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Post by Q Man on Jun 2, 2018 10:26:25 GMT -5
I shouldn't have to say this, but I will anyway. This thread is not about running down the way someone else plays, it is solely about does the house rule accomplish what it intends to accomplish, what are the consequences of the house rule, was the house rule needed or was it already addressed in the original rule (i.e. does this duplicate the existing rule), was the house rule promulgated because of what appears to have been a misunderstanding or misconception and other questions of this nature. This thread is not to make fun of or denigrate anyone in anyway and such an interpretation is misguided.This thread is to discuss the "House Rules" posted in the thread titled Are these Rules "New School" or just 1970's Options. Disclaimer: Everything in numbered quotes in this OP are from this thread on another forum. The thread at that link is only visible to logged in members of that forum. It is exclusive club content. I had to ask a member there to provide the link for me. It was open content at the time this thread was created and the only reason links were not provided is because none of this is original, but has been thought up independently and used by 10's of thousands of gamers over the last 40+ years. But if you are interested in who the guilty parties for these ideas are, then join the other forum for that information.I would like in this thread to discuss the content of these "house rules" themselves and expand upon the quality or lack thereof of the "house rule" and pontificate upon possible consequences, intended or unintended resulting from these "house rules." It would also be on topic to discuss possible misconceptions or misunderstandings that lead to some of these "house rules." Please quote the rule as folllows X.) Please choose the ones you want to discuss and don't feel that you have to discuss all of them or even more than one of them. On the other hand feel free to discuss as many of them as you want, I just ask that you discuss no more than one per post. Thank you and I hope you enjoy this little exercise.
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Post by Q Man on Jun 2, 2018 10:53:04 GMT -5
I'll go first.  One of the "House Rules" is this 18.) This is IMO a completely unnecessary house rule and it indicates to me that the person putting it forth has not read the rules as throughly as they think they have or they may have never read the original rules and are proceeding based on what their DM(s) have done in the games they have played. In Volume 1 of Men and Magic is says In later prints "Balrog" was replaced with "Dragon" when the Tolkien items were censored. As you can see it says "virtually anything" and so a house rule about this is redundant, the topic was already covered. There is nothing in the rules that says you have to play men, elves, dwarves and hobbits. From the very beginning you had carte blanche to play any creature as your character. You could if you choose, have a completely non-humanoid campaign which goes way beyond the advanced house rule. Further the contention that you were limited to "good" races is an unwarranted assumption since that "restriction" is not found in OD&D and, in fact, men were specified in the rules to be of any alignment, whether Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic, while Good and Evil were not part of the alignment system in OD&D. As for the "Races that are too powerful off-the-bat suffer greater EXP costs to advance levels." It is likely that the part about beginning relatively weak and work up to the top was not applied since you can make them not "too powerful off-the-bat". The XP costs to advance in levels would, of course, be part of the ref's work up for a particular new character race. So we see here that contrary to popular conception, as I have read this premise many times over the years, OD&D completely and throughly addressed this issue all the way back in 1974 in the original document. There is, in fact, no restriction to the "stock Tolkien races" and players have immense freedom to play any creature humanoid or non-humanoid that they wish. The only thing they need is a ref that is willing to put in a bit of time (and it is not a huge amount of time by any means) to rough out the first few levels for the character race and then expand it as the character grows in levels. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 2, 2018 11:47:02 GMT -5
As you infer, many house rules come from the Department of Redundancies Department.
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Post by True Black Raven on Jun 2, 2018 12:55:48 GMT -5
Great writeup on 18.) All Humanoid Races are Playable Q Man. I will play as soon as I have time to sit down and do justice to one of these. This thread is going to be a great resource and I hope everyone follows the format you gave us. This is good, good stuff. I hope that PD moves this thread down to the OD&D House Rules forum and stickies it once it runs it course. Have a well-deserved exalt. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 2, 2018 23:56:49 GMT -5
Do they have to be humanoid?
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 3, 2018 0:07:57 GMT -5
Do they have to be humanoid? No, read Q Man's post. |
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Post by Q Man on Jun 11, 2018 23:39:16 GMT -5
I will comment further on this one
18.)
