I guess my question is ambigous, so I'll rephrase. I'm not interested in the mechanical variants; I'd like to hear about player-player-DM interaction rules.
Here are three of mine:
1. No hitting on the DM's wife or her character.
2. Only players with thri-kreen PCs are allowed to bring clicker pens to the table.
3. Anyone who argues about game rules with the DM is assumed to be in character, and NPCs will remind the PC that Athas has no gods.
"While I think I know the rules, I will admit that there are other, more professionally and personally valuable bits of information that I keep stored on my internal hard drive. Given this, I may, from time to time, ask questions about how something works. If no one knows, then I, as the supreme ruler of the universe and giver of life to all things that exist, will come up with something logical."
I also give more skill points to clerics, fighters, wizards, and psions because I think 2 skill points are dumb!
We also use the Elemental spell lists that the Sage put together.
We have a few rules that we try to follow to keep the game on trace - like if you say it, you do it; this is an attempt to try and keep the stupidity and wasted time to a minimum.
I also give more kill points to clerics, fighters, wizards, and psions
And I thought only my group uses kill points! :D
Seriously, I also give the mentioned classes more skill points, as two skill points are indeed too few.
* Racial modifiers are a mix of 2e and athas.org/3e stats, with most races not getting favored classes (at all), no level adjustments, and other totally-unbalancing rules-changes
* Class and class max level restrictions for different races.
* Class abilities are a mix of 3e and 2e; druids and clerics have the most changes, other classes are basically the 3e/athas.org versions.
* I use Elemental Spheres rather than domains.
I only allow characters to have 3 base classes maximum, no PrC's until 11th level, and even then only 1 PrC plus a max of 1 additional every 5 levels if they can give me a really good in-game, role-played reason for it.
The wizard's class abilities are broken up so that you have to be a Preserver, Defiler, Shadow Wizard or Necromant; the latter two aren't have PrC's.
Use the expanded Wild Talent feats (Sysane's I think?) as well as some additional feats I've created.
Use a hit location system, including a clunky mess of rules that govern how magic, powers, and magical items work with it...it all works out, but again isn't the least bit "balanced" as PCs and important NPCs end up being way tougher than everyone else.
Use a spell point system for most casting classes that is based on the psionics power point system. Because of this there are other rules that modify how metamagic feats and spell slots work.
Also use a Spellcraft-based "summon arcane energy" system that can adjust spell save DCs, spell point cost or otherwise depending on the skill check result.
The only house rule that I have is this:
"While I think I know the rules, I will admit that there are other, more professionally and personally valuable bits of information that I keep stored on my internal hard drive. Given this, I may, from time to time, ask questions about how something works. If no one knows, then I, as the supreme ruler of the universe and giver of life to all things that exist, will come up with something logical."
I agree with both Chris and Kal. You've got to keep people in character but not all of the time. A DM should have the option of soliciting suggestions on how to adjudicate a weird situation, so long as it doesn't break up some intense part of the game. Better to just cover confusion and wing it when you're in the middle of a climactic moment, I think. If it's really game-breaking, it's possible to actually pull one trusted player out and leave the others hanging, and ask the one player for a rule reference ... that way you don't ruin the suspense for everyone.
Similarly, an experienced player might find a way of reminding the DM about a forgotten rule, without breaking up game flow or starting an argument. Some of my players used just argue rules in situations that they don't have all the facts, and at first I'd just stonewall them and say, I'm aware of the rules; X happens. Some just refused to stop arguing, so I just started treating them as if they were speaking in character.
Before I started Dark Sun, I had a group that had a gem that pointed to the location of a great treasure. After about 16 months real time of travel across multiple continents into strange lands (a trip involving foot, horse, cart, ocean, a big scary ride on a hanglider, then riding the camels until they gave out, they arrived at an ancient ruined temple and entered it. The gem pointer led them right into one room and pointed at the lower wall. They searched and searched and could not find anything. Refused to stop searching.
