House Rules and Game Identity In D&D

Another week on Twitter, another opinion that I disagree with! Must be my age, I’m becoming the crotchety old guy screaming “get off my lawn”.

Oh well, time to sit on the porch and shout.

So, house rules! I commented on Twitter recently that everyone uses house rules, I believe that is the case, but it was suggested that it was not.

And to be fair, making ‘universal’ claims like this is always risky, even one exception and you are wrong. Still, I’m going to push back on this because I think it’s important, as the presence of house rules in a game is often used to claim that someone isn’t actually playing the game in question. If everyone house rules, then house ruling can't be a useful category to determine game identity.

What are House Rules?

There are several varieties of house rules that are used at TTRPG tables:

1. Choices about optional rules

2. Interpretations of core rules

3. Dropped core rules

4. Rules imported from other systems

5. New rules created for the game

6. Official expansion rules

1. Choices about optional rules

Most games have “optional” rules that are at the discretion of the individual group. The idea is that TTRPG’s are fairly complex games, if you put in rules for many different things the game can get unwieldy, so most games have “optional” rules, rules you can put in if you want them for your group. A good example of this is the Weapon versus Armor Class rules in AD&D, they add a dimension of crunch to your combat, but they are fiddly enough that many don’t use them.

2. Interpretations of core rules

Initiative.

OK, just kidding. But initiative is a great example of a rule that is interpreted in various ways. Rules interpretations are common house rules because, again, TTRPGs are complex beasts, so there is often room for interpretation on any given rule.

3. Dropped core rules

There are optional rules and there are rules that are meant to be used but are often just dropped because of the preferences of a particular table. Encumbrance is a popular example of this, some people just aren’t interested, material components for spells is another example.  

4. Rules imported from other systems

Sometimes you see a rule somewhere and just think, “SWEET”, and graft it on to your game. Critical hit rules are a popular example, many, many people use crits of one form or another. 

5. New rules created for the game

There are two versions of this. In one case the DM or player is thinking about the game when they are not playing and come up with a brilliant idea for a game rule. In another case something comes up in game that is not covered by the existing rules, and the table comes up with a rules interpretation (either through a combination/extrapolation of the existing rules or by creating a whole new rule on the spot). 

6. Official expansion rules

Games often start with basic rule sets and then expand to cover new areas. I’m not talking about new editions here, I’m talking about taking an existing edition and adding new rules to it. So expansions for new classes, new monsters, new settings, that sort of thing.

All 6 of these constitute house rules in the sense I mean. They are all house rules because they are variations in your game that might not apply elsewhere. When someone sits at your table, these are the rules that govern the “house”, this combination of rules choices is unique to your game. Importantly, you can’t know how individual tables will engage with all 6 of these. Some tables will change very little, some will change a ton, but in both cases it will impact the game the way it is played at the table. 

“Wait, optional rules aren’t house rules, they are official!”, but that’s the thing, the presence of optional rules implies that some groups will use them and some groups won’t. So the game at the table for a group that uses an optional rule will be different than the game at the table for a group that does not, thus optional rules are, in effect, house rules.

I think house rules are VERY important to the kind of game you end up running. TTRPGs like D&D are complex beasts, open ended and expansive, often used for long running games with intricate plots and interactions. The house rules you choose will impact how that all cashes out.

People sometimes claim that they run everything “BTB”, which I think is fair, but then claim they don’t use house rules, I find that HIGHLY unlikely. 

1 is unavoidable, you will either use or not use optional rules, that very choice is a House Rule, as a game with options A,B and C is different than a game without. 

2 is unavoidable as well, all rules have to be interpreted, some are so simple that the vast majority of people interpret them the same way, but many are not, so almost everyone house rules in this sense. 

3 is not unavoidable but pretty close to it. I always raise an eyebrow to people who claim that they use “all” the rules in a given game system. I’m sure it can happen, particularly with games that have smaller rule sets, but I would be surprised if most refs and players were even AWARE of all the rules in most TTRPGs. Your choice of which rules to use and not use makes your game different than others, and thus represents a house rule.

