Anyone limit their players to just core races and classes? We have so many games where characters and abilities get out of hand from allowing third party stuff. For me an old school game with the classic races and classes make for the best games.
Last two campaigns I have been in (both Adventure Paths) were core races only for the first and gnomes only for the second (as the GM had failed to find a single gnome mentioned when reading through it, so thought it would be funny).
And as far as other materials go we are strictly paizo only, and generally only the hardcover line material.
I let my players play any race they want, but they have to write a backstory that shows that they have an understanding of what that race is and its roles in the world. This is not a test to see if the players are "right" or "wrong", but just a way to make sure that the players have given some thought as to why these exotic races exist and are accepted as adventurers. If they're understanding of the race is entirely off-whack, then I'll use whatever they say because its our story.
I'm personally not a fan of classes introduced outside of the CRB, mostly because I'm so familiar with the CRB classes and so unfamiliar with the non-core classes. I am also not a huge fan of archetypes. Usually when a player wants an archetype, I try to find some way to make it work otherwise.
As for feats and spells from outside the CRB, most of my players are newer so I tell them not to worry too much about the non-core feats. They can look at them at their own peril but most of them are made for more advanced players. Stick to the CRB and talk to me if you want a non-core feat.
Ok just making sure I'm not the only one. I like crb and featured races and classes. Hybrid are pretty cool also. I usually don't mind when someone wants to create a custom race as long as it makes sense, I usually give them 13 rp to play with. I've tweaked tiefling doing so but when they want to completely revamp kobold into a viable character it just gets weird.
I try to encourage our group to stick mostly to CRB and APG stuff. Those races and classes tend to feel a little more solid to me. I also think it's a little easier on everyone at our table when one player doesn't have to spend 5 minutes explaining how some feat interaction from a splat book works. We're certainly not adverse to a different race or class if it fits the setting though, like Charon's Little Helper said. We're starting Carrion Crown right now and one guy is playing a Dhampir because it seems to fit the whole Gothic Horror thing.
I took a... slightly different tack.
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I ended up restricting characters to 4 races (elf, dwarf, human, orc) and 12 classes: Wizard, Magus, Sorcorrer, Bard(Skald as an allowed archetype), Cleric, Paladin, Druid, Ranger, Fighter(upgraded), Barbarian, Monk(ungraded), and Slayer. I use stuff from most of the core line, CRB, APG, ACG, UM, UC, and the third party book Spheres of Power.
I think restrictions are only really necessary if it helps the narrative. For my games I decided I did not want such a huge variety of races and classes because I didn't have the time to make a reconable place for all of them in my world and I wanted all classes to have a backstory and all races to have a history.
My restrictions vary from campaign to campaign, depending on the area of Golarion the setting is in, so some races may be more common than others.
Classes are normally pretty open, with restrictions being minimal.
Ok different subject, we have only a limited amount of time for a campaign. I'm wanting to do a stranded in a deserted island with possibly a lost civilization. My vision for this is for the players to not be heros but just ordinary Joes and have to figure out how to survive. I'm taking it through a player and he is worried about player uniqueness. I want to do this without classes, kinda like the tv show Lost. We are running into issues though. How do you make each character unique without classes?
When I run, Core, APG, and UE pretty much 100% allowed; UM, UC, and ARG are 90%ish allowed; Ultimate Campaign only the traits and retraining sections; GMG and ACG are case-by-case basis; and I rarely allow anything not on the prd.
I have been in campaigns that range from CRB only to every single thing you can imagine allowed.
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Ok different subject, we have only a limited amount of time for a campaign. I'm wanting to do a stranded in a deserted island with possibly a lost civilization. My vision for this is for the players to not be heros but just ordinary Joes and have to figure out how to survive. I'm taking it through a player and he is worried about player uniqueness. I want to do this without classes, kinda like the tv show Lost. We are running into issues though. How do you make each character unique without classes?
Well I assume you are still talking PF. Unfortunately for what you want, PF is built around classes.
.Probably the closest you could get would be using the NPC classes to simulate 'joe average' characters. That still isn't going to give you a whole lot of variation. You just got expert, adept, warrior, and aristocrat (unless you want to saddle someone with commoner). Most people don't like playing those.
I have had fun with it before. We started as civilians, then got caught up in the war and had to learn how to fight/cast/spy later. iirc we went from 1st to 3rd in the NPC classes. At that point we started finding people to train us to become a wizard or knight. I liked it, but most people do not seem to enjoy that type of game.