I thought they'd eventually realize that the pointer was a straight line, and that they'd have to find another way to find what it was pointing to. But about 20 minutes real time went by and my increasingly short responses, and the fact that I started making the search die rolls without even looking at the results, weren't enough to give the hint, so finally I said, guys, give up; there's nothing in here. Try something else!
No! They didn't believe me! They started repeating the same actions, demanding that I look at the die results as if that would make a difference :D. So I got up, got my textbooks, and told them to let me know when they thought of something else to try.
I guess inertia is a powerful thing. Here they were finally so close to the goal that they'd start seeing walls in the way and stuff, but had always just assumed that the pointer was telling them what specific path to take.:D
All players have to pick a feat meant solely for fluff, such as Wastelander (albeit that feat has game applications, it doesn't allow you to kill better or faster), which brings a bit of fluff to their character at the level of the game mechanics.
What does an aarakocran character take?
Hopefuly one of a slew of feats the Feat bureau will come up with once they release their stuff and they've had some time to adapt the Dragon magazine OGC feats that WotC released at one time.
Hopefuly one of a slew of feats the Feat bureau will come up with once they release their stuff and they've had some time to adapt the Dragon magazine OGC feats that WotC released at one time.
What magazine number is that?
Here's some house players rules I use as a DM.
1) When in combat, you must have no hesitation in your announcement of your action. If you don't know what to do, your character is ineffective for that round. You have plenty of time to think of your action while I'm taking them in from the players.
2) Players are allowed to make stuff up about the campaign as long as it doesn't contradict established facts. For example, if the player is haggling for an inix in his home town, and out of the blue the player, in character, says: 'What about the fence I built for your inix pen last High Sun? I didn't ask for that second payment, did I?' I will make it part of the campaign and keep on playing what that as part of the negotiations.
3) My games have set starting and quitting times. I will not play past 5 hours at a time. If we are still going to hang out, that's fine, but the RPG session is finite.
4) I only use the rules when I have to, and I am as fair, generous and fun-loving a DM as you are going to get. As G.O.D.* I will accept no rule argument that is in contestation over a ruling I have made. There are plenty of people to game with, if you don't like my game I'm not forcing you to play. After the game session is over, I will be happy to be educated in any rules that I don't understand.
-J
* Games Operational Director
I do not use the athas.org -rules at all, but use the traditional (2nd editon) ones in conjuntion with a version of Ravenscrye Daegmorgan's rules. My version of the good ol' Dark Sun is very much like the original (German) one, but I added some stuff to it.
PS: Yes, I will not publish my Dark Sun version though I could, because I use so much material not done by me.
What magazine number is that?
Here's some house players rules I use as a DM.
1) When in combat, you must have no hesitation in your announcement of your action. If you don't know what to do, your character is ineffective for that round. You have plenty of time to think of your action while I'm taking them in from the players.
That's how I see it. My players get quite annoyed about that one, though.
2) Players are allowed to make stuff up about the campaign as long as it doesn't contradict established facts. For example, if the player is haggling for an inix in his home town, and out of the blue the player, in character, says: 'What about the fence I built for your inix pen last High Sun? I didn't ask for that second payment, did I?' I will make it part of the campaign and keep on playing what that as part of the negotiations.
Yep! Some players did this and I liked it. Nicely described. I'll have to formalize that.
3) My games have set starting and quitting times. I will not play past 5 hours at a time. If we are still going to hang out, that's fine, but the RPG session is finite.
It does start to wear thin, but when they approach some big climactic moment, it's hard for me to call it quits.
I run adventures harder at the low levels and tend to start new PCs at lower level than the established ones, let everyone go through a blooding period, and maybe a deaths or two. Beyond that initial blooding, I don't kill a lot of PCs, I keep challenges fairly moderate to the average party level, except for special adventures like Forest Maker or Dragon's Crown (although surprisingly I had only 2 PC deaths in all of Dragon's Crown. I reckon you need to establish Athas as a brutal world, and deadly tough on new adventurers, but that once PCs get established, it doesn't hurt to let them grow a little attached to their characters.
