Reverb Gamers #28 – House Rules
- January 28th, 2012
- Posted in Musings
- By Mockingbard
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This post is part of a series of answers to the Reverb Gamers 2012 blogging prompts (full list in PDF format here).
REVERB GAMERS 2012, #28: Do you have any house rules when you game? What are they, and why do you use them? If not, why not?
Often, but not always. I tweak rules as I feel is necessary for our fun or compatibility with the way we like to play. I usually have the same group, too, so I don’t need to worry about explaining house rules to new people, or making them for suitable for many groups. It can also be fun, sometimes, just to mess around with rules and see what the changes will do. Easier than making a whole system yourself, but can changes things significantly.
I changed a rule set a little, at first, then more and more until it became clearly inspired by the rule set but functioned differently enough it was a hack, not just house rules. This was for my hardcore sci-fi Wizard of Oz hack of Lady Blackbird. I made the whole system, setting, situation in four hours over two days; I had the idea and wanted to run it for our approaching game session. The initial houseruling was to match the theme of the game. So, the ways keys and secrets interacted changed. We added more tweaks during the game and by the end it was a separate hack. I’ll work on writing it up and posting it sometime. I’m trying to divorce the rules from the setting first, but we’ll see. Anyway, I’ll let you know.
Another example of house rules: I’ve added aspects to Savage Worlds. We like Savage Worlds, but we also like aspects. So, there you are. In D&D 3.5 I house ruled a lot too. I tried to get more versatility out of the classes, or bend them into my world a little more. I like fantasy worlds with only humans, too, so I often house rule other races away. In indie or short games like Lady Blackbird or Fiasco there’s little need for house rules, or they organically pop up during play. This happened in Prime Time Adventures, where we decided after a few sessions to go for a three-act structure, ending earlier than that if we could get things resolved by then; that is, not forcing more scenes if we felt we were done.
So, that’s it. I houserule and sometimes hack. I do this to suit our play style or vision for the game we want. This sometimes is purely about setting, rather than the mechanics. I sometimes just do it for fun. Houserules are one of the things I love about roleplaying games. Not everyone can mod a computer game, but anyone can make house rules.
That’s precisely why I house rule. I do it because I interject my own ideas into the game. I know there’s a good number of people out there that point to house ruling as clear signs that a system is ‘broken’. I say it’s not a sign of a system being broken, but rather a sign that a DM is broken or lazy or uncreative somehow.
All somebody has to do is study the mechanics enough to understand how the pieces come together and how they all work together. Once you get that down you put your own flavor into it. Hopefully if you’ve studied the mechanics well enough you also know how to streamline and lighten the rules up a bit, including overhauling the mechanics to fit your needs beyond simply house ruling.
This is one of the many reasons why I’m making my own system. Take the SRDs and put MY spins on them..and MY interpretations and have them all documented and put into a lovely PDF form and pass it out like candy at Halloween
Not only will I have explanations for my spins on it, how they work and why I did them, I will also openly give advice in the e-book on how to spin it your own flavor and will even give my email address and IRC room in case anybody wants to come and get assistance or whatever.
I encourage everybody to dismantle whatever system they like and make it their own style and flavor of it.
@BossMan Sounds great, BossMan. I’d love to get a copy of your system once it’s ready. Your approach to it sounds excellent. Explanations, how they work, why you did them. Awesome.
Everyone has their own ideas and ways of streamlining, but once someone spins an existing system it shows others a way to play they may not have thought of.
I love systems that have sidebars and such that explain the designer’s thoughts and reasoning and what tweaking X will change and if you like Y, you can change Z to get to it.
Lots of indie games do this too. Savage Worlds Deluxe also has some things like this, and Clint Black is always available on the forums to provide official answers and feedback on other people’s house rules. Paizo staff do a good job of this too.
Anyway, props to you for working on your own system and doing it right.
Good on you