I am looking for advice for reasoning on disallowing the Unearthed Arcana.
I am going to be starting the SHackled City in a few weeks, and my friend wants to do a Spontaneous Wizard, and when I said I wasn't going to allow the book, he wanted to know why. Now we are good firends, and he wants a reason more than because I am the DM and I said so.
My main thought was that the othrs in the group may starting to ask for stuff from the book and if I say no they will complain because I let the wizard do his thing from the book. But I don't think that will fly with him.
Can anyone help me come up with a justification to not allow this book?
Well, considering Unearthed Arcana, in the very introduction, says that you probably shouldn't implement everything in it in your campaign, and that some options, if you tried, would conflict with one another, would be problematic.
Just show your friend the section where it points out that ALL of Unearthed Arcana is optional rules, and let him know that you choose not to use that option.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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I would suggest turning it around on him: Tell him that you don't want to use that book but offer him a chance to sell you the optional rule. He may have a valid reason beyond munchkinism and I would give him the chance to make his case. but I would remind him that you are the final arbiter on game balance and what fits into your game.
The players need not know the reasoning behind every decision because you know what the campaign holds, hopefully they do not. EVERY rule is optional and it is up to you to decide what fits your game--This isn't just DM cruelness but part of the responsibilty you have as a DM to your other players and to yourself.
If your player can't convince you just remember DM caveat is not a crime.
As a DM who's currently running the SCAP, it's a lot of work even though it's all pre-packaged, tell him it would be easier for you to run an effective campaign if you didn't have to worry about all those possible optional rules.
Both are good points. That should help me quite a bit. Thanks.
Basically you don't really need another reason beyond you are the DM and it is your choice. I understand that he is your friend, but all that should do is make him know that you aren't doing it out of cruelness. As was pointed out already, any and all rules are optional and up to the DM for interpretation. Do what you must to run the game how you see fit.
A bit from my Hoarde.
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Not to mention to could add HOURS to your prep time if you decided you wanted to make some of the NPCs spontaneous wizards also since his character is. and wouldn't he rather have you spend that time making the adventure/game the best it can be rather than retooling some NPCs because he wanted a tweaked wizard? just a thought
Tallknight
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As DM it is up to you to decide what fits into your campaign world and what does not. E.g. oen of my players wanted to play a "Stalker of Karash" from the Book of Exalted Deeds. Our Campaign Settings is the Forgotten Realms. So in short the faerûnian pantheon and the one of the BoED do not fit smoothly.
There were some more easier to use PrC which came pretty close to what the player really wished to play, and so I told him that I was sorry, but that his favourite PrC did not fit into our campaign and would need some major rework before it could be used there. Alternatives for him were Peerless Archer, Innitiate of the Way of the Bow, and Darkwood Hunter. He accepted this explanation.
In a different group a co player asked the DM if she could use a rule from Unearthed Arcana (faults). He accepted, but he could have denied the rule, too. After all he is responsible for keeping a balance in the game, to "perform with the players" a believable story. If he feels that some rules prevent him from doing so, he has any right to disallow them.
And finally: did your friend not ask YOU if he could use a sponaneous wizard? ;-) Of course a DM likes to allow players their favourite "toy", but every DM is responsible to himself about how much effort he is able to put into his campaign without reducing the enjoyment for his players.
Günther
I've found that a good way to deal with this sort of thing is to create a players handhout for the start of the campaign. Cover any house rules, allowed books and what the players all should know of the new campaign in this hand out. If you have your players make their characters before showing up you can send the hand out by email.
The hand out can be any size depending on how detailed you want to get - mine runs about 230 pages but I think a 2 page hand out would work as well.
That way you can deflect any sort of descision regarding this until after the hand out and it will not seem as personal - like you specifically did not allow his particuler build but that all the players are in the same boat and denied X or Y builds.
Stepping back from specific examples to the a more basic question of "What suppliments will I allow?"; I believe that a good DM should be able to integrate any/all supplimental rules that the players wish to employ. This stems from an overarching idea that all of the gamers will have the most enjoyable experience that they can get out of the time they spend gaming. The conduit between player and the (role playing) game itself is the PC. Why not allow him to take flaws from unearthed arcana, a prestige class from book of exaulted deeds, or a non-normative race if those are the qualities that would create maximum enjoyment for the PC? One aspect of the responsibilities of the DM is to integrate ALL aspects of each PC with the constructed (or preconstructed) campaign setting. Anything less is straight up lazy DMing.
