Allowing all first party material

[atemu1234]

As DM, I've found it useful to be able to tap into things from 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder as well as stuff from Dragonlance, Eberron, Faerun as well as Greyhawk, and want to allow players the same freedom. What should I do to stop players from using this to break the game, since that would seem to be a potential issue?

[graeylin]

I am absolutely not an expert on Optimizing things, but from what I've read on the boards, banning the Player's Handbook should remove most of the tier 1/game breaking things.

There's more (like the archivist), but that would be a great start.

[Aegis013]

Ask them not to break the game.

You could give some examples of builds optimized into the "sweet spot" for your game and ask them to stay at that approximate power level.

[atemu1234]

Ask them not to break the game.

You could give some examples of builds optimized into the "sweet spot" for your game and ask them to stay at that approximate power level.

I like this plan. I personally don't like to optimize their enemies unless they REALLY annoy me.

[Vogonjeltz]

If you don't have a source, just require that they provide you with any material they do opt to use.

I'm generally against mixing setting material unless you are going to have all the pantheons and major power systems operating on the same planet.

Of course, that leads to the question of how to reconcile the mutually exclusive belief systems, and various FR vs Greyhawk vs Eberron rules.

[(Un)Inspired]

Good communication is the key to a harmonious table. Ask you players what they are interested in building and playing before you start your campaign and let them know the relative power level of the encounters that you plan on throwing at them.

Knowing your players of a long time before you actually game with them is obviously best so you can gauge what they're likely to make and how likely they are to do something that will break your story.

Obviously this isn't always possible but the best substitute is communication.

[Urpriest]

In general, I find it's better to talk to your players while they're coming up with their builds. If they're building something too strong, ask them to tone it down. If they're building something using an interpretation of the rules you think is dumb, tell them you're ruling it differently. If they're building too weak, help them shore things up. As long as you communicate during the process you're fine.

[Red Fel]

Ask them not to break the game..

This.


If you don't have a source, just require that they provide you with any material they do opt to use.

Also this. It's not unreasonable to say to your players, "I'm willing to give any first-party material a chance, but if it's something I've not worked with before, I'd ask you to provide me with the material in advance so that I can familiarize myself with it. I also reserve the right to exclude anything with which I'm particularly uncomfortable."

In my mind, it's much better to have an open-with-exceptions policy than an exclusive-list policy. Telling the players that you're open to whatever they offer puts the burden on them to be reasonable. If a player provides a new source and plays fairly with it, everybody wins; if he instead proceeds to twink the life out of it, you can say that source is excluded in the future - in essence, that player ruined it for everyone. Similarly, if, upon review, you find a source to be complicated, overpowered, or what-have-you, you can simply say you're uncomfortable with it. Because you have such an open policy, it's not unreasonable to exclude a few things.

But in the first place, generally, asking nicely really does wonders.

[AMFV]

Generally I find that it's easier to allow everything pretty much carte-blanche and then when something is a problem you discuss it with the player and remove it. This is good because it allows a lot of things that might seem like a problem, and the things that are removed are only those things that are directly causing problems. And that may even vary from party to party.