Hopefuly one of a slew of feats the Feat bureau will come up with once they release their stuff and they've had some time to adapt the Dragon magazine OGC feats that WotC released at one time.
Dragon Magazine OGC feats? Where? Which #?
That's how I see it. My players get quite annoyed about that one, though.
They get used to it. I tend to describe the fight brewing and usually the PCs are pretty focused on what they want. Either they want to kill, run or hide. When I point to them and say "YOU!" they yell out what they want to do.
Dragon Magazine produced two consecutive (IIRC) magazines that had something like 30 or 50 Greyhawk feats. The issues said the feats would soon be made OGC.
This was a year ago or so. If you make a search of the Paizo boards you'll find out all of this stuff.
1) All characters recieve Wild Talent and a single 1st level power from any list as a free feat/power.
2) Human Paragon modified to grant Manifesting Progression
3) PHB2 Character rebuilding options in use.
4) Unearthed Arcana Armor as DR in use
5) Unearthed Arcana Class Based Def. Bonus in use
6) Unearthed Arcana Vitality/WP system in use
7) Special House Rule, every odd level you may "spend" 5 skill points to aquire a feat.
8) And feat (psionic or otherwise) that increases hit points increases your wound points instead.
Some things to note about the specific game.
It is moderately high-powered. Taking place just before prism pentad (and we are going to be throwing continuity past the point of game start out the window).
Sizable party, a
PC Human Paragon/Psychic Warrior
PC Mul Gladiator/Warmind
PC Halfling Water Cleric/Soulknife(athas.org PRC)
PC Half-Giant Barbarian
PC Tiefling Preserver(Necromancer)/Palemaster
NPC Psionic Artificer (cohort)
NPC Elf Paragon/Ranger
NPC Half-Elf/Psion
NPC Pyreen. An imperfect(to him) attempt at Rajaat cloning himself.
NPC Mul Gladiator? With Fiendish grafts out the wazoo (and possibly elemental ones as well)
Yeah, Big party, surprisingly we have been playing starting at 4th level and have worked to 11th. Campaign has been running for a full year, despite the deadliness of the VP/WP system no one has died.
Pretty fun game this one
Dragon Magazine OGC feats? Where? Which #?
A google search revealed they might be Dragon 315 & 319. Regional feats, to be more precise, is what you find in them. Kamelion made a quite promising (preliminary) adaptation of those into athasian regional feats. This was around 3 years ago, if I count back the months starting from the current Dragon issue. Maybe the feats have become OGC by now, or WotC/Paizo may still be sitting over the rights.
Spirit of the Sea gives +8 wilderness lore when used on a ship?
Could I make an eloy feat that gives +8 to hide while within the Trembling Plains?
Second Sight lets you cast augury 1/day as a 3rd level cleric?
Then this Troll-blooded regeneration one ... also gives you a disadvantage (fatigued in sunlight). I've been told that I could not make regional feats that compensate by slapping you with a disadvantage.
- I expect my players to know all the rules that pertain to their character, preferrably better than I do, or at least need to know where to find the rules. If I have to explain "how their character works" or can locate a relatively common race/class/feat rule more quickly than they can, I get mad and harp on them for it.
- I allow the players quite a lot of leeway when it comes to "planning time" and OOC discussions that have a direct affect on their character's actions; I figure that their characters know each other and how the other PCs act a million times more than the players themselves do, so it's unfair to hold them to "real time" constraints or disallow any sort of metagame discussions in most situations. When it's obvious that their *characters* are arguing that's different, and I'll point out that stuff is going on while they're talking, but in most cases I don't bother with that.
- Although it's not a house rule per se, it's assumed that each player will do their best to have their actions prepared, dice rolled, etc. before their initiative pops up.
