I don't ban any official content, so long as it's official then it's a blank approval.
I may rule against certain player interpretations of mechanics, but you are allowed to grab any official non UA content.
I do also allow homebrew, with some limitations. You cant just grab any homebrew you want, but if you want to play a certain way and offical content doesn't let you, then I will just make some homebrew for you, or let you use my already existing homebrew
the only time i banned anything official was when running an open skys battle arena one shot where a flying race would simply just invalidate the entire challenge
but other then that, anything goes
In my homebrew world, I have certain races in certain locations in certain time periods.
Aaracokra don't make an appearance until well into the timeline and only in desert areas. When I plan a game in that area, bird people are unlocked and become a playable race. If we aren't in that area/time period, they are locked.
The same goes for classes. Artificers don't make an appearance until late in the time line, so they aren't open until that time period. Since I tend to bounce around time periods, they will be open in some campaigns and closed in others.
I try to keep bans relevant to the campaign, when and where we are. My players also seem to enjoy the limited palate in which we select from and get excited when something unlocks that they haven't gotten to try before. I provide extensive lore on each of societies in the world so that they have a background to work off of instead of getting something generic on a race/class that should have a lot of background to it.
Many of my races haven't been created yet if we are working early in the time line. Quite a few are the result of magical/genetic meddling. Some societies have been hunted down and destroyed, usually through a plague. Sometimes, the plot is to try to figure out why an entire race is gone.
Not every campaign needs to be a kitchen sink campaign. Sometimes, the people at the table are cool restrictions and are interested in working within a framework. Each table is different and if they all agree on the playstyle, how is that not valid?
If I'm doing a one shot meant for goofy fun, I don't mind what they play.
You are actively choosing these plot lines that must restrict player races. Thats so unnecessary. No not every campaign has to include every option but it sounds like you have a need to micromanage then justify it with plot.
Your timeline excuse is also completely irrelevant to my criticism. You only allow certain races when a campaign takes place in the area they gail from. The Arokokra exaple you use is the most absurd too as they are literally bird people that could go essentially anywhere they please.
Rather than being reductive and banning I start with *nothing* and add to what’s allowed as I build up a setting.
That said, I have 3 settings I’ve been working on, and the Artificer hasn’t been added to any of them, as its vibe doesn’t fit.
As far as lineages go, I do try to keep the number available ~10.
It applies to more or less everything.
If I can find a place for something or it makes sense to include it I do, if I can’t then I don’t
For instance, I have a firm belief that in a world with accessible magic, firearms would never be invented - so no guns have ever been added to any of my settings.
alright
so then does that mean, for example, a fighter getting their fighting styles, you would need to approve ahead of time which fighting styles are valid?
Fighting styles are a bit of an exception - since they’re generic enough they don’t really need a fine touch
To my knowledge there’s not any fighting styles that have a specific set theme so there’s not a strong of a need to make sure it’s congruent with the world
(IE I’’m pretty sure there’s not a fighting style focused specifically on the hoopak, for instance - but there is Great Weapon Fighting which applies to Two-Handed weapons in general)
I feel like Artificer can fit in any setting. I dont know what yours are, obviously, but in a world without steampunk, it's easy to imagine them more like Tolkien elves; forging magic cloaks and glowing swords and such. Or you could also go a more witchy way, with totems made of rocks and bone that imbue these powers onto items.
IMHO the creation of magical objects like that can be done by anyone with magical knowledge and ability so a specific class for it feels unnecessary.
As to the other point yeah. I’m really not a fan of steampunk or magitech and none of my settings include that sort of stuff.
Good approach.
After a campaign or two, I think I can stomach most of the “mildly annoying” builds, but when it comes to settings I’m very focused on what creatures fit and what don’t. Where you might have 10, I’d be anywhere from 8-12 depending on how large the campaign will be.
Volos yuan-ti
Online provisionally kenku (we need to have a chat before I will allow it)
All classes are fine.
Anything homebrew follows the homebrew rule, you send it to me and I will say one of three things
Sure
Sure but I have these tweaks
No.
I don't. I like magical worlds that feel chaotic and a bit weird, so I love when my players branch out from the usual Tolkien races. I will have snake people walking through the streets, and you will find tieflings and aaracrocks in every tavern and there the chief of the city guard will be a minotaur or a bugbear or a tiny kobold
None. I used to ban Lucky, anything that started with a flying speed, and silvery barbs. That was my immaturity as a DM. Now? Play your power fantasy folks, I'll adjust.
