I was curious as to what houserules other DMs choose to enforce in their games regardless of edition. Here are some of mine..
1) Drow cannot be PCs. They are all evil. Plain and simple.
2) Disruption weapon quality can only apply to blugeoning weapons.
3) PCs may never be evil aligned as it is counterproductive to teamwork, regardless of how it can be rationalized.
4) Party treasure is divided equally with need and appropriateness taken into consideration.
5) DMs choice to reassign a PCs alignment as to how his/her character is being played.
Let's hear yours. 
Character options are defined at the beginning of the campaign...stick to them.
Only books used are those on the accepted campaign list
Thats about it really.
Angel7 wrote:
I really only have 2:
1. It's assumed that you are recollecting arrows/ammo after a fight, so we don't stop to keep track.
2. DON"T play with your dice during games by bouncing them on the table constantly when it's not your turn.
The second one may seem silly, but I've had 2 different players who like to constantly fiddle with their dice, bouncing them, stacking them, etc. which can get very noisy and distracting for other players whoe are deciding what to do. I just flat out make a rule that this is not allowed.
1: Characters must have a reason, and be willing to work together without violent conflict.
2: Players must be able to legitimately access all the rules that their characters will use.
2: Rule zero applies.
3: So does Rule Seven.
I run a grittier/edgier campaign, though it is in no way a killer campaign.
1) Everyone uses the same ability score generation method. (Really only an issue when players, new or established, bring in a character at a higher level.)
2) Experience points are awarded on a per session basis. It will be decided beforehand by the entirety of the gaming group how much of the XP total will be awarded to absent players.
3) Once a character has gained enough XP to advance in level, he or she must first take a long rest before actually doing so.
4) If good things happen on an attack roll result of 20, it stands to reason bad things happen on a 1. In this case, a player's turn ends immediately as the character attempts to recover from an undesirable circumstance. There will be no further movement or attacks, nor will there be any bonus action or reaction. (I don't use crits such as Paizo's Critical Hit or Critical Fumbles decks since these disproportionately affect the characters, and I don't impose penalties to AC, etc.)
5) When a character is dropped to 0 hit points and revived, one level of exhaustion is imposed to reflect the severity of being in such a state. A long rest reduces the character's exhaustion level by 1, provided he also has food and drink.
6) In most cases, there will be only one Skill Check roll, whether individual or group. This prevents the players from gaming the system. (Player with highest ability score: "I failed in my attempt."; Player with next highest score: "OK, then, I'll give it a try."; and so on until you reach the character with his finger buried up his nose who somehow proves himself to be an idiot savant.)
7) Die rolls will be made when called for by the DM. For those of you familiar with this type of douchebaggery, no further explanation is needed. (You might think I gamed with a bunch of kids, but you'd be wrong.)
8) Don't piss me off.
Regardless of system or game, I really only have a few rules to live by.
1) Make failure interesting.
1a) The dice are only rolled when it's interesting and exciting to do so, that is, if the consequences for failure are as interesting as the consequences of sucess.
1b) Investigation, perception, and knowledge skill checks always suceed if the player asks for specific information or searches for important clues, and such information or clues can actually be found.
1c) I will never design a scenario which will come to a dead stop if the players fail an important roll.
2) Skip the boring bits.
2a) Never lose track of time.
2b) Find a way to involve and engage everyone at the table.
2c) When in doubt, add an explosion.
Death rolls are made in secret from other players and me (DM). Secrecy from other players keep the tension high and secrecy from me keeps their character death in their hands. The flip side is that if they are not saved within three rolls, regardless of actual success they accumulate near-death points. These correspond to a table of effects that become cumulatively harder to remain effective. At some point the one eyed warrior will either choose to retire or accept his fate.
1. Get off your phone.
2. Get off your ****ING phone.
This really makes me angrier than anything else. I'd rather a party of backstabbing Drow nymphomaniacs that are actually paying attention to the game than a group of classic PCs run by iPhones.
CaptainPicard wrote:
Illithidbix wrote:
Crit is on natural 20 only
shut_up_and_roll wrote:
I use a few of the ones mentioned above so I won't repeat them. One of my favorites is rolling certain hidden checks. Perception might be a good example.
Example: The party walks down a hallway and past a secret door. Do I say "Stop and roll a perception check?" No, I roll it hidden and tell them only if they notice something. Otherwise people stop and search until they find it once they fail the check. It's impossible to un-know something. What would be the point of making it secret if I didn't?
hallows1999 wrote:
Furion_Thamior wrote:
nicknasti wrote:
pukunui wrote: