, before I start to tinker.

QuoteWhy? Did the game designer go to the Game Designer university? Is there some kind of accreditation I haven't heard of that insures that absolutely no RPG game designer will be utter and absolute shitheads; and does guarantee that they'll be smarter or better than the rest of us? And I'm particularly amazed by the rigorous, MIT-like program they must go through to be able to actually know more about my gaming group than the GM does! Amazing!

You're ability to completely miss the point is what is amazing.  I'm not suggesting a game designer knows better about your gaming group than you do.  I'm suggesting they know more about their game than you do.  I like to give them the benefit of the doubt over that first.

QuoteYou git.

Fuckknuckle.

Quote from: JimBobOzBecause maybe you want something like the boat, but not exactly. Maybe what you want, they don't make. You want to make a change which is so minor, they never thought to produce a set for it. But that small change is important to you.

For example in GURPS the game's random dice rolls can be pretty harsh on PCs. Hell, I heard a rumour about this one game where a PC cut his own arm off due to a combat fumble roll. That's pretty random. Now there's random, and there's random-stupid. Most gamers like random, it's why they roll the dice. Random-stupid, they're not so fond of. So what can we do about that? Well, PCs get awarded xp, maybe 2-7 a session, and they use those to improve their characters. So how about we take those xp, and say, "you can spend them as hero points - use them to turn a critical failure into a plain old failure, or a failure into a success, or a success into a critical success."

Well, with that we've lowered the chance of the "random-stupid" from happening. The player gets to decide - something just happened, was it just random, or random-stupid? If they think it was stupid, they can spend that xp as a hero point, and voila, stupidity gone. We just changed the game.

Ahh... I'm perfectly aware of why people implement houserules.  And your example above actually fits my original assertion pretty well, which was:

1. I don't really like houserules, unless they are fairly minor (your example was a minor one).

2. I prefer houserules to be implemented after trying the game (I'm assuming you implemented the rule after a little bit of familiarity with GURPS 4th... or at least GURPS 3rd).

I also go back to my belief that houserules are symptomatic of the GM maybe wanting to play another system.  You've said yourself that you weren't really enjoying GURPS much.  Maybe instead of houseruling GURPS, you should have been playing a different system?

QuoteThere's the thing. We can be forever searching for the One True Perfect System. "This one, if you follow the rules exactly, doesn't do what I want. This other one, if you follow the rules exactly, that's fucked, too. Better keep searching..." How long we going to search for? John Kim lists 1,101 different roleplaying games published for money, and over 500 free ones. There's got to be another 400 he never heard of, or which were only published as pdfs and he never noticed. So that's over 2,000 published rpgs.

So you're trying to tell me out of 2,000 rpgs, I'm never going to find a system that suits my needs without houseruling it?  What a depressing thought!

Ah, ok, in this case I apologize.  Funk, from the way you phrased your "lego" comment, it really sounded like:

a) you believed Lego should ONLY be used to build to the blueprint provided
and
b) you believed Houserules should never be applied.

Your subsequent statements have made it clear that what you were really saying was that you should get familiarity with a game first, before implementing houserules, which is in fact eminently sensible. Was anyone really arguing against that though?

RPGPundit

Mostly my houserules tend to be just further elaborations of the already existing system, based on the suggestions in the game itself: for instance, as seen here (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=44021&postcount=22). They aren't necessary as much as... convenient.

Quote from: RPGPunditYour subsequent statements have made it clear that what you were really saying was that you should get familiarity with a game first, before implementing houserules, which is in fact eminently sensible. Was anyone really arguing against that though?

Well, JimBob is here;

Quote from: JimBobOzWhy not give it a go as is before changing it? Well, I think I've enough experience of different game systems to have a fairly good idea how they'll turn out in play

Quote from: RPGPunditAh, ok, in this case I apologize.  Funk, from the way you phrased your "lego" comment, it really sounded like:

a) you believed Lego should ONLY be used to build to the blueprint provided
and
b) you believed Houserules should never be applied.

Your subsequent statements have made it clear that what you were really saying was that you should get familiarity with a game first, before implementing houserules, which is in fact eminently sensible. Was anyone really arguing against that though?