ACE
I think I can sum it up short and sweet, like dragonlvr did...
Because you're the DM, and you said so.
Any questions?
Good.
M
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I've found that a good way to deal with this sort of thing is to create a players handhout for the start of the campaign. Cover any house rules, allowed books and what the players all should know of the new campaign in this hand out. If you have your players make their characters before showing up you can send the hand out by email.
The hand out can be any size depending on how detailed you want to get - mine runs about 230 pages but I think a 2 page hand out would work as well.
That way you can deflect any sort of descision regarding this until after the hand out and it will not seem as personal - like you specifically did not allow his particuler build but that all the players are in the same boat and denied X or Y builds.
Yeah, I do that as well. That way, nobody can complain that I'm singling them out ahead of time.
I also feel for the author of this thread. I too have a very good friend that is quite frankly, difficult to game with for similar reasons (and is indeed, the reason for my house rules manifesto).
When in doubt, I blame everything on game balance. Which in truth is the reasoning behind 90% of my decisions.
Consequently, I do try to offer my friend a balanced alternative
to unreasonable requests (sometimes a couple of them) that way they understand and respect my decision. Sometimes all the player wants is for you to make him/her feel special. After all its their game too, so I try to make sure I'm not just saying "no" to be equally as difficult.
Tim
I think I can sum it up short and sweet, like dragonlvr did...
Because you're the DM, and you said so.
Any questions?
Good.
M
While you *could* take this approach, I've found that it helps to foster a DM vs. Player mentality. Would you rather assume the title of "Dictator DM" or "Facilitator DM"? To boot, assimilating multiple sourcebooks is benificial for all in the same manner as studying history, sociology, or the literary canon. Sourcebooks are not simply meant to be text references (plusses and minuses). They help braoden one's knoweldge base about fictional cultures, societies, idologies, and any other socio/psycho/anthropo/bio/eco/(etc.)-logical issues in the game.
Also, keep in mind that this is why the Wizard's of the Coast products (at least) are classified as either Core products or Accessories.As ever,
ACE
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Stepping back from specific examples to the a more basic question of "What suppliments will I allow?"; I believe that a good DM should be able to integrate any/all supplimental rules that the players wish to employ. This stems from an overarching idea that all of the gamers will have the most enjoyable experience that they can get out of the time they spend gaming. The conduit between player and the (role playing) game itself is the PC. Why not allow him to take flaws from unearthed arcana, a prestige class from book of exaulted deeds, or a non-normative race if those are the qualities that would create maximum enjoyment for the PC? One aspect of the responsibilities of the DM is to integrate ALL aspects of each PC with the constructed (or preconstructed) campaign setting. Anything less is straight up lazy DMing.
ACE
Well it is not necesarily 'Lazy DMing'. If someone comes up to me and says hey I want to play a Minotaur Monk, and the campaign takes place in a mainly human empire that hates minotaur well then just about every trip to town would be a big confrontation of the town watch and the minotaur PC.
Or, if three players are playing 'normal' races/classes and a fourth player wants to play something that would unbalance the game.
The idea of the players should be allowed anything and everything they want seems to be a little self serving and most likely will unbalnace the game.
Well it is not necesarily 'Lazy DMing'. If someone comes up to me and says hey I want to play a Minotaur Monk, and the campaign takes place in a mainly human empire that hates minotaur well then just about every trip to town would be a big confrontation of the town watch and the minotaur PC.
Or, if three players are playing 'normal' races/classes and a fourth player wants to play something that would unbalance the game.
The idea of the players should be allowed anything and everything they want seems to be a little self serving and most likely will unbalnace the game.
