Another thing I don't get...

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So, in the D&D manuals they mention "house rules" and ways to customize the rules for your tastes. And in an old Dragon magazine I was reading, they even suggest that the rules in the handbooks are just meant as guidelines or examples, and that it's almost epected that you would change the rules here and there to fit your taste.

That being the case, why do people get so bent out of shape over the rules changes that Bioware and others make? Unless the rule is just flat out stupid, it's just a house rule.

Maybe it's just me but I think it's more fun to be flexible about the rules and just accept the house rules.

 

Natural selection. Only those that object enough to post about it on bulletin boards, do. Those that agree tend to discuss other topics.

 

House Rules work well in a "house" setting. Playing in a private campaign with a few selected players who know that the house rule exists.

For a more standardized game, like NWN, Stormreach or an RPGA campaign, the rules have to be more clear and consistent. There's less flexibility, and more challenge implementing some of the varied rules in the books themselves, let alone some variants. Therefore there's likely to be hell to pay if they try to make an unpopular change...

 

RPGA adds house rules in their campaigns... I'm not sure what you're saying.

 

But the House rules they use are more restrictive and designed for campaign control as opposed to adding new options for the players...

 

It really comes down to if you play D+D, the core rules SHOULD be acceptable to you. They where the designers intended rules for balance and ease of use. Variant rules where designed for increased realism (in most causes) and some can cause massive unbalancing of the game such as doing massive damage by size (which does not sit well on just about anyone playing a halfling or gnome). Such rules the game was not designed to seamlessly incorporate which leads to gamers not being willing to play under such rules. There are other rules which simply take some of the chance out of the game. A variant epic level rule for spells makes it so spells automatically deal half-damage to save time on calculation. In theory over time everything comes out the same, but you never know how that one big fight might have gone with randomized rolls. Taint instead of the alignment grid is another, as for some the alignment grid helps with role playing.

When you hear a game is based on the D+D system you should know if you'll like the game rule system or not. If the game is suppose to D+D based you might go in thinking it's using the core rules (because that's in essence what D+D is) and wind up with variant rules you can't stand.

 

Bah. Of course you should change the rules to suit the game you intend to run, and have the players agree to them beforehand. And "game balance" is an artificial concept - some characters will be better than others in various situations, that's not something to be avoided...

 

Building good characters in one of the ideas of the game. Some people are so good at power gaming that they make these decisions quickly at the table then they can put more focus on RP and the game at hand...

 

Well, allow me to leave the miniatures/wargaming mentality at the door and roleplay instead. It's fun to play flawed characters...

 

No matter how you build it, there will always be flaws. That's also built into the system. The idea of powergaming is making your characters good at what they do. Any character would exhibit the grace of an intoxicated newborn giraffe when outside their element...