- The Dumbf*ck Clause: Unless I'm in an especially foul mood, whenever a player tells me that they're taking an action that I know to be completely suicidal, I'll do my best to drop some sort of hint, "Er...you're doing what?" being my standard response but of course there's the ol' standby "Are you *sure* you want to do that?" as well as others. I pretty much do this for my own sake, as I hate having to come up with valid ways to bring a new PC into a group, but I also do it under the assumption that while the PCs have Wisdom and Intelligence scores that tend to be above-average or high, my players probably score about 7 in each.
I hate it when people change their initial post after I've responded. At least you color-coded the new text, though. :P
I could have started a new, more specifically worded thread, but that would have left out some posts that really did relate to what I meant. Sorry for the initial ambiguity.
- I expect my players to know all the rules that pertain to their character, preferrably better than I do, or at least need to know where to find the rules.
That's a good one. When it's a newby, I tend to give a patient experienced player charge of helping the newby with the character. But when it's an experienced gamer, I've simply gone with the rule that if you don't know how to make the ability roll, then your character can't do it.
- I allow the players quite a lot of leeway when it comes to "planning time" and OOC discussions that have a direct affect on their character's actions; I figure that their characters know each other and how the other PCs act a million times more than the players themselves do, so it's unfair to hold them to "real time" constraints or disallow any sort of metagame discussions in most situations. When it's obvious that their *characters* are arguing that's different, and I'll point out that stuff is going on while they're talking, but in most cases I don't bother with that. There are a lot of bells and whistles in this game, so that's my rule for discouraging people from playing above their competence level.
-
The Dumbf*ck Clause: Unless I'm in an especially foul mood, whenever a player tells me that they're taking an action that I know to be completely suicidal, I'll do my best to drop some sort of hint, "Er...you're doing what?" being my standard response but of course there's the ol' standby "Are you *sure* you want to do that?" as well as others. I pretty much do this for my own sake, as I hate having to come up with valid ways to bring a new PC into a group, but I also do it under the assumption that while the PCs have Wisdom and Intelligence scores that tend to be above-average or high, my players probably score about 7 in each
I've had a lot of smart players, but just to make sure that someone isn't going to die because I failed to describe something clearly, I've often stopped, repeated the relevant facts that make the decision lethal, and then asked "now what was it you were about to do?"
Twice in my DM career I've pulled a lethal punch and had the character suffer a crippling head injury instead, and reduced the character's intelligence to the level that the player was playing that character at. Sort of fits my "don't play above your competence level" rule. If there's no way under Guthay's sweet light that a player is going to be able to believably role play someone who is supposed to be a genius, then they shouldn't, IMO.
Another odd trick I've used ... I guess this used to happen more in 2e than in 3e or 3.5, but at least once or twice a year I'd run into a situation where rules would be ambiguous whether someone lived or died. After the combat, I'd pull the player out and let them choose -- pull through, crippling injury, or heroic death. I've been suprised how many players have chosen one of the latter two. With crippling injury, we retire the character and have the PC's new character be a protege of the retiree, who now becomes an NPC.
After the combat, I'd pull the player out and let them choose -- pull through, crippling injury, or heroic death. I've been suprised how many players have chosen one of the latter two. With crippling injury, we retire the character and have the PC's new character be a protege of the retiree, who now becomes an NPC.
That's a REALLY good idea!
-J
I could have started a new, more specifically worded thread, but that would have left out some posts that really did relate to what I meant. Sorry for the initial ambiguity.
Just joking around, no apology needed and therefor I refuse to accept it. :P
That's a good one. When it's a newby, I tend to give a patient experienced player charge of helping the newby with the character. But when it's an experienced gamer, I've simply gone with the rule that if you don't know how to make the ability roll, then your character can't do it.
