Does Your Group Allow Homebrew or 3PP Material for D&D Games?

Mine does, although so far we haven't actually used any, other than a couple of minor tweaks to the core material for flavor's sake. A few items were brought up and discussed and we said we'd try them out, but then they were never followed up on.

So although right now everything in our game is from the core material, we're totally open to the possibility of 3rd party or homebrew material.

 

[SkidAce]

I don't even allow most first-party material. A reasonable game world doesn't need both vampires and dragons.

SAY WHAT?

Then how do we get vampiric demon dragons then? Well? (j/k)

 

[Philature]

I honestly think I'd have zero interest in RPGs if they didn't have that inbuilt customizability. To me, someone who only uses official material feels so constrained as to defeat the point of the game for me. I know folks like that exist, but it's a mindset that is utterly beyond me.

Playing RPGs the way you want is what make them so cool. Everyone can play D&D differently with as many or as little changes or modification as they want from the official rules.


It is a spectrum between 1 to 0. 1 if it your own games. 0.5 you play with some third party or self created materials and 0 if it all based on the official release.

I think some people like playing with the official rule only to see what the designer(s) is/are up to. This is something I often do for new games I never played before. It give me the chance to understand the rules and figure out where the designer(s) is trying to go. Then, I start to add new materials or create my own.


Playing d&d with official material only is as valid as any other approachs. I could imagine that someone new to the hobbies would actually prefer using the official rules only at the beginning especially in this century.


Back 25 years ago, third party material was fairly limited to the stuff I came up with (D&D magazines were hard to get by and that was before OGL). But today, there is so much third party content available online that it could become quickly overwhelming for a group of new players.


This is why I found your comments of playing with official rule only as “being beyond me” not very constructive. Basically, you are just saying my way of playing RPG is better than yours which is obviously not true.


Playing the games with official material only should be as respected as playing with all third party brew or even your own system. There is no way to play RPGs wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

Inspired by some of the threads going around. Pretty simple question. In your gaming group (not a pick up game with people you don't know, and AL is excluded for obvious reasons), do you allow any sort of 3PP material or homebrew material? Or does your group stick with official RAW published by WoTC only?

So far the 5e games I have played in are official rules only.

 

[MechaPilot]

That gives me very little faith in anything ENW puts out.

With all respect, Morrus did say "too much balance" is bad. By definition, "too much" of anything is "too much." What actually matters in judging a product is whether or not you personally agree with the line the content creator has drawn with regard to how much of a given thing is "too much."

 

[unnatural 20]

I would play with only official products if WoTC supported Eberron.

They do not, and looks like they wI'll not anytime soon. So I homebrew my own.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think I'd be comfortable playing at a table that was hostile to homebrew or 3pp.

My second 5e character was a minotaur in Dragonlance that was homebrewed by the DM. I'm always giving something a tweak when I DM.

I'd also say that homebrewing is hard to avoid in D&D. The nature of the game means that you're ALWAYS making DMing calls: If you've ever had to make a ruling on stealth, on the interaction of spells, if you've ever made your own adventure, if you've ever determined if something was possible...you're home-brewing. In a small, local way, but the difference between populating a dungeon and using a DMs Guild race (forex) is more one of degree than of kind.

 

[Shiroiken]

Here are a couple of quotes that show why I am representing that claim in the way that I am, with bold added by me for emphsis:

"No. I see it as a place that WoTc feels can take some of the heat off them to create more content. I don't think they are dumb to think that magically fan crafted material suddenly becomes accepted. If they allowed the stuff in AL then I would agree, but even they should know by now that most DM's still do not allow fan created material."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...t-options-so-please-stop/page13#ixzz4OVVprYxI
​

"There's been quality stuff out there for years now through various editions of D&D. Doesn't change the fact that lots of DMs still do not allow things outside of what comes from Wizards. 5th edition hasn't changed that attitude"

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...t-options-so-please-stop/page24#ixzz4OVWClAUS
​

Between those two statements, it is very reasonable for someone to think that "fan created material" meant literally all fan-created material, regardless of who the fan is or what kind of material it happened to be since there were no conditional stipulations provided or implied in any way. Similarly, it is very reasonable for someone to think that "things outside of what comes from Wizards" meant literally all things outside of what come from Wizards since, again, there were no conditional stipulations provided or implied in any way.

Yea, I gotta disagree. the key phrase used in both statements are "DMs allow," which strongly implies (to me at least) that those reference only Player Options, not DM Options. If you were to break them down into Homebrew DM, 3PP DM, Homebrew Player, and 3PP, the poll would come out a lot different. I strongly suspect that DM options are likely more commonly used than Player options, and Homebrew is going to be more common than 3PP. I feel that the poll has some merit (showing how few play by pure WotC approved only), but it's not telling the whole story.

Edit: I forgot to mention, AL provides all the necessary DM "homebrew" as part of the adventure, thus avoid the Homebrew requirement for DM Options.

 

[ccs]

That IS strange. I don't even allow all the official stuff. SCAG is taken for granted at most 5th edition tables I've seen outside AL, but I don't play with it.

I own it; I use the setting details when running games in Faerun, and I'll sometimes suggest a background out of it when it suits a player's character concept. But the races and subclasses? Not a chance. They're haphazardly built, and they don't suit the philosophy of 5th edition at ALL.

And what exactly is that philosophy?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...the key phrase used in both statements are "DMs allow," which strongly implies (to me at least) that those reference only Player Options, not DM Options.

Can you explain to me how the phrase "DMs allow" implies only player options while it is a fact that any 3rd party content entering game-play a particular table is also doing so only if the DM allows it - i.e. the players can't just sit down with their player options from wherever and declare them okay without the DM allowing them to do so, but neither can the players hand the DM monsters or adventures from wherever and declare them okay without the DM allowing them to do so.

Or, to phrase that different in case I'm not being clear above: Can you show me how to see the line that separates "DMs allow the players to use" from "DMs allow their self to use" even when only the words "DMs allow" are present?

 

[werecorpse]

We play where the players use only PHB races and classes (& spells etc) but adventure in a partial homebrew world which includes converted 3pp, pathfinder & basic to 3e adventures and thus monsters and magic items. So the players are restricted but the GM unrestricted.

This comes from an experience where
1. players tend to only choose to want to "experiment with" 3pp character class or race options that give them more juice - which then leads to headaches and a character that outshines the others in its niche; &
2. the main part of the game for us has been adventuring in & exploring the world & it's storyline with the character that you have got rather than tweaking a "new build"

so so I think I fall into the use 3pp and homebrew category because the GM does that a lot but I do feel as players we stick with by the book.