Again we get into the whole not being clear on the Freedom that we have with OD&D. This not something that 5E got right, because OD&D was already there and got it right the first time. Now 5E may have rediscovered something because the WotC writer didn't know it was in OD&D or did know and stole it and pretended it was something new.
But that is not the worst thing! The worst thing here is that a poster who claims to be old school and claims to be an OD&D fan and he and his friend gave a child a hard time about playing a dwarven wizard and were "very negative to him because that simply wasn't done in D&D". The child's momma should have slapped them both up the side of the head and told them to grow up. So they "compromised" and let the kid play a wizard with armor, but with fewer spells. Yeah, that's the way to teach a kid to play D&D, NOT.
Yeah, you should feel bad about giving a child a hard time about how to play a game. Now I don't know what you are talking about with the "play a concept" comment, drop the babble and let the kid play the character he wants to play, a dwarven wizard. He goes on and says "Was the dwarven wizard the "best combo" that he might have selected? No." That is hogwash, and has IMO no place in D&D, who cares if it is the best combo or not, are we here to play a game and have fun or are we here to become min/max specialists (munchkins) that rain on everyones parade? He does get the last part right, "Was it an example of good role playing? Yes."
Sorry kid that the "adults" in your life forgot why we play games to begin with and especially why we play games with our children. Hope that your luck improves. BTW in my opinion, you and your friend need to go back to your friends son and both of you should apologize to him. That's right man-up and apologize.
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 12, 2018 6:56:03 GMT -5
Thanks Q Man, I don't know who made the second quote, but I agree with you, that is a horrible way to treat a child. The first rule of gaming with children is "Do not get in the way of their imagination!" Keep up the good work with this thread. I wish I could tackle these myself and I hope you get more participation. This is a great thread and I like your style. Have an Exalt! |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 12, 2018 8:57:11 GMT -5
Do they have to be humanoid? No, read Q Man's post. Then I want to play a thermos. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 12, 2018 13:45:52 GMT -5
Then I want to play a thermos. Can you tell us more about your "concept". |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 12, 2018 16:55:47 GMT -5
It's cool.
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Post by Mighty Darci on Jun 12, 2018 17:25:18 GMT -5
What no hot black coffee, no hot cocoa? |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Jun 12, 2018 17:26:15 GMT -5
Great thread Qman, have an exalt. I like this one and the companion thread as well.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 12, 2018 19:45:29 GMT -5
What no hot black coffee, no hot cocoa? I'll take the hot cocoa, please. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 12, 2018 20:26:02 GMT -5
What no hot black coffee, no hot cocoa? Again, see my username. Reference www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/health-practices for people who like very long URLs. I think the article or answer is shorter than that URL, but we have come to a point where one cannot trust truncated URLs. It's fun to type URL. And shorter than Uniform Resource Locator, which sounds like where I used to buy my uniforms. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 12, 2018 20:29:40 GMT -5
What no hot black coffee, no hot cocoa? I'll take the hot cocoa, please. PS: I'll take the hot cocoa next time we visit our kids or grandmonkeys in Indy or Alaska. It's too stinkin' hot in Southern Texas for hot chocolate. |
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Post by True Black Raven on Jun 13, 2018 13:30:43 GMT -5
What no hot black coffee, no hot cocoa? Again, see my username. Reference www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/health-practices for people who like very long URLs. I think the article or answer is shorter than that URL, but we have come to a point where one cannot trust truncated URLs. It's fun to type URL. And shorter than Uniform Resource Locator, which sounds like where I used to buy my uniforms. Hmmm Ouch! |
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Post by True Black Raven on Jun 13, 2018 13:31:45 GMT -5
I'll take the hot cocoa, please. PS: I'll take the hot cocoa next time we visit our kids or grandmonkeys in Indy or Alaska. It's too stinkin' hot in Southern Texas for hot chocolate. I could go for some of that myself. Back to the OP, that is some great commentary there Q Man! Have an exalt! |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2018 16:48:04 GMT -5
I played a Balrog in three different campaigns.
Under three different sets of house rules, and I didn't care.
