I always try to run a game with the rules as written before tinkering. Makes sense to me.

I suppose that the closer a game is to something you've played before, the easier it will be to predict how it will play by reading the rules. The more unusual a game is, however, the more difficult it will be to predict the experience of play.

I'd like to think that every game I buy has been thoroughly playtested and that there are good reasons for the rules being the way they are. Caveat emptor.

I think that with only the exception of CoC, i've houseruled every single game i've ever run, and CoC didn't get it because i haven't played it as often as other systems. Most often, my house rules are simply to add detail or definition to a section of the rules that are missing altogether or are light on detail. The sort of thing that will be important to the current campaign and the players. If one of the PCs needs some sort of crafting rules and there aren't any or they are very perfunctory, then the campaign and the player will suffer for their lack. So i houserule them. The same goes for any other kind of activity that is relevant to the campaign and players that isn't covered by the ruleset.

The actual instances of repairing 'broken' rules or those that are needlessly complicated are very rare for me. Although i did tinker with Rolemaster a bit for that reason.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  

Thing is, most people who play with lego sets have more than one set. So they've got the pieces from several different sets - they don't only have the car set. Likewise, most people who roleplay have played more than one roleplaying game, so they've got the pieces from several different game sets.

So what you're saying is that if you've only ever played one roleplaying game, it might be a bad idea to houserule it. Maybe, maybe not. Let's grant that you're right about that. Still, most gamers have played more than one - so they've got the pieces to use.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIt'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

Because maybe you want something like the boat, but not exactly. Maybe what you want, they don't make. You want to make a change which is so minor, they never thought to produce a set for it. But that small change is important to you.

For example in GURPS the game's random dice rolls can be pretty harsh on PCs. Hell, I heard a rumour about this one game where a PC cut his own arm off due to a combat fumble roll. That's pretty random. Now there's random, and there's random-stupid. Most gamers like random, it's why they roll the dice. Random-stupid, they're not so fond of. So what can we do about that? Well, PCs get awarded xp, maybe 2-7 a session, and they use those to improve their characters. So how about we take those xp, and say, "you can spend them as hero points - use them to turn a critical failure into a plain old failure, or a failure into a success, or a success into a critical success."

Well, with that we've lowered the chance of the "random-stupid" from happening. The player gets to decide - something just happened, was it just random, or random-stupid? If they think it was stupid, they can spend that xp as a hero point, and voila, stupidity gone. We just changed the game.

Now, that's a pretty minor change. Let's suppose we love everything about GURPS, except the "random-stupid" that sometimes pops up. Should we go looking for another game system exactly the same as GURPS, but with that one minor difference, the "xp as hero points"? They don't make that game, mate. So either we toss aside this game we think is 99% perfect, just because of that miserable 1% random-stupid, or we... house rule.

There's the thing. We can be forever searching for the One True Perfect System. "This one, if you follow the rules exactly, doesn't do what I want. This other one, if you follow the rules exactly, that's fucked, too. Better keep searching..." How long we going to search for? John Kim lists 1,101 different roleplaying games published for money, and over 500 free ones. There's got to be another 400 he never heard of, or which were only published as pdfs and he never noticed. So that's over 2,000 published rpgs.

How many of those do we have to try before we're allowed to say, "well, I could just take this almost-perfect-for-us game and houserule it"? How many sessions for each one? How many lego sets should I buy before I make my own design, or take an existing design and alter it slightly?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIME, tinkering with a system is often (though, not always) a sympton of one or more of the following;

1. The GM actually wanted to play a different system,
2. The GM thinks they know better than the game designer
3. The GM is a frustrated game designer themselves

None of these scenarios bodes well.

Of course, sometimes the players wanted to play a different system. Or this system, but slightly altered.

Yes, the GM does know better than the game designer. The GM knows their group and their wishes better than the game designer. So a wise GM houserules a game to produce the kind of game that is a compromise between what the GM and each of the players wants. Maybe player A will never use xp as hero points, but players B, C and D will. That's the way it goes.

