Sometimes the rules of a particular game, just aren’t enough, or the rules presented aren’t right for the group that’s playing it. In these instances, many create what are called “House Rules”. House Rules are just amendments to the original rule set, which are created by the individual groups that play together. House rules are not only beneficial, but in some cases, necessary to fix a game breaking problem with a game. This isn’t to say that the rule ruins the game for everyone, but it could for your group. Now, I have seen some house rules that were…shall we say…excessive? Rules like specific players only being allowed to play specific classes, even though they might want to play something else. While I don’t have house rules like this, I can see why other groups might have to make their own decisions.
I’m currently running Legend of the Five Rings 4th edition for my gaming group. The game is very…different, from other more traditional tabletop RPG games. This can make it hard to transition a group that’s used to popping goblin heads like water balloons, to following a strict code of honor in every aspect of their daily lives. If you’re not familiar with L5R, I really recommend you check it out. It is by far my favorite roleplaying system. You can find more information about the game here. While it’s my favorite, there are a few things that I decided to change, in order to better tailor the game to my group. These are my group’s house rules for L5R;
- In the normal rules for the game it is stated that samurai should not handle their own money, and that such an action is considered dishonorable. While this rule reflects the realism of the era that the game is trying to capture, I don’t feel that is in the best interest of roleplaying to do this. Samurai will indeed be allowed to handle their own money and barter with each other. However, greed will still be considered dishonorable.
- Originally gifts had to be refused twice before being accepted. Because this takes far too long to roleplay for everyone in the party, we will be scraping it. We’ll assume that if a player accepts a gift from an npc, that the player’s character used the proper etiquette involved in the transaction, unless the player specifies otherwise.
- Players will be incentivized to play within the spirit of the games honor system. Players who die dishonored for any reason (such as being a Ronin, having committed a serious crime, dying as a coward, or any other circumstance that the GM sees fit), will create their next character at the standard 40 experience, per the game’s rules. Players who die with honor will be able to create their next character with a bonus to starting experience calculated from their previous character’s honor. The player will take the experience they gained after character creation (current xp -40) then take a percentage of that experience equal to the player’s current honor times 10 (4.5 honor = 45%). This experience is added to the player’s new character. Therefore, is a player dies honorably with 76 experience and 4.6 honor, then they will take 46% of the 36 experience that character has earned. This means that the new character will have the normal 40 experience that they would already have for character creation, plus an additional 17 (16.56 rounded up), for a total of 57.
- The Spider Clan and Scorpion Clan are normally playable Clans in L5R, however they will be off limits to players due to the nature of the story in our current campaign setting. Players may choose to play Ronin, who are former members of the Scorpion Clan, but they cannot play former members of the Spider Clan.
- There are several schools in the L5R books that are labeled as being Monk schools. These schools are currently off limits to players, due to the mechanics that the monk school introduces into the game.
- Players are limited to one advantage and one disadvantage at character creation.
The reasoning behind most of these rules are explained in the rules themselves. I had these formally typed up, so that players would have an easier time referencing them, but also to show the players that the house rules I had created have been created before the session where the rules effect their characters. This is particularly important. I’ve been in games where the GM has created a house rule to deal with a specific situation. Unfortunately, this was usually used as a method of stopping a player from doing something that the GM didn’t want them to. For example, a GM in a game of Warhammer Fantasy that I played, made a ruling that players would have to do all shopping away from the table via text with him, simply because he didn’t want one player to be able to buy a sword from the blacksmith. This was not only a strangely inappropriate reaction to what he perceived as a problem, but he didn’t tell players about the rule beforehand, he just made it up as he went along. This lead to him making a rule that not only didn’t make any sense, but eventually frustrated everyone playing, so much so, that we stopped playing.
This shouldn’t discourage house ruling, as I obviously do it myself. I would just caution against using it as a method of controlling player actions, especially if you’re not sure they’re an actual problem. So what house rules does your group use? Do you have any horror stories from house rules that ended badly? Tell me all about it in the comments!
-Goluptious Geek
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