"When is it no longer "house rules"?" Topic

A question to the educated masses.

Let's say you have a set of rules, and you have made changes and tweaks to those rules over time, years in this case. Suppose you have created so many additional rules and tweaks that the "base" game is burried.

So the question is this: At what point does it stop being a modification, and become its own entity? What makes a game its own?

My inital reaction is that as long as you are using the "core concepts" it is still the base game. But what does that really mean? Dice? Movement? Miniatures? All games have those. Activation? Cards, chits, or IGYG, most games use those.

I realize the answer isn't easy, if it were I could answer it myself. So, any thoughts on this are appreciated.

From what I have seen there are no new game systems or ideas, they are all based on older games, just like all new tech is based on old. There are just different ways of mixing them together into a game.

I would guess that point comes when you are looking more at your notes, and have been for awhile, than you are at the rulebook.

Depends on the base rules system and what your intentions are.

If the base rules system has trademarked intellectual property terms and definitions, and you are still using them, I would think you are on thin ice if you went ahead and tried to publish your new rules.

If you are using well-established concepts and terms that are in the public domain, you are on "thicker ice."

I think to be "yours," someone with no prior knowledge of the system you based them on would have to be able to play using only YOUR material. If they need to refer back to the original system, you have only modified someone else's.

doc mcb and I are on similar wavelengths. If you can give the "new" material to a stranger and he can look at it without immediately seeing that it was "inspired" by another game, you might be on "thicker ice" (to quote MRC).

To be honest, this is a VERY fair question, and I don't see an easy answer for you. It may just come down to your own sense of ethics (assuming you haven't actually copied any of the original source text, of course).

Most games are "inspired" by previous rules sets.
Fire and Fury was a gradual modification of On To Richmond.
Flames of War owes heavily to Games Workshop.
So does Blitzkreig Commander.
Song of Blades and Heroes uses DBA's combat system
Two Hour Wargames apparently owe their main mechanism to some baseball game.

If new games had to be free of "inspiration" we would see very few new games.

Hi

There was a period in the 70s when a flock of games hit the market that were obviously variaents on WRG 3 and 4. None ever credited the point, most were simpler and better written. It might be as simplas the the writers (such as Royal Armies) had no clue what the WRG rules were doing, and…..

It is impossible to know if someone has seen the rules he is "stealing" from. Which is why copyright covers words, but not game mechanisms.

Rocky

All very interesting, thanks.

I don't intend to publish this particular thing, it was just a question that arose in my mind. If someone asks "do you play xyz?", and I do play it except that our rules are modified to oblivion how do you answer? That was what prompted the question, not any intention to sell it or anything.

I agree with what Doc mcb says, that it would have to stand alone, though I think that's pretty obvious. If you need the original game, then it's still the game.

I suppose it comes down to mechanics, doesn't it? What is unique and what is universal?

House rules often involve rule interpretation and often modifications to the army lists. The changing of game mechanics is a different, and touchy issue.

What a lot of clubs may not see are that such modifications are creating 'super units or armies' These need super enemies which may create the need by one party in the club to produce more changes for 'his' army.

It is always a slippery slope, when it comes to changing rule mechanics.

In most cases when are they no longer house rules? When someone tries to sell them or use them at a convention where players who use the base rules or other modifcations are present. (ie national events rather than local events).

Interesting discussion.

I think it's important to credit where ideas come from. In my house rules for Crossfire (I have them up on my site, but they are about to be replaced by a rewrite), I usually do this in end notes.

I don't think anyone uses my house rules, though I know a number of people enjoyed looking at how I may have tortured Arty Conliffe's wonderful concepts. And I'd never charge for them.

As per my tweaking of CF, my house rules are 22 pages long, including end/design notes. That's longer than the actual rules in CF as published (20 pages of actual rules, before you get to the organizations and scenario generator) but the game we play is very much recognizable as Crossfire, so it's definitely still Crossfire. On the Yahoo group (I'm not on there any more) we'd often refer to people's house rules as Timfire or LloydFire or SteveFire, etc. In my case, I dumped most of the very short as published sections on indirect fire and using tanks and added my own.

We still consider the game we play to be Crossfire, even with the new tank rules because I treat tanks exactly the same as infantry with respect to movement restrictions, command and control and number of actions. With a few extras like communication by radio tossed in to season…
--
Tim

If your aim is to publish these house rules, then your concern becomes one of copyright. Now ask yourself in that context if your rules are original enough to withstand that kind of scrutiny. Jürgen

When you try to get a copyright , you have to list the games from which you drew mechanics from. At least I did when I got my copyrights a number of years ago.

but the game we play is very much recognizable as Crossfire, so it's definitely still Crossfire.

I guess this is the heart of it.
How? How is it recognizable as Crossfire, and yet diffrent?
What are the things that make the game "recognizable" as one thing, and not just "inspired by" it.

And again, I have no interest in selling or publishing these. It's just a question.

If you are still using all the basic mechanics, then it's house rules- eg in F&F just because you have changed the numbers in the to hit table ( so instead of x fp 1-3 No hit, 4-5 1 hit etc that line reads 1-2, 3-6 etc), the melee mods, the melee table, the movement distances and penalties, ranges and fresh/worn/spent thresholds (I think thats everything!) They are still F&F.

I no longer house rule any rules I have bought. If people don't like them they don't have to play. The only mod I have is the well circulated Shako ones, because they are common currency. I decided this was a concrete decision after a long discussion about pinning in PBI on the yahoo group.

The only house rule I do enforce (and this is NOT in contradiction to the above) is to limit the weapon arcs available in Full Thrust- A battery are only allowed 1 arc, Bs 2, but this is possible in the original rules- I have merely removed some weapon options. Now I don't force that on anyone else, just the games I provide the ship sheets and scenario for- It is my Universe Background, rather than rule mod.

I can't help but make the games I play better. Its rare that I meet a ruleset that can't be improved at least a little. I generally don't re-write so much that I would actually call it a different game. About the only thing I might consider to have taken it that far would be my re-write of 1st/2nd edition D&D. I had extensive, bound volumes of rules that had essentially obsoleted the player's handbooks.

Nowadays I'm more into naval wargaming. I've got house rules for both the major systems I play, Victory at Sea and Grand Fleets. I also wrote a Battlestar Galactica game from scratch. If you're interested in any of these, you can find them here:

Grand Fleets (WWI/WWII Surface Combat)
grandfleets.pbwiki.com

Victory at Sea (WWII naval combat)
victoryatsea.pbwiki.com

Battlestar Galactica: Colonial Battlefleet
link

The momnet any two or more people take up a set of rules and play them more than once, they have already initiated "house rules" version of that game. No two groups ever play a given set of rules exactly the same way. (rigid, abstract board games usually excepted of course; I still run into people who have been playing a different game of chess than I do, their whole lives)