30 Days of Gamemastering: Part Eleven

This is part eleven in the continuing series of posts for the “30 Days of Gamemastering Challenge” from Triple Crit.

House rules: what are your favorite hacks, mods, and shortcuts?

My relationship with house rules has been somewhat unusual. Much of my roleplaying life has been spent playing a home-brewed game designed by a former member of our gaming group. We all worked on tweaks and modifications to the game over a period of years, so it’s hard to narrow down which “house rule” I liked best–the entire game was a sum of such parts. We played this game in my group for many years and got a great deal of enjoyment from it.

Outside of that, I think my favorite modification that I made solely for myself was a table I developed to give some randomness to the economic status of the cities that the players visit.  When the PCs arrive at a particular marketplace (a city, a festival, etc.), the game master would roll on the Market Indicator Table to get a sense of the current state of the market. Depending upon the roll, she applies the appropriate modifier to the standard cost of any good or service indicated. For example, a roll on the table indicates a surplus of livestock. In this case, the cost of livestock would be multiplied by .75, reducing the cost by twenty-five percent. Players buying livestock would benefit from a reduction in cost, while players that are trying to sell off their excess will not get a good price. The game master may also rule that the modifier applies to all related goods and services. In this case, the modifier could be applied to the cost of feed or even meat.

I was so proud of this mod that I wrote an article about it and sold it to Knights of the Dinner Table magazine.

So what about you? Any cool house rules or modifications that changed your gaming experience for the better?