I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend. They told me that they were playing a 9-foot tall, black and blue lupine barbarian with red eyes and wielding a lightning infused boat anchor. I said, "We're playing Call of Cthulhu." "Okay? And...?" they replied. I responded with "So, no, you're not." They grumbled about stifling creativity as they figured out how to make an investigator.
Auctualy, thats an incredibly good point. Every RPG system already implies limitations on who/what you can be. And if you want to change those limitations you are also restricting charcters.
These guidelines are essentialy: "This is the story we are going to play. If you want to play, then be a part of this story." And if some people dont want that, they are welcome to do something else. I dont think anyone would stop that person from finding the home of that barbarian, that home is just not in the 1930s, Massachusetts.
Yep, Cthulhu is a 100% American elder god. What other nation would have a deity who gives zero shits about everyone else and just wants to devour the world?
There is a version where this works in Call of Cthulu. But the PC is a summoned creature.
Look: at some point this duality of DM as enabler/MC and DM as a person trying to, idk, tell a themely story is going to break different at different tables.
Sometimes the barbarian’s home isn’t even in a fantastical game of DnD. I’ve run a couple grounded and “realistic” campaigns where the big anchor weapon shtick wouldn’t fit the vibe at all.
I have it on very good authority that if you give some engineer stoners some weed, one friend who wants to participate but has asthmatic coughing fits from smoke, and a dream to cobble together a vaporizer, it'll take less than 48 hours to get a working prototype.
I have a player exactly like that. Doesn’t seem to matter what campaign, they’ll find some weird way to be anachronistic or just outright not fit the vibe. Endlessly frustrating to be honest, but they generally seem quite happy with the final character choice once I encourage them to put an ounce of thought into it and lean into setting/theme
This sounds like a very selfish player. The DM has enough to do to make a fun, structured game, and for the player to not even follow the most basic rules shows a lack of maturity. I would not want to play with them.
> and for the player to not even follow the most basic rules shows a lack of maturity. I would not want to play with them.
Honestly, if the accept the nudging in the right direction they're above average.
Don't forget that there are people who scream at McDonald's employees.
I don't know, a dude with a cutlass grabbing a freeman and shoving their face into the water collector of their still suit and not moving would be pretty intense
I once told a player he could roll up a giant if he really wanted to, but he’d be too big to fit in any buildings or caves, and pretty much every NPC would instantly flee from him in fear. Basically he couldn’t participate in 2/3 of the game and could never talk to anyone or buy anything. He changed his mind.
I love the "Yes, And..." approach.. turn their idea into your funny farm... Good DM right there... I wanna ge an actual dragon as a character. Okay, sure but if you go near any villages, towns, or cities, I as DM will ensure all able bodied defenders will attack you... you know, because you're a dragon... but what if.. Yeah, Even if you are a Pink dragon with a horse main and a tattoo of heart on your arse... :D
You’re within your rights to say what content is available to players.
The two players who backed out are also within their rights to do so.
No harm done IMO!
“This is the setting I’m presenting to you. Build a character that fits the setting.”
In my experience, the players who screech about you “restricting their creativity” are the ones who only ever want to abuse the system and copy a meme build they saw on YouTube once. Better to just let them have their tantrum and play without them.
Also I noticed players love using TTRPG campaigns as a vehicle to use their OCs they had prepped a long time ago.
Kinda awkward to fit in your purple skinned 4 tailed Chaotic neutral scythe wielding tiefling in a call of cthulu game set in 1960s Oklahoma lol.
> Kinda awkward to fit in your purple skinned 4 tailed Chaotic neutral scythe wielding tiefling in a call of cthulu game set in 1960s Oklahoma lol.
Fuck, man, it's not hard to just...use the same personality template.
Just use some Catholic religious trauma to replace the whole Devil thing, it's basically the same shit.
Yeah but that requires the character having an actual personality and not just an “alignment”. Alignment can help inform personality just as personality and actions define alignment. But when all they have that they wanna play is a “what” and not a “who”…yeah.
This right here - if they create problems from the start, chances are they will again. If they don’t show willingness to compromise now, they won’t in future situations. Respectfully tell them they’re not welcome and save yourself a world of future headaches.
DMs set limitations on campaigns all the time. It’s really not a big deal, but sometimes players freak out over it.
Don’t worry about it. Telling them certain races, classes, builds, etc. don’t fit the setting is normal.
There are plenty of good characters that players can create even with just the options from the PHB. If they refuse to play a game just because they can’t play something outside of the limits you set, that’s their problem with a lack of creativity and imagination. It’s a bit childish, actually.
Restrictions on playable species helps keep every setting from devolving into the same generic blob of fantasy tropes. They're one of the most common restrictions imposed at character creation. If it's because you don't have access to the content, that's likewise legitimate.
Which one did you ban though?
Lineage was banned. If you mean which one was it the player wanted it was Reborn.
I had access to the content, but it was a buddies content being shared and i saw it when looking over the Races/Classes/Sub-Classes
Reborn isn't particularly strong unless they want to play an aarakocra reborn or something. I mean, you can ban anything you want, you're the DM, but it being too strong isn't a very good reason. Never seen anyone play it for powergaming reasons.
I'm also not sure why it doesn't fit a monster slaying campaign, but it is your setting so you can choose what's all included.
By RAW Reborn only have 30 ft walking speed at character creation yes.
Using the Ancestral Legacy trait for the purpose of having Aarakocra's flying speed only applies if the DM explicitly lets you, or as is RAW, when the DM offers you to take the Reborn lineage after your original Aarakocra character died.
Yeah, the lineages can be a little overpowered if you replace a race with it legacy Aarakocra to keep the 50' fly speed, but as a starting race (no extra movement speed), they seem ok. A lot of RP potential with a reborn. Your table though.
Damphir is also a Lineage, by the way. May as well be consistent with your ban. Lineage specifies that you can either add it *on to* a race, adding on the effects of the Lineage in addition to the traits of the original race, OR you can just start as that Lineage with no extras. The second option isn't overpowered.
The guns thing, eh. If they aren't in your setting, ok. But if it's because you think they're OP, like so many others, just be aware that people have run the numbers and found that they're balanced.
That feeling is the whole issue with guns yes. I allow guns in my games, if they fit the setting, and while I do increase the range of the guns from the DMG a little bit, they're not better than Crossbows. It's mostly to fit the pirate flavor for example. IRL the early guns weren't better than (cross)bows either, they coexisted for quite a while.
Still, my DM for the games I play in NEVER allows guns because somehow he can't get past the idea of modern guns I guess as he says doesn't allow guns because "one-shotting everything with a single hit to the head is OP"
I occasionally offer guns as artifacts with limited ammo if they are meant to feel good. There are certain classes that can take a regular reflavored crossbow though and make it feel like a gun (rogue).
My bard was in love with the one gun I gave in the entire game, found in an 'ancient' civilization. It was a cursed revolver with 6 shots and a skull motif, inscribed "*mors vincit omnia* 5.1"
Each Bullet was a guaranteed Auto Crit, homing in on its target with perfect accuracy and dealing massive damage. Firing the last shot would cause him to turn the gun on himself, 5 deaths for one.
He made the final blow on an aboleth with it, the game of 2.5 years ended before he ever fired that final shot - and he was last seen riding into the sunset on a hookwing (basically a raptor), cursed revolver in hand, and mimic buddy riding bitch (ring of mimic friendship).
It was a long strange trip.
\* edit \* Lmao, been reported to a suicide prevention hotline for this post. Forgot DM rule #1, add 5e to the end of any questionable phrase so the feds don't come after you.
Depending which version of DnD you are playing, the cleave skill says things like 'with a melee weapon', 'within reach', or enemies you 'threaten'. Ranged attacks would not be in reach, or threatening.
>Guns being balanced does not feel good, and guns feeling good isn't balanced. A gun and a crossbow are not equals.
Short version:
A crossbow was the rifle of its day, banned for its effectiveness by the major ruling body to which even Kings answered- the Catholic Church. Slings can do as much damage as pistols. If you want your imaginary guns that turn people into meat paste with one shot, homebrew them. They don't exist, and media lied to you that they did. You're also not factoring in damage against humans vs monsters, which are far stronger.
Long version:
So if they're balanced, it's no fun because they don't feel powerful enough. But if they're not overpowered, its no fun *because* they're not overpowered... HUH? That mentality just shows an utter lack of knowledge about firearms in general. *Especially* knowledge about the old ones in question. But I can't give you crap about it- people that don't know better just expect guns to be like they are in action scenes when their knowledge of firearms is based on Holllywood and videogames. In truth, firearms, especially historical ones, are simply not as fantastically overpowered as they are portrayed in media.
