What do you usually ban in your games?

[RobbyPants]

So, as a player I told the DM that I was going to see if I could come up with a house rule to make this idea work or else scrap it entirely.  And, via email over the next week, we hammered out something that made us both happy -- me b/c it still did justice to the build and was fairly awesome, her b/c her baddies could make the Fort save. 

We talk open and honestly about benchmarks and what our characters can do.  I've said things like "how much damage is unreasonable for this game?" though usually it's a more general benchmark.  Like, as a DM I usually say "anything on par with a straightforward Druid build is fine," and leave it to others to manage it.

I've self-nerfed as a player as well, just to keep the game from turning into some type of RLT arms race.

As for what I ban, it's pretty much just the sources I don't have, and even then, it's a soft ban. I've allowed other things in so long as I see it first and the player brings the source material in question each session. Otherwise, they can't use X ability if I have a question about it and they don't have the rules handy.

[veekie]

But, in response to this question, I have to ask:  aren't the most broken mechanics already present within the "core" mechanics, e.g., the primary spellcasters?  Can someone really do something much more broken with psionics or ToB than they can with say ... Wizard spells?  Or, is it just the case that the DM won't know if they are lying or not about the mechanics? 

Correct, thats why when people ban things, balance is way down the consideration pole. Practicality, control and preferences are the major reasons for banning, even if they don't necessarily say so.

[Dkonen]

As to the statement that I should know the rules in 30mins.....which ones? RAW?RAI?Errata? Developer blogs/notes? All official book material? Web material? Magazines? CustServ? I've even heard the Rules Compendium is suspect to viability.... soooooo.....

Which rules should I "know"? Which version? And if it involves RAI, how am I to ascertain what RAI is? Do I ask the Devs? Do I guess? Do I get a consensus from my players?

Sorry but "knowing the rules" as far as I'm concerned, means knowing *all* of them. I don't. If you have the time to know *all* of them, congratulations. I don't. If I wanted, per se, to learn ToB, I will need, for my group: To know the book itself (no problem-they don't let slow learners into my degree program of choice), the know all the relevant web info on it, possibly know the dev's spin and anything they've added since to modify, the combos found that could be game breaking so I can temper/roll with them as needs be, and then try and figure out what the abilities are actually intended for use. Then I need to find a middle ground that we can all agree on. That takes more than thirty minutes.

I could follow in the same vein and say : sure if you want to be lazy you could "learn" them in thirty minutes- but not actually know them, but I thought that might be too confrontational. So I will state that thirty minutes is insufficient to the kind of games I run. I prepare as a DM so we can spend as little time as possible disputing out of game rulings. I want to run a game smoothly and well, and I don't have the time to add in a mechanic that only *one* player has shown *any* interest in. As I said, we have ways to mitigate underperforming characters, so I don't see why my banning ToB is that big of an issue, here of all places.

Balance isn't my concern for banning. It isn't the balance, and my players are pretty good. We give them a number of things so they can make over the top high fantasy epic heroes/villains. We run campaigns for years with the same characters, but we do have a limit, and our players have a tendancy to still be in the mindset of trying to push as far as they can, not maliciously, but much in the same way most friends do about mundane things; ex: "Awww...c'mon....you don't have to get up *that* early...."

Instead it's "awww...c'mon.... it's just an uberpouncing grapplemonster...."

They will, as I've stated, gorge themselves. They don't mean to be jerks, they're just pushing. In some ways they push because we let them. We could just tell them to stop it, and they probably would, but it's gotten to the point where it adds a certain amount of humour. And since one of our players cannot make a character out of a wet paper bag if he had the staff of Gencon on one hand and every possible dev for every supplement on the other....it kind of makes for a mixed bag of gamer reality humour.

They mean well... but they can't be trusted. They're not doing it to be dicks, they're doing it because it's a type of comedic teasing, thrown in with friendly competition... against eachother. They just tend to forget how it affects the DM. I love the guys, but I am *not* letting them loose with unlimited source material.