There's definitely a difference between a new 3e player - with so many rules it takes awhile to figure it all out - and a veteran. I've played with the same general group of people for over a decade now, and we've played 3e since it first came out, so ignorance is no excuse when it comes to rules. Just this weekend I asked one of my players to leave my game because, amongst other things, they didn't know the rules pertaining to their character and even worse refused to take the time to learn them outside of the game.
I've had a lot of smart players, but just to make sure that someone isn't going to die because I failed to describe something clearly, I've often stopped, repeated the relevant facts that make the decision lethal, and then asked "now what was it you were about to do?"
Twice in my DM career I've pulled a lethal punch and had the character suffer a crippling head injury instead, and reduced the character's intelligence to the level that the player was playing that character at. Sort of fits my "don't play above your competence level" rule. If there's no way under Guthay's sweet light that a player is going to be able to believably role play someone who is supposed to be a genius, then they shouldn't, IMO.
My players are, generally speaking, smart people...it's just that once a game gets going they have the tendancy, as you mentioned, of either not quite understanding what it is I'm describing or focusing too much on an initial thought or idea and thus going along with it even after the situation has progressed or they otherwise have attained further information.
As an example, in a recent game an invasion force of silt ships was approaching Balic, with an "air force" composed of giant eagles and rocs (as well as a hefty number of druids), and for whatever reason one of the players got it into their mind that shooting an arrow at the birds would be a good way of determining what their intentions were. I just sort of stared at him, asked several times if he was sure about that, tried re-explaining what he was seeing, but in the end he still did it. As far as I can tell the player must have focused on the "flock of birds" idea and left off the rest of the situation when deciding that firing the arrow was a good idea. Several hours later, after his character had been brutally killed, he even said that he couldn't explain why he thought it was a good idea at the time, but something about how I'd described the situation must have given him the idea that the birds were possibly controlled, and so rather than looking at the whole picture he focused on that thought and ultimately figured that shooting at them would be a good way of determining if there was some intelligence controlling their actions. It still boggles me how that idea could ever sound good, which is why I did my best to make the player reconsider, but in the end I refuse to "save a player from themselves."
Another odd trick I've used ... I guess this used to happen more in 2e than in 3e or 3.5, but at least once or twice a year I'd run into a situation where rules would be ambiguous whether someone lived or died. After the combat, I'd pull the player out and let them choose -- pull through, crippling injury, or heroic death. I've been suprised how many players have chosen one of the latter two. With crippling injury, we retire the character and have the PC's new character be a protege of the retiree, who now becomes an NPC.
Along a similar line, I've even had players approach me between games and say something like "I know enough about what'll happen during the next game to understand that, because of my character's personality, he'll either end up getting killed or else he'll be at odds with the party to the point where I'll need to remove him," and there have been other times where I've gone to a player and said roughly the same thing - "I didn't intend it when I originally wrote this plotline, but between actions your character has taken in the past and/or the things I know you're going to make him do, I can tell you now that he'll die next game. Let's talk." In both cases these situations tend to have a beneficial effect on the game as a whole, since it allows for a PC death - always a major event in a game - without anyone "taking it personally" or otherwise feeling that they were singled out, forced into an unwinnable situation, etc. Plus, the removal of the PC and the introduction of their new character leaves open so many options for furthering the plotline.
Just joking around, no apology needed and therefor I refuse to accept it. :P
There's definitely a difference between a new 3e player - with so many rules it takes awhile to figure it all out - and a veteran. I've played with the same general group of people for over a decade now, and we've played 3e since it first came out, so ignorance is no excuse when it comes to rules. Just this weekend I asked one of my players to leave my game because, amongst other things, they didn't know the rules pertaining to their character and even worse refused to take the time to learn them outside of the game.
My players are, generally speaking, smart people...it's just that once a game gets going they have the tendancy, as you mentioned, of either not quite understanding what it is I'm describing or focusing too much on an initial thought or idea and thus going along with it even after the situation has progressed or they otherwise have attained further information.
