7 ways to make house rules wrong

This post is a traslation of this one originally published in 2017.

How to do house ruling.

Greetings, munificent readers. As a friend of mine said the other day "in RPGs, any session of a new game is a beta-testing session". We role-players love to tweak systems and make our own rules. But that doesn't always come out well.

That's why today I bring you a list of seven things you shouldn't do while making your house rules. It won't be about them being balanced or functional as much as about how to apply them and present them to the players.

This is a translation of a post originally published in 2017.

This might be one of those lists that make you go "duh, of course" but it won't harm having them in a list so we can take it into account more easily.

So, without further ado, here is the list:

1. Players can't access them. It seems obvious but, if we make a house rule that we plan on using extensively, we have to let the players know (because at least one is going to read the rulebook) and, also, leave them in a place where it can be consulted at any time.
2. Abusing retroactive applications. "Ypur character survived five sessions ago, but thar was with the old damage rules. With the new ones she's now dead. I am sorry". That is a extreme case of applying rules changes to things that have already happened, but ecen then one should be careful. For example, a change in a character class could force a player or two to remake their characters from zero, wich is never good.
3. The rule can't be understood. Seriously, it happens even in published books. And the problem doesn't come when what is written clearly makes no sense, but when it is ambiguous and it can be interpreted in more than one way.
4. The rule contradicts others, be them official or otherwise. We should be careful. A golden rule is not to change anything until you have tested and understood it. In some systems more than others...
5. The house rule is too hard to apply. Maybe on paper a climbing system that requires 20 rolls on average seems pretty solid, but we have to consider that it would have to be done in real time and that it can be too cumbersome. Giving a bonus to anyone that brings you the jaded monkey before the moon changes is also not a good idea.
6. The rules changes constantly to the point where players cannot base their actions on it. In extreme cases what could one-hit them one day could be an easy fight the next. If this type of thing becomes prevalent, players will lose faith in the system. And lastly...
7. The rule is not applied as announced or not applied at all. This happens specially if we don't write it down (see point 1), if the DM decides to change them without notice or if he just forgets about it.

Incurring in one of these points might very well produce a rule that fails from the start, no matter how good it is mechanically. And where there are many house rules and the problem is systematic, the issue becomes much more worse.

What do you think? Have you experienced any of these as players or DMs? Would you add additional points? And again, thanks for reading. Valmar Cerenor!