GMing vs. Playing: Are Different Books a Double-Standard?

[Alzrius]

I had a bit of a disagreement with my D&D group last week. While it certainly wasn't acrimonious, it has left me slightly irked in its implication. As such, I wanted to get a broader overview from people here.

Our group plays Pathfinder. There are eight of us altogether, with three of us (myself including) rotating who GMs. The rules for building characters has always been - more through default than discussion - that all of the Paizo "hardcovers" were allowed for building PCs. Third-party products and custom content were accepted or denied on a case-by-case basis.

The point of disagreement came up when I disallowed the use of the new Advanced Race Guide as a GM, and asked (not mandated, just put out there as a personal request) that the players not use Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat.

Some background here - for the last few weeks I've been talking up a third-party product called Eclipse: The Codex Persona, which is a d20 point-buy system, in hopes that I'd be able to use it when we rotated GMs and I was a player again. This is not the first time I've talked up a third-party product that I've wanted to use as a player, either. In fact, I've been quite "3pp"-happy when I've been on the other side of the screen.

You can probably see where this is going by now...

The disagreement arose when the group expressed their point of view that I was being a hypocrite for wanting to restrict their options even as I tried to persuade them to let me maximize my own (since a point-buy system is option-rich).

I'll be honest: I was caught completely by surprise. I tried to explain to them that I was coming from a completely different place. To me, it wasn't about option restriction when I asked them to forego certain books...it was about supplement restriction, in that I didn't want to have to keep pouring through large sourcebook after large sourcebook.

To put it another way, I like myriad options - what I don't like is the sheer amount of time and energy that needs to be spent actually reading book after book after book, trying to memorize them and integrate them with the plethora of options that are already there. Even limiting it to Paizo hardcovers only has, in the last year, become more than I can honestly pull off (mostly because of starting a new career that has left me with very little free time).

The secondary point I tried to raise in my defense was that what I want to allow as a GM is different than what I want to be allowed as a player.

The idea I had there was that a GM needs to take a more holistic view of the campaign - he or she needs to have at least a working idea of what the PCs items and abilities are, so he can craft or alter the campaign as necessary to keep things appropriately challenging. Hence wanting to be conservative there.

Being a player, by contrast, doesn't bring that level of responsibility. While everyone should keep some thought for the group as a whole, the player is primarily concerned with what's best for his own character, and so will want to have as many options as possible. Hence wanting as much as possible to be declared permissible.

What I want to know is, was I holding a double-standard, on either of these points? Namely, is it unfair to want to keep the number of books used to a small few as a GM, but that I want to use a lot as a player? Is my reasoning of "less pages to read, please" a poor one for wanting to restrict the use of new supplements while advocating a point-buy system (which I've already read and internalized)?

 

[Grogg of the North]

With my current group its sort of unspoken that the GM is allowed to use materials that the PCs are not allowed access to.

I think your situation is different though since you're both GM and a Player. If one of your players had come to you and asked to use that source material while your GMing, would you have allowed it? Why? I can understand why your Players may feel annoyed at this. You asked them to not use some of the Paizo products but are then asking to use something from a third party.

I think if you want to use Eclipse, you may need to give a little to get a little. Or it may be time to just say "core book only".

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I can see if you don't want to deal with all the races and options of the ARG, but to disallow the UC and UM you are treading on sacred territory as far as your players are concerned. As a GM you don't need to know EVERYTHING inside and out, you just need to have a working knowledge of things and know where to find the rules for things you don't know.

If I was in the group I would find it hypocritical of you to ask for something to be added to another of the GM's game(s) when you won't allow what is basic stuff by now (UC/UM) to be allowed in your game. They wouldn't even have a working knowledge of this other source and it would put more work on them like you don't want put on yourself for a previously agreed upon "all Paizo" rule that your group goes by.

 

[Desdichado]

Why is it again that you need to know so much about those options in order to allow them as GM?

The way we play, it's the player's responsibility to know how to play his own character, not the GM's. The GM just needs to have a fairly vague idea of what the players are capable of. And even then, that's so that challenges in game can cater to the player's abilities and make them feel like they get to use them on occasion, not because I can't run the game otherwise.

On the other hand, I can totally see restricting options from a flavor standpoint. If I got a party that included a tengu, a strix, a merfolk, and a kobold, I honestly have no idea how in the world to create any kind of coherent campaign that features them, without throwing out the setting completely and putting them on some kind of extraplanar equivalent of the Star Wars cantina or something. Not that I couldn't do that, but if I had in mind running something else... well, I'd be really irked to get a collection of exotica for PCs. Therefore, I'd want to explicitly state up front what was disallowed.

 

[Libramarian]

It's not hypocritical if you have less free time than the other GMs.

 

[Agamon]

Yeah, it honestly looks a bit like a double-standard to me. I'm like the OP, the less supplements used in a game, the better, IMO. And when I play, I won't discount any extra options that the GM allows me, but I sure won't lobby for them, because I know what a headache they can cause as a GM.

 

[Cor Azer]

I don't see it as a double standard by default. Different campaigns, after all, are different, and one of those differences very well may be different allowed books.