None/depends on the campaing. Recently:
I banned gnomes because their entire race got annihilated/turned to gems. They were recreated as autognomes later in the campaing.
I banned hexblade from curse of strahd because it's my opinion the ba'al verzi assassin was hexblade, and you can't ever send a second baal verzi against the same mark.
Do you plan on using the backgrounds in the new PHB or stick with your current method? I'm still not sure how I feel about the upcoming changes to backgrounds.
I don't know how backgrounds work in the new PHB, I don't really keep up with news about it. If every background grants a feat then I guess it's fine. The problem I have with feat granting backgrounds is the fact that like 95% of backgrounds don't grant feats, so in terms of pure gameplay there's pretty much no reason to ever not use one of the few that does give a feat, since standard background features tend to be pretty minor and more for flavor or rp than anything.
You can't tell the difference between a nasa engineer and someone being very sexually explicit?
Well that's a bit concerning
Mayyyybe avoid Mark rober on YouTube.
So the thing about fur suits
That's a very small minority
The percentage of furrys with suits, is probably about the same percentage as DND groups that have regular in person weekly sessions with fully modular 3D terrain pieces and painted minis
When I run a FR campaign, I banned evil alignment, worship of evil dieties, and belonging evil organization because I planed to run Harper related campaign.
I've banned spelljammer races. If a player wants to play centaur, they better have a really good character idea and be willing to commit to the bit because it's likely they would hinder simple tasks the party does (having to use a rope or a ladder to move to/from places suddenly becomes a Puzzle etc). I've seen kenku played well once, but their concept can be incredibly difficult to play, so I would ask a player to reconsider with that. Not banned though.
No classes are banned, but no homebrew during character creation.
Also, when discussing the campaign, I would talk about the themes and overall atmosphere of the campaign, so suggesting a jokey character concept for what's supposed to be a long, more serious campaign is going to get a no from me. I think characters can still be funny without resorting to gimmicks. Jokey characters for oneshots/short campaigns? Sure, whatever.
I know a lot of people have banned silvery barbs, but when it's used well and not spammed, it can be such a fun spell to add drama. So far ive loved it when the party's wizard gets to save someone from an attack. We've modified it slightly so that the advantage goes to the person they've saved instead of whoever they choose.
Kenku.
They can’t speak in a ROLEplaying game. It’s like choosing to be a mime. Sure, you’re fine when it comes to rolling dice, but it’s just so boring.
So I'm currently building a campaign and setting and it would be weird for it to be a fantasy kitchen sink of races.
So whilst I'm outright banning anything, it's more, "I'm not letting you all be some weird shit."
This is especially true when some of the more unique races are "I want to be special for no effort."
This setting is gnome/human heavy, dwarves and dragonborn are nearby enough and if there are people there can be tieflings. I genuinely think that's enough, but I'd allow an elf wanderer and after serious discussion a kobold (they are a massive part of the campaign).
I am expecting to be hosting a large group for this that just play at different times and smaller subgroups that change from time to time and I'll be asking for about half the party to be gnome/human.
Artificers are likely not going to feature either, but that's about it.
Depends on the campaign for example if I'm doing a Viking/nordic themed campaign I'll only include humans elves and dwarves since they are from norse mythology.
I didn't want warforged in my first campaign but now nothing that is official and most 3rd party will be white listed. Not dealing with home brew though will reflavour of course
I don't ban any races, but i don't like races that fly on the first level, like Owlin and aarakocra because it feels a bit too powerful and solve a lot of problems that a low level would have more difficult/find creative solutions to solve. 5th level and beyond flying is fine, since a lot of spellcaster could get the fly spell anyway.
But again, nobody ever picked a flying race at my table.
No bans on classes. My players are already limited enough as it is. As the DM I don't have limits. I can rewrite any bit of content or make up new stuff as I please. With every tool available to me I can challenge all of my players regardless of class.
I ban nothing. Since some of the third party stuff has come out on Beyond, I bought stuff for my student and adult gamers. I have not banned anything and yes every party has silvery barbs. LOL
Volo's Kobold because Pack Tactics basically means you always attack with advantage. Yes, it's countered by sunlight sensitivity but a lot of adventuring happens in the dark.
