Material allowed ingame by a DM

[cross ofth carpenter]

I have recently joined, but I have been active on some
other forums on the subject.

When talking about rules and builds, most posters
seem to take all the various material published
as what would be allowed when most DMs
would probably restrict what was usable within
game to perhaps the core rules and one or two
other books.

Do you think that changes the usability of builds
and whether some people who propose builds
excessively stretch the limit of allowability
in a game?

What sources do you allow in game and what
are some of the reasons for more liberal or restricted
limits for allowing material and books?

 

[Dandu]

When talking about rules and builds, most posters seem to take all the various material published as what would be allowed when most DMs would probably restrict what was usable within game to perhaps the core rules and one or two other books.

Do you think that changes the usability of builds and whether some people who propose builds excessively stretch the limit of allowability in a game?

Of course restricting material changes the usability of builds. Builds depend on certain options being present.

Whether some people stretch the limits of allowability is harder to say, as the word "allowability" is not defined in the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language and I do not have a good idea of what you mean by it.

What sources do you allow in game and what are some of the reasons for more liberal or restricted limits for allowing material and books?

I allow everything that I have an understanding of and is balanced. Material is banned on a case by case basis, not just because it is in a book that I do not like.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't know that most DMs are so restrictive that they only allow the core or thereabouts. However, almost any DM will have some limitations, and many will ban or alter things in the core rules. This does affect how a player builds his character. In cases on these message boards where a player is asking for character building advice, the player generally includes in his post some information about what is or is not allowed in his game.

As to my own philosophy, I generally follow the "yes, but..." school of DMing, which says that you try to use any ideas the players have, but aggressively enforce your own agenda, either for creative reasons, to adhere to some shared sense of verisimilitude, or to create a particular gameplay experience (e.g. "balance"). I'll allow any source (including things the players create themselves), and I'll consider almost any content, but I'll also modify it liberally and go back and forth with the player until we have a character that fits my needs and the player's. I don't think banning a lot of sources is particularly helpful; there are only a few rules that I ban outright.

 

[cross ofth carpenter]

Well one thing that has an effect on my
allowing something in the game, which is caused by
very liberal admission of material is that the material
tends to become confusing particularly as it may not
be clear whether any particular DM is familiar with the
material to be able to create and run a
balanced game.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I prefer games (as a ref and as a player) where just core materials are used, which in 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 has been the first three books only. I understand the arguments for more, but my general principle is that the same ideas should be available to anyone, and that owning more stuff shouldn't give you more options and make your character stronger. (I know that some people use an expanded definition of "core". I'm open to exceptions, but they tend not to be needed, in my opinion.

(edit: I'll admit that I was quite fond of some of the UA variants in 3.x, which were part of the online SRD).

 

[Dwimmerlied]

In my game, all sources are conditionally allowed so far; there aren't any optimisers in my game and I wouldn't want to restrict the palette for my players coming up with interesting characters they want to play. This might eventually lead to some broken characters (though it hasn't so far, and accidently generating pun-pun is very unlikely), but it wouldn't be hard to remedy. In any case, I'm more likely to ban on a rule by rule basis;- Even the crappiest books often have one or two usable things that are nice to have.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have recently joined, but I have been active on some
other forums on the subject.

When talking about rules and builds, most posters
seem to take all the various material published
as what would be allowed when most DMs
would probably restrict what was usable within
game to perhaps the core rules and one or two
other books.

Do you think that changes the usability of builds
and whether some people who propose builds
excessively stretch the limit of allowability
in a game?

What sources do you allow in game and what
are some of the reasons for more liberal or restricted
limits for allowing material and books?

We're not representative of typical gamers. Most gamers don't spend time on forums. We're more hard-core. Hard-core gamers are more likely to buy or use non-core material.

There are plenty of gaming groups out there where the DM owns all the books, and it's just the core three and maybe a few Eberron or Forgotten Realms book. But those DMs aren't common here.

I run 4e. I'd like to just go core + setting, but the offline Character Builder ruined all that. In addition, it made it impossible to get players to even consider some of the newer material, as they won't use anything they can't see in the Character Builder. Unfortunately, the CB does not distinguish between well-written and poorly-written material.

A common reason to restrict sources is to have the DM only use what they're familiar with, and to keep the complexity down. There's a bunch of unbalanced material in the core in any edition, but keeping out other books means you're not introducing new unbalanced material.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

When talking about rules and builds, most posters
seem to take all the various material published
as what would be allowed...

Yes, they do that because they're crafting theoretical PCs for fun, not generally for a specific campaign.

...when most DMs
would probably restrict what was usable within
game to perhaps the core rules and one or two
other books.

Yes, this has sadly been my experience too. I have strong opinions on this subject, so suffice it to say that this is a big reason I don't go looking for 3.x games anymore.

Do you think that changes the usability of builds
and whether some people who propose builds
excessively stretch the limit of allowability
in a game?

Yes, and often, yes. Again, many builds you see on CharOp or wherever are theoretical builds and may specifically be marked with WARNING: NOT FOR ACTUAL PLAY. (See: Pun Pun.)

What sources do you allow in game and what
are some of the reasons for more liberal or restricted
limits for allowing material and books?

When I was DMing 3.0 and 3.5, I was very liberal, banning things only for balance reasons. I have a pretty good grasp on what's problematic, and what merely appears to be problematic, so I didn't see much reason to limit options.

 

[delericho]

At the start of a campaign, I'll put together a list of books that may be used (and, in some cases, a list of options from those books that may be used). Very often, that's "Core Rules only". My most recent campaign added the Spell and Magic Item Compendia, the Expanded Psionics Handbook (except races), and the Eberron books.

Generally speaking, if it's on the list, it's allowed; if it's not, it's not. In theory, if we found something that was massively broken in the course of a campaign, I'd work with the player to resolve that for the good of the group. But I've never had that problem, thankfully.

 

[Weather Report]

Run it by you first.