You want Kender in every game ?!!  You're a braver man than I !  ;>

In reply to Draegnoth (msg # 8):

I don't like every option a game allows.

I don't trust every group of players with every option a game allows.

Not every option a game allows is appropriate to the kind of game I want to play.

That said, as long as I feel like someone is on the same page as me and the ret of the group, and is cabable of and honestly attempting to make the experience more fun for everyone, I'm pretty likely to allow an option in my preferred game, even if I'm no familiar with it. But part of why it's my preferred game is because I generally feel like the options I'm not as familiar with won't cause issues.

Hell, 2nd edition came out with a series of books with options that rewrote the game. Sometimes options are just too much of a change.

And, to be fair, players don't always want some options. Like 5e encumbrance rules.

And, sometimes, options are just ways that the publisher playtests things that might become canon in the next edition. Proficiencies started out that way in 1st edition.

Options are just that: Optional. They are meant NOT to be used by some. Otherwise they'd be Canon...which is still optional, when it comes down to it.

Every option gives some different power and ability to players.  A game has to take these into account, and have challenges specifically suited to these abilities.  Some are more easily dealt with than others.   Some abilities can be relatively harmless in one setting but overwhelming in another.

Sure it can be fun being the character with the easy solution to every challenge because you found this neat ability in a source book which just happens to incredibly valuable in this specific campaign.

It's not fun running any of the other characters, though.

And then you hit the sad state where you either have to let it happen, or find a way to neutralize that annoying ability *every time* you want to challenge the party.

If the game features mystery and diplomacy, for example, you either let a character with a mind reading ability ruin everything, or render the ability useless because everyone in this kingdom is somehow protected from mind reading abilities.  Otherwise the whole plot of discovering which NPC's are secretly in league with an enemy planning an invasion becomes useless.

You have to gear a campaign to abilities, but also gear abilities to a campaign.

It doesn't need to be made useless, just risky or unreliable or usable only in certain circumstances. Granted, those modifications can be tricky to think of, but if the players want the ability then there's a good chance they're willing to come up with ways to help you balance it. If they're not, then they probably planned to abuse it and it should be restricted as an option.

Well that's true, 100% useless isn't necessary, but as you note, nerfed to the point where it isn't game upsetting.

But that can be very, very tricky.

It's interesting that DnD's writers have been thinking along the same lines.  This is exactly why "know alignment" is gone.

Too easy for governments to simply exile everyone who is evil.

Of course, in the modern view, doing so to people who haven't actually done anything evil (yet) might be evil on its own, but such are alignments.

Why are so many people seemingly afraid, or at least opposed to having all toppings on their pizza? Whether meats, vegetables, sauces, or cheese. Almost every person I've ever met has some things they don't want on their pizza.

Why?

Toppings are available at the store, so it can't be a lack of resources. Just a prejudice against certain things? That seems very arbitrary. I really don't get it.

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Sometimes, yeah, it's arbitrary. Sometimes there's a "good" reason, not that there has to be.

Let's take a class for an example - bards. A GM might ban bards because they think they're a stupid class, what with their magic flute powers and killing people with bad limericks (or,  in the above parody, they just don't like mushrooms). Yep, arbitrary personal preference.

Maybe in their setting, magic is much more codified, so classes that step out of the traditional wizard/priest arcane/divine dichotomy are inappropriate to the setting, so bards are out (they're going for a classic Chicago-style deep dish, so that white onion sauce won't do).

Or maybe there's a mechanical problem. For this one, let's trade bard for a specific prestige class I've seen plenty of complaints about over the years - Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. A GM basically has to build their entire campaign around the little boogers whenever they turn up, because their fancy shields can be darn near impenetrable. The GM doesn't want to have to deal with that, so no Initiates allowed (yeah, just because that one nutball put Pop-Tart filling on a pizza doesn't mean it won't ruin the experience for everyone else).

I'm good with all traditional toppings.  Just don't ask me to put chocolate and cashews on a tomato-based pie.  :-P

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When playing a game on here, I prefer one that doesn't restrict official sources, as I like to be creative with my character designs, and the more options the better (if it's someone else's game, and they allow homebrew, I say whatever).  When I'm running a game, I will always allow all official sources.  But in general, I avoid allowing most 3rd party, homebrew, or anything someone drew up on a cocktail napkin.  Those tend not to have been playtested extensively for balance.  Obviously exceptions can be made (Matt Mercer's releases, some of the more widely accepted 3rd party Pathfinder books, etc.), but I don't want someone's demigod-level Frankenstein creation to unbalance the game for the rest of the players.