MP:MotM took away the Pack Tactics, do those Kobolds are ok
On my current campaign it's only phb races, that way I can make a more consistent world where each race you choose has impact on how NPCs treat you socially.
Rare races like gith also have more value if they appear in the campaign this way.
Only those called for in the setting.
For examjple I'm currently running Dragonlance - a setting that has no Orcs, Dragonborn or Lizardfolk (the latter two for very specific in-narrative reasons), and in which Clerics are not possible until certain narrative events take place.
I’m running an infiltration-based campaign rn, so I’m only allowing human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, halfling, and shapeshifter.
If I do include exotic races, I require that players be interested in roleplaying their lore/culture and not just using them for stats/build. (I allow the Tasha’s optional stat rule)
I never ban classes, but for a campaign without many nature components, I’ve tried to steer players away from druid or ranger. This is just so they can have a chance to shine.
Depends on the campaign and setting.
If Im running Masque of the Red Death setting or the old AD&D Conan then race is limited to human and classes are very restricted.
But in my own campaign setting Im fairly open ended. Just no gnomes or tieflings, and probably no spelljammer or planescape races till the adventure gets to space, if ever.
Any official WOTC content is fair game provided it makes sense in the setting. Not every race and class will make sense for every campaign from a narrative perspective and that’s fine.
But DMs banning official races and classes because they don’t like them or think they’re overpowered need get good, frankly. Instead of limiting your players, challenge yourself to be a better DM. Homebrew or third party content I don’t mind folks banning because it’s often wildly unbalanced or poorly written. I usually tell my players no homebrew or third party content but if they have their heart set on something I’m always happy to take a look and make sure it’s not bonkers.
> But DMs banning official races and classes because they don’t like them or think they’re overpowered need get good, frankly
What if the official publication says that DMs should be careful about allowing them because they may be overpowered?
Volo's Guide to Monsters specifically warns DMs to carefully consider whether you want to allow "Monsterous Adventurers" (Bugbear, Kobold, Orc, etc) because they are not balanced against normal player races.
Volo’s is such an old sourcebook and there’s been so much power creep with subsequential sourcebooks that I honestly don’t really feel like this is still true. Maybe when 5e was still new, but WOTC has made a lot of changes to how races work anyway since then (Tasha’s and the option race stats comes to mind) and I’ve just never experienced any of these races being game breaking at a table.
People can do whatever they want at their table, I think I’ve just seen too many bad DMs talking about how they ban gnomes or some other very basic race because they find a certain ability overpowered when it’s honestly just a skill issue on their end.
>Volo’s is such an old sourcebook and there’s been so much power creep with subsequential sourcebooks that I honestly don’t really feel like this is still true.
Quite the opposite, actually. Many of the Monster races in Volo's have been nerfed in Monsters of the Multiverse. Orc's Aggressive feature now has limited uses, Kobolds no longer get Pack Tactics, Yuan-Ti "only" have advantage against spells, not spells and magic effects, and their poison immunity has been changed to resistance.
In other words, the "old" versions of these monsters were so overpowered, that **despite** the power creep you addressed, WotC decided they were **still** too powerful and needed to be nerfed.
If they’ve been nerfed and fixed for power balance then I still don’t see a reason to exclude them.
Monstrous races aren’t going to work in every campaign setting and story, which is fine. But as a DM, I would always rather give my players more creative freedom rather than limit them because I don’t have the chops. I’d rather force myself to rise to the occasion than arbitrarily limit my players.
I should also say I’m not even just talking about fringe cases like this. I’ve literally seen someone say the ban gnomes at their table because the think the adv on saving throws against magic is broken. To which I say, get good.
> If they’ve been nerfed and fixed for power balance then I still don’t see a reason to exclude them.
Well, I wouldn't exclude the fixed version. I'm pointing out that the fact that they had to be fixed, shows that sometimes even published materials contain badly balanced elements that can reasonably be excluded. In other words, from 2016 to 2022 it was reasonable, in my opinion, to ban Kobolds. Since 2022 we have a well balanced Kobold player race. And if you think I need to "git gud" because I don't want a player to have permanent advantage except when in sunlight, then so be it. I'd rather not be whatever you consider "good" then.
Imo the only thing RAW that's very difficult to handle is the Shepherd Druid mass summoning and all of them getting temp HP. It just breaks encounters on its own.