4 is avoidable, but my gut tells me it’s pretty popular amongst players that have been using one particular system for a long time.  

5 is very hard to avoid as well. Unless your system has a “rule for everything” (e.g. many, many rules) or a “universal rule” (e.g a generic rule that covers most circumstances), chances are the game will throw you curveballs, situations that simply aren’t covered in the rules. Spells and magic in D&D are a great example of this. Each spell and magic item is essentially a mini-rule set that applies in one case. Some are complex (some spell and magic item descriptions take up most of a page), some are simple, but their interaction with each other and the game world is necessarily unpredictable, complex and frequent. So in each case you have to decide what to do, and in doing so you establish the rule for your table.

6 is somewhat avoidable as well, you can choose to stick to the “core books” for any given game. But again, as you play you will feel the pull to add things to your game (or change to a different game) as it can get stale over time. I see phases of this in TTRPG groups, some start with the core materials, after a time start bringing in more expansion materials, then cut back again later as they find the game has changed too much. 

In short, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that anyone is playing a game without any house rules. Instead what you get, surprise, surprise, is a continuum, with some groups using minimal house rules (e.g. all the optional rules, not eliminating or changing any published rules, not adding any new rules from outside the system), some groups using many. 

Why is this Important?

Good question. I think this matters as house rules have been used over the years to suggest that someone isn’t playing game X. So for example if you are using house rules in AD&D you aren’t playing AD&D anymore, you are playing a different game that reflects your experiences at the table. 

Or it is used to argue that you shouldn’t play AD&D any more, as an AD&D game with house rules isn’t really AD&D, and another game will do it better. 

With my understanding of house rules, every game is house ruled AD&D, so it makes the most sense to suggest that house ruling doesn’t, in and of itself, make your game “not AD&D”.

In philosophy we are told the tale of Theseus’s Ship. Theseus set out on a long journey in his ship. At one point a damaged plank had to be replaced. 

When the plank is replaced, is this still Theseus’s Ship, or is it now a different ship?

Most people when asked this will answer that it’s still his ship.

Then a sail is replaced. Then a rope. Over the course of the journey, Theseus replaces every part of his ship. So, when Theseus arrives back home, is that the same ship that left the port at the beginning of his journey? At what point is it no longer Theseus’s Ship? 

Better still, say someone scooped up every part of the ship that was replaced, fixed it, and built a new ship out of the original parts. Which is then Theseus’s Ship? 

This suggests there are two ways of looking at identity, as continuity, or physicality.

If you think identity is constructed through continuity, then Theseus’s Ship is the one Theseus is on when he arrives home from his journey. If you think identity is tied to physicality, Theseus’s Ship is the ship rebuilt out of the damaged parts. 

Are you the same person you were say 10 years ago? 

TTRPGs are like a ship, with a lot of moving parts, so the same analysis applies.

I think for most people it’s something like this: if you change a few things it’s still X, if you change too many things it’s not X any more. I think that’s probably about right. The issue is that determining that point is hard, when have you changed too much?

I run a game where the PCs are given described damage, they aren’t told how many HP damage are done to them, the hit is described, as is their general reaction to it. This isn’t common, but its BtB 1e AD&D as an optional rule listed in the PHB. I’ve had people tell me that D&D without being told your damage wasn’t D&D.

I was told recently that some people treat all discussion at the table as in character, or play such that there are as few exceptions as possible. That was entirely new to me, my games and the games I’ve played have never been IC that often. But for them, that’s D&D, as was pointed out, D&D is a role playing game, right, so shouldn’t you be playing your role, and be in character, most of the time?

So I’m very hesitant to say, “Now, now that isn’t D&D anymore” because you have house ruled any particular thing. "Oh, you use milestone levelling, that's not really D&D" or, "oh, you don't use character backgrounds, that's not D&D", that sort of thing. I think it makes more sense to look at the identity of TTRPGs like D&D as a continuum, where only the extremes are called out as “different”. Every rule set will create a set of experiences at the table, and every group will bring their own unique interpretation to that rule set for the reasons I have suggested above. 

