Houseruling to reinforce themes is better than houseruling to "fix" mechanics

[Asisreo1]

So, commonly I see this thing with houseruling in systems for the sole purpose of "fixing" what people think is broken about the system. Be it resting, build options (feats, powers, spells, or skills), weapons, and anything else that has a range of usability.

In some systems, this houseruling may be welcome at a table because it helps with the playstyle of the table or it helps balance the interparty dynamic.

But usually, this type of houseruling is incredibly...boring. It displays an ability to change the game to be more mechanically sound if done well, but it completely ignores the other aspect of letting houserules guide the themes of the story.

For a personal example, I have a implemented a dark souls-esque mechanic into the game: The ability to revive at a checkpoint. The players get to die once before the new moon where they must then survive without any means of revival afterwards.

This isn't a fix. The system isn't at fault for not having this type of mechanic, but it makes my campaign better because it allows me, as the GM, to display forces entirely and completely outclassing them while also being incredibly bloodthirsty and dangerous without worrying too much about a TPK. Which works perfectly for the despair that I try to convey through mechanics.

I think GM's would be wise to implement such houserules so that the campaign feels like how they want it to feel rather than letting the system force the campaign to be this single type of game optimized for the system.

[NichG]

Agreed. Pretty much everytime I run a campaign these days, I first build a system specifically for it - either heavy modifications of something extant, or something new from scratch. Generally plot hooks end up emerging from what gets changed, and that can drive the campaign and give ideas for what would be fun to explore.

[Martin Greywolf]

I disagree pretty strongly on the "better than" part of the argument here. Bottom line is that the only real measure of betterness a house rule should be judged on is whether or not in increases enjoyment of the game for both players and DM. Whether that is a mechanics or fluff rule is pretty much irrelevant, and depends very heavily on what kind of players and DMs are in that particular group.

If you play DnD because you enjoy the XCOM-like combat puzzles, you will want more of the houserules of builds and options.

If you play DnD to be a part of a story or experience a world, the fluffy houserules will be your jam.

If you play DnD and also know how its weapons really work, you will appreciate houserules that will, for example, make slings closer to what they were in reality (a weapon superior to any but the strongest warbows), even if that houserule will change very little in the grand scheme of things.

[MoiMagnus]

I agree with the underlying message of the post:

Houserules to reinforce themes are great, and one could even argue peoples don't talk about them often enough, the only exception being "gritty realism" and other variants for resting which are a recurring subject. And campaigns at my tables are filled with such houserules (last campaign has a stress mechanics to represent that we were not heroes, in the current one we have an astral with a 300 peoples crew to handle, resurrection is almost absent of most of our campaign because of the setting, etc)

But I feel it's unavoidable that those rules are less talked about, as GM who use houserules that reinforce themes are also the kind to heavily modify their settings, when it's not a fully homebrew setting. And as always "my table play like that because that works in the unique circumstances of that table" will always lead to less discussions than "my table do that and I believe most peoples should do the same as it makes 5e strictly better".

But I will disagree on the "better". It's not comparable.
The goal of a "fix" houserule is to help the game to be even better at what it aims to do.
The goal of a "thematic" houserule is to help a game to be better at what it didn't initially aimed to do.

[Batcathat]

But I will disagree on the "better". It's not comparable.
The goal of a "fix" houserule is to help the game to be even better at what it aims to do.
The goal of a "thematic" houserule is to help a game to be better at what it didn't initially aimed to do.

Yeah, this. As someone who usually focus more on the story than the mechanics, whether I'm GM:ing or playing, I probably use houserules more for story reasons than fixing problems, but saying that either is better than the other seems odd.

[Willie the Duck]

I disagree pretty strongly on the "better than" part of the argument here.

Agreed. Different avenues for solving problems (whether the problem is 'I don't like how this game accomplishes X, Y, or Z,' or 'what this game accomplishes isn't what I want to play') are not in competitions with each other. If your game is notably challenged by either or both issues, you solve them both (with the priority to the one causing the most problems, not some arbitrary conception of which solution is 'better').

[False God]

These are clearly two different things, and both may be necessary for any given system, group or campaign.

[Asisreo1]

I disagree pretty strongly on the "better than" part of the argument here. Bottom line is that the only real measure of betterness a house rule should be judged on is whether or not in increases enjoyment of the game for both players and DM. Whether that is a mechanics or fluff rule is pretty much irrelevant, and depends very heavily on what kind of players and DMs are in that particular group.