@TF
This is not to pile on, just to let you know I took your posts almost the exact same way (why else would I toss out the story of my son ;) )...

So it looks like, for the most part, it's a misunderstanding. Especially since the one thing that stuck out in JimBob's stuff was the very thing you point out.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk1. I don't really like houserules, unless they are fairly minor (your example was a minor one).

So that's just a personal preference, like, "I like toast." There's no arguing personal preferences.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk2. I prefer houserules to be implemented after trying the game (I'm assuming you implemented the rule after a little bit of familiarity with GURPS 4th... or at least GURPS 3rd).

I happen to have played the game before GMing it. So we never got to find out if I'd have houseruled it before the first session or not. The first significant play exerience, from my point of view, doesn't really count as "playing GURPS," because that GM didn't know the rules. He said, "why do I need to know the rules, mate? I have you and A. who can tell me them." My next experience of GURPS was playing it under W., and he introduced the same house rule I mentioned above, "xp as hero points". He introduced it after discussion with me, that is, I persuaded him it was a good idea. Then when I GMed, I introduced that and other house rules.

I'm fairly confident that if my first experience with the game was GMing it, I would have brought in the exact same house rules in the first session. But we can't know that for sure.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkI also go back to my belief that houserules are symptomatic of the GM maybe wanting to play another system.  You've said yourself that you weren't really enjoying GURPS much.  Maybe instead of houseruling GURPS, you should have been playing a different system?

On reflection after that time, no. GURPS wasn't the problem, one of the players was the problem. This person insisted on slowing the flow of the action by talking about minor rules details. They gamed partly because they loved the rules themselves, all their details - the rest of us weren't as interested as them in the rules. Since they're a likeable and decent person, we didn't just tell them to shut the fuck up. Instead we sought to avoid the problem by changing to a set of rules they weren't interested in.

It wasn't really a system problem, it was a people problem.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkSo you're trying to tell me out of 2,000 rpgs, I'm never going to find a system that suits my needs without houseruling it?  What a depressing thought!

I've no idea if you would or not. What I'm saying is that you might like to write down how many systems you've ever played, and think about how each was imperfect and didn't suit your desires. From that, consider the odds of running into the One True Perfect Game for you. Consider how many more you want to try. Is it better to quest eternally for natural perfection found without any extra work, or to search until you find something pretty good, and then tweak it a bit to make it better, even if not perfect.

I want a good game now. I don't want a hundred or a thousand crap or mediocre games, and then finally find the One True Perfect Game. I'd rather just take a Pretty Good Game, then tweak it a bit until it's a Damned Good Game, and then it can help us have at least Pretty Good Sessions.

I think the search for perfection can make you miss a lot of pretty good things, whether it be game systems, jobs, people, houses, cars, or whatever. I also think the search for the perfect game system is a particularly wasteful one, since it's a lot easier to get the people, snacks and setting right, and those are more important to how much fun you have in a session.

Quote from: blakkie.... Crossposted from the Bottom 10 thread.....hope you find it hear jgants....

I'm confused by these two sentences? Especially given the two words I underlined. Because you don't write it down you think it is something that is different than a "house rule"?  EDIT: I don't mean this sarcastically. I'm just really puzzled about your apparent definition and understanding of "house rule", trying to figure out how and on what grouds you differentiate the two.

Balbinus pretty much got it spot on. But I'll give an expanded argument anyways.

House Rule - Something that is a codified change that is intended to be applied regularly throughout the campaign, and the circumstances of which would commonly occur.  For example, I've tried two different house rules in my Rifts campaign.  The first one was an armor-piercing type rule to speed up combat (which I've since abandoned because the extra complexity wasn't worth the hassle).  The second one was how quickly spells could be learned (which I added because if you go by the book, no one would ever be able to learn a spell in my campaign because there are never any break periods in the storyline).  Adding a house rule is something people do because something doesn't quite work for them the way they'd like (but the rest of the game does).

GM Fiat - Something comes up that isn't 100% clearly answered by the rules, and I have to decide what happens in this particular circumstance.  It isn't really a house rule because I'm not modifying or greatly expanding the current game, basically just interpreting the rules.  Because this kind of thing happens all the time and is usually pretty specific to a particular circumstance, I don't generally write it down as a bona fide rule.

