Because I said so is the DMs right if not duty.
How do you figure?
Only 4 races are core as such in 5E. I would ask why any of those 4 races were banned but if they banned Gnomes or Dragonborn or whatever so be it.
And this was
exactly the mentality I had wanted to
avoid, but which 5e plowed right into without a moment's thought. If there are any assumptions at all, it should be that
there are NO core races. I can name two popular fantasy universes where it is impossible to play dwarves, and a further two where it is impossible to play elves--and
all four of them have no halflings, plus another insanely popular one that has dwarves and elves (though the good ones are dark-skinned!) and
still no halflings. If anything, someone with a strong background in (non-D&D) fantasy novels and video games will be more likely to expect no Halflings than no, say, Tieflings (demonic or demon-like races being quite common in fantasy). Human is the only race that appears in basically every fantasy universe, but even that (IMO) shouldn't be universally assumed. If it's okay to ban
some races without reason, it should be okay to ban
any races without reason.
If I banned races introduced after 2000 I would just say I'm after a Gygaxian theme because I said so.
"I'm after a Gygaxian theme"*
is not the same thing as "because I said so." This is why I gave the example I did with the "I don't like stab-wizards" thing. "Because I said so" is
literally just saying, "I think dragonborn are
fracking stupid, so nobody gets to play those. If you like them, too fracking bad." It's a bald dismissal of a thing with no explanation whatsoever, no further statement of goal or purpose than "my hate is more important than your love." Adding something like, "I'm trying to create a particular feel, like a bit of Conan mixed with a bit of Paksenarrion and a bit of fantasy-instead-of-science Barsoom" makes it very different: again, you're stating a vision or purpose, citing (variably) well-known works to define a vision. If you have articulated that
prior to getting agreement, then as stated the problem is completely with the player for agreeing to a thing they don't actually agree with (whether because they weren't thinking clearly, didn't ask questions to clarify, or expected you to be more lenient than you said).
Failing to articulate your vision, and simply stating blanket bans sans context or purpose, is "because I said so." Purely autocratic--and, as I said, often "gleeful"-sounding--which I see as a terrible way of addressing player concerns or questions.
*I know you've already responded to it, but I feel it's worth reiterating: Gygax was absolutely, perfectly okay with the idea of players with
actual dragons and even
balrogs as their characters. They just had to (a) accept that, like every character, you had to
grow into your power rather than starting with it, and (b) you had to accept whatever meaningful limitations, especially on behavior, that the DM felt appropriate. E.g. "Dragons hoard--it's a natural instinct, even for good ones--so turning down treasure is literally painful to you. Roll d6, on a 4+ you can resist the urge, -1 to your roll if it's a huge treasure or doesn't make you break your alignment to do it, +1 if it's not particularly valuable and you're naturally inclined not to do whatever is needed to get it." The whole "only an extremely narrow, limited set of tropes that are pretty much unique to D&D" thing didn't arise until
well after the hobby expanded beyond Gygax, and it almost certainly wasn't his doing.
What's your point? Answering "because there is no such thing as an elf" is pretty much what I mean when I say that there is no need for explanation.
I see the two as being nearly, though not perfectly, synonymous. "Can I play an elf?" "Nope, no elves. Pick something else." "But...why not?" "Because."
Instead of giving such terse answers, which (probably not intentionally) come across as contemptuous of player interest, giving even a
single full-sentence answer can make a world of difference. E.g. "But why not?" "There never were any 'elves' in this universe, because I want to run a game where cultural differences are paramount, and distinct races make that too difficult."
When I said "exist" I meant as a concept, not necessarily that they are all still alive. If elves existed and left or became extinct or something else, it's another case, and it can be interesting to mention this. What I meant is simply that if in a setting there aren't and there has never been an elf, I don't need to explain why, because there is no reason, they just don't exist and never had.
You're confusing Watsonian and Doylist explanations here. It's absolutely true that a Watsonian explanation is unnecessary, even illogical. But a Doylist explanation--why you, as DM, *decided* that there weren't any elves--is perfectly reasonable, because the concept of "elf" DOES exist in the minds of your audience (players).
A separate matter is if something exists but is not player's choice. In that case probably the main reason is once again the theme chosen. I know there can be also a mechanical reason, especially if the DM just wants to ban something that she believes to be overpowered, although I don't remember to have ever banned something because of that.
In which case, it could be appropriate to have both Doylist and Watsonian explanations for this particular choice. Doylist: "The whole 'centuries-long lifespan' thing makes historical ambiguities nearly impossible, so I don't really want anyone playing a race that could remember events that happened 150 years ago." I, as DM, don't want to run a game where people play elves. Then Watsonian: "Elves have a congenital condition--their long lifespans are dependent on staying close to their enchanted forests. Large groups reinforce each others' magic, allowing them to settle elsewhere and grow new forests, but an individual adventurer or two will grow ill and die if they spend more than six months away from home." In this world, elves don't *do* adventuring, because it's literally lethal to them.
There are no halflings in my world. They were all killed by a necromancer and a 10th level spell/ritual called "Genocide".
