Rules to improve the Pathfinder (and D&D) gaming experience


Homebrew and House Rules


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Pathfinder (current version) and it's cousin 3.5 are pretty cool systems, but it just feels like there's something missing from the whole gaming experience that needs addressing. Something that can help prevent player burnout, so your long-running group that's on it's 7th campaign doesn't break down into that jaded grognard state where everyone's just secretly complaining to themselves or their GM while putting on a brave face.

We can fix that with just a few more rules. Here's what I propose:

Grief Points. There are lots of points in PF. There's experience points (XP), hero points (HP), hit points (also HP, for clarity), and a bunch more that come from the various subsystems like Relationship points (RP, not to be confused with role-playing, which is RP), Rebellion Points (RP, not to be confused with RP or RP), Reputation Points (RP, not the same as RP, RP, or RP) and so on. But what's really missing are GP, which is not the same as gp.

Grief points (GP) are awarded to the player that maintains the spreadsheets and loot database and all the other accounting details that PF and 3.5 are famous for. They don't come automatically, though: only when other players start arguing about whether or not something has been recorded correctly, or how to divide up the loot, or any other exchange that makes the player with the bookkeeping duty recalculate everything, add columns to their spreadsheet, build Pivot Tables or macros, or (worst of all) convert things to a Wiki format which they then have to maintain.

The GM awards Grief Points when they've had enough of the email exchange. Grief Points can be exchanged for XP or magic items at the GM's discretion, with the understanding that bookkeeping is a thankless job, and the player is suffering because no good deed goes unpunished.

Rules Lawyering Cards. Like Soccer, you hand out penalty cards to players that bring the game to a halt with rules minutiae that no one else cares about. The GM can hand out yellow cards and red cards, and when a player collects enough cards of a certain color their character develops spontaneous game conditions. Like nauseated. Or fatigued. Or dead.

Retcon Points. These are RP (not to be confused with RP, RP, RP, or RP) that players can use to do that thing their character would have done had they not been distracted by that player at the table that is always distracting the other players with unrelated social conversations. Because nothing is worse than realizing "I totally meant to cast that spell/activate the special ability on my sword/don my armor/change to my bow" and that your character would actually have done that but you, the player, forgot because that person just won't shut up.

Punctuality Bonuses. I would name this Punctuality Points, but that would be PP which would be confused with pp, and besides, no one wants PP on their character sheet. But there are those players who are habitually late, and ones who are habitually early, and they should be rewarded and punished accordingly, especially since the latter delay the game and the former are probably the first ones to set out the food. PB are used to modify XP earnings.

Pizza Points. This one is self-explanatory.

Hosting Points. Recorded as HP, not HP or HP. The host has to do things like vacuum the floors, clean the toilets, and clean up after the game by dealing with the dirty dishes, tossing out the garbage, and disinfecting everything anyone touched. They also may have to herd cats (real cats; try it sometime), fence off dogs, and establish a guest WiFi network. HP can be exchanged for HP but not HP.

I am sure there are more things the game can do to help, but this is what comes to me off the top of my head.


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Whut? I think that basic communication and a respectful understanding between people allows this kind of stuff to be sorted out on its own without some sort of official points system.

I play for fun with my friends, and we almost never have to deal with any of this. Though maybe I'm the outlier here

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I guess this is a supposedly funny parody thread about the concept of "out-of-game" Hero Points in PF2.

I think I'm supposed to do a "ha ha", but I kind of don't feel like it today. Anybody?


Gorbacz wrote:
I guess this is a supposedly funny parody thread about the concept of "out-of-game" Hero Points in PF2.

The notion of HP for pizza dates back to the APG.


Gorbacz wrote:

I guess this is a supposedly funny parody thread about the concept of "out-of-game" Hero Points in PF2.

I think I'm supposed to do a "ha ha", but I kind of don't feel like it today. Anybody?

That makes sense. Your interpretation, not the idea.


Aboleth Sticks,

The only question is why aren't you writing comedy? That was all gold.

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