The Gaming Den

Are there rules from some games that you liked so much that you adopted as default, where possible ? For me it is:


1) Initiative from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying,

2) Resolution from Apocalypse World/Edge of the Empire/Warhammer 3e.

3) Sandbox structure from Apocalyse World.


How about you guys ?

D&D
Too many to list. The list changes a bit with time as we test the rules out, but I can't play that game as RAW.


Axis & Allies
-USSR cannot attack first turn.
-Two-hit battle ships.


Monopoly
-No house rules! (When I was a kid, we did all sorts of free money for Free Parking and -landing on GO, and the game would take fucking forever).


Poker
-The cards talk. No arguing about what hand the person actually called.
-If you've been called, show your cards first, and show all of your cards (this is probably an official rule, but I have to call people on it so often, it's ridiculous).



One I've heard of, but never tried:
Dominion
The first player draws their hand (and either gets a 3-4 split, or a 5-2 split). All other players get the same split for their first two turns. I can understand the reasoning behind this, as it can cut down on some of the randomness of early luck, depending on what 5-cost cards are available.

RobbyPants wrote:D&D
Too many to list. The list changes a bit with time as we test the rules out, but I can't play that game as RAW.
[etc.]

He's not asking about house rules per se, he's asking which rules from one game have you liked so much that you transferred them to other games.

----

I'd be tempted to take some of the attack of opportunity rules from 3.X D&D and use them in other games that don't have the concept.

Drain from Shadowrun. I know it's not always genre appropriate, but I want to hack it into everything that has some form of magic.

hogarth wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:D&D
Too many to list. The list changes a bit with time as we test the rules out, but I can't play that game as RAW.
[etc.]

He's not asking about house rules per se, he's asking which rules from one game have you liked so much that you transferred them to other games.

Whoops!

I don't have any that are so good for one game that I want them in another. Every time I tried to port 2E material into 3E, it ended in tears.

RobbyPants wrote:I don't have any that are so good for one game that I want them in another. Every time I tried to port 2E material into 3E, it ended in tears.

Letting lightning bolts bounce off walls, is fun, though.^^

I also like how 3.X D&D ignores facing in combat in favour of flanking instead. I always thought it was stupid how some game systems encouraged you to constantly be running behind your enemies and vice versa.

I'll be honest, in Live Action RP; being able to physically be out of the line of sight of enemies is a really big fucking power.

At certain larps, common practice among PCs when near woods after sundown is to form circles that face outwards, because it prevents assassins from quickly dropping a single character with a backstab attack.

During the day time; someone who exposes their back or flanks to you is probably dead; and characters try to approach an enemy from more than one angle if they remotely know what they're doing; and prevent the same from happening to themselves.

Shadowrun houserules:
Frank's matrix stuff & half skill costs
Corebook & Street magic only
BP advancement

Skill consolidation as follows:
Athletics becomes a single skill instead of a skill group, merry christmas. Close combat becomes a single skill because I'm tired of shitting on melee dudes. Likewise, Dodge is killed with fire. If you want to defend against dudes with out even spending a pass, you need to know some Fu. The Firearms group covers three skills, pistols, longarms and heavy weapons, which are divided like so: pistols (as core, plus machine pistols), longarms (corebook longarms+automatics, minus machine pistols), and heavy weapons (as standard). My reasoning is that the only qualities people really care about in Shadowrun are power, subtlety and range. Pistols nearly corners the market on subtlety, while heavy weapons and longarms slap fight over everything else. That the categories vaguely make sense is something I consider a plus, but not a terribly important one.

Oh, and no glitches, critical successes or rolling Edge when your pool would otherwise be negative kajillion, because those things all blow.

I like Fate's Aspect system enough that I frequently try to tack it onto games I run.

Judging__Eagle wrote:I'll be honest, in Live Action RP; being able to physically be out of the line of sight of enemies is a really big fucking power.

At certain larps, common practice among PCs when near woods after sundown is to form circles that face outwards, because it prevents assassins from quickly dropping a single character with a backstab attack.

During the day time; someone who exposes their back or flanks to you is probably dead; and characters try to approach an enemy from more than one angle if they remotely know what they're doing; and prevent the same from happening to themselves.

Yes, but when you approach and attack someone in LARP, do they then walk in a semicircle around you while you stand there and let them so they can suddenly backstab you?

Catching someone completely by surprise by sneaking up on them is one thing, but doing the kind of stupid manoeuvring that can only work in turn-based games is something else.

Koumei wrote:

Judging__Eagle wrote:I'll be honest, in Live Action RP; being able to physically be out of the line of sight of enemies is a really big fucking power.

At certain larps, common practice among PCs when near woods after sundown is to form circles that face outwards, because it prevents assassins from quickly dropping a single character with a backstab attack.

