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Post by The Red Baron on Feb 10, 2015 12:29:25 GMT -5
Despite this being a forum for house rulings, I think its appropriate to discuss the wisdom of ruling things "By-the-book" as much as possible.
It really takes a load of your back, as the judge, to work inside the guidelines of the written rules. There are already endless situations which arise in play in which you will need to make rulings, so you'll have plenty of opportunity to exercise your creativity and judgement.
If you want to make house rules from the get go, keep them simple, and not to much for new players too wrap their heads around. Sticking to the rules as written will give your players more confidence in your skill as a judge, since you won't look like you're just screwing around. Lull them into a false sense of security, before you show them how bizarre the game is going to get.
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Post by Admin Pete on Feb 10, 2015 14:00:58 GMT -5
That is a very good point, the vast majority of the rules I use as they are written and house rules are really a small portion of the rules. In my case the biggest house-ruled item is new monsters or monster variations. The Simulacra -Clones, Retro-Clones and what have you are really to a large extent just someones house rules. House rules are generally not a very high percentage of anyones rules unless they have actually set down and done a re-write of some, most or all of the rules. If I collected every house ruled item I have ever used into one campaign it might approach 15-20% of the rules, normal is probably 2% or that ballpark.
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Post by makofan on Feb 10, 2015 15:07:52 GMT -5
I am running a Delving Deeper game on Simon's boards, and I am trying to play Rules As Written. Boy it is hard! Simon is helping by playing in my game, and we PM each other all the time with rules discussions and clarifications. We have so many assumptions that we need to jettison. I think it is a good practice, though.
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Post by tetramorph on Feb 11, 2015 13:22:40 GMT -5
I'm not sure if there is really such a thing as "rules as written." But I get your point, The Red Baron, and I jive. I am just more for the spirit than the letter of the law. And I am more for ease of play than historical rule-following accuracy. |
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Post by finarvyn on Feb 12, 2015 6:24:19 GMT -5
The Simulacra -Clones, Retro-Clones and what have you are really to a large extent just someones house rules. A realy valid point, and one that a lot of folks seem to forget. In some ways I regret that WotC let the genie out of the bottle with their SRD because even though it allowed for some of these simulacra rules to exist, it also diluted the fan base for true OD&D. Why pay big dollars to buy a reprint or an e-bay copy of the original if you can play a clone for a lot cheaper? I don't like the concept that OD&D might be "elitist" but the clones may or may not follow the spirit of the original, and once that spirit is changed then OD&D has changed. Folks nowadays expect a "complete" product and don't expect to "wing it" during play, but "wing it" is exactly what I've been doing for decades in my OD&D campaigns. That, to me, is part of the charm of OD&D. |
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Post by finarvyn on Feb 12, 2015 6:28:14 GMT -5
I am trying to play Rules As Written. Boy it is hard! I'm having similar issues in my 5E game, but in that case it's more a matter of "rules bloat" than anything else. Part of the spirit of OD&D (and thereby Delving Deeper by extension) is or ought to be that the rules are guidelines and not absolutes. OD&D thwarts rules lawyers in that there are fewer rules and thus fewer specific loopholes to exploit. Evan as a Rules as Written game, I wouldn't sweat the details. |
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Post by Von on Feb 13, 2015 2:29:18 GMT -5
Despite this being a forum for house rulings, I think its appropriate to discuss the wisdom of ruling things "By-the-book" as much as possible. It really takes a load of your back, as the judge, to work inside the guidelines of the written rules. There are already endless situations which arise in play in which you will need to make rulings, so you'll have plenty of opportunity to exercise your creativity and judgement. If you want to make house rules from the get go, keep them simple, and not to much for new players to wrap their heads around. Sticking to the rules as written will give your players more confidence in your skill as a judge, since you won't look like you're just screwing around. Lull them into a false sense of security, before you show them how bizarre the game is going to get. My house rules are generally deployed in the name of simplicity and constructing a theme for the campaign. The latter involves a concentrated effort around character generation and spell lists, which is relatively easy to wrangle - the former involves what a former player called 'the Disintegrator GM' approach. I have a tendency to strip a system down to its barest essential mechanics (the d20 hit roll and saving throw, success depending on class/level, very good or bad stats apply a modifier, high rolls are always good) and base everything which transpires in play on that simple and memorable framework where I can. The only game which I run even close to 'by the book' is Backswords and Bucklers and that's simply because it's the most no-frills game I've ever found. I dislike fidgy-widgyness in play and actively abhor the "we never get that right" kind of rules which stop play while everyone flicks through their rulebook for the two page sixteen-step process for grappling or attacks of opportunity or whatever. That's the kind of thing which led me to favour a borderline diceless approach in my youth - we generally had an hour to play, of a lunchtime - every minute was too precious to waste on reference and adherence to strict by-the-book-ism. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Mar 25, 2015 11:47:37 GMT -5
The Simulacra -Clones, Retro-Clones and what have you are really to a large extent just someones house rules. A realy valid point, and one that a lot of folks seem to forget. In some ways I regret that WotC let the genie out of the bottle with their SRD because even though it allowed for some of these simulacra rules to exist, it also diluted the fan base for true OD&D. Why pay big dollars to buy a reprint or an e-bay copy of the original if you can play a clone for a lot cheaper? I don't like the concept that OD&D might be "elitist" but the clones may or may not follow the spirit of the original, and once that spirit is changed then OD&D has changed. Folks nowadays expect a "complete" product and don't expect to "wing it" during play, but "wing it" is exactly what I've been doing for decades in my OD&D campaigns. That, to me, is part of the charm of OD&D. I agree that "winging it" and making rulings "on the fly"is part of the charm of OD&D. It is also very difficult to explain to someone who has not experienced it. That to me is the challenge to a clone writer, make it look and feel like it is a competing product that was published and went on the market a few days after OD&D did. If someone can do that, then I would say they have published something that I would likely play at my table versus using it as a resource for more monsters or spells, etc. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Mar 25, 2015 11:48:49 GMT -5
I am trying to play Rules As Written. Boy it is hard! I'm having similar issues in my 5E game, but in that case it's more a matter of "rules bloat" than anything else. Part of the spirit of OD&D (and thereby Delving Deeper by extension) is or ought to be that the rules are guidelines and not absolutes. OD&D thwarts rules lawyers in that there are fewer rules and thus fewer specific loopholes to exploit. Evan as a Rules as Written game, I wouldn't sweat the details. I am pretty much incapable of playing any game "Rules as Written", I house rule everything I play. |
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monk
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Post by monk on Mar 26, 2015 10:44:36 GMT -5
In regard to simulacra being sets of house rules and not OD&D...
So, at what point does a house ruled OD&D stop being OD&D and start being something else? That often confuses me. For instance, some of the OGs have pointed out that they were using THAC0 around the time the Greyhawk supplement came out. That was obviously still "OD&D". Then, much later, it became an official rule in 2e (I think). At that point, were they no longer playing "OD&D" because they were using a house rule that was officially 2e? That seems confusing and silly. I guess my point is this: can you house rule OD&D so much that it ceases to be OD&D? Is that even possible? I think it is, but I don't know how you'd make that definition hard and fast and not fairly subjective.
For myself, I've spent a lot of time trying to play "by the book" for the purpose of seeing how the game was played back in the day. And that was time well spent and fun. But I think OD&D alone encompasses a wider view of play that includes changing rules or interpreting rules to bring out different style of play. A true set of guidelines for making rulings; an example of how one might make rulings for a certain kind of play, with the explicit recommendation that one should rule differently if one desires a different style of play. That means, in my mind, that you'd have a hard time saying to a newbie who's never played od&d, "get ready we're going to play od&d straight by the book". That doesn't really mean much. It also explains why OD&D is so difficult to understand by just reading the book--you're not supposes to read Men and Magic as if it's the rulebook for Monopoly. You don't dump Men and Magic on your players and say, "We're playing this", expecting them to understand. You say, "We're playing 'Lost Continent'" or "We're playing 'Blackmoor'" and then you say, "what do you want to do?" and they say what they want to do and you say "roll this" and they do and you're all playing OD&D no matter what you made them roll or what ruling you made after they got a number.
I don't know if that made any sense. I wrote this over the course of about 45 minutes, stopping and starting as I'm being harried by multiple toddlers with allergy issues.
One final confusing but interesting note: this is what Dave Arneson said when asked what game book he'd choose if he could only have one.
"D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I has almost everything set down for an OD&D game.
Harold Johnson is to be highly praised as the one responsible."
Defining OD&D, therefore, is not quite as easy as defining Vampire the Masquerade or Dungeon World or some other game that doesn't explicitly include the idea of making house rules.