[Unbeliever]

As to the statement that I should know the rules in 30mins.....which ones? RAW?RAI?Errata? Developer blogs/notes? All official book material? Web material? Magazines? CustServ? I've even heard the Rules Compendium is suspect to viability.... soooooo.....

Which rules should I "know"? Which version? And if it involves RAI, how am I to ascertain what RAI is? Do I ask the Devs? Do I guess? Do I get a consensus from my players?

Sorry but "knowing the rules" as far as I'm concerned, means knowing *all* of them. I don't. If you have the time to know *all* of them, congratulations. I don't. If I wanted, per se, to learn ToB, I will need, for my group: To know the book itself (no problem-they don't let slow learners into my degree program of choice), the know all the relevant web info on it, possibly know the dev's spin and anything they've added since to modify, the combos found that could be game breaking so I can temper/roll with them as needs be, and then try and figure out what the abilities are actually intended for use. Then I need to find a middle ground that we can all agree on. That takes more than thirty minutes.

The above strikes me as nutty.  I have never once referenced a developer's notes, had extensive RAI discussions, needed to poll the gaming group (though I do regularly solicit advice), needed to refer to extensive web notes for rules interpretations, and so on.  If this kind of "lawyering" is necessary for a D&D game -- and I say that as a lawyer who games with other legal professionals -- then that strikes me as a gaming group that is confrontational to the level of qualifying of toxic. 

In short:  when the level of interpretation necessary for the rules of an RPG exceed that used in constitutional adjudication, then something might be wrong.  Or, as Dkonen describes, someone is not playing it straight. 

...
Balance isn't my concern for banning. It isn't the balance, and my players are pretty good. We give them a number of things so they can make over the top high fantasy epic heroes/villains. We run campaigns for years with the same characters, but we do have a limit, and our players have a tendancy to still be in the mindset of trying to push as far as they can, not maliciously, but much in the same way most friends do about mundane things; ex: "Awww...c'mon....you don't have to get up *that* early...."

Instead it's "awww...c'mon.... it's just an uberpouncing grapplemonster...."

They will, as I've stated, gorge themselves. They don't mean to be jerks, they're just pushing. In some ways they push because we let them. We could just tell them to stop it, and they probably would, but it's gotten to the point where it adds a certain amount of humour. And since one of our players cannot make a character out of a wet paper bag if he had the staff of Gencon on one hand and every possible dev for every supplement on the other....it kind of makes for a mixed bag of gamer reality humour.

They mean well... but they can't be trusted. They're not doing it to be dicks, they're doing it because it's a type of comedic teasing, thrown in with friendly competition... against eachother. They just tend to forget how it affects the DM. I love the guys, but I am *not* letting them loose with unlimited source material.

I am baffled by the above.  You say it's not about "balancing," but then all the reasons you cite are balancing, i.e., a concern that they will make characters that are too powerful.  I do not see how banning sources helps achieve that end:  all the most broken stuff tends to, outside of some TO examples, be in the core rules systems.  Uberpouncers, to extend the example, require very few books to support and no wacky sub-systems like Incarnum, et al. 


P.S.:  @Dkonen, no one is going to go hunt you down at your home game and tell you and your buddies how to run it.  At least, I won't, and I feel comfortable speaking for the rest of the people posting in this thread.  There are, to my knowledge, no BG/Min-Max police.  So, there's no reason for you to be as defensive and to take such a tone of superiority as your previous post did. 

We (all of us, not just you and I) are engaged in what I would call a debate.  You have staked out a particular position in favor of banning some sources and sub-systems.  I am presenting arguments and propositions in support of an opposing viewpoint.  This is, I take it, one of the main purposes of a message board -- discourse.  If you're not comfortable with that, with someone questioning your premises and presenting countervailing considerations, then this may not be the web community for you.