Another type of GM fiat is when something happens in game that is covered by a rule, but where following the rule by the book doesn't really make sense in a particular circumstance.  In this case, I make a decision based on the particular circumstances and common sense - even if it directly contradicts what is written in the book.

These kinds of actions used to be one of the default roles of the GM in a game, though the newer generations of games seem to scoff at this idea (whether you are talking about highly-codified games like D&D3 that don't leave enough room for interpretation, or arty Forge crap that actively tries to limit what the GM can do).

Or, to put it a different way:  A house rule is like a legislative action (passing a law).  GM Fiat is a combination of judicial actions(interpreting the law, including the spirit of the law) and/or executive actions (handling circumstances not covered by the law).

Quote from: jgantsGM Fiat - Something comes up that isn't 100% clearly answered by the rules, and I have to decide what happens in this particular circumstance.

But that isn't what you initially wrote. You were talking about "ignoring" rules...sometimes. That is one of the things that "house rules" do ('ignore' is change and/or delete), only in this case worse because it is becomes even less predictable.

As well, that's been mentioned above (I'll have scroll back and see who) as a house rule. I usually refer to it as a "soft" house rule, depending on how obvious an extention from the rules and whether or not the rules give specific guidelines for the judgement made.

QuoteBalbinus pretty much got it spot on. But I'll give an expanded argument anyways.

Well to look at it.

Quote from: BalbinusA house rule is a standing change to the rules, that persists over time.

GM fiat is an ad hoc change to the rules, that may or may not be followed on future occasions.

Yeah, see. That amounts to the same thing. Still changing the rules. Only more complex and/or less organized.

House Rules: Luck Chits

At the beginning of each session the Players draw randomly one Luck Chit from the Bag. Player Characters with the Luck Power randomly draw an additional Luck Chit for every d6 of Luck.

At the End of each session all Players return any unspent Luck Chits to the Bag. Sometimes you want Quantity, sometimes Quality. The Luck Chits go away at the end of the game, no carry over. Use 'em or lose 'em... which encourages interactive use and not hoarding.

White Luck Chits: x 30 [1W = 1W] Allows a Re Roll of any one roll you control. Or allows an Abort Maneuver (to Dodge, Block, Dive for Cover, etc …) without using an Action. It also allows a single Recovery, without using an Action. It also allows Players to modify the Hit Location Chart (Defensively) and move the hit location by One (up or down).

Green Luck Chits: x 30 [1G = 2W] Same as White, plus you can spend a green to take away a single die in a "to hit" or "skill" roll, to gain a success. Rolled a 15... Spend a Green, take away that 6, now you have a 9! Success! (The GM randomly draws a chit for the villains, if you spend a Green) It also allows Players to modify the Hit Location Chart (Defensively) and move the hit location by Two (up or down).

Blue Luck Chits: x 30 [1B = 3W or 1G & 1W] same as Green, without any benefit to GM. Blue is also a way to "flex" powers in a supers game. It allows a power to be used in a way that fits the SFX, but they haven't paid points for. [Ex: Flame character... wants to reduce the fire in a room to save a child... but doesn't have this power. Spends a Blue for this one action, his EB (or whatever) becomes Suppress normal fires, and he can do it.]

Blue also allows for "dramatic editing" so that the character can simply say, "I grab the broom handle and snap it off, so I have a stake to fight the vampire!" rather than asking, "Is there anything wooded around?" In the case I highlighted in the last Secret Worlds adventure... on PC was way out of the combat, and spent the Blue to come up with a creative way to get his character there "right now!". It also allows Players to modify the Hit Location Chart (Defensively and Offensively) and move the hit location by Three (up or down).

Yellow Luck Chit: x 1 [1Y = 2B or 3G or 6W] There is only one in the bag, but if drawn, the player can become GM for a scene. They get to create and event or subplot or something along those lines, that fits with their character concept and long term goals. I've had one person spend it so his character finally got his Thesis on Paranormal Gestation Theory published, and to wide acclaim, so he became famous in those circles as THE expert on metahuman bio-genesis.

