House rules for your D&D game

In My Humble Opinion
21

I play in several houses, so there are varying levels of house rules.

My favorite that I’m trying to get put in place in my PA game is that Spot and Listen are class skills for everyone. They are just too important in all the games I’ve ever played to not let people have them.

Other than that the house rules are mainly a loose thing. Don’t argue with the DM too much in game, but debate is allowed. Currently we’re looking over the Chaos Magic book and trying to balance it out a bit. (Not that I/my mage minded it being over powered…but it is fairer when you link the subdual damage cost to the amount of damage done on the raw damage effects.)

22

I play in several houses, so there are varying levels of house rules.

My favorite that I’m trying to get put in place in my PA game is that Spot and Listen are class skills for everyone. They are just too important in all the games I’ve ever played to not let people have them.

Other than that the house rules are mainly a loose thing. Don’t argue with the DM too much in game, but debate is allowed. Currently we’re looking over the Chaos Magic book and trying to balance it out a bit. (Not that I/my mage minded it being over powered…but it is fairer when you link the subdual damage cost to the amount of damage done on the raw damage effects.)

23

We only have a few rules.

  1. Live Table. As long as the scene is running and the GM hasn’t called a hold, anything you say is taken as a character comment. That cut down on a lot time wasting because the games we play are more focused on roleplaying than dice-when we use them at all (we usually play Amber, which is diceless, or our own version of Highlander, also diceless)-and the peanut gallery comments were really cutting into other player’s GM time

  2. The GM is always right about rules. It’s their world and they each make their own adjustments to it to fit their universe. Of course, we expect them to tell us before hand what they’ve changed so we don’t get an unpleasant surprise. If you’re going to bitch about it every bloody session, run your own game.

  3. You make a mess, you clean it up. I’m not your Mother or your maid. No excuses. Put your trash in the can and your glasses in the sink.

  4. You want to eat, bring food. Nice people bring enough for everyone. Pizza is a GM bribe, so is Dr Pepper. Gamers eat like a horde of locusts and I sure as hell can’t afford to feed a ravening horde every weekend during a marathon gaming session. Everyone in our group brings something that is enough for everyone. Ocassionally when someone just can’t afford it, we’re okay with that. It’s the weekly moochers that irritate us and we will invite them to find another game.

  5. Don’t be a GM whore. When you’re turn is over and you stay at the table (or wherever), SHUT UP! Don’t be interrupting the GM’s time with someone else to keep adding to what your character is doing. Your turn’s over for this round. Go into the other room and plot. Bring me another Dr Pepper. Get online. Just SHUT UP!

24

House rules for us sound very similar to most already stated in this thread.

  1. We use the optional ‘instant kill’ rule for multiple 20’s on the to-hit roll. It’s happened exactly once in two years of gaming (and was wasted on a half-dead three-hit-dice wimpy monster, too).

  2. On skill rolls, 1’s are counted as -10 and 20’s are counted as 30. (I think this is an optional rule in the DMG.)

  3. Rules lawyering is NOT allowed. The DM’s ruling is final (although the DMs in the group are always fair; if you can make your case for a different interpretation, more often than not, the DM’ll go for it).

  4. Dead characters – if your character dies, if they’re resurrected, they come back one level back from where they were. If you decide to bring in a new character, they come in one level lower than the average party level. It’s a bummer but not enough to seriously penalize a character.

  5. Starting equipment – we use the DMG rules for starting equipment but with DM approval. Generally, our campaign doesn’t go with the outrageous amounts of cash that you see in ‘canon’ (there was no way that our 2nd level characters had 900 gp worth of equipment, and even at 12th level, I doubt any of our characters is worth over 50,000 gp).

  6. Dice that go on the floor get rerolled.

  7. No pre-rolling. (I HATE when people try to get away with that crap. “I rolled a 19 five minutes ago – does that hit?”)

  8. Most conversation around the table is interpreted to be in character, unless specified otherwise. (It’s usually pretty obvious when you’re talking in character and when you’re not, but it can lead to some fairly funny results when your character says something you hadn’t intended.)