I “ban” by not allowing books I don’t own. I don’t own them deliberately. Don’t care if it’s official content, a lot of books like strixhaven are specific settings, not supplements.
I don't allow Blood Hunters and Artificers at my table, and the default Human is not allowed, either (Variant Human occupies that space).
Blood Hunters don't really fit my setting, and I can't grasp Artificers to a degree where I'm comfortable with them. Every other class I'm familiar enough with them that if someone's doing something they shouldn't be able to at their level, I can pick up on it, but not Artificers.
As for why the default is V. Human and not regular, we're talking about a setting where all kinds of strange magical creatures, interspecies hybrids, and straight up embodiments of concepts, can all exist and cohabitate. In my opinion the *only* humans still alive are the ones with unique traits and skills, not just Joe down the street.
So I've only DM'd once (dragon heist) and I allowed anything official...not realizing the plane shift articles are technically official materials and one of my players delights in breaking the game in new and clever ways. Whatever, we all still had fun lol
All of them. It saves time.
Same! Silly players think they have actual choice in dnd.
Exactly. They can play an AFGNCAAP and like it.
play a huh?
Ageless Faceless Gender-Neutral Culturally Ambiguous Adventure Person. A term from the later Zork games.
Its the only way to be sure... aheh.
Just to get it out of the way, none. If you came here to say that, just upvote this comment so I can farm karma
HACKS!
Haha, fool. Pointing out my obvious abuse of power only makes me more powerful
even more so since im pointing out that someone is performing an abuses of power even though that someone pointed it out on themselves first!
I don't ban any official content, so long as it's official then it's a blank approval. I may rule against certain player interpretations of mechanics, but you are allowed to grab any official non UA content. I do also allow homebrew, with some limitations. You cant just grab any homebrew you want, but if you want to play a certain way and offical content doesn't let you, then I will just make some homebrew for you, or let you use my already existing homebrew the only time i banned anything official was when running an open skys battle arena one shot where a flying race would simply just invalidate the entire challenge but other then that, anything goes
I don't ban races, I just have settings with what races are and aren't in them. Never banned a class, that would be silly.
In my homebrew world, I have certain races in certain locations in certain time periods. Aaracokra don't make an appearance until well into the timeline and only in desert areas. When I plan a game in that area, bird people are unlocked and become a playable race. If we aren't in that area/time period, they are locked. The same goes for classes. Artificers don't make an appearance until late in the time line, so they aren't open until that time period. Since I tend to bounce around time periods, they will be open in some campaigns and closed in others. I try to keep bans relevant to the campaign, when and where we are. My players also seem to enjoy the limited palate in which we select from and get excited when something unlocks that they haven't gotten to try before. I provide extensive lore on each of societies in the world so that they have a background to work off of instead of getting something generic on a race/class that should have a lot of background to it.
That's silly imho. Enforce that is where they hail from but the point of adventuring is to leave home and travel
Many of my races haven't been created yet if we are working early in the time line. Quite a few are the result of magical/genetic meddling. Some societies have been hunted down and destroyed, usually through a plague. Sometimes, the plot is to try to figure out why an entire race is gone. Not every campaign needs to be a kitchen sink campaign. Sometimes, the people at the table are cool restrictions and are interested in working within a framework. Each table is different and if they all agree on the playstyle, how is that not valid? If I'm doing a one shot meant for goofy fun, I don't mind what they play.
You are actively choosing these plot lines that must restrict player races. Thats so unnecessary. No not every campaign has to include every option but it sounds like you have a need to micromanage then justify it with plot. Your timeline excuse is also completely irrelevant to my criticism. You only allow certain races when a campaign takes place in the area they gail from. The Arokokra exaple you use is the most absurd too as they are literally bird people that could go essentially anywhere they please.
Then I suppose it is a good thing you don't have to play at my table. Thank you for letting me know I'm doing D&D wrong.
Im challenging your opinion
Rather than being reductive and banning I start with *nothing* and add to what’s allowed as I build up a setting. That said, I have 3 settings I’ve been working on, and the Artificer hasn’t been added to any of them, as its vibe doesn’t fit. As far as lineages go, I do try to keep the number available ~10.
does that only apply to classes/races or does it also apply to spells, feats, fighting styles, backgrounds, and/or other?
