D&D 5E DM imposed restrictions to the game (+)

[Lakesidefantasy]

I chose "Nothing. Anything and everything goes."

I have a couple of players in my group for whom restrictions would be a deal breaker. I feel it would be a short lived game if I imposed restrictions.

This is not by choice. I would like to impose restrictions in order to support a certain style of play or genera of fantasy, but nope, we are destined to play in the kitchen sink till Judgement Day.

 

[overgeeked]

Official stuff only unless I’ve personally vetted it. There’s a lot of great 3PP stuff out there, but there’s a lot of trash, too.

Races and classes only restricted by the campaign setting. Planescape and Spelljammer, anything goes. Dark Sun…whatever makes sense for the setting.

No multiclassing. There’s enough classes, subclasses, and feats to get more than enough customization. Besides, multiclassing is where 99% of the broken power gaming nonsense comes from, so it’s an easy nope.

Some feats restricted. Mostly the broken, nonsense, or game slowing feats. Keen Mind and Sentinel are always banned.

Some spells banned. Guidance and a few others are right out.

I run 5E with a fair amount of house rules. Generally to make the game feel more like I want. Homebrewed monsters. Homebrewed magic items.

 

[Xamnam]

The only active restriction I've placed has been on using the Blood Hunter. I know it's not technically first party content, but it shows up prominently on DDB, and I personally don't want to deal with that specific flavor.

Past that, I haven't found any third party content that's bowled me over, and so I'd want to take a careful look at any suggested/desired. I haven't had any players of mine even mention the idea though. There's only ever been one player, that I played alongside, I've seen do that unprompted (though granted, I don't think a single character of hers, that I know of, hasn't had some sort of homebrew).

All character options in the mainline books are a-ok by me, and I haven't run into anything in the setting specific books that would bother me either.

 

[jdrakeh]

Races are the main thing that I restrict. Unless I'm playing an official D&D setting that assumes all D&D PC races are present, there's a pretty good chance that they are not. For example, my primary homebrew is predominantly populated by different human cultures, with very small relict populations of dwarves and elves (other PC races either do not exist at all or are so rare that a player must significantly justify playing one).

 

[iserith]

My default position is that everything is restricted until the DM says it's included in the adventure or campaign. From there the DM can build the "white list" to include all options that support the group's vision.

 

[Charlaquin]

I usually say anything in the PHB is fair game. Anything in a 1st party supplement book (e.g. Tasha’s, Xanathar’s, etc.) is probably fine, but let’s discuss how it fits into to the campaign first. Anything from a 1st party setting book (e.g. Eberron, Strixhaven, etc.) probably doesn’t exist in the setting, but I’m willing to discuss the possibility of reskinning it to fit. Anything from a 3rd party source is a no unless approved ahead of time.

 

[payn]

I usually say anything in the PHB is fair game. Anything in a 1st party supplement book (e.g. Tasha’s, Xanathar’s, etc.) is probably fine, but let’s discuss how it fits into to the campaign first. Anything from a 1st party setting book (e.g. Eberron, Strixhaven, etc.) probably doesn’t exist in the setting, but I’m willing to discuss the possibility of reskinning it to fit. Anything from a 3rd party source is a no unless approved ahead of time.

Pretty much this. Nothing is blanket banned, its all depending on context.

 

[LordEntrails]

I consider myself pretty liberal. But in general keep everything to the official WotC published options, and they have to be setting appropriate (not artificers in the Realms etc).
I also restrict what items are available since as the DM I control what is on sale in every store and what treasure is found. But I often ask players what they want and find a way to let them acquire it.
Oh, and anything designed to make them better than another player is right banned.

 

[Steampunkette]

I tend to ban or make things available based on the setting, not where it's from or anything else.

In Eberron or Faerun most anything works fine. Dark Sun? Dragonlance? Not so much.

Same with Sins of the Scorpion Age or other settings I write. They'll have their own concepts that not every character will fit into.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm always open to negotiation, but in general we don't use much 3PP unless it's on DDB, and I don't allow aarakokra as a starting species. Plus we have a few house rules, and I ignore RAW that hampers the game experience we want. I also don't use WotC settings like Eberron and Planescape. And alignment doesn't exist in my games. Also, pisionics. I hate psionics and try to avoid them.

Edit: also, certain character backgrounds that hijack the story in a super cliched way. Nobody gets to be secretly the missing prince or whatnot. If you want to tell that story, you DM.