How to Tell a Player, "No"?

This is not the fault of the OP. No reasonable person thinks "I'm going to play a literal dinosaur" when they hear someone announce a D&D game. It's so far out there that I couldn't help but ask, "Are you $#%#ing with me right now?"
Yeah, I get someone trying to play an orc or something, but this was definitely out of left field.
 

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My First advice is I'd recommend you don't read this thread:


I would invite them to sit in on the first session and then decide on what they want to play - after the first game. Just so you can get a feel of them first and so they can see how a game plays. Let them peruse the options in the PHB.

Sidenote: So, there is a video game where you play a dinosaur. It's a survival MMO. maybe that's what they're hoping to get from this...
 
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Yeah, I looked up a Saurial 5E race, and offered it, but the suggestion was ignored, and I got the video game and hadrosaur stuff I posted earlier.
Yes, ok, he did not like the "official" saurial race. My point is you can take any race, or even make a new race...and call it a "dino" whatever. How it looks does not matter at all.
 


This is generally covered by me only allowing official material for player facing content and since the player is asking for something that doesn’t exist in the official rules of any D&D edition I am aware of, I would just explain it doesn’t exist in the rules and then steer them towards the options they actually do have. If possible help them find something that would allow them to play something as close as possible either mechanically (polymorph spells down the road, Druid wild shape) or thematically (barbarian who grew up isolated and thinks they’re a dinosaur).
 

For me, I list out the allowed resources and tell new players it's up to them to sell me on any variance. When they just suggest random stuff without any attempt to sell me on the idea, I refer them back to the list. If they persist, I tell them a flat no.

I do try to explain I'm trying to get everything to fit as 'naturally' as possible, but if I have to, a flat 'no' sometimes is needed.
 

Just tell the player that you are not comfortable with this for the first campaign you are running for the group. It seems that this one player is already causing you discomfort and sucking up your time trying to find ways to accommodate his wishes. Putting together a new campaign for a new group should be exciting and fun, not something that creates anxiety. Rip off the bandaid and just say no.

For me the issue isn't whether this is appropriate for D&D. If it fit into the kind of campaign I and most of my players wanted to play, I would find a way to make it work. But if it doesn't, I have no issues saying "sorry, but that doesn't fit in with our current campaign." If he is cool with that, I'll work with him to come up with something that works for him and the campaign. If he pushes back, I'm comfortable saying that this probably isn't the game he is looking for and moving on.

If the rejected player is friends with the other players and his being rejected from the game leads to push back from the other players, then you need to have a discussion on what kind of game they want to run. If they want to play in a campaign where a dinosaur character fits in, then you have to determine if you can rejigger the planned campaign to make it work or start from scratch with a new campaign. If you feel that you are unable to, or just don't want to, do that, you should suggest one of the other players DM.

If none of them want to because they are new to the game, if it were ME, I'm not going to be guilted into running a game that I'm not going to enjoy running. If I have to put a lot more work into prepping and running a campaign to accommodate the players' preferences, when I've already prepared a campaign that I thought we had all agreed on, I'm not going to enjoy all that extra work. Maybe when I was younger, but I'm too busy at this stage in my life. At this point, I would probably politely exit from the group. I would apologize and just state that I'm too busy. No gaming is better than bad gaming. But more than that, I can find good gaming online. I'm not going to get myself into running a game I don't enjoy, just to play in person.

In my over 10 years since getting back into gaming, I've never had this problem. With my first campaign, after getting back into TTRPGs with 5e, I had two old high school friends who were up for the game and then I posted a detailed call for players in a couple of game-related meetups. I wrote up a description of the campaign world and detailed character restrictions. I didn't have anyone contact me who wanted something different. For those who did reply, I had some back and forth over e-mail.

In every campaign since, I generally give 3-5 options for the next campaign and discuss with my players a few months before the current campaign is expected to wrap up. After we come to a consensus, I start preparing that campaign.
 

This is generally covered by me only allowing official material for player facing content and since the player is asking for something that doesn’t exist in the official rules of any D&D edition I am aware of

Sidekick rules from Tasha’s will let you play a dinosaur, I think velociraptor is 1/2 CR.
Not that I’d encourage someone to do that as their first character, but it’s doable within the rules.
 

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