Another spent it, so that during a mission, he accidentally stumbled across some critical information about villain financing... this changed the entire SHAPE of the campaign, as the villains funding was exposed, and they had to come out of the shadows, rather than manipulate from behind the scenes.

The Yellow Luck Chit is usually just one "scene" or "event" They don't tend to really run the game in terms of controlling NPCs... They just say, "Ok... here's this cool thing that I want to have happen, with this or that character..." They often don't force a certain outcome, they just want to have something that really shows off their character, or allows their character to have a really big impact on the plot. (I guess it could be abused, but I've got great players. They tend to enhance the story and the world... not control it.)

Luck Power: [ each d6 Luck = 1 Luck Chit ] Drawn randomly and still allows the Player Characters to use the Luck Power as written in HERO System 5th Edition .

It's a great system ... players seem to really love it ... and it gives flexibility within limits. I've been doing it for probably 6 years or more at this point. I'd never go back. .

I'd created a generic "luck roll" to help determine random events. Roll 3d6... sixes good, ones bad. So if a player asks something like, "I need a rock to throw at the wild dogs making off with the baby!" I'd say, "Roll a luck roll," to determine if there just happened to be a rock around. Good luck, there is a perfect throwing rock, right at your feet. Bad luck... no rock to be found. Neither/nor... there is a rock, but its’ 20 feet away, and will take a turn to get it.

Luck (the Talent back then, now a Power) allowed characters to roll an extra die for each luck die they had... and that die could only be good for them (ones didn't count.)

RDU Neil’s Dark Champions: Secret Worlds Thread http://www.herogames.com/forums/show...1&page=3&pp=30

This worked pretty well, but for years there was a need to open up Champs/HERO System, to allow some flexibility with powers and give players a little more control over their characters destiny and story.

Then I played Deadlands. (Original Deadlands, when it first came out.) They had chips (poker chips) that you could spend to soak wounds, or make rolls better, or whatever. It was a great mechanic. After only one session, I realized that this was a way to make Luck in Hero very viable.



Cheers

QM

"I wrote this game as I did to fit my conception of what an RPG does best. I wrote it to be comprehensive, allow for a wide range of play and play styles, and to be, as the saying goes, grim and gritty. I present a world that can be harsh, unfair, and most certainly unbalanced. A world that calls upon one's resources, native wit, and the willingness to dare even though things are stacked against you.

"It's a game where the player cannot make it on his own, or even with a small group of friends. It's a game where your character will need friends and acquaintances; contacts he can call upon for aid, and who will call upon him when they need something done. It's a game where you need to know the world to some degree if your character is ever to better himself and those he knows.

"I have no doubt there will be parts you don't agree with. Parts that don't do what you think they should, or don't do them as well as you think they could. When you find yourself disagreeing with one of my design decisions, change the rule. If you'd rather have ablative hit points than the wound system, then house rule ablative hit points. It'll give a different feel to the game, and it might be the feel you want.

"The game is now in your hands, it's your game. I will no more tell you how to run your game than I would tell a cat how to raise her kittens. What comes after in the body of this work can be no better than my advice. You can follow it, change things to better suit what you want to do, or ignore it entirely. The success of your adventures is entirely up to you, all I can do is provide you with a toolkit that helps more than it hinders. The only true measure of how well you do is when your players look forward to the next adventure."

Quote from: Tyberious FunkI also go back to my belief that houserules are symptomatic of the GM maybe wanting to play another system.  You've said yourself that you weren't really enjoying GURPS much.  Maybe instead of houseruling GURPS, you should have been playing a different system?

[SNIP]

So you're trying to tell me out of 2,000 rpgs, I'm never going to find a system that suits my needs without houseruling it?  What a depressing thought!

We're blessed with a pretty wide selection of roleplaying games indeed. But there are so many components to an RPG that it is easy to prefer some parts but not others.

If you go just by genres, your selection of games drops pretty fast. Then there's support and all that stuff. I think it's not a given that there's surely a game for every situation.

Our last D&D adventures were played mostly by the 3.5 books but with some classes dropped, some classes tweaked and a re-tooled combat system using ICE's 10Million Ways to Die for crits. Even if there was a game that could fit what we are looking for, none are going to give us 100% straight-away-compatible support like d&d does anyway.  