If you play DnD because you enjoy the XCOM-like combat puzzles, you will want more of the houserules of builds and options.

If you play DnD to be a part of a story or experience a world, the fluffy houserules will be your jam.

If you play DnD and also know how its weapons really work, you will appreciate houserules that will, for example, make slings closer to what they were in reality (a weapon superior to any but the strongest warbows), even if that houserule will change very little in the grand scheme of things.

Naturally, "better than" is just an opinion based on my experiences but they draw on the fact that many houserule "fixes" miss the mark because they can start to be obstructive to the overall tone/theme of the campaign despite the mechanical benefits.

For example, lets say a DM decides to buff the Barbarian by giving him "manuevers" that let him do complex stuff throughout an encounter with important strategy. While this might be mechanically satisfying, to a player sensitive to the feel of the game it suddenly feels like the Barbarian went from a reckless powerhouse of damage and mitigation to a tactical character who has mastered many techniques to overwhelm his opponent. To me, this is a problem.

Its not like a fix houserule can't both be thematically and mechanically sound, but few of them can manage both.

On the other hand, thematic-focused houserules usually aren't horrible because the DM can easily adjust the stats and playstyles of their adventures to accommodate. Like for my previous example, medium encounters aren't scary enough and 6 of them is too much knowing that it will take another 6 to get them tired. Instead, I put encounters that range to the 4x to 6x deadly range so the players get to feel the weight of overwhelming oppositions.

Also, fluff and mechanical houserules can be thematic. In fact, both types are the ones I'm talking about. Technically, my example would be a mechanic houserule because it ultimately changes the numbers of the system. Same for houserules that let magic items take less time to craft in a world where magic items are basically the norm.

[NichG]

One thing I think is a lot 'better' about discussing houserules to reinforce themes than discussing fixes is that you're wading through a lot of implied but not explicitly stated preferences whenever you discuss fixes, because you're trying to establish some kind of objective good as the standard of discussion and evaluation, when actually people's desires for 'how the game should be' are often in tension. See pretty much any 'martial/caster disparity fix' threads, where they ultimately don't really resolve anything because some people like 'magical MacGyver', some people like 'Conan the Barbarian', and rather than discussing those as separate themes, there's too much effort to make those preferences objective (which of course is going to be rejected by people who know they like the other one and can tell that the 'fix' would remove the theme they like).

Whereas framing things in terms of themes means that the discussion can be placed off on the side and isn't a struggle about 'how the system should be', but rather becomes a workshopping kind of thing 'how can we help someone design something that does X for their campaign'. Basically, focusing on theme means that more of the discussion is going to be about creative problem-solving and design, rather than a negotiation about what the (singular) game should be.

[Pex]

House rules are fine. If you need your own Handbook to cover them play a different game system.

What matters more to me is the attitude of the DM in making a house rule, and it's more about how he regards his players. It's fine he doesn't like a specific rule. I don't care about the rule so much as how much he wants to control the players. It could be a matter of his tolerance level of how much power a PC can have. He can say he wants a "low powered" game, but that's subjective. I don't find anything wrong with a PC doing powerful things. PCs are supposed to be able to do such things, so when subjectively I find the DM taking away too much power I won't play. I play a game system because I enjoy the mechanics of it. It's part of the fun along with the roleplay, so any DM who boasts about "role players not rollplayers" is an immediate red flag.

[Asisreo1]

House rules are fine. If you need your own Handbook to cover them play a different game system.

What matters more to me is the attitude of the DM in making a house rule, and it's more about how he regards his players. It's fine he doesn't like a specific rule. I don't care about the rule so much as how much he wants to control the players. It could be a matter of his tolerance level of how much power a PC can have. He can say he wants a "low powered" game, but that's subjective. I don't find anything wrong with a PC doing powerful things. PCs are supposed to be able to do such things, so when subjectively I find the DM taking away too much power I won't play. I play a game system because I enjoy the mechanics of it. It's part of the fun along with the roleplay, so any DM who boasts about "role players not rollplayers" is an immediate red flag.

I agree that the attitude of the DM is...almost defining on how fun the campaign will go.

Often I find DM's who swear WoTC was on drugs when designing the entire system are the ones who don't quite understand the nuances of the system involved. When a DM is too proud to realize that WoTC does have people as competent or moreso than themselves, it signals that the campaign may start to fall apart to weird houserules that disrupt the flow of play.

