The Wookie stood on the edge of the road, discussing his next destination with the crew of the transport. The crew seemed unwilling to haggle on the price of transportation, even with a large and angry Wookie. As the haggling grew more heated, a speeder bike pulled up. A familiar looking Rodian sneered as he lifted up his blast pistol.
"You made me look like a fool", he shouted before firing a round into the Wookie's chest from point blank range.
Amazingly, the Wookie was unscathed from the blast, and took his own blaster out of its holster and fired back, striking the Rodian with what was hoped to be a deadly blast. His foe, however, also seemed unharmed from the shot and returned fire. A perfect hit, but again, the large humanoid shrugged off the damage. At that point, the intended target took a step forward and swung his blaster like club and bashed the Rodian with a melee attack.
The damage was critical and the would-be assassin slumped to the ground. Triumphant, the Wookie laughed at the silly attempt on his life.
"That's stupid! He took two point blank shots and did not even suffer a point of damage. How can hitting someone with a blaster be more powerful than shooting them?", one of the players in the table top role playing group yelled across the table.
Another player laughed and suggested that next time, a sword should be used instead.
"But it is Star Wars, not D&D, I don't want to use a sword. I want to shoot stuff and have it die."
More laughter ensued, but after the humor died down, legitimate discussions about the rules began. After some spirited back and forth, it was agreed that some modifications to the core rules would be put in place. Specifically, even if a character takes no damage from an attack, that character's defense is weakened against another immediate attack.
In the above scenario, it was decided that the second point blank shot should have had a cumulative effect, and been more powerful than the first. The rules would appear to work, as the game became less melee dependent.
House rules in the world of tabletop gaming are quite common, from alternate critical hit rules to incapacitation rules designed to keep characters alive. Most of them are minor, and center around how the GameMaster wants to run the campaign, but occasionally, a rule will be so imbalanced that it will need to be changed out of necessity.