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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8428574" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I find that &quot;stick&quot; is almost never all that useful, even in the listed examples.Banning options because people might take them is not &quot;well this will let the campaign actually run.&quot; It's admitting the players aren't actually on board for your premise, so you must coerce them. If the players were 100% on board for a humans-only game, you wouldn't need to ban anything; they'd all play humans of their own accord. Address the real problem--getting everyone enthusiastic about the premise--and the need for a stick vanishes. Not only that, but you get the secondary benefit of higher player enthusiasm, which is never a bad thing.I have only once had to &quot;ban&quot; an option in the games I've run. That one time was because a player wanted to do necromancy things, in a setting where necromancy is such a hugely enormous no-no that it would essentially guarantee that either (a) the party could never form in the first&nbsp; place, or (b) the party would eventually become fugitives from society at large. Since those are both undesirable, I &quot;banned&quot; the option--but instead of just saying, &quot;No you can't do that,&quot; I dug deeper. Why did this player want necromancy? Turned out, they would've chosen some other thing, but they were worried that that thing would backfire on them in a bad way. I promised to them that I would not allow that kind of backfiring to happen, and we worked out a different solution to the problem. They got to have a minion, without needing the necromancy aspect that was such a problem.This is why reskinning is such an essential tool right alongside house-ruling. House rules allow you to build mechanics you need. Reskinning allows you to take cool mechanics and still use them, without baggage induced by their current narrative trappings. With those two tools in hand, you can almost always address what the player wants--and that's why I've almost never needed to &quot;ban&quot; anything.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8428574, member: 6790260"] I find that "stick" is almost never all that useful, even in the listed examples. Banning options because people might take them is not "well this will let the campaign actually run." It's admitting the players aren't actually on board for your premise, so you must [I]coerce[/I] them. If the players were 100% on board for a humans-only game, you wouldn't need to ban anything; they'd all play humans of their own accord. Address the real problem--getting everyone enthusiastic about the premise--and the need for a stick vanishes. Not only that, but you get the secondary benefit of higher player enthusiasm, which is never a bad thing. I have only once had to "ban" an option in the games I've run. That one time was because a player wanted to do necromancy things, in a setting where necromancy is such a hugely enormous no-no that it would essentially guarantee that either (a) the party could never form in the first place, or (b) the party would eventually become fugitives from society at large. Since those are both undesirable, I "banned" the option--but instead of just saying, "No you can't do that," I dug deeper. [I]Why[/I] did this player want necromancy? Turned out, they would've chosen some other thing, but they were worried that that thing would backfire on them in a bad way. I promised to them that I would not allow that kind of backfiring to happen, and we worked out a different solution to the problem. They got to have a minion, without needing the necromancy aspect that was such a problem. This is why reskinning is such an essential tool right alongside house-ruling. House rules allow you to build mechanics you need. Reskinning allows you to take cool mechanics and still use them, without baggage induced by their current narrative trappings. With those two tools in hand, you can almost always address what the player wants--and that's why I've almost never needed to "ban" anything. [/QUOTE]

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