Comments on: Playing Inside The Box http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/ Game Master/ Project Manager/ Gnome Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:47:40 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: dnaphil http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/comment-page-1/#comment-43 dnaphil Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:40:40 +0000 http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/#comment-43 Levi: What I liked about Unearthed Arcana was that at least they told what things would be effected when you used one of the variant rules. It's not as good as giving up the whole model, but at least they steer you towards the problems that are going to occur. Tommi: I house rule as little as possible, but that is more of a personal feel. My group tends to get very heated over rules discussions, so it works best of us, if we leave the rules alone as much as possible. When we do use house rules, often the GM will make the call on the house rule, and not build it by consensus. But that is something that has come out of our group, based on personalities. Levi: What I liked about Unearthed Arcana was that at least they told what things would be effected when you used one of the variant rules. It’s not as good as giving up the whole model, but at least they steer you towards the problems that are going to occur.

Tommi: I house rule as little as possible, but that is more of a personal feel. My group tends to get very heated over rules discussions, so it works best of us, if we leave the rules alone as much as possible. When we do use house rules, often the GM will make the call on the house rule, and not build it by consensus. But that is something that has come out of our group, based on personalities.

]]> By: Tommi http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/comment-page-1/#comment-39 Tommi Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:29:26 +0000 http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/#comment-39 I agree with the general idea behind the blog post. I also think that people should not mess with rules they are not sufficiently familiar with. I do think that there is nothing wrong with extensive houseruling; there is little difference between creating a new d20 game and houseruling an old one. They will lead to slightly different outcomes, but neither is inherently better, I think. I agree with the general idea behind the blog post. I also think that people should not mess with rules they are not sufficiently familiar with. I do think that there is nothing wrong with extensive houseruling; there is little difference between creating a new d20 game and houseruling an old one. They will lead to slightly different outcomes, but neither is inherently better, I think.

]]> By: Levi http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/comment-page-1/#comment-38 Levi Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:05:43 +0000 http://www.dnaphil.com/2008/02/29/playing-inside-the-box/#comment-38 I was a player in a game where we used the Armor as DR rules (from Unearthed Arcana). As we reached 9th level and above, every monster we encountered hit us easily. Being the cleric, I was forced to use my spells to give AC boosts and heal constantly. I couldn't rely on the meatshield's AC to keep him standing for long. After a long, arduous battle, we had amassed a huge amount of wealth and commissioned magic item creation. Using adamantine plate mail and many other resources, I pushed my DR to 10/-. I could easily wade into battle against many smaller foes, but the big ones could still knock me down pretty well. All and all, it was a fun experiment, but some encounters were made very challenging, while others quite laughable. It takes tremendous tweaking from the DM to keep things balanced enough to be fun. Great post, by the way. I was a player in a game where we used the Armor as DR rules (from Unearthed Arcana). As we reached 9th level and above, every monster we encountered hit us easily. Being the cleric, I was forced to use my spells to give AC boosts and heal constantly. I couldn’t rely on the meatshield’s AC to keep him standing for long. After a long, arduous battle, we had amassed a huge amount of wealth and commissioned magic item creation. Using adamantine plate mail and many other resources, I pushed my DR to 10/-. I could easily wade into battle against many smaller foes, but the big ones could still knock me down pretty well.

All and all, it was a fun experiment, but some encounters were made very challenging, while others quite laughable. It takes tremendous tweaking from the DM to keep things balanced enough to be fun.

Great post, by the way.

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