D&D General DM’s secret Wish: Santa make my house rules become official!

[Krachek]

In the DM guide there is a good chapter about world building. It’s credo is : Build your own world.
There is enough guideline to build a wide variety of world, society, including different behavior for planes, gods, monsters.
These is also guidelines to adapt combat, roll the dice, resting.
Dnd is build to be adapted to a lot of play style.

Am I alone to feel that all this liberty is used shyly?
Or with this strange attitude that DnD need fixing, and so personal house rules should obviously be shared by everyone?
Or there is still missing official guidelines to rule house rules?

Thoughts?

 

[toucanbuzz]

It's not about "fixing D&D," it's about "fixing D&D to suit YOUR game table."

So, share away with those house rules. Your creativity to make the game suit your play style better means D&D is working exactly as it was supposed to.

 

[jgsugden]

I do not understand.

Most DMs introduce house rules. Many have their own settings. They put into place rules they thing are better for their game. No 'official guidelines' would matter - as the purpose of house rules it to bypass or change rules and guidelines.

If you play in an officially sanction DDAL game, you're not supposed to use house rules, but many do tweak things here or there. Is that your concern?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

There's nothing wrong with coming up with your own house rules to make D&D more the game you want to run. D&D has been modded and tweaked since the very beginning. Doing so has spawned countless other games, too. That being said, yeah, I'm generally leery of people that claim to have "fixed" D&D.

I think the 5e DMG does a good job at being a guide and a toolkit. Satine Phoenix said that it's called a guide, not a handbook, for a reason, and that really resonated with me.

It's not about "fixing D&D," it's about "fixing D&D to suit YOUR game table."

So, share away with those house rules. Your creativity to make the game suit your play style better means D&D is working exactly as it was supposed to.

 

[Li Shenron]

It's not about "fixing D&D," it's about "fixing D&D to suit YOUR game table."

Well I've been here for 20 years and I have developed my own impression that most often it's simply about biding our time when we're not playing.

 

[Orius]

And if Santa makes some other guy's houserules official, then he's doing nothing but delivering you a tiny load of coal.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That being said, yeah, I'm generally leery of people that claim to have "fixed" D&D.

That's putting it mildly. "I've fixed D&D!" is to tabletop RPGs as "I've invented a perpetual motion machine!" is to physics/engineering. Which is to say, it's a claim a lot of people have made, which always turns out to be total nonsense. I mean hell, not only have people been "fixing" D&D since the dawn of time, but there's an entire genre of TT RPGs which are basically all "D&D, fixed!" (fantasy heartbreakers typically are precisely that, for example).

That's not to say it's not valid to make changes to D&D, or make games based on D&D which make changes, sometimes that results in very good games (13th Age, for example), but the very notion of "fixing" it is dubious. More like changing it in ways that may make sense to fewer or larger numbers of people (but usually it's fewer, even if it makes a lot more sense to them).

 

[jayoungr]

I do not understand.

Most DMs introduce house rules.

I have a feeling the OP is referring to the fact that so many threads on this forum are about fixing this or that aspect of D&D. "This spell is too powerful, that spell is too weak, let's get rid of HP, let's bring back the 3.X saving throws, there are too many stats, there are not enough skills, the D20 sucks," etc. etc. etc.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I suppose I was being a bit gentle in my words. I can remember an incident at a con where another player, with zero game design credits, handed out his card telling us to check out his product on DMs Guild, which "fixes" spellcasting in D&D. I did not hold onto that business card.

That's putting it mildly. "I've fixed D&D!" is to tabletop RPGs as "I've invented a perpetual motion machine!" is to physics/engineering. Which is to say, it's a claim a lot of people have made, which always turns out to be total nonsense. I mean hell, not only have people been "fixing" D&D since the dawn of time, but there's an entire genre of TT RPGs which are basically all "D&D, fixed!" (fantasy heartbreakers typically are precisely that, for example).

 

[Krachek]

For me DnD is good as it is. And like other other I don’t see the need to fix but rather adapt to my view.

but on the other hand, there is still solid clash about rules and concepts.
and often I think that should be a table affair rather than wide consensus.