House Rules
By The Warden
Last week, I wrote about how initiative in many RPGs was broken in how it related to group dynamics. As I wrote the piece, I felt empowered as if I was on a roll with something, but that feeling went away by the time it was posted a week ago today. Like getting really drunk, what felt great at the time lead to a nasty hangover.
Not so much what I wrote, but how unresolved that article concluded. It’s a nasty habit to get into, trashing something as ineffective and moving on as if my finger pointing saved the world. As a publisher, I’ve had to put up with it a few times and when it came to me how I was no better than those finger-pointers, I went to the box and felt shame. Luckily, I have a chance to go back to the same bar and make amends to those I embarrassed with my drunken revelry by offering them a drink or paying for some nachos for their table.
Today we’re going to look at one of the best features of the role-playing game: customization. Video games may pull in billions of dollars in sales, but if it’s broke, you can’t fix it. We’ve all experienced our own moments in nearly any tabletop RPG where something just didn’t quite work out by following the rules to the letter. Sure, that rule may work for thousands of other gamers out there, but it left a foul taste in your group’s mouth and that piece of candy needs a new flavor if it’s going to last in your mouth. So we customize our games and create house rules. Additional hit points, eliminating magic items, wound penalties, bonus experience, animal companions, building your own mechs, and anything our wild imagination can think up. There’s an entire subset of forum threads and PDF publications dedicated almost exclusively to house rules for existing systems.
We’re going to return to the initiative conundrum from last week to look at how customization makes this genre of gaming great. How can we adjust the existing rules of some of the most popular RPGs to create a group dynamic in initiative rolls? To do this, we have to set down some parameters, as does all forms of customization.
- We only want to affect initiative itself and avoid having any house rules affect components outside of initiative rolls;
- It should be easy to incorporate without requiring modifications to the character sheet or a new chart for GMs to paperclip to their existing screens or books. Additionally, it should not affect how the GM rolls initiative for monsters and other enemies in combat;
- Finally, it should be an optional rule, allowing group to switch back and forth easily between the original rule and the house rule.
Not all forms of customization require such guidelines and like all house rules, it’s what suits the styles of each group. It’s why no one house rule works for everyone. If that were the case, they wouldn’t be trying to make a house rule in the first place. If anything, there’s a greater chance any house rules devised here today will be shot down more than it will be embraced (or simply appreciated).
For example, I’ve run D&D 4th edition games without miniatures and in a style similar to Bruce Cordell’s recent post on playing in the Theater of the Mind. In combat (which is the majority of the time), all characters are considered adjacent unless the player or the GM states otherwise. If they are listed as a ranged opponent, they must state how many squares (rounded to the nearest 5) away they are from the bulk of the action (where the majority of characters remain adjacent). Therefore, if you’re a ranger pulling back on the bow, the player may tell me “I’m back 10 squares,” meaning I must use a power with a range of 10 squares to affect the ranger. If I use a power with a range of 5 squares, I can affect all adjacent opponents and roll accordingly; anything less than 5 squares in a power requires the player or GM to choose which characters they will affect, so a power with close burst 2 means I can only choose half of the opponents. On the surface, this may seem bizarrely vague and interpretive and I’ve heard numerous people shoot me down for trying it… but it worked for me and that particular group. If anything, they found it incredibly refreshing and became the only version of 4e they enjoyed. Yet I wouldn’t expect others to want to try it unless their own group detested grids and miniatures and wouldn’t dream of trying to publish such a rule.
We’re getting off track – let’s return to customizing our initiative rules. For the sake of clarity, I’m going to use the most popular RPGs as a basis (meaning D&D and Pathfinder, as they have similar initiative rules). According to my beef with initiative last week, it’s an entirely individualistic enterprise and I want to adapt it to group a group initiative mechanic while still meeting the Three Guidelines above.
IDEA #1: THE GROUP ROLL
GMs never roll individual per monster; perhaps the players could follow that example. A single player rolls for initiative on behalf of the entire party. If she rolls higher, all the PCs get to act first; if not, the monsters go first. When it’s the group’s turn, the character with the highest initiative modifier goes first and so forth until the “slowest” character finishes.
