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I fail to see the difference. You could play a Werewolf or a Mage in Vampire. The games have a common base system. You can play an elf in DnD, regardless of setting, because there’s a common base system. That is what Player 4 is asking for - to play an elf in a humans-only game. It’s just like...

It’s comparable to someone wanting to play an elf in a DnD game with no elves.

First, that’s simply not how I (and I suspect, many GMs) approach campaign prep. I prepare campaigns because I enjoy preparing campaigns. It’s fun in and of itself. I don’t discuss which campaigns I’m going to prep with my players beforehand. And like Jd Smith1, I’ve never had trouble filling a...

I think, again, that’s exactly the scenario the OP is proposing. The GM wants to run a GOT campaign with no elves, but the player won’t play unless he can play an elf. They want to play different kinds of campaign. So should the GM let the player be an elf, or not?

My reading of the OP’s scenario is that the latter is exactly what’s happening, but the response from one player is ‘sure, as long as I can play an elf.’ The question is whether the GM should accommodate the player, or the player accommodate the GM.

No, you don't need additional info. The OP DM doesn't have a problem with the character Player 2 wants to play. That's all we need to know. Player 2 has declared that they want to play a character that conforms to the GM's campaign pitch, and the GM is happy with it, player 4 has not. I think...

In the scenario presented by the OP, player 2 isn’t the problem. Maybe that’s because the GM is using a system that suits GoT, or because he’s houseruled in a noble class, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. The problem is player 4.

So assume the GM suggested a system designed for it. It’s irrelevant to the scenario the OP is asking about.

So just assume the GM in the OP is using one that does. It’s completely irrelevant to the OP’s question, because in the hypothetical scenario it’s player 4 who’s a problem, not player 2.

In that circumstance, the player should either agree to play as a human, or bow out of the game. Alternatively the player could offer to run something themselves.

I find that it really varies, depending on my feelings about the current edition of the game. If I think the current version is mostly fine, then I’ll get a new edition that makes a few improvements here and there (or maybe just if I have the cash), but won’t by a paradigm shifting game. But if...

Yes? I’ve put time and money into dozens of campaigns, most of which I’ll probably never run. Whenever I’m in a position to start a new campaign, I consider the various ones I’ve been working on and decide which one to run next. And then I tell the players ‘this is what I’m running next.’ If...

That’s really just a matter of taste. The Nentir Vsle was entirely uninspiring for me, whereas Eberron, the Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun provides me with much more inspiring material.

It might be your job as DM to come up with adventure hooks, but some (most?) settings make an effort to help with that job. There’s a focus on the material on things that will interest a typical group of PCs. There’s various ways in which a setting can fail to do this. One might be that it...

I’ve played with numerous high-prep and low-prep GMs. In my experience, both make these kinds of mistakes. If anything, the high-prep GMs make more of them, because they’re trying to keep track of a lot of useless information that never comes up in play.

It’s not agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head, it’s ‘agonising’ over whether or not players have agency, which is different. The reason it is a worthwhile discussion is because agency is often (though not always) a factor on how much players enjoy a game. If players feel they...

That's complicated, but yeah, you're probably denying them agency, especially if you decided that the NPC was lying after the fact. If, when the PCs were talking to the NPC, there was the possibility that they could detect that he was lying (and therefore infer that anything he told them was...

His definition of illusionism is the same as mine, and one I've certainly seen used elsewhere. Illusionism only takes place where the players appear to have a meaningful choice, but don't. Whether the Grim Woods or the Ghastly Forest is chosen is only meaningful if the players have reason to...

I would say quite the opposite - that the players have far more agency in your game than in most. It’s not that they lack choices, it’s that you’re reacting to their choices, and just not bothering to flesh out the choices they didn’t take. Sure, you could think about choices A, B and C ahead...

Work. Learning a new system is a chore that has to be performed before I can get to actually playing the game.