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Post by True Black Raven on Jun 13, 2018 17:49:15 GMT -5
I played a Balrog in three different campaigns. Under three different sets of house rules, and I didn't care. Yet now they think that no one could play anything but the PC races without the newly discovered and created rules in 5E. I know what you would have said if someone told you that you couldn't play what you wanted. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 15, 2018 9:36:01 GMT -5
I don't know where people get the idea that OD&D is limited in what you can do and play. There are no tight limit spelled out in the rules. All of the later rules "adding" "options" were really only limiting options and adding nothing. Bitd I always saw each players character being played way differently that all the other characters. But the flavor and variety came from the player not some kit or special class.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 15, 2018 22:56:37 GMT -5
I don't know where people get the idea that OD&D is limited in what you can do and play. There are no tight limit spelled out in the rules. All of the later rules "adding" "options" were really only limiting options and adding nothing. Bitd I always saw each players character being played way differently that all the other characters. But the flavor and variety came from the player not some kit or special class. I think it was 2e that really pushed this whole we must have options thing to be fun. Sure 1e began doing so, but it wasn't until the tons of supplements of 2e that gave birth to the fallacy that options = fun. You had mechanical things that you could do, a rule for everything & all the settings became bloated as well & the whole Meta-story aspect that tied into the novels just made it worse. Sure they often hooked young minds like mine & had me wanting to play in FR. But as a ref, it got to the point, where do i get to make my mark on FR, Greyhawk, especially since TSR & them WotC put out more & more books detailing the worlds. I mean when I was young & lacked self-confidence I wanted those things, but now i see them as restrictive. You saw it also with Palladium Books RIFTS, it took you away from the wide world open you could do anything P-A Sci-Fantasy gonzoness to a Meta-Story guided bloat fest where early RIFTS coolness disappeared & you felt that you needed to keep it canon as players wanted all those cool OCCs ect. [ Note: I am not saying 2e or 1e AD&D are or were bad; just things became more consumerist, codified & bloated after their release.] I got burned out & my frustration with crunchy rules and how my players didn't want to even try a rules-light game. If I had run 5e, 3.5 D&D or Pathfinder I'd still would have had a group, but I was sick of it all. I had read 'The Old School Primer' PDF & went wow, I want this! I want to not have to rely on mechanics for everything & to give characters options. It got so bad I was actual happy my group imploded & didn't have to run the type of games I was growing to hate. It was killing my passion for RPGs. I was afraid I'd need to take another seven years to rekindle my desire to role play again. Ruins of Murkhill has become a balm for my geeky soul. Everyone here, especially Admin Pete , True Black Raven , Jakob Grimm , Crimhthan The Great & ripx187 have bolstered my resolve to stick to it. mormonyoyoman brings a smile to my face with the silliness he brings to the forums. then you got the combined wisdom & insight from robkuntz , @chirinebakal & @gronanofsimmerya which has opened my eyes to facets of the beginnings of our beloved hobby. I found my D&D home here, thank you for having me. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 16, 2018 7:05:39 GMT -5
Ruins of Murkhill has become a balm for my geeky soul. ... ... I found my D&D home here, thank you for having me. Thank you Hexenritter Verlag, youi just made my day!  Have an Exalt! |
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Post by Q Man on Jun 17, 2018 16:52:13 GMT -5
My next little topic to write on is this one about point buy
3.)
I just don't understand what the problem is that people have with rolling 3d6 in order for the stats. Yeah, I understand when Greyhawk came along the stat creep and bonus creep started and then in 1st AD&D the methods to generate higher stats were added to the rules and it escalated from there. It went from 5 minutes to create a characters and start playing to 3 hours up to days to create a character, get the "concept" just right and "optimized and write a book for a back story But I don't understand why people have such an aversion to just playing what they've got from 3d6 in order and maximizing your playing time instead of maximizing your prep time.
These point buy methods are just not to my taste either. Instead of giving me a set number of points and trying to make me think and agonize over how to create the "best" character with "optimizing" those numbers I would rather just roll 3d6 and take my chances. This above wants to cap starting attributes at 15. I would rather roll 3d6 and try to a 16, 17 or 18 and take my chances at rolling a 3, 4 or 5. There are the people who roll 4d6 or 5d6 or even 6d6 and keep the three highest rolls each time just to get "good" numbers. They get one number under 12 and think that is unplayable. You read and hear about all these characters that don't have any stats under a 13 or even 15. They want to have a character "build" that has no weakness and is "optimized." Some of the names commonly used to describe these players are "power gamers," "min-maxers," and "munchkins." More and more that is the trend.