On the opposite spectrum, when I see a DM change a houserule because he likes playing in a certain type of campaign but also doesn't act like his houserule trumps the rules as written, it usually signals the DM respects the system and is more likely to have taken balancing it more seriously.

One thing I think is a lot 'better' about discussing houserules to reinforce themes than discussing fixes is that you're wading through a lot of implied but not explicitly stated preferences whenever you discuss fixes, because you're trying to establish some kind of objective good as the standard of discussion and evaluation, when actually people's desires for 'how the game should be' are often in tension. See pretty much any 'martial/caster disparity fix' threads, where they ultimately don't really resolve anything because some people like 'magical MacGyver', some people like 'Conan the Barbarian', and rather than discussing those as separate themes, there's too much effort to make those preferences objective (which of course is going to be rejected by people who know they like the other one and can tell that the 'fix' would remove the theme they like).

Whereas framing things in terms of themes means that the discussion can be placed off on the side and isn't a struggle about 'how the system should be', but rather becomes a workshopping kind of thing 'how can we help someone design something that does X for their campaign'. Basically, focusing on theme means that more of the discussion is going to be about creative problem-solving and design, rather than a negotiation about what the (singular) game should be.

Agreed. Its more productive as well because a thread where a DM wants to run a game with a similar theme and therefore similar houserules, they'll get suggestions and discussions about the suggestions rather than deeply philosophical debates about the nature of game design and the history of fantasy.

[kyoryu]

My guidance on houseruling is "only house rule once you can make an argument for the original rule."

This isn't always valid, as some games are Just Broken, but most games are at least mostly functional and the rules that they have are there for a reason. By immediately houseruling you're robbing yourself of a lot of cool experiences.

Once you get to the point where you understand why the rule is there, you can also understand under which circumstances it might be better ignored, and can wisely modify the rules.

[Cluedrew]

I mean if there is some "silly" mistake that slipped due to copy editing or something that should probably fixed*, but still I generally agree. The "actually bad" problems usually get sorted out so most of the fixed aren't huge improvements... or not even universal improvements. Which actually means there is very thin line between the two, with maybe a transitional area of "house rules for playstyle" or something in the middle.

See pretty much any 'martial/caster disparity fix' threads, where they ultimately don't really resolve anything because some people like 'magical MacGyver', some people like 'Conan the Barbarian', and rather than discussing those as separate themes, there's too much effort to make those preferences objective (which of course is going to be rejected by people who know they like the other one and can tell that the 'fix' would remove the theme they like).

I never figured out why some people continue to reject "well just have all of them".

* If you play Spirit Island, make sure to add an extra Blight to the Blight pool.

[Quertus]

Better? Huh.

Well, obviously it's better to make house rules for theme than to *have to* fix the game.

I've seen plenty of clueless GMs fail *hard* when trying to house rule to "fix" mechanics. Anyone with extensive experience with their "themes" counterpart(s) care to weigh in?

The 2e Wild Mage was hecka fun, with a Table of Doom™ built in that you never knew when it would trigger - or whether it triggering was a good or bad thing. The 3e version was… dull and boring by comparison. But at least 3e was so much better balanced.

In short, I'm all about "build your game for fluff, give the players plenty of diverse tools, and leave it to them to balance to the table".

But… not all mechanical fixes are about *balance*. And there, I think I'd have to argue that mechanical fixes for the sake of sanity are probably "better" (more vital) than ones for theme. Although I'm drawing a blank on examples.

[NichG]

Better? Huh.

Well, obviously it's better to make house rules for theme than to *have to* fix the game.

I've seen plenty of clueless GMs fail *hard* when trying to house rule to "fix" mechanics. Anyone with extensive experience with their "themes" counterpart(s) care to weigh in?

I think probably the most broken mechanic I made was a sort of supernatural embodiment of disease damage type where all sources of it dealt only 1 damage, but it recurred each round for a certain number of rounds doubling each time. But the worst ones were attempts to build rules for things like army battles, which were bad enough that despite having written the rules myself I conspicuously avoided situations as GM where they'd come up whenever possible to avoid having to actually run them. Those were both motivated by theme, not by trying to fix something.

