Every game, from Candyland to Rolemaster, has rules. Rules are what keep a game from turning into Calvinball (regardless of how fun that might be for a little while). Thanks to the rules, everyone is on a level playing field, has the same expectations of the game, and knows what they can/can’t or should/shouldn’t do. Every game needs rules, and the players need to play by the rules for everything to go smoothly and for a good time to be had by all.
But sometimes, you have to throw the rules out the window and just play the damn game.
This might seem like an odd viewpoint coming from me. I’m a D&D/Pathfinder girl – and those games are about as rules-heavy as they come. As an RPG publisher, rules are pretty much my bread and butter. I’ve even proposed rules for sex and romance here in my column. And now I’m telling you to ignore all the rules?
No, not all the rules. Just the ones that aren’t working for you.
What’s the matter with the rules?
We’ve probably all had the experience of playing with a rules lawyer, who has a rulebook marked with sticky notes on almost every page, and objects any time someone tries to squeak an extra 5 feet out of their move action by creative mini-moving. Then there’s the GM who has house-ruled so many things that the game is barely recognizable and every attempt to do anything that you know is legal by the book is overruled as “that’s not how it works in my game”. Either situation is frustrating and not very fun.
Likewise, some game systems are more stringent on rules than others – and the amount of detail in those rules can be a sticking point for many. For example, I love the way magic is set up in D&D (3.5 and earlier) and Pathfinder: you have a spell list, you get so many spells per day, those spells do very specific things. This makes my detail-oriented, order-loving brain oh so happy. When I played in a WoD Mage the Ascension campaign a few months ago, the loosey-goosey magic system was nothing but frustration for me. Where our GM and other players in the game thought the magic system gave you freedom to do anything, I couldn’t wrap my head around how to do anything. The rules (or lack thereof, in my view) were hindering my enjoyment of the game.
Luckily, there’s a vast middle ground where most of us can happily play.
Go with what works. Forget what doesn’t.
I’m not advocating cherry-picking which rules you want to use in every game. Each game has a number of guidelines that, if not followed, will bring you back to playing Calvinball at best, or quitting play entirely at worst. If you want to abandon all the established rules, you’re just free-form roleplaying. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if you want any consistency, you’ll have to essentially make some rules of your own. And now we’re getting into game design, which is another topic entirely.
Start out playing by the rules as written. Any sticking points that seem dumb, pointless, cumbersome, or confusing will rear their heads in very short order. Then, case by case, decide how you want to houserule it to make it work better – either by tweaking it or ignoring it altogether. Very simple things can be ignored – like my optional rules for conception that I discussed a few columns back. Your game can run just fine without using a single one of those suggestions, and I assure you my feelings aren’t hurt if you think they’re pointless.
Not everything can be tossed out the window, but it can be adjusted to work better for your situation. My husband, as a Pathfinder GM, hates attacks of opportunity. He thinks they bog down combat, and I tend to agree. In our private game, we ignore attacks of opportunity entirely. However, he also realizes that plenty of players love attacks of opportunity, so he has houseruled that your character can only take attacks of opportunity if they have the Combat Reflexes feat. This work-around lets those players who want attacks of opportunity still have them, for the reasonable price of a feat (and the RP reasoning that the character is more skilled at combat, and therefore can work those extra attacks in), but also keeps those extra attacks to a minimum so combat doesn’t move at a snail’s pace.
What if it’s an integral part of the system itself? Back to the example of me pulling my hair out with my Mage character, it would have been unrealistic of me to hope for some houserules to make the magic system more like D&D or Pathfinder. That would defeat the purpose of playing Mage. I love WoD, except for the way magic works. Do you feel the same way about a game system? Odds are you’re not the only one who’s loved it except for a couple things, and they’ve likely posted their ideas and pointers for dealing with those sticking points on the internet. For me, some googling turned up endless lists of examples of magical rituals you could perform with, say, Mind 2 and Spirit 3. Maybe using such a list (if only for inspiration) isn’t quite going by the rules, but it’s a good deal better than just telling the GM, “I’ve got Mind 2 and Spirit 3. I’m going to roll my arête and do…something” (which I may or may not have done on occasion). If I play Mage again, I’ll be more prepared to deal with the rules that I don’t really like or understand.
It’s not set in stone.
Houserules are fluid and easily changed. If you houserule something, thinking you’re making it better, only to find you’ve made things even worse, nothing in the world is stopping you from changing that rule again, or sheepishly going back to the original rules.
