D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Remathilis]

I wouldn’t necessarily call excluding something written for another setting an “arbitrary” line.

But then again, I’ve played at tables with DMs who disallowed core classes & races because they don’t like them and don’t want to deal with them in their game.

It does create a very arbitrary line when one thing is generic enough to be in the PHB (Knowledge domain) but shunted off to the Forgotten Realms book, and now you get a bunch of bad interactions, such as DMs calling it Realms exclusive or lumping it in with spellfire sorcery or Scion of the three rogue (which is very Realms specific) or often carte blanche banning the book because they don't want the headache of figuring out where genie magic or spellfire fits in their Eberron game.

I'm just saying it would be a lot easier for everyone if it was all designed for one setting and the DM didn't have to worry about if something "fits" in an official D&D world.

 

[Necropolitan]

It does create a very arbitrary line when one thing is generic enough to be in the PHB (Knowledge domain) but shunted off to the Forgotten Realms book, and now you get a bunch of bad interactions, such as DMs calling it Realms exclusive or lumping it in with spellfire sorcery or Scion of the three rogue (which is very Realms specific) or often carte blanche banning the book because they don't want the headache of figuring out where genie magic or spellfire fits in their Eberron game.

Has that actually happened enough that it's a real problem?