Recovered: House Rules in a Digital House
I’ve been running D&D 5e for a group of remote friends recently. These are the “house rules” that I’ve adopted to make things go smoother, or at least reassure myself. I’m sure I got most of these from other places, but I can only credit what I remember.
Absence
Characters of absent players will be ignored and their departure and return unremarked on. I will make no effort to explain this in the fiction, but in future sessions we can act as though they were there. So “remember that time we all burned down a fortress?” or “aren’t you those people who tried to murder my brother?” will still include characters of players who were absent at the time.
I don’t plan to spend a lot of time balancing encounters, so I think “fading into the background” is a fine solution. I want to encourage roleplaying, but also a shared group identity, so this doesn’t let anyone off the hook or force anyone to miss opportunities because of real-life concerns.
Experience
Experience will be awarded using the “Milestone” option. While we are in a dungeon, “clearing” a level will be worth one level of experience. Outside of a dungeon, other goals may be used. These are negotiable.
I started the game in a dungeon and expected the first level to be cleared fairly quickly (it was). So this gave us a quick level-up without math on my end, but still tied to a measurable achievement. For the first-time players in the group, the early level-up lets them engage with the rules differently and see possibilities for (mechanical) growth. Because I do not know what parts of the game this group will enjoy most, the “Milestone” option allows them to pivot away from the dungeon later.
Inspiration
Inspiration will be awarded at the end of each session by player vote for favorite moment.
This is something I borrowed from DIE TRYING, although I’ve seen similar things in other systems. The practical effect is a moment of reflection at the end of the session when players can say what they liked best and what they’re looking forward to most. It also reminds me that inspiration exists.
Quorum
We will not play D&D with less than half the party. To keep the appointment, we can play other games with however many people we have.
It feels bad for the players who do show up when there aren’t enough people to play, so I really wanted to get in the habit of playing even if we can’t play the main game. Games under consideration for backup have to be lightweight. So far they include:
Timekeeping
Generally, I will assume an “exploration turn” of 10 minutes, which is enough time to fully explore a room and interact with all of its contents (excluding combat etc.). After 8 hours (48 turns) without rest, characters will take a level of exhaustion.
I didn’t find timekeeping rules that I liked in 5e, and as long as we were in a dungeon I wanted to build expectations around that procedure. In practice, the biggest effect of this change is that ritual casting now carries some cost. It does seem like 48 turns is unlikely to be an actual concern.
Encumbrance
I haven’t adopted these rules yet, but I’m considering something like Electric Bastionland (paraphrased):
Some items are [bulky]. You can carry two [bulky] items: one on your back and one in your hands.
The hope is that these rules are just enough to make looting things complicated, but not enough that I have to worry about weight or spreadsheets. The worry is that with six characters, this just still doesn’t matter.
Hexcrawling
These are also rules still under consideration:
Travel 3 hexes (6 miles each) per day, walking 8 hours per day. Roll a d6 2x every day of travel, once during the day and once during camp. On a 1, an Encounter occurs (something interesting). On a 2, an Omen occurs (signs of something interesting). Difficult terrain (mountain, swamp) counts as 2 hexes. Travel -1 hex to explore for hidden locations in one hex. Travel -1 hex to forage, gaining 1d4-1 rations per forager. Travel +1 hex on a road. Travel +1 hex if everyone has fast mounts. Travel +1 hex over another 4 hours but [take a level of] Exhaustion.
I didn’t find any hexcrawl rules in 5e, so I stole these ones wholesale from Moonhop. Because we have new players, I’m trying to fit as many “modes” as I can into the game, to showcase it a bit. At the same time, I’d like to minimize the overhead of learning a hundred new subsystems and then abandoning them later. I might have to make it two levels of exhaustion though, in order for it to matter.
Other Notes
I’ve observed some other things about the group in particular and online play in general.
- Playing on a weekday evening, and given the limits of engagement online, 3 hours is about as long as I can go.
- Some players fare better than others with “theater of the mind”. There has been a request for a VTT system of some kind, which terrifies me, but I’m considering it. On the other hand, I’d like everyone to be on the same footing, so maybe I can strike a balance with a whiteboard of some kind or some more defined abstractions (“Zones” from Fate or “Abstract Distances” from The Black Hack).
- None of the players has actually used their inspiration yet, so I’ll have to be better about reminding them when they can. The post-game ritual seems to go over well though.
- D&D is actually fun! This should be obvious, because why else would we be here? But it’s always refreshing to play.
This post was first shared on July 27, 2020. And I expect it shows: as Phlox observed in a comment, the pandemic forced many of us to alter our games’ formats.