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Thread: Secret House Rules
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2014-08-16, 07:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Secret House Rules
I keep a lot of my house rules secret. Players are told some, can figure out others, but most remain unknown. Though I lot of my houserules are more setting rules, if you see a difference between the two.
To play D&D, one only need to know the basics like roll 1d20 vs the DC of something and to subtract hit points when damage is done. You don't ''need'' to know every rule to play the game.
I don't go for the idea that all players must know and agree to all house rules before the game. And even if I did not have house rules, a DM can ''suddenly change things'' at any time.
True, but meaningless. You can't tell a house rule from a setting rule from a rule that only effects to this part of the adventure. So it's not like the player will know. And most DM's make stuff up as they go along.
Well you assume there is a revealing. This does not happen.
Making Fun.
Well...Trust No One.
I wonder though how you handle any event in the game. Say you have a spellcaster character and go to cast a spell...and it fizzles out. Do you immediately start screaming at the DM and say how you can't trust them?
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2014-08-16, 07:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2010
Re: Secret House Rules
You've banned antimony and dolphins?
Poor lonely middle. Always excluded. I think most players would like to know, for example, that casting a summoning has a non-zero chance of being completely worthless or causing a TPK.
Yes, but most GOOD GM's don't rearrange the laws of physics on the fly to nerf the PCs.
Fear and Ignorance!
"What just happened?" seems like a perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances.
And "Is it going to happen again?" is even more important.Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
Protip: DnD is an incredibly social game played by some of the most socially inept people on the planet - Lev
I read this somewhere and I stick to it: "I would rather play a bad system with my friends than a great system with nobody". - Trevlac
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2014-08-16, 07:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2010
Re: Secret House Rules
I keep a lot of my house rules secret. Players are told some, can figure out others, but most remain unknown. Though I lot of my houserules are more setting rules, if you see a difference between the two.
Quote Originally Posted by Arbane View Post
How do you expect the players to PLAY THE GAME without knowing the rules, oh High Programmer?
To play D&D, one only need to know the basics like roll 1d20 vs the DC of something and to subtract hit points when damage is done. You don't ''need'' to know every rule to play the game.
I don't go for the idea that all players must know and agree to all house rules before the game. And even if I did not have house rules, a DM can ''suddenly change things'' at any time.
Well you assume there is a revealing. This does not happen.
Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
what else do you call changing the rules behind your players back so that their actions which assume a certain set rules are being followed, are suddenly invalidated?
Making Fun.
I wonder though how you handle any event in the game. Say you have a spellcaster character and go to cast a spell...and it fizzles out. Do you immediately start screaming at the DM and say how you can't trust them?
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2014-08-16, 07:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
Re: Secret House Rules
Well, in the event of the random spell fizzling, there are context issues to be concerned with. Is the reason it fizzled due to some unknown phenomena? Or is the secret house rule in question something that affects spellcasting in general? In the former case, a appropriate knowledge roll the moment it is detectable and there you go. It's like having dead magic about, sometimes magic goes weird and the wizard just has to deal with it.
In the latter case, however, that is unreasonable. A character should know the rules that is relevant to them, at the very least. A spellcaster should know about the random failure rules, much like how a person with the track feat should know the common difficulty modifiers on the tracking table (Weather, time, enviornment, number. size), just because they are an expert and such things should not be a mystery to them.
Even a first level caster has cast hundreds of spells (most cantrips) in his lifetime, if there is some odd rule inherent to spellcasting that isn't already covered by the books, it is silly for them not to already know about it at least in broad strokes. Now, it might be metagaming a little to know the specifics if the caster in question is short on spellcraft, but even then the caster should know his spells aren't 100% reliable beyond spell resistance, saving throws, and attack rolls.
Edit: This is how such rules should be extrapolated. The PCs live in the setting that has these rules. Frequently, they have knowledge skills applicable to such things. When you play Dungeons and Dragons, you assume the rules in the book are solid, and you plot your characters and actions accordingly. You must consider whether it is reasonable for the characters to know the changed rule in question. As long as you keep that in mind, and inform the users who use rules affected by the house rules of the changes, it's all solid.
