Wik
First Post
OK. Now, what about: "one or more of these choices does not fit in with the game world as envisioned and-or designed"? Example: if in my world the Gnomish culture as designed (and clearly stated upfront) says only female Gnomes go adventuring and an adventuring male Gnome is likely to be scorned (or worse) if it ever encounters any other Gnomes, do I allow male Gnome PCs or just ban them? And if I do allow them, and the scorn comes, is it then a "don't say I didn't warn you" moment?
My opinion? It honestly depends. If you ask the player, and they say "I just wanna play a gnome!" yeah, should probably allow it, and maybe dial it back a bit (or some up with an exception; the world is full of exceptions). If they say "yeah, I like it, it sounds lie a challenge" then allow it and have fun.
I have this in my own game - certain priesthoods are "almost entirely" male or female. But if a player wanted to break that? I'd be more than willing to let them - and let the player decide whether it's going to be "a thing" or not.
At the start of my current campaign all PCs had to be a) Human and b) of the same ethnicity (Greek-equivalent). I did this intentionally, to set an early tone of what sort of culture the game would be set in and to drive home the fact they were starting in a place where non-Humans weren't always very welcome. What this meant was that if someone had their heart set on playing an Elf right from puck drop they were SOL; they'd have to wait a while. Is this wrong?
Whole other can of worms. And really, I don't see too much of a problem, if that's the game you wanna run. But IF you said "Well, no, you can't be female". Or "nope, you can't be gay" then yes, I'd say you were wrong.