Just curious

[Icyshadow]

Actually Dragon, as much as I lean to freedom, I agree with your statement.

There's gotta be SOME limits to what a player (or a DM) can or should do within the game.

[MMCJawa]

With 3pp stuff, you kind of have to look at the authors and selectively dabble.

There has been material that I thought was just horrible, either because it was poorly thought out rules wise, had artwork that looked like it had been written in the margins of a high school students notebook, didn't seem to undergo any editing, or had fluff that just came across as stupid.

On the other hand, there is some amazing stuff out there. Open Design produces awesome material, and I actually prefer Midgards take on Kobolds and Dwarves over anything produced in Golarion. A lot of the people who have done stuff for Kobold Quarterly/Open Design also write for Pathfinder, and even have jobs with them now. Hell, Adam Daigle was the main designer for the Midgard Bestiary, and (I think) he is now in charge of the AP bestiaries.

So...there is a decent amount of good stuff out there.

[Ross Byers]

I removed some posts and the replies to them. Don't be a jerk. If someone else is being a jerk, flag it and move on.

[Timothy Hanson]

I have a few points I suppose.

1) Paizo was 3rd Party for a long time until it moved itself into the spot light.

2) Paizo in their own products uses other 3rd Party Stuff.

As for the whole homebrew restrictive debate, I think I like my stuff a little restrictive. I want a setting that blends well together and not something that sounds like the start of a bad joke. I think there are times when crazy and original can be fun, but if anything goes all the time I am not sure I would be able to distinguish one campaign from another. Especially in the case where the campaign has a theme I think people do it and themselves a great disservice by not bending in that themes direction. That is my personal taste though, part of the fun in my opinion is making a character that fits the setting.

[DungeonmasterCal]

I do my best to encourage 3PP material for use by my players, but they're the ones that don't seem interested. I buy tons of stuff from a handful of favorite publishers, but it just floats around on my hard drive, never seeing any use. And if I throw something at them from a 3PP, the negative vibes are almost too much to mess with.