During the day time; someone who exposes their back or flanks to you is probably dead; and characters try to approach an enemy from more than one angle if they remotely know what they're doing; and prevent the same from happening to themselves.

Yes, but when you approach and attack someone in LARP, do they then walk in a semicircle around you while you stand there and let them so they can suddenly backstab you?

Catching someone completely by surprise by sneaking up on them is one thing, but doing the kind of stupid manoeuvring that can only work in turn-based games is something else.

That always felt goofy in Final fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre

Pretty much anything involving minis and a battlemat: Fuck the official definitions, just use a damned laser pointer to determine LoS/ Cover / Concealment.

Prak_Anima wrote:I like Fate's Aspect system enough that I frequently try to tack it onto games I run.

I just looked at that and it sort of touches on an idea I had about abstracting out Ability Scores.

I would be a lot happier with FATE if aspects did something inherently and people spent points to make them do more. I think it's really actually very silly that someone has to spend or gift a FATE point for bullets to become less accurate in the dark. I would be a much happier person with the whole system if shooting in the dark was inherently difficult and people could spend FATE points to make bullets hit other things in the confusion.

-Username17

I actually like the way Paizo used campaign traits in the recent Adventure Paths: give a small mechanical benefit and combine it with background/story/plot hook to so it becomes at some point later on. Used this in Dungeonslayers, worked great for everyone.

FrankTrollman wrote:I would be a lot happier with FATE if aspects did something inherently and people spent points to make them do more. I think it's really actually very silly that someone has to spend or gift a FATE point for bullets to become less accurate in the dark. I would be a much happier person with the whole system if shooting in the dark was inherently difficult and people could spend FATE points to make bullets hit other things in the confusion.

-Username17

I had similar thoughts when we used FATE in an urban setting and us - the players - constantly argued with the GM about basic stuff you totally should be allowed to do or that totally would work this way on a constant basis. The flexibility of aspects is a problem when you want to have hard setting conditions, and you can tag your local setting only with so much aspects before its becomes really confusing. I like aspects, quite a bit actually, but this is what effectively prevented me from running a FATE game of my own so far.

I really dig the Mortal Wounds and Tampering with Mortality Rules from Adventurer Conqueror King. I would totally consider porting them over to 3.x the next time I run it.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Pretty much anything involving minis and a battlemat: Fuck the official definitions, just use a damned laser pointer to determine LoS/ Cover / Concealment.

That's what 40k ended up doing (so that they could sell a laser pointer for $20-30. It's shaped like a servo-skull, the laser is set into its mechanical eye. Cool, but in no way worth the price they want).

I don't hate the laser pointer idea, but it demands much more of a commitment to miniature terrain than I'm really up for.

Yeah, that's why I prefer the Boobie KnightsRelic Knights approach, which is to look down (get as close to "directly overhead" as possible) and see if you can draw an invisible straight line between the two models. Any part of the base to any part of the base. If nothing breaks that line, congratulations, you have LoS. If something does, then you don't have LoS.

That might sound like it's a 2d set-up, and that's because it is. Having your arm extend past the base doesn't extend your actual hitbox or range, and wonky terrain is basically treated as the smallest box that could contain it (although terrain is generally supposed to be spaced out so that a large model can move between any two pieces - you shouldn't have two buildings just 1" apart and then put a beam from one to the other that blocks all LoS).

Basically, it was designed so you can play it on Vassal or whatever rather than using actual literal minis, if you want to play with your friend in Kenya while you're in Canada. Because "fuck GW, let's get players to like us" is one of their actual goals. "Ranged weapons have sufficient range that you only need LoS, range just isn't going to be relevant on these small battlefields" is another rule they use, and you can't read that without thinking "40k has sniper rifles with a range of 36 inches, so about 36 metres if scaled up to full size".

Koumei wrote:

Josh_Kablack wrote:Pretty much anything involving minis and a battlemat: Fuck the official definitions, just use a damned laser pointer to determine LoS/ Cover / Concealment.

That's what 40k ended up doing (so that they could sell a laser pointer for $20-30. It's shaped like a servo-skull, the laser is set into its mechanical eye. Cool, but in no way worth the price they want).

They also sell a similarly-designed tape measure for 16.50.

From d6 Starwars: if the players score a hit on a stormtrooper/TIE fighter - don't bother rolling for damage. The foe just goes down.

I've adopted that rule for low-powered mooks in GURPS and Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green as well. I'm a proponent of the idea that combat should be FAST, and anything I can do to speed it up is worthwhile.

d20 style cyclic initiative.

It works, it's easy and intuitive, and it's easy to port over to other systems.

Yeah, any game that says "roll Initiative EVERY turn :D" or "Declare actions, then roll initiative, then resolve backwards and force people to change their actions anyway (spending resources)" or "Roll initiative, then slowest initiative starts to act, anyone faster can OBJECTION! it and so on", I cross that section out and just say "We're doing it like 3E D&D".