4
\$\begingroup\$

I confess: I've been doing some tweaking to the games I've been running and I'd be proud to share them here. In exchange, I'd be interested in seeing what cool modifications others have come up with. Is it appropriate to start a community-wiki thread with a title like "What are your GAME X house rules and modifications?" and let people go to town, or is something with such little guiding focus better for another site?

\$\endgroup\$

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
8
\$\begingroup\$

I really don't think that such a question, even on a per system basis would be very useful to anyone.

Such a question might be ok if

  • It was community wiki.
  • It was system specific
  • It was asked with regards to a specific mechanic.

ie:

What are your house rules for differentiating firearms damage in d20 modern?

Basically, keep the questions specific.

\$\endgroup\$
7
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I disagree. Part of Stack Exchange is to act as a wiki as well as as a place to get questions answered. It not just a Q&A site but repository for expert knowledge about a subject. A collection of house rules for a system is part of this. Trying to limit these type of posts it a specific mechanic is too narrow. \$\endgroup\$
    – RS Conley Mod
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 13:19
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ I think specific questions are always the best way to go. \$\endgroup\$
    – anon186
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 15:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @RS Conley--Wouldn't keeping the questions at least somewhat specific help keep that repository organized? We can't tag answers, so there's no way for someone to sort through the wide variety of house rules if they're all lumped together. \$\endgroup\$
    – Numenetics
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 16:48
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Numenetic I think we should enforce them to be limited to a system unless it is really obvious that there needs to be a sub category. In practice I think we will find that only the major editions of D&D will have enough traffic to warrant this. And we should only worry about the sub categories once the traffic actually materializes. To do otherwise will annoy new users. \$\endgroup\$
    – RS Conley Mod
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 16:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ @RS Conley: Agreed--My D&D orientation was coming through there, I think. \$\endgroup\$
    – Numenetics
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 23:04
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I agree - CW and tightly scoped only. It's OK to do it, but it turns into worthless noise if not scoped - a SE Q&A is NOT a proper wiki that can be organized and sub-paged. \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk Mod
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 23:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think RS Conley has a point about scope depending on the game: house-rules for any mechanic for a game like Zenobia could be all in one question without becoming unwieldy. However, that becomes hard to judge. Better to go with specific as default, since we can merge but not split later. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Commented Sep 11, 2010 at 0:36
2
\$\begingroup\$

Your question is why the community wiki feature exists. The only suggestions I have is limit each post to one system as it will help fans of that system find the posts easier.

\$\endgroup\$
2
\$\begingroup\$

Personally, I would rather have system+topic specific questions, but that may just be personal preference. I think that as long as it doesn't duplicate an existing question (there are a few houserule CWs out there) that it wouldn't need to be closed. People can vote on it to express preference for such a general question.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

I'd much rather see a question like, "Where can I go on the net to find lists of house rules?"

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Hosue rules is a problematic tag only because it requires another tag to exist. Theres a good policy on stackexchange to avoid tags that can't surive on their own and are subjective (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/). Hosuerules probably qualifies and we should remove it as a result.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ so if a person wants to look up various house rules for GURPS on the Stackexchange how do they go about this? \$\endgroup\$
    – RS Conley Mod
    Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 20:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ I completely disagree. House rules is a perfectly well defined and commonly understood concept in roleplaying games. \$\endgroup\$
    – Eric Weilnau
    Commented Sep 12, 2010 at 14:09

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .