User Blog:
Bonus Content: Trick Out My RPG

 Thanks to a great conversation I stumbled across yesterday and then a second I had late last night, I've been thinking a lot about house rules. Is it okay to do? Is it too likely to unbalance the game? Does it mean the game system blows? Does it mean you're playing the wrong game? Honestly, they're all valuable questions, that, at the end of the day, you can only answer for yourself in the context of your gaming group, but in the meantime, let me give you some things to think about when you're making those decisions.

I remember back in early high school playing Palladium's Rifts. It has a lot of loyal fans, and at the time I was a die hard. The system was... a little less then streamlined. We found a lot of hiccups, misreading of rules and a lack of ability to play how we wanted to play. These days, I would have tossed the book to the side and found something else to play. In those days, a system that didn't work the way we wanted meant only one thing; break out the duct tape, the hot glue and the nail gun— it's time to house rule this sum a biscuit. We had that game so patched and spackled you'd hardly recognize it. As I said to a friend last night, it was like a classic car you had to hit in just the right spot to get it to even start. Of course, when it did start, it hummed like a kitten and we had a blast. (What mixed metaphor? You saw nothing, move on.)

Since that time I've lost a little bit of patience with quirks in design and I've surely lost the mountains of time I had as a teenager to jury-rig a whole game. Despite that, I know every table I sit down at, we have modified rules. House rules meant to make the game work for the way we play.

Let me just say it clearly; it is perfectly okay to house rule a game.

There, you have my permission, (for whatever that's worth,) go forth and tweak to you heart's content.

So we've established it's okay to do. To return to the car metaphor, I know plenty of great players and GMs who get a game and I know the first thing on their mind is how they can get 'under the hood' and 'trick it out.' That is, they actually enjoy taking a game system and seeing what they can do to change and manipulate it. That's a part of the hobby for them. I say more power to 'em.