Originally published 24 Dec, 2025
I think that the topic of house rules for TTRPGs is an interesting concept, psychologically speaking. What we’re seeking is a more fun experience, and looking to others for advice. We’re not all game designers, and even if we are, we can’t have tested everything, so we search for insight from other people. The thing that I’ve found, though, is that house rules are both mutable and deeply personal. If you haven’t discovered or created them yourself, it can be difficult to implement them cleanly.
I have a few for you today. I use all of these personally, and have found success with them. Feel free to use my experience to influence what you’re campaign might look like.
However, I want to make it clear up front how much the simple act of adding more house rules to your campaign with add complexity. Players are used to getting everything out of the book, but the more things you add, the more there is to explain. At a point it’s not worth it.
In a short campaign I ran over the summer with some friends, we used Cairn 2e rules along with some minor house rules of my own. Most of them were DM (Or “warden,” as it’s called in Cairn) specific, but one of the changes was rather simple. This game world used the silver standard — essentially, the costs of items and services were changed to silver. A short sword might cost 5 silver pieces, as opposed to 5 gold previously.
For whatever reason, I had to elaborate it constantly. Every time any treasure was distributed, I had to say something like, “remember that it’s silver pieces.” It got to a point where it made me not want to bother. Just be mindful of this phenomenon. It can and will sneak up on you, if you’re not careful.
Because house rules are so personal, I don’t want to just pitch 50 of them to you in a list with basic descriptions; or send you to an 80-page document that’s 58% of the way to its own system. What I want to do is sell you on a couple impactful house rules that I’m using in my current campaign, and tell you why you want to add their strain to your campaign.
With that out of the way, let’s dig in.
For me as a DM, the items that the PCs have is very important. I’m not talking about wands, +1 swords or bags of holding, I’m talking about rope, buckets and chalk. Essentially, I treat the equipment list as a second spell list. Flaming flasks of oil are magic-missiles with splash damage, rope is just a “scale wall” spell, the classic 10-foot pole ends up being a “detect traps” spell. Extra food rations are merely “distract monster” spells.
Just like with spell slots, we need a way to limit this. The alternative is every player having infinite multi-tools for very little cost. As a small aside, this is why I really dislike cantrips — they’re too powerful and by being free end up being the best-in-class option. Why throw flasks of oil when you can use Acid Splash? Why use a torch when there’s infinite “torches” with the Light Cantrip. And don't even get me started on the popular interpretation of how darkvision works.
Anyway.
Long story short: I like the “stone” system by Delta of Delta’s Dnd hotspot. It’s a great middle ground between complex and simple. I personally encourage keeping track of everything. I need you to write down exactly how many pairs of pants your character owns. While it’s never this extreme, I find it much easier in the long run for players to know what they have. The default system for B/X and its derivatives is based on how many coins something ways, which is a bit too granular, not intuitive enough for me. While a slot-based system (You get of x number of slots, each item takes up a slot, sometimes two. Here’s some rules)cis on the right track, half of the slightly more granular things (clothes, extra sacks, etc.) end up being “free-to-carry” or “petty” or whatever, which I dislike.
Essentially, the Stone system is a kind of weighted (unintentional pun) version of slots. It’s complicated enough to not be able to easily summarize here (but still not that bad). Armor of different forms takes up more of the budget of stone your character can carry. The amount of total stone directly affects how fast your character is. A character holding 5 or less stone worth of stuff (i.e. usually not armor) gets to move 40 ft, for instance. It’s usually simple enough to grasp, and if it was the default version of D&D from the start, then I think it would make perfect sense.
For this campaign, I wanted a different way to handle character death than the standard “death at 0 hp” for most of Old School DND. I have nothing against the system, but it can lead to frustration, especially considering how my games end up being on the deadlier side of the spectrum (which you can read about here). I wanted a better solution which still kept the higher stakes, but also made it so that the characters wouldn’t always immediately die.
