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I've been to our proposed rules forums for quite a long time and actually attempted to make some rules myself (I think I'm terrible at it though). But then this begged the question, how many people here actually use house rules and the like? Does your store discourage or embrace them? How has other players or new players reacted to house rules? Do you find them enjoyable to use or do you prefer the way the game itself was already designed? Do you make your own or borrow from other sources such as the internet?

I'm indifferent to them. Would I use them if someone asked me to? Depends on if I know that person and like them or not.

I think they can be good for all sorts of reasons, but there needs to be balance, fairness and fun. Given the chance some people would cook up rules to live out their wet dream of their army stomping everyone. Imagine TFG getting to write his own rules. That's not fun, it's stupid and annoying. House Rules should be fun and interesting and be of equal benefit to everyone playing, or enhance the enjoyment of your opponent.

The GW store can't accept house rules, for obvious reasons. But the couple of clubs I've frequented over the years very much embraced house rules, and my own group never play without using some (though most of our 40K house rules are campaign/mission related). But then, both my group and the clubs I've played at have played more and other things than 40K, including rules re-writes for stuff like GorkaMorka (and man, that game really needs it), and entirely fan-made stuff like Death Squads.

They generally work better when you are playing with an established group. People tend to be less receptive in pick-up games.

Amongst the groups that I game with, we've generally wound up with a few over the years, where we have disagreed with the way existing rules work or the way FAQs went on a grey area. Usually just minor stuff, though.

We did make some fairly major changes to Necromunda back when we were playing regularly, limiting the number of weapons models could carry, adding Advances based on starting experience, forcing gangs to search for captured members before being allowed to rescue them... Basically just stuff that we felt made the game work better and added a little extra realism.

My group uses no house rules.

The only ones I tend to like involve fleshing out terrain rules a little more.

Me and a few friends like to allow any distance to be measured at any time. We figure we'd rather be able to know all of our options and pick the best one instead of testing our ability to eyeball six inches. That's the only house rule I've ever used.

Crablezworth wrote:The only ones I tend to like involve fleshing out terrain rules a little more.

As I make almost all the terrain that my group of friends with I pretty much have the final say on any rules regarding any special rules or movement restrictions when it comes to my pieces.

We use them all the time. Anytime you get into scenarios you need to make up some situational rules. They can make or break a game.

kenshin620 wrote:I've been to our proposed rules forums for quite a long time and actually attempted to make some rules myself (I think I'm terrible at it though). But then this begged the question, how many people here actually use house rules and the like? Does your store discourage or embrace them? How has other players or new players reacted to house rules? Do you find them enjoyable to use or do you prefer the way the game itself was already designed? Do you make your own or borrow from other sources such as the internet?

When we played 1st edition Necromunda, and Gorkamorka- Your own rules, along with your own scenarios was a norm.

Hive of the living dead, Waste You, Want to, and "Over here..." were balls out some of the funnest games I ever played on the table.

They converted over to Mordhiem, but that one didn't get as much love as old Necromunda did.

Generally we only see proposed rules around here on rare occasions and usually only between friends.

We generally only use house rules to clarify parts of the rules that are a little murky.

We use house rules regularly for games other than 40k.

A lot of other rulesets are more flexible and leave the players with a lot of scope for their own additions without impacting too heavily on general gameplay.

For 40k/whfb we have used house rules for terrain and to try an resolve inconsitencies in the codexes.

I am open to using house rules, but most I come across rarely do anything than power one side over the other, innocently or not.

House rules, yes, I've been in clubs that use them.
One in particular, units on vehicles must disembark to claim an objective. We call that one "Boots on the ground"
Another is "Heads Down!"
Sniper rifles modify the pinning test by the amount of unsaved wounds they cause.

Homebrew codecies on the other hand, need a good read and a discussion amongst all parties before use.

I can't say that I have done this with 40K, but I have used some house rules for pen and paper RPGs in the past.