IMO it is not the methods that are new school, it is the attitude that is new school. The attitude that says the character is no fun to play unless he is the best at everything. But that attitude leads to boring. And the balanced adventures where no one is ever supposed to lose is boring. When you don't have any weakness to overcome and you have no risks to take all you get is boring. They claim they are having fun (and believe me I am not intending this to come off as saying they are having "bad wrong fun," because that is not what I am saying), but IMO they could be having so much more fun if they had not spent years of playing instant gratification can't ever lose games. Everyone should have a chance to learn to play without access to "Save Game" mode so it can be replayed as many times as it takes to "win." With "Save Game" mode, do you ever really win?
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 17, 2018 20:43:03 GMT -5
My next little topic to write on is this one about point buy 3.) These point buy methods are just not to my taste either. Instead of giving me a set number of points and trying to make me think and agonize over how to create the "best" character with "optimizing" those numbers I would rather just roll 3d6 and take my chances. This above wants to cap starting attributes at 15. I would rather roll 3d6 and try to a 16, 17 or 18 and take my chances at rolling a 3, 4 or 5. There are the people who roll 4d6 or 5d6 or even 6d6 and keep the three highest rolls each time just to get "good" numbers. They get one number under 12 and think that is unplayable. You read and hear about all these characters that don't have any stats under a 13 or even 15. They want to have a character "build" that has no weakness and is "optimized." Some of the names commonly used to describe these players are "power gamers," "min-maxers," and "munchkins." More and more that is the trend. For a long time I felt this way, as nearly every stat had a bonus or penalty, skills required a stat bonus & the min-maxer mentality was the go to mentality in the groups I played with & ran. It took me getting sick of bloated skill systems & magical abilities for all classes that I got sick of Rolemaster, 3.5 & 5e D&D. I had been reading OSRs & went I want this. All this crystallized after reading the "Old School Primer" & finally finding this wonderful community. But back to the topic of Point buys - I have always hated them & as you said you agonize over your "build" & not creating a character with potential flaws that can grow into something awesome. Point buys & multiple D6 above the standard 3d6 put me in the frame of mind of being a power gamer or min-maxer, which I never liked but accepted as the norm to be fun. I am guilty of facilitating the scourge in my games because I felt that low stats = crappy characters, now I shake my head at that I held such ideas. From now on it'll be 3d6 straight down the line for my D&D or Delving Deeper games. |
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Post by Q Man on Jun 17, 2018 22:25:07 GMT -5
I am going to bow out of this thread and just lurk.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 18, 2018 1:29:11 GMT -5
I am going to bow out of this thread and just lurk. I hope that you change your mind as I've been enjoying your posts & clearly others have as well. We need more people posting engaging & thought provoking posts like you post Q Man. |
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Post by Q Man on Jun 18, 2018 13:31:52 GMT -5
I am going to bow out of this thread and just lurk. I hope that you change your mind as I've been enjoying your posts & clearly others have as well. We need more people posting engaging & thought provoking posts like you post Q Man . As I have been assured that I am still welcome, I will indeed re-engage. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 18, 2018 14:17:12 GMT -5
Good job, Ebon! Have an Exalt! Help Jeff feel better - help him know that we're mostly harmless here and are just voraciously curious about the real history of our hobby, after decades of being spoon-fed false doctrine. Nothing dispels rewritten history as well as real facts from original sources. And those of us who were nomadic as well as those of y'all who weren't around in '75-77 were insulated from REAL facts.
(I shouldn't have to specify REAL, but that's the 20th & 21st century for you.)
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Post by Q Man on Jun 18, 2018 17:45:05 GMT -5
Good job, Ebon! Have an Exalt! Help Jeff feel better - help him know that we're mostly harmless here and are just voraciously curious about the real history of our hobby, after decades of being spoon-fed false doctrine. Nothing dispels rewritten history as well as real facts from original sources. And those of us who were nomadic as well as those of y'all who weren't around in '75-77 were insulated from REAL facts. (I shouldn't have to specify REAL, but that's the 20th & 21st century for you.) I'm holding out for those life extending treatments we've been promised 'cause I want to be here for the 22nd century! |
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Have an Exalt!