Advocating means, in part, pushing the rules envelope for any advantages that might be hanging around. And I wouldn't call you a tyrant for pushing back against that advocation, I'd instead call you a DM who is doing his job.
Our players don't do that, first we have many DMs amongst our players, and second they have a tendency to present multiple sides to discuss things. After that, and after the silliness of 3e, the ball is now clearly in the DM's hand to stop arguments quickly so that play can move on.
If you as DM say "No evil PCs" I walk out.
Why?
Because you're telling me how to play my character, and that just doesn't fly. Further, because you're willing to tell me how to play my character in this aspect it's clear I can't trust that you won't - then or later - tell me how to play it in other aspects. (examples I've seen posted by others in this forum include no in-character romances, character must be of the player's gender, etc.)
First, I'm not telling you how to play the character, I'm telling you that there are some areas which foster conflict around the table, which is why they are forbidden. After that, the last points are actually a question of table limits, and should be clearly on the table from session 0, it's a good point made in Tasha. I have never encountered these two in particular, but all tables have limits and it's good to have them on the table at start so that everyone can be comfortable with playing.
Guidelines are fine. Hard rules are not; and the only way you-as-DM can turn my character into an NPC is if I willingly hand it over to you (and in my view this includes even if-when I-as-player have left an ongoing campaign; the character still belongs to me and you need my permission to do anything significant with it).
Honestly, it has not happened often, but the ownership has always been left to the DM. What would prevent him to have the character as an NPC in a campaign after a player has left it ? The player can claim all he wants that he has the character sheet, but all the history of the character is set in the campaign history, and that belongs to the table anyway.
If the other players don't want it that's one thing, but as a DM I've always seen it as my job to more or less run whatever the players put in front of me; and this can (and does!) include all kinds of left turns, unexpected actions, and plain ol' crazy ship.
I have a different view here, and once more it's very well put forward in Tasha, in addition to the mutual respect between the DM and the players: "The players will respect one another, listen to one another, support one another, and do their utmost to preserve the cohesion of the adventuring party."
If the whole party goes in a direction, it's fine, but if one player decides to do a crazy thing that is disturbing the other players, it's a no-go for me. And that is honestly the situation that I've encountered the most often, one player deciding to torpedo everything that the party has been creating, usually because of personal boredom, or because he dislikes what the others are doing, to mark his territory or whatever.
Sure, at session 0 I'll make a few preferences very clear as to what I don't like DMing (usually revolving around players trying to turn the game into Economics 101 by becomeing businesspeople instead of adventurers), but if a character and-or class exists as playable within the setting I don't restrict what a player can do with it.
I have the same idea about economics, but that is actually a subset of what I wrote above, this is a friends collaborative game, it's about playing together, not going on one's own all the time, or even worse torpedoing what the rest of the players are doing. It does not preclude discussion or dissension, but I'm not here to run X games in parallel for X players.
If game-element X works a certain way this time but a different way next time under similar circumstances, how are the players supposed to be able to make informed decisions?
Because they should trust the consistency of the world rather than the consistency of the rules. The rules can only be a very rough modelling of the world, again clearly stated in the 5e SAC: "no set of rules could reasonably account for every contingency. If the rules tried to do so, the game would become unplayable."
So just because a rogue managed to hide behind a barrel in a dark warehouse once when the guard was inattentive does not mean that he will always be able to hide behind every barrel in the world in all circumstances. Maybe the next barrel is going to be a bit smaller, maybe there will be more light, maybe the guard will be more attentive.
And the player can make informed decisions by projecting himself in the world, listening to the DM and asking for clarifications when necessary. If I say "the warehouse is well lit" or "the barrels are rather small" or "the guards seem to be particularly attentive, as if they expected intruders", I expect the players to take that into account for their risk taking.
Even though it had bogged down as you say, I found myself even more disappointed with it once Sanderson took the helm.
Hmmm, strange, my whole family and most of my friends have read it and found the contrary. I guess our tastes are just not that similar...