With miniature games I have done this with outside of 40K, I have been in the same situation that Talarn described where they only seem to shift power from one side to the other.

We use a few.

We play forests as an exception to TLOS. We play them as area terrain that you can shoot in or out of but not through. More intuitive.

We also roll for random scenario by rolling 1d6:

1: Side A chooses any scenario
2-3: standard rulebook mission
4-5: Battle Missions mission (roll randomly)
6: Side B chooses any scenario

That is about it unless we are playing a campaign

Anyone who uses a FAQ is playing by house rules.

Mind blown.

As for the OP, I love using house rules. Doing so is the heart of the GW hobby itself.

Just ask me beforehand, and have a copy to hand for your opponent to review.

It's the only way to refine them!

The only house rules we use ion my gaming group is counting a base for a ruin when it hasn't got one. Usually this wouldn't give cover save as no terrain or terrain tests. We just measure it accordingly.

Also if there's a disagreement over rules we 4+ it to save time.

Our group is pretty much built around house rules. We just sit down as a collective and discuss/tweak until we are all happy. We have also taken to kinda reverse engineering (for lack of a better term) the modern rules/races back to fit 2nd edition.

I'm ok with it, but better let me know ahead of time if they are in use. I hate to have to say that, as it should be bleedingly obvious, but it has happened before and more than once.

Our group uses very few house rules. The ones we do use tend to be for clarification of GW rules or for odd situations that come up.

My opinion - why make them? After paying $75 for the rulebook and another $25 per dex, might as well use those. I could see exceptions - for example, rules for that scratchbuilt model or terrain - but the RAW cover almost every situation imaginable, so I think these sorts of events would be rare.

Still, whatever a group agrees to do is fine. Especially those that like to tinker might enjoy reworking certain aspects of the rules.

It's your game, right? 0wn it!

I've made (and am still making) an Dark Eldar Extended Codex, working on a Harlequin Codex (standalone + supplementry to Dark Eldar/Eldar books), and am apparently now considering making a Mont'au Raiders Codex...

So I'd say I have no issue with it, and there's a few people at my flgs and gw that are happy enough to play against me using them.

BuFFo wrote:Anyone who uses a FAQ is playing by house rules.

Mind blown.

Oh so true

House rules are used in our group....we just have to clarify amongst all players before using. One of our rules is to actually hide infiltrating units......we often have a third person hanging around and use them as the judge/witness where we place our infiltrated units.....so there can me a true surprise when that mob of Kroot spring out of the basement or some Ratlings make their presence felt.

Mr. Burning wrote:We use house rules regularly for games other than 40k.

A lot of other rulesets are more flexible and leave the players with a lot of scope for their own additions without impacting too heavily on general gameplay.

This is my general feeling. My group plays other games and we've got some house rules for them.

Regarding 40k, one the best things about it is the wide player base all operating from the same rules, so I see house rules more as a hindrance than a help. If one finds the 40k ruleset to be to vague, they could always adopt something like the massive Adepticon FAQ as a way to arbitrate most disagreements, but I'd rather just roll for it.

House rules that take care of rules disputes or work to make the game more realistic/enjoyable by modifying actual rulebook rules and not the rules of specific units or models are fine by me. Things like agreeing to having to disembark to hold objectives, working to make squad leaders more important or implementing suppression fire.

This is what the proposed rules forum should be about, not creating your own units, characters and codices which is just super lame.

Only house rule we use is that if you don't have an army list with you, you don't get to use the tables. Other than that, we, as in i and a couple buddies, tried the Psyker game type somebody posted a while ago.

Almarine wrote:House rules that take care of rules disputes or work to make the game more realistic/enjoyable by modifying actual rulebook rules and not the rules of specific units or models are fine by me. Things like agreeing to having to disembark to hold objectives, working to make squad leaders more important or implementing suppression fire.

This is what the proposed rules forum should be about, not creating your own units, characters and codices which is just super lame.

Not looking for an argument but Isn't the fundamental principle behind wargaming imagination?