The Power of "NO". Banned Races and Classes?

[Hussar]

Funnily enough, recently, we have been playing evil campaigns. It's an interesting tension in the game. Everyone gets a whole lot more polite because everyone knows that if you take it too far, you might wake up dead.

The truly interesting thing is I find that evil parties work better together. Far more pragmatic.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

If its in a book on my physical or virtual shelf, you can play it. If its in a book not on my shelves - buy it for me and you can play it.

About the only "ban" I've enforced is no evil alignments when DMing for my kids.

I'll also sometimes limit something to one per group - a cleric in Dark Sun or pre War of the Lance Dragonlance, for example.

Otherwise, go for it. I've had player character shadows, were-polar-bears, multi-template-bug thing-that-I-don't-even-remember-the-core-race-of, kender-in-Ravenloft, pegataurs, angels, nimblewrights, and a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting.

Yeah, it stretches the campaign verismawhatever, but I prefer to think of it as a challenge - where did this character come from? What sort of prejudices are they going to face among "normal" races? What story hooks does this character's presence provide?

 

[The Black Ranger]

If it doesn't fit or if I don't like it then I ban it.

If you don't like themed games where everything fits then you wouldn't like my games.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If its in a book on my physical or virtual shelf, you can play it. If its in a book not on my shelves - buy it for me and you can play it.

Do you seriously make people both buy stuff AND permanently give it to you, rather than just letting you read through it?

Personally I pretty much only outright ban Evil PCs outside of Evil-specific campaigns (though if a player had a good idea on how to play them non-disruptively I'd consider it), and Wizards. Anything else is a matter of "can we fit this in?" dialog between me and the player.

Well, you can play what the rulebook calls a Wizard, but you'd better stick to the term Mage... <narrows eyes>

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Do you seriously make people both buy stuff AND permanently give it to you, rather than just letting you read through it?

Personally I pretty much only outright ban Evil PCs outside of Evil-specific campaigns (though if a player had a good idea on how to play them non-disruptively I'd consider it), and Wizards. Anything else is a matter of "can we fit this in?" dialog between me and the player.

Well, you can play what the rulebook calls a Wizard, but you'd better stick to the term Mage... <narrows eyes>

Maybe I should have put a cheeky smiley of some sort in there. I do want to be able to look through whatever it is during non-game time for reference so, while I don't "make" them buy it for me, I do insist on borrowing it for an extended period.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Do you seriously make people both buy stuff AND permanently give it to you, rather than just letting you read through it?

It could be worse: He could also charge a book rental fee for consulting the books to write-up the class and check and rules for it at each level-up.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What are your banned/restricted races and classes?

Varied with the edition and venue:

AD&D: mostly /changed/ things, I used extensive variants in both eds.

3e: Typically ran 'core only' at cons, and used pre-gens, anyway (which, I guess is like banning everything the pregens don't have), used a lot of variants in my one home campaign.

4e: Always use pre-gens at cons. At other public venues I run 'anything goes.' I've been running in public so much I haven't run a home game, but the one I'm in bans Expertise Feats, Hybrids, Essentials, post-E, and Dragon mag content.

5e: I plan to run in organized play at public venues so will follow those policies.

 

[Quartz]

Banned Classes.

Monk. Reason I really hate them. I wasa child in the 80's and watched cheese like The Karate Kid and Bruce Lee movies. Not a fan of wuxia type films or at least having them in D&D anyway so no monks. They are allowed in an OA type game but I will never DM one of those with maybe the exception of 1st ed one day.

Can I suggest you have a rethink? Instead of thinking of a Monk as a wuxia warrior, think of the Monk as a disciplined warrior. Consider a Knight / Monk or Fighter / Monk multiclass. (Both of which could easily model Tarquin from OoTS.)

 

[Celebrim]

As the thread says. What are your banned/restricted races and classes? For the most part I allow any class or race into the game that was in the 3.5 PHB/PFRPG with the exception of the monk.

For 3.X

Banned Classes: Druid, Monk, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, all PrC's, any base class not in the PH unless excepted.

Allowed Non-Core Classes: Shaman (as Green Ronin wt. minor variations), Fanatic (Homebrew), Hunter (Homebrew), Champion (Homebrew), Explorer (Homebrew), Akashic (as Arcana Unearthed wt. minor variations), Feyborn (Homebrew)

There are however some differences between the homebrew fighters, wizards, clerics, rogues, sorcerers and so forth compared to stock 3.X. In general, most classes above tier 3 is now about one tier lower and anything below tier 3 is about 1 tier higher. The exact mechanics of that are too complex to go into.

Anything Else: Ask. The answer is probably "No" unless the concept is archetypal to fantasy and there is class in the above list capable of handing the concept, and you can't get there with multiclassing either. Keep in mind that I won't see a mechanical difference in how the class works as proof it can't handle the concept. For example, mechanics aside, a psion is just a sorcerer with a slight flavor change. If I wanted psions in my game, then I probably wouldn't have wizards and socerers and a wizard would just be a psion with a slight flavor change. If the only reason you want to play the class is mechanical, the answer is "No." If your whole character concept is mechanical, like, "I want full sneak attack and full BAB progression.", the answer is not only, "No.", but, "You might be unhappy with my table."

Banned Races: Halfling, Gnome, all races not in the PH unless excepted.

Allowed Non-Core Classes: Sidhe (Homebrew), Changling (Homebrew), Pixie (Homebrew), Goblin, Hobgoblin, Orine (Homebrew), Idreth (Homebrew)

Anything Else: Ask. The answer is probably, "No.", unless you have previously played one or more of the above previously and you have a darn good reason for wanting something unique and have enough understanding of the setting to understand the consequences of your choice. If the race isn't LA +0 and can't be made as LA +0, the answer will be no.

There are however some minor differences between the homebrew elves, goblins, hoblins, and so forth compared to stock 3.X.

Technically, I'm not sure that there is a race or class in my game that isn't 'homebrew', so in a real sense, everything published is banned.

Banned Alignments: None. However, everyone in the party has to be able to play with everyone else in a social manner. Anyone departing from party alignment 'norms', whether as a good guy or a bad guy (depending on the norm), has to take responsibility for finding a credible reason to be in the party and behaving in a constructive manner. This includes behaving in a way that another character is not provoked to consider you an enemy unless everyone is on board with intra-party conflict. In practice, there is no point in banning alignment. Most players aren't able to play more than one alignment, so 90% of all players play all their characters as the same alignment regardless of what's on the sheet. In practice, it works better to write on the sheet what they'll actually play than to try to fit the play into the alignment.

 

[Celebrim]

Can I suggest you have a rethink? Instead of thinking of a Monk as a wuxia warrior, think of the Monk as a disciplined warrior. Consider a Knight / Monk or Fighter / Monk multiclass. (Both of which could easily model Tarquin from OoTS.)

Doesn't really work, because mechanically the Monk isn't really about being a disciplined warrior. Mechanically it is mostly about allowing a character to compete on roughly equal footing as a melee combatant despite being unarmored and unarmed. You could make the sort of argument you are making about something like a Kensai, but I don't see it in the case of the monk.