[Unbeliever]

But, in response to this question, I have to ask:  aren't the most broken mechanics already present within the "core" mechanics, e.g., the primary spellcasters?  Can someone really do something much more broken with psionics or ToB than they can with say ... Wizard spells?  Or, is it just the case that the DM won't know if they are lying or not about the mechanics? 

Correct, thats why when people ban things, balance is way down the consideration pole. Practicality, control and preferences are the major reasons for banning, even if they don't necessarily say so.

I think "control" might be another word for "balance."  That being said, I guess I just don't find the three reasons cited particularly compelling, though I don't disagree with the empirical assessment.  Preferences run into Stormwind Fallacy territory in most cases, and I tend to think the practicality burden is more on the player wanting to use the mechanics than the DM.  Although that's due to my views on this topic, which I've already laid out.

P.S.:  RobbyPants, what's RLT stand for?

[Dkonen]

As to balance...hard to explain. Balance in between the characters, yes...but not Balance-as in between the classes. Player balance, not character balance. Some of my players have very mechanically powerful characters, but they play as a member of a group, and so, it really doesn't matter. I am concerned that players will use loopholes with materials and I may not notice them until they are already in play, and it's not imbalancing because of malice. It's imbalance as a joke. Our best optimizers are those who offend the least. They know the rules. However, introducing new rules and mechanics will start the beginning of a round of stretching, and min maxing to see how far the system can go( not something I'm necessarily against in the right game). Once they've learned it, the min maxers are fine.

There are two however, who have been known to deliberately misinterpret the rules. One of them we can't get rid of, and he's been temper tantrum-y, and the second acts as a valve on one of the last remaining players, so he usually just gets chastised, but the one with the tantrum seems to be getting to him. Which is a shame. Introducing a new mechanic to them would be a disaster, somewhere along the lines of trying to stop an avalanche with my bare hands. Since I can't ban one of the two, its simpler to just stick with what we know and are comfortable with. I'd also rather ban books than players. As much as I *love* gaming....people and friends are a bit more important.

Banning in and of itself, as I have stated a few times, is my way of not having to argue and analyze. ToB is specific as it is a new mechanic that I'm not certain how it will interact with everything else we have actively available. I don't have the time to analyze it because we simply have too much already. We found out about it later, so we haven't had the time to go over it, and we don't have a copy.

I am in favor of banning when it helps keep a game constructive and pleasant. When the source causes more headaches than it solves (this is again a personal matter), and when it doesn't fit the game (flavor, alignment, etc). Of course I am.

I am also in favor of people playing the game with whatever rules they want, whatever rules they don't want, however they want in order for everyone to enjoy themselves. I also don't think I have the right to tell anyone how to/not to.

I am merely defending my personal right to ban the book at my personal table. I am hardly insisting anyone else do so. I am defending my personal right as a DM to make, that my players seem to be okay with. I'm not planning on running a convention game and refusing materials to whomever sits. I have a single table I cater to, and we all agree on our rules.

I don't think anyone else should ban it. I don't decry those who choose to use it. I wouldn't even have a problem if someone else should choose to use it in a game I play in.

I don't think my reasons for banning it are unreasonable, and neither do my players... why then, should it bother anyone else? I am willing to entertain reasonable arguments about its merits, but the classification of "reasonable" does not throw into question my ability to GM, but rather focuses on the constructive uses of the book itself.

I ban the book because I am unfamiliar and uncomfortable with it. If I was neither, I wouldn't ban it. If it is such a wonderful book, then do enlighten me with constructive observations.. I love a good debate, but I believe the discussion here ran off that track a few times, either through temper, perceived offense or merely impassioned beliefs (in some ways it's quite encouraging to see folks who enjoy gaming so much... makes me feel less isolated )