  9. Constructing custom prestige classes is okay with LOTS of DM collusion and cooperation.

  10. Regarding hygiene – bathe, people, bathe! We actually had to kick one guy out of the group due to a lack of proper hygiene (that, and he was an immature whiny bastard).

25

We have consistantly played only D&D and Star Wars (WEG, 'cause it’s better). the majority of our players have a serious problem with arguing, and it usually ends up just screwing up their plans anyway.

For the most part, if a rule gets messed up, we ignore it because its DMs perogative. There is no “But it doesn’t work that way!” Because the DM, nearly always myself or my friend Mike, will say “Fine. You die.” Heh heh.

One time-saving device I implemented years ago is called Natus. My friends named it after me and speak of it as a discipline in Vampire: The Masquerade. Amusing.

It works very simply; a character want to do something, so he describes what he means to accomplish over whatever period of time, be it hours or days. If it’s no big deal, just upkeep, etc., I say something akin to “Ok. Done.” And it is.

If they are traveling somewhere, say via starship to a nearby world, they make their preperations and “lift off” and I say, “Ok. You’re there.” Done and done.

There has been a lot of exposition as to what level of Natus has just what effect. :stuck_out_tongue:

26

We have three house rules:

  1. A character whose player doesn’t show up has no dialogue that session, unless it’s essential to the plot. That character receives 1/2 exp for that session. It seems pretty fair: On one hand, they didn’t do much, so they shouldn’t get the full exp award. On the other hand, it’s not fair to penalize the player who can’t make it for a good reason. (eg, spent time with family due to discovery of brain cancer. No half-assed excuses have ever been tendered, because everyone really wants to play)

  2. In d20 Call of Cthulhu, we use the Cthulhu Mythos skill as a d100 skill, rather than a d20 skill. This way an investigator always has a chance of making the roll, rather than the GM having to set a DC that may or may not even be possible. We of course use the stats on “mythos skill gained” from the Chaosium CoC book.

  3. In my 3rd edition D&D games, the “illogical halfling bonus” is eliminated. The book rules say that the bigger the target is, the easier it is to hit with a ranged attack. That makes sense. They also say the smaller you are, the easier it is to hit someone else with a ranged attack. That makes no sense. I mean, really, are real-life midgets better sharpshooters? I’d be willing to believe that halflings are trained with smaller targets, thus they’re just superior archers, but why then do medium-size characters get a to-hit bonus if they’re shrunk down to halfling size?

Oh, and in our games pre-rolling is encouraged. It really speeds up combat. We’re not the sort that cheat.

I am so glad we neither have nor need rules about cleaning up, bringing snacks, etc. When I bring stuff to the games, I do it because I want to share it. These are my friends, after all. I have gamed with groups where we had to have rules like “wipe up if you miss the toilet” and “The upstairs are off limits to all of you” but thankfully I quit their foul group long ago.

27

Arden Ranger: I think I’m in love. Can I game with you guys?

Our house rules: I imposed the Live Table a few times, particularly when in conversations, and people get some really funny looks on their faces when they find out that words matter. Tee hee. Real-time reactions are kinda fun, now that a melee round is only six seconds long.

I’ve given up on GMing for people who won’t learn the game system. This includes, unfortunately, my wife, since I switched to 3rd edition.

One of our most important house rules that I didn’t see above: the PC’s are a party of adventurers because they’re all on the same side. They’re a team. Friends. They don’t steal from each other, they don’t backstab each other, and they don’t goof off in the middle of a fight when they’re friends are being attacked. PC’s who ignore this rule get shoved out of the party (“why don’t you roll up a character that’ll fit in better?”). A handy side effect of this is that I don’t have to write so many goldanged notes to the thieves (err, Rogues, whatever). I just tell them what they find. Although it was handy in one game where nobody trusted anybody; the player running the Rogue and I had a knock-knock exchange going that had absolutely nothing to do with the game, and everybody assumed the Rogue was screwing them over.

