New Mechanics...Why?

[Soup Nazi]

I've noticed that many world-builders seem to really deviate from the core rules of D&D. New races, classes, changing even the basics, like the magic systems, and ability scores, all seem like common occurances. Why is this exactly?

I've got 18 years of playing table-top RPGs under my belt and yet I still feel perfectly able to create interesting unique settings within the framework of the normal rules of the game. Sure a minor tweak here and there, doesn't really cause too much hullabaloo, but why the wild deviation?

Personally I think that if someone wanted to change the rules in such a dramatic way, they might as well create their own gaming system altogether, completely seperate from D&D. Often times these new mechanics really aren't any better, nor do they offer more substance to the game. So what about new homebrewed mechanics is so appealing to so many people?

This is in no way a personal judgement. I am impressed with the bravery of those who undertake such measures, but I am at a loss as to why it would be seen as a neccessity. Help me to understand. Do these new rules make games better in some way that I have missed?

-Nasty-

[Xeviat]

The number one reason is probably that the vancian spell casting style, the existence of certain Iconic classes as written (usually Paladin, Ranger, or Monk are the offenders), and the existence of certain races.

Remember, some world builders are novel writers as well. I started to write my setting long before I played D&D. While my setting is something very different now, utilizing D&D for it was a crutch for several years. Now that I have the mental acumen to redesign aspects of the system to better suit my setting, I can.

I still run premade adventures in neutral settings. But for my own world, when it is completed, I need things to be changed. Hopefully my changes are for the better, and I'm constantly able to run things past my players and see what they think. So far every change I've suggested has been well received.

But then again, those are my reasons.

[Soup Nazi]

...and good reasons they are. It seems in your case Xeviat, that D&D is actually holding you back from playing the game that actually fits the world you had in mind from the beginning. Perhaps in time you'll find another system altogether that will be better equipped to the style of game you wish to play. Or maybe you'll really just create your own game.

I've played D&D since I was ten years old, and while I was a creative lad, the idea of writing a novel was a bit scary at that age. So unlike youself, I learned how to play D&D long before I ever began writing settings for it. This may be the most important distinction between us, when it comes to the game. I write setting for D&D, while you just write settings. Does that seem accurate?

-Nasty-

[CYMRO]

I've noticed that many world-builders seem to really deviate from the core rules of D&D. New races, classes, changing even the basics, like the magic systems, and ability scores, all seem like common occurances. Why is this exactly?

I've got 18 years of playing table-top RPGs under my belt and yet I still feel perfectly able to create interesting unique settings within the framework of the normal rules of the game. Sure a minor tweak here and there, doesn't really cause too much hullabaloo, but why the wild deviation?



This is in no way a personal judgement. I am impressed with the bravery of those who undertake such measures, but I am at a loss as to why it would be seen as a neccessity. Help me to understand. Do these new rules make games better in some way that I have missed?

-Nasty-

RAW sucks.  And its suckitude is different for each gaming group.  As much as I love D&D, I have never played by RAW.  In 1st edition, we ignored racial class limitations because it was asinine, now in 3.5 they are gone.  Vancian magic is moronic, so we change it to suit our style of game play.  
We homebrew to make the game better for ourselves.  If RAW were perfect, it would not be in its seventh or eighth incarnation(when you include Chainmail, OD&D, Expert, and Basic).
D&D ain't chess, it is meant to be a dynamic and social experience.  

Personally I think that if someone wanted to change the rules in such a dramatic way, they might as well create their own gaming system altogether, completely seperate from D&D. Often times these new mechanics really aren't any better, nor do they offer more substance to the game. So what about new homebrewed mechanics is so appealing to so many people?

Depends on the mechanic.  My own resource mechanic, combining spell points, action points, and power points, is The Wave Of The Future! Why, because it does add ease and simplicity to the game, just as dumping THACO did for combat.

[Soup Nazi]

So would you say Cymro, that you are almost at the point when you would just scrap the rules and start fresh?

You've already got your own publication coming up right?

Would your next step be a whole new game system of your own design?

(dang I'm nosy huh?)

[Raelifin]

I don't claim that Phaedoras is D&D. I claim that it is d20. I think the rules for combat, character progression and skills are quite good and I think building an entirely new system would probably be unnecessary.

[Túrin]

A whole new gaming system is almost always going to be much more work. In addition, you run the risk of throwing out the good things that are surely present in the d20 system when you rebuild it from the ground up. Houserules are a way for everyone to improve their play experience, and since the people here are mostly experienced DMs, each with his own ideas about the perfect campaign setting that usually deviate a lot from the WotC standard, you will see some of the most radical mechanical changes on these forums to accompany those ideas.

As for races and classes, these are actually designed to allow easy tweaking and adding new ones, and many do so for various reasons.

This is all coming from someone who refrains from changing the mechanics of the game most of the time, so I'm just guessing I suppose.

;) Túrin

[Soup Nazi]

I know what you're saying Turin. You like the core, much as I do, and wish to help others explain why they choose to change things. People are free (heck expected) to do as they wish, in whatever manner makes their game most entertaining for their players, but are their house rules important to the rest of the people who aren't playing at their tables?