I'll not take credit for this comment...someone else on one of the other message boards said something to this effect: "I've never met a PC that can get away with unbalancing the game" The operative word in this statement is *can*. While often times PCs do unbalance the game because of stat blocks, the onus is on the DM to make sure that the game is balanced...no matter what. One way out for a DM with a question like this is to say "eh, sounds complicated...i'm not going to fiddle with it." Again, this is a perfectally acceptable way to solve the problem. I'm simply pointing out that if any DM wanted to integrate anthing from any of the suppliments, they could.
In talknight's example above, while the minotaur monk might be a difficult PC to play in the setting described, i don't see any reason why that minotaur monk can't be allowed...does anyone?As ever,
ACE
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I'll not take credit for this comment...someone else on one of the other message boards said something to this effect: "I've never met a PC that can get away with unbalancing the game" The operative word in this statement is *can*. While often times PCs do unbalance the game because of stat blocks, the onus is on the DM to make sure that the game is balanced...no matter what. One way out for a DM with a question like this is to say "eh, sounds complicated...i'm not going to fiddle with it." Again, this is a perfectally acceptable way to solve the problem. I'm simply pointing out that if any DM wanted to integrate anthing from any of the suppliments, they could.
In talknight's example above, while the minotaur monk might be a difficult PC to play in the setting described, i don't see any reason why that minotaur monk can't be allowed...does anyone?As ever,
ACE
I would disagree.
1. There are other players at the table with their own enjoyment of the game. They may not want to deal with the minotaur monk at every town along the way. They may not be willing/able to purchase and employ every supplement that comes out and may feel left out by the everything goes player. Part of the game is reconciling the competing interests/enjoyment of the players.
2. As a DM, I want to have a good time, and the minotaur monk running amok in my anti-humanoid state may ruin my personal suspension of disbelief/interest in the game. I have as much right as the players to assert my preferences on the shared environment.
3. There is only a finite amount of prep time that can be devoted to each session. Limiting the universe of materials narrows what the players can do and allows the DM to better prepare for each session.
Now, all that being said, I do think it's a good idea to accomodate your players and the materials they want to bring. There are only so many people willing to play in a true my-way-or-the-highway type game. I think the best way to handle the situation is to feel out what supplements your players are most interested and highlight those specific books or particular sections thereof.
Sebastian
Not wanting to stray from the original Unearthed Arcana book, I think it is completely reasonable to say, "no." UA is an optional rules set, like a book of house rules, if you will. That book and its' rules should be determined by the DM, not the players.
Other books, like Exhalted Deeds/Vile Darkness are there for "Mature Audiences/Players" for a reason. It is too easy to power game with the BoED (i.e. Monk with vow of Poverty just to begin with)and it, and it's counterpart are designed for a more epic conflict.
In general, I allow the core rules and the Complete line/Races of line. As well, I allow many of the spells from Monte Cook's line and Arms and Armor from Bastion Press. Otherwise it is a book by book or feat by feat basis. We have all seen some of those books out there that seem intent upon destroying any semblance of balance.
I have found that clever players working together can unbalance anything. Add in the broken psion class and now all bets are off (I use psions and allow them because I love aberrations. What is good for the goose...).
Ultimately, it is your decision. I will generally allow the group to decide, unless I really have strong feelings against a certain book.
I would go with the sentiment of allowing them to "sell" you on the point. For the most part I disallow non-WotC books I am not familiar with. But with WotC books, if I don't like everything, I allow the player to make a compelling presentation as to why I shoudl allow it.
If their reason is something to the effect of "its cool" or "i can kick tail with it" there is probably no reasont ot allow it. If they have a compelling, important reason, I'd say let it in.
I think you've got plenty of good answers to you question. I'm sure at least a couple will do the trick. Here's my take on the subject: do you want to run a game that is constantly incorporating new "house rules" to accomodate other "house rules" or do you want to run a more controlled game?
Both have their strong points. Most games with a lot of house rules involved are pretty open to new material and input on behalf of the players and the DM. Some are a litte more structured. Just depends on the group. Unearthed Arcana as all about optional rules. I called it Book of House Rules because that's all it really is. Which ones do you want to use? Which ones are just too out there? The choice is yours.
A more controlled game is probably one that uses pretty limited books like the 3 Core Rulebooks and perhaps a few other WoTC books. If you want to run this type of game, you don't want to use Unearthed Arcana.
