The Tyranny of the Physical Format

Players, as a rule, are resistant to change.

They are also, in my experience, to be counted among the demographic that tends to face the written word, when presented on a tangible surface, as the direct will of God. I wonder how that ever caught on...

Rather than fight this, I’m relenting to harness this tendency to further my own purposes.

It is my feeling that Wikis and blog posts will only take one so far. When a GM rattles off rule adaptations he intends to see used at the table, he’d better present something for grubby unknowing hands to leaf and thumb through, that the tiranny of the written word can leap off the page, grab the hesitant lambs by the hoof and lend credence to your jumble of house rules, taking them into the mystical enchanted valley of RAW.

As such, I’m endeavouring to lay down on paper everwhich alteration or system that I am to present my players with.

My only basic ground-rule is to pay more than just lip service at the feet of logic and common sense. Rule changes are always best presented as coming from an angle of plausibility, even when one is not striving for out-and-out simulation. I’m merely looking to mitigate some of the more egregious examples of what I took to calling the “power-up culture” within modern FRPGs: cut down on the rule of cool and sense of entitlement that seems to drench everything these days.

Thus, I’m not sharpening knives to kill characters, but I _am_ getting in gear to let them fail, flounder and, yes, die at the whim of dice and poor judgment.

If what I end up with is no longer recognizable as the game system adopted going in, all the better. I don’t intend to obfuscate what I’m doing, I’ll simply pitch it for what it is: an advanced, unrelenting, hard and, above all, honest take on the game.

I also don’t intend to complicate things just for complexity’s sake. My will is to simplify, my vice is to complicate. For that, too, spreading out my thoughts on this blog can be of use. There are currently a few things that are more complicated than need be, many that are too simple for my sensibilities and still others I don’t feel a pressing need to mess with.

My players will be sure to tell me which is which, I’ll be sure to fight them like a ram in heat. We all know this drill, am I right?

It is this fundamental touchstone for house-ruling that I wish to impress upon the reader: document your changes in a physical format and let the players absorb how much work and thought went into the thing. Don’t let them get away with a vague shrug and a bleat of “That’s Not How It Is In The Book!”.

So you make them a different book. Sure enough, it’ll take time, but if turning houserules into codified form is to be the price of a better game, then make headway and impress upon the group that these rules, unless provenly detrimental to the enjoyment of the game, are here to stay.

This’ll segue nicely into what I’ll be putting up next. Stay tuned.