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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 3758035" data-attributes="member: 48692">1) Is it bad DMing to out-and-out refuse certain character concepts or classes?  I freely admit to being an old-school grognard despite my young age, and I intensely dislike the trend towards all kinds of prestige classes, multiclassing, min/maxing, and magic supermarkets.  Hence, if I were DMing, I would insist that characters play the baseline PHB races only-that means no tieflings, no genasi, nothing like that.  Humans, dwarves, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, gnomes, and halflings, nothing else.  No warblades, or any of the other fancy new classes from any splatbooks or Dragon magazine, unless I discuss it with the player first.  We can work something out, but otherwise I don't want all kinds of weird concepts wrecking the setting.  2) Would it be bad DMing to let the players know ahead of time that this is going to be a low-magic game, and that the treasure guidelines in the DMG are not going to be followed?  They might get as high as 12th or 13th level, and end up with nothing more than a +1 shield as far as magic items go, and still wielding the same non-magical, non-masterwork sword they had when they were a 1st-level novice.  (Obviously, they'll be getting permanent and non-permanent goodies before that, but they wouldn't need to know that right at the beginning, heheh.)  By the same token, level gains would not be pre-set, either.  I'd try and soften the blow by pointing that my BBEGs won't necessarily have all the magical widgets that they might like, either-instead of scrying, they might be forced to use agents to spy on the PCs or gain information through some more mundane means-means that the PCs can trace back to them.  Sure, the BBEG might like to have a tool to summon elementals to do his bidding, or to have bracers, cloaks and rings of armor, but then a lot of people would like a lot of things.  If PCs have to be thankful for whatever magical resources they can lay their hands on, villains are much the same way.  3) No magic shops.  PCs can't simply expect to stroll into town and plunk down some gold for a magic wand or suit of armor-they'd be laughed out of the shop.  The only magical items they might be able to buy would be things like low-level potions and oils to heal their wounds or enchant their weapons, and maybe the odd magic wand or scroll in the rarest of cases.  The only institutions that would sell these are wizards' guilds, and they'll likely gouge customers for all they're worth-the demand is high, the supply is extremely low, and they have a monopoly.  This means that things like smokesticks, tanglefoot bags, and thunderstones are not available for general use, either.  On the other hand, that means the bad guys won't be able to use them, either.    Hence, it'd be meat-and-potatoes low fantasy; many of the base assumptionjs about 3E are gone.  Would this be bad DMing, in essence putting your foot down about the style of play you want to run?  Needless to say, the players would have free reign to make their own personalities and backgrounds, and in any event they'd have a major role in shaping the plot, too-telling me what they want and I'll get it all together, to say nothing of what they might decide to do during a plot or a campaign-if the PCs come up with an alternate approach to a situation, who am I to judge, right?  Thoughts?</blockquote>

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