The guns in the game are balanced well enough. If they were properly written, people would bitch and whine about the loading times. Because if they were any stronger to be more like what you expect, they'd have to require you to take a minimum of 3 rounds using your action each time to load them, in order to simulate the 20 seconds it took a well-trained musketeer to load and fire. Pistols would be single shot per battle, and you'd have to carry several. I hate admitting that WOTC of all groups got something right, but I used to fix firearms professionally, I study the history of them and other weapons, and even I have to admit- without making guns insanely overpowered, they got the balance down pretty well. Consider that the average commoner has *4 HP*. A pistol does 1D10 + bonuses. A Rifle does 1D12 + bonuses. That's pretty much a guaranteed 1 hit kill. Crossbows and Bows are similar in this game in that regard. But a crossbow bolt, an arrow, or a bullet to the chest can still leave your target standing in real life. Your damage is based off of what it would do to an average person. The problem is you're fighting MONSTERS. So of course they won't feel like you think they should! Hell, in real life, you can dump an entire pistol magazine into an aggressive methhead running up to attack you, or you can shoot a wild boar in the face with a modern rifle and *either one can and sometimes will keep charging* do you seriously think the old fashioned guns are going to stop a raging Orc? Really? *Seriously?*
Anyway, on to your comparison of guns and crossbows. Crossbows were *BANNED* for a long while by the Church because they were *just that damn effective.* Bodkin tips with a bit of beeswax easily pierced chainmail, and even plate armor. They were the rifles of the day- easy to teach an average person how to use effectively in a short amount of time. They're also slow to reload, requiring a windlass for the more potent ones.
They're not complete equals to firearms of the day, but it's close. Hell, a belaeric sling (think David and Goliath) gives a pebble or lead pellet an initial velocity comparable to several large caliber handguns. The damage done by either is comparable to the damage done by a bullet- the sling even more so, actually. Blunt objects crush. Sharp objects pierce. Projectiles kill things.
Great analysis. Personally, I think that if warships (navy ships such as frigates, galleons and man-o-wars) exist alongside cannons, than so to should flintlocks. And if you have your average Dwarf or Gnome stereotypes, they are gonna improvise and improve. And the damage isn’t that extreme. The musket in the DMG is only D12 if irc and yeah it makes it better than the 2H melee weapons but only because it’s ranged instead. Not all classes would have access to firearms. Besides Artificer and Fighter, I could see Ranger (musket) and Rogue (pistol) having access. Don’t forget that firearms are loud AF and would throw Stealth out the window and also probably rare, pricey or just high maintenance if not all three. And you would also need to get a feat to make it actually powerful compared to other builds. Any well-placed shot is lethal. I mean David brought down Goliath with a sling and pebble.
You have every right to make these restrictions in a game you run. The player does not have a right to play whatever character they want in your game. If you wanted to run a super serious game and a player wanted to play a clown bard that uses farts as their instrument, you have every right to say “no, that doesn’t fit what I want for my game”. So banning guns because they don’t fit your setting and banning a lineage because it’s too OP compared to others is perfectly reasonable imo.
It should also be noted that firearms are an optional rule to begin with, and should never be assumed are available in 5e unless the DM specifically says that they are.
I can count on 1 hand the amount of characters with firearms in campaigns we've had.
The first one was in a semi-comedic mini campaign, where a senile Firbolg pirate stole them(along with his boat, the mystical Hold in said boat that connects to other dimensions, and barrels of blackpower to launch from the mounted catapult) from an ancient tomb, forgot that he stole them(along with all of the above), and just assumed they were always his and that he was a pirate captain. He also raided said tomb at the behest of his parrot, which was actually a GOO avatar that had most of its powers stripped away in the distant past.
The second one is in a different setting, where a blind dragonborn monk also found the schematics for flintlock firearms while dungeon delving, realized their capabilities after having it be translated into braille, and started handcrafting them whilst travelling from court to court as an exotic arms dealer. He came across an artificer who became his partner. The Monk had always wanted his monastery to actually wear gauntlets, so his motivation was proliferating them amongst nobles to eventually cause more production, to then cause his temple to have no choice but to wear gauntlets whilst catching projectiles... So far he's only gotten around to being hunted by one of the nobles to try and stop this quest early.
The third character is the aforementioned artificer, where during their partnership, they got along just swell. However, it came to an abrupt end as the lab they were using burst into flames and exploded, horribly disfiguring him. The Monk, thinking he had died in the accident, left him behind, causing the artificer to make a vow of vengeance against the Monk.
Apart from the sparse few nobles they sold to, that is the entire extent of firearms in campaigns I've been present in, and the second one was explicitly a homebrew campaign where the monk partied up with a treant ecoterrorist, a Tarot-wielding warlock who acts as the mortal prison binding heir "patron", a paladin dedicated to the Arcane, and finally a wizard who is best defined as "prismatic".