My Story Engine houserules are much more massive, probably adding 30% volume to the rules as written and there's no way any game on the market looks like it. Same with Everway, a fairly unique game.

It's pretty easy to imagine that some components of a game just aren't going to fit some gamers. I don't know where you got the impression that tweaking with systems "doesn't bode well". I have failed to see any link between tweaking and being an asshole in my decades of gaming. You are as likely to hit a moronic DM playing it straight by the book than a moron who tweaks stuff.

Quote from: Consonant DudeWe're blessed with a pretty wide selection of roleplaying games indeed. But there are so many components to an RPG that it is easy to prefer some parts but not others.

The reason for my "mortal rules" in Nobilis is simple enough. In the game, the rest of the universe only has relevance in relation to a fairly small number of empowered beings: there are roughly about two thousand Nobles on Earth, a few hundred Imperators, and perhaps a handful of Excrucians at any given time. Only these characters are statted out when necessary. Everyone and everything else, including the rest of the human species, is at best a difficulty modifier to their actions or else utterly insignificant, and so even the system revolves completely around the PCs and their peers. Yes, that is very much in keeping with the setting, and yes, it doesn't in any way cause problems during actual play. But sometimes it's nice to have a bit of mechanical support for the little people, too.

Quote from: blakkieBut that isn't what you initially wrote. You were talking about "ignoring" rules...sometimes.

That was handled in the next paragraph I wrote:

Quote from: meAnother type of GM fiat is when something happens in game that is covered by a rule, but where following the rule by the book doesn't really make sense in a particular circumstance. In this case, I make a decision based on the particular circumstances and common sense - even if it directly contradicts what is written in the book.

Quote from: blakkieThat is one of the things that "house rules" do ('ignore' is change and/or delete), only in this case worse because it is becomes even less predictable.

I don't agree with the use of "worse".  Mainly because I think changing the rules to fit your needs is an important part of playing the game.

In fact, I think that making small, ad hoc adjustments to the rules is a fundamental part of playing RPGs.  I would argue that anyone who plays RPGs like a boardgame and only ever follows the rules 100% of the time is doing it wrong.

Furthermore, I would argue that such a playstyle is actually impossible for playing traditional RPGs.  There is no set of rules that can answer ever single situation that comes up in play.  Everyone will end up making some adjustments during play.  The only way you could avoid it (maybe) is by playing very, very rules light/Forgey stuff where everything is sufficiently abstract.

Quote from: blakkieYeah, see. That amounts to the same thing. Still changing the rules. Only more complex and/or less organized.

And I still see them as sufficiently different activities.  Changing a core rule, that appears in the book, for all circumstances, is a pretty big change.  Particularly since no one usually makes house rules unless they think the situation will come up all the time.

Making ad hoc rulings based on stuff that comes up pretty rarely (quite possibly only once) are pretty minor changes.

Quote from: jgantsThat was handled in the next paragraph I wrote:

No it doesn't "handle" it in the original context.

QuoteI don't agree with the use of "worse".  Mainly because I think changing the rules to fit your needs is an important part of playing the game.

Once again going back to the original context effectively "house rules" and "GM Fiat ignoring rules", alot, amounts to the same thing.

The rest of your post misses the point, in the original context....and I'm tired and have other things to do.....

Quote from: blakkieNo it doesn't "handle" it in the original context.

Once again going back to the original context effectively "house rules" and "GM Fiat ignoring rules", alot, amounts to the same thing.

The rest of your post misses the point, in the original context....and I'm tired and have other things to do.....

I get your point, that the underlying result is the same - that all methods of playing a game that deviate from the written rules are, in effect, house rules.

I'm just disagreeing with you.  I'm using "house rule" to designate a particular degree of change to the rules, not just any change to them at all.

The rest of it is just me trying to define the degree, and why I think it is important to differentiate between the two (as one is a much more common part of playing the game than the other IMO).

My answer from the other thread:

A house rule is a standing change to the rules, that persists over time.

GM fiat is an ad hoc change to the rules, that may or may not be followed on future occasions.

Accordingly, I would say there is a difference, and indeed this is why I prefer house rules to fiat.

@jgants

I think the problem is your [initial] lack of differentiation. You're mixing up a lot of different things in "GM Fiat" including:
1) changing rules (ignoring including)
2) making up new rules that have little direct basis in the original rules
3) obvious extensions of existing rules (preferable that have written guidelines given)
4) clear judgement calls (that are largely obvious to everyone at the table) as called for by the rules.

Number 3 is usually optional, although pretty common. Especially for games designed for a wider scope and more flexibility (and flexibility definately has it's upsides). Definately 4, IMO, is pretty much a requirement for all but the most narrow scoped of RPGs, and even then I can't really imagine avoiding it. Having #1 and #2 required is where I take issue and is not my experience.

P.S. I don't even include #3 and #4 in "GM Fiat" since the arbitrary and relatively unbased nature implied in "fiat". At least in contrast to the word "judgement", which I do use for the #3 and #4.

EDIT: I should add that same game rules have Options that make "ignoring" more choices within the rules. So that's not really a #1 anymore, at least if it is consistant.

I house rule when I find something in the system I don't quite like or doesn't quite work as expected. For me, it's a normal part of running any game system. Saying, "I might as well play a different game" is kind of disingenuous - I mean, there's not likely to be any game that is like the houseruled version of the game I'm already playing, right? I examine every change I make to a system carefully to make sure that it has the effect intended.

Some games, like Exalted, I don't know well enough to house rule so I play them RAW. Others like SilCore, I know very well and have house ruled to one degree or another. A perfect example is the Complexity rules. I don't really like how they were implemented, so I changed them. I have extremely solid reasons for changing them the way that I did. I'm neither a frustrated game designer, nor do I believe that that what game designers do is magic that they only they can work - but I know what works best for myself and my players.

I suppose I should throw in my attitude to houseruling, given that this snowballed out of the Bottom 10 Games discussion I started. I am going to use Balbinus's excellent distinction between houseruling and GM fiat - house rules are consistent additions to the rules, preferably written down, which are applied consistently, GM fiat is an on-the-spot judgement by the GM.

In general, I much prefer to houserule as opposed to using GM fiat to cover a rules situation, unless it's a one-of-the-kind situation which is never likely to happen again. Also, I normally try as much as possible to make my houserules consistent with the core mechanics of the game in question (assuming the game even has a core mechanic). I won't, for example, suddenly ask for Fudge dice rolls in a BRP game, or ask people to roll 2D10 instead of 1D20 for a roll in D&D 3.X.

As far as covering ground which the main rules don't allow for, I'm perfectly happy to houserule. Adding extra spells and monsters and whatnot to a game is part of the fun, and sometimes to do that you *have* to houserule. (For example, I've never found the formula that Wizards use to balance character classes in D&D - if indeed there is one. Therefore if I'm adding a new class to D&D 3.X I *have* to houserule and make my own judgement call on where the balance lies.)

As far as the core mechanic of a game goes, I tend not to houserule those, because once you do that you're effectively playing a whole different game. Rolling 2D10 instead of 1D20 for everything in D20, for example, would alter things so drastically the game would change beyond all recognition. On the other hand, the various subsystems of a game are fair targets for houseruling... so long as I don't feel compelled to houserule too many of them. If I have to give one or two subsystems major overhauls to get the game I want to run, that's cool. More than that? Then clearly the designer and I don't see eye to eye on a good many things, and my time would be better spent researching alternative games. Minor tweaks to the rules I can live with, on the other hand.

As far as running games as written goes, I do find it helpful to go through things before I start thinking of ways to houseruling them, even if it's just me on my own running through a few mocked-up combats or something, because a) it can help me get a grip on what exactly I don't like about the rules, and what exactly I want to change about them, and b) it makes doubly sure that I know how the rule in question works, and how it relates to the rest of the rules.

Quote from: jgantsFurthermore, I would argue that such a playstyle is actually impossible for playing traditional RPGs.  There is no set of rules that can answer ever single situation that comes up in play.

Total agreement, except I'd avoid the term "traditional." The important point here, as you say, is that they're not even "house rules," if that word means manhandling The Creator's Vision until it fits my own, lesser one, and in that case why don't I just play another game?