28

This happened exactly one game session. I refuse to play like this, and I basically said I wouldn’t play if this is the kind of game they wanted to play. (It’s our house and my husband is the DM). They straightened up, especially since the party’s only cleric didn’t like this style of play also. “Oh, sorry I couldn’t get to you in time to heal you. Too bad we don’t have the money for a raise dead spell. Maybe you should roll up a character that doesn’t want to betray his own people next time.” My character was the 2nd toughest fighter in the group, and I threatened to run through anyone who did this to me again. If you want my protection, you’ll give me a share of the treasure. None of that “But I risked my neck disabling that trap.” “Yeah, but I’m the one who opened the door and risked gods know what rushing out at us while you were scurrying to the back.”

29

We booted someone out of our group for just this reason. He had three ridiculous characters in a row that wouldn’t fit in with the group.

Character #1 was an elven sorceror/monk that kept going off on her own, not staying with the group, always ranging out ahead and wandering to other parts of the dungeon by herself. She got eaten by a Big Nasty when the rest of the party wasn’t around. Poetic justice.

Character #2 was a rogue whose character hook was that he was in town searching for clues to the fate of Character #1. He snuck into the party ranger’s room in the inn in the middle of the night. The party had been in a hard fight that day and we all returned to town beat half to death (the ranger was at zero hp). Character #2 proceeded to drag the semiconscious ranger out of bed and began throwing him around the room interrogating him like something out of a Richard Stark novel, wounding him to negative hit points in the process. The rest of the party burst in and felled Character #2 with crossbow bolts and magic missiles. Out of the goodness of our hearts (and completely breaking character), we let Character #2 live and go adventuring with the party. (We felt bad because we didn’t want to have this guy lose two characters in a row in such a short time.)

After a quick adventure, the party takes the spoils of the last adventure to the general store and sells them for a profit. One of the items sold was a masterwork longsword. Character #2 decides he needs a sword, and later on that day, he breaks into the store and steals the sword back. (He leaves the party while they’re in a dungeon, in combat, to go back to town and steal this sword.) Next day, the merchant shows up and asks the party what happened to the sword they’d sold him – it was gone. Character #2 was dumb enough to be wearing it on his belt and was quickly apprehended. Now mind you, this was a good-aligned party that didn’t hold with stealing. We decided that Character #2 was not going to stay with the party. (Said player was royally pissed and couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t want him around. Yup, sure, us paladins and LG clerics are going to want to hang around a known felon…) Character #2 is then removed from play.

Character #3 was… (wait for it…) a twelve year old kid. Another fantastic leap of logic; why the heck would an adventuring party wandering around and killing monsters and liberating treasure want to look after a KID? (I know they did it in WEG’s Star Wars game, but that’s a more lighthearted universe than the campaign we were playing. It’s almost more Call of Cthulhu than D&D.) We voted Character #3 out of the party. And voted the player out of the group for being an idiot. (Plus, hygiene had something to do with it.)

Yeesh. I don’t even have the words to express what a maroon this guy was.

(Thus endeth the hijack.)

30

You know, this wasn’t a rule, but it sure was an entirely universal assumption among my gamer groups. Player knowledge is not character knowledge. That covered a lot of areas, but it really mattered in the case of good and evil characters, and how they ended up doing in the campaign.

You and I both know you are playing an evil character. We also know that I am playing a fairly dumb, but essentially neutral warrior. I don’t play that I know you are evil, but I don’t play that I have unreasonable trust in you, either. I don’t much care about this good and evil stuff, I want some loot, and some butt kicking. If you steal my loot, you butt will do just fine. We always played evil characters as evil, but not stupid. Over the long term, what happened was that the evils couldn’t effectively cooperate at anything but the lowest levels, or under the domination of one very powerful character. The killing of comrades was part of the evil. Not frequent, and usually not while out in the wilderness. But eventually, petty spats became blood feuds. I always felt it was realistic.