Enter the retirement system. Created by Arnold K. at Goblin Punch, it makes for a nice balance between instant death, and the immortality of 5e characters. The way I use it is as follows: if your character goes to negative Hp (either from incurring more damage than Hp they have, or by taking damage at the start of each round) then they get 1 point of trauma per hp under 0 they go. When the players go back to town (or just “safety” — I can see them intentionally avoiding towns if trauma get high enough), then they roll a d20 and if it’s under or equal to the trauma number, the character retires — leaving the party to become an NPC. Depending on their level and the amount of money the party gives them, the new NPC may end up being a great asset in the future. The players can no longer play the PC, but they don’t instantly die, which I think is a fair compromise.
Thief skills are a constant topic of modulation in Old School D&D. The percentile version present in Basic/Expert games isn’t particularly intuitive. Who wants to dig out 2d10 for one singular roll? In my opinion, the most elegant version of thief skills that I’ve seen is Dyson Logos’ 2d6 thief.
It’s nice and simple, which I prefer. This accurately replaces the percentile rolls with 2d6 rolls, which is nice and easy. You roll 2d6, add your dexterity modifier, and if it’s over the (relatively high) number, you automatically succeed at the action.
As the house rules rabbit hole is never-ending, there’s a secondary version of this, which is the one I use. It’s a simplified version of the original, where thief players pick one of the skills to be “favored” and the rest follow a different table.
One thing to make clear about this system (it’s more of a personal rule), which I think is generally agreed upon: The skills a thief is granted from their class makes them supernaturally good at them. Anyone can try and pick a lock with the proper equipment, but thieves can pick the toughest lock with ease, and only with a twig and some peanut brittle. Anyone can try and sneak, but thieves can crouch-walk silently, a millimeter above the ground. This makes it, so the thief isn’t stepping on the other classes’ toes, but allows them to stand above the rest.
Even if you use D&D 5e+, why not implement these skills for the rogue? It’s something different from the normal bonus d20 skills, and might lead to some interesting outcomes. Also, it’s worth adopting the general mindset that training in some specific thing trumps rolling a skill. Say the PC used to be a sailor, then he can automatically succeed at nautical activities, and so on and so forth.
Miscellaneous and Minor Extras
Here are a few smaller ideas that I use, but don’t warrant a full breakdown. I’ll still elaborate as much as needed.
Side Based Initiative — Lucky for you, I’ve written a whole post about this topic here. Essentially, you roll two different colored d6s at the start of each round, one for the players and one for the opponents. Whoever get the higher number goes first that round. (Just go around the table clockwise for turn order. Crits — Critical hits always do the max amount of damage on the die plus whatever modifiers. Since crits are actually more punishing to the players than monsters (The players will always sustain more critical hits over the course of the game than any singular monster.), this gives them a bonus, while removing the possibility for a level 1 character with 4 hp to take, like, 16 damage in one attack. Helmets — 10 Gp for a piece of equipment (1/3 stone), destroy to negate an enemy’s critical hit. Bandages — You can purchase bandages for 5 Sp each, they allow you to regain 1d6 health lost in the immediately preceding fight. Like the helmet, it gives the players a bit extra slack in the game, if they’re prepared. The Murky Mirror — This is less of a “house rule” and more of my DMing style, but I tend to use the Angry DM’s Murky Mirror system in my games. Essentially, everything you’re saying at the table is also generally being said in-game, just reflected in the game world. This boils down to “don’t say ‘let’s kill this guy’ in front of the guy you want to kill” and that intelligent monsters might react to tactics you shout across the table. It’s simple, easy to remember, and can clear up some confusion.
While these rules were created specifically for Old School systems, i.e. a different experience than D&D 5e+, I still think they can still benefit you, even if you don’t play Old School games (not many people do, though they should!). We’re looking at the mindset here. All the rules I choose to add to my games need to be 1) impactful 2) streamline things or 3) make the game seem real. However, above everything else, the game needs to be fun. If your players really, absolutely despise bandages as a mechanic, then feel free to remove them. Everything you add has a cost and a benefit, and it’s your job to make sure the latter outweighs the former, to ultimately make the game more fun and engaging.
Feel free to leave any concerns, or house rule recommendations in the comments.
Happy Holidays, everyone. References
Dyson Logos’ Thief Skills Stone Encumbrance Rules Goblin Punch’s Retirement Rules
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