dm books vs player books

[wizuriel]

Just curious how many books most DMs use vs the players. In paticular if any DM limits players to certain books but than uses a few other books for npcs or villains? If a DM is limiting players think they should only be using those books also?

[The Rose Dragon]

The GM has no limits. It means he can use any books he wants as well as make stuff up if it leads to a good game.

[Blackjackg]

It depends what kind of game you want to play. If your game is a GM vs. Players tactical combat game, it seems only fair that players should get access to all the same material that the GM does. If the game is more roleplaying and/or "let's explore this cool world I made for you," then sure, the GM can hold some things in reserve, the better to surprise his players with.

[The Rose Dragon]

If your game is a GM vs. Players tactical combat game, it seems only fair that players should get access to all the same material that the GM does.

In that case, you don't need a GM - you just need players, since there is no real scenario.

[Narmoth]

I prefer to let players have access to anything I have access to. Thus the players could play anything playable I throw at them, and they can read up on the source material, so I will have to tell them when my interpretation of something, like drow elves, substantially diverge from the one presented in the book.

[arguskos]

My standard rule as DM is this: I will give you a set of books that I'll permit anything out of. If you want something that isn't out of those books, you just ask me, and we'll discuss it. It's easy that way.

Of course, don't even think that I don't use anything and everything (save for that which isn't in the setting, such as Pazuzu, Celerity, whatever) at my disposal. Gotta have some unique tools to play with.

[Curmudgeon]

The rule is: you're limited to material I have available at home to prepare a scenario. That's basically the books I own, and freely available web content. I never did care for psionics, so I haven't bought any of those for D&D 3.5. But Expanded Psionics Handbook is pretty much fully available as part of the OGL material WotC released, and that's at http://www.d20srd.org/. I can handle that.

[SilverClawShift]

Our group is basically allowed to use anything, but our DM keeps a big database of our race/class/feats/spells/items ect, so he knows exactly what we're capable of at any given time. We can even make stuff up, as long as he declares it reasonable (like a feat that gives a dragon shaman +1 to their auras, attainable at level 9. Reasonable. Not official, but reasonable).

Our DMs laptop is basically a 3.5 grimoire of epic proportions. He's got almost every book, including a smackload of third party content and homebrew materials. He keeps them all filed away in his laptop, all meticulously organized, sortable, and just sitting at his fingertips.
He also keeps a smackton of NPC names, personalities, backstories, archetypes, ect... which means our party gets to be all ADD and derranged, because if we start prying into a random NPCs history, our DM will just open a random history file and suddenly that person is fleshed out and real.

He also keeps lists of plot hooks, adventure seeds, ect...

D&D. Serious business.

[The Mentalist]

There is only one book that I don't lat my players use, BOVD. Very good idea, a lot of good stuff for DMs, a can of cheesewhiz for players.

[Narmoth]

Oh, I use the BoVD as a player. There's some great broken stuff there, like the sadism and masochism spells

[The Mentalist]

Ahhhh you make my point.