Two Houserules

I take the position that, with perhaps one exception, it is possible to play old-school D&D in 4e using the rules as written.  However, I did grow up playing AD&D, which encouraged the creation of houserules because it was pretty much unplayable without them, so of course I can’t help but make them anyway.  Here are a couple of those rules.

Slowing it Down

I discovered a new (to me) blog with some interesting content at Against the Wicked City.  One of the posts, The long haul: time and distance in D&D, discusses the author’s desire to play the game and advance PCs on a different timescale, so that campaigns take place over the course of years of in-game time rather than days of in-game time.

I agree with pretty much all of the author’s reasons for wanting to do this. I too have wrestled with the unreality of having a first level nobody become a demigod in as little as 60 days. I have just worked on the solution at a different angle.

In fact, there were several things I was trying to work on at the same time.  I was trying to find a way to slow down levelling.  I was trying to find a way to support a game that included having castles and troops such as are granted at “name” level in 1e.  And I was trying to find a way to support player desires for character optimization using in-game PC choices.

Awarding Experience for Treasure

One of the staples for old school play is the awarding of experience for treasure instead of for combat.  This creates a disincentive to engage in risky combat unless there is an expectation of a treasure reward, and encourages creative schemes for obtaining treasure while minimizing risk.

Now, when I was a tween and a teen playing first edition, I hated experience-for-treasure.  I thought you should gain experience for what you were doing, i.e. you got better at fighting by fighting.  It wasn’t until much, much later that I decided that (a) experience also comes from being cunning, clever and resourceful; (b) adventurers have more skills than just fighting; and (c) the benefits of incentivizing certain types of behavior for certain types of play outweighs any reduction in realism.

The irony is that experience-for-treasure was dropped in later editions at the same time that skill systems and other out-of-combat options (like fourth edition rituals) entered the game.  Experience primarily from combat began to be less and less realistic as PCs gained the ability to improve in actions taken outside of combat.