The issue of houseruling systems has started to emerge in the Bottom 10 Games 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.