As far as what I ban, as was said on page one, being an inconsiderate person / player.
Witch brings me to this:
The GM must know the mechanics better than anyone else, barring a responsible, rules proficient player acting as GM-co-processor. If he can't handle the mechanics, he shouldn't allow them.
That's been my biggest gripe as a player: DM's who don't know the rules. I'm cool with house rules that are laid out from the beginning, and were made for intelligent reasons (setting or "flavor" reasons, or the DM didn't like the core mechanic). But the DM needs to understand what the core mechanics are before he can intelligently start making changes to the rules.
This is, IMO, a misconception.
I've been the "co-processor" before.
But here's the thing, part of the concept of The Gentleman's Agreement is that everyone is there to have fun. Together. As a Group.
Putting the entire burden on ONE PERSON for every rule, every source, every combo, etc. is BS. First of all, no one can know all of it through and through, much less remember it all even if they had known it at one point. Second of all, people can be wrong. The rules-lawyer-ing should be something of a group effort. With the caveat arbiters that: it should not disrupt game-play over-much; and that there is a fine line between "correct" and "ass".
The DM is, quite simply, the player who came up with an idea for a decent story, and agreed to play all of the NPC's.
No more. No less. No else.
Share the burden people.
If no-one has played a *Psion* in your group before, and you want to play one:
A) RTFM
B) Tell your group what you're thinking, and make sure they're okay with what you want to do and why you want to do it for a character.
C) Explain the material to at least some of them, encourage them to read into some of it, help them through understanding what you think the rules are, and be open to the fact that the others might interpret them differently.
D) Make sure they're still okay with the idea.
E) Re-RTFM
F) While playing *Psion*, make sure you have the material handy, and every time you do something, re-RTFM, until you, and the rest of your group are sure you do, in fact, understand what you're doing.
* can be whatever else too, Martial Adept, Truenamer, et cetera.
Seriously people, 99% of all brokenness brought into games is caused by mis-reading the RAW. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty broke in RAW, but what gets brought into games is people thinking that a Shadow Sentinel's ability to "increase threat range" means that they grow their sword and increase reach, or that Psions can augment to 5d6 at level 1, or that VoP has a multiplier effect with all of the other Exalted feats, or that you can be a Disciple of Dispater with a crit range of 6-20 and cut off peoples heads left and right with Vorpal (which only procs on a 20).
@ Dkonen
I do think that it
could be more fun for your group if you didn't just flat-ban things, because there are some very falavorful and fun things out there. That is my opinion, take that for it being as meaningless as two cents are these days, much like all unsolicited advice.
But put the burden on them, and have them double check each other if you can't.
But if they're having fun then the Gentleman's Agreement has been met anyway
.
The only reason I direct this at you is because it sounds like one person is cutting into the fun at times, when people catch him cheating. So make sure that his ideas are double-checked at the top of the point, when it is first brought up. Doesn't have to be checked by you, per-se, just that someone should check him for any "oversights".