Don’t let the belief that you have to play 100% by the book ruin a game for you. You can take those rules and manipulate them as needed to fit your game. No system is going to please everyone, so take the bad with the good and work with it until you’ve massaged it into the perfect game. Even if that means ignoring a rule or two.
What published rules have you had to tweak or ignore to best suit your game? Or do you resist deviating from the rules?
About c
While I usually abhor houserules, I love everything you say under ‘It’s not set in stone.’ The reality is, many house rules don’t turn out to do what you intended – they don’t fix or improve play after all. Rules and game balance are critical but tricky things.
There’s a reason why a team of designers and playtesters came up with and went over them for countless hours, and most of the time – not all the time, but most – they got it as close to balanced as you can get.
The only monstrosity in somewhat recent memory I can think of in D&D that truly needed house rules was D&D 3.x’s Grapple rules. My playgroup and I let out a sigh of pain just mentioning them!
I miss 3.5′s magic system so much. It’s ridiculous and convoluted and bogged down by minutae and bullshit just like every D&D system, but having since tried 4e wherein every character is a frakking sorcerer (RAGEFACE)… Yeah. I want my Pathfinder back, warts and all.
Actually, to hell with d20. I want my Earthdawn back.
The more I try out different RPGs, the more I am realizing that I love games with very few rules and an emphasis on story. If you gave me the choice of being able to play D&D the rest of my life or Fiasco, I think I might just pick Fiasco.
Should you get a chance to play again in a WoD (or other open ended game), I would suggest you write out a grimoire for your character, actually coming up with a variety of spells that you use. In fact, you might be able to work it into some sort of disadvantage, in that you’re limited to those. Not by the system or rules, but by the psyche of your character. They just don’t trust/use/believe in magic that isn’t written down into a formula. You can still look for creative ways to use them (e.g. the good old grease spell followed by anything fire). Might help you narrow down some of the choices and on the spot figuring and be able to enjoy it a bit more.
Or give your character a limitation that they are a gadget mage. Wands, rods, rings, etc. Like Maasha in the Myth, Inc. series by Aspirin, she relies on gadgets to cast her magic. Again, you have a set number of set effects to call on at any given time.
Just some thoughts.
Actually, I wrote about this subject just last week – “Top-Down Plug-in Game Design: The Perfect Recipe?” http://bit.ly/jVLjqr – in which I describe a hypothetical game system in which you CAN cherry pick the rules you want to use, the level of explicit detail you want to use, and so on…
There was one time I was playing a fighter, and the party was in a tomb with large sarcophagi (or racks of bones, can’t remember which) giving cover to a lot of goblins. I improvised, had my character climb on top, then run across to where some gobbos were manhandling the party’s sorceress. The next round, instead of just doing a regular attack, I asked the GM if I could just jump down on the goblin and take him down. The GM allowed it and instead of “you hit the goblin with your sword” we got “you land on top of the goblin and smoosh him flat to the floor.”
Was it rules legal? Hell if I know. But I do know it added a moment of awesome to a fight. That’s what gaming is all about – those little memorable moments.
Kilsek – Definitely, the amount of work and playtesting that goes into published rules makes most of them perfectly workable. I advocate giving everything a chance before automatically trying to houserule it.
The old grapple rules were indeed mind-bottling (you know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?). One of the many things I love about Pathfinder are the streamlined grapple rules!
Cackles – Then play Pathfinder or even 3.5!
I don’t like 4e either, so I just leave it to those who do and play what I like. It’s all good. 
E – Oh, I am all about story. I love game sessions that are all roleplay and no roll-play.
Dean – The grimore is a very good idea! I think another thing that didn’t help was that everyone else in the game was an experienced Mage player, so it was just second nature to them to, on the fly, think up amazing things to do within their spheres. It was just hard for me. Oddly enough, I have no problems thinking of amazing things to do with my Vampire disciplines – but the possibilities there are explained in a more clear manner.
Mike – Very cool at first glance! (I’ll have to read it thoroughly another time when I’m less tired.)
Sean – And that’s another good point I should have made – sometimes bending or breaking the rules is what leads to the truly epic moments in a game.
Great post! I actually ended up using the White Wolf dice system to supplement my d&d game (it works great & is fun) My current schtick is to show how WotC reverse engineered d20 out of TSR’s IP and show how all the rules versions can ‘nest” into one-another for inclusive game play (less rules chat at the table)
Olybuzz – Sorry for the slow reply, I was at con Memorial Day weekend and am still trying to get caught up on everything.
You’re using the White Wolf dice system for D&D? How so?