But I guess this is more a point about a philosophy to approach house-ruling with. If you look at it as primarily for things that are wrong, that framing takes you to a different mindspace than if you think about writing rules as something you do to express things about the setting. One concept of prestige classes for example was that each setting, each game would have its own particular ones associated with in-game organizations unique to that GM, but there doesn't seem to be a level of comfort for doing that kind of thing that matches the level of comfort people have in fix-driven rulesmithing.

[kyoryu]

I think probably the most broken mechanic I made was a sort of supernatural embodiment of disease damage type where all sources of it dealt only 1 damage, but it recurred each round for a certain number of rounds doubling each time.

OUCH.

Never heard the story of the King of India and the chessboard, huh?

[NichG]

OUCH.

Never heard the story of the King of India and the chessboard, huh?

I was intentionally trying to evoke that, actually, to make it scary. What happened instead is that things without the ability to make Heal checks could be automatically slain.

[Ignimortis]

I prefer to call fixes and rewrites houserules, and new original rules homebrew. And they are in no way opposed to each other, so having better balance and pronounced themes is still something doable.

[Asisreo1]

I prefer to call fixes and rewrites houserules, and new original rules homebrew. And they are in no way opposed to each other, so having better balance and pronounced themes is still something doable.

Indeed doable though the combination makes it much more complex.

I consider rewrites as houserules as well. And rewrite houserules can be for theme too.

But I also like to homebrew mechanics, some with new ways to approach combat altogether while still keeping the original design of combat the same.

[MoiMagnus]

I've seen plenty of clueless GMs fail *hard* when trying to house rule to "fix" mechanics. Anyone with extensive experience with their "themes" counterpart(s) care to weigh in?

Most thematic houserules I've seen suffer from variant of the Goodhart law (or as we call them, "are not munchkin-proof"), meaning that they only work as long as players use them as intended. Then, depending on the GM, the houserule starts actively contradicting the theme or become a constantly changing mess when you explore the corner cases.

But the hardest IMO is to have a good balance for the relevance and time passed using the houserule. Advanced rules for creating armies are great, but if it takes too much table time, the players are gonna notice that the gameplay isn't that deep and the nearby pile of board games are much better designed than the one you are trying to improvise. On the other hand, it's easy to have those thematic houserules to fall out of relevance as sessions pass, and be mostly underwhelming.

[Kane0]

I would say both types are equally important. One serves to fine tune mechanics and broaden viable options, the other serves to fine tune feel and elicit the reactions you want in your players.

This is especially true if the system doesnt already handle the specific thing you want all that well, on both fronts.

[NichG]

On the other hand, I have far more positive examples than failures both from games I've played in and games I've run. One of the most persistent set of houserules involved a system of 'cosmic taints' from another GM's campaign, that got adopted and extended in my games and those of other players who were in that campaign and went on to GM. So I'd say that was pretty successful since we keep bringing it back in various forms. Basically, these are simple 0-10 scales which only get modified by very specific cases and interactions, and tend to have both positive and negative effects, though some are pretty bad and some are strictly good. When added to a game like D&D where pretty much there are no such things as long-lasting persistent consequences at high level, having a few tracks which you can't just increase or decrease with Wish or Heal or Greater Restoration or other such things is useful. Plus, since some taints are desirable, and by now there's something like 50 of them, it can be a motivation to go in search of those sources that can provide them. It's also a good short-hand to quickly theme an arc to pick a particular taint and make its origin or latest avatar into an antagonistic force - you can have the Haunt arc that deals with horror movie tropes and cursed locations, the Doom arc that deals with countdowns and fates, the Oubliette arc that deals with things being forgotten, the Paradox arc that deals with time shenanigans, etc.

Another one which I've used in a few campaigns is the concept of grouping effects like stealth and invisibility, various forms of DR/resistance/immunity, sources of miss chances, etc into broad categories, and then having certain kinds of (relatively easily produced) environmental effects which act as broad reductions or counters to those things. So for example, there are Revealing Environments of Rank 1, 2, or 3. Rank 1 would be things like powders suspended in the air or water pooling on the ground, means that all forms of auto-success or auto-bonus stealth cease to provide advantages when someone is moving and interacting with reality. Rank 2 removes the benefits even when someone is still, and Rank 3 (which generally requires supernatural circumstances) actively makes the hidden visible even to those without the senses to normally perceive them. There's similar things like Weather which interferes with all forms of flight, or the more exotic 'Death Song' which lowers the rank of immunities (where immunities get classified into Rank 3: makes you stronger when exposed, Rank 2: inherently nonsensical for this to pose a danger such as a fire elemental's fire immunity, and Rank 1: immune via protection) and can be produced in setting-specific ways. It leads to a more 'improvise stuff with the environment to counter an enemy's schtick' kind of play suited for some games, especially things that are meant to have a kind of swashbuckling feel.

