How Do You Deal With Splatbooks?

[Ry]

Anything goes!

But you have to convert it to a skill. My D&D has no time for rules like feats, classes, races, or spells. So you can bring anything from anywhere, but it gets converted to a skill.

 

[Lanefan]

Before a campaign starts, I'll decide what's allowed and lock that in. If something comes out during a campaign that blows me away, and I can incorporate it without disruption (and without changing in-game precedent), I might include it on the fly; but usually it has to wait for next campaign...which means a very long time.

Lanefan

 

[Crothian]

Splat books are easy to deal with. It's the players that seem to cause the problems

 

[Sejs]

Case by case, both for WotC and non-. Essentially nothing gets in until I've had a chance to look it over.

 

[catsclaw227]

The first three, in a variety of ways.

"Anything goes, and anythign by WotC for sure - although there are some case-by-case diapprovals." Generally, this is followed by "... so long as I own it, or have had enough time to study it."

My feelings exactly. I allow quite a bit of stuff, but in some cases I need to review 3rd party stuff first.

I have some house rules about somethings (mostly to benefit players) to smooth the hurt when I ban some options (frenzied berserker, for sure), like I give an extra feat at 1st level to all PCs.

 

[diaglo]

player writes it up and submits it to the referee.

the referee looks it over and approves what works and edits for resubmission what doesn't for the campaign

 

[catsclaw227]

There are many 3rd-party books though that I'll just ban outright if the player intends to use them (I've seen more 3rd-party books used to break games than I have WotC materials; Mongoose's spellbook-thingy, I'm lookin' at you... ).

I am curious what you are referring to. I find the Mongoose dubious at best, but I am wondering if you are talking about the Renegade xxxx Spellbooks.

 

[Xyanthon]

As a lot of others said, I tend to go on a case by case basis for approval. I'm not particularly biased to WotC so I'll consider stuff from most sources. It does have to fit the flavor of the campaign and be reasonably justafiable in a campaign. As I tend to prefer lower magic, gritty pseudoeuropean medieval fantasy, I'll even go so far as to let someone take an idea from another game system and work with them to create something that works within the framework of what we are playing (usually 1e but also 3.x).

 

[Wik]

In my Savage Tide game, it's "Wotc only". ANd if you find some really awful combo, I nix it. Beyond that, you can play what you want. No psionics, though - mostly because I'm not a big fan of the idea behind 'em (that also means that if I see a psionic monster in the AP, it'll get replaced with something else).

The next D&D game I run, I was thinking of making it "Core Rulebooks only" and maybe adding a few tweaks from PHB 2 or something. Try to capture that 1e feel, or something.

 

[the shmoopie]

I will generally let anything published by WotC through, except for psions. I think they are great and all, but I just never had anyone play one right. Other publishers I just don't let in unless the material wins me over on a case-by-case basis.