I don't think GMs are frustrated game designers. I think all GMs are game designers. GMs

• create campaign worlds,
• explain rules to players
• alter rules to suit people's preferred style of play; adjust rules to get a certain style
• take feedback from players, and adjust things to suit
• write stuff up

Sounds like a game designer to me. Sure, most GMs don't invent systems from the whole cloth, from nothing - but then, neither do most "game designers." Sean Punch didn't invent GURPS, Steve Jackson did. But Sean Punch went ahead and revised it for fourth edition. So you're going to say Sean Punch isn't a game designer, because he didn't make it all up himself?

Come to think of it, what is a new edition of a game - isn't it someone taking the old rules of a game, and... altering them to fit what they think is good and right? What's the difference between a 2nd or 3rd or 4th edition of a game, and J. Random Game Geek's houserules for that game? Only difference is, the first lot got published. So what? Because they persuaded someone to put it in print, it's suddenly holy and good and proper?

If you're going to say no-one should houserule, then you have to reject any 2nd or later editions of games, too. Or at least editions not written by the original writers.

I don't get it, really, this idea that we can't ever change a game system, we can't say, "this one is pretty much right for us, but if we change it a bit, then it'll be perfect for us," and instead should forever be searching for the One True Perfect System. It's ridiculous.

Let's say we devote ourselves to that search. Let's make playing rpgs our full-time job. We'll do it for a nice 40 hour week. Each day we read the system for two hours, make characters for one hour, play it for four, and then have the session postmortem afterwards for an hour. So we play 5 games a week. We love it so much we don't take holidays - so we play 260 a year. We get through John Kim's list of the 1,101 published rpgs in 4 years, 12 weeks. Of course, in the intervening time, given that we had published in the first 35 years 1,101 games, well we'd find another 133 had been published. Better play them! That's another 26 weeks. Woop, another 15 were published in that time, better play them, too... another 3 weeks. Another 1 was published in that time, let's suppose we did some overtime and covered it then. So it took us 4 years 41 weeks to play them all.

What if none of them were perfect? Shall we try the 500+ free games, too? There goes another couple of years... bugger, another 60 games got published...

At what point do we get to say, "I have enough of my own pieces, I'll take this set and make a couple of changes and then it'll be right for us"? When do we get to say, "I'll houserule it"?

While you're at it, please explain to me the difference between taking a "toolbox system" like Fudge or Fate and making your own skill list and combat system for it, and making a houserule in GURPS or AD&D or Hero or Synnibar or whatever?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  It'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

To JimBob's point...

My son, 6, loves Lego; Particularly Star Wars Lego. So for Christmas and Birthdays he usually gets one or more sets.

The first thing we do is build the set as directed. He likes going through the instructions with me and seeing the final product.

Within a day, he's torn that one apart, combined it with other sets he has, and designed his own ships. We almost never go back to the original set, but use all of the sets to design and build other ships.

So is my son:
actually wanting to play a different system, like K'Nex?
thinking he knows better than the Lego designer?
a frustrated Lego designer?

Nah – he's just having fun![/QUOTE]

Quote from: JimBobOzFor example in GURPS the game's random dice rolls can be pretty harsh on PCs. Hell, I heard a rumour about this one game where a PC cut his own arm off due to a combat fumble roll. That's pretty random. Now there's random, and there's random-stupid. Most gamers like random, it's why they roll the dice. Random-stupid, they're not so fond of. So what can we do about that? Well, PCs get awarded xp, maybe 2-7 a session, and they use those to improve their characters. So how about we take those xp, and say, "you can spend them as hero points - use them to turn a critical failure into a plain old failure, or a failure into a success, or a success into a critical success."

Well, with that we've lowered the chance of the "random-stupid" from happening. The player gets to decide - something just happened, was it just random, or random-stupid? If they think it was stupid, they can spend that xp as a hero point, and voila, stupidity gone. We just changed the game.

Now, that's a pretty minor change. Let's suppose we love everything about GURPS, except the "random-stupid" that sometimes pops up. Should we go looking for another game system exactly the same as GURPS, but with that one minor difference, the "xp as hero points"? They don't make that game, mate. So either we toss aside this game we think is 99% perfect, just because of that miserable 1% random-stupid, or we... house rule.

