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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guardsmith" data-source="post: 2983908" data-attributes="member: 19119">Hello all,FYI, this is my first time doing something like (by that I mean posting here to get people’s opinions), so please gentle with me.After a recent TPK, my group (3 players and me, the DM) contemplated what we wanted to do next. One player found the Justiciar of Tyr (FR god of justice and such) and wanted to try it. After doing some research, I found that Tyr and his church often work alongside two other churches, those of Torm (god of duty and loyalty) and Ilmater (god of endurance and martyrdom). So, I thought “three gods, three characters, this could fit nicely” and said this to the players regarding characters:“… the characters would need to be members of the churches of the gods in question. Ideally, since there are three gods and three PCs it would be nice if we could get one from each.Obviously, the best characters would be clericsand paladins, but convincing cases could be madefor other classes. For example, all three deitieshave knightly orders associated with them, whichmight include fighters and similar classes, andIlmater even has a sect of monks known the BrokenOnes.”With Player 1’s character already chosen, player 2 wanted to give the new Knight class (from PHB2) a whirl, and we thought that Torm would be a natural choice. Player 3, left with Ilmater and who had mentioned wanting to play a monk in the past, instead chose … a spiked chain fighter. As you might guess, I was a bit surprised, but that was just the beginning; he wanted to use the rogue variant class, from Unearthed Arcana, that exchanged the rogue’s sneak attacks for a fighter’s bonus feats. Then he also wanted to take the Jotunbrud feat from Races of Faerun, which made him seven feet tall and be considered a size large creature whenever it would be to his advantage. Needless to say, he makes a hell of a chain fighter, with a staggering +21 to chance to disarm (weapon finesse feat, two handed weapon bonus on disarm and a couple of others that I forget at the moment).Well, I hemmed and I hawed, and tried to let him know that I didn't think this really fit with my idea of a servant of Ilmater or the campaign. Then he hemmed and hawed, and said some stuff about trying to play-up a "reckless martyr" type and this being the character he wanted to play. In the end, however, I let him keep it, mainly because I’d been called “too controlling” a DM in the past (when I questioned a couple things in one of Player 1’s earlier character’s background), but it still makes me uncomfortable and I don't think it fits.So, my question to you guys is this … given the situation, would I have been a cruel and heartless DM to tell him that he couldn’t play this character, or would that be stifling a player’s freedom to play the kind of character they want to play?Once again, I’m new to asking for other opinions like this, so please be gentle.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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