Because I don't like turds on my pizza.  Or if you insist we limit the discussion to only the "good" toppings, now we have to, by committee, decide what are the "good" toppings.

In reply to evileeyore (msg # 17):

That which is a turd to you may be someone else's favorite aspect of the game though. People disagree. Instead of excluding things you dislike it would be better to allow it. Either their character will stink and not be able to contribute much or it will die and they'll have to reroll. Either way you are vindicated. Unless you're just wrong and their character excels at the game. Then you eat crow and admit your own bias.

Unfortunately, as the GM, if I find that I don't like a particular piece of content, then I probably won't enjoy running a game that includes that particular content.

Guess what happens to a game that I'm not enjoying.

That's right... I stop running it, and run something that I do enjoy instead.

I've run a few games here that lasted 10-15 years.  None of them contained stuff that I didn't enjoy running.

I freely admit my bias... that's why I tell people what I won't include - saves them wasting time for both of us by creating a character that I'll automatically reject.  Just because a player likes something, doesn't mean I have to.

And, as the GM, I have the final word on what is acceptable in my game.

Hence:  "committee".  If you love [X] but enough people at the table hate [X], the game is highly unlikely to include to [X].

Or as bbr says, (paraphrasing) "The GM runs the game they enjoy, the Players have two choices:  Play in it, or find a GM who runs games they prefer."

Likewise, if a GM runs games that their group doesn't enjoy, they have 2 choices... and I can tell which choice I've made time and again (Hint: it's not run a game for that group).


Nope.  And for one simple reason:  It's better to have the Player adjust and play something they will enjoy, than to have a terrible time and decide they hate gaming.

Now, if the Player is some "stuck in their rut, old grognard, bad-wrong-type" who twists the play into what they want despite being warned and having that premise rejected and they still end playing they rejected premise somehow*, then sure, I'll let them crash and burn against the wall of "Nope, I'm the GM and things don't work that way".

* This has happened twice to me.  Both times the Player ended up leaving and never coming back to my games.

And yes, I've looked at premises and said "I don't think that's going to work in my game, but we'll see as long as you agree if it's going badly you're fine with course correcting down the road", and have it go the way I thought and needing correction as well as working fine and never needing adjustments.  It happens.


Or it will crush certain encounters type with ease... and then that type of encounter ceases to ever come up again in any meaningful way, or the other Players will sit around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for a moment where they can do something useful.

Frex:  In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy there is the Bard profession which dominates social situations and has strong mind-control, but outside of that they have minimal impact (Nymph Bard is just stupidly broken that way).  So the GM either has to resign to never having social encounters give the group a challenge, or they have to put their thumb on the scale so heavily that that no one but the Bard can ever manage a social encounter.

This is fine if the group and GM enjoy that.  A "Back to the Dungeon" or "Orc and Pie" can be fun that way, but I don't run those games, so I, as a GM, don't allow Bards in my GURPS DF games (despite GURPS DF literally being built for back-to-the-dungeon and orc-and-pie).





I agree 110% with everything you said, but these two sentences stand as bearing repeating.

Players aren't entitled to my games, however they are entitled to me running the best game I can run, when I do run for them.  This does mean I won't run what I don't enjoy running.

Similarly, I don't play in games I don't enjoy.  This is a two-way street, and it's surprising to me when Players forget this.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:27, Sun 06 Dec 2020.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 19):

Basically, this.

I handle that by requesting potential players submit 3-4 character concepts they're willing to play. I make it clear I will pick which one comes in and that the player should be willing to play any submitted character. I do this for three reasons. 1. Filter out things I don't want in the game, and; 2. Make sure the party is roughly balanced and not repetitive, and; 3. It speeds up the RTJ process immensely.

I'm a guy who writes games where I think of as many possibilities for the players to include as I can, because about 75% of my gaming experience has been generic/kitchen sink games, starting at the point where I diverged from d20 to GURPS back around 05. I once let a guy write a sentient candy tank in GURPS for no reason other than the thought exercise. He ended up not playing because he thought it was too absurd. He was right. I still allowed its creation out of my personal sense of amusement. Even still, I make a point of including enough bells and whistles in my games that in order to turn one dial up, you HAVE to turn others down. They're mutually contradictory. e.g Realism vs. Genre Convention as a continuum can have 10 different games on 10 different spots when the genre is anime and the game caters to a variety of different subgenres ranging from mecha or Saiyans  on down to slice of life.

