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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9829805" data-attributes="member: 6790260">A point I can certainly grant. By that same token, however, this example kinda gives a good reason why leaning toward inclusive, even if you still restrict things, is wise. As GM, it makes your life a lot easier when collaborating with players (a collaboration which need not be rewriting your setting much if at all!), and as a player it makes you less likely to put stumbling blocks in front of other players.Because like, what happens if we turn the tortle-hating example into something like, the party coincidentally was made up of one halfling, two elves, and two dwarves, so one of the elves takes "Human" as her favored enemy, who hates spellcasters because an accident at Wizard college killed her brother. What happens when someone joins the group and wants to play a Human Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard, Artificer, etc.? Wasn't it kinda crappy of Miss Humanhater MacCasterkiller to create a character hostile to other players' choices?Seems to me that it would behoove a GM to say "hey maybe don't hate entire PHB species and broad class categories" to that, because one of these concepts is just the individual player enjoying something, and the other is a player pursuing a preference which locks other players out of things, or actively makes other players unwelcome in the group. That seems like a pretty reasonable line to draw for when something crosses over from mere "preference" and into "problem". Of course, this comparison only works between two regular players, the reasoning doesn't directly apply to GMs.Personally, I still find it so bizarre how GMs seem to want to nail down every square inch of their world, leaving no place with anything the GM doesn't already know to the smallest stitch. That doesn't sound like a setting to me; it sounds like a prewritten play that I get to watch unfold, I just happened to be allowed to name and voice one of the characters in it. I find it hard to see the difference between such incredibly restrictive "curation" and simply running down the rails of the GM's unpublished novel. It gives me the feeling that the GM isn't even remotely interested in anything I care about, and if there's ever a gap between what I want and what the GM wants, I will always be dismissed, shame on me for having wanted anything the GM wasn't offering. Etc.It's fine to have a few bright lines. But such lines should be used extremely judiciously, only with significant forethought, deployed because there truly is an enormous gain for such a sharp cost. The way people talk about them, it seems like GMs want nothing BUT bright lines. They want rule systems that barely have rules at all, and campaigns so full of restrictions your choices are limited to like sixteen total. (Four races, four classes.)</blockquote>

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