Worst ideas for house rules

[Capt Spanner]

ITT: Post the worst possible house rules you can think of.

The aim is humour, so please don't use this as a place to complain about bad house rules you've actually played under.

For extra fun, see if you can tweak previous examples to make them workable (or even good!) house rules.

[Rhedyn]

Every hour, roll 1d6, on a roll of a "1" or "6" punch a player in the face.

[Anonymouswizard]

Wallpaper grants an additional 1d6 hit points to everything it covers.

All dice rolls with three or more sixes present result in a daemon being summoned.

[Lord Torath]

All dice rolls with three or more sixes present result in a daemon being summoned.

All dice rolls with three or more sevens present result in an Aasimon being summoned.

Whoever brings Pizza gets a +5/+25% bonus to all rolls for the duration of the session.

[Ornithologist]

All damage taken by a character must be represented on the figure on the table. including destruction upon death.

This rule is preferably enforced by suprise with a hammer after someone takes damage.

As far as the pizza bringer gets a bonus, one of the local game stores has a house rule it forces on all the RP groups that play there: Anyone who buys a drink or snack gets a free re-roll in game, once per session.

It goes over pretty well actually.

[Glimbur]

You have to act out everything. Lying your way into a party? Sword fight? Cast a spell? Good luck making it past the first session.

[Capt Spanner]

When your character dies, the game stops and you play the GM at chess. If the player wins, their character is alive and conscious at 1HP.

Expand this to all dice rolls, where (target-11) is the piece pawn odds: so instead of the player needing a 6 to succeed, they instead start with an extra rook. And if they need a 20 succeed, they start without a queen.

[Nifft]

Hmm.

Bad House Rule: Every time someone in the game takes fire damage, players set something in the room on fire for better immersion.

... we are never playing at my house.

[Rhedyn]

Every spell caster starts with and must use the Pathfinder Sacred Geometry feat without computer program help.

[InvisibleBison]

Whenever a player rolls dice, they score points equal to the amount rolled. At the end of the adventure, the player with the lowest points is kicked out of the group.

[Bohandas]

All dice rolls with three or more sevens present result in an Aasimon being summoned.

Shouldn't three sevens give you money?

[Anonymouswizard]

Shouldn't three sevens give you money?

only if the sevens are in the specially designed slots on the table.


Musical numbers shall be punished by cleaning duty during the interval.

[MoiMagnus]

1) Everytime your character talk, you must succed an Int check or make a grammar or vocabulary mistake.
2) Everytime your character talk, you must succed a Cha check or have a quiproquo or missunderstanding.
3) Everytime you want your character to make an action, you must succed a Sag check or have your character behave instinctively (controled by the DM)
4) Mosquitos are ennemies. Having a mosquitos in line of sight ALWAYS start a fight.
5) Dices are made of chocolate. Everyone has one set of dice. If you eat one, you can no longer roll any dice of that kind (result is always 1).

[Bohandas]

...an dice of that kind...

Everyone is required to conjugate sentences like this

[MrSandman]

5) Dices are made of chocolate. Everyone has one set of dice. If you eat one, you can no longer roll an dice of that kind (result is always 1).

Unless you eat it right after getting a critical success on a roll. In that case, you always get the highest possible result instead.

[GunDragon]

1) As is tradition, at the end of every session, a huge container filled with Gatorade is dumped on the GM. Bonus points if the GM is new to the group and no one told him about this.
2) Clerics can no longer have their alignment within 1 step of their chosen deity. The cleric's alignment must match their chosen deity's alignment exactly.
3) Adding in a homebrew spell for sorcerers/wizards/bards called "Dank Memes" It works like the Confusion spell, but also causes Psychic Damage.
4) Every time you cast summon monster, you have to roll D% on a summoning table. This table determines what you actually summoned. Only about a 50-70% chance you'll actually summon what you intended.
5) Nutcrusher: An in-game special fighting move. You know what it does, no need to explain it.
6) Paying XP to create magic items in 3.5 D&D. Oh wait, that's an actual rule.
7) If a Paladin breaks his vows and falls, there is no more atonement spell. He must become a blackguard and go full edgelord for a while, and then maybe later on in the story he can redeem himself somehow, but only if everyone else at the table agrees to it.
8) Wearing heavier armor actually makes you harder to hit. Oh wait, that's an actual thing.
9) Divine spells that have a positive effect only affect those who share the exact same alignment as the caster. They must also worship the same god. Otherwise, the beneficial magic does not affect you. Yes this goes for healing spells too.
10) Every NPC, player character, monster, or house cat can reroll 1's on an attack. No special ability or item required.
11) You know all those weaknesses, drawbacks, and limitations that vampires have? Remove all of them and have an all-vampire party.
12) Introducing a new homebrew prestige class called the Potato Wizard. I'll let your imaginations run with that one.

[Calthropstu]

Whoever brings Pizza gets a +5/+25% bonus to all rolls for the duration of the session.

I would love this house rule. Please encourage me getting free pizza.

Unless it's little ceaser's. -5/-25% for that crap.

[Lord Torath]

Whoever brings Pizza gets a +5/+25% bonus to all rolls for the duration of the session.

I would love this house rule. Please encourage me getting free pizza.

Unless it's little ceaser's. -5/-25% for that crap.

