Long-time DMs: How often were you a member of the avant garde?


Gamer Life General Discussion


What I mean is this: You felt, years or even decades ago, that there was a lack/weakness in the game, and came up with a fix/house rule you felt improved play. Then, a later version of said game incorporated your very change as canonical.

In other words, which of the innovations you arrived at independently later found their way into D&D?

I myself, for example, came up with (among numerous others):


  • Dead at negative constitution rather than -10 (this one more than 25 years ago)
  • Specific combat styles that afforded situational bonuses
Now I'm by no means claiming either of these are particularly brilliant ... but it was cool to see that others had noted similar problems and addressed them.

How about you?


Yeah; eg 3.5 D&D addressed my concerns with 3.0, and 4e D&D addressed my concerns with 3.5. I fairly often see my house rules subsequently reflected in games, but I post a lot on message boards (well over 10,000 posts on ENW, for instance) so the designers may have read my thoughts - and I'm pretty smart so my thoughts are often good. :D


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Not D&D:
Mage The Ascension had nine spheres of power. One of them was Entropy which was terrible mix up of Fate/Fortune and Death. I decided to split them into two separate spheres of Fortune and Death. Then came Mage The Awakening... With ten arcana. White Wolf went for Fate and Death split there.


Sorry about that, Drejk.

Everyone reading this: Feel free to note your innovations from other games as well. Should have been clearer on that point.


S'mon wrote:
Yeah; eg 3.5 D&D addressed my concerns with 3.0, and 4e D&D addressed my concerns with 3.5. I fairly often see my house rules subsequently reflected in games, but I post a lot on message boards (well over 10,000 posts on ENW, for instance) so the designers may have read my thoughts - and I'm pretty smart so my thoughts are often good. :D

I'd say that's so for many if not most posting here, S'mon. ;)

Do you have a few specific examples for us of your innovations? I'd enjoy reading about them.


Jaelithe wrote:
S'mon wrote:
Yeah; eg 3.5 D&D addressed my concerns with 3.0, and 4e D&D addressed my concerns with 3.5. I fairly often see my house rules subsequently reflected in games, but I post a lot on message boards (well over 10,000 posts on ENW, for instance) so the designers may have read my thoughts - and I'm pretty smart so my thoughts are often good. :D

I'd say that's so for many if not most posting here, S'mon. ;)

Do you have a few specific examples for us of your innovations? I'd enjoy reading about them.

Stuff that got copied? Hm, reducing the duration on 3.0's stat buff spells and making them fixed-bonus was one. I think I had it 10 minutes/level not 3.5's 1 minute/level, though. My 3.5 game went over to a monster building system loosely based on AD&D via C&C that was very similar to that in 4e (4e more complex though).

Ideas that have not yet been wildly copied are probably more interesting, though? Eg for my Pathfinder campaign:

1. No critical hit confirmation roll.
2. Crits do fixed damage, x2 = max, x3 = 1.5 max, x4 = x2 max.
3. Stats are rolled best 3 of 4d6 in order, but swap any pair (got that from another GM). My AD&D game is the same, but there you can raise your highest two rolls to '15'.
4. Character Base Save Bonus = Level, for all stats.

Those simple modifications make the game play a lot better, faster, less swingy, and more balanced IME. Hopefully Pathfinder 2.0 will follow them. :)


Jaelithe wrote:


I'd say that's so for many if not most posting here, S'mon. ;)

Well it certainly beats the WotC boards. :D

But I'm British, so prone to understatement. And modest, too. :P

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