Open D&D Campaigns

[Odhanan]

Did/Does anyone start a campaign with the DM saying something along the lines of "I accept every PC using OGL/D&D compatible rules. Show me your character, let's discuss about it and tweak it a bit if need be".

What did your players come up with? For instance, a Midnight Channeler alongside Wizard, Runethane and Pirate? Did/Does this campaign turn out well? If so why? What should absolutely be avoided for this kind of campaign to not fail miserably?

Please tell me about your experiences/point of views.

 

[the Jester]

Not me. I don't want a bunch of random stuff that doesn't fit my milieu polluting my campaign world. For example, I see no need to allow broken prestige classes, a billion different base classes and races, etc. Though the free-for-all style you are talking about could be fun, it seems to me that it would damage the campaign's integrity. It would be great for a one-off or something, though.

I just never run one-offs....

 

[Psion]

Did/Does anyone start a campaign with the DM saying something along the lines of "I accept every PC using OGL/D&D compatible rules. Show me your character, let's discuss about it and tweak it a bit if need be".

What did your players come up with?

Our GM for Sunless Citadel said that. I was tempted to abuse it but did not. I ened up playing an illusion specialist with some spells from School of Illusion.

I don't quite go that far, but I am generally tolerant of allowing players to make the character they want to play and tend to foist things on the player that fit the tune of the campaign (of late, planar and seafaring stuff).

Characters in my River of Worlds game:

Female Wind Elf¹ Druid/Tender of Worlds²
Male Bronze Dragonblood³ Human Fighter
Male Halfling Rogue/Wizard/Spellfilch⁴
Male Half-Elf Druid/Sorcerer/Geomancer⁵
Male Sky Elf⁶ Laerdom Mage⁷/Sky Captain⁶
Male Human Wu Jen⁸

1 - From Bow & Blade (Green Ronin)
2 - From Portals & Planes (FFG)
3 - From Unearthed Arcana (WotC)
4 - From Age of Mortals (Dragonlance, Sovereign Press)
5 - From Complete Divine (WotC)
6 - From Aerial Adventure Guide (Goodman Games)
7 - From Swashbuckling Arcana (AEG)
8 - From Complete Arcane (WotC)

 

[Jdvn1]

I've only seen Wot and D&D mixed, and there were obvious power differences.

 

[diaglo]

yes. but i do it with OD&D(1974)


started with

Human Fighting Man
Human Cleric
Human Assassin
Human Fighting Man
Human Magic User
Dwarf Paladin
Human Thief
Elf Fighting Man/ Magic User/ Thief

gained Human Druid
Human Magic User
Half Elf/ Half Faerie Ranger
Half Ogre Monk
Elf Fighting Woman
Human Cleric
Human Magic User
Half Elf Fighting Man
Elf Thief
Dwarf Fighting Man

etc...

 

[skinnydwarf]

Did/Does anyone start a campaign with the DM saying something along the lines of "I accept every PC using OGL/D&D compatible rules. Show me your character, let's discuss about it and tweak it a bit if need be".

What did your players come up with? For instance, a Midnight Channeler alongside Wizard, Runethane and Pirate? Did/Does this campaign turn out well? If so why? What should absolutely be avoided for this kind of campaign to not fail miserably?

Please tell me about your experiences/point of views.

Not I. I usually say that only the Core books (3.0, at that) are acceptable, but I will entertain other options on a case by case basis. I like to run more "traditional" games, and random character classes don't fit that mold. In the future I'm thinking of running not so traditional games, so I might need to expand the types of characters I allow. That will be far in the future, though. It's going to be a couple more years (at least) before I have time to run a campaign.* But my world will hopefully be super-detailed by then. And in a month or so (when I get the money) I'll be able to add all the detail from Yggsburg- man that Castle Zagyg series looks awesome. Flipping through the first book made it very difficult to not put down the $40 right away. Quite a good price for the content, IMHO.

*I'm attending a law school that goes year round, so no summer vacation for gaming. On the plus side, after 3 years I end up with a years worth of interships to put on my resume.

 

[Wombat]

I've done this a couple of times for one- or two-shot comedy games, but that is about all.

There are so many rules variations, classes balanced only by settings, and other strange tweaks that to leave matters totally open would require massive amounts of mental juggling.

 

[Katcracker]

Not I. I usually say that only the Core books (3.0, at that) are acceptable, but I will entertain other options on a case by case basis.

This is what I am used to hearing from DM's- Corebooks, with anything else needing review.

 

[Yair]

I recently had a campaign where I accepted "any OGC or core D&D material; if you can show it to me, and it's OGC, it's in."
The response was raher underwhelming. Some poison rules and plans for a single non-core prestige class was all I got. I blame the players.

My next campaign will be "If it's for D&D, it's in." I'll also add in some Action Points rules. It will be Shackled City; we'll see how that goes.

 

[eljaspero]

At least a couple of Monte Cook's campaigns have used D&D and AE characters side-by-side, with apparently very good results.