Official Books vs Unofficial: Your group's standard is?

[Dannyalcatraz]

I voted other: What books get used depends on who is running the campaign. Most of the guys who have run 3Ed (that's right...not 3.5) campaigns in our group limit themselves to the WoTC core 3 + the softcover classbooks.

I, however, own and like to use several 3rd party publishers' material...but I'm not running anything right now.

 

[Pinotage]

There's wasn't something that precisely summed up our group, but I went with WotC only. As DM I normally throw out a blanket statement at the start of the adventure specifying which books can be used (Core + Complete generally) but also put in a statement that anything else is allowed based on my approval. In the majority of cases that somebody has asked, I've looked things over and approved them. But, most players in my group are very happy to stick to WotC only (let's face it, they probably sell more product that anybody else), and most requests come from Dragon. I can't recall a single instance that a player has asked to use something from a 3rd party publisher, but I'm not against it at all. I thought about voting 'trusted 3rd party' but that didn't really sum it up. I'd take a look at anything 3rd party but almost never have to.

Having said that, as DM I use 3rd party stuff, but that's from a lot of different sources, and can't be categorised as 'trusted'.

Pinotage

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I use a C&C approach to D&D: Core and Complete for players.
I feel that this standardizes things nicely and we don't have to change anything down the track. However, I as DM can use whatever source I want and introduce anything into the game. As I don't like giving out significant XP bonuses for good roleplaying etc. I prefer to give such players further options when they level up - in terms of feats, spell selection etc. from other sources - be that extra WoTC sources or some of the other 3rd party stuff I have.

As such I guess I'm a WoTC user mainly but with a little 3rd party thrown in here and there.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[JediSoth]

It depends on the particular campaign. For my World's Largest Dungeon campaign, I allowed anything. Stoooooooooopid. Most of my players were cool about it, but one made such an unbalanced character from Races of Stone that the game ceased to be fun (plus his and another's playing styles didn't mesh with the group). He made a replacement character using the Book of Exalted Deeds that was even more unbalanced.

For my upcoming Eberron campaign, I limited the books to the three core books, the Eberron CS, Races of Eberron, Magic of Eberron, a few of the class from the Complete Series Book of Roguish Luck, Complete Book of Eldritch Might, Expanded Psionics Handbook, and Arcana Evolved.

One of the other players, when he DMed, limited us to pretty much only the core books and disallowed multi-classing.

JediSoth

 

[Li Shenron]

When I am the DM, players are generally allowed to use WotC books only, and not all of them. The general assumption is that if it's WotC and 3.0 and not setting-specific, then the book as a whole is basically available, except the prestige classes which are always by default subject to my approval. In my only 3.5 campaign we're basically stuck with core only.

Then as a DM I do use non-WotC material, from some Green Ronin, Fantasy Flight and Mongoose books, but because it's adventure/NPC material, there are less issues for me: if it's not good, I'm just not going to use it twice.

The other 2 gamers who DM their own campaigns are more lenient than me and regularly allow non-WotC stuff, but most of our players don't have many books and hence don't take advantage of that.

 

[Dog Moon]

We pretty much stick with WOTC for most thing, and Malhavoc Press. One of the people in my group is very quick to purchase the .pdfs from there, except for the different system stuff, like Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes. Just don't want to have to deal with adding another system into the one we already have. We pretty much let anything from WOTC or Malhavoc unless we decide something is pretty broken or something. Then that gets booted.

I've purchased a little bit here and there from other companies as time progresses and I see a 40 page .pdf I'll get much more use out of than WOTCs 300 page books, but there are a couple companies we have stayed away from because we simply don't like because of either power issues, or the books are just dumb.

 

[CronoDekar]

We use pretty much only WotC books, but that's certainly not because the 3rd party publishers are seen as bad or something, it's just that we simply do not have (m)any books besides WotC stuff and that's certainly more than enough already.

That's pretty much it for my group, though I have been trying to be more open to 3rd party products. Hyperconscious is pretty big with my group (though that's not too third-party, since it is the same guy who wrote the XPH), and I certainly wouldn't mind trying out Iron Heroes or Iron Kingdoms sometime. Though I should also note that my personal policy is "generally everything from a WotC supplement is allowed, but check with me just in case."

 

[devilbat]

We have no "trusted" publishers (including WotC), but optional material is welcome after careful consideration.

Pretty much exactly my view.

 

[Castigator]

We have no "trusted" publishers (including WotC), but optional material is welcome after careful consideration.

I'd sort of second that.. but even if we take optional material beyond the core books (WoTC or other) we usually tweak and change it to better fit our needs.

Also, about 30% to 40% of your stuff is simply homemade and selfwritten (and doing feats, spells or PrC yourself is heavily encouraged).

 

[diaglo]

none of the above.

everything has to get DM approval. even the stuff in the core books.