D&D General How do you introduce new material to your campaign?

[Dioltach]

"How do you introduce new material to your campaign?"

With puns.

What, like this? "Let me spell it out for you. This experience is on a whole new level, but I believe its character suits the campaign., but introducing it skillfully will be quite a feat."

 

[TwoSix]

What, like this? "Let me spell it out for you. This experience is on a whole new level, but I believe its character suits the campaign., but introducing it skillfully will be quite a feat."

Wow. With your background, I didn't expect to see such pun proficiency; that's a rare level of expertise.

 

[Dioltach]

Wow. With your background, I didn't expect to see such pun proficiency; that's a rare level of expertise.

I know. Classy, isn't it?

 

[Azzy]

The game I am currently running is "core rules only," but I was spending some time looking through another supplement for some spells to introduce via a found spell book (there just aren't enough necromancy spells in the core book to make an interesting and strange mid-level necromancer's book) and I got to thinking/wondering about how others introduce new material to their games.

Do you wait for a new campaign to start up to introduce new class powers/variants, feats, etc. . ?
Do you find things in new books to recommend to players?
Do you find things to recommend to the DM to use or allow you to use?
As DM, do you make players make a case for new material or do is it anything goes as soon as it comes out?
How do you handle owning the supplemental rule books? Must everyone have a copy? Just the DM? Just the player using the new material for their character? Something else?

So what are your guidelines, plans, approaches, limitations, stories of what worked and what didn't for introducing new stuff?

In an ongoing campaign, I generally open access to feats and spells as the characters level up. If they have to replace a character (due to death or whatever), they can use the new races, classes, and backgrounds. I tend to curate the options available (though I'm generally open to most stuff) and ask the players to ask before the using a non-PHB race, class, subclass, or background (I'm extra critical of 3PP, due to reasons, and only allow it on a case by case basis).

I generall require an option to be from a source that I own (and prefere that the player using it also own it). 5e is so much easier to curate than 3e or 2e as there is so much less stuff that I rarely have issues with the new options.

 

[Lanefan]

Introducing new arcane spells is easy: just have the PCs find a long-lost spellbook somewhere that has 'em in it. For divine spells - well, they're divinely granted, right? Your deity's just giving you new stuff today.

Introducing other new material can be more of a production. I once introduced a new class by having a PC get divinely quested to go to another world and bring a bunch of that class' practitioners back with him; but in general I'd leave something like this for a new campaign. Ditto for if I redesign a class top to bottom: the new design probably won't see the light of day until I start a new game. (exception: if the PCs go to another world or plane I might take that opportunity to give a new idea a run-out as an NPC native to that place)

Major mechanical changes are something I try to avoid mid-campaign as I'm a strong believer in precedent within a campaign - if something worked in x-manner back when the campaign was young it's only fair it should work the same way now. That said, I do tweak some DM-side things now and then, mostly to either add granularity, or to smooth progressions, or to fix glitches.

 

[TheSword]

Mechanics are always the way they are, they just appear different on the surface... unreliable narrators and all that. If a character already used something that was revised to be worse then I may allow them to keep that for the duration of that campaign only. If better (or broken) then we may start straight away.

Other than that I allow any official 5e stuff and most Unearthed Arcana unless it’s superseded by a later revision (e.g ranger).

My preference is to manager by exception. Assume everything is good and deal with problem as they arise. Life is too short to review every item and apply the ban hammer en mass.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Well, when Tasha's came out I read it and then told my players they could use anything in the book they desired. So that's how I introduce new content.

 

[Shiroiken]

After review by the DM (as everything is optional), I state what is permitted and allow current characters to modify to the new things (swap feats, class abilities, etc.). Race, Class, and Background cannot be modified, but subclass might be changed upon request.