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"Attraction to strict curation is a GMing weakness" is what I said, which is subtly different. And yes, if your impulse is to take a setting and chop out a bunch of races to make things simpler or cleaner, I think following that impulse hampers your game and your players.

I would agree with that, which is why it's certainly fortunate I do all of those recommendations. There is an enormous amount of rhetorical space between comparing two things and finding one better, and actively denigrating something. Saying "I don't like X" is a statement of a mindset, not...

They did, actually. Using recognizable D&D names like Mephistopheles made them feel more of a connection to the game. It's pretty central to my GMing philosophy that I'm playing with a group of players I trust. You can't collaborate with people who don't play in a trustworthy fashion. I...

That is true, that is something we do differently. I'm assuming you feel your way of communication is better? :)

It matters to me. And I've already explained why I think it should matter to "Generic GM reading this thread." And again, different experiences. More than half the people I play with have spent considerable time in the GM chair. A bunch of us are familiar with quite a few settings.

There are a ton of players who want games where they don't have authorship responsibilities. I won't deny that. I'm glad you found a player group correlated to your interests.

I believe it to be the better way, but you have no reason to agree with me unless I convince you. That's the point of discussing things! It's totally OK if we come to an understanding that our priorities are different. But I'm also not required to act like I think every methodology of play is...

I think tightly curated settings are great fun. But if the players aren't interested, then it's the concept that goes away, not the players. Maybe another group at another time may want to try that idea; if not, it doesn't make it to the table just like thousands of other campaign ideas I've had.

I have every published setting connected in a loose multiplayer framework precisely to alleviate those kinds of concern. There's plenty of room for Asmodeus and devils within Fernia, Shavarath, Mabar, etc.

You see it as double standard because you're focusing on the impact on the player. I'm laser-focused on the difference between a collaborative game and one where the GM's concepts are privileged. If the players and GMs agree on a curated setting, than that curation was shared. If the player...

If a player wants to play a Tiefling in Middle-Earth, than they didn't actually want to play Middle-Earth in the first place. So we will just play something else.

That would put me in a position of dictating information to them, which I also try to avoid. I prefer settings where everyone has some familiarity, or the setting is loose enough to accommodate most ideas. As an example, I'm starting a table to try out Shadow of the Weird Wizard in a few...

When you curated the setting, you unfortunately made your worldbuilding impact their focus on "just" their character.

I said this a day or two ago, but tight curation around a central animating principle is totally fine (by me.) It's "my homebrew doesn't have a place for tieflings or dragonborn, so you can't play them" I find objectionable. One is about a exploring a concept together, the other is about...

I will reiterate my point, as I made in post #2399.

Yes, but most also have no interest in having their options restricted. They might endure it, but very few will think it's making their experience better.

I'm sorry if I've bummed you out. But yes, I do think that a GM that thinks something like "Eberron but with Tolkien races only" is a clever idea that players will actually want to explore is a GM who needs some actual awareness.

Never said anything about "corpos", did I? (Feel free to check my posts.) I own Dolmenwood, and have played in Dolmenwood, and have advocated for it (in this thread) as a great idea of what a curated setting should aspire to be. But the key piece is that it is NOT the GM's setting.

I agree that as a player, if you agree to a curated setting, you're being problematic if you later on try to renegotiate that curation. But I still think the GM needs to examine why they are so attracted to that strict curation in the first place. From my perspective, that attraction to strict...

Correct. I know you seem to find it problematic that I don't regards a quality published work to be equivalent to someone's written notes, but to my mind it's a pretty obvious distinction. A published work is shared among all the participants, someone's specific homebrew is explained to the...