As a general rule you should not play by a set of rules unless you've played by them before and can attest to their veracity. It would bode very ill for MP newbies to start playing with rules around "no castles, no clams, no pretenders that have more than 10 hp" because once you would like to play in other games, it's going to limit your choices, because the greater percentage of players think those rules are precisely *for* newbies, and if you can't learn how to fight against them, then you will always 'lose' because of them.