House Rules

Back in "The Day" as we like to think of it, games were written badly.

There, I said it. Controversy in the first sentence.

We did something about it though. We added house rules to the system that made it playable. We tweaked what we didn’t like to make it more suitable for our game and our gaming style. Where we needed too we’d rewrite entire chunks of the system.

That was half the fun.

Nowadays that seems to be too much for some people. Well I say some, I mean most. Really. All I seem to hear is people bitching that this little rule isn’t right or that feat is too powerful. Change it people! They’re only guidelines for gods sake!

I know whats coming next here too. The “Golden Rule” haters. Those who think that it’s some kind of cop out from writing a good game system. Well its not. Fair enough, if you find that you need to change about half of the book then the golden rule is, indeed, a cop-out. However I can say that from personal experience, there is NO SUCH THING AS THE PERFECT SYSTEM! Its never gonna happen, so live with it.

Every game has flaws. Not every rule is going to work for you and your group. There will always be a rule or a skill or an ability or a cost or an exception or something in a system that doesn’t work for you and your group. Change it. Scribble your change down in the margin, or on a bookmark or in a journal entitled “all the niggly things that I have to bitch to Liam about that are wrong with all the games I own that I’ve had to rewrite”. Just don’t show me the whole book and expect me to care coz I probably like half the rules you changed. That’s the way it is.

And that’s basically my point. Games designers are trying to write what they think is the best game they can for the people that they have experience with. (This doesn’t necessarily apply to Indie games. That’s a whole different kettle of fish. This is about Mainstream games, sorry).

If a designer has a different view than most of his audience then the game will fail. If it is similar enough to what the majority think then it’ll at least sell a few copies and there will still be players who sit there and think “You know, I wanna be able to swing a double handed sword with one hand and use a shield but the rules won’t let me even with a penalty”. Make it up. Add a monstrous penalty if that’s what it takes. Tweak the rules to keep everyone happy. Make something up to fill in a gap you’ve found in the system if that’s what it takes to make the game playable for you. Not everyone is gonna need rules for riding Gelatinous Cubes into battle but hey, if it floats your boat then write the rules for it and see what the rest of the group says.

I for one had so many house rules in place after running 1st edition Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay for nearly 20 years, that it would have filled a book nearly as big as the core rulebook. Vampire 2nd edition? Loads of little tweaks. Call of Cthulhu even has a couple of minor additions/changes for longer campaigns. D&D has more than most I’ll admit but that’s just the way it is.

Just because you have to tweak a couple of little things here or add a little something there doesn’t make a game bad. If it means that you all enjoy the game more then all the better. That’s what this is about after all. There is nothing wrong with it, regardless of what other people say. I do it all the time. Every old school gamer I know does it. Hell Lejendary Adventures was just Gygax’s House Rule version of D&D for all intents and purposes. Almost every D20 product is just a bunch of House Rules for your D&D campaign and a lot of them are quite good.

“But what if my change affects something else they bring out later?” then deal with it when it happens. If you spend all your time worrying about that kind of thing then you’ll never get anything done. Its not that big a deal. Change it back if its gonna cause that much of a disagreement when a new rule comes out.

Bottom line. If you don't like it or it doesn't work for you then change it. If that change doesn't work out later then change it back. If you're looking for the perfect system stop because it doesn't exist.

Stop whining and start tweaking so we can all get on with some gaming and start to enjoy ourselves again because frankly thats what this hobby is supposed to be all about.

- Liam