Both can be great games with a good DM and decent group of players. My advice would be to decide early on with your players which type of game you want to run and what material is going to be allowed.
If you aren't for using Unearthed Arcana, I would suggest limiting a lot of the other optional books out there so you don't come off looking like hypocrite. I run a more balanced and controlled environemnt type of game. I use the Core books and the WoTC "Complete" books and it's worked out pretty good.
Anyway, good luck with your campaign whatever you decide to do about your dilemma.
This actually just came up with my group. We have two or three "oldschool" role players and a couple of powergamer/munchkins. This typically means there will be a fierce and nearly even split on everything. "Unearthed Arcana" has became our favorite example of a supplement that was NOT play tested before put into use as almost all of it is unbalanced.
In the end I blamed it all on the fact that I am poor. If I don't have the book, you can't use it. Basically I told them that I wasn't going to hold the game up while I read entries from the book that they brought to the game to make sure that they were doing it right.
As for the "lazy DMing" post earlier, I put a good bit of effort into prepping, tweaking and scaling adventures. It's not lazy to work to avoid having all of that disrupted by one player who found one of those bizarre d20 books that no one else in the group knows about that gives them the ability to shoot fireballs out of their eyes if they're a half-drow monk who worships the dark god of volcanoes and took three feats that I've never seen before.
Typically, though, we all work together to allow as mjuch as possible if it can be accomodated. In reference to the BoED PrC post earlier, we have the very first Radiant Servant of Dol Arrah running around Eberron now.
Stepping back from specific examples to the a more basic question of "What suppliments will I allow?"; I believe that a good DM should be able to integrate any/all supplimental rules that the players wish to employ. This stems from an overarching idea that all of the gamers will have the most enjoyable experience that they can get out of the time they spend gaming. The conduit between player and the (role playing) game itself is the PC. Why not allow him to take flaws from unearthed arcana, a prestige class from book of exaulted deeds, or a non-normative race if those are the qualities that would create maximum enjoyment for the PC? One aspect of the responsibilities of the DM is to integrate ALL aspects of each PC with the constructed (or preconstructed) campaign setting. Anything less is straight up lazy DMing.
ACE
I don't really agree with you here. If a player wants to play a Halfling Samurai and I'm trying to run authentic Dragonlance I don't see that its required that I allow a halfling Samurai into the campaign.
The DM has a job to try and make the players have enjoyable characters to play but s/he also has a duty to the players to try and create a memorable and authentic feeling world.
Every DM has different strengths and weakness in regards to varous aspects of DMing and I think that this can significantly impact which way a DM should tilt in this regards. If your running some unnamed fantasy world as your strength as a DM is exciting fights and spetcaculer dungion crawls maybe allowing the players to take anything will be cool.
If you happen to be an absolute authority of Greyhawk, on the other hand, then I think as a DM its porbably usually best to limit your players so that they can more fully enjoy the fact that your going to make this world come to life before their eyes and its best if there is not a Minoi in the parties midst throwing off the mood.
Plus allowing the players to play whatever they want would seem to imply that they could take a Gold Dragon if they wanted. Really almost every DM has limits past which players may not tread - its just a matter of deciding where exactly a line is going to be drawn.
In reference to the BoED PrC post earlier, we have the very first Radiant Servant of Dol Arrah running around Eberron now.
I have to say I really like this book but its a good example of a book that has to be handled with extreme care. There are some insanely broken abilities in there. The Monk with a Vow of Poverty being the most extreme example I've encountered - but that holy oil prestige class is a close second.
Still its chalk full of stuff with which to design lots of interesting holy orders for your worlds Gods and helps to make the Cleric a really nice class - which means less fighting among the players over who has to take the 'medic'. A great book to cherry pick from IMO.
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I think one of the biggest problems with allowing everything, is it messes up the vibe or feel of the setting. As much as I like Giths and Psionics, I don't think they'd fit well in a LotR styled setting. Likewise, gnomes (an other of my favorites) wouldn't go well in in a Hyboria styled setting. That said, once established, settings can and should change as the campaign evolves.
