Don't Give In!

Over at Sham's Grog n' Blog, in a recent post about ability scores, things started to go sideways right at about this point in the comments. I want to draw your particular attention to this comment, as it's the one I'll be focusing on here.

Read it yet? Good.

I want to point specifically, however, to two statements:

"Was this my fault? Possibly. Sure, I could have told the guy that the spells didn't work that way. He would promptly state that they were listed that way in the book. The only response is some heavy-handed "Well screw you, I don't want you to use them that way" sort of response."

and more importantly:

Now, granted, with such a player, any system is breakable if the DM doesn't want to just arbitrarily tell them that all their research and math was useless and that he is deciding to not allow something that should be possible in the ruleset for the universe that it was created in. The player, for his part, had the creativity to find the loopholes and combination of effects to allow some insane abilities; isn't creativity a fairly core component of the hobby?

Now, let me start off with a nice fat smackdown statement:

The GM might not always be "right", but the GM is the final arbitrator in all things related to the game he or she is running, period, end of discussion, and if you don't like it, go game somewhere else.

To rewind a bit; I have a secret hatred for game publishing companies. In order to keep money flowing, they like to write rules supplements that you'll want to buy. In order to make you buy them, the company stuffs them chock full of cool-ass stuff that players and GMs will look at and think "this is SO cool - I just gotta have it!".

And then we have it - system bloat. Code bloat, rules bloat, supplement bloat - whatever you want to call it. You player shows up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to your next session with a $30 hardcover rules supplement and babbles at you about how freakin' sweet this new prestige class or spell or expanded rules set is, and to make them happy (cuz hey, it's all about making your players happy, right?) you allow it. Where's the harm, right? It's a published supplement, I'm sure it's been thoroughly playtested and examined for loopholes and game balance and there won't be any harm in including this, right? Right?

Wrong.

Stop.

Do Not Give In.

Gaming is a collaborative effort between the players and the GM. However, without some balance and structure, all you will have is chaos. Players are sneaky, crafty devils. Even if they don't want to admit it to themselves, they secretly crave "Awesomeness". No one really wants to play a "lame" character. Even if you're playing a librarian, you want your librarian to be an "Awesome" librarian - whatever that might mean (heck, Giles from Buffy was an "Awesome" librarian, after all...). If a player finds a rule or an item or a spell or skill or feat or power or anything "official" (or even unofficial but plausible) that will grant them more Awesomeness, they will at least be tempted to try to get you to include it in the game.

Do Not Give In.

I too have played with the rules lawyers, the engineers, the math geeks - those player types who will naturally "crunch out" whatever will give them maximum Awesomeness, and try to get you to use it "because it's in the rules - it's official, right?". Wrong. The only material that is official for your campaign is the material you allow to be official. There is no Dana, only Zool.

This is not an arbitrary "screw you" attitude. It is an attitude of "my campaign and my campaign setting are a carefully controlled environment". You allow what you want to allow because otherwise, it's not your campaign anymore - it's theirs. As soon as you cave and let your players polymorph themselves into Dragon Gods just because they found published material that allows it, you are no longer the GM - you're a chump who sits behind the screen and narrates wish-fulfillment fantasies to your players. Some GMs are fine with this, but hey - some husbands get off on being cuckolds, too. Once you give up that control and authority for no other reason than to "make them happy", you will never, ever, get it back.

So does this mean I'm a control freak bastard of a GM who never gives a player what they want? No. But, it does mean that when a player brings some New Shiny Toy of a rule/spell/etc. to me, I do not just roll over and play nice. I give it a hard, hard look and try my best to decide two things:

1. Will (insert new stuff here) have a big (and possibly negative) effect on this campaign as it is currently being envisioned by myself and the other players? Will it change the balance of power unexpectedly and significantly alter the flavor of the campaign that currently exists? Expanded rules for unarmed combat can be very cool, but if they turn every PC in your party into Unstoppable Masters of the Jade Dragon Fist Clan overnight, your gritty, peril-laden horror-noir game (where PCs before regularly feared for their lives in every combat) just went out the window like a lead brick.

2. Is (insert new stuff here) appropriate for my campaign as it now stands and into the forseeable future? Does it fit seamlessly with the flavor of the game, or does it throw things out of whack? After all, just because a jive-talking broadsword that throws lightning bolts is freakin' sweet, that doesn't mean it fits within your carefully structured Arthurian-analogue campaign setting.

If I don't like the answers to 1 & 2, I say no to (insert new stuff here), plain and simple. Every teacher likes class participation, but they don't want you to recreate the battle of Crecy in the middle of history class. Every employer wants their employees to find creative solutions to problems, but they don't want you taking hits of peyote in your cubicle and asking the Coyote God for answers.

All right, the air is thin up here on my soapbox - I'll get down now. Comments? Insults?