I admit that ToB may be a good way to help martial characters; however, I submit that we already have a means to do so.
I admit that the book is quick to learn, however I submit that the book itself is but a fraction of what I need to run it properly.
I admit that I am somewhat offended and being defensive, however, I submit that insults have been voiced and I felt the need to defend myself.
I admit that my defensiveness is not helping, however I submit that my personal choice is not a matter that is deserving of attacks.
I admit that the matter is indeed up for debate, however I submit that we should probably be more constructive than condemning.
I admit that banning is a hot topic, however I submit that I have admitted mine is a personal choice, at my table, and thus, affects noone else.
I admit that I started it by claiming to ban, however I submit that the question was: "what do you ban at your games and why?" not "Do you like banning?"*

(*No, I don't, but it's a patchwork solution that works until I can come up with something better.) (edit: I said above I am when it helps...this is another way of saying the same thing; in favor when it's what works..but I acknowledge that it's a bad solution that doesn't really "work" that well)

We're intelligent, cogent people, I'm sure we can discuss merits without getting worked up. I apologize, but the "lazy DM" comments set me off early, and coloured what I saw as attacks on my comprehensive capability. If this is not the case, I humbly apologize.

I still stand by my right to ban something I don't understand, own, or feel comfortable with .. so there

Edit2: also I do tend to jump subjects so I apologize if I seem broken up...I tend to assume folks can follow me...it's a very bad habit, though, to be fair, I only seem to fall into the habit with folks who I think are capable of following...usually my professors and folks with letters after their name. It's a compliment really...

[veekie]

Practicality, definitely heavy on the DM, though greater mental capacity obviates that concern. When a player says "I cast Fireball", you need to account for the following variables: Defensive casting, presence of threat range, readied actions against spellcasting, environmental magic effects(like antimagic field, planar traits, wild magic), spell slot availability, caster level, status effects affecting spellcasting(deaf, any action loss, silenced, etc), affected creatures, saving throws(and any modifiers), damage and resistances(both energy and SR).
About half of these are covered by the player. The other half they do not have the information to work with, so you need to resolve them. Operating with low understanding of a system can generate misunderstandings from naive misintepretation, slow down the session and possibly outright cause conflicts of resolution. And fireball is simple.
If you instead say "I bind Acherak and use X ability", you need to know the procedure for binding Acherak, side effects, granted abilities, and THEN resolve said ability. This is where subsystems meet an enormous amount of resistance, because the existence of a subsystem itself defines new sets of rules. Contrast feats, which are very granular rule exceptions, and have little interaction with other parts of the ruleset.

Control is definitely not balance. Control is where you can assume players are all going to be non-evil, socially acceptable humanoids. It is where you expect them to have a certain range of senses, while others are available, but not always on. It defines their movement modes and travel options. It is the DCs they can hit, the damage they can dish out and receive. It is the actions they can take. It is where you know what players can or cannot do.
It is critical for establishing plausible plots and challenges which will impose difficulty, but are ultimately surmountable. The existence of ToB for example, allows for low level access to Scent(a sense not all games accomodate), along with free teleportation from Shadow Hand, the Mountain Hammer lockpick(along with the Warlock's at will shatter). Access to these abilities means that these particular barriers and puzzles are not a challenge.
Access to additional monster manuals means many more special abilities that the polymorph and planar binding series can tap into, which even more monstrously increase the party's capabilities. The list goes on, but basically, each source added expands the odds of something breaking out of your expectations and the ability for players to pick even worse choices(they will). Stormwind also falls in here, because of loss of control.
Control is knowing what they can do, what they may do and what they can't do. This frames the entire nature of a challenge.

Preference, meanwhile, is a style issue. ToB gets the shaft here a lot, as does psionics. Fluff is mutable, but you need to establish proper trappings and dressing substitution that remains consistent across the game setting. This is again, more work, and sometimes runs up against rules issues that force it back to its niche. 

[Dkonen]

Thankyou.. This is a much better way of explaining .. well a lot of what I was trying to say.

I think I'll go get myself another cup of coffee and try to recoherent myself.

[Pencil]

As to the statement that I should know the rules in 30mins.....which ones? RAW?RAI?Errata? Developer blogs/notes? All official book material? Web material? Magazines? CustServ? I've even heard the Rules Compendium is suspect to viability.... soooooo.....