There's the thing. We can be forever searching for the One True Perfect System. "This one, if you follow the rules exactly, doesn't do what I want. This other one, if you follow the rules exactly, that's fucked, too. Better keep searching..." How long we going to search for? John Kim lists 1,101 different roleplaying games published for money, and over 500 free ones. There's got to be another 400 he never heard of, or which were only published as pdfs and he never noticed. So that's over 2,000 published rpgs.

How many of those do we have to try before we're allowed to say, "well, I could just take this almost-perfect-for-us game and houserule it"? How many sessions for each one? How many lego sets should I buy before I make my own design, or take an existing design and alter it slightly?

Is this not often referred to as "The Perfect being the enemy of the Good?"

Just to chime in again.  I never said houserulings a system was bad or that there was anything wrong with it.  Just that I've ran several games without doing so.  Trust me I've houseruled a lot of games in my time.

Quote from: James J SkachIs this not often referred to as "The Perfect being the enemy of the Good?"

That certainly has the advantage of being more succinct than my rant

But I dunno, really. All I know is that system is the least important part of whether we have a fun, interesting, and fulfilling system.

Recently my game group played HEROES: Unlimited! (TM). The system was stupid, it was crap. We had fun, and asked the GM to run it again.

For a year or two I played a GURPS game, and didn't have much fun at all. Then I played another GURPS game, and had a good time. The I ran a GURPS game, and had the best campaign I've ever run. If system's so important, howcome I've had a good, bad, and okay experience, all with the same system?

Well... people. In a game group, we alter the people, and the people alter themselves. We alter the snacks. We alter the setting. We fiddle with all those to get things just right. Why not the system, too? Why can we say, "send Bob away, bring Jim in," or "no more cheetos, let's have some healthy snacks," or "let's play a setting like the modern world, only with magic existing," - but we can't change the rules a bit? Why are the rules considered so holy and special they can't be touched? It's strange.

Quote from: JimBobOzBut I dunno, really. All I know is that system is the least important part of whether we have a fun, interesting, and fulfilling system.

Actually JimBob, on another thread, you wrote something that echoes my thoughts on the ranking of game elements in the decreasing order of importance:

1) People
2) Snacks
3) Setting
4) System

For me, that's as spot-on as it gets.


And yeah, I usually houserule.  A lot.  Usually bowing at either the altar of Common Sense or The Cool, depending on what the situation calls for.

Yep, and I stand by that ranking.

Note that it doesn't mean that system doesn't matter at all, just that it's the least important of your four basic elements of a game session.

But something can be "the least important" yet still be important. Of upper leg, lower leg, foot and toes, the toes are the least important to my being able to walk. But I walk better with toes than without them. So to say that system is the least important part of a successful game session is not to say that we could pick just any system or any rules and have just as good a time.

Because of the ranking - people, snacks, setting, system - in game groups I have some influence in,
I'll adjust the snacks, setting and system to fit the people;
I'll adjust the setting and system to fit the snacks;
I'll adjust the system to fit the setting;
but I would never change the people to fit the snacks, setting or system;
nor would I change the snacks to suit the setting or system (for example, I'd reject a system which has so many books there'd be no room on the table for snacks!);
nor would I change a setting to fit a system.

System's in there, it matters, it's just not as important as the other bits.

I look at house rules as "hot-rodding".

For example- I collect guitars and play them. I am quite fond of my Fernandes, Ovation, and Epiphones. I owned a Gibson Corvus and a 58 Gretsch archtop at one point.. I loves my guitars.

Well, on the Fernandes I didn't like the volume knob (which doubles as a mod-wheel for the onboard effects) so I switched it out with a bigger one. In fact, I switched it out with this one: Fernandes Skull Knob. Now it's easier to reach with my pinky.  

I've replaced the nut on the epiphone and even gone in and tinkered with the wiring in the input jack to fix a buzz. I've adjusted the intonation of each bridge saddle, and done a repair on the plate where the neck bolts on to the body. Now it stays in tune better.