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Post by Admin Pete on Mar 26, 2015 12:43:37 GMT -5
In regard to simulacra being sets of house rules and not OD&D... If you go back and read the comment its meaning was that simulacra were really not new games they were collections of each person's OD&D house rules. I was not saying they are not OD&D. On the other hand the more you "fix" them and try to make them "perfect and complete" the more you lose the charm of OD&D. A lot of the so-called faults of OD&D are what make it special and when you clean those things up the "special" may be gone. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Mar 26, 2015 13:08:11 GMT -5
I guess my point is this: can you house rule OD&D so much that it ceases to be OD&D? Is that even possible? I think it is, but I don't know how you'd make that definition hard and fast and not fairly subjective. I would say Yes; however, that is one of those case by case things and I know it when I see it things.  |
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monk
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Post by monk on Mar 26, 2015 13:46:23 GMT -5
In regard to simulacra being sets of house rules and not OD&D... If you go back and read the comment its meaning was that simulacra were really not new games they were collections of each person's OD&D house rules. I was not saying they are not OD&D. On the other hand the more you "fix" them and try to make them "perfect and complete" the more you lose the charm of OD&D. A lot of the so-called faults of OD&D are what make it special and when you clean those things up the "special" may be gone. Oh, I see your point. Sorry, I missed that nuance the first time through. I agree, then.  |
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monk
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Post by monk on Mar 26, 2015 13:58:17 GMT -5
I guess my point is this: can you house rule OD&D so much that it ceases to be OD&D? Is that even possible? I think it is, but I don't know how you'd make that definition hard and fast and not fairly subjective. I would say Yes; however, that is one of those case by case things and I know it when I see it things. Exaaactly. One of my few D&D pet peeves was born from listening to some guys who would continually espouse the greatness of OD&D, specifically for its "toolkit" perspective on rules and rulings, while at the same time dismissing anyone who didn't play OD&D by the book according to their interpretation as some idiot who "wasn't even playing true OD&D". What's the point of the toolkit if you aren't allowed to pick and choose the tools you want to use? NOTE: I'm not talking about anybody online. This is not a passive-aggressive comment meant to call out someone around here. These are dudes I know in real life. |
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Post by Von on Mar 29, 2015 2:30:44 GMT -5
In regard to simulacra being sets of house rules and not OD&D... So, at what point does a house ruled OD&D stop being OD&D and start being something else? [...] For myself, I've spent a lot of time trying to play "by the book" for the purpose of seeing how the game was played back in the day. And that was time well spent and fun. But I think OD&D alone encompasses a wider view of play that includes changing rules or interpreting rules to bring out different style of play. A true set of guidelines for making rulings; an example of how one might make rulings for a certain kind of play, with the explicit recommendation that one should rule differently if one desires a different style of play. That means, in my mind, that you'd have a hard time saying to a newbie who's never played od&d, "get ready we're going to play od&d straight by the book". That doesn't really mean much. It also explains why OD&D is so difficult to understand by just reading the book--you're not supposes to read Men and Magic as if it's the rulebook for Monopoly. You don't dump Men and Magic on your players and say, "We're playing this", expecting them to understand. You say, "We're playing 'Lost Continent'" or "We're playing 'Blackmoor'" and then you say, "what do you want to do?" and they say what they want to do and you say "roll this" and they do and you're all playing OD&D no matter what you made them roll or what ruling you made after they got a number. I don't know if that made any sense. I wrote this over the course of about 45 minutes, stopping and starting as I'm being harried by multiple toddlers with allergy issues. It makes perfect sense to me. The idea that you will sit down and you will play This Game as it is Written on Tablets of Stone is a very board-gamey, competitive-wargamery, I-love-Pathfinder-and-have-no-imagination-y sentiment. I don't run anything by the book, whether it endorses house rules or not, because the book is generally inadequate in some way (contains too much in the way of minutiae, forces a particular interpretation of the genre that's not fit for the players at hand, makes the mathematics awkward for my group full of dyscalculic and autistic types etc. etc.). Likewise I don't really care whether my game is a True Scotsman or not. Only when a player is anxious for the authentic D&D experience has it really become an issue - E. is constantly describing the way she expects things to go and I'm constantly saying "that's how I'd normally do it but you said you were interested in by the book so that's what I'm trying - and consistently failing - to do." Have an Exalt for the insight. |
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Post by Von on Mar 29, 2015 2:34:17 GMT -5