In this regard, I've gone as far as severely limiting the amount of player usuable books at the start of the game, and then allowed each player to add a book every three levels (as a player reward). I've also added them as actual treasure. For example, a player begging to play wu-jen could start as sorcerer, and then uncover a scroll of a wu-jen order and the secret taboos that allows him to become a wu-jen.
Again, this only works if you tell everyone about a month before you start the new campaign that that is how you are going to do it, and why. This gives your players time discuss and debate your options and decide if the house rules you've established are something that they want to participate in. It also allows you time to make changes to your house rules, if you find your players arguements reasonable and convincing.
Tim
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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This actually just came up with my group. We have two or three "oldschool" role players and a couple of powergamer/munchkins. This typically means there will be a fierce and nearly even split on everything. "Unearthed Arcana" has became our favorite example of a supplement that was NOT play tested before put into use as almost all of it is unbalanced.
Out of curiosity, did you actually playtest the materials in UA before deciding they were unbalanced? I agree that there are things in that book that give me pause, but I haven't had the opportunity to actually test them in play. What did you play and how was it unbalanced?
Thanks,
Sebastian
When someone asks me for such and such ability from such and such splatbook, I go through this little checklist:
1) Does this ability make sense for the character?
if yes then go to 2, else go to 3
2) Is the ability purely mechanical (+X to whatever with no 'fluff')?
if yes go to 4, else go to 3
3) Ask the player to explain how this ability fits the character.
if "A wizard did it" is the best they can come up with then go to 6, else go to 4
4) Will this ability unbalance my game?
if yes, wait 30 minutes and go to 5, else go to 7
5) Will this ability unbalance my game (no, seriously)?
if yes go to 6, else go to 7
6) Inform the player that they can take their sarruhk and stuff it where the sun don't shine... or just tell them they can't have it.
Done
7) Inform player that I am interested in this idea, and would like them to continue explaining how they intend to use it. If all sounds good, it's a go. Remind the player that if the ability turns out to be more powerful than expected, my ruling may change.
Done
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When someone asks me for such and such ability from such and such splatbook, I go through this little checklist:
Yeah. I do that too, however its only effective on players that ask. I do have some that will just show up expecting to use such and such device, spell, feat or whatever, claiming that they've had it for awhile or something and then want a debate over it during game time, which severly sucks as I run a game with over 20 people so stunts like that can stop it dead in the water. Putting out advance warning allows you to say "look, that's not from a source I posted as exceptable. I'm not allowing it, nor am I discussing it now... Ok everyone, roll initsh"
In regards to Unearthed Arcana and how balanced it might or might not be:
As pointed out above, not everything in Unearthed Arcana is meant to be used in conjunction with other parts of the book. Furthermore, some options, if given to the players, require the DM to rethink and retool his NPCs or monsters as well, else the players will run rampant over the creatuers.
Having reserve points and hero points in a game where clerics are common, for example, is going to favor the PCs if the DM doesn't either use tougher monsters or give them similar advantages.
It was pretty well spelled out in the begining of UA that many of the options, if introduced into a standard campaign, would be unbalancing.
All of that having been said, the more mainline options in the book, such as the paragon levels, substitution abilities for specialist wizards, alternate versions of core classes like the divine bards and the scholar clerics, all work pretty well in a standard campaign. I think you can usually figure out what options are major bombs to drop on your campaign and what options are just minor tweaks.
I would hate to see anyone discout this book just because they happened to read about Gestalt characters first, and didn't want to introduce that level of change (for example).
Wow, I am gone for a few weeks and this explodes with posts.
Well, I talked to him and he accepted my ruling.
The reason I needed to reason with him was because he doesn't like to be denied something just "Because". One of the other DM's in our group does that quite often to us, and it drives my friend crazy.
My reasons were:
a) The stuff in that book are optional and are used at my discretion.
b) Spontaneous spellcasting is described as to be used for all spellcasting, wizards, clerics, etc.
c) Even if I ruled it work just for him, it would greatly unbalance the usefullness of the Sorceror.
I want him to play the type of character he wants to play, there are just some limits to what I want to allow. I have allowed him to go for the Dragonlance Warmage PrC, the errataed version though. He has never been able to truly play the type of characters he wants to play, either because the game doesn't last that long or the game is a real meatgrinder that they die before he can truly develop the character.
