(This is not personally directed at anybody)
Actually there is a high strong emotional component. But this is not because I need the big corporation to hug me; I have no problem with WotC. The problem is with the community at large. There is a strong judgemental current in mainstream D&D right now. Why not kitbash and homebrew? I don't know maybe because I don't want to be labeled a munchkin? I don't want to be judged? I don't want to feel like what I want is wrong?
I find this attitude is everywhere. Any deviation from dogma is quickly splashed and punished. There is too much fear of doing things wrong and of wanting the wrong things. There is also too much pressure to blindly accept all of the trappings of the edition, yet "do D&D your own way". (In other words if you are not owning D&D, you are doing it wrong, but at the same time if your way is not my way, something is wrong with you)
Stop munchkin shaming and labeling as entitled brats any and all dissent, and you will find people will be more open to do their own stuff -just remember it will be their own stuff-. On the other hand keep up with the munchkin stigma and more and more DMs an players will cling into the orthodoxy of official.
I'm not seeing the same attitude you are - which is not, I hasten to add, an assertion that it doesn't exist. It sucks that it's been making your experiences less fun.
It's kind of a tricky needle to thread, I'm sure, because actual bonafide munchkinism is a legitimate problem, and one of the unfortunate legacies of 3e is that there's a small subset of players who found it gave them exactly the tools they needed for powergaming in a kind of toxic way. It's made some folks gunshy, especially when they're seeing bunch of folks from 3e who were lost to the subsequent edition coming back now, and it's not always obvious, when folks start asking for more options, which ones are doing so in order to be wangrods. And it's a shame when players who just want something cool that the main-sequence rules don't model get caught in the same net.
I'm guilty of having this feeling. It isn't I want a personal apology or anything, but feeling acknowledged and included would be nice given that so far all of my preferences are fringe at best. Official stuff and designer input has an effect on what the players at large see as bad and wrong. Being normalized in an environment where munchkin shaming is rampant would be so so nice.
I dunno if this helps, but sometimes just owning that what you dig is kinda fringe-y is liberating all by itself. I mean, it won't get you what you want any faster, but it might help temper your expectations when it comes to how you relate to the corporate tastemaker. A whole bunch of my musical interests are well outside the mainstream and are never going to be validated by the local Top 40 station; so I have to shrug and say, "Well, I guess my tastes are weird and unfashionable," and listen to my own albums instead. Yes, it means I have to be that much more confident that what I like is okay, so I don't need the validation from elsewhere; but it also keeps me from getting annoyed that the pop radio outlet never plays any Current 93.
Of course, here's where the parallel breaks down, because games are social and if you want to be able to actually
play what you like, you need buy-in at the table. So ....
I think I could get something perfectly good for what I want and need given enough time. But it wouldn't do me any good. You see whatever I homebrew becomes a nice thing in my DM toolbox, a new option that can help my players express the characters they want to express. Yet, I cannot get any DM to even consider allowing my homebrew into their games (just how do you do that? I don't even know how would I start that conversation on a way that didn't sound as if I'm looking for an unfair advantage)
... So there's nothing wrong with just using your words and saying, "Hey, DM, none of the PHB options are
quite modeling what I really want to play. Would you be willing to work with me to come up with a new class or variant that fits what I'm looking for?"
It goes without saying that there's no script for this that guarantees you'll get a Yes. But there's nothing about that approach that says "I Am A Munchkin And I Wish To Break Your Game." It's a perfectly reasonable request and there's no good cause to dismiss it out of hand if your relationship with your DM is built on mutual trust and respect.
Which means the bad news is that if what you're getting is outright rejection, something is wrong. Maybe the DM doesn't know you well enough and would like you to play something more by-the-book to get a sense of how you play before they're willing to let you get under the hood. Maybe they've been burned recently by one or more special-snowflake powergamers whose custom stuff was broken or disruptive, or maybe there's a known munchkin at the table who's going to throw a fit if you get to tinker and he doesn't, so the DM just can't make any exceptions - and that's not your fault, or fair to you, but those are real things that are cause for concern from the DM's side of the screen. Maybe the DM's not confident in their own system-hacking skills, and so knows they'll have a hard time telling if your homebrew is broken in a non-obvious way. Or, yanno, maybe your DM's just a wangrod. It happens. And if you suspect this last is the case, that's the cue to hie thee hence, because life is too short to game with wangrods.
BUT, if you can establish that relationship of mutual trust and respect, you should at least be able to get an audience for your request. You may have to negotiate a little; you may have to make a few compromises. But it really can be a conversation and not just begging for scraps. And if you're unsure of yourself in a negotiation of this kind and want some additional beneficial guidance, may I recommend the book
Getting to Yes as an excellent starting point for adding these tools to your social toolkit?