Characters should not be caught off guard by their own features.Last edited by Requiem_Jeer; 2014-08-16 at 07:36 PM.
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2014-08-16, 07:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2010
Re: Secret House Rules
I'd like to point out that JP ignore the knowledge skill preferring for the players 'to find about it in game'-essentially boiling all knowledge & spellcraft checks to being useless-this being one of the houserules she has said she uses which she would spring on a player meaning the investment of skill points which could have been used elsewhere have been wasted.
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2014-08-16, 07:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2010
Re: Secret House Rules
Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
Protip: DnD is an incredibly social game played by some of the most socially inept people on the planet - Lev
I read this somewhere and I stick to it: "I would rather play a bad system with my friends than a great system with nobody". - Trevlac
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2014-08-16, 07:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-08-16, 07:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
I agree. I like magic to be strange, mysterious and unknowable.
Houserule: If you teleport with an extra dimensional space, like a bag of holding...the effects are bad. It's 50/50 that the items in the space are obliterated or lost in the Astral. And it's 50/50 the space/item is destroyed.
Now, I don't like 'space' items, and they are rare in my game. You won't find one as treasure and you won't find them at magic mart.....but still they pop up from time to time.
Houserule: Magic resistance does not just 'wink out' the spell...a lot of other things can happen.
Houserule: Touching the mind or spirit or lifeforce of something not human is dangerous(if your human..depends a lot on race.)
The above three get used in most games, and players don't know about them, other then the vague magic warning. Though role-players will encounter them by role playing often enough.
The summoning mis-chance is mentioned in the handout, but not the details.
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2014-08-16, 08:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-08-16, 08:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
{{scrubbed}}
Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2014-08-17 at 11:19 AM.
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2014-08-16, 08:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
{{scrubbed}}
Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2014-08-17 at 11:20 AM.
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2014-08-16, 08:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
Playing "Gotcha!" with secret houserules is very rude, especially as a habitual thing.
The majority of setting details should just be made known to the players, as well. The things that are restricted to being discovered in-game should never be in the realm of gotchas or insane adventure game logic and should have clear, intuitive ways to find them out that naturally follow from the actions and capabilities of the PCs and progression through the narrative/world.
Requiring metagaming on the part of the players because they're not allowed to know what their characters know or even that their characters aren't allowed to know things that they should know as a result of their capabilities and training and kobayashi maruing the DM is also in poor taste.
To draw upon an analogy: Marriage isn't for everyone, there are even some arguments for abolishing it, but if you don't even understand it, you really ought not to be telling people not to get married as a general principle on general principle.
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2014-08-16, 09:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-08-16, 09:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
{{scrubbed}}
Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2014-08-17 at 11:22 AM.
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2014-08-16, 09:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
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2014-08-16, 09:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2014
Re: Secret House Rules
This topic reminds me of this.
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2014-08-16, 09:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
{{scrubbed}}
Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2014-08-17 at 11:23 AM.
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2014-08-16, 09:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
{{scrubbed}}
Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2014-08-17 at 11:24 AM.
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2014-08-16, 11:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
I haven't paid much attention to JP, but I do have some "secret" rules for my homebrew 3.5 campaign as well.
They're both setting and mechanics-based, and I aim to keep them as balanced as I can. For example, my world emphasizes the use of alternate magic systems (incarnum, pacts, etc.) so while spells and spell-like abilities aren't outlawed, they are heavily taxed. Each time a player performs magic, they lose HP equal to the level of the spell. (On the flip side, all spells and spell-like abilities are automatically empowered, so magic users aren't completely nerfed.)
This was not a rule I told them about at character creation. This was one they discovered along the way, and that I explained in detail once they had. (I use my website as a means of recording what they've done and discovered so far.)