That said, one person's reason for allowing/wanting something in one campaign, but not in another could be a double standard. Depends on the reason.

 

[71gamer]

If I was in the group I would find it hypocritical of you to ask for something to be added to another of the GM's game(s) when you won't allow what is basic stuff by now (UC/UM) to be allowed in your game. They wouldn't even have a working knowledge of this other source and it would put more work on them like you don't want put on yourself for a previously agreed upon "all Paizo" rule that your group goes by.

Agree, just let em use the dang rules as long as they bring the book to every session, and investigate anything that sounds hokey they try to do.

 

[Alzrius]

Thanks to everyone who's replied so far! To answer some of the questions and comments that have been put forth:

If one of your players had come to you and asked to use that source material while your GMing, would you have allowed it? Why?

If you mean if anyone had asked to make an Eclipse-built PC while I was GMing, I would have allowed it. As for why I would have, it would have been because it was a book I was already familiar with, and so didn't need to read in order to be up to speed on what such a character could do (though, being point-buy, I'd have asked to be briefed on what options were being used beforehand, and that I could disallow certain combinations - something I said I'd be willing to be subject to if I were using the book as a player).

Hence why I said it's not about option restriction as it is that I'm burnt out on reading new material. As the GM, I want to be at least somewhat familiar with how the PCs are designed, but it's getting harder and harder for me to keep up with the endless treadmill of new books.

As a GM you don't need to know EVERYTHING inside and out, you just need to have a working knowledge of things and know where to find the rules for things you don't know.

I'd be happy just to keep my knowledge of the new books to "working" rather than "very unfamiliar."

That said, beyond what I said before about knowing what the PCs can do making for better adventure design, there's also the issue of things grinding to a halt when the material is something I need to reference.

We frequently stop play to look things up, and we've all lost count of the number of times when somebody has put forth something (usually a bonus to a die roll) that, upon closer inspection, was incorrect for some reason. If the GM is unfamiliar enough with the material that they need to crack the book open and read it right there, this will happen all the time.

To me, the more familiar the GM is with the material, the quicker things flow. Hence, if I can't keep up when I'm GMing, the game quickly starts to hit speed bump after speed bump.

If I was in the group I would find it hypocritical of you to ask for something to be added to another of the GM's game(s) when you won't allow what is basic stuff by now (UC/UM) to be allowed in your game. They wouldn't even have a working knowledge of this other source and it would put more work on them like you don't want put on yourself for a previously agreed upon "all Paizo" rule that your group goes by.

To be fair, I didn't say that I wouldn't allow it, just that I'm not familiar with it and that it'd be nice if they steered away from those books. In other words, they aren't "basic stuff" to me.

Similarly, the other GMs don't have a problem with expanded material. They don't use it themselves, but they're more open to the possibility since they have more time and energy to read and integrate new material. I wouldn't have put the idea forward if I thought they were as burnt out on new stuff as I am.

Why is it again that you need to know so much about those options in order to allow them as GM?

The way we play, it's the player's responsibility to know how to play his own character, not the GM's.

The players know how to play their characters with those options; it's harder for me to run a game when I'm near-totally unfamiliar with the books they're using - sometimes fairly heavily - because when I don't know what they can do I can't run better adventures.

If they start pulling out spells and using feats I've never heard of, it's usually a precursor to things going off the rails, and not in a good way. It's not a "hey, the game is going in unexpected directions" thing, but more of a "the BBEG just moved? If he's in 10 ft. of me, I get an AoO with my whip. I'm tripping...yep, that's a 41 to trip. I get an AoO on a successful trip also. And everytime he tries to stand, I'll be using the AoO to trip him again." Suddenly, the villain is locked down, and the exciting fight goes into a grind-fest slaughter.

I'm not saying I need to have the books memorized - I just want to be familiar with the pool of options they've got so that I'm not being overwhelmed in the game I'm running.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I'd be happy just to keep my knowledge of the new books to "working" rather than "very unfamiliar."

That said, beyond what I said before about knowing what the PCs can do making for better adventure design, there's also the issue of things grinding to a halt when the material is something I need to reference.

We frequently stop play to look things up, and we've all lost count of the number of times when somebody has put forth something (usually a bonus to a die roll) that, upon closer inspection, was incorrect for some reason. If the GM is unfamiliar enough with the material that they need to crack the book open and read it right there, this will happen all the time.

To me, the more familiar the GM is with the material, the quicker things flow. Hence, if I can't keep up when I'm GMing, the game quickly starts to hit speed bump after speed bump.

I suggest you designate one of the others who GM in your game to be the assistant to look up the rules. It really speeds things up from that perspective so that you can continue with the combat. You make a ruling based off of what you feel comfortable with and then go back and look things up so that you know for sure what the actual RAW is. Stopping play for extended periods of time does make the game drag and definitely interrupts the flow of the game.

I'm not saying I need to have the books memorized - I just want to be familiar with the pool of options they've got so that I'm not being overwhelmed in the game I'm running.

I understand that it can be hard to be familiar with all the options, but at the same time - I agree with other posters - that it should be the player's responsibility to be able to explain to you how something is being done if you are unsure of the specific mechanics.