Kitchen Sink Settings

[Raven Crowking]

There is no right or wrong approach to a campaign, but IMHO a campaign that has EVERYTHING published by WotC included lacks somewhat for uniqueness. Not to mention that the ecology would be completely nuts.

It is a point worth remembering that the amount of "stuff" a campaign world can bear is directly related to the scope of the game, and inversely related to how well the players know the world. For a quick pick up game, you can use anything, and the adventure "just happens to be" near the places that those things can come from. Easy enough.

My world has dozens of PC races, but they are not common in every area of the world....meaning you have to travel from a place where chimpanzees live if you want to play an awakened chimpanzee ranger (I've got one!). The scope of the place means that there are many different peoples and creatures, but they do not all live everywhere.

If you don't develop the world prior to making first PCs, you are effectively starting from a pick-up game. This can be great fun....but the question arises: How long before replacement PCs are limited to fit the created setting?

 

[Brimshack]

I do think there is a difference between allowing everything and saying it is common. I usually figure my campaigns are set in a small niche of teh known world. There are a variety of things that are specific to the local setting, but then there is also the possibility that something completely bizarre will come in due to some crazy mage and his antics. If the monster isn't native to the local region, then it's the exception. Not every setting could allow for that, but it does provide a 3rd option to the wild and unknown versus the limited and familiar scale. Here the campaigns are limited and familiar, but the back dorr is open so to speak and some even stranger things wander in from time to time.

 

[Aeolius]

My kitchen sink is filled with water I extract all the aquatic rules, from the various books at my disposal, and use the results as I see fit. If someone wanted to play a half-scrag sea kin dragon shaman, go for it.

 

[Robert Ranting]

Personally, I think that WotC has far too much content to just flatly allow all of it. More to the point, I don't feel that D&D's magic system is internally consistant or balanced vs. melee and ranged combat, even in Core-only games, so I feel completely lost trying to evaluate Psionics, the Tome of Magic systems or the Incarnum system's balance in comparison. I have a much better grasp of Arcana Evolved's magic system, and so it serves as my "core book" with a few non-spellcasting classes from D&D thrown in to fill niches or provide alternatives to more 3.5 inclined players. In the past, I've allowed my players to play some insane things (Warmain + Devoted Defender PrC + Ironmain PrC, and a Grippli out of Dragon magazine) but I've found it doesn't really add anything to the game except extra weight that I have to carry to the table every week. Your mileage may vary.

So if I wanna play a swashbuckler I'm on a quest for more power?

Thats just silly.

Actually, while I can't speak for Treebore's intent, I read his comments on power as being more of a social thing about the relationship between the DM and the Player. The DM's job is to determine what races, classes, and other options are viable for his campaign, and moreover, to remain knowledgeable of all those options to keep the game running smoothly. The more material the world holds, the more difficult it is for the DM to remember everything, and not every DM can manage everything that WotC can throw at him. Therefore, it only makes sense that DMs who can't keep up with the "kitchen sink" to put limits on what the players can take from beyond the core.

If the player wants to play something beyond those limits, and makes an issue of it, he's trying to take power (control over the setting's content) from the DM, and is exerting his social power on the DM (read this book and allow this class because I want you to let me use this). Now, the point of the game is to have fun, so ideally, some sort of compromise should be reached, but if the player doesn't want to comply with the DM's authority, then that's entirely a social issue, and has nothing to do with "powergaming" mechanics, and everything to do with social dynamics.

Robert "I've Been Told I Allow Too Much" Ranting