Anyways thanks for the advice, it helped out a lot.
I think disallowing books is silly for a number of reasons. But in my experience with any game or even any activity the better informed the person is on the subject, game, scuba diving, business, martial arts, whatever the more fun they are to "play" witht and generally the better "player" they are.
Now looking up the stats of a certain monster while you are fighting it might be a bit much - but, say you are fighting a couatl - well the MM is only a baseline for generic stuff about the race it doesn't describe the current context the specific preparations this couatl has made, the other creatures it is affiliated with, the magic items it has on hand, etc. - but as an experienced adventurer 10th level, maybe more, maybe less, depending on the campaign style it is not unreasonable to think that the character might know the basics of the race - exactly the type of broadstrokes listed in the MM. The same could be applied to pretty much anything in any of the books. For a person of the fantasy world, a character, most of that stuff would be common knowledge - at least for professional adventurers.
As a practical consideration there is a lot of down time in a session, using that time to due the book research for item creation (DMG), animal companions, familiars, etc. when the DM is their to ask questions about preferences for his game just makes sense.
Also, I am not going to buy multiple copies of the the DMG (at least until 4.0 comes out) but there are plenty of times when it is handy to have multiple copies of a book, and expedient for the DM to ask a player to look something up. Makes the game flow better.
Further, and maybe this is metagame thinking (with reality as the game), if only DMs are allowed to hold within their mighty hands the apocryphal texts of the splat books then WotC won't be able to sell as many, which will mean less new material will be published and the material that is published will have less support.
Not allowing certain rules, feats, races, fine - its the DMs world, and everyone is there by choice, but the DM is playing a role at the gaming table, he is not "Lord of the Game" any DM that gets a power trip off of DMing is probably a DM to stay away from.
T
I agree with Kyr that each individual aspect of a book should be looked at. Even if 90% of the book seems like some bizarre peice of crap that the DM hates, there may be one or two good bits you wish to incorporate. That said, this takes a lot of time, and not all DMs can commit that much energy to this task, at which point it's probably best to just say "no." The Completes and core books should offer more than enough resources for almost any character concept. If not, you've probably got some other problem truly at hand beside player options.
Also, there are those books that when completely reviewed, have 100% crap for content. At that point, stating whether you are disallowing the book or just every rule in it on a case-by-case basis is just semantics. So, yes, there are times to disallow books in either case.
I think disallowing books is silly for a number of reasons. But in my experience with any game or even any activity the better informed the person is on the subject, game, scuba diving, business, martial arts, whatever the more fun they are to "play" witht and generally the better "player" they are.
Its not really a matter of being informed, though. Someone can read the Races books to be informed on the races, which is good, but that is different than letting them use all of the rules there if I don't think they're kosher.
Sometimes, letting a person use "joes book of 10000 Feats" that came out as an OGL book is not good; sometimes, a book like UA is only good for certain times.
If you allow anything, then couldn't a player use any rule out fo any book? Like any UA rule? What if you don't want that? That doesn't seem silly to me. That sounds like a prepared DM who want to keep his game running smooth.
So far, this thread has been heavily concerned with the individual style of the DM. Perhaps approaching the question from a group standpoint would help broaden an individual's perspective. Role playing in general is, at best, a community experience. Might i suggest that the question should not be "What books should I allow" but rather, "which shall we incorporate?" Among the many hats that a DM must wear is that of the judge...enforcer of the rules. The rules as outlined in all of the resource materials, corporately sanctioned or otherwise, in any RPG, are community rules. It is easy for a DM to appropriate the rules in a gaming system as his/her own, but they are not...they belong to the entire group of gamers.
I believe that (as in all things in life) how one approaches a community interactions has as much to do with one's own individual personality as with his/her ability to assimilate and accomodate as many perspectives as possible. I would suggest a few titles that might help in this persuit:
Schick: Heroic Worlds: A history and guide to role playing games, 1e
Fine: Shared Fantasy: Role playing games as social worlds, 1e
Mackay: The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art, 1e
I would recommend these titles and others in the same vein for both DMs and Players alike.
As ever,
ACE