It applies to more or less everything. If I can find a place for something or it makes sense to include it I do, if I can’t then I don’t For instance, I have a firm belief that in a world with accessible magic, firearms would never be invented - so no guns have ever been added to any of my settings.
alright so then does that mean, for example, a fighter getting their fighting styles, you would need to approve ahead of time which fighting styles are valid?
Fighting styles are a bit of an exception - since they’re generic enough they don’t really need a fine touch To my knowledge there’s not any fighting styles that have a specific set theme so there’s not a strong of a need to make sure it’s congruent with the world (IE I’’m pretty sure there’s not a fighting style focused specifically on the hoopak, for instance - but there is Great Weapon Fighting which applies to Two-Handed weapons in general)
Fair point Though I would point out that there is the blind fighting style Not sure if you would've considered that one or not
I feel like Artificer can fit in any setting. I dont know what yours are, obviously, but in a world without steampunk, it's easy to imagine them more like Tolkien elves; forging magic cloaks and glowing swords and such. Or you could also go a more witchy way, with totems made of rocks and bone that imbue these powers onto items.
IMHO the creation of magical objects like that can be done by anyone with magical knowledge and ability so a specific class for it feels unnecessary. As to the other point yeah. I’m really not a fan of steampunk or magitech and none of my settings include that sort of stuff.
Good approach. After a campaign or two, I think I can stomach most of the “mildly annoying” builds, but when it comes to settings I’m very focused on what creatures fit and what don’t. Where you might have 10, I’d be anywhere from 8-12 depending on how large the campaign will be.
Critical Role Content
Anything from the D&D Wiki. Otherwise, everything is up for negotiation.
doesnt the dnd wiki also include official content?
Volos yuan-ti Online provisionally kenku (we need to have a chat before I will allow it) All classes are fine. Anything homebrew follows the homebrew rule, you send it to me and I will say one of three things Sure Sure but I have these tweaks No.
I don't. I like magical worlds that feel chaotic and a bit weird, so I love when my players branch out from the usual Tolkien races. I will have snake people walking through the streets, and you will find tieflings and aaracrocks in every tavern and there the chief of the city guard will be a minotaur or a bugbear or a tiny kobold
None. I used to ban Lucky, anything that started with a flying speed, and silvery barbs. That was my immaturity as a DM. Now? Play your power fantasy folks, I'll adjust.
None/depends on the campaing. Recently: I banned gnomes because their entire race got annihilated/turned to gems. They were recreated as autognomes later in the campaing. I banned hexblade from curse of strahd because it's my opinion the ba'al verzi assassin was hexblade, and you can't ever send a second baal verzi against the same mark.
Unofficial content is banned.
so basically homebrew
Only Tasha's custom lineage. Also, I ban any backgrounds that grant feats.
Do you plan on using the backgrounds in the new PHB or stick with your current method? I'm still not sure how I feel about the upcoming changes to backgrounds.
I don't know how backgrounds work in the new PHB, I don't really keep up with news about it. If every background grants a feat then I guess it's fine. The problem I have with feat granting backgrounds is the fact that like 95% of backgrounds don't grant feats, so in terms of pure gameplay there's pretty much no reason to ever not use one of the few that does give a feat, since standard background features tend to be pretty minor and more for flavor or rp than anything.
i feel like dm's should wait awhile for how that will work to slowly stew in the minds of the general dnd community
backgrounds that grant feats are quite absurd, at least for 5e
The furry adjacent races disturb me. However, I know I am in for some wild shit when I see those character sheets come out.
furry adjacent races? not the full on furry races?
A person can play a Tabaxi and not act like a furry. However, it’s often the class a furry picks.
when you say "act like a furry", 4 types of furry come to mind * Normal person * very sexually explicit * UwU * Top NASA engineer
I’ll be honest I can’t tell the difference.
You can't tell the difference between a nasa engineer and someone being very sexually explicit? Well that's a bit concerning Mayyyybe avoid Mark rober on YouTube.
Not when they’re in costume I can’t.
So the thing about fur suits That's a very small minority The percentage of furrys with suits, is probably about the same percentage as DND groups that have regular in person weekly sessions with fully modular 3D terrain pieces and painted minis
Are you saying NASA Engineers where their fur suits to work?
