House Rules

[Doug Taylor]

I noticed on Mr. Goodman's awesome site that there's a lot of House Rules that people have come up with, which is not that surprising (I've created hundreds of my own house rules for games over the years).

I've played both Lord of the Rings and Trek, and it's my (and our group's) opinion that Trek seems to be the better designed of the two. There seems to be a few more restrictions in character creation and such that keep characters from progressing into gods with 30 advancements (which is what we saw in playing LotR). We also ended up with quite a few house rules for LotR, but haven't needed many so far for Trek.

Our group has recently decided to incorporate Fugazi Grrl's rule about extra actions (only allowing extras for defensive actions) and some of the others I've seen make a lot of sense as well.

My question to you fine folks, who have more experience with this game:

If you had to list the three main 'house rules' that you feel are the most necessary for the game (to make it balanced and playable), which ones would you recommend? Note that they can be yours or someone else's that you've seen.

Thanks so much!

[Fugazi Grrl]

Actually, most of those House Rules credited to me were designed by our Narrator, Tamanny. I just sent them in to Patrick.

And Tam actually prefers GMing for those powerful 30+ advance characters (she wont let anyone play a low-powered PC because it is easier to come up with solid stories when the protagonists aren't always failing at the most rudimentary tasks).

So, we have a minimum of 8 advances for a PC. Anything lower is a supporting cast member.

I think the best set of House Rules I've ever seen are the Artilects rules for playing Android characters. I say this because we have a very important character (Lt. Commander Omega) who is a hybrid android and those rules are perfect for making Androids playable in CODA.

KG Carlson's house rules are wonderful. We use those all the time.

In that set I like how he introduced the LOTR rules for combat that make it easier to take out an enemy (The Neighbor's House Rule is what Mr. Carlson called it).

I think Tam's best House Rule is the one for doubling an Android's STR mod when the Android is trying to do something non-combative - such as in the TNG episode where Data closes a bulkhead door that neither Worf nor Riker can budge. That or the +2 to Agility for Betazoids.

[Doug Taylor]

Awesome. Thanks so much, Fugazi Grrl!

Anyone else got any favorite house rules?