Well, because I'm just fine with the game, very much including its deliberate rules openness that allows me to fill in blanks on the spot.

Example: As we're gearing up for a 2300AD game I noticed that chargen is in some respects a very condensed version of Traveller's--so condensed that there are no separate careers for military officers and NCOs/grunts. In a military-style campaign, which ours is not, I would write up a couple of career paths for added differentiation between (N)PCs.

No designer's vision would have been harmed in the process. Au contraire, if my career paths were any good, I would submit them to Challenge magazine (if that were still around), and who knows, they would even have published them as optional rules. There are bunches of precedents for that.

So these aren't flawed games, they're purposely customizable games.

Quote from: JimBobOzSharing food and drink is a social experience, it relaxes people. When people each bring munchies and share them, the act of sharing and exchanging is a bonding one, building trust.

QFT

That aside, all the house rules I've ever used came into being after I played the game for awhile. Either I made them myself or borrowed them from other GMs that I know.

I don't see it as the system I'm playing as 'being broken' but more a matter of playing style. Both mine and my players. I don't recall anyone ever having a problem with any of the house rules I've used over the years (discussions yes, arguments no).

I don't go looking to make houserules when I get a new game, but I will if it makes the game more balanced/interesting/usable/fun.

I also clearly state any and all rule changes to my existing/new players. I don't spring them on them after the fact. I do it before play starts.

Hang on a minute... something just occurred to me. It was so obvious I missed it before. We've got people here saying, "well, when the game is new to me, I follow the rules-as-written exactly."

But if the game's new to you, then you don't know the rules - so how can you follow them exactly?

I don't know about you guys, but most people I know don't remember rules from reading them, they half-remember them from reading, and then fully remember them from playing them.

So when someone's GMing a game for the first time, if they've never played it before, play goes like... "Okay, now what happens is... shit, what's the rule for that?" The GM then looks it up. Now, we've got two basic kinds of GM at the extremes. There's the kind of GM who keeps looking until they find the rule, even if it means a 30 minute break in the middle of combat. And then there's the GM who looks for 30 seconds, then says, "fuck it - can't waste time - just add one die for now, that sounds roughly right, I'll look it up between sessions to get it exactly right."

That means that either your first few sessions are painfully slow as the GM looks everything up, or else there's quite a bit of what Balbinus calls "GM fiat" - the GM just waving their hand and deciding whatever seems reasonable and good at the time.

So if you're all playing a particular rpg for the first time, those are the choices you have at the extremes, between a slow game looking everything up to make sure you follow the rules exactly, or a quicker game where the rules are only followed if you can find them in the book quickly enough, otherwise it's GM fiat. Those are extremes, of course, but we're speaking generally here.

I wouldn't try to guess which kind of GM is more common. I've seen both. But a significant number will be the "GM fiat" kind. Some of them will do it because they're lazy, and some will do it because they trust their own judgment, while still others will say, "it's a new game, I better keep things moving, if they have to wait while I look up rules then they'll think this new rpg is boring."

What we get then is that a significant number of people playing a new game aren't following the rules-as-written, because they don't know what they are. They can't follow them perfectly until they've played the game for a while.

My guess is that some of these GM fiat rulings at the beginning, when the GM and group comes to read the actual rule between sessions, sometimes they'll say, "wow, that's stupid! Much better is that fiat decision that got made last session." So the GM fiat turns into a house rule.

Now, if what I'm saying is true - if groups new to a game system will rarely follow it exactly, simply because they don't know the rules yet, so they get GM fiat instead - why is GM fiat based on bad knowledge of the rules okay, but houserules based on average or deep knowledge of the rules is bad? If I can handwave the rules in the first session when I don't know much, why can't I alter the rules in the tenth session when I know them well?

How do you manage to follow the rules exactly in the first session? Do you study the book for months, visit other groups playing the same game, to make sure you got it right before you break it out for your game group?

QuoteBut if the game's new to you, then you don't know the rules - so how can you follow them exactly?

I don't know about you, but we tend to keep a book handy and look things up when we're unsure. :)

We also have a group of people with a good memory for rules, so it never takes long to find anything.

Missing the point, McMurray. If your game book doesn't have a great index or contents listing, and if you've not got a great memory, then...

Your response isn't helpful. It's like I'm saying, "when you're learning to drive," and you say, "oh but I already know how to drive! It was easy to learn!"

I'm talking about the time when you're learning a new rpg, and for lots of people, that doesn't go super-smooth. Maybe it does for you - mazeltov! But not for all.

Quote from: JimBobOzNow, if what I'm saying is true - if groups new to a game system will rarely follow it exactly, simply because they don't know the rules yet, so they get GM fiat instead - why is GM fiat based on bad knowledge of the rules okay, but houserules based on average or deep knowledge of the rules is bad? If I can handwave the rules in the first session when I don't know much, why can't I alter the rules in the tenth session when I know them well?

How do you manage to follow the rules exactly in the first session? Do you study the book for months, visit other groups playing the same game, to make sure you got it right before you break it out for your game group?

You're making it into too much of a dichotomy. It's not that house rules are 'bad'. Funk doesn't like them (for example); most other people seem to be saying that they like to understand the rules before house-ruling. Similarly, it's not a matter of getting every element of the rules learned before you embark on a game. It's about having an idea of how the system fits together and knowing where to look things up.

Nobody's saying you can't make house-rules, they're saying they like to play the RAW first. You can handwave all you like, depending on how the people you play with take it.

On that issue of following rules, it really depends on the game. If you can't follow the rules of Trollbabe or Primetime Adventures, even on your first go (assuming you've actually read the book), there is no help for you. Not being able to follow all the ins and outs of D&D 3.5 on your first go might be more understandable. There's a lot more reading required.

So the extent to which you follow the rules on the first few passes might be limited, depending on just how crunchy the rules are. That doesn't mean you're not trying to follow the rules. That's another needless dichotomy.

You can house-rule more effectively if you understand how the game works as a whole. Most games produce some kind of emergent behaviour that isn't always apparent from reading them.

All I can speak to is my own experiences. If you're not interested in what others have to say I'd suggest avoiding internet forums.

Quote from: JimBobOzIf your game book doesn't have a great index or contents listing......

...and it is a largish game? I find a better book. Seriously.  I also keep the book open and handy. Preferable a couple copies open around the table. Often people will know some sections of rules better than others, particularly subsystems like magic and such.

Also knowing the letter of the rules or remembering where a section is located (but not necessarily all of it's contents) doesn't always give a clear picture of how it works.

EDIT:

QuoteThere's the kind of GM who keeps looking until they find the rule, even if it means a 30 minute break in the middle of combat.

If it really was such an issue I'd likely find better rules (and a constant one). To reasonably determine whether it is there or not. And I'd look at myself and wonder if I'm gronking things. If I'm using the tool for what it is intended to do.

And yes, occationally it will come down to just calling it.  Although usually it isn't GM fiat. If it's fiat at all instead of judgement.  And then it gets marked down as something to look up later after the session to get clarified.  Did I mention that the Internet rocks for gaming?

EDIT2: I will say that some games are tougher is this way than others and need more pre-reading.

Quote from: JimBobOzNow, if what I'm saying is true - if groups new to a game system will rarely follow it exactly, simply because they don't know the rules yet, so they get GM fiat instead - why is GM fiat based on bad knowledge of the rules okay, but houserules based on average or deep knowledge of the rules is bad? If I can handwave the rules in the first session when I don't know much, why can't I alter the rules in the tenth session when I know them well?

I think there is a big difference between improvising rules because you're not familiar with them, versus reading them (presumably understanding them) and then changing them.  Besides, you were originally arguing that it was perfectly reasonable to alter the rules of game you had never actually played... not a game you'd been playing for ten sessions.  

FWIW, when playing (or running) a system for the first time, I don't like my lack of knowledge of the rules to get too much in the way of the game.  But I do make my best effort to play them as written.  Even if that means looking stuff up.  As long as it doesn't take too long.  How else will you ever learn the rules if you just make things up as you want?  Or, for that matter, what point are the rules if you ignore them the moment it becomes inconvenient?  

After I've had time to digest the rules... and seen them in action, then I might consider houserules for situations that didn't work according to my tastes (and those of the group).