House rules

These rules did not apply during the Curse of Strahd campaign, but do apply to the New World Campaign.

Mini Arcs

 * DMs should use short story arcs, referred to as Mini Arcs.

This helps to support a rotating DM system and to allow for different characters to join up for different Mini Arcs.
 * Mini Arcs should last one to three gaming sessions - awarding 1 experience per intended session.
 * A Mini Arc should start and end in a relatively safe, accessible area.
 * Mini Arcs can be completely stand-alone or be part of one or more story arcs.
 * DMs should avoid too much 'fast travel', this is a unknown continent with no roads, after all!

Character Creation

 * Player characters receive a free feat at level 1. Normal feat requirements still apply.
 * No variant humans.
 * No races with at-will flight.
 * No Unearthed Arcana content unless agreed by all players.
 * New characters can be introduced if they immediately take part in a Mini Arc; they can start at level 3 with an additional 50gp to spend.
 * Characters that die can be replaced by new characters with 2 fewer experience points.

Feats
e.g. A level 5 character using one of these feats would suffer -3 to their attack roll and gain +6 damage.
 * Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter feats now subtract your proficiency from an attack to add double your proficiency to the damage.

Experience

 * A Mini Arc is worth 1-3 experience points - depending on how much material they contain - for each character that completes it, the DM for that Mini Arc also gets those experience points to assign to one of their characters.
 * Each level up to and including 4 requires 4 experience points.
 * Levels 5 to 10 require 6 experience points.
 * Levels 11 to 20 require 8 experience points.

Gameplay
e.g. "My bond is to protect my drinking buddies, so when I see Boozy Jeff take a beating, I leap across the table and catch his attacker with a surprise sucker punch."
 * Short rests take 8 hours of no more than light activity (i.e. a nights rest).
 * Long rests take two days of no more than light activity (i.e. 3 nights rest).
 * Inspiration is given to each player at the start of every session, but to use it they must describe whatever inspiringly awesome thing their character is doing to gain advantage. Ideally this should be something tied to their traits, flaws, bonds etc.
 * Inspiration can be regained by claiming a setback based on your traits, flaws, bonds etc, with the agreement of the DM, and taking disadvantage on a related roll.

e.g. "My flaw is that I can't resist a pretty face, so can I claim a setback on my insight check for this beautiful elf lady that's asking for our help?"