WoD: House Rules
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R&R discussion dipped into the fun topic of house rules for WoD games. I’m curious about your thoughts.
How much deviation would you tolerate before deciding that the game is no longer a “WoD” game? And how would you gauge this metric?
How would you approach a game that actually billed itself as “inspired by” WoD but not actually WoD, but perhaps gutted an entire system like the pledge system? In which almost everything else about the theme is identical to WoD theme. Would it matter to you? Do you prefer knowing before hand that a game may have altered large chunks of the rules?
These rules could be fundamental. Removing a werewolf form or the glamour harvesting system or something. Adjusting how social doors work. Is it still WoD? And if it doesn’t call itself WoD, would this accurately inform you of anything useful?
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No single answer, but:
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I’ll tolerate more if the differences are clearly laid out before I invest time into the game. I’ll tolerate less if the game keeps changing the rules midstream, or hides changes until you run into them in play, or especially if it does both.
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I’ll tolerate more if the changes seem to be grounded in a desire to do things I’m in sympathy with (say, to make an otherwise awkward system work more smoothly). I’ll tolerate less if they seem to stem from a desire to do things I don’t care for.
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I’ll tolerate more if the game is otherwise well-run and engaging. If I can get involved and have fun with it, I am less concerned that, say, the Ventrue don’t exist, or that Werewolf characters don’t have rank, or whatever.
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For me I think it depends on the reason for the house rules more than the rules themselves.
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It’s kinda funny, I was just talking to someone who was thinking of doing a Chronicles of Darkness game using just the CoD core rules and directly related sourcebooks. The focus would be on mortals, and psychics, and any other supernatural things they’d allow would use Dread Powers or something.
I thought it was a neat idea. Gives people a recognizable system but still gives it a fresh coat of paint.
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@Livia said in WoD: House Rules:
For me I think it depends on the reason for the house rules more than the rules themselves.
This, but most of all, I want to clearly see the reason for the house rule plainly stated somewhere. Why? Because if staff outlines why something was ruled that way, it lets me understand what kind of game the want to run–what themes they’re interested versus what bumps up against that, what sorts of stories they want to tell, what mechanics they do and don’t want to deal with, etc.
That makes it a whole lot easier for me to gauge what staff is looking for, or at least willing to engage with, when it comes to their interaction with players than things getting ruled on a case by case basis that can sometimes feel like, “Which GM card did you draw from the lottery? Do they like this plot? Do they like you? What mood are they in today? Is the wind blowing south-westerly and the moon full?” that can happen when you’re dealing with WoD, especially on a multi-sphere game with conflicting rules between splat, edition, and supplement.
Then again, I also tend to prefer single-sphere games specifically because they make the rule base so much easier to navigate. You may still need to HR something, but at least it’s going to be because of theme, mechanical confusion, or trying to make something work better on a MU*, instead of just, “Yeah, every sphere has a different but also overlapping skill list because screw you, that’s why.”
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Big things for me:
- Is the house rule clearly explained so I know how it is likely to affect my play?
- Does it pass the “smell test”? Which is to say, when I read the rule, can I see what it’s trying to do, do I agree with what it’s trying to do, and do I think it will actually accomplish that? (And, honestly? WoD/CoD generally DOES need a little more houseruling than it gets when trying to blend spheres that have conflicting powers/themes/foci.)
- Do I think it’ll be fun and fair to all players?
If those three things are a yes, then I’m willing to run with it. When you’re talking about big changes–adding or removing or completely rehauling a system like pledges or whatever–then I do want the new rules to maintain the theme and appeal of the game for me. Like, HR rules to streamline making spirits and how they interact with the world from the rather complicated setup in CoD? Sure, I’m in, as long as spirits are still CoD spirits in recognizable ways.
