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House rules are unofficial modifications to official game rules adopted by individual groups of players. House rules may include the removal or alteration of existing rules, or the addition of new rules. Such modifications are common in board games such as Monopoly and role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons .
Monopoly is frequently played with slightly different rules to those provided by the manufacturers, [2] to the extent that, according to a reviewer at Computer Gaming World, "virtually no-one plays the game with the rules as written". [3] Some video game versions of Monopoly have options where popular house rules can be enabled. In 2014, Hasbro, the publisher of Monopoly, used a Facebook poll to determine the five most popular house rules, then released a "House Rules Edition" of the game incorporating those rules. [4]
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In role-playing games, the term house rule signifies a deviation of game play from the official rules. Game systems may encourage, discourage, or ignore the possibility of house rules entirely. House rules are usually explicitly forbidden in tournament or official settings, but are commonly used in casual settings.
House rules can range from the tiniest of changes or additions to substantial deviations that alter the entire flow of gameplay, depending on the needs of the player group. Most groups have house rules to some extent. In miniature wargaming, house rules may be used to represent equally unofficial miniature conversions or can be used as scenario specific rules.
House rules date back to the earliest days of role-playing: the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons suggested that players should have a copy of the Chainmail historical wargame for measurement and combat rules and, even more confusingly, it presumed ownership of the Avalon Hill game Outdoor Survival (at the time, Avalon Hill was a competitor to D&D's publisher, TSR, Inc.; later, TSR and Avalon Hill would come under the Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast umbrella). Since many players who purchased D&D did not own copies of Chainmail or Outdoor Survival, they simply made up rules to cover the holes in D&D; many of these house rules later became the basis for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Most house rules are made up by the members of a particular group of players and are never published. Generally, the companies that produce wargames allow their use alongside official rulesets as long as it is non-commercial, as is the case with Games Workshop. [5]
Any rule book that is not a part of the core rule books, even if it ultimately comes from the original publishers of the game, could be seen as being house rules.
In a United States law case. Lefkowitz v. Great Minneapolis Surplus Store, Inc (1957), Great Minneapolis Surplus Store advertised some fur coats for sale for $1 each, "first come first served", then argued (unsuccessfully) that they had a "house rule" stating that bargains were limited to women only. [6] The Supreme Court of Minnesota readily disposed of the store's argument:
The defendant contends that the offer was modified by a "house rule" to the effect that only women were qualified to receive the bargains advertised. The advertisement contained no such restriction. This objection may be disposed of briefly by stating that, while an advertiser has the right at any time before acceptance to modify his offer, he does not have the right, after acceptance, to impose new or arbitrary conditions not contained in the published offer. [7]
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast, now a subsidiary of Hasbro, since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, and also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre.
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, along with Dungeon.
Avalon Hill Games Inc. is a game company that publishes wargames and strategic board games. It has also published miniature wargaming rules, role-playing games and sports simulations. It is a subsidiary of Hasbro, and operates under the company's "Hasbro Gaming" division.
TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so he founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.
David Lance Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work was fundamental to the role-playing game (RPG) genre, pioneering devices now considered to be archetypical, such as cooperative play to develop a storyline instead of individual competitive play to "win" and adventuring in dungeon, town, and wilderness settings as presented by a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters.
Blackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originated in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, as an early testing ground for what would become D&D.
Chainmail is a medieval miniature wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Gygax developed the core medieval system of the game by expanding on rules authored by his fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) member Jeff Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly. Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in 1971.
Battlesystem is a tabletop miniature wargame designed as a supplement for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The original Battlesystem was printed as a boxed set in 1985 for use with the first edition AD&D rules. For the second edition of AD&D, a new version of Battesystem was printed as a softcover book in 1989.
The history of role-playing games begins with an earlier tradition of role-playing, which combined with the rulesets of fantasy wargames in the 1970s to give rise to the modern role-playing game. A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Traditionally all the participants but one take on characters and determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization and the actions succeed or fail according to a system of rules and guidelines, and one of the participants takes on the role of game master who narrates the story, plays all the non-player characters and determine the challenge rating and the outcome of various actions. Within the rules, the participants may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.
Guidon Games produced board games and rulebooks for wargaming with miniatures, and in doing so influenced Tactical Studies Rules, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. The Guidon Games publishing imprint was the property of Lowrys Hobbies, a mail-order business owned by Don and Julie Lowry. About a dozen titles were released under the imprint from 1971 to 1973.
The Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game has been adapted into many related products, including magazines, films and video games.
Don Lowry is a wargamer, businessman, illustrator, and game designer who is best known as the publisher of Chainmail and the editor of Panzerfaust Magazine.
A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The modern, commercial wargaming hobby developed in 1954 following the publication and commercial success of Tactics. The board wargaming hobby continues to enjoy a sizeable following, with a number of game publishers and gaming conventions dedicated to the hobby both in the English-speaking world and further afield.
The original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson was published by TSR, Inc. in 1974. It included the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 2002.
Greyhawk is a supplementary rulebook written by Gary Gygax and Robert J. Kuntz for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It has been called "the first and most important supplement" to the original D&D rules. Although the name of the book was taken from the home campaign supervised by Gygax and Kuntz based on Gygax's imagined Castle Greyhawk and the lands surrounding it, Greyhawk did not give any details of the castle or the campaign world; instead, it explained the rules that Gygax and Kuntz used in their home campaign, and introduced a number of character classes, spells, concepts and monsters used in all subsequent editions of D&D.
Swords & Spells is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation is TSR 2007.
Timothy James Kask is an American editor and writer in the role-playing game industry. Kask became interested in board games in his childhood, and later turned to miniatures wargames. While attending university after a stint in the US Navy, he was part of a group that playtested an early version of the new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for game co-designer Gary Gygax. Gygax hired him as the first employee of TSR, Inc. in 1975. After editing some of TSR's early D&D publications, Kask became editor of The Strategic Review, which later became The Dragon, and then Dragon Magazine.
Jon Pickens is an American game designer and editor who has worked on numerous products for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game from TSR and later Wizards of the Coast.
A tabletop role-playing game, also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a classification for a role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a set formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.