This is perhaps overly simplistic and the biggest flaw with it right off the bat is that not all monsters run on the same initiative roll. There could be 2-4 different types of monsters within a single fight and each one has their own initiative result, so we’re not duplicating the GM’s version at all. There’s also little flexibility and creates a more restrictive initiative order than anything in the original version, so it’s safe to assume this first idea is too simplistic.
IDEA #2: TEAMWORK
All PCs divide themselves into teams based on their role (such as defenders in D&D), combat range (melee or range) or abilities (weapons vs. magic). A single character from each team rolls initiative and order is established in smaller groups. Once a team’s turn arrives, all PCs on that team act according to their initiative modifiers.
What makes a team? That depends on the situation at hand. Perhaps you want to mix things up so that a ranged character provides support to a melee character, or allow a spellcaster the opportunity to assist a pair of melee fighters through buff spells and the like. There’s nothing other than creativity and strategy limiting which characters can be grouped together to form a team other than any limitations set down by situational circumstances. For example, if an encounter begins with a stone wall falling into the middle of the room and splitting the party in half, then only those characters on the same side of the wall can pair up.
Options such as delaying must then be limited to any other order within a character’s existing team. For example, if your character is normally the first one to act, you can delay to become the last one in your team to act, but you cannot delay any further in the initiative order than your team’s result. There may be room for an option allowing you to do so, but then you would no longer be part of that original team and would have to join up with another one. All the standard rules for delaying would apply, except now it would be from one team’s initiative result to another instead of individual character initiative results.
IDEA #3: COUNTERPOINTS
For this last idea, let’s try and stretch the boundaries a bit. Perhaps initiative can be a cause-and-effect style of play where initiative order is determined solely by which character rolled the highest and which enemies they’re dealing with at that particular moment.
First, all players roll initiative as normal for their characters; the GM rolls nothing. This determines the order for all PCs with the highest going first as normal. That PC then announces which enemy they’ll direct their attention towards, whether it’s a single opponent or an entire group (depending on the type of attack they’re planning to use on their turn). If the PC has a higher initiative modifier than the chosen opponent(s), the PC goes first; if not, the opponent(s) goes first. In a sense, this creates a more narrative blow-by-blow account.
If another PC wishes to engage an opponent already attacked by an ally, then he or she can do so without fear of retaliation – that opponent has already used their turn for this round. Doing so also provides opportunity for “weaker” characters or those without the benefit of great Armor Class to engage an opponent without as much risk, though it does require the GM to address that character on the next round. It also embraces the role of “tanks” in the fantasy games we’re using as our basis, allowing them the chance to piss off their enemies first and direct their focus at the guy in the plate mail armor.
Any opponents remaining at the end of a round can then use their turns as normal to close everything out. You can then re-roll initiative on a round-by-round basis for variety or maintain the original result throughout the encounter until the very end.
A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION
These are just three possibilities devised by one person as a potential solution to a perceived problem and there’s no telling which other options may be waiting out there in the vast space of the Internet. It’s entirely conceivable for a group gathered around a table at this very moment is shooting elastic bands at paper cups marked with character names on the back or drawing pieces of scrap paper from a hat to determine initiative order.
Customization is a tricky feat and subject to interpretation. The three examples given above can be wild nonsense to some, plausible but unnecessary concepts to others, and brilliant strategies to the rest. Percentages may vary. What it all boils down to is how you and your players view the roll of a particular rule in your game and the style in which your games are presented. Gritty campaigns tend towards low magic and heavy tolls on hit points with house rules such as wound penalties; fantastic settings embrace the unbelievable and expect their heroes to perform incredible feats of strength, bravery, and survival. Much like film genres, each one is subject to the whims of its director and the particular story he’s chosen. House rules work like film stock and cinematography: they allow you to express your own story through a unique voice spoken in a familiar language. It’s like the old saying goes, “the medium is the message.” In RPGs, the medium is the collection of rules you’ve chosen to present your story. So long as your players have signed up for the next installment of their incredible saga, no medium is the wrong choice.
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