House Rules vs Rules as Written
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@Killer-Klown Or HRing things selectively. So you have four factions but you gut one of them and take out their cool powers without putting anything in its place - so suddenly no one plays there, and that affects affects IC dynamics.
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@ThatGuyThere said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
Not sure about Dark Fate off the top of my head, but Common Sense is one that should have 0 issue and should be taken by more people, but isn't because people don't want to "waste" points.
You do realize that as written common sense requires a storyteller present, right? That is not something that is happening in the vast majority of MUSH scenes, making it a prime example of something not written for a MUSH environment.
Edit for @Miss-Demeanor OWoD version is just the storyteller warns you before you do something abjectly stupid. Exact wording "Storyteller should alert you as to how your potential action might violate practicality."
No roll involved.Jesus, I wish we could get that Common Sense back! I would take that all day long. The one we have now is utter shit in comparison!
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@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
I think the issue with places that have "excessive" HRs (and maybe HRs in general) is that people just want to change the game to fit them rather than playing it the way it was presented, but don't want to own up to that.
Changing rules to alter the play style is not only acceptable, but White Wolf's "Rule Zero" was explicitly to do just this.
There are systems where house ruling changes the underlying system, where you have to be super careful and know about game balance and pinpoint identify what you are trying to accomplish. World/Chronicles of Darkness is not one of them.
Misattributing the reasons is a peeve already covered by @Coin.
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@surreality said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@surreality Doubtful. I think you're just willing to cater to worse behavior than I would be.
What I -- as player or staff -- tolerate or not has precious little bearing on what some people will attempt to get away with on any given game, period.
That's exactly what it has to do with. What you allow players on your game to get away with is what people will try to get away with. That's the culture your game develops.
If someone tries something you think is wrong for your game, just say no. It doesn't matter if they are trying it because they think they're anonymous. Say no. Its that simple. Say no. Grow a spine and say no. Don't be traumatized and paralyzed with fear of what someone might do. Just say no.
If you can't do that you should run a game or be on staff and have no business being around house rules in the first place.
@ThatGuyThere said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
You do realize that as written common sense requires a storyteller present, right? That is not something that is happening in the vast majority of MUSH scenes, making it a prime example of something not written for a MUSH environment.
Edit for @Miss-Demeanor OWoD version is just the storyteller warns you before you do something abjectly stupid. Exact wording "Storyteller should alert you as to how your potential action might violate practicality."
No roll involved.Just because a storyteller isn't around constantly doesn't mean the merit no longer has value. For every scene that does have an ST, the merit applies quite well - and those are usually the scenes you need the merit for. You won't get a benefit at the bar scene or the coffee shop scene or the TS scene, but you generally don't need the merit there.
However, LARPs don't always have a hovering ST and they work fine. It was never said that any of this was written for a MU* environment, but rather that there was obvious consideration in the concepts for groups larger than 3-5 at a tabletop. Just like with LARPs, although the game is written to be played with an ST present, you can get along without one for casual RP just fine. For other scenes, STs are involved. We don't change the entire nature of the game in MU*s because an ST isn't always present at every second of the day for every scene. You don't need to change the nature of the merit either. It works well enough.
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@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
You won't get a benefit at the bar scene or the coffee shop scene or the TS scene, but you generally don't need the merit there.
You feel that perhaps that sexual position while sipping your latte may be far too advanced for you, despite being a thrice-virgin ninja vampire wizard demon. You seem to think that an attempt could leave you with a rather nasty cramp. If you wish to proceed anyway, then roll Dexterity + Athletics with a 3 dice penalty.
I beg to differ, I believe it's most useful there.
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@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@surreality said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@surreality Doubtful. I think you're just willing to cater to worse behavior than I would be.
What I -- as player or staff -- tolerate or not has precious little bearing on what some people will attempt to get away with on any given game, period.
That's exactly what it has to do with. What you allow players on your game to get away with is what people will try to get away with. That's the culture your game develops.
If someone tries something you think is wrong for your game, just say no. It doesn't matter if they are trying it because they think they're anonymous. Say no. Its that simple. Say no. Grow a spine and say no. Don't be traumatized and paralyzed with fear of what someone might do. Just say no.
If you can't do that you should run a game or be on staff and have no business being around house rules in the first place.
Frankly, I think you just keep compounding your fallacies here, and you keep making a number of assumptions that are pretty profoundly unintelligent.
Let's break this shit down, shall we?
