Ah, see, now you're making the mistake of assuming that everybody plays "home" games. I happen to play a lot of Adventurer's League, and anything that is valid in AL is valid at any AL table. DM's do not have the option of saying, "Sorry, no Drow at my table." So if the rules are a "full" larder than any AL game can consist of any random combination of those ingredients.
I put in too much stuff to make a larger point that you are now focusing in on. That is not the point.
The point is that people want a much more restricted game.
The game now mechanically allows female halfling fighters to not suck. This is what's distasteful, and is being - unfairly, in bad faith - exaggerated into 'WOOHOO ANYTHING GOES!!!!1'.
Surely (hopefully?) you don't think that D&D should be so polymorphic that it can faithfully replicate Lovecraftian, Gothic Horror, Star Wars, and cyberpunk genres? If not, then you acknowledge that games shouldn't try to be everything.
If my point was about those, I would have mentioned them.
And once we're in agreement on that, the breadth that any one game should cover is a matter of opinion. And between the two positions of "it lessens my experience to have all these extra elements present" and "it lessens my experience to be prevented from using those extra elements" there is no moral upper ground. Each side is putting their own preferences ahead of others.
Ah, NOW I see where you are trying to paint this. And you are missing the point entirely.
The new players want to say 'at my game I want a Female Halfling Fighter to be as viable as any other gender/race/class.' The new players appreciate rules that are flexible enough to allow those kinds of character choices.
The old players are freaking out and morally judging.
The old players want to roll back the rules to bias against that kind of play to make certain types mechanically deficient.
And, people like you are trying to make it a false equivalence.
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