If You Give a Mouse a Cookie... Players and Power Creep

[Olgar Shiverstone]

My preferred method is handling on a case-by-case basis. I'd rather work with the player than to throw all the doors open and let them cherry-pick, because some of those cherries are Cherry Bombs instead.

Exactly what I do for everything beyond a base set of options (last campaign was Core + FRCS). It's fair for everyone -- all players have an equal amount of potential options, and they have to propose each item individually. That forces them to find the individual things they want, rather than get a whole book approved, then pick & choose -- and with the effort involved, they won't propose the world, and they'll probably actually use the things they propose. Even the worst books might have individual items that are worthwhile, and I've yet to see a publication -- even the core rules -- that doesn't have a problematic item or two in it. It also helps the DM handle power creep, as you're not dealing with reams of information at a time, but rather an individual feat, spell, whatever.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I've never given any compensation. If the player has a good attitude, he's not going to have less fun because I didn't allow one book, he's going to find something else and have just as much fun.

A player that has 1 idea only or one pet book he cannot play without sounds a bit arrogant to me...

And by the way, if you cannot have fun with the 3 core books, you're probably a kind of gamer that cannot play with the same rules/options/concepts for a long time, without getting bores. This you're likely to becoming bored of my games which are very traditional in many ways, if you don't become bored of your own pet character and later disrupt the game because you want to change it.

Yup, that's pretty much where I sit as well.

If your concept is so fragile (or specifically tweaked) that you can't imagine getting it done any other way...then my radar starts going off: my suspicion becomes that you are probably trying to get away with something.

 

[Destil]

Actually, my reply would usualy be something like (in all 3 cases):

"Well, just tell me what you have in mind and we'll figure something out. We can use whatever you have from your book as a starting point, mabye, but I may want to tweek it for balance or to fit into the world better."

I much prefer toolkits to books with thousands of examples... why have we seen so many thousands of pages dedicated to prestige classes, while I can only think of mabye a chapter (20-30 pages) of material dedicated to building prestige classes?

Of course the answer is the Keys to the Kingdom idea, that if we were given all of that we might stop buying books... I don't have any problem with buying books or game designers making money, mind you, but I know what's useful to me as a DM.

Really, I've liked what I've seen in a lot of the Eberron books: a few prestige classes and a nice little bullet point on how to adapt them to other rolls (like how mold the Dark Lanterns of Breeland into any other sort of agency). I don't know if this is the standard for all WotC products, since I have little interest in huge swaths of rules with no real reason or cohesion. But it's a good step in the right dirrection. They also put large amounts of backstory and "in the world" info on each class, which for me is a very nice touch and far better than having twice as many classes that were only rules to mine.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Exactly. Let me know what you want, and we'll design it out. If it's too good to be true, you can't have it. Otherwise, hit me with your idea!

 

[Ravensblood]

I personally think if it comes from WoTC then it should at least be allowed until it proves to be a problem or hindrance. What if the option C individual had a great time playing his specialized sorcerer from CA and it never became an issue in the game. Especially if it's something that hasn't been played before in the group, and there are no experiences with that to base a decision on. For example, I wanted to play a Mystic Theurge in our current campaign and the GM decided to veto that idea. No one in our group had ever played one and the GM went on and ruled against it based on the popular opinion of his friend that it would be overpowered. How are we ever going to know that it's overpowered if no one ever plays one. And each individual can play their character a multitude of different ways. Being worried that it'll become a problem later is pointless. Any player playing any class or using any feat could do something unexpected to make things difficult for the GM.

It would be a totally different scenario if the GM had ran a few games where other people had played a MT and found that it was overpowered and usually outshone the other characters. That ruling is fine with me because there has been some experience to mold the opinion.

 

[Nyaricus]

I wonder do people restict things because they have players that will abuse it or are they just worried about rules balance and not if the players will cause problems with it?

I'm worried about balance first (I check into the CO boards at wizards to see what's the new Pun-Pun once in awhile) and whether it'll fit into the feel of my game second. Players come last, since I can rely on them the most, and thus worry about them the least

cheers,
--N

 

[Graf]

Generally you're in safe ground if you only let people do things for in-character reasons.
We actually let people cherry pick their way though our game right now but it's not a lot of fun.
If somebody's got a good character concept then it will generally work out fine (i.e. at some point they'll take some sort of sub-optimal feat choice and it'll swing back into balance).

Since power levels rise and fall naturally as people advance a single overly powerful choice isn't usually a game breaker.

 

[Engilbrand]

If it's made by WotC, it's allowed. If eratta happens, I go with the eratta. If something is clarified in the FAQ, then I go with that. I trust all of my players and know that they won't "OMGBRAKTMYGAME!!!ONE" I've never been in a game where I've seen this happen. I'm honestly surprised that people have been in games where the players purposely create ridiculous characters. I'm starting to believe, though, that that's not the case. Very rarely will I read, "Here is EXACTLY how the character was BETTER than everyone else." Instead, it's usually people reading a class and coming up with everything that they can about it. THAT'S what people have problems with. The possibilities. The new things that can be done. It's not that they've seen the cleric show up everyone else. It's that they've heard about it being done. It's not that they've seen anything from the Bo9S be abused. It's that the words on the paper made them FEARFUL. If you're afraid to run the freaking game, maybe you should try something else.
Now, if it's a case of "Here are the things that are different in my campaign world." that's fine. I can see restricting things. My only restrictions are as follows:
1. At first level, no LA characters. Duh. After that, sure. BUT, it has to meet the second requirement.
2. Give me a reason for it. I play Eberron, and one of my players wanted a Raptoran. For a game that takes place mostly in Breland, how does a Raptoran from Xen'drik feel comfortable always walking on the ground?
He went with a Catfolk Druid that uses the alternate shapeshifting rules from the PHB2. He's now a 2nd level Druid. This character works out a lot better than his Changeling Ninja did. Especially with the 36 point buy I decided to do instead of rolling. They're not use to stats this low. He's no better than the Dragonborn Favored Soul or the Half-elf Beguiler or Half-orc Fighter. All that I need to do is use the same rules for what I make as they use to create. Nothing is broken.

 

[diaglo]

DM is adjudicator of all material allowed, including core.

If a DM says he allows in all CW, some of RoW, and none from CM, that is fine, players just need to plan on that. Mages and clerics will still be fine even though a fighter has a few more feat options to choose from.

So no compensation. And I wouldn't worry about it too much.

ditto. that is the role of the referee.

 

[diaglo]

Exactly what I do for everything beyond a base set of options (last campaign was Core + FRCS). It's fair for everyone -- all players have an equal amount of potential options, and they have to propose each item individually. That forces them to find the individual things they want, rather than get a whole book approved, then pick & choose -- and with the effort involved, they won't propose the world, and they'll probably actually use the things they propose. Even the worst books might have individual items that are worthwhile, and I've yet to see a publication -- even the core rules -- that doesn't have a problematic item or two in it. It also helps the DM handle power creep, as you're not dealing with reams of information at a time, but rather an individual feat, spell, whatever.

yeah... i was building a monkey boy halfling... and then found out i couldn't take monkey grip.