House Rules-itis

[Jonathan Miller]

I recently started refereeing an original D&D campaign called Balmor (or the Twilight Empire). The second session is this weekend, and in doing a little preparation for the game this evening the realization gradually dawned that I'm suffering from a bad case of house rules-itis. This deadly condition prevents one from playing the game as written, and fills the victim with a restless need to tinker with and add to every rule in the books.

I started tinkering with the rules of OD&D mainly because I wanted the Balmor campaign to better reflect actual Medieval and Renaissance social conditions and beliefs about magic and religion. But the tinkering soon took on a life of its own, and the original rules became virtually buried in a mound of house rules. I've recently scaled back, keeping only some new price lists, weapon and armor types, spells, monsters, and classes and races (mainly for NPCs), . Together these still constitute a lot of changes and additions, but at least I have left the guts of the game--ability scores, the core classes and races, spells, and rules for combat and adventuring--largely intact.

I suppose any campaign has its own tweaks to the rules, especially in an edition like OD&D. But it's dreadfully easy to get side-tracked into writing a whole new game. I almost did precisely that, because of the difficulty of acquiring OD&D books for my players, and because of my dissatisfaction with Swords & Wizardry (despite its many strengths), but have held off for now.

Does anyone else suffer from the dread malady of house rules-itis? And what, praytell, is the cure?

[Morandir]

Boy, do I ever. Every single OD&D game I've run has ended up like this. As for a cure, I don't know.

On the other hand, do we really need one? What makes OD&D so great is that you can tinker to your heart's delight without the game falling apart.

[Finarvyn]

Almost every campaign I run seems to have some sort of twist or house-rule to it. Sometimes I'll do one with spell points, or change up the attack numbers, or outlaw certain classes, or whatever. Don't sweat it, just enjoy it.

[Mr. Darke]

I always fall into this. My current D&D game is a mish-mash of ideas from S&W, BECMI D&D,BFRPG, Dragons at Dawn and my own twists. I tried fighting it but then realized this was the way D&D was envisioned to be ran.

[geoffrey]

Jul 25, 2012 20:39:10 GMT -6 Jonathan Miller said:

But the tinkering soon took on a life of its own, and the original rules became virtually buried in a mound of house rules.

It sounds to me like you're doing it right. Gary wrote back in 1974: "[E]verything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

[waysoftheearth]

I don't see it as a malady, but perhaps that is because I too am a serial offender.

Tinkering with the rules, for me, is one of the great joys of the hobby. I find that almost every game I play, every other game related thread I read, or every other adventure I read inspires me to re-think some aspect of the game. The result is that I'm forever writing and re-writing house rules -- that's part of what gaming is for me.

Considering these recent years, I've put together my unpublished Eyre Tor supplement (a rewrite of Men & Magic), my various revisions of Searchers of the Unknown (now downloaded over 1,500 times I just noticed!), the house rules I put up for my Hinterlands and Moria games (on these boards) and also my Westbrook tabletop game sessions, and that is not to mention an entire Delving Deeper revision (not exactly "house rules" per se, but an epic rules project none the less).

A referee's work is never done it seems; but I loved every minute of it

[Finarvyn]

Jul 25, 2012 22:45:53 GMT -6 Mr. Darke said:

I always fall into this. My current D&D game is a mish-mash of ideas from S&W, BECMI D&D,BFRPG, Dragons at Dawn and my own twists. I tried fighting it but then realized this was the way D&D was envisioned to be ran.

I mix 'em as we play. If I need a monster, for example, I grab the RC or C&C MT or 2E Monster Manual or whatever book is handy. If the HC and/or AC numbers are off a little, so what?

[Zenopus]

As a player, I'm not a big fan of large numbers of house rules that apply to the PCs that are not written down in a concise document. (If they are all DM rules that the players don't even know, that's different). If there are many house rules scattered about on different pages (e.g., different weapon damages, different spell effects, different rules for PC skills etc) they can slow down the game as they are searched for and discussed with the players when they come up.

[garham]

D&D, being made up of a bunch of relatively unrelated subsystems, is practically begging for house-rules. This ad-hoc melange approach is sorta what gives D&D it's particular flavour IMHO.

[Deleted]

Nothing wrong with house rules, that just means you are playing D&D right! Slavish obedience and adherence to the rules and striving to be btb all the time is not old school and not in the spirit of old school gaming. Remember Gary and Dave when they reffed did not ref with their noses in the rule books, they made rulings on the fly and kept the game moving. And from what I understand it is not just D&D that they played that way.

So don't worry! Go have fun!

[vito]

I'm in the same boat. I'm planning on running a Carcosa game some time this week and my mind is aflame with possibilities.

Tinkering with the rules is one of the things I really love about D&D. Otherwise I would just play computer games.

[bat]

I toss everything together, it works, players like it, so no problem.

[Deleted]

Aug 6, 2012 13:54:32 GMT -6 bat said:

I toss everything together, it works, players like it, so no problem.

And that is what I call the zeroth law of gaming: are we having fun?

It is, after all, a game. If you aren't having fun then find a different game! An exalt for you ...

[bat]

Thank you! I sort of thought that the fun was the heart of it. I bend some rules here and there from canon (like any humanoid, demi-human can become a lycanthrope if bitten, for example) but those little things I leave as surprises for the players to discover.

[Deleted]

D&D was explicitly designed to be fiddled with. You are doing exactly what Dave and Gary originally intended.

[Deleted]

Aug 11, 2012 23:10:20 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

D&D was explicitly designed to be fiddled with. You are doing exactly what Dave and Gary originally intended.

Right on, man! Exalt!

[Harbinger]

After deeply immersing myself in the OSR and gorging on all the fabulous rulesets and blog posts that tweak the rules one way or another, I broke through into a zen-like state where all the rules fell away and what I was left with was "The Campaign". All my focus is on running the campaign and rules are only introduced if the campaign requires it.

It's been really nice.

[Deleted]

That's good. You have taken your first step into a larger world.

Have an exalt in celebration of your illumination.

[Jonathan Miller]

Thanks for the replies. I meant to post this in General Discussion; not sure what happened there.

I agree with those who say that original D&D is very much meant to be kit-bashed and plays well that way. However, I want my players to be able to experience the original game more or less as written before we change it too much.

In any event, many of our house rules aren't going away. Balmor has Renaissance arms and armor, a few new spells reflecting medieval and Renaissance magic (a love charm, a low-powered spell of healing for MUs, spells for protecting and blighting harvests, etc.), and a few new or variant classes, such as the alchemist, bard, and necromancer. But I want to at least use the original combat matrices, experience tables, and rules for combat; otherwise, it feels like we're playing a different game.