H is for House Rules...a subject that is likely to meet with more consternation than some of these other essays.
I'd imagine that most D&D players, when asked about their "house rules," will consider all the ways they (or their group) have altered the rules of their game to better meet their expectations of play. All sorts of modifications have been proposed and used by folks over the years, in every edition of the game...far too many to make any kind of comprehensive list. Some groups have decided they don't like level restrictions, or race/class restrictions. Some groups have decided to use a "silver standard" instead of gold for their economy. Others have decided to axe various rules and systems from the game...everything from languages and training, to alignment, to whole races or classes (several folks, for example have decided they dislike the inclusion of clerics in the game, feeling it diminished the "sword & sorcery" feel of the game), while ADDING new procedures that subvert or undermine the existing system...things like "luck points" or a shields will be splintered rule.
In many cases, the DMs making these changes to their game do so with the claim that D&D's authors meant the game to be changed and adjusted at any time; that, rather than actual rules, the instructional text serves only as "guidelines" that a Dungeon Master should feel free to rewrite to their liking, at any time, broadly interpreting the final afterword of OD&D's initial rule set as carte blanche for wholesale changes.
I am of a different opinion on the matter.
Leaving aside OD&D (not the subject of this series anyway), I find little in the AD&D books to indicate Gygax wanted anyone to modify or change the rules of the game at all. Quite the opposite, in fact:
Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole. ADVANCED D&D is more than a framework around which individual DMs construct their respective milieux, it is above all a set of boundaries for all of the "worlds" devised by referees everywhere. These boundaries are broad and spacious, and there are numerous areas where they are so vague and amorphous as to make them nearly nonexistent, but they are there nonetheless....The danger of a mutable system is that you or your players will go too far in some undesirable direction and end up with a short-lived campaign...Variation and difference are desirable, but both should be kept within the boundaries of the overall system. Imaginative and creative addition can most certainly be included; that is why nebulous areas have been built into the game. Keep such individuality in perspective by developing a unique and detailed world based on the rules of ADVANCED D&D. No two campaigns will ever be the same, but all will have the common ground necessary to maintaining the whole as a viable entity about which you and your players can communicate with many thousands of others....
[from the DMG, page 7]
No, the game does not cover the entirety of possible (fantasy) experiences, but it does have functional rules, and the areas where creativity is not only allowed but encouraged are those places where the rules are "vague and amorphous." In other words, only the areas of play where there are no systems or procedures to cover the subject in question...those places (and there are many) are where DMs should be adding specificity and using their own creativity. As needed.
Conversely, where there are already rules, they are there for a reason. And maintaining uniformity (by adhering to those rules) is an explicit objective of the author as pointed out MANY times in the text (see the PHB preface and the DMG afterword, in addition to the quotes above).
Now, please allow me to stem the tide of readers jumping down my throat about how they love their dwarven clerics and how unlimited demihuman advancement "saved" their campaign. I am not so obtuse as to believe that the majority (or ANY) of the DMs running the game are doing it entirely "by the book." Neither do I want to be hypocritical in professing to be a completely RAW ("rules as written") Dungeon Master when it comes to running AD&D. As a youth, we strove to abide by the rules as much as humanly possible, but there were things we missed and things we got wrong, and for the sake of expedience there was definitely a time when we adopted the rather lenient Moldvay version of encumbrance four our otherwise granular AD&D campaign.
But then, we didn't have the tools (laptops and spreadsheets) that we do today.
Still, even today, my own game deviates in multiple ways from AD&D as written. While mostly done to shore up some inconsistencies and problems found in certain magical (spell) effects, other changes...like the wholesale removal of alignment or the magic-user's need to read magic...are far more significant in scope, if not impact.
All that being confessed, I strive to run MOST of the game in a manner that "hews the line with respect to conformity with major systems and uniformity of play in general" (as Gygax stipulates in the afterword of the DMG). Because these days I run games for all sorts of players, not just my own "regulars." And I want to make sure that anyone who sit down at my table to play AD&D...whether at a "demo," a game shop, or a convention...and has an INKLING (or more) of the game are going to be able to dive in with little or no trouble. Yes, they can even 'choose an alignment' (if they must)...they simply won't find it mattering much (or at all) in play. But everything else? The actual nuts-and-bolts of game play? That they should find more-or-less 'as Gary intended.'
That uniformity that the author hammers on about is quite useful. AD&D is not a particularly 'hard' game to play, but it is not a simple game...certainly not in comparison to, say, the Basic editions written to introduce new players to D&D concepts. But because of that uniformity I can (and have) run AD&D games without issue for players from many different countries. It has allowed me to write adventures that have been run in German and French and Hungarian (to be clear. NOT my native language). It has allowed me to correspond with folks all over the world (via the wonderful technology of today), explaining the rules and how they work (based on my personal interpretations of the text) and citing where they can find the same information themselves.
The important thing, however, is that it provides a shared understanding and a shared lexicon for communication. When I play chess with my (Mexican) father-in-law, we use different terms for the pieces, but the pieces still move in the same fashion. By playing as close to 'standard' AD&D procedures as I do, I stave off a lot of questions and...I believe...a lot of possible frustrations and resentment. Just being able to say, "yeah, that half-orc paladin (or whatever) ain't allowed in the rules," cuts off a lot of potential issues that might otherwise arise at the table. Yes, some folks will find it galling that their elven fighter can't advance past a certain level...but at least they know what they're signing up for when they join an AD&D game. And my game world doesn't end up looking all that much different from someone else's campaign (assuming they play with the same rules in place).
So, if you were to ask MY players what my most important house rules are (and I have), THESE are the ones they've most often cited:
- No cell phones or electronic devices allowed at the table (this includes the DM...I use my laptop between sessions for calculating and tracking various numbers, but in play, I only use printed documents and hardcopy manuals).
- All dice are rolled "in the box" (all my dice are rolled in the open and in a flat-lying box top; dice that bounce out of the box do not count and are re-rolled in the box).
- No PVP ("player versus player") conflict allowed (players are on the same team; the DM is the adversary)
My fifteen year old son (one of my players) adheres to these house rules in his game, too, although he insists on running everything else "by the book" (including the use of alignment, etc.). Which is his prerogative, of course. And it doesn't bother me in the slightest, because I already know how to play AD&D by the book.
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