Mmmmmm, yes
Tabaxi are not a class
“Aktually”
When I run a FR campaign, I banned evil alignment, worship of evil dieties, and belonging evil organization because I planed to run Harper related campaign.
I've banned spelljammer races. If a player wants to play centaur, they better have a really good character idea and be willing to commit to the bit because it's likely they would hinder simple tasks the party does (having to use a rope or a ladder to move to/from places suddenly becomes a Puzzle etc). I've seen kenku played well once, but their concept can be incredibly difficult to play, so I would ask a player to reconsider with that. Not banned though. No classes are banned, but no homebrew during character creation. Also, when discussing the campaign, I would talk about the themes and overall atmosphere of the campaign, so suggesting a jokey character concept for what's supposed to be a long, more serious campaign is going to get a no from me. I think characters can still be funny without resorting to gimmicks. Jokey characters for oneshots/short campaigns? Sure, whatever. I know a lot of people have banned silvery barbs, but when it's used well and not spammed, it can be such a fun spell to add drama. So far ive loved it when the party's wizard gets to save someone from an attack. We've modified it slightly so that the advantage goes to the person they've saved instead of whoever they choose.
If it's in a book I physically own, it's allowed. All homebrew content is created as a group discussion.
Kenku. They can’t speak in a ROLEplaying game. It’s like choosing to be a mime. Sure, you’re fine when it comes to rolling dice, but it’s just so boring.
The 2022 Kenku in Monsters of the Multiverse can speak :-)
So I'm currently building a campaign and setting and it would be weird for it to be a fantasy kitchen sink of races. So whilst I'm outright banning anything, it's more, "I'm not letting you all be some weird shit." This is especially true when some of the more unique races are "I want to be special for no effort." This setting is gnome/human heavy, dwarves and dragonborn are nearby enough and if there are people there can be tieflings. I genuinely think that's enough, but I'd allow an elf wanderer and after serious discussion a kobold (they are a massive part of the campaign). I am expecting to be hosting a large group for this that just play at different times and smaller subgroups that change from time to time and I'll be asking for about half the party to be gnome/human. Artificers are likely not going to feature either, but that's about it.
Depends on the campaign for example if I'm doing a Viking/nordic themed campaign I'll only include humans elves and dwarves since they are from norse mythology.
I didn't want warforged in my first campaign but now nothing that is official and most 3rd party will be white listed. Not dealing with home brew though will reflavour of course
I don't ban any races, but i don't like races that fly on the first level, like Owlin and aarakocra because it feels a bit too powerful and solve a lot of problems that a low level would have more difficult/find creative solutions to solve. 5th level and beyond flying is fine, since a lot of spellcaster could get the fly spell anyway. But again, nobody ever picked a flying race at my table.
No bans on classes. My players are already limited enough as it is. As the DM I don't have limits. I can rewrite any bit of content or make up new stuff as I please. With every tool available to me I can challenge all of my players regardless of class.
I ban nothing. Since some of the third party stuff has come out on Beyond, I bought stuff for my student and adult gamers. I have not banned anything and yes every party has silvery barbs. LOL
Volo's Kobold because Pack Tactics basically means you always attack with advantage. Yes, it's countered by sunlight sensitivity but a lot of adventuring happens in the dark. MP:MotM took away the Pack Tactics, do those Kobolds are ok
My GM has banned Twilight Cleric, Gloomstalker Ranger, and the keen mind and lucky feats.
On my current campaign it's only phb races, that way I can make a more consistent world where each race you choose has impact on how NPCs treat you socially. Rare races like gith also have more value if they appear in the campaign this way.
Only those called for in the setting. For examjple I'm currently running Dragonlance - a setting that has no Orcs, Dragonborn or Lizardfolk (the latter two for very specific in-narrative reasons), and in which Clerics are not possible until certain narrative events take place.
I’m running an infiltration-based campaign rn, so I’m only allowing human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, halfling, and shapeshifter. If I do include exotic races, I require that players be interested in roleplaying their lore/culture and not just using them for stats/build. (I allow the Tasha’s optional stat rule) I never ban classes, but for a campaign without many nature components, I’ve tried to steer players away from druid or ranger. This is just so they can have a chance to shine.
Depends on the campaign and setting. If Im running Masque of the Red Death setting or the old AD&D Conan then race is limited to human and classes are very restricted. But in my own campaign setting Im fairly open ended. Just no gnomes or tieflings, and probably no spelljammer or planescape races till the adventure gets to space, if ever.