The good characters cooperated well, at all levels, and the neutrals eventually ended up being on their side because it was safer, and long term, more profitable. We did not play that all the people on the adventure today are long term associates, or friends. And the need to prove ones reliability was a part of the adventure. Rolling your eyes over the tendency of the Paladin to pray over the bodies of his conquered foes was common. The impetuous berserk fighter who ran off into the depths of the dungeon was a pain in the ass, but you ran after him, because he was your pal, or he was the cleric’s pal, anyway, and the Wizard thought highly of him, too.

Since the campaign lasted years of real time, game time ended up covering centuries. The good players were altruistic, and established permanent support systems for those willing to serve the cause of general weal. In the latter years, that ended up putting the good characters entering the game at level one very far ahead of the evil ones, in material things, such as equipment and supplies, and in logistical support.

Every part of the campaign was littered with orphanages, endowed with by the wealth of fabulous heroes of days gone by. We played a lot of orphans, later on. I played a boy who killed his parents in order to get into the Freeport Orphanage. One of my very few successful evil characters, John Foundling was a name that made player characters spit for years. But he had to adventure in new places and under assumed names, and he ended up running for his life, most of the time. My player friends hated him, but they did not hate me because of him. Or not much, anyway.

However, players always knew when the party was likely to include evils, under false colors. They could play it that way, without compromising the character’s information with their own. Perhaps I was far luckier than I knew, in that campaign.

Tris

31

Actually, I think all of you are lucky. We really have to figure out how to play our games without bogging down in arguments. Only particular people or particular characters ever work well together.

I’d really love to try playing in someone else’s group … [sigh]

32

I’m soooo glad that I have a good group to play with. We’re all friends outside of the game, so there’s not much arguing, and everyone behaves in a rational human manner both in and out of game.

We have one major houserule. In fact, it’s not even a houserule, it’s in the books: “What the DM says, goes.” It’s just that simple. And it works.

Just had a blast this weekend. I took over as DM for the first time in a long while. Started a brand new 3E Ravenloft campaign with three native characters. It went very well, if I do say so myself.

33

wish I had a group to invite you to, ** Gorgon **. I miss it.

34

I bet. And I’m going back to PA within the next few months, so I’ll be trapped in the insanity.

Mmmm … insanity …

35

Our house rules we’ve settled into over the years…

“Housekeeping” is assumed to be taken care of. Things such as buying food, oiling armor, shoeing horses, bringing rope and tinder boxes, etc is a given. As a DM, I’ve wasted far too many hours with PC’s shopping and tracking miscellaneous equipment. As a player, I’ve been frustrated by forgetting to specify nitpicky minutiae with the DM ("-2 to attacks because my armor is rusty from last week’s rain storm?!?!?" really happened!)

“Freeze frame” can be called in the heat of battle so that PC’s can get their collective heads together about what is going on in a crazy encounter. Can not be used to discuss elaborate strategy however. I will overrule freeze frame as a DM if fog of war can enhance the fun of the battle however :wink:

We always have some sort of “critical hit” system going to award a “natural 20” die roll. Silly, but the joy and variety it brings to players when they roll it is worthwhile.

No spell components nonsense, they are always assumed behind the scenes

No encumbrance, unless PC’s start getting silly (“I’ll sheath my halberd, and draw my two-handed sword! I still have those tapestries I stole don’t I?”)

No worrying about casting time or speed factors. Simple die roll for initiative as a group, if combat starts getting 1vs1 then I go with individual DEX mods as needed.

Potion-identifying is a given when tested, with 1 dose left after testing. Having to sit through with ultra-paranoid CSI crime-lab players trying to figure out potion types gets ridiculous to endure.

Players have set actions that we’ve understood to cover certain things. “Search the room” means look in drawres, behind pictures, under rugs, etc. “Tear apart the room” means spend more time. Saves the time-wasting frustration of PC’s going “I check the lamp, I check the rug, I check the pillow, I check the floorboards” in every single friggin’ room they enter.

My favorite one…I let my players know that I have a tendency to give roll bonuses on “cool” actions during play. So when our barbarian picks up the cauldron of boiling stew to toss at the ogre, he gets hefty to-hit and damage rolls over what he would get if he just swung his axe.

No dual-wielding tweaker ranger players allowed.

That’s all I can think of for now…