Ken's Master List of D&D 5e House Rules and Preferences

These are house rules! The rules are what have worked for me. Maybe some of these rules will please you as a player in one of my games. Maybe they'll do the opposite. Please understand that what I am listing here is for running the best D&D game I know how.

Rule #1: Everyone is responsible for everyone else's fun. You, as a player, are responsible for the fun of the player across the table, yourself, the DM, everyone.

Rule #2: Character Creation: I lump all these together because it's the most common questions asked. Some are house rules, some are clarifications, but they are all lumped together here for convenience.

• Attributes can be point buy or 4d6 drop lowest, and I do allow total redos on attributes if you start over from scratch.
• I use the feat system, like most DMs.
• You may create a human with the alternate rule as shown in the PHB.
• You can either take the free equipment or use the wealth system (rolling for starting money and buying equipment) but not both. As far as I know, this is by the book, but I've been asked if a character gets both so many times that I felt like I needed to spell it out.
• If I don't own a hardcopy of a book, you cannot use anything out of it. No, giving me a PDF doesn't count. I don't use stuff out of third party books or UA. Currently, these are the books I have available: PHB, DMG, MM, VGM, XGE, MTF, CoS, SCAG, GoS, E:RftLW. 

Rule #3: Keep track of ammo. My rule for ammo is: if it did damage, it is spent. If it didn't do damage or was not disposed of in some other way (went off a cliff) then there's a 50% chance of recovery of each arrow.

Rule #4: I don't keep track of spell components unless you lose your pouch and focus, or a spell component costs money.

Rule #5: If we are playing on a system that automatically calculates encumbrance, like the OGL sheet on Roll20, then sure, let's keep track. Otherwise, I forget about encumbrance rules...but make sure you take it into consideration before I am forced to. For example, if you jumped over a ravine to get to a hoard of treasure, then you have to realize beforehand that you can't jump back over fully loaded. Either roleplay having this difficulty, or you force me to add up everyone's encumbrance, and no one wants that sort of delay!

Rule #6: I use benchmarks for leveling, not XP.

Rule #7: Cinematic scenes in which the mechanic of hit points is suspended, is a tricky subject. I generally agree with the opinions stated in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEDiiJGle1Y. (Credit to the Taking 20 YouTube channel, in fact, all their videos is incredibly educational and useful.) This means that hit points can be circumvented in the right situations where logic would call for it, though a bit more infrequently than the video calls for.

Rule #8: The subject of limits is important in these games. I have varying levels of restriction of tricky subjects:

• Any player can call a topical "time out" if the game approaches a triggering subject matter.
• Sexual scenes are usually a fade to black, and I don't like RPing horny or lovestruck NPCs. You can find love and/or sex in a game I run if you like, but it's going to be mostly background unless it involves two willing PCs. I completely avoid rape scenes, though the threat of sexual aggression may be implicit (but almost never explicit) in certain aspects of some slavery institutions in the world.
• I can be graphic in my description of violence and wounds, but it usually comes organically from combat. I avoid graphic descriptions of torture, and almost never implement torture on PCs.

Rule #9: Initiative ties are broken by who has the higher Dexterity. After that, higher Wisdom.

PREFERENCES:

These are just preferences. You won't even make me mad if you don't follow these. But you can delight and surprise your DM if you take these into consideration!

• I love roleplay. There's a reason we're not playing a board game.
• I love flavor added to game mechanics. Is your spellbook actually an invisible gremlin with eidetic memory who lives in a bottle and whispers spells to you as you memorize them? Is your Second Wind a traditional chant you must perform to psych yourself up? There are a million places to go after the mechanical fulfillment is met.
• Magical healing produces no scars, but healing from long rests do, depending on the type and severity of the damage healed.
• Attunement is a another tricky subject. My first instinct is to say it sucks, and one should have the ability to attune to more than two magic items as long as they're on different parts of the body. However, part of the Artificer class build (from Eberron: Rising from the Last War) is to be able to attune more than two magic items at a time. So it's going to end up like encumbrance rules: I usually turn a blind eye, but if you make me have to think about it, I'll start enforcing it! And if a player wants to play an Artificer, I definitely have to start enforcing it. 

RULE CLARIFICATIONS:

The following are rules that are correct in the book, but are either so very obscure, or often homebrewed, that it is notable that I run them as such. They are here mostly for the DM's benefit.

• You can only move through an opponents' square if they are two sizes larger or smaller than you, but remain difficult terrain. You can move through a friendly character's square, but it also is difficult terrain.
• A character can’t benefit from more than one Long Rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.
• Hit points are an abstract combination of health, willpower, and luck. This leaves much room for the DM and player to determine exactly how a person is wounded - is it blood loss? Does taking tons of psychic damage mean that the character just wants to lay down and die? There are endless possibilities.

RULES FOR THAT ONE PLAYER...YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

• The Paladin spell Summon Steed does not drop your mount from on high, allowing it to crash through the roof and onto the enemy.
• You cannot use the Paladin's Ceremony ritual just for the AC bonus if you immediately claim you are in love with the dwarf right after learning of the existence of the marriage ritual.