[DwarfFighter]

It seems to me that OP is mixing up two house rule issues into one, decrying house rules that change existing mechanics stuff and lauding house rules that add new mechanics: The former is "boring" and somehow mutually exclusive with the latter "thematic"?

I don't think any group should feel bad about introducing house rules they feel fix issues with the game. If the GM truly believes longswords should be 1d6 damage and katanas should be 4d12, fine. I don't agree with that, but it's not something that is at all comparable to having players characters regenerate 1hp an hour in sunlight or whatever.

Saying one way to house rule the game is "better" than another way is comparing apples and weather patterns.

[Anonymouswizard]

A (good) houserule to fix is always to theme, and houserules with the intent of theming do so to fix some issue that isn't too theme. This is because the rules, setting, and theme are, in an ideal world, not in conflict.

In writing my own homebrew system (or really two very different ones) in the past year I've gained a new appreciation for hour much rules matter to theme, and how that's more important than realism or arbitrary coolness.

An issue that comes up sometimes it's people trying to 'fix' D&D 5e by weakening natural characters. This likely isn't because they don't realise that martials are better at feeling damage because they lack the utility of their magical compatriots, it's because in their ideas theming a fighter isn't as during as a wizard, and the fact that the wizard gets outdamaged isn't too their theming. This might got against the ideal theming of must of this board (where martials only need a bit of luck surviving a few spells while they beat up the wizard), but that doesn't make it a bad rule.

The most common houserules I see are those that eliminate something the GM/group's preferred theming doesn't want to deal with, likely encumbrance or tracking consumables. I personally like ones that limits the 'death as a failure state' tendency, making other consequences of failure the main ones.

[Asisreo1]

Most thematic houserules I've seen suffer from variant of the Goodhart law (or as we call them, "are not munchkin-proof"), meaning that they only work as long as players use them as intended. Then, depending on the GM, the houserule starts actively contradicting the theme or become a constantly changing mess when you explore the corner cases.

But the hardest IMO is to have a good balance for the relevance and time passed using the houserule. Advanced rules for creating armies are great, but if it takes too much table time, the players are gonna notice that the gameplay isn't that deep and the nearby pile of board games are much better designed than the one you are trying to improvise. On the other hand, it's easy to have those thematic houserules to fall out of relevance as sessions pass, and be mostly underwhelming.

The chance of failure is not exclusive to fix-type of houserules, true. But the overall fun of the campaign and how the group proceeds in play from that failure is important as well.

If thematic mechanics fail, they can usually be safely removed or modified with understanding that the original rules are satisfactory to lean on if need be. The DM may be frustrated but that frustration is born from the failure of the houserule more than the failure of the entire system.

If a mechanic meant to fix a problem ends up failing, this usually means the DM will either feel that they must concede their game to the system's ruleset which they disagree with, change the ruleset again in a blind-dart pattern, or drop the game entirely which is undesirable.

It seems to me that OP is mixing up two house rule issues into one, decrying house rules that change existing mechanics stuff and lauding house rules that add new mechanics: The former is "boring" and somehow mutually exclusive with the latter "thematic"?

I don't think any group should feel bad about introducing house rules they feel fix issues with the game. If the GM truly believes longswords should be 1d6 damage and katanas should be 4d12, fine. I don't agree with that, but it's not something that is at all comparable to having players characters regenerate 1hp an hour in sunlight or whatever.

Saying one way to house rule the game is "better" than another way is comparing apples and weather patterns.

It's not about changing V. adding rules. Its about the purpose behind the changes.

Houserules that change existing rules for thematic changes, like changing the resting rules so that they can only rest inside a town helps with theme of outside being especially dangerous and towns being a safe haven.

Houserules that add existing rules would be like if you added a new status effect to the game and had spells or even a whole subsystem based on those effects which might help the theme of an area being plagued by this effect.

