The Power of "NO". Banned Races and Classes?

[Gilladian]

In the main campaign world I run, I do put some limits on races and classes:
No drow, gnomes or dragon-related races. I add grippli, catfolk and were-folk as playable races. Dwarves are heavily modified, and elves are slightly modified. Otherwise the standard PH 3.5e races are all fine.

No monks, oriental classes or paladins (replaced with my own knight prestige classes) - this rule changed slightly when we switched to running an E6 version of dnd - I started allowing paladin again, as prestige classes don't really work.

If I were to run another campaign setting my restrictions would probably change, as these rules are suited to that particular world, not to my permanent view of what's right/wrong for DnD.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I'm down with just about anything. In fact when players want to use non-setting races in a specific campaign I challenge them to come up with a creative justification or reskinning, and they often do.

That said, I have a very strict No-Gnomes policy.

 

[Greg K]

It depends on the campaign. I have run campaigns that were humans only.
Rather than list what I don't use, I will list what I allow

For 3e
I, typically use the following : Dwarves, Elves*, Gnomes, Half-Elf, Halfling, Humans, Lizardman (depending upon campaign, also Half-orc and Half-Ogre)
*My version of dark elves are elves with a different skin color/hair color, and different favored class

For 3e classes, I use the following or some subset of depending upon campaign: Barbarian (including the Unearthed Arcana Crafty Hunter variant), Bard (including the Arcane Sage, Divine Bard, and Savage Bard (Unearthed Arcana Variants), Cleric (with DMG tailored spell lists variant and by deity Cloistered Cleric UA and homebrew variant classes), Fighter, Paladin (including non-spell casting variant from Complete Champion), Ranger (including non-spell casting variant from Complete Champion and the UA Urban Ranger), Rogue (including Martial Rogue and Wilderness Rogue UA Variants), Sorcerer, Wizard

I also use the Oriental Adventures Shaman with a few tweaked abilities (replaces the Monk), Hong's Knight (an OA Samurai variant), and the following classes from Green Ronin: Holy Warrior, Psychic (instead of the WOTC Psionics classes), Shaman (instead of the Druid and WOTC's Spirit Shaman), Thaumaturge (DM only which replaces the Warlock), and Witch (also replaces the Druid).


If I ran 4e, my typical list would be
Races: Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Human

Classes: Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock (GM only except for Feylock which would be allowed for PCs too), Warlord, Wizard, Barbarian (no elemental based powers), Bard, Invoker, Shaman, Sorcerer.

 

[Stormonu]

I wouldn't say that I ban, but I certainly discourage anything that wouldn't obviously fit. It's then up to the player to come up with an acceptable story why/how that character got there. I have even on some occasions helped players come up with something when they suggest something wild (but awesome) but have trouble articulating a good idea of fitting it into the group.

Outwardly, I've made it clear "no evil". But that's because I don't want to explain that I'll even allow evil so long as it doesn't turn into a 'screw all the other players and go join the villain out of spite'.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

I like distinctive campaigns and worlds and I'm not a fan of getting "D&D" into my D&D, so there's almost always some changes to character options.

I've done a bunch of human-only worlds and they're probably my favorites. I usually ditch halflings as too LotRsy and subraces of elves other than "elf" as too elfy. I don't think I've run a game for a dwarf character in close to 20 years, but that's been a lot of player preference. I'm also a big fan of kit-bashing one or two common races for worlds to make them even more distinctive: gargoyles, harpies, weresharks, arcane minotaurs, living illusions, etc.

As for classes, I almost always get rid of clerics with a generic caster class picking up healing and support spells. I hate just about everything about the class in every edition of D&D--fluff, mechanics, everything. I like the druid better, but dislike the implementation in most (all) editions. I've got various rewritten versions that I use along with vastly reduced spell lists for all casters.

If a player comes up with a concept that doesn't fit the world, I always try to work with them to reach a compromise or offer world-friendly alternatives that the player might enjoy.

Oh...and I outright ban evil, self-serving characters; inter-party scheming and backstabbing; and brooding loner characters with hair-trigger tempers. D&D is based around group adventuring and you're responsible for coming up with a reason and a willingness to interact with the group.

 

[The Human Target]

Yeah, I do ban evil.

I don't need that headache.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't like using Monks, because I find the presence of one only oriental type of character in an otherwise western inspired setting annoying. I love Monks in an oriental setting without western classes. I would be totally fine with Monks in a truly kitchen-sink fantasy setting that also has other non-western classes such as shamans or witch-doctors. But just one class is out of tune.

I am not a fan of half-races. I like bloodline-types such as aasimars and tieflings, but not half-X or stuff like dragonborn.

I hate Warforged in general. Too much sci-fi or pulp for my taste, and I don't like mixing fantasy with other genres in D&D.

However, I also do run kitchen-sink games or vanilla settings, in which case I probably allow anything. But in that case I'm not going to spend much effort in trying to establish consistency to such setting. IOW, if you want to eat a soup that tastes like everything, I can cook it for you, but then you can't pretend to sort out a consistent flavor

BTW, I really appreciate that WotC is presenting 5e races as "Common" and "Uncommon". Makes it feel like the job of the DM is to choose what to include rather than what to ban.

 

[Yora]

I always create whitelists with classes and races that exist in the setting of the campaign. Everything else can't be played because it does not exist.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Actually, thinking it, I DO have a banned list. That is, any Class outside of the Player’s Handbook not pertaining to a specific setting.

What I mean by that is that I hope D&D doesn’t go down the route of previous editions by creating loads and loads of crunchy books with extra Classes to the point that you end up with a bazzillion of them. If a setting specifically has particular Classes central to it, then I’d consider them, but otherwise 12 should be enough.

Races are slightly more adaptable, to a degree - if people look at a particular adaptable creature from the Monster Manual then I’d consider it - but again, no more splatbooks please.

 

[wedgeski]

I've DM'd for two different kender PC's. If they can be made to work, anything can be made to work. I've never banned a race or class.

Evil groups, though, no. Not under my roof, ever.