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Message: <blockquote data-quote="3catcircus" data-source="post: 3442283" data-attributes="member: 16077">I understand your point, and I certainly take no offense at your response.  My point is really that once the players and DM have set the "terms and conditions" of the campaign, everyone should abide by them.  Many times, a player wants a PrC because a "new hotness" book has just arrived in the game store.  For example, we are in a Forgotten Realms campaign.  When Complete Arcane came out, one of my players wanted to play a Suel Arcanamach.  Sorry - that is Greyhawk only.I wasn't referring to the players dictating the direction of the campaign; rather, that they could end up dictating the subset of the whole of the rules that are in use for that particular campaign, after the campaign has commenced.  Of course, I'm also a time-strapped DM who likes to use pre-published material whenever possible.I'm a big proponent of everyone sitting down at the table at the start of a campaign and brainstorming the "terms and conditions" of the campaign.  What books to allow, what genre or tone, what house rules or variants in use, and any specific exceptions.  Once those terms have been set, I think that the only things that should be negotiable are house rules or variants that just don't work.  Source material selection should be static at that point unless something has undergone an errata (i.e. even though Spell Compendium had a bunch of spells in it, only those spells that originally appeared in an allowed previous source would be allowed in the current campaign) or is fully agreed-to by the entire group.  Once the genre and tone is set, as a DM, this gives me the framework to start picking appropriate pre-published material to use.  For the example of an Egyptian-themed campaign, I'd definitely be using information from I3-I5 Desert of Desolation, Hamunaptra, or Necropolis and Sandstorm would be a source book, while Frostburn probably wouldn't be.  For a militaristic campaign, Red Hand of Doom gets the nod, as would Heroes of Battle or Complete Warrior.  I also think a lot of this may be moot if the group executes a campaign as quickly as (or quicker than) WotC assumes.  My current campaign is about a year old and they are only 12th level.  Some campaigns have been going on for years of real-time and others last only a few weeks or months.</blockquote>

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