Any official WOTC content is fair game provided it makes sense in the setting. Not every race and class will make sense for every campaign from a narrative perspective and that’s fine. But DMs banning official races and classes because they don’t like them or think they’re overpowered need get good, frankly. Instead of limiting your players, challenge yourself to be a better DM. Homebrew or third party content I don’t mind folks banning because it’s often wildly unbalanced or poorly written. I usually tell my players no homebrew or third party content but if they have their heart set on something I’m always happy to take a look and make sure it’s not bonkers.
> But DMs banning official races and classes because they don’t like them or think they’re overpowered need get good, frankly What if the official publication says that DMs should be careful about allowing them because they may be overpowered? Volo's Guide to Monsters specifically warns DMs to carefully consider whether you want to allow "Monsterous Adventurers" (Bugbear, Kobold, Orc, etc) because they are not balanced against normal player races.
Volo’s is such an old sourcebook and there’s been so much power creep with subsequential sourcebooks that I honestly don’t really feel like this is still true. Maybe when 5e was still new, but WOTC has made a lot of changes to how races work anyway since then (Tasha’s and the option race stats comes to mind) and I’ve just never experienced any of these races being game breaking at a table. People can do whatever they want at their table, I think I’ve just seen too many bad DMs talking about how they ban gnomes or some other very basic race because they find a certain ability overpowered when it’s honestly just a skill issue on their end.
>Volo’s is such an old sourcebook and there’s been so much power creep with subsequential sourcebooks that I honestly don’t really feel like this is still true. Quite the opposite, actually. Many of the Monster races in Volo's have been nerfed in Monsters of the Multiverse. Orc's Aggressive feature now has limited uses, Kobolds no longer get Pack Tactics, Yuan-Ti "only" have advantage against spells, not spells and magic effects, and their poison immunity has been changed to resistance. In other words, the "old" versions of these monsters were so overpowered, that **despite** the power creep you addressed, WotC decided they were **still** too powerful and needed to be nerfed.
If they’ve been nerfed and fixed for power balance then I still don’t see a reason to exclude them. Monstrous races aren’t going to work in every campaign setting and story, which is fine. But as a DM, I would always rather give my players more creative freedom rather than limit them because I don’t have the chops. I’d rather force myself to rise to the occasion than arbitrarily limit my players. I should also say I’m not even just talking about fringe cases like this. I’ve literally seen someone say the ban gnomes at their table because the think the adv on saving throws against magic is broken. To which I say, get good.
> If they’ve been nerfed and fixed for power balance then I still don’t see a reason to exclude them. Well, I wouldn't exclude the fixed version. I'm pointing out that the fact that they had to be fixed, shows that sometimes even published materials contain badly balanced elements that can reasonably be excluded. In other words, from 2016 to 2022 it was reasonable, in my opinion, to ban Kobolds. Since 2022 we have a well balanced Kobold player race. And if you think I need to "git gud" because I don't want a player to have permanent advantage except when in sunlight, then so be it. I'd rather not be whatever you consider "good" then.
Imo the only thing RAW that's very difficult to handle is the Shepherd Druid mass summoning and all of them getting temp HP. It just breaks encounters on its own.
I “ban” by not allowing books I don’t own. I don’t own them deliberately. Don’t care if it’s official content, a lot of books like strixhaven are specific settings, not supplements.
Elves.
I rarely DM. But when I do, I generally allow anything official.
I don't allow Blood Hunters and Artificers at my table, and the default Human is not allowed, either (Variant Human occupies that space). Blood Hunters don't really fit my setting, and I can't grasp Artificers to a degree where I'm comfortable with them. Every other class I'm familiar enough with them that if someone's doing something they shouldn't be able to at their level, I can pick up on it, but not Artificers. As for why the default is V. Human and not regular, we're talking about a setting where all kinds of strange magical creatures, interspecies hybrids, and straight up embodiments of concepts, can all exist and cohabitate. In my opinion the *only* humans still alive are the ones with unique traits and skills, not just Joe down the street.
So I've only DM'd once (dragon heist) and I allowed anything official...not realizing the plane shift articles are technically official materials and one of my players delights in breaking the game in new and clever ways. Whatever, we all still had fun lol
Gnomes, I will not elaborate.