I just am not a big fan of too many house rules, when the closer to D&D things stick, the easier it is to get others involved. Too many house rules and you're going to lose me. Not because I don't understand, but because I don't want to learn a new d20 game each time I glance at a new homebrew thread.

I know that I've personally steered clear of settings that deviate from the core, because I want to discuss D&D, not a d20 suppliment based loosely upon D&D. Many of the settings I've skipped over are probably fantastic too, but if I was interested in playing a game system other than D&D, I wouldn't be building worlds for it. I'd be building for GURPS, or the Storyteller System, or one of the numerous others I've played over the years.

All I'm saying is people are often too quick to jump the gun, and start writing new crunch, when the rules as is are very well suited to do exactly what we already want. Changing them at your own table is one thing, but changing them on a forum where others are trying to read and evaluate them is another.

Stuff like Red Valor is different, but so close to the core that I have no trouble picking things out and evaluating them individually. The same for Orden's Mysteries and others. But when I see in the first post a list of races I've never heard of, with a three line description and some racial ability adjustments, I read no further. It's no longer D&D to me at that point.

Does that make me bull-headed and stubborn? I hope not.

[Xathan]

Bull-headed and stubborn? I don't think so. It does make you picky, but picky isn't nessicarily a bad thing - you know what you like, and you stick to what you like. I don't think there is fault in that. Granted, I tend to disagree with you, though I go less extreme than some do. I don't dislike Core. The problem is, I am trying to make worlds that would work for games AND for novels, and to do that I need a level of uniquness, because I don't want to write what's allready been written.

However, you have given me pause to think - perhaps the reason I have so much trouble with my settings is that I use too much non DnD stuff. I get so bogged down creating new races and cultures, it sometimes seems overwhelming. Something worth thinking about. Maybe I need to focus more on what is existing already. Something I'm going to ponder for a bit, actually.

A question for you, nate - if someone had a setting that had the list of races as humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, skarn, munarii (made up), grulthan (made up), and balzakar (made up), would you consider that setting DnD, or just d20? EDIT: Better way to phrase that question: if you saw something with that list of races, would you read it?

[Túrin]

I agree that some people jump to changing crunch too easily sometimes.

However, I do think it is sometimes necessary to have houserules apply to your campaign setting (and thus its thread here) rather than just to your own game, because the houserules are an integral part of how the setting works.

[Soup Nazi]

A question for you, nate - if someone had a setting that had the list of races as humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, skarn, munarii (made up), grulthan (made up), and balzakar (made up), would you consider that setting DnD, or just d20? EDIT: Better way to phrase that question: if you saw something with that list of races, would you read it?

If I got to read an interesting story about the world itself, and the people, places, mythology, and nations...and then got ststs for these races then yes, I would read it. New crunch in a campaign setting should only be an enabler, or an afterthought to make the story work. The setting is important to me, not the mechanics of it.

When see stats first, or too early, I thin...amatuer game designer, not interesting new world. We're all amateur game designers in a way, but our strength are in making fantasy worlds, not designing house rules. I leave the rules to the pros (the real paid gamedesigners and play-testers of WotC).

Not one piece of fluff, no matter how terrible, has ever broken the game...I do not fear fluff. I will read any fluff, and either like it or not like it, based entirely upon the literary quality of the work, and its application in game play.

Crunch however is easily broken, by simple unforseen combinations; therfore I say leave the crunch to guys paid to do the boring leg-work. We can write backgrounds, stories, and scenery; there's no harm done in that. Bad crunch ruins games...and we're amateurs.

However, I do think it is sometimes necessary to have houserules apply to your campaign setting (and thus its thread here) rather than just to your own game, because the houserules are an integral part of how the setting works.

This is never a problem in my eyes. If you house rule that humans are the natural crossbreed of orcs and elves...wonderful. If all people in your setting have wild talent at level one for free...that's cool too. These are setting enablers, not sweeping changes. But they belong in small sidebars, or spoilers, or maybe quote boxes...not in the main text portrayed as though the new mechanics are the heart and soul of what makes the wolrd different. There in lies my issue.

-Nasty-

[Xeviat]

I see what you're getting at Nate; I've often presented my setting with crunch first instead of fluff. Often we over haulers do this because the crunch is what we're most worried about; I already like my fluff, but I want my crunch to be fair and balanced.

Does that explain it a little more?

[Soup Nazi]

yes very much. I still prefer the fluff...it's the whole reason I'm reading.

[Xeviat]

Then I'll be sure to be as fluffy as possible.

I'm trying to devise a new short story, but I'm probably just going to start narrating the campaign I'm running now (not my Red Hand campaign, but my Sylphenhest campaign).

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Just a very simple answer to your question, without reading the whole thread (I have a lot of music to write tonight):

Many of the core classes, races, and in particular, the magic system, do not do what I personally need them to do for the campaign I'm trying to build.  It's not 100% "I don't like elves," but rather, "Elves don't fit this campaign, and just changing them makes them non-elves anyway, so I may as well work out a new race."