Either works fine. In fact, the mechanical difference between a houserule made to fix and a houserule made to be thematic may be absolutely none, just the way the DM goes about the situation might determine the purpose of the houserules.

[Batcathat]

If thematic mechanics fail, they can usually be safely removed or modified with understanding that the original rules are satisfactory to lean on if need be. The DM may be frustrated but that frustration is born from the failure of the houserule more than the failure of the entire system.

If a mechanic meant to fix a problem ends up failing, this usually means the DM will either feel that they must concede their game to the system's ruleset which they disagree with, change the ruleset again in a blind-dart pattern, or drop the game entirely which is undesirable.

I very much doubt every GM (or even most of them) would react in those fairly specific ways to their houserules failing.

[martixy]

I've seen plenty of clueless GMs fail *hard* when trying to house rule to "fix" mechanics. Anyone with extensive experience with their "themes" counterpart(s) care to weigh in?
...
But… not all mechanical fixes are about *balance*. And there, I think I'd have to argue that mechanical fixes for the sake of sanity are probably "better" (more vital) than ones for theme. Although I'm drawing a blank on examples.

Most thematic houserules I've seen suffer from variant of the Goodhart law (or as we call them, "are not munchkin-proof"), meaning that they only work as long as players use them as intended.

Oddly, I never had individual rules fail, even though I have accumulated a ridiculous amount of houserules over time. The problem was always just the amount of rules (in general, not ones I added/changed). I'm not sure if this counts as a success story in this context, or still a failure.

What I can say is that I went in with the intent of fixing mechanics. With an overarching goal, but mostly fixing crap I didn't like or I wanted my game to feature. The subset of rules I touched in favour of the theme I wanted was fairly minor.

[Pex]

Oddly, I never had individual rules fail, even though I have accumulated a ridiculous amount of houserules over time. The problem was always just the amount of rules (in general, not ones I added/changed). I'm not sure if this counts as a success story in this context, or still a failure.

What I can say is that I went in with the intent of fixing mechanics. With an overarching goal, but mostly fixing crap I didn't like or I wanted my game to feature. The subset of rules I touched in favour of the theme I wanted was fairly minor.

This tells me you never found a game system you like. You keep changing things and are never satisfied. You need to figure out what it is you actually want and research the game system that gives it to you, but you stll might be making changes for the sake of making changes. Perhaps as an exercise make your own game system. Use your own ideas. Maybe you'll be fortunate to have it published. Maybe it's just for fun. However, if you find you keep changing your own rules over and over there's something else going on I'm not qualified to say.

I can speak from experience of an old 3E DM. The group lasted for 12 years. In the latter years the DM kept adding house rules, tinkering with how magic worked, new feats, giving PC new class abilities added on to what they had. Some changes stayed. Some changes went away. It eventually bled into the gameworld. He had us hopping into different Prime Material planes that were essentially What Ifs, tried out different cultures and sometimes new game mechanics. By the third campaign sometimes it was our game world but an illusion. "I disbelieve the world" was a viable option and the correct thing to do. I suppose it was inevitable, but the 4th campaign was post-Apocalyptic where his intent was to start over. It was too late. He had burned out, ending the campaign and quitting DMing. He was never satisfied with the rules. Obligatory: It was never about "balance".

[MoiMagnus]

This tells me you never found a game system you like. You keep changing things and are never satisfied. You need to figure out what it is you actually want and research the game system that gives it to you, but you stll might be making changes for the sake of making changes. Perhaps as an exercise make your own game system. Use your own ideas. Maybe you'll be fortunate to have it published. Maybe it's just for fun. However, if you find you keep changing your own rules over and over there's something else going on I'm not qualified to say.

Some peoples ultimately chase novelty and creation, which requires a constantly changes.
My 5e GM probably created a dozen RPG systems, most of them for a single one-shot scenario (played multiple times by different tables), one of them being almost a decade long project with multiple hundred pages of rules (which vastly changed from the beginning to its end), and another one slowly starting to grow to a similar size.
All of them span vastly different gameplay styles, from light FATE-like systems, to deeply technical ones, going through some where combat is an after-though but diplomacy and investigation is central.

And I'm not even counting the big boardgame he is working on, and all the small subsystems that were created to handle a single encounter of a campaign. (Like a set of rules for the epic defence of one fortress)

[And I'm co-designer of a good half of those rule systems]

[FrogInATopHat]

...To me, this is a problem...

There's the rub.