How do you introduce third party sourcebooks into a campaign?

[Sado]

The groups I've been in have pretty much stuck to the core rules. For those of you that use books from third party publishers like Mongoose, AEG, etc, how does your group come to a consensus on what books to use? Does the DM decide (s)he likes something and include it by fiat, or do individual players bring each book/feat/PrC they want to the DM, who decides on an individual basis? Or does the whole group tell the DM what books they want? How do you do it?

 

[C. Baize]

As GM, I look at the book, and if I like it, I add it to the mix.
It's a pretty good bet that anything Modern by RPGObjects, and The Game Mechanics is pretty much automatically approved.
And we just add it, as more options for the players.

 

[collin]

Whoever finds something from another source brings it into the group and we discuss it. Generally we come to a group consensus as to what is allowable and what isn't, but ultimately our DM has the final say.

 

[kingpaul]

As the GM, if I find things I like, I bring it to the group to see what they think. They are usually of the mindset 'Ooohh, new shiny, me want'.

If a player finds something they like, the bring it to me to see what I think. If I like it, see the above statement.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

When playing D&D I keep about 99% core. There's too much total crapola out there for D&D for me to start letting books in ... much to the chagrin of one of my powergamer players. Not that he doesn't have enough to work with, as it is.

Heh. AND I seldom allow Monks in my games. Just an irrational prejudice of mine. Even though they're rather underpowered in core, from what I can see. I'm getting better about that ... really! It's always been a flavor thing for me.

Anyway, for D20 Modern ... I've never played it WITHOUT some sort of 3rd-party product. It's just something about Modern ... it doesn't demand support, but it's so easy to integrate things into it that usually I don't find a reason not to.

I'm the big Modern buff of my group, though, so I'm usually the person to bring things to the table, anyway. We also use a couple of house rules in D20 Modern which, for me, is extraordinarily rare. My usual opinion on houserules is "If I got paid to design it, and had the time to do so and playtest it, then I'd make rules too." Seeing as I've never been privy to the design meetings at WotC, I try to avoid it. Keeps me from buggering things up. But I did add a rule that individuals could use Auto and Burst weapons to get a +2 Circumstance bonus to attack rolls even if they don't have Burst Fire. That's about it. And some rules from Grim Tales.

I'm a bit of a control freak, though. If I don't have time to discuss and discard a couple character ideas with each of my players, and know my players very well on a personal level, I don't like them running their "own" characters. Even then, I usually prefer to collect character ideas and BUILD their characters for them. As far as I've seen it's never hurt the fun of the game, and has only helped, because I can hand-balance and make sure all of the characters are applicable to the game we're playing.

Every time I've let them stat up their own PCs I've regretted it later.

--fje

 

[jaerdaph]

Depends on what it is. Right now I'm GMing a d20 Modern Dark*Matter campaign. If I see a new Advanced Class or player option that I think will work in the campaign (e.g. the Voudan rules and AdCs from Green Ronin/The Game Mechanics' Modern Magic), I let the players know they now have that option (or I file the idea away for NPCs in a future adventure). If the players see something new they like and can justify the inclusion in the game, I'm down with that too. One of my players wanted to play a martial arts enthusiast and use RPGObjects' Blood and Fists to get there, so I allowed it. I also recently introduced the Organization stat rules from OGL Horror into our game (for the FBI out of the book and the Hoffmann Institute which I worked up) and let the players know how those rules work, and that they had two new feats available to them related to those rules (Custodian and Pulling Strings, IIRC).

Some new things are "story" elements, and I introduce them as part of the adventure. For example, I recently purchased A Dozen Alien Artifacts from Ronin Arts, and there is an item in there that would fit nicely with the current storyline I'm running.

 

[Voadam]

DM Fiat, but generally WotC non core stuff with some exceptions, Malhavoc with some exceptions and a few generic sourcebooks (Quint Wizard, Quint Paladin, homebrew, Hammer and Helm, Librum Equitis) for player resources. As we shifted DMs some things were now disallowed that were OK before such as Traps and Treachery feats.

 

[jerichothebard]

With the group I DM, I'm the only real materials junkie, so usually I bring the options to the table. At the moment, it's pretty core, with some stuff from EN publishing, Ronin Arts, and a couple other thrown in. Also some stuff from the splatbooks and Complete Warrior.

And whatever I can make up, of course.

As for the group I game in, the DM is pretty open, so we all bring stuff in and he looks and says yes or no - usually yes.

jtb

 

[ledded]

As for D&D, we only allowed WotC products (with a few DM modifications) and any 3rd party stuff had to be approved by the main DM (Malhavoc stuff was mostly good, etc).

For modern, we use a wide variety of 3rd party stuff, mainly The Game Mechanics and several of Charles Rice's Blood and <x> books, with a few modifications here and there to make them balance with our main campaign. We are a lot more flexible in modern, mainly because it seems that modern is easier to extend while keeping with the core flavor of the rules, and the majority of Modern add-ons seem to be a bit more concerned with balancing character-based talents/abilities and less about shiny new spells/munchkiny items and prestige classes. We also use a good bit of house ruling, either borrowed from other games we like or made up to better reflect what we like in our game/actual world physics. Any time a new d20 Modern item comes up, we generally give it a review and talk about including it. We generally include all WotC material, however anything fx-related is left out, as we have a very non-D&D/non-d20 magic system.