The Simulacra -Clones, Retro-Clones and what have you are really to a large extent just someones house rules. A realy valid point, and one that a lot of folks seem to forget. In some ways I regret that WotC let the genie out of the bottle with their SRD because even though it allowed for some of these simulacra rules to exist, it also diluted the fan base for true OD&D. Why pay big dollars to buy a reprint or an e-bay copy of the original if you can play a clone for a lot cheaper? I don't like the concept that OD&D might be "elitist" but the clones may or may not follow the spirit of the original, and once that spirit is changed then OD&D has changed. Folks nowadays expect a "complete" product and don't expect to "wing it" during play, but "wing it" is exactly what I've been doing for decades in my OD&D campaigns. That, to me, is part of the charm of OD&D. Do you regret contributing to Swords and Wizardry, as mentioned in your signature? I would argue that S&W's clarity does not follow the spirit of OD&D (often so obtuse in its writing that you have to make a judgement call in order to play and begin winging it without realising), although it is a more accessible and functional rulebook. The 'complete product' tendency, on the other hand, is deplorable. That way lie four hundred page core books and splatbooks galore. |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 8, 2015 6:14:44 GMT -5
The Simulacra -Clones, Retro-Clones and what have you are really to a large extent just someones house rules. House rules are generally not a very high percentage of anyones rules unless they have actually set down and done a re-write of some, most or all of the rules. If I collected every house ruled item I have ever used into one campaign it might approach 15-20% of the rules, normal is probably 2% or that ballpark. I can't agree with the general assumption that the clones "are really to a large extent just someones house rules." Perilous. I definitely do agree with you that house rules are more the icing on top of a much larger body of work, the rules as written, that facilitates them. But I can't see clearly how (or if?) the second statement is meant to support the first? It seems more to contradict it. Anyway, there is at least one clone I know of which is doesn't represent the author's house rules, and I would assume the same is true for at least some of the other clones too. My own experience aside, it's well known that not even the original authors played the rules exactly as written, so why would we assume that the clone authors are doing what even the original authors did not? I think we need to acknowledge that the game "as played" is (as much today as it was forty years ago) a moving target; a continually evolving, experimental mix of rules that change as circumstances require. As a couple of posts here have said here, it's really hard to stick exactly to the rules as written, and even with absolute discipline there are gaps in most of the retro rules that necessarily require the referee to be flexible. Just another 2 cp |
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 18, 2015 11:16:29 GMT -5
The Simulacra -Clones, Retro-Clones and what have you are really to a large extent just someones house rules. House rules are generally not a very high percentage of anyones rules unless they have actually set down and done a re-write of some, most or all of the rules. If I collected every house ruled item I have ever used into one campaign it might approach 15-20% of the rules, normal is probably 2% or that ballpark. I can't agree with the general assumption that the clones "are really to a large extent just someones house rules." Perilous. I definitely do agree with you that house rules are more the icing on top of a much larger body of work, the rules as written, that facilitates them. But I can't see clearly how (or if?) the second statement is meant to support the first? It seems more to contradict it. Anyway, there is at least one clone I know of which is doesn't represent the author's house rules, and I would assume the same is true for at least some of the other clones too. My own experience aside, it's well known that not even the original authors played the rules exactly as written, so why would we assume that the clone authors are doing what even the original authors did not? I think we need to acknowledge that the game "as played" is (as much today as it was forty years ago) a moving target; a continually evolving, experimental mix of rules that change as circumstances require. As a couple of posts here have said here, it's really hard to stick exactly to the rules as written, and even with absolute discipline there are gaps in most of the retro rules that necessarily require the referee to be flexible. Just another 2 cp I agree that clones for the most part are house ruled copies of OD&D. That we played it differently is also well known, but that's the difference between what we did and what clones extol for rules inclusion. They are incorporated into the game as published whereas we made these optional for those rules we decided to add to the supplements (and these were not all of that we were using, for instance, if one refers to those occurring in supplement #1) Now anyone can throw out rules, and we recognized that from the beginning. The reason being is that we knew that each DM and their groups would develop different slants just as the MMSA and LGTSA members did, so why rule everything to death up front? The more calcified the game is up front the less house rulings will occur and the tendency then becomes to "play it by the book" which then leads to creative stagnation rather than the opposite. So I see clones as "the way I'd have published the game." Literally, as they are charging dollars for this, remember, and not just posting an add-on on a forum or in a magazine article for inspection and discussion. |
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 18, 2015 11:18:35 GMT -5
I do not know why my posts when I am quoting something occur inside the quote as I position the mouse cursor below the quote part each and every time... EDIT: Changed it!
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 20, 2015 6:09:41 GMT -5
Thanks for your comments robkuntz. I guess what I was trying to get at was: the bulk of a clone must (presumably?) as near as possible to the original, or else it wouldn't really be much of a clone. As you point out, this is easier said than done. There will always the temptation to "fix" things, cover more stuff, and the legal imperative to change things too. What's left of the original after all this? Perhaps, in some cases, just about enough to warrant a free download to some kid who hasn't got 150 bucks for an OCE box from ebay, but is interested in what "Original D&D" is about! Well... probably not. But it's nice to dream |
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 20, 2015 9:03:48 GMT -5
A lot of what you say, W.O.E., is spot on.
The temptation to "do it my way as written," of course, flies in the face of EGG's point, "Why have us do any more of your imagining for you?"
I really believe that the OGL-empowerment is a two-edged sword. IMO it gave rise to vanity press and in large part imitation cycles, as we are not faced with game designers whose tensions are prescribed by "what is can become better" under Gygax's exhortation, above, "but that we know what you should do, which is exactly what we do." This is ego going unchecked for the most part when compared to the past OD&D quotes which point to making it your own.
A simple restatement of the rules would have sufficed; but I have now long lost count of the iterations out there, which exceed TSR's own by at least two-fold at a guess...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 21, 2015 5:30:53 GMT -5
In the end, I think the justifiable purpose of the clones is threefold: 1) A workaround for the general unavailability of OD&D at "reasonable" pricing, 2) As a legal platform for publishing material in support of the original game (via support for its near-clone), and 3) As a research journey for the author/editor, who would otherwise never need to fathom what's down all those tunnels, or even that half those tunnels were there at all. Insofar as brief restatements of the rules go, I think Paul Gorman's 2011 Torch and Sword does an enviable job in only 67 pages of large, readable text (plus appendices). The next step of my own journey will be toward a similar grace and brevity |
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Post by Von on Apr 21, 2015 13:51:07 GMT -5
I think, also, the clones serve as a core element of a product line. In these dark times of proprietary games a line of modules without an attendant core rulebook might worry at the distributor and consumer alike. Give 'em a core rules set and things are comfortable, normal, safe; the world continues to turn.
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Post by jmccann on Apr 22, 2015 9:27:55 GMT -5
What's left of the original after all this? Perhaps, in some cases, just about enough to warrant a free download to some kid who hasn't got 150 bucks for an OCE box from ebay, but is interested in what "Original D&D" is about! Off topic, but wouldn't it be great if WOTC reissued the d*****d booklets? Not in the ridiculous faux-wood-with-silly-illustration overpriced edition of a couple of years ago, but just reissue the booklets. Cheap box of the first 3, and the rest in singles. |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Apr 22, 2015 10:37:05 GMT -5
Wouldn't be bad if they just put them up on DTRPG.
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Post by tetramorph on Apr 22, 2015 16:57:40 GMT -5
Wouldn't be bad if they just put them up on DTRPG. Yes, this. It is ridiculous (and false advertisement ("every edition available")) that they have not. I would be willing to pay a pretty penny for a good PDF. I mean upwards of $20 each is not unreasonable to me. Anybody got an "in" w/ WOTC? |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Apr 22, 2015 22:19:46 GMT -5
Well, it seems to be an either/or thing - either they have re-released the hard copy, or the PDF. That's why a lot of people were disappointed by the appearance of the RC PDF, because it was taken to mean WotC wouldn't be releasing a print copy.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 23, 2015 4:37:41 GMT -5
Off topic, but wouldn't it be great if WOTC reissued the d*****d booklets? I agree that would be fantastic (and PDFs over every print too!), but ultimately this would only dissolve one of the three good reasons for clones: availability. There would still (IMHO) be value in clones for the purpose of i) legal, fan-produced, supporting material, and ii) in the research journey required to create a proper clone |
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 23, 2015 9:47:30 GMT -5
A "proper" clone? This I gotta hear...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 23, 2015 22:00:50 GMT -5
Maybe "proper" was poor word selection. Perhaps "justifiable" would have been a better choice? Then again, anything can be made "justifiable" with enough contortion.
All I meant was to group games that address those "value" criteria (i.e., available, enables publication of supporting material, teaches us something about the original). There may be further criteria, those were just the three that came to mind...
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