DungeonmasterCal
First Post
I do my best to get my players to use Dragon material in my game. So far, I've had very little success.
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Do you allow material from Dragon Magazine into your games?
- Thread starter Shellman
- Start date
In all honesty, I'm pretty much an open minded DM- comes from being so much in love with HERO (and its D20 love-child, Mutants & Masterminds). Even if something isn't in the books, if you have a strong PC concept that isn't supported by the published material, I'm willing to work with you to figure something out, as long as its not unbalancing.
I once helped one of my players design a 3.0 PC inspired by J.O. Barr's The Crow...though he only got to play it a few levels worth before he (and others) moved away, ending the campaign.
Side note: DM Cal- I love the sig!
I once helped one of my players design a 3.0 PC inspired by J.O. Barr's The Crow...though he only got to play it a few levels worth before he (and others) moved away, ending the campaign.
Side note: DM Cal- I love the sig!
Question
First Post
I see absolutely no reason not to allow material from dragon mag unless its obviously broken.
While on the subject of allowing non-core material, ive noticed several camps of thought :
-CORE ONLY!!! This is nearly always divided into 2 sub-camps :
1.Anything in the holy grail(core books) is obviously balanced, anything that isnt is obviously imbalanced. Or they just dont like the idea of using non-core. Basically if wizards re-printed the core books and included material from supplements in them, suddenly its okay to use them, simply because it is now printed in the core books.
This school of thought makes absolutely no sense to me.
2.Keeping it simple. The DM wants to keep things simple, and restricts stuff to core only to achieve this. Personally i disagree with this approach because you are killing lots of variety by doing this.
-WOTC official only. Any official WOTC book is fine, but third party books are not. Again this makes no sense to me, if wizards suddenly buys up all those companies and releases their supplements as "official WOTC", it is now perfectly okay to use them, ignoring the fact content didnt change at all.
-Campaign specific material is out, because it is obviously imba in another campaign world or "doesnt fit", the latter of which is easily handwaved in all but the most unusual of situations.
-(Very common) Core + list of commonly used books, such as the complete series. The most common reason is "these are all i have", but sometimes the DM is trying to restrict it to a small list of books for various reasons, ranging from "keeping it simple" to "the rest are too imba".
-(Most common) The "everything goes, but use common sense" approach. Assume everything is allowed, but if something is broken, its not going to be allowed. This also includes the "pretty much everything is allowed, just let me know what non-core stuff you are using so i can look it over" approach.
While on the subject of allowing non-core material, ive noticed several camps of thought :
-CORE ONLY!!! This is nearly always divided into 2 sub-camps :
1.Anything in the holy grail(core books) is obviously balanced, anything that isnt is obviously imbalanced. Or they just dont like the idea of using non-core. Basically if wizards re-printed the core books and included material from supplements in them, suddenly its okay to use them, simply because it is now printed in the core books.
This school of thought makes absolutely no sense to me.
2.Keeping it simple. The DM wants to keep things simple, and restricts stuff to core only to achieve this. Personally i disagree with this approach because you are killing lots of variety by doing this.
-WOTC official only. Any official WOTC book is fine, but third party books are not. Again this makes no sense to me, if wizards suddenly buys up all those companies and releases their supplements as "official WOTC", it is now perfectly okay to use them, ignoring the fact content didnt change at all.
-Campaign specific material is out, because it is obviously imba in another campaign world or "doesnt fit", the latter of which is easily handwaved in all but the most unusual of situations.
-(Very common) Core + list of commonly used books, such as the complete series. The most common reason is "these are all i have", but sometimes the DM is trying to restrict it to a small list of books for various reasons, ranging from "keeping it simple" to "the rest are too imba".
-(Most common) The "everything goes, but use common sense" approach. Assume everything is allowed, but if something is broken, its not going to be allowed. This also includes the "pretty much everything is allowed, just let me know what non-core stuff you are using so i can look it over" approach.
In our group of 9, its like this:
If either I or one other particular gamer is running the campaign, we use the "...Assume everything is allowed, but if something is broken, its not going to be allowed. This also includes the "pretty much everything is allowed, just let me know what non-core stuff you are using so i can look it over" approach."
If its anyone else's campaign, its "...Core + list of commonly used books, such as the complete series," except none of them allow Psionics, several of them don't allow non-core classes, and some don't even allow PrCls.
Oh yeah...Heaven forfend you ever mention running anything other than D&D! Not only do most of these guys not play any other RPGs, they don't even use any of the 3rd party campaign settings or source material. When I offered to run something in Urban Arcana or Mutants & Masterminds, I was greeted by utter silence. Ditto suggestions of running Iron Heroes, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, or Midnight 2Ed.
Don't get me wrong- these are some good players and GMs...fun WILL be had. However, its wearing a little thin after all these years.
If either I or one other particular gamer is running the campaign, we use the "...Assume everything is allowed, but if something is broken, its not going to be allowed. This also includes the "pretty much everything is allowed, just let me know what non-core stuff you are using so i can look it over" approach."
If its anyone else's campaign, its "...Core + list of commonly used books, such as the complete series," except none of them allow Psionics, several of them don't allow non-core classes, and some don't even allow PrCls.
Oh yeah...Heaven forfend you ever mention running anything other than D&D! Not only do most of these guys not play any other RPGs, they don't even use any of the 3rd party campaign settings or source material. When I offered to run something in Urban Arcana or Mutants & Masterminds, I was greeted by utter silence. Ditto suggestions of running Iron Heroes, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, or Midnight 2Ed.
Don't get me wrong- these are some good players and GMs...fun WILL be had. However, its wearing a little thin after all these years.
DungeonmasterCal
First Post
Dannyalcatraz said:
Heh..thanks. That's my boy!
