Kitchen Sink or Limits, Which for You?

[Gilladian]

If you like limited settings, feel free to answer any or all of these follow-ups:

Does it matter whether the restrictions stem from DM fiat (“I just don’t like sorcerers”), from setting themes (“The gods have abandoned Athas, so no divine PCs”), or from print origin (“Nothing from the Essentials books”)?

If you like strongly thematic settings, is such a setting any less acceptable if your favorite races or classes aren’t part of the theme?

What about strongly thematic settings that naturally foster a kitchen sink attitude, like Planescape?

It doesn't matter to me why the DM limits the setting. If the DM limits, I obey the limits. When I am the DM, I set limits for one of two reasons; either I am using my campaign setting, which has restrictions for flavor reasons, or I'm using a published setting and follow the restrictions listed therein.

I've never played in or seen a setting that I thought was "too restrictive". I've run in all-human campaigns, when that suited the 'story' the DM was laying out.

Since I dislike Planescape (partly because of the "everything goes" nature of the setting), I guess I would say I have a natural preference for limited settings.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

I voted limits. As a DM I think a lot of that has to do with rules bloat from 3E and just all of the options that were available. Add that to a couple of powergamers from that stage of the game and things got out of hand quickly. We're now playing Pathfinder and I've limited things to the Core Rulebook and only one player seems to have had a problem, but that's okay, because he's no longer part of the group.

As a player, in the GURPS games I've played, there have been restrictions simply based on the type of game we're playing; cyberpunk, Black Lagoon-style smuggling, Firefly.

AS a player, though, even when given a bajillion and seven options, I generally tend to stick with the basics because I understand them and I find them fun. While I am capable of going through lists and books to find the optimum choice for everything, I don't find that fun. I'd rather play to a character concept than an optimized whatever.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like kitchen sink in published settings and source materials. But that is so that I can throw out about 70% of it for any given campaign, and run it as a limited setting. I even ran Forgotten Realms like this, one campaign.

Then the next campaign, I'll keep a different 30% (albeit with some overlap).

 

[Elf Witch]

I voted limited but only because that is the kind of campaign I am running now. I actually don't have a preference as long as the setting is interesting.

In my current campaign there are a lot of race limits. Dwarves cannot do any form of magic divine or arcane. I have three types of elves wild, dawn and twilight. Wild elves can do divine magic, twilight elves and dawn elves can only do psionics. A very few twilight elves can do some divine magic if they worship Selune. Humans can do magic but not psionics and half elves can do both the only race that can.

The races I allow are dwarf, elf, human, half elf, gnome, spellscale, half dragons, kobolds, halflings from Forgotten Realms that are telpathic and Irda from the Dragonlance settings.

I limited some classes the only priestly type allowed are clerics and druids. I don't allow a lot of different magic classes only wizards, bards, and sorcerers.

It is a low magic world very few clerics can cast any divine magic and there are no wizards over third level. Magic items are things of legends and things found on quests.

I was going for a certain feel for the game a world whose golden age was long ago when great mages and gods fought and destroyed a great deal of the people and the land. The heroes will be the first of the new legends.

 

[Loonook]

I have no problems with almost any race, character class, or combination... However, you have to understand that we (as a group) usually play 'humanish' characters. If you wish to have the features of a race that is fine, but of course there is a difference between being a racial outsider and just having the same skill-set/traits of that group.

The thing that really grinds me most is the use of 'tricks' that make for things like the hour long day. Mostly we get away from this through the judicious use of requirements for resting, or giving benefits/hindrances from that style of play. Think of it like Fallout's "Well-Rested" trait, but there is a timer on what you do. Wanna keep going back and forth between town and dungeon? Awesome... But realize there is a definite timer for your actions, and the rewards/boons/banes you gain due to your delay may outweigh your ability to get through with things using such tactics.

By the same token use of spells may be limited. My next campaign will be a Modern Arcana version of the Wire (or at least that's what we're playing with right now). Guns, money, strange rituals, stick-up men fighting off the horde of former crew members who were brought back to undeath by their crew's necromancer bartender... But scrying is easy to beat, extradimensional space and travel is a no-no, etc.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Not that when I play D&D I tend to play solo, but when I GM fantasy (using Hero) this applies to how I GM.


How far is too far? When does it go from a kitchen sink to “What are we playing, again?”

I haven't ever reached the "too far" level for me. I use hollow earths, spelljammer, planar stuff, ancient empires, barbarian hordes... anything goes.


Is the kitchen sink any less acceptable if someone plays a character that went Too Far? (“Dude you’re playing a...pixie?”)

When D&D 3rd came out, there was the implicint idea that playing monsters or templates would work. So I played 2 characters trying to break the system - A half gold dragon half celestial paladin, and a Pixie Sorceress.
I have no problems with Pixies or other really odd races or clases.

In my Fantasy Hero game, I have 40 races and 30 racial modifier templates.


Do you homebrew even more options, or beg your DM to? (“I want to play an X, but it’s not published!”)
I tend to homebrew lots of things like that. Or in FH build them.

I love fantasy where the hero comes from earth, but you don't see much of that in gaming. So I ran a Fantasy Hero game that way - had a Cyberpunk street Samurai, an old west Doctor, a Jedi, a Bond/Mcgyver guy, a Cthulian investigator, and a couple of natives. Worked wonderfully.

Personally if the characters go into a pub/bar in a major port town, I want it to look like the Cantina in Star Wars.

So I tend to go kitchen sink.

 

[Ahnehnois]

My campaign setting has a lot going on culturally and mechanically; there are relatively few options I would exclude outright.

That being said, when I see the phrase "kitchen sink setting", I don't think of a setting that allows all the races and classes, I think of one that forcibly stuffs them all in before the players even get started. To me there's a difference.

 

[Greg K]

In my opinion, the DM should be able to limit available options for any reason that they choose whether personal dislike, theme, or campaign setting. Players can choose to walk if they don't like the omission(s)

DMs should not have to run games with elements that they dislike and players are not forced to play if the individual game does not support their criteria for fun.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

That being said, when I see the phrase "kitchen sink setting", I don't think of a setting that allows all the races and classes, I think of one that forcibly stuffs them all in before the players even get started. To me there's a difference.

What do you mean by forcibly? Like a FR type setting where every half-breed and oddball race and class has a defined origin?

In my opinion, the DM should be able to limit available options for any reason that they choose whether personal dislike, theme, or campaign setting. Players can choose to walk if they don't like the omission(s)

DMs should not have to run games with elements that they dislike and players are not forced to play if the individual game does not support their criteria for fun.

I agree, but I'd also like to know which you prefer.

 

[Yora]

As a GM, I always go with whitelists. Everything on that list can be used, everything else does not.