In addition, I gave them options to retrain out of their character if they found they didn't like the setup. So while I secretly changed some rules, I maintained player agency.Last edited by DM Nate; 2014-08-16 at 11:34 PM.
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2014-08-16, 11:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
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2014-08-16, 11:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
They found out in their first combat. I described how the magic-user felt his soul being channeled into the spell he was crafting, and that it exploded with more force on the enemy than he was expecting. Then I told him what to deduct on his character sheet.
It helped that we have only one magic-user in our group, and that he joined on our fourth session.
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2014-08-16, 11:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-08-16, 11:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
It has to do with the world creation and story line on the website you didn't read.
Also, it contributes to a sense of mystery and discovery that you don't get by knowing everything up front.Last edited by DM Nate; 2014-08-16 at 11:49 PM.
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2014-08-16, 11:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2012
Re: Secret House Rules
Like I said, I think it's fairly reasonable for players to assume that the rules will work as they do in the book unless told otherwise, but I don't see a problem with not telling players how the rules will be different so long as they know they will be.
As an aside, I think the way people treat jedipotter is really rude and honestly uncalled for. She and I had a debate when I first started posting that we took to PMs to avoid derailing the thread, and it ended up a perfectly nice, productive conversation. If you don't feel you can have a productive conversation with her, maybe that's at least partly on you.
Why would you use "postin' dirty" when "writin' dirty" is right there in front of you. Inexcusable.
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2014-08-17, 12:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
Oh, yes, farbeit from me to expect a simple question to be answered with words instead of being expected to research an offhand link.
No, it really, really doesn't. At least, it doesn't if how you've presented it here is accurate.
Edit: Finding out *why* magic tears off part of your soul if not even learned sages and great wizards or gods know is potentially interesting as a mystery to investigate. Finding out that casting one's spells per day as a first level character half-kills them during the first session is not really necessary for that or actually, y'know, interesting.
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2014-08-17, 12:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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2014-08-17, 12:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
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2014-08-17, 12:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
But why wouldn't the character know about this? They're wizards, albeit low level wizards, and they've studied magic a whole lot. Has no one said to them, in all of their training, "Oh yeah, casting magic hurts. I can tell you that,"? The weird thing about these hidden house rules, so much of the time, is that they actually reduce verisimilitude. We know some things about our world, and especially things about our world that we're ostensibly experts in, but these rules so often assume that our reasonably aged characters are as newborn babes to this world. Maybe justified if we're talking about a victim of amnesia, but otherwise, it gives the impression of a world that doesn't live and breathe, because everything that is to be discovered must be discovered by our protagonists. It's a problematic thing, in other words.
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2014-08-17, 12:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
The "why does magic hurt me?" is one question among many that the new characters had to address, including:
- Why am I a ghost?
- Why don't I have any memories?
- What is this weird Shadow world I can jump back and forth from?
- Why does the Shadow world resemble a twisted and contorted version of the real world?
- Why are those in the physical world suppressing all forms of religion and knowledge of ghosts?
- (And, perhaps most importantly) How and why did I die?
In that context, the "oh, ****, magic hurts me" is just another weird aspect of this completely-new world the characters and players are discovering, but one that fits into the overarching theme and story.Last edited by DM Nate; 2014-08-17 at 12:20 AM.
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2014-08-17, 12:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Secret House Rules
No, I'm pointing out how you had an idea and then did something that didn't make sense with it still, and clarifying how what's actually interesting is not aided by your trying to make it a surprise. Nor is it sufficiently dickish to be a proper gotcha, either.
So your motives for doing so are either not yet divulged or you're operating under a mistaken belief that somehow making "magic = pain" a factor not known about your setting is somehow superior to, say, "magic = pain, why is that?" as a direct hook when pitching the setting.
If you think that surprise is a meaningful part of the breadcrumb trail, it makes it seem like you must either think your players are dumb or you don't really know how to lead them into investigating a mystery about the setting that's important enough for you to want them investigating it.