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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barolo" data-source="post: 7205116" data-attributes="member: 61932">I know that strictly according to the wording in the basic rulebooks the above statement is correct, but I still find it somewhat curious. What exactly makes some portion of a RPG system optional, or for that sake, non-optional? When I think about how I use the rules of any RPG I play, I could say many rules and options presented are optional, regardless of how they are labelled, as I opt them in or out of campaigns according to my gaming group personal tastes and expectations regarding that specific campaign. In GURPS this issue is self-evident. Back to D&D, when I DM Dark Sun, for instance, I "disallow" several race, class, equipment and spell options based off setting (I also add some options not present in any book), and I also rule out several monsters from the roster of available threats to my players.It seems ruling some options presented in the basic books to be out of a game to be bothersome to a lot of people, and I believe this is the one big reason feats are labelled as optional, instead of being just present in the book, without any labels, to be ruled in or out according to each gaming table discretion. This way, folks playing at home, that are uncomfortable with, see a problem in or simply dislike feats can rule them out without feeling pressed or bothered that they took something out of the game. After all "this option is excluded by default". Curiously, the main "neutral ground" for playing D&D, adventurers league, allows feats (by default, it seems <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />).</blockquote>

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