As an example, in a recent game an invasion force of silt ships was approaching Balic, with an "air force" composed of giant eagles and rocs (as well as a hefty number of druids), and for whatever reason one of the players got it into their mind that shooting an arrow at the birds would be a good way of determining what their intentions were. I just sort of stared at him, asked several times if he was sure about that, tried re-explaining what he was seeing, but in the end he still did it. As far as I can tell the player must have focused on the "flock of birds" idea and left off the rest of the situation when deciding that firing the arrow was a good idea. Several hours later, after his character had been brutally killed, he even said that he couldn't explain why he thought it was a good idea at the time, but something about how I'd described the situation must have given him the idea that the birds were possibly controlled, and so rather than looking at the whole picture he focused on that thought and ultimately figured that shooting at them would be a good way of determining if there was some intelligence controlling their actions. It still boggles me how that idea could ever sound good, which is why I did my best to make the player reconsider, but in the end I refuse to "save a player from themselves."
Along a similar line, I've even had players approach me between games and say something like "I know enough about what'll happen during the next game to understand that, because of my character's personality, he'll either end up getting killed or else he'll be at odds with the party to the point where I'll need to remove him," and there have been other times where I've gone to a player and said roughly the same thing - "I didn't intend it when I originally wrote this plotline, but between actions your character has taken in the past and/or the things I know you're going to make him do, I can tell you now that he'll die next game. Let's talk." In both cases these situations tend to have a beneficial effect on the game as a whole, since it allows for a PC death - always a major event in a game - without anyone "taking it personally" or otherwise feeling that they were singled out, forced into an unwinnable situation, etc. Plus, the removal of the PC and the introduction of their new character leaves open so many options for furthering the plotline.
That's really keen observation, that people fixate on one first impression or image, and then ignore or manipulate other information through that first impression, like traditional cops at a crime scene.
That's really keen observation
....and good writting. Giant paragraphs, well written and coherent.
/rare
That's really keen observation, that people fixate on one first impression or image, and then ignore or manipulate other information through that first impression, like traditional cops at a crime scene.
Thanks!
I've definitely caught myself doing the exact same thing before, so I know how easy it can be. In one game I was playing a en ex-druid blighter (long story that I can't cut short ;)) who, in an attempt to stop a collosal slug-thingy (another long story) used Control Weather and his Blightfire ability to start a late-night wildfire that was directed towards the creature. It was during the night, so all we got to see were the flames and shadows, but as the wildfire reached the creature it came to a stop, the wildfire began disappearing, and eventually winked out completely. Earlier on we'd hit the thing with other fire-based spells and such which seemed to do little or no damage to the creature, and the creature had "guards" as well, so my first thoughts were that either the guards had extinguished the fire somehow or the creature simply wasn't hurt by it. Come morning the creature still hasn't moved, so myself and a couple of the other characters spend a bunch of time hashing up how we're going to go about sneaking up to it for a recon mission, as we want to know why it still hasn't moved. The DM is getting a little antsy but he doesn't say anything, so a half-hour (real time) later we approach and find that the sluggy is completely toasted, everyone scowls at me and thanks me both for killing the thing as well as wasting the last hour or so of their lives, and we move on.
Once the game was over I asked the DM about it, as I was all confused about what had happened - after all, the fire "winked out," and the group had already demonstrated the futility of hitting it with firebalss and such, so what happened? His explanation was so simple I couldn't believe I'd missed it - the creature was immune to our *magical* fire, not natural fire, so after doing some quick calculations he figured that there was absolutely no way the thing could have survived the relatively low damage-per-round of my wildfire. Heck, I'd even known that the thing had some sort of magical immunity, but in the end it was the idea that "the creature is immune to fire" that stuck in my head and resulted in me wasting time, forcing the group to treat the thing as if it was setting up some sort of trap rather than facing the most likely explanation that my tactic had worked and the sluggy was dead.
....and good writting. Giant paragraphs, well written and coherent.
/rare
Wow...two compliments in a row. Thanks!