Dungeons and Dragons has always been a game where the players are encouraged to make it their own. Though there are pre-made materials readily available, players can easily make their own maps, characters, quests, NPCs, and even character sheets. Many groups even have their own house rules, modifications, and other regulations that are solely applied to their own campaign.
Sometimes these sorts of homebrewed house rules can really change the game. They need to be remembered on top of all the canon rules, but sometimes they make things easier or more fun for everyone.
10 Set Specific Die Rules Like: Natural 1 Instant Fail, Natural 20 Instant Success
One thing that almost always gets accepted into the house rules is what a natural 1 roll and what a natural 20 roll really means. Officially, it takes a double 1 for a critical failure and a double 20 for a critical hit unless there are modifiers. The thing is that officially, the 1 fail and the 20 critical only apply to combat.
A house rule could be that a natural 1 is a total failure for anything, whereas a natural 20 is a success against all odds. Ramp it up by stating that two natural 20s in a row makes for a coup de grace move.
9 The Laugh Rule: If The DM Laughs, It Can Happen
A house rule that is sure to raise everyone's spirits is the laugh rule. It's a simple rule wherein the players try to come up with something silly enough that it makes the Dungeon Master laugh out loud. The more intense, the better.
Then, whatever was so funny that it actually drew out the reaction, it happens. So get that chaotic mind going and start sentences with "you know what would be funny?"
8 Critical Fail Only Reduces Health To Zero
Not every group likes hack-em-slash-em Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and instead opt for more plot-heavy games. When a critical failure happens in those games, it hurts worse than usual. The DM wasn't trying to kill off the player, the dice just deemed it so.
In order to give one tiny little reprieve, having a house rule that states that a critical failure only reduces the hit points of the character to zero and then renders them unconscious. This could also be further expanded upon by allowing feats like Diehard to allow the character to stay conscious until they hit a certain number of negative hit points, to which they then need a resurrection spell to heal them.
7 Don't Give The DM A Bad Idea
Another house rule that is a common inclusion in a Dungeons and Dragons group is to never, ever give the DM a bad idea. Don't sarcastically say it would be worse if this happened or at least that didn't show up, because that just gives the DM bad ideas to work with.
It will have players watching what they say a little bit more. After all, everyone knows that when someone says "well it just can't get any worse than this" the DM is about to pull out their mug to catch the tears of their players and brew them into tonight's tea.
6 If The Idea Is Clever Enough, It Can Get A Bonus
Something that is always really fun is to reward players for clever thinking. Give them a good reason to try and figure out how to get through puzzles, dungeons, scenarios, and traps that are wild and fantastic by at least giving a bonus to their rolls.
It will have the players a little more engaged and let the DM have some good brain exercises. If the players impress the DM with something that is just amazingly clever, they should be rewarded.
5 Give Players One Free Success A Session
Sometimes Dungeon Masters are merciful, especially to new groups. That being said, in campaigns where there is always a lot of dice rolling, allowing the players to have one free guaranteed success a session can really help alleviate some of the pressure.
Those dice get really nerve-wracking, especially when they have been rolling poorly. Letting the players declare they are going to use their freebie before their actual roll is crucial, but a very kind DM might choose to allow a bad failure to be swapped to success.
4 If The Player Knows How To Do Something, So Does Their Character
There are some skills that people can have in the real world that really could translate over to their characters. Instead of wasting time trying to make sure all of the skills are accounted for, or needing to roll if a character knows something simple, having it so that transferrable information the player has can be just given to the characters is a good way to make things run more smoothly.
An example might be that someone who does a lot of camping in the real world allows their character to also know how to camp, look for food, and perform basic survival techniques. Maybe someone who grows a lot of plants can let a character be able to better identify plants in-game. As long as it doesn't break continuity, allowing things like that is a really enriching experience.
3 Breaking Continuity Results In Surreal Events
Unfortunately, keeping everything under lock and key is near impossible. Someone is going to accidentally find out some plans, overhear what other characters are doing well away from theirs, or break immersion with something too modern.
In order to try and curb this continuity breaking, having it already set up that something surreal is going to happen to the characters is way more interesting than just denying anything happened right there. Perhaps a ghostly figure comes and erases the last few minutes of their memory, or the character is suddenly spirited away somewhere further. Or perhaps a giant hand comes out of the sky and flicks them in the nose.
2 Anything Said At The Table Is In Character
Sometimes players get really distracted and start talking about things completely unrelated to the game at hand. Other times, they take a very long time to discuss their plans right in front of the big bad.
It's common knowledge that everything the character is doing needs to be directly stated otherwise it didn't actually happen. Ramp that up and help alleviate the game time bickering by making it so that anything said at the table at all happens. It will have players watching their mouths and purposefully moving out of the way when they want to discuss things.
1 High Rolls Don't Always Mean Success
The simple fact of the matter is people cheat. Even the most well-meaning player might fudge what their die actually says from time to time in fear of what might have actually happened. Dungeon Masters do it too in order to either force something to happen or to spare a devastating event.
So making a house rule that always states that high rolls don't always mean success can give just a teensy bit more control to the DM. It also can be useful if it would be more beneficial if the party were to fail in a scenario in order to get a special item or access to a different area. Done well, it can also help curb some cheating while making things interesting and exciting.
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