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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bigkahuna" data-source="post: 6888149" data-attributes="member: 6808141">In any role-playing game what is in the player's handbook is effectively a social contract about what the rules of the game are.  Anything that will be excluded, changed or added, a proper GM will negotiate with the players in good faith and in the interest of creating a better experience for everyone.  I don't think GM's are in their right to simply declare "these are the rules in my game" without discussion.  A role-playing session belongs as much to the GM as it does to the players and its a particular brand of <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> GM who simply states "how things are going to go in my game" as a matter of fact, this sort of my way or the highway.That said I do believe that good players also respect a GM's desire to present a certain type of experience and good players will usually agree with the GM on his exclusion or alteration or rules that exist in the players handbook.  After all the GM is not the bad guy, he is your storyteller and he's trying to create an experience with his style of GMing.So it swings both ways so if you have good players a good GM coming to an agreement on what the rules of the game are is very easy to do.As such I'm personally not opposed to having lots and lots of optional rules, quite to the contrary very often I find myself wishing for a particular optional rule and if it doesn't exist I have to deal with something that as a GM I think is quite boring (creating house rules).  For example mass combat is something I needed for a game recently and was disappointed to discover its not in the book, then I found the rules for it distributed free by Wizards of the Coast and was delighted to have something to use.  It saved me a lot of work.Rules like magic creation rules should exist but they should exist as optional rules so that it's clear that whether it applies to your game or not, requires a conversation between the GM and the players.  The hope is always that what a designer puts in the hands of the players can be used unaltered, so that the player handbook really is the rulebook rather than a book that is heavily altered by a second book.I personally think the format should be Players Handbook, Optional Rules, DM Guide, Monster Manual.  Optional rules should be filled with things like alternative class systems, alternative magic systems, alternative character creation and death systems, mass combat, magic creation systems.... fill it to the brim with as many rules as you like.Putting something in the players handbook however as mentioned above, is a core rule from that point.  Its fair for the players to assume if its in there, its a rule, a part of every game they will play in.  Sure we can negotiate things to a degree for specific settings and such, but generally speaking, the book should be as general and as much a core foundation for the game so that it does need altering.I think its why I like 5e best of all the systems, I can hand the book to a player and say "these are the rules of the game"... and don't need to throw in a EXCEPT.. or BUT... when explaining them.</blockquote>

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