#1: You assume a player on a game has the authority to dictate how others behave on that game. This is fundamentally and wholly false. The sum total of control a player has over how someone treats them is by not being around the person, reporting to staff about their issue, and employing page/@mail blocks, possibly just leave -- the end. A player does not make the rules on any given game they set foot on. The sum total of a player's power essentially amounts to: "I don't want to interact with you any more than I absolutely must."
#2: It's just as breathtakingly stupid to think any given staffer has this level of authority on most games. Your average staffer absolutely does not.
#3: You are essentially assuming that whoever is making any given HR is headstaff; this is rarely the case.
#4: You assume flawless reporting of issues from the playerbase. This is part of that 'living in a dream world' problem, because that simply isn't a thing. Most people do not report. Many people who do report end up reporting things that aren't actionable ('my boyfriend is TSing that hussy over there, do something!').
#4a: If you're not assuming flawless reporting from the playerbase, you're assuming that staff are aware of every single action taken on the game at all times. This is hilariously unrealistic and bears precisely zero relationship to reality.
#5: You assume that people will follow the rules they're presented with. Wouldn't that be nice? Most do! That's awesome. Plenty don't.
#6: You assume that players will actually even bother to read or be aware of those rules, which, from long experience staffing, I can pretty much promise you, many people simply don't. Many don't even own the books or know the material in the books, let alone any given house rules.
#7: You think that examples of action being taken are an effective deterrent. For some? Sure! But we still have people going to prison regularly in the real world, so punishment is clearly not a universally effective deterrent.
#8: You actually -- oh you sweet summer child -- think that telling some people 'no' will stop them from doing it anyway. That is adorable.
Again: if you don't think there's a notable difference in the way the game is played when people think they're anonymous and are detached from the consequences of their behavior by physical distance/ability to directly observe their fellow humans, and that these conditions can require changes in the way the game itself is played I'd say you're the one who has no business running a game or being on a staff, because that's shit you have to be prepared to handle. Sometimes, it is by telling people 'no', absolutely. Sometimes, it's by changing the requirements for a mechanic.
And this is even before we get into the problems of scale on a MUX, even though they certainly feed in to the ability to know what's going on at any given time.
It's cute that you don't think I have a spine. I would have banned Rex from Reno three days post-chargen because of his more detestable attitudes. Could I? Nope, not even as headstaff at the time, as all headstaff had to agree on such things. Is that stupid? YUP! So, yay for jumping to (hilariously incorrect) conclusions about how I handle things, I suppose; that's extra douchey and narrow-minded of you.
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I find house rules only necessary when something obvious is overlooked or the RAW doesn't work for the situation.
I had a few House Rules in place when I was going to be making a game using the new MET, both to 1. fix a couple of things for MUSH vs. LARP (things like time and timing) and 2. to fix a few mechanical things that I feel harm the game (the method for gaining Beast Traits and losing humanity is, by default, a bit insane). Some of these we also used in the LARP that I run (the Humanity mechanic).
I don't think I've ever house ruled a tabletop game.
I think house rules vary in method of importance and necessity. IF we're strictly talking MU* to tabletop, it's why I'm in the camp of 'make a MU* using an original ruleset and coded system that adjudicates and facilitates everything' so that, if an ST isn't present, people can still get their game on for things like combat.
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I largely just dislike making a blanket House Rule to solve a problem involving one aspect of a mechanic/power/etc. That and House Rules that are made... just because. Because someone in power wants a shiny, everyone has to suffer.
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Pretty much this, all of this.
@Bobotron said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
I find house rules only necessary when something obvious is overlooked or the RAW doesn't work for the situation.
...or when, as is especially typical of WoD throughout the years, there are two totally different and wholly reasonable possible interpretations of how something works from the source text, but for the sake of consistency -- when you have potentially dozens of STs on the game -- you have to pin down which interpretation is going to be in use on the game to help ensure fairness in how the power is applied, regardless of who is running any given scene.
That's the kind of judgment call every tabletop ST ever has and will make on the fly and they will generally stick with it; this is so common, and we're so accustomed to doing this in tabletop, it isn't even something people typically think about.
When you have multiple storytellers in play, this dynamic changes dramatically, as you can't have the same power working in completely different ways depending on who is running the scene and what their personal favorite interpretation of the rule is; you end up with endless inconsistencies. Potentially, it gets worse: accusations of favoritism/cheating/unfairness when a power works one way in one scene, and another way in another, even if the STs with different ideas about how a mechanic works allowing this to happen aren't staff. Down this road lies rules lawyer arguments vomited all over channels and potential retcons, none of which are wheeeeeee fun.
This one is, I think, the most common kind of house rule I've seen, provided a game isn't creating piles of custom stuff (which isn't bad, either, if they pay attention to shit like balance and fairness and whether it fits the vibe/etc.). It's been the most common one I've dealt with, anyway.
I think house rules vary in method of importance and necessity. IF we're strictly talking MU* to tabletop, it's why I'm in the camp of 'make a MU* using an original ruleset and coded system that adjudicates and facilitates everything' so that, if an ST isn't present, people can still get their game on for things like combat.
Ditto this. It would take longer and be more of a pain in the ass to convert even CoD, let alone nWoD or oWoD, to something that isn't going to run into an inconsistency, unclear mechanic, or otherwise problematic system to maintain.
What you describe re: insane mechanics, there really are a lot of those. A lot of things require judgment calls on the fly or direct ST intervention in the simple daily upkeep of the character, with some splats. This is not unreasonable for a group of 5-6 people who meet once a week to do their rolls, and it's not for a larger LARP group that might be sending in one downtime report every <game interval>, even though that number of players is larger. On a MUX, you have the larger number of players, and you have daily maintenance of those things if someone logs in every day -- which is just not terribly viable. 'Once per game session' in TT or LARP is generally not more than once a week; compare and contrast with 'potentially daily' and a large player group? Nnngh.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
Pretty much this, all of this.
...or when, as is especially typical of WoD throughout the years, there are two totally different and wholly reasonable possible interpretations of how something works from the source text, but for the sake of consistency -- when you have potentially dozens of STs on the game -- you have to pin down which interpretation is going to be in use on the game to help ensure fairness in how the power is applied, regardless of who is running any given scene.
Yeah; clarifications as 'house rules' are a necessity when doing TT-to-MU*, especially when the rules are not written 'if A, then B' type situation. I think this might be something that more TT-to-MU* games really need to do. It's why the MES has an addendum clarifying this, so there's consistency across every ST for the big, questionable things. Now, I wouldn't recommend something as huge as the MES's addenda. But, I think this type of consistency really helps set boundaries.
This one is, I think, the most common kind of house rule I've seen, provided a game isn't creating piles of custom stuff (which isn't bad, either, if they pay attention to shit like balance and fairness and whether it fits the vibe/etc.). It's been the most common one I've dealt with, anyway.
And utterly necessary in many instances, especially if you're considering a cross-venue instance like OWoD where some things are written directly in opposition of each other.
Ditto this. It would take longer and be more of a pain in the ass to convert even CoD, let alone nWoD or oWoD, to something that isn't going to run into an inconsistency, unclear mechanic, or otherwise problematic system to maintain.
It's worked out well in my history, but it also really is often limited to combat, which is the biggest crux of issues a lot of times anyway.
What you describe re: insane mechanics, there really are a lot of those. A lot of things require judgment calls on the fly or direct ST intervention in the simple daily upkeep of the character, with some splats. This is not unreasonable for a group of 5-6 people who meet once a week to do their rolls, and it's not for a larger LARP group that might be sending in one downtime report every <game interval>, even though that number of players is larger. On a MUX, you have the larger number of players, and you have daily maintenance of those things if someone logs in every day -- which is just not terribly viable. 'Once per game session' in TT or LARP is generally not more than once a week; compare and contrast with 'potentially daily' and a large player group? Nnngh.
Oh yeah. I think you have a copy of how I adjusted the LARP downtime rules to work on a MU*. That wasn't difficult but it was a bit of a thought process of what ends up allowing for the most usability and versatility. Same with making versions of the Herd Merit and such work for the game. I feel like a lot of this is fairly simple, but things that people overlook when building rules for game,s whether converting TT or using an original system.
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@surreality said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
Rant and rave and diarrhea of the mouth making assumptions that are pretty profoundly unintelligent while hypocritically trying to claim someone else is making assumptions as though this discussion or any other is based solely on scientific fact which I seem to equate to my own experiences, while at the same time saying everyone else's experiences are not only completely invalid, but a fantasy.
Besides being caustic and acidic for no reason other than you can (first clue of being unstable), you're completely off the rails about what the conversation is about and are just losing your shit for no discernible reason.
Your first point shows we're not even talking about the same thing so trying to have a conversation with you is pointless, as supported by many of your other off-topic, baseless points.
@Faceless said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
You won't get a benefit at the bar scene or the coffee shop scene or the TS scene, but you generally don't need the merit there.
You feel that perhaps that sexual position while sipping your latte may be far too advanced for you, despite being a thrice-virgin ninja vampire wizard demon. You seem to think that an attempt could leave you with a rather nasty cramp. If you wish to proceed anyway, then roll Dexterity + Athletics with a 3 dice penalty.
I beg to differ, I believe it's most useful there.
I stand corrected and concede.
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@Warma-Sheen ...are you actually insane?
Oh fucking well.
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There's a reason I stopped bothering.
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@Sunny Pretty much. When apparently the only reason to not use material precisely as written -- in a series of games notorious for vagaries and inconsistencies that explicitly says that you should rework whatever you want on the fly, designed for once a week or biweekly games involving face to face interaction consisting of less than a dozen people rather than persistent worlds comprising dozens if not a hundred or more PCs played by anonymous players -- is 'you're too much of a pussy to tell people no'?
Yeah, I'm really not so worried about me being the one 'unqualified to staff'.
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@Warma-Sheen said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
Just because a storyteller isn't around constantly doesn't mean the merit no longer has value.
I never mentioned the value, though it is lessened in a MUSH environment after all in a TT it is usable in 100 percent of scenes, in a mush far fewer.
For every scene that does have an ST, the merit applies quite well - and those are usually the scenes you need the merit for. You won't get a benefit at the bar scene or the coffee shop scene or the TS scene, but you generally don't need the merit there.
You can get into a lot of trouble in non-ST scenes pretty much any PvP starts out that way, not to mention making political errors that can have pretty large repercussions and in my experience the scenes where real political work get done rarely have anything close to a ST around. Hate to break it to you but there are a hell of a lot more scenes besides random bar and TS that lack STs.
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@surreality The biggest issue I have with what you're saying is that you're taking a few sentences in the start of the WoD/CoD books and waving them about like a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Yes, the book states you can change whatever doesn't work for you... in the context of a small group setting in which everyone can relatively easily agree upon what will be changed and how. Blanket applying that statement to the entire gameline as its being translated to MUSHes is about as ridiculous as expecting there to be no House Rules ever, at all. Its the opposing ends of the spectrum.
No House Rules Ever means the game will have areas where it fails hard and no way to fix it. It will lead to frustration and disgruntlement, and the best you can do is shrug and tell people to deal with it.
Do Whatever I Want Because the Book Says I Can leads to the game becoming so bloated with House Rules that its barely recognizable as a game and expects far more effort from its players to keep up with an ever-expanding body of House Rules.
This is where TR and FC failed (partly, anyways). They both quickly became a 'if I don't like the way this works, I'll just whine til they change it' free-for-all, no matter how much it fucked over the people that were actually playing by the RAW. More than half of the House Rules on both games are utterly unnecessary, add little to nothing to the game, and could easily have been solved simply by telling someone 'this is how it works per the book, follow it'.
tldr; House Rules for the sake of House Rules are confusing at best and actively thumb their noses at players at the worst. The books were written entirely within the context of a small group of dedicated players (including the part that says to change whatever you want).
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@Miss-Demeanor said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@surreality The biggest issue I have with what you're saying is that you're taking a few sentences in the start of the WoD/CoD books and waving them about like a Get Out of Jail Free card.
I have to ask -- where exactly am I saying this? I'm saying: the canon material suggests doing this. The canon material has suggested this repeatedly and often since 1991, and has not changed its stance on this. By saying, 'stick to the canon' in the case of WoD/etc., you're choosing to ignore that this, actually, is a part of the canon.
Yes, the book states you can change whatever doesn't work for you... in the context of a small group setting in which everyone can relatively easily agree upon what will be changed and how. Blanket applying that statement to the entire gameline as its being translated to MUSHes is about as ridiculous as expecting there to be no House Rules ever, at all. Its the opposing ends of the spectrum.
I really don't see this in what I'm saying at all. Again, see the above -- that is in the canon.
Systems require more or less translation for different circumstances. We would not have different rulesets for LARP and tabletop if this was not a basic reality on the ground. That the authors recognize this is a plus, because the actual canon is often vague, inconsistent, or otherwise unclear.
As I stated earlier: the most common form of house rule is a determination of which interpretation of an ambiguous writeup or mechanic is going to be on that game for purposes of consistency. This doesn't actually change anything; it simply clarifies which of several potential interpretations is going to be in use on the game to ensure fairness and to provide reference for multiple STs to all be on the same page. That's pretty important.
No House Rules Ever means the game will have areas where it fails hard and no way to fix it. It will lead to frustration and disgruntlement, and the best you can do is shrug and tell people to deal with it.
Agreed in full -- but it's what some are suggesting, and that in place of house rules of any kind, all you have to do is say "nope!" to have no problems ever -- and that's patently silly.
Do Whatever I Want Because the Book Says I Can leads to the game becoming so bloated with House Rules that its barely recognizable as a game and expects far more effort from its players to keep up with an ever-expanding body of House Rules.
I see house rules from almost the opposite end of the spectrum, actually.
It is typically to prevent a whole lot of 'do whatever I want' -- which happens fairly often. Again, it's often stuff people wouldn't try to get away with at a table or a LARP. Sometimes it's as simple as saying, "We're using the book rules exclusively for this, do not randomly add extra effects" -- this happened on TR, for instance, when players needed to be reminded that, yes, biokinesis has specific rules and effects, and it won't give you a magic wonderdong with extra impregnation powers or function as magical birth control just because a specific player decides to interpret the fluff that way. (Yes, that exactly happened.)
This is where TR and FC failed (partly, anyways). They both quickly became a 'if I don't like the way this works, I'll just whine til they change it' free-for-all, no matter how much it fucked over the people that were actually playing by the RAW. More than half of the House Rules on both games are utterly unnecessary, add little to nothing to the game, and could easily have been solved simply by telling someone 'this is how it works per the book, follow it'.
And ideally that's how it works, as I mentioned above.
Personally, I don't mind custom content tailored to a specific setting, provided it doesn't completely suck, and it is made available in a fair way to everyone (rather than 'I want a shiny so I'm going to make myself a special shiny!' because that's just bullshit).
tldr; House Rules for the sake of House Rules are confusing at best and actively thumb their noses at players at the worst. The books were written entirely within the context of a small group of dedicated players (including the part that says to change whatever you want).
There's a paradox here: yes, written for that context, including that.
Changes are inherently necessary for a different context. I keep repeating this, and we seem to agree on that point; people saying the tabletop as written is precisely how a MUX should operate are simply ignoring this like some inconvenient trivia, when it's absolutely not the case.
No, you're not going to get 100+ people to all agree about whatever the decision is about clarification #172 the way you might at a table with five buddies, but at the table you also don't have a dozen different STs at any given moment who are being confronted with how to handle situation #172 consistently for the game without that clarification that all need to be on the same page.
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@Miss-Demeanor said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
could easily have been solved simply by telling someone 'this is how it works per the book, follow it'.
This part seems really, really, really, really familiar.
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@surreality Yes, they recognized that different setting would require different rules... hence them making a whoooooooooole other line of books specifically for a LARP setting! However, MUSHing is comparable to tabletop in its mechanics and theme and rules. The game lines really don't require a ton of editing or House Ruling to make them workable on a MU* (unlike a LARP).
And here's the big thing... clarification =/= House Rule. You can clarify something without making it a rule. I don't know why you insist on talking about the two as if they're interchangeable, they really aren't.
And... TR failed on the House Rules front. What you mentioned about biokinesis? That's a clarification, that's not a House Rule. A House Rule is taking a mechanic that doesn't work for whatever reason, and changes it to make it work within the setting. A clarification is taking something that is functional but perhaps ambiguously worded (or someone is just an idiot and chooses to interpret it wrong) and offers the explanation/interpretation of that mechanic. And the House Rules on TR were pretty much all geared to either impede or overpower a splat, depending on which sphere you're looking at (and rarely in the direction common sense would dictate). It got utterly ridiculous.
Ex. Moonbeam and her wolfpup. She saw 'can be no bigger than a small dog' and chose to interpret that as being able to magically stop the aging process of her wolfpup so she could keep it small (completely ignoring the part mentioning that its just a normal animal). Wendigo clarified that it had to be an animal that aged normally while remaining no bigger than a small dog. Its not a House Rule, it didn't require special mention on the wiki under the Wolfblood merits. She just clarified what that particular aspect of the merit means.
Now if you look at Reno's House Rules for Wolfbloods? It addresses things that are necessary for a game that runs 24/7 and already has over 42 unique logins but are not addressed in the book. Like +noting a specific Kuruth trigger for the Anger Issues Tell. Or spelling out a resistance roll for the Enticing Tell that isn't offered in the book.