I am sorry if you misunderstood me (assuming you meant me, cause I brought up this ~number).I meant ca. 30min. to understand the principle behind a new rule mechanic and to bring that mechanic/principle into context with the already known.For example the psionic system is spontaneous casting where the classes got a set number of points per level instead of "spells of certain levels per day" and higher level spells costing more points.Now some of the new necessary stuff needed(psionic focus,manifesting limit,class specific stuff) and you are pretty much set enough to let one of your (nice) players to run a Psion.(Not an argument here but further explanation)

[caelic]

Our group tends to go with the "Development List" approach.  Core is open, and additionally, each player gets one non-core pick on his "Development List" per level.  In some cases, these may logically entail a relatively large amount of additional rules information; if you pick Warblade, for instance, obviously that's going to have to include maneuvers.

For that reason, additional classes are only permitted every five levels.  This gives the DM an opportunity to peruse the material and determine whether or not it's a good fit for the game, without having to memorize every rulebook ever released.  (I'm about the only one in the group who's even come close, and I'm certainly the only one who's willing to do so.)

[Dkonen]

As to the statement that I should know the rules in 30mins.....which ones? RAW?RAI?Errata? Developer blogs/notes? All official book material? Web material? Magazines? CustServ? I've even heard the Rules Compendium is suspect to viability.... soooooo.....

I am sorry if you misunderstood me (assuming you meant me, cause I brought up this ~number).I meant ca. 30min. to understand the principle behind a new rule mechanic and to bring that mechanic/principle into context with the already known.For example the psionic system is spontaneous casting where the classes got a set number of points per level instead of "spells of certain levels per day" and higher level spells costing more points.Now some of the new necessary stuff needed(psionic focus,manifesting limit,class specific stuff) and you are pretty much set enough to let one of your (nice) players to run a Psion.(Not an argument here but further explanation)

Yes, actually.. thanks for the clarification and apologies for being confrontational...I was ticked about an earlier post by another and have been reacting poorly. I also need coffee...which should be done by now.

I do agree that new mechanics as per book are pretty quick, but with our group-who are mostly gaming vets-I as a DM, need to know all the relevant extraneous rules as well if I bring it in, because it *will* come up. Knowing all the extras means I don't have to stop our game to look it up each time and then open a discussion about whether it's a reasonable rules call for what we already use and doesn't supersede/conflict with any of our previously used/approved materials (which is a considerable amount).

*goes to get coffee*

[Unbeliever]

I guess I'm just with Pencil on this one:  with a Gentleman's Agreement in place (and to be fair, ymmv on that), all you need is at most a thumbnail sketch of things.  Psionics is a good example.  It's a really big sub-system, but it boils down to:  really spontaneous casting based on points, augments, the psionic focus mechanic and its effects on metapsionic feats, and the possibility/ease of recharging power points.  That's most of it.  The other bits of it -- manifesting defensively, power resistance, etc. -- are all already in the game and follow the standard D&D logic.  Analogous lists can be made for ToB and Vestiges and so forth. 

As to Veekie's comments, a thumbnail sketch of what a character can do is de rigeur in my gaming groups, though in many cases it's sufficiently obvious to us.  The only considerations that are explicit to new subsystems you mention are their "all day" considerations, which for some (e.g., Warlock) are their defining characteristics.  I can appreciate that a PC being able to fly at whim differs greatly from a PC casting the Fly spell. 

I don't know why subsystems (which has been what most of this current discussion has been about and are typically the things most frequently banned) are getting a bad rap here, though.  DMM (persist) has at least as big an effect on Control, as Veekie defines it, as any one of these subsystems.  Likewise, it might just be that I'm a lazy DM (I've been called worse, bloody-handed comes up a lot), but the system does a lot of that work for you.  You can pretty much know that in D&D the DC for something is going to be 10+1/2 level + stat.  There are a few (notable) exceptions to that, which are most likely to be broken anyway. 

