Quote from: Peregrin;427296At that point I would just design my own game rather than continually rip apart other people's.

I wouldn't.

Putting together a functional, balanced, playtested RPG is a lot of work. Why would I forego the value delivered by a well-designed RPG just because I want/need to tweak a few things to suit my group's playstyle?

I expect the RPG as published to provide 90% of the rules I need in play. The other 10% is stuff I make up on my own. That's more practical than making 100% of it up on my own.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;427320Putting together a functional, balanced, playtested RPG is a lot of work.

And yet we pay for broken and incomplete games all the time.

QuoteI expect the RPG as published to provide 90% of the rules I need in play. The other 10% is stuff I make up on my own. That's more practical than making 100% of it up on my own.

What sort of 10% margin are we talking about here that's so significant that it can ameliorate play-style incompatibility issues, and why not just buy another game that suits your group's play-style by default?

I'm honestly curious, though, so if you could provide any examples of house-rules that you've made and the effect it has on your game, I'd like to hear about it.  What sort of rules do you modify, and what sort of effect have these modifications had on the play-style for your campaign?

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;427320That's more practical than making 100% of it up on my own.

I haven't been able to convince many people (in person) to play any rpg games using my own custom rulesets.  Not even for an evening one-shot game.

Apparently most gamers I've come across over the years, prefer to play something that is popular and is published in a book like D&D/AD&D, etc ...

Quote from: Peregrin;427296At that point I would just design my own game rather than continually rip apart other people's.

It's far less work to find a game where I can use 40-50% of the rules, toss the rest, and add in 10-20% of the original rules size of my own rules and run with it. To me, this is what RPG rules are for -- to help me run my campaign.  As I've been doing this for 30+ years, I don't worry about my tinkering messing up some other part of the rules that I will not discover for six-eight months... when I discover the problem, I'll just house rule a fix that will work with my mods and my group.

Different POV than most today, I guess.

Quote from: RandallS;427329Different POV than most today, I guess.

Depends on the game.

Ultimately my issue is that a designer usually has a specific intent for how their rules are going to be used, and this core philosophy finds its way through the entire work.  If I have to choose between using D&D for a court intrigue game or coming up with my own system, I'd rather spend the time to build my own than try to re-work D&D's assumptions and reward systems, since I'll eventually end up with something far more internally consistent, even if the game isn't going to win any design awards.

But if we're talking about game books being sold by publishers for super-premium prices, being marketed as an "end-user" product that is supposed to work out-of-the-box, there's no way I'm shelling out money for a system that's not going to do what I want it to do at 50-60 bucks a pop.

Quote from: ggroyI haven't been able to convince many people (in person) to play any rpg games using my own custom rulesets. Not even for an evening one-shot game.

Apparently most gamers I've come across over the years, prefer to play something that is popular and is published in a book like D&D/AD&D, etc ...

Geeks get too comfortable sometimes.  I've met many who won't even play in a game with house-rules (which carry a pretty negative connotation these days, either that the core game is broken or that the house-rules suck, since most people can't design well).

People that won't play with house rules are the same brand of people that write story games, they can't sit back and let them GM... GM. They want to have their hand in the pot to, if only for the glory of telling someone something.

Quote from: Cranewings;427337People that won't play with house rules are the same brand of people that write story games, they can't sit back and let them GM... GM. They want to have their hand in the pot to, if only for the glory of telling someone something.

Basis for this fact?  Because the people I had in mind when I made that post hate the Forge and story-games for the same reason they hate house-rules -- what they perceive to be amateur-ish attempts at design or a misguided attempt to "fix" mainstream RPGs.

Doesn't reflect my own opinion, though.

Really, though, you guys need to stop blaming all the things you don't like on story-games.  It gets old, real fucking fast.

Quote from: Peregrin;427342Basis for this fact?  Because the people I had in mind when I made that post hate the Forge and story-games for the same reason they hate house-rules -- what they perceive to be amateur-ish attempts at design or a misguided attempt to "fix" mainstream RPGs.

I don't believe them. I think they just like being assholes, probably because they are carrying emotional baggage.

Quote from: ggroy;427325I haven't been able to convince many people (in person) to play any rpg games using my own custom rulesets.  Not even for an evening one-shot game.

Apparently most gamers I've come across over the years, prefer to play something that is popular and is published in a book like D&D/AD&D, etc ...

No, I don't think popularity and being in print is the main issue. I think long-time gamers have learned over the years that "my awesome homebrew system" is basically synonymous with "a steaming pile of crap I threw together that's nigh schizophrenic because it plays to my own personal idiosyncratic likes and dislikes."

Moreover, why? With hundreds and hundreds of game systems already on the market, there's got to a damn compelling reason not to use one of them first, right?

Seanchai

I think the RaW vs RaI debate has more impact on competitive wargames than it does RPG games.

I don't even really think it's relevant, since each GM has carte blanche to do whatever they want to in their game.

