Material allowed ingame by a DM

[RUMBLETiGER]

I personally own most of the 3.5 material.

My rule has always been to allow any books except Unearthed Arcana, because of the variant systems. Magazine material needs to be run by me first. Rediculious character builds are kept in check my telling my PCs that if they make something broken, I as the DM and controller of the rest of the universe could do the same on whatever enemies I throw at them, and I've resorted to adding templates and class levels on monsters in the past to maintain player/world balance. I've rewarded creative, powerful thinking based on how much fun in creates for everybody.

One example- a player in a high level campaign used the Enveloping Cocoon spell to overcome the saves for Baleful Polymorph. This was broken powerful, but he carried around a menagerie of powerful kittens he'd throw in the faces of enemies. It was hilarious to everybody, and therefore allowable.

 

[the Jester]

I only ban things on a case by case basis.

Builds that you find on CharOp boards usually not only employ broken game elements, they often rest on suspect interpretations of the rules. So yeah, disallowing the problematic elements- or exercising simple common sense- does indeed affect how useful some of those builds are.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

My rule of thumb has been only core materials without pre-approval (PHB/DMG/MM). Everything beyond that gets a review on a per-item basis (feat, spell, class, etc) before it enters the game. I don't allow in whole books with a hand wave -- there are elements of every book (to include the core) that can be broken. This creates a little extra work for the DM, but by going per-item you offload most of the work to the players. There was initial grumbling from players when I first did it, but once they got used to it it worked OK -- they tended to self-edit on extreme stuff as a result so in the end there was relatively little I did not approve.

 

[the Jester]

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.

I wouldn't worry about whether other dms are comfortable with the stuff you allow in your game, but I would make sure that it's stuff that you are familiar with when you let something into your own game.

 

[S'mon]

With 4e, 3e, & 3e derivatives,normally I'll definitely say "PHB only" or other limited sources. If a player's not happy with that it's probably a sign they wouldn't enjoy my game and we shouldn't be playing together, so I'm not even particularly concerned with whether a source is balanced or not. I tried allowing all sources in a recent 4e campaign and I didn't like the result; most players were fine but one player had a Kalashtar PC even though he had no idea what a Kalashtar was, he just wanted the bonuses. I find that sort of thing annoying.

 

[ImperatorK]

All official is allowed, but I still can ban any specific things I want. Homebrew is allowed on a case-by-case basis.
I don't know all the rules, heck, I don't know many of the rules because I'm lazy, but a player using something I don't know is an opportunity to learn.

 

[Ranes]

I think others have made very good points about understanding what you allow. I'll allow stuff from any source, as long as I think it's balanced after having been given time to think over it first (by which I mean a day or more).

Edit: one thing that concerns me is symmetry. When a player asks me if he can have a feat/class/thingie, I might look at it and think that it seems reasonable. But if that's the case, I'm then tempted to retro-fit it to NPCs and monsters I've already put a lot of work into.

Also, there are more permutations of a single game of Go than there are atoms in the known universe - by as much as two orders of magnitude according current best estimates. I bring players a readiness to deal with more situational permutations than that when I DM. There are times when I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying to the petitioning player, "Really?"

 

[Ahnehnois]

Edit: one thing that concerns me is symmetry. When a player asks me if he can have a feat/class/thingie, I might look at it and think that it seems reasonable. But if that's the case, I'm then tempted to retro-fit it to NPCs and monsters I've already put a lot of work into.

I definitely see the issue here. I think the important thing is symmetry in the process of character creation, not in the exact mechanics of each character. If, as a DM, you have a sense of what's reasonable for a character to have and what isn't, you can design your NPCs/monsters with that in mind. Make up a new ability. Ignore a prerequisite. Use that prestige class you'll never be able to play. Customize away.

 

[3catcircus]

I approach my campaigns as follows:

1. Core only.
2. If there are specific campaign-setting books, I allow those only for that campaign setting.
3. Everything else has to go on a white-list on a one-by-one basis and we test it in play at least three times before a final decision.

 

[Chase A.]

With 4e, 3e, & 3e derivatives,normally I'll definitely say "PHB only" or other limited sources. If a player's not happy with that it's probably a sign they wouldn't enjoy my game and we shouldn't be playing together, so I'm not even particularly concerned with whether a source is balanced or not. I tried allowing all sources in a recent 4e campaign and I didn't like the result; most players were fine but one player had a Kalashtar PC even though he had no idea what a Kalashtar was, he just wanted the bonuses. I find that sort of thing annoying.

THIS ^^ I'm going to have to go with this from now on. I absolutely hate people who pick a race or dip into a class just for the mechanics.....