Limiting Character Options - The When & the Why

Recently, RPG Match on Twitter posed the following question in of of their prolific polls: 

 

 

Clearly, the majority of the 1,627 participants felt that, "Yes, they definitely should." I found this question interesting enough to blog about for the following reasons:

1. I've run into this question on many occasions and have dealt with it inconsistently. 
2. I DM mostly for kids, which makes one feel like a mean bully for vetoing anything.
   
3. The reactions seen in the replies were as visceral as one would expect from Twitter, but quite thought provoking. 

In thinking about this question, preparing to engage the poll myself, and considering my past actions and self-reflection on this topic, I came up with a rule of thumb to guide our approach to this that I believe answers a lot of the replies I saw. There are great arguments to be made for and against vetoing character ideas, but as it is with most things, the real answer is somewhere in the middle.

Why not veto character ideas?

I've made the statement here and to my school administrators many times that D&D is exceptionally inclusive. In fact, I would argue that the current explosion in popularity of D&D that has brought it out of dying obscurity, even more so than the 5th edition rules, is the inclusive and accepting culture that has sprung up around it, thanks to things like "Critical Role". Not only has Critical Role normalized D&D, bringing it into the zeitgeist, but it's also normalized unique and creative characters, from Goblins to Robots to Fauns. The cast works outside of the box in more than pronouns when creating their characters. If a child or young adult is coming to your table looking for acceptance and freedom of expression that they may not be getting elsewhere, vetoing their character idea may be turning them off from this hobby from the get-go. This is, I believe, the basis for reactions like these:

 

Clearly there's a lot of negative feelings around limiting self-expression in any form these days, and even the grognardiest of grognards have to admit that the community that's driving the growth of our hobby is one of acceptance over limitation. 

Why veto character ideas? 

As Mr. Welch notes in this video on setting, what you don't include is almost as important as what you do include! 

 

In this reaction to the Dragonlance UA put out by Wizards of the Coast, Mr. Welch makes what I think is a great point about world building and developing the flavor of a setting or campaign. "An inherent danger to kitchen sink settings [is] if you include everything you look like every other kitchen sink sitting out there. When everything is allowed nothing stands out!" (Mr. Welch). 

I can get behind this idea just as much as I can get behind empowering players with choice, giving the freedom to express themselves in unique ways. I came to D&D in the 2E days where there were so many unique settings that you could play D&D every night of the week, all in campaigns with a totally unique feel. BECMI had Mystara and the Hollow World. AD&D had Faerun, Krynn, Oerth, Athas, Aebrynis, Wildspace, and even the outer and inner planes of the multiverse. 

The space between

So what's the right answer? As usual, I feel the answer can be found in a more thoughtful nuanced approach found somewhere in between these two ideas. As I mentioned earlier, I've dealt with this inconsistently. 

 

In my Tuesday night Dragon Heist group, I denied a warforged and centaur character, mainly on the premise that we were playing a campaign focused on role playing and exploration in a city, where most combats were going to be fast-paced non-lethal skirmishes in the streets with light weapons and armor. I did have in mind that warforged are from Eberron and we were playing on the Sword Coast of Faerun, but the real reason was the fact that I thought the player would be bored. 

 

In my Monday night group, I have three players that wanted to play characters that were Fey-touched in some way. First of all, we're playing Ghosts of Saltmarsh, which is set in Greyhawk by default. Second, I strongly dislike the Feywild concept shoehorned into the already complete D&D cosmology in recent years. Probably my *second most unpopular opinion about D&D is my strong dislike of the whole Fey thing (please don't block me). Still, WoTC is all about it. Further, This would have zero negative impact on the game in general or the players enjoyment of the world and the story. Finally, I don't know that their enjoyment of the whole "fey-thing" has any impact on me anyway. Hence, I not only let them do this, but I sat there and enthusiastically listened to each of their stories about how their characters were fey-touched because that's my job as DM.

 

Finally, I have come to the following conclusion, that I shared on Twitter in response to this survey:

 

There it is. Simple, I know, but worth repeating: I have to constantly ask myself, "is this for the good of the table and everyone’s experience, or is this about my personal preference and dislikes?" We're building this story together and the ideas of others interacting with the story in surprising ways is what makes it fun and fresh for me, the DM. Looking back, I may have even tried harder to work in the Centaur & Warforged, with the warning that this campaign may not work well with their overall character concepts, which basically centered around them being absolutely lethal battle tanks. Perhaps we could have come up with something that fit. 

*Probably my least popular opinion on D&D is my total boredom and disinterest with anything "Ravenloft / Domains of Dread / Van Richten / Gothic horror garbage. It's just not my thing even more than the Feywild isn't my thing. A good look at the books being sold by Wizards of the Coast, though, reveals that most of my players have the opposite opinion. So, that's something I hve to come to grips with as a DM. There it is. Please don't block me.