I actually made what I now acknowledge as a mistake running a game that was simultaneously slice of life, and Fantasy JRPG inspired by the likes of Persona--at least 3+. The thing is I'd still do it if I had any thought that it might succeed. At some point one has to concede the point that including everything will produce... Well, we'll call them H-Clusters for the sake of censorship. Even if one does not want to concede that point very strongly.

Well, you're saying to allow what the GM doesn't want to make the player happy. But the corollary is to not play what the GM doesn't like to make the GM happy.

Why should the player be able to over rule the GM? That is basically what you're saying should happen, and Ron has described what happens then: The GM lets the game suffer because he doesn't want to be there anymore.

Isn't it better to find a game that is a better fit for you and might have a long life than to potentially ruin a whole game to get what you want for the short time the game remains?

Somewhere there is a GM willing to allow what you ant. Just be patient and keep looking.

Yes, we'd all like the games to be all about us and perfect fits for our desires. But there are other players in the game (usually) and they might (and probably do) have different desires. You can't please everyone, so a GM has to do what makes him or her comfortable and find players that can deal with it.

A balance has to be struck, which means someone is going to be disappointed, and it's going to be you on occasion. There's nothing that can be done about that other than a solo game with the right GM.

Actually, cashews are quite good on pizza, lol.

I look at it this way.  If a GM doesn't like an option I like in a game chances are that I am not going to like their GMing so why would I want to play that game?  I like to know that in advance before I put forth the amount of effort it takes to come up with an interesting concept, :).

In reply to Draegnoth (msg # 18):

You appear to feel that the reason the GM isn't allowing something is because it's /under/powered rather than overpowered. I think that's much less common of a concern, unless it seems like a player is making a character that seems like it can't possibly contribute in the way the GM wants. Like, maybe the GM wants to run a game about soldiers and the player wants to be a photographer, which is a valid option for the game, but not what the GM had in mind.

It might help if you were more specific about the option or options that actually drove you to post this. I'm quite curious now.

Everybody else thinks that cyanide is a bad pizza topping, but I really like that almondy aftertaste, so every pizza should have cyanide on it.

The way I usually do things for d20 is that all official content, barring specific pieces that have proven disruptive in the past, is allowed, certain third-party content from specific vetted publishers is allowed, but anything else 3rd party is not, and no homebrew content.

Usually. But if I'm running a setting that doesn't have firearms, you can forget about the gunslinger class. If I'm running a low-magic game, your crafting-focused wizard is out.

That's nonsense. It's my game. I'll run it the way I like. If someone doesn't like it, they can look elsewhere. That's one of the beauties of this place.

Maybe I don't have access to all the materials other players do. "It's available online for free" doesn't mean I want to illegally download something, or feel like I need to do massive amounts of research and keep multiple Wiki tabs open just to ensure players aren't cheating. If I say "core rulebook only," it means that's what I have, and that's what I'm consulting. If I have all the books, or access to all the books, then that's what players can use.

Some people seem to think that just because they're in possession of material, they should be allowed to use it, but that's not the way gaming works. The DM is the one who puts up the rails, and it's up to the players to abide by it. You own every supplement and have memorized them all? Yay for you. That doesn't mean I'm obliged to allow page 358 of The Wankdoodle Guide to Slaphappy just because WotC floated it on DM's Guild.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:16, Mon 07 Dec 2020.

I don't know, there's some good stuff in there, but yes, Wall of Psychic Salmon is overpowered to the point of being unbalancing.

What're you talking about? Okay, yeah, it's pretty good under certain circumstances, but can you really say it's any more powerful than Wail of the Hungry Hippo, which I might add is a full spell level lower than WPS??

People have different visions, and that's okay. What I allow when running the game depends on my comfortability with the system, my vision of the game world, and the medium I'm running on.

If the game you want to play isn't out there, be the change you want to see and run it. Odds are you'll find a player who is happy to pay the good deed forward.

So in all seriousness the PrC in BoeF that let you take stat damage to power meta magic is pretty solid.

That fact that neither of you mention the Brown Note 4th level Bard Feature (NO SAVING THROW if target CON is less than 12?) goes to show how much this thing was in need of an editor.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:45, Tue 08 Dec 2020.

Is this thread about D&D 3.5? Because this thread sounds a lot like it’s about D&D 3.5, and the least balanced book in D&D 3.5 is the Player’s Handbook 1. None of the rest even come close.