For really advanced stuff, I used to take my Corvus to a professional luthier in Lubbock. I had a hotter pickup installed in the neck position before I sold it. I had my Ovation adjusted there as well, and it plays better now than when it was new.

Making these adjustments and minor repairs and improvements did not suddenly turn my guitars into banjos. They made them into better guitars.

However, if you do this foolishly, or too radically, or without thinking about it, you can certainly break a guitar or make it unusable, or simply degrade it to the point where it wasn't as good as when it was new.

Quote from: JimBobOz- but we can't change the rules a bit?

I guess it depends on what is ment by "a bit". My line has a lot to do with the number at the top of the list. People. I find people get confused when you have two (or more) widely differing versions of the rules plus it cuts into their time to test out new versions of the rules to make sure they work.  That's why I keep changes, and sure I make changes, as issolated as feasible.

Likewise with the details of setting and system. I've often seen people talk about changing the rules to fit the setting it is more about misunderstanding how the setting and the rules match up. I see this all the time on Dumpshock, where you've got a game with setting and rules together.

Sure it's about the people playing.

P.S. I really don't get this obsession you have with "snacks" though. The only correlation between how fun gaming is and food that I've noticed is people thinking about eating if they are getting bored. I'd have to rethink what was going on if people distracted by a lack of snacks.  Now something to wet the whistle, well that's different.

QuoteP.S. I really don't get this obsession you have with "snacks" though.

He's a chef!

Quote from: blakkieP.S. I really don't get this obsession you have with "snacks" though. The only correlation between how fun gaming is and food that I've noticed is people thinking about eating is they are getting bored. I'd have to rethink what was going on if people distracted by a lack of snacks.  Now something to wet the whistle, well that's different.

Snacks, drinks, same thing. But you knew I meant that. You didn't think I was sitting there at the game table every week for years on end handing out cheetos and biscuits, with nary a drop to drink, did you? Of course not. You were just being pedantic. Remember, pedantry is close to pederasty both in the dictionary and morality.

Try serving them the crappest, nastiest snacks you can find, see how the session goes. Try serving them nothing. Try the fanciest, most wonderful food you can imagine. You'll notice a difference.

Sharing food and drink is a social experience, it relaxes people. When people each bring munchies and share them, the act of sharing and exchanging is a bonding one, building trust.

Quote from: JimBobOzSnacks, drinks, same thing. But you knew I meant that. You didn't think I was sitting there at the game table every week for years on end handing out cheetos and biscuits, with nary a drop to drink, did you? Of course not. You were just being pedantic. Remember, pedantry is close to pederasty both in the dictionary and morality.

Try serving them the crappest, nastiest snacks you can find, see how the session goes. Try serving them nothing. Try the fanciest, most wonderful food you can imagine. You'll notice a difference.

I wasn't being pedantic. I suppose serving up some snacks that tasted like ass-crack would go poorly. But that isn't what I was getting from you.  I'm talking about no snacks at all, seems to work just fine. Nothing to drink on the otherhand does not.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo... what's silly is buying a lego car only to use the pieces to make a lego boat.  It'll be a rotten boat because it was never designed to be a boat in the first place.  Why not buy the lego boat set in the first place?

Wow... what an utterly remarkable lack of creativity this displays, not to mention a connection from how most normal kids I've seen use Lego. It sounds almost autistic.

QuoteIME, tinkering with a system is often (though, not always) a sympton of one or more of the following;

1. The GM actually wanted to play a different system,
2. The GM thinks they know better than the game designer
3. The GM is a frustrated game designer themselves

None of these scenarios bodes well.

Why? Did the game designer go to the Game Designer university? Is there some kind of accreditation I haven't heard of that insures that absolutely no RPG game designer will be utter and absolute shitheads; and does guarantee that they'll be smarter or better than the rest of us? And I'm particularly amazed by the rigorous, MIT-like program they must go through to be able to actually know more about my gaming group than the GM does! Amazing!

You git.

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