When I studied American Folklore in college, I did an anthropological study, well, more of a collection, around the American house rules found in Monopoly. My main method for the collection was interviewing and observing game play. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out rules existed that in 20-something years of living and playing the game, I had never even heard of. Take this one for example: when you own more than one rail road, you may warp from one track to the other, if you happen to land on one of them. Further, you could charge players any fee you wanted to allow them to warp on through, if they happen to land on one as well. Fascinating concept. Want to avoid a string of high-priced, renovated neighborhoods? No problem.
Then there are some rules of Monopoly so famous, they are commonly thought of to be the actual rules. Take the "Free Parking" space, for instance. Ask yourself, what does the space do? What are the rules around it? If you answered anything other than "nothing at all", then you have played the game incorrectly long enough to believe the space has a purpose; or, as I argue in this post, you have chosen to adopt a make-shift ruling absolute, because it is better than what originally existed.
A DM has the opportunity, when it comes to the rules of the game, to make some stuff up. If it is intentional, and it works, why not? I've known some DM's to change whole feats, integrating them into others, because let's face it, no one wants to waste a whole feat on some the lame options that start some really attractive feat-chains. DM's who carries over made-up rulings across games and throughout different player groups has a unique opportunity, perhaps, to build something of a legacy for themselves.
I do, however, think DM's have a responsibility to inform players that some rules are made-up. As a player who for certain thought "retreating from battle" allowed me not to provoke an attack of opportunity, boy did I feel stupid when I brought this rule into a game of experienced players.
When it comes to rulings, it should be a simple, mathematically-moral equation: breaking the rules can be bad, making the rules can be good. Create something unique that many players love, and you have something of a Dm'ing legacy; do the opposite, and go down in infamy.
I think rules can be bent and even broken sometimes, especially if it has to do with the DM's world and story. But, a DM has to keep in mind, not to stray too far from the rules. When you get in the habit of doing anything you want as a DM you may produce players who don't actually know how to play. The balance is to know the rules so you can break them later.
ReplyDeleteHouse ruling is a bit of a messy affair when going from group. What seems like cut and dry change that seems universal could be blasphemy for a certain group. However, it is a necessary evil. Along with the points listed above and in the article, I would like to add that house rules can keep groups of players from getting frustrated with the game. For example, my group has done away with all minor material and focus components for spell casters in D&D 3.5. Some would argue that these spell components are essential to role play and game balance. I feel that would keep me a far distance way from playing spellcasters due to all the book keeping due to material counting. (For reference, I already don't like to play prepared spell casters due to the constant maintenance of spells) So due to that change, I can play a spellcaster with minimal frustration. That being said, house rules should be something a group should decide after original rules have been exercised.
ReplyDeleteI agree. "Older" players have a tendency to have ingrained in themselves their house rules, forgetting about the originals they have either edited or supplanted. In my case, having played for a decade, several house rules had simply become "the rules". When I began introducing friends to the game, I did a monstrously poor job of separating the two for my new crew. Luckily, everyone I introduced is smart people, so I'm pretty sure the good has outweighed the bad at this point.
DeleteWhat I think is most interesting about house rules is how they continuously evolve. For example:
The base effect of charge is familiar to most players. Move in a straight line, +2 to hit, -2 to AC, some weapons get special things from there. My DM as a child decided that the benefits were not epic enough, and did not encourage players to leap into the fray in a meaningful way, and limited charging being used after the fact. So, in addition to the listed benefits, all charge damage, ALL OF IT (including smites, sneak attacks, crits, everything), was multiplied by 2. This resulted in ridiculous damage for low level characters, and OBSCENE damage for high level ones. This was limited to player and end game boss use only. The ruling was effective, and my friends and I regularly kicked in the door and handed evil their butts, whole.
As we got older, and we were consistently putting up obscene numbers even at lower levels due to mechanical exploitation, the rule changed. No longer was it all damage that doubled, merely the damage created by the weapon and all of its additional dice. Though this still resulted in huge numbers, it toned down the insanity somewhat, and resulted in wider player choice. That this coincided with many of us really getting into prestige classes and munchkin level multiclassing was certainly intentional.
When I returned to DMing and playing in reality in college, I returned to its original form initially, for the same reason my DM had originally created it. I wanted to encourage boldness, decisive strikes, and general heroics. Such was moderately successful, but I decided changing the rule to its secondary form was better for the survival of the group....'s calculator.
Eventually, even this became untenable due to the madness of big druids and drunken monks. So, the rule evolved again, and for the first time applied fully to NPCs. The weapon dice alone were now doubled, not the rolls, nor any extraneous dice. This still allows charge to be a decision, and a grand one at that, without instakilling all non DM-HP creatures.
I look forward to see what other rules will evolve over time, or which ones have without my notice.