But it’s all still D&D. I say that because, at least in the case of 1e AD&D (and it may be the case in other editions as well, as I have heard), you are expected to operate under the principle of free Kriegspiel. 

The idea is that TTRPGs are complex beasts, games like D&D have hundreds of spells and magic items that are each their own little mini-ruleset that has to be applied, they interact in varied ways. Rather than spend your time hunting through the rules, the referee has the authority to adjudicate this and you move on. 

Gygax’s preferred style of play was adversarial but fair, he believed the game was meant to challenge the player, and D&D had the advantage of a referee that could manipulate the game to produce challenging play. The ref’s rules are absolute so the game world can be adaptive. Gygax had a ton of specific suggestions on how to achieve this, some I agree with, some I don’t, but that’s not the point. The point is that the authority of the DM (and if you play in a game where the DM consults with the players as I do, the table) is greater than the rules.

So this means that D&D was designed to be house ruled, for you to make the decisions above to shape the game into something that works for your table. Gygax tells you this time and again in the first edition books, you are the final arbiter, the dice and the rules are there to serve you, not the other way around.

For example:

“Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from "on high" as respects your game. Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole. ADVANCED D&D is more than a framework around which individual DMs construct their respective milieux, it is above all a set of boundaries for all of the "worlds" devised by referees everywhere. These boundaries are broad and spacious, and there are numerous areas where they are so vague and amorphous as to make them nearly nonexistent, but they are there nonetheless...

When you build your campaign you will tailor it to suit your personal tastes. In the heat of play it will slowly evolve into a compound of your personality and those of your better participants, a superior alloy. And as long as your campaign remains viable, it will continue a slow process of change and growth... 

Naturally, everything possible cannot be included in the whole of this work. As a participant in the game, I would not care to have anyone telling me exactly what must go into a campaign and how it must be handled; if so, why not play some game like chess? As the author I also realize that there are limits to my creativity and imagination. Others will think of things I didn't, and devise things beyond my capability...

Imaginative and creative addition can most certainly be included; that is why nebulous areas have been built into the game. Keep such individuality in perspective by developing a unique and detailed world based on the rules of ADVANCED D8D. No two campaigns will ever be the same, but all will have the common ground necessary to maintaining the whole as a viable entity about which you and your players can communicate with the many thousands of others who also find swords & sorcery role playing gaming as an amusing and enjoyable pastime...

It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game.” 

I quote these at length with highlights to make the point clear, in the case of AD&D, the identity of the game is based on its use, not just its rules, if you change too many rules it will play differently enough that it won’t feel like D&D anymore, and this point of familiarity will vary for everyone. But the idea is that you are supposed to be creating the game as you play it, in real time, and the process of house ruling is part of this creation.

Gygax does, however, give you a hint as to when he thinks AD&D campaigns stop being AD&D any more. 

“The danger of a mutable system is that you or your players will go too far in some undesirable direction and end up with a short-lived campaign. Participants will always be pushing for a game which allows them to become strong and powerful far too quickly. To satisfy this natural desire is to issue a death warrant to a campaign, for it will either be a one-player affair or the players will desert en masse for something more challenging and equitable. Similarly, you must avoid the tendency to drift into areas foreign to the game as a whole. Such campaigns become so strange as to be no longer "AD&D". They are isolated and will usually wither.”

From what I can see here, Gygax’s argument is that if you change AD&D too much (e.g. by making it too easy or too hard) then players will leave your game, it will “wither” as it isn’t fun to play any more. In short, the success or failure of your house rules is determined by the success of your campaign, if people want to keep playing it or not. Or in other words, Gygax’s advice is this: you have only changed AD&D "too much" if no one wants to play in your game.

This suggests to me that there is a lot of latitude in changing the game while still having it be “still AD&D”. It means you have to be cautious when evaluating anyone’s home game mechanics, as you need to know all of the changes they have made, all of the options they use, to determine the impacts properly. And it means that you don't have to switch games just because AD&D (or any version of D&D) doesn't do X, Y or Z, you can house rule to obtain individual goals with your game and it still counts as that game.