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

[Buttercup]

I allow whatever books fit the campaign I'm currently running. Presently I have players using material from Alchemy & Herbalists, Pale Designs (both from Bastion), Book of Eldritch Might (Malhavoc), Hammer & Helm (Green Ronin), and AEG's Feats. I've scavenged bits from so many sources I couldn't begin to tell you all of them.

In both of the games I play in, the DMs will allow pretty much any source, as long as you clear it with them first.

I've run across the idea that only WotC books are good enough to use, but that's just crazy talk. There is a wealth of 3rd party material which is more mechanically sound, more balanced and more creative than some of WotC's offerings.

 

[johnsemlak]

Each DM I've been with (including myself) has had different ideas; some allow any source pending approval; but some allow WotC (or Paizo) only.

One factor here worth considering is WotC as now covered a much wider range of topics than they had 3 years ago. Now, I have an 'official' source to turn to on most subjects. 3 yrs ago, that wasn't the case. I have to say that although I have a large d20 collection, I generally consider that WotC stuff overrules 3rd party material. It's generally just easier that way.

One thing I a much more likely to use outside sources for myself is adventures.

I've met a couple of people who picked one one or two d20 titles they felt were very unbalanced (such as AEG one-word books) and basically decided to stick to WotC.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

As DM I treat D20/D&D as a smorgasborg, I have more 3rd party stuff, since I can generally find more that fits my game's world view in it. Classes and PrCs are by approval of the DM only (aside from core) - even WotC stuff gets chopped. In fact I have denied more WotC classes and PrCs than any other company's stuff. For some reason there are players who labor under the misconception that if it is by WotC I am more likely to approve it, because it is 'official'. So they will try to run things like Oozemasters or Samurai past me for an Iron Kingdoms game rather than try to find a class that fit the setting they look at the 'cool powers'.

The Auld Grump