Arguing RaW doesn't work in RPG's unless it's a tournament.

Quote from: Soylent Green;427247There is a difference between electing to make a house rule to tailor the game to more to your taste and having to make a house rule because the rule as written makes no sense at all.

I'd like to think the game I bought will run fine striaght out of the box. If I then choose to make a change that's cool, but it should be a choice not a requirement.

I'm not suggesting it should be, either. What I'm suggesting is that the RAW-fanatics out there try to impose an anti-GM agenda where they imply that the GM is "cheating" if he uses houserules.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;427244So wait, are you agreeing with me or are you not? Because the people who are behind the "RAW" concept are people who feel like you should not have a right to houserule 3.x and change some of those things you hate about the game.

I honestly don't know if I agree with you or not. Your other post really sounded to me like you were targeting those of us who expect a game to be at least mostly worked out(I don't recall anyone requiring perfection) if we're expected to pay good money to it. But this one . . . if you were just targeting people who are against the concept of house-ruling in general(rules nazis or whatever you want to call them), I apologize. That's not what it sounded like to me, and I'm sorry if I took something personal when it wasn't even directed at me(or to be more accurate a category of people I fall into).

I'm certainly not against house-ruling on principle, especially if it's for the reason that you just plain want to do it. I might not get why someone wants to make a particular house rule, but then . . . whatever, it's not like it affects me one way or the other.

Quote from: Peregrin;427321What sort of 10% margin are we talking about here that's so significant that it can ameliorate play-style incompatibility issues, and why not just buy another game that suits your group's play-style by default?

Seriously? There is no game on the market that 100% fits my vision for all things I would use it for. So I generally pick the game that gets me closest and make the jump from there.

Some simple examples:

In my Planetary Romance SotC hack: Academics becomes 2 skills, Earth Lore and Jupiter Lore. Further, specific species have species-only stunts that they can or must take, and have minimums and maximums on certain starting skills (e.g., only Jupiter natives can choose Jupiter lore above +1, same for Earthlings and Earth lore.)

In most of my SotC/Fate games: most weapons have at least +1 to damage. Otherwise, why would anyone take (melee) weapons instead of fists?

Are these rules changes worth re-inventing the core engine over? Certainly not.

From D&D 3.5:
No pokemounts. i.e., Paladins don't magically summon their horses to appear in front of them. This stupid rule is aimed at dick DMs (which I am not) and we are not playing Final Fantasy.

A more complex example is my action point and advancement rules, which replace XP and level drain costs with Action Point costs, and remove XP from the game, replacing it with simpler "encounter points". I'm not interested in nitpicking handfuls of XP; I go the simpler path of grading encounters (and noncombat challenged) by their relative difficulty.

Again, not changes worth scrapping the whole works and starting from scratch.

Quote from: Seanchai;427374No, I don't think popularity and being in print is the main issue. I think long-time gamers have learned over the years that "my awesome homebrew system" is basically synonymous with "a steaming pile of crap I threw together that's nigh schizophrenic because it plays to my own personal idiosyncratic likes and dislikes."

Moreover, why? With hundreds and hundreds of game systems already on the market, there's got to a damn compelling reason not to use one of them first, right?

For the most part.  It's the difference between playing in someone's own personal heartbreaker rpg, compared to something which already exists and is familiar.

With very few "black swans" surprises in rpg systems and business, it's a lot easier to go the route of playing a known entity (ie. D&D, etc ...) than one which is not known (homebrew heartbreakers, etc ...).  It's not like trying to find the next "google" or "microsoft" stock which skyrockets up the stock market and changes the world.  Homebrew heartbreakers are more likely to resemble "dotbomb" stocks from a decade ago.  (More likely to elicit yawns than excitement.  "Here we go again" sorta deal).

It would not be surprising to see fantasy rpg heartbreaker designers being egotistical and arrogant enough to believe their own hype.  Some truly believe that their own custom rulesets and settings will change the rpg world and business drastically.  (Even after drastic failure on their part and/or massive indifference from the rpg market).

Quote from: Peregrin;427342Basis for this fact?  Because the people I had in mind when I made that post hate the Forge and story-games for the same reason they hate house-rules -- what they perceive to be amateur-ish attempts at design or a misguided attempt to "fix" mainstream RPGs.

Doesn't reflect my own opinion, though.

Really, though, you guys need to stop blaming all the things you don't like on story-games.  It gets old, real fucking fast.

Except in this case, it fits.  Yes, there may be some RAW fanatics that fit what you describe, but that in no way contradicts the fact that it is an official position of the Forge movement that houseruling should not be allowed.  The GM shouldn't have the power to arbitrarily change the rules; in fact, that's why they push so hard for the idea of rules being really focused and directed to their micro-game goal; because if the GNS theory allows you to make "perfect" games, then there's no need to allow GMs the authority to houserule, and you can strip away his "power".

RPGPundit