But, I find it hard to articulate a pro-banning, at the level of books or subsystems, principle.  Is it really any easier to know what a party with a Wizard, Cleric, Eldritch Knight Gish, and Rogue (with say PHB and Spell Compendium access) than a Psion, Warlock, Warblade, Marshal, and Totemist can?  Maybe ... if you know the spellcasting system really well already.  In a long-running game, though, the latter classes might be easier.  Though, again, there is a start-up cost. 

My gut feeling here may also be driven by the fact that the most flexible classes are the ones in the Core of the game -- in part perhaps b/c they have gotten the most support, but also b/c I think they were just constructed that way.  "Cleric" covers a whole lot more territory -- a much wider panoply of abilities -- than Warblade does. 

[Dkonen]

I can agree that most games a thumbnail works well... but I have a group that tends to like to go over rules. Specific ones. Occasionally in the middle of a combat. We're just getting past that now.
They're very mechanics oriented and with what we've got it has to fit into our pre existing rules with a minimum of effort.

If I had a chance to take a look at it, the time to read it and actually know why the builds that are posted using it are supposedly so OP, I'd be able to get a feel for what other classes/variants and abilities would combo badly with it.

Maybe instead I should have simply said "I don't own it, have no access to it and haven't read it" and avoided the whole mess of time/mechanics/etc?

[Azremodehar]

Maybe instead I should have simply said "I don't own it, have no access to it and haven't read it" and avoided the whole mess of time/mechanics/etc?

That might've been a good idea, yeah.

[Unbeliever]

...
Maybe instead I should have simply said "I don't own it, have no access to it and haven't read it" and avoided the whole mess of time/mechanics/etc?

Naaah, I would just say your group is idiosyncratic and sounds contentious.  I don't mean that in any judgmental way, it's just my assessment from what you've posted.  In those circumstances, you may have good reasons to adopt an approach different from the one I -- in quite different circumstances -- do.  And, posting about it allows you to get other people's take on it, to the extent that maybe useful or not.

[Dkonen]

It has given me a different idea on what groups are like out there for other folks. It's nice to know if I'm expecting too much/too little from the rest, or if I've doormatted myself.

The games are fun, I enjoy them, but bytimes the frustration can get to me (as you may have noticed) and it's good to get a basis for comparison.

Other than my overreactions the topic's actually been rather interesting.

And given the opportunity, I may eventually implement some of the suggestions to alleviate some of the difficulties I do have. I love the guys, but sometimes......

[veekie]

On DMM persist, yep, it has a similar degree of impact to a full subsystem, those are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Leadership(and its kin) are similar, despite being feats, they bring in baggage as large as any subsystem.

[RobbyPants]

P.S.:  RobbyPants, what's RLT stand for?

Rocket Launcher Tag. Basically, the default for 3E once you get to around double-digit levels.

To put my comment in more context, for the past three years, I've been primarily running or playing in solo games, so there's no group, per se. So, a single failed save on a SoD or even a potent enough save-or-suck (without a reasonable counter) simply ends the campaign.

I frequently play casters, and with a good enough spell selection, I'll chew through most level-appropriate fights pretty easily. If some spell or combo seems to be too awesome, I'll either tone it back or even offer the DM suggestions on types of monsters (or combinations of monsters) that would counter it. Otherwise, he has a tendency to simply ratchet up the CR of my opposition, which gets more and more dangerous because as its defenses go up, so do is offenses.

[InnaBinder]

RULES AT MY TABLE:

1. Don't be a dick.  When your character interferes with other folks' ability to have fun at the table, you've broken this rule.

2. Item Familiars don't exist.

3. No StP Erudites, PsyForged, or infinite cheese.

4. Don't get into an arms race with me; it's like trying to compare who has the better swords versus the guy who supplies all your swords.

[ImperatorK]

I don't ban things. I veto on a case-by-case basis.