I feel like once you can separate the two, you'll see that House Rules aren't abundantly necessary to a MU*.
Edit to avoid double post:
@Faceless BE HAPPY YOU SHOWED ME THE ERROR OF MY WAYS.
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@Miss-Demeanor said in House Rules vs Rules as Written:
@surreality Yes, they recognized that different setting would require different rules... hence them making a whoooooooooole other line of books specifically for a LARP setting!
Which is precisely what I have said repeatedly.
However, MUSHing is comparable to tabletop in its mechanics and theme and rules. The game lines really don't require a ton of editing or House Ruling to make them workable on a MU* (unlike a LARP).
I disagree pretty strongly. MUX is closer to tabletop in some respects, and closer to LARP in others.
In terms of scale, it's much closer to a LARP, for instance. A tabletop game is not going to have multiple STs running at any given time the way a LARP does, and a tabletop game is not going to have players handling things on their own off to the side when no ST is present at all the way a LARP does and MUXes certainly do.
It's closer to tabletop in some respects simply because we can automate some systems that would be much more difficult to maintain or sustain than it would be in a LARP.
It's different and distinct from both in that other than online tabletop, the players are actually physically present. It's also a persistent world. While some LARPs attempt/have attempted to do this -- players can meet and do things between formal sessions -- tabletop games and LARPs are not persistent worlds operating 24/7/365.
Yes, all of those things change stuff.
And here's the big thing... clarification =/= House Rule.
Most house rules are precisely that.
The vast majority of them I've written for anything that's ever gone/been live have been things like, "We realize everyone can't stop arguing about whether you permanently lose a willpower dot or just lose a willpower point that can be regained through normal means from the Exciting Tell because it's not clear in the book text, here is how we're going to handle it on this game, you can all stop arguing now. Please stop arguing now. No, really, you can shut up any time... " or "The Tell is called 'Spirit Double' and it is a spirit wandering around causing trouble. While it doesn't explicitly say so in the text, yes, it being a spirit means that people who recognize a spirit when they see it will recognize that the Spirit Double is, in fact, a spirit, because there's nothing to suggest they wouldn't," and so on.
Why? Because these questions do actually come up, so yes, that shit does absolutely need to get put somewhere.
You can clarify something without making it a rule. I don't know why you insist on talking about the two as if they're interchangeable, they really aren't.
I just disagree about this, which may be semantics, but we are talking about a staff-side ruling about how something is to be handled on the game when a question has arisen about the content. Sometimes there are stupid moron interpretations of things, like Moonbeam's eyeroll-inspiring insipidity, but sometimes well-intentioned, honest, clever people still have questions about the content that need a formal verdict for how to handle it on the game. It's a ruling -- which is not creating something out of whole cloth.
And... TR failed on the House Rules front. What you mentioned about biokinesis? That's a clarification, that's not a House Rule. A House Rule is taking a mechanic that doesn't work for whatever reason, and changes it to make it work within the setting. A clarification is taking something that is functional but perhaps ambiguously worded (or someone is just an idiot and chooses to interpret it wrong) and offers the explanation/interpretation of that mechanic. And the House Rules on TR were pretty much all geared to either impede or overpower a splat, depending on which sphere you're looking at (and rarely in the direction common sense would dictate). It got utterly ridiculous.
I don't disagree with TR doing things badly, on the whole. I don't think, however, that a piss poor example means all things will go that way.
Now if you look at Reno's House Rules for Wolfbloods? It addresses things that are necessary for a game that runs 24/7 and already has over 42 unique logins but are not addressed in the book. Like +noting a specific Kuruth trigger for the Anger Issues Tell. Or spelling out a resistance roll for the Enticing Tell that isn't offered in the book.
...you realize the resist roll was originally in there from when I had to HR Exciting, right? Same with requiring the notes for things that need notes? I mean you do realize that what's up there now is slightly revamped from the stuff I actually put in there from Reno1, dropping the supernatural merit conversions the game doesn't need any more after the reboot (but pretty much did at the time without half a sphere having to scrap their characters and start over)?
I feel like once you can separate the two, you'll see that House Rules aren't abundantly necessary to a MU*.
I don't separate the two, for an important reason: that clarification is, actually, a ruling that needs to be followed going forward. It's like a legal precedent, in some respects. The precedent is not necessarily the same thing as a law, but it is part of the game's standards and practices going forward that needs to remain consistent.