It has made for a great story in my world, and there was even a campaign arc where another necromancer was planning on doing it to humans, but the players foiled the plot. (The necromancer wasn't even close to re-discovering the ritual by the way, but they didn't know that.)
Out Of Character (OOC), I think I initially decided I didn't want them in the game because I had been reading way to many Lord of the Rings clones and loosely veiled hobbits. So I said, nah, I want my world more unique.
A cool and perfectly cromulent idea. Kudos for having the chutzpa to ban a "core" race! I've almost never seen that--in D&D works, anyway. As stated above, Halflings are pretty rare in fantasy universes (game or otherwise) that aren't explicitly using D&D (or the Tolkien legendarium) as their basis.
I do however let people use the halfing stats as either a race of humans or gnomes.
Another perfectly cromulent idea that rarely, if ever, gets mentioned by people who make long and thorough lists of bans.
I am all for these kinds of restrictions. I know many will not agree.
One trick. Don't announce them in advance. I have noticed that if you don't want, say, drow monks, nobody will make one anyways and you can just side-step the issue. But if you say no drow monks, then someone will inevitably say "but why not!"
Yeah see, if you did this to *me,* you'd have a very upset player on your hands--both because I have strong interests, and because I ask questions before I agree to join a campaign. "What do you mean, I can't play a dragonborn? They're right in the book, and when I asked if there were any restrictions, you said no." I consider this sort of thing pretty disingenuous, and that means it's likely to raise my ire if you pull this "trick" on me. I'm absolutely certain I'm not alone in this.
Its sneakier then that. The DM doesn't really say anything unless it comes up, again with the theory it won't.
Clearly, if something is particularly custom (no wizards!) this may not work, then you are stuck with the normal explain in advance approach.
Why is Wizard removal "particularly custom" but Monk removal is not? This is exactly what I was talking about with my "preconceived notions" comment.
Pretty much never, but I've always been open and honest as to why, and willing to at least listen to "Why you should include Race/Class X in your game". I may well still say "Nah", but I'll see what I can do for them, or help them to another choice.
And I respect that greatly. Negotiating with a player, finding a solution that satisfies their natural enthusiasm while preserving your chosen theme, is a good and noble thing. Sometimes it can't be done, but with a leisure-time activity like D&D, I feel it's always worth it to try.
As a player, I've seen DMs be real idiots with "No", to the point of banning stuff which is a significant default part of setting, and the banning of which served no real end, and went against player/setting expectations. One should never say no without a good reason, and always consider the possibility of a work-around - but in the end make the right decision for your group/campaign (not your ego!) which may still be no.
Very, very well-said. If I weren't already giving XP for the previous paragraph, this one would've earned it.
All that said, if I am persuaded to run DL and you wanna play a Kender, you better get ready to hear "NO!". That's Kenders though. They're a special case, because they're more or less precision-engineered to start fights and cause problems. They make having an obvious Drow in 2E-era FR party look like it's the least disruptive thing in the world.
To a certain extent I feel like this, itself, is also an answer--just a purely Doylist one. "I believe Kender innately encourage, or even cause, disruptive behavior within the party, and I want to avoid intra-party strife as much as possible."
I never get player buy-in and then have them complain afterwards. That's not actual buy-in. You need the players to be honest with you about what they want out of a game.
Completely agreed. That's why I said what I said: if you
claim to buy into the DM's restrictions when they were clearly laid out in advance (or openly stated, but left unquestioned, e.g. "I know you
said Elder Scrolls, but I've never played any of the games so I didn't
know there weren't any gnomes so I should still get to play one!" Uh, no, player--you should've asked if you didn't know what was being said.)
That said, if everyone gets their way, you get Smorgasbord: the Kitchen Sink RPG. That might be fun to play once, but I can't personally imagine doing that all the time. Everyone, players and GM included, need to compromise. If a player refuses to work with everyone else, whining when they don't get their way, they're probably too immature for any game I would run.
Completely--well, maybe not *completely*--
disagreed. You only get "Smorgasbord: the Kitchen Sink RPG" if you intentionally make
every single option commonplace, which is not at all the same thing as "if everyone gets their way." Let's say you have a group show up with a human cleric, a tiefling warlock, a dragonborn paladin, a dragonborn bard, and a half-orc fighter. At that point, you are not *obligated* to include
any other class or race in the game. Elves, dwarves? Might be non-existent, might be super-rare, might be the hated empire that everyone else is trying to topple. Monks, rogues, wizards? Might never exist, not as PC classes anyway (being "a thief" means "knowing how to use thieves' tools," not backstabbing, kind of thing).
Personally, I find it shocking that people can play in a single, highly-to-the-point-of-piquantly flavored campaign world for
over two decades. I have yet to play a single game meaningfully set in the same world as any prior game. (I say "meaningfully" because I technically have played two DW games in the same world, but we intentionally set the second on the opposite side of the world, and several decades offset, so that they would be as separate as possible from each other.) Even if you really do go for "absolutely everything is 100% in," why does "S:tKS" get boring after but a single run, despite being open to literally all possibilities, while does "Piquancy: The Flavoring" does
not?