The logical conclusion to this rule is that you end up with everyone bringing a pizza, and the bad guys have a really bad night!

[Rhedyn]

Unless it's little ceaser's. -5/-25% for that crap.

You don't deserve free pizza

[Calthropstu]

You don't deserve free pizza

Sorry, everyone vomiting at the table kinda puts a damper n games.

[Anonymouswizard]

8) Wearing heavier armor actually makes you harder to hit. Oh wait, that's an actual thing.

I don't want to beat a dead horse as much as the next guy, but 'armour as DR' is just as unrealistic as 'armour as defence'. I hate this 'armour doesn't make you harder to hit' argument, because armour also isn't a universal reduction in damage.

You want realistic armour?

Okay, whatever you're wearing has a chance to just make you ignore any significant damage entirely, with heavy armour=more likely to ignore as a decent general rule. You could model this as a percentage chance, but in the name of simplicity you could also make it increase the 'dodging defence' as both end up with the same result (either the attack deals damage or it doesn't).

Then you have to model times where somebody hits you where you're wearing armour and does do significant damage, which means armour needs an DR rating as well. Some armour will focus more on the defence bonus, some more on the DR, depending on the exact design of the armour.

But what about hitting the opponent on an area they aren't armoured? Now you need either hit locations or have a good enough attack ignore the DR entirely.

Oh, and different weapons should have different abilities to pierce through armour. Probably best to have it reduce the DR for ones that can just bludgeon through, decrease the defence bonus for ones that can pierce the armour, and better ability to ignore the DR entirely for ones easier to slip into an unarmoured slot. Differing values based on the kind of armour worn, of course.

At this point we've just trippled the number of stats armour has and given every weapon a page long table of armour modifiers, plus increased the number of calculations required in combat. At this point we're still note realistic, but we're at least playable.

So yeah, lots of us don't care if armour makes you better at not getting hit (...which is the entire point of armour) or if it reduces incoming damage. As far as I'm concerned 'semi-meat hp' is a far bigger problem.

[Jarawara]

Shouldn't three sevens give you money?

Lord Torath had also referenced Pizza in that post, I had skimmed over it quickly and read it as "Any roll of three 7's summons a Pizza".

Hmmm... I have to roll 3d8. On a roll of 6 6 6, a Demon is summoned. But on a 7 7 7, I get Pizza! Worth the risk!!!

[Jarawara]

All damage taken by a character must be represented on the figure on the table. including destruction upon death.

This rule is preferably enforced by suprise with a hammer after someone takes damage.

I actually saw a game like that. It was... BattleTech, the one with the giant robots? One Mech takes a hit that destroys his ammo rack in his arm missile launcher, blows the arm right off. Player reaches out with a pair of tin snips and nips the arm off the miniature, and play continues from there.

The guy was a millionaire, and supplied all the miniatures for the group. But still... GAH!!!!

[Quertus]

It's been really hard for me to come up with bad ideas I haven't seen, but I think I've got a few:

Drinking game - whenever you have a good idea, or a successful attack / spell / whatever, take a drink.

Rotating GM drinking game - as above, but the GM takes the drink. When the GM passes out, it's someone else's turn to GM.

Strip D&D - as above, but on a failure, you lose an article of clothing.

Strip drinking game - combine the two. On a success, drink; on a failure, lose an article of clothing.

On a completely different tact, how about nitroglycerine-filled dice?

[Anonymouswizard]

It's been really hard for me to come up with bad ideas I haven't seen, but I think I've got a few:

Drinking game - whenever you have a good idea, or a successful attack / spell / whatever, take a drink.

Rotating GM drinking game - as above, but the GM takes the drink. When the GM passes out, it's someone else's turn to GM.

Strip D&D - as above, but on a failure, you lose an article of clothing.

Strip drinking game - combine the two. On a success, drink; on a failure, lose an article of clothing.

Rotating GM strip D&D - when the GM refuses to come out of the bathroom it's somebody else's turn to GM.

[PhoenixPhyre]

PbP rule: madlibs. All posts must be done by filling in randomly chosen madlibs.

Edit: alternate Bard rule: the Bard can only speak in song lyrics, bad pickup lines, and puns.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Die rolls are multiplied by die weight. If you manage to roll a five-ton d20, you get one million times the result. Remember, a roll must be on the table to count.

[Anonymouswizard]

All weights not in SI units must be divided by pi before being used.

Spoiler: Off Tangent

Show

I'm thinking back to my university group and how we might have reacted to strip-D&D. None of us would probably have wanted to play it, but if we did then it's likely that the university would have had more problems with our state of undress than half of the group. Although at least two of us are very weird when it comes to nudity, being uncomfortable around strangers but not caring one bit among friends.

[Bohandas]

I don't want to beat a dead horse as much as the next guy, but 'armour as DR' is just as unrealistic as 'armour as defence'. I hate this 'armour doesn't make you harder to hit' argument, because armour also isn't a universal reduction in damage.

The real problem is in D&D based videogames like ToEE where a miss due to armor still gives the didn't-strike-the-target sound effects and animations

[KillianHawkeye]

Drinking game - whenever you have a good idea, or a successful attack / spell / whatever, take a drink.

Aww, my bad, I didn't realize this was a house rule!