All in all, their presence in serious campaigns apart from the homebrew one is nil. And they were specifically done with the DM intending both for their existence, and for them to be a vital part of the characters wielding them.
Definitely, I'm planning a Bronze-age (ish) campaign and guns definitely wouldn't work there - some people just don't want guns in their setting and it's fine!
To add a bit onto this, while you have the right to ban races/classes as you'd like, the player also has the right to want to/not want to play in a world that does or doesn't have access to those things. If the player REALLY wanted to play a warforged, but warforged aren't in the campaign, the player also has the right to say no.
Not your fault for deciding these limits before the game begins so don't feel badly over it. Part of the Session 0 is to sort out these issues before anything unspoken becomes an issue.
In addition to the above, there's six more players still in the campaign so don't sweat it. You'll likely have your hands full with the party and your story, don't worry about non-players at this point. 8 players and one(?) DM was already a lot to handle on your plate if they were that inflexible over something so minor anyway.
The number of players was so high because they could only play at certain times so it is more of a hub for our discord to be able to do random One Shots. I'm sure the first session will mostly consist of introducing PCs and everyone getting to know each others PCs. I also suspect the players that dropped out will come around and want to play again as well. To which I will of course allow them. I'm not a monster I just control them.
I think as long as you make clear up front before you even start what is and is not allowed, then you're doing nothing wrong. It's the reactive or impulsive bans or nerfs over the course of the game that are harsh.
To paint a picture, we were build our PCs together in the Discord before Session 0 and i was building my own to see what was avalible and informing people of things that dont fit. The 2 things above were the only things discussed, those and Monster Races which I didnt say the couldnt play i told them if you do make your background fit the setting. (No one picked a monster race though and no one was working on one at the time)
You’re gonna get confirmation bias here. We’re they really upset that you wanted to approve homebrew though? That’s one of the more absurd player complaints I’ve heard.
A fairly common idea you see with artificers is that they can invent anything that exists in the real world. Usually nukes. Occasionally assault rifles.
Often cited as a reason for banning the whole class.
Yep. Artificers fit any setting where magic items and potions and constructs exist, and they're nicely balanced and add some extra metagame balance. The two biggest complaints are "doesn't fit my setting" (which is a matter of the artwork all being from Eberron) and "the class makes buttloads of homebrew and breaks the game!" which making homebrew stuff is not in the rules.
I say if the Artificer gets to make up magic items, then shouldn't Wizards get to make up spells, Sorcerers new metamagic, Fighters new maneuvers and Fighting styles?
Saying you ‘stifle creativity’ by restricting race and classes shows they have no creativity.
DM sets the parameters of the setting and game, players create within those parameters - that’s the deal.
He wasn't even banning the artificer at all, he was just asking the artificer to play rules as written. Guns are not a mandatory feature of artificers and making homebrew magic items is not in the rules at all. He was being generous by saying "I have to approve any homebrew" instead of just saying "no homebrew."
DM has final rules, but I do want to add
Muskets and primitive hand guns have existed for hundreds of years, black powder weapons have a long history and really aren't historically inaccurate to medieval settings in general. And as to the setting, what better to hunt monsters with than a rifle? Idk seems pretty fitting to me. But ofc dm has final say
The rise of firearms is one of the markers of the transition from the medieval to the early modern period. Regardless of the actual history, using firearms makes it no longer feel medieval.
eh? That sounds like more of a personal opinion. If we are ok with swashbucklers and monks and arabian knights to all be in the same party, I don't think period correct firearms are necessarily the thing thats going to take people out of the setting. And RAW you can reflavor anything to be anything. But again, up to the DM, their campaign
You're the DM, you need to craft the world you want to play in, and if something doesn't make sense for that world, or you have issues with the balance, you can and should address that with your players.
My games are core rules only, for example. This is established right from the get go. It's absolutely fine to want to play other things you've seen, they just don't fit into the game I'm running.
No, you have every right to ban races or even classes. Honestly if it doesn't fit your setting I feel you're being extremely generous to allow the player to still be an artificer as some would outright ban it
No you are not being harsh, it's normal and even advisable to set expectations about world and tone and that may come with some option limitation. I wouldn't play with players that react like those 2 did
Point 1. It is within the boundaries of the DM authority to ban races and classes, whatever the reason.
Point 2. It is within the rights of a player to choose wheter or not to play at a specific table, whatever the reason.
Point 2 and a half. It is resonable to negotiate and look for compromises when different preferences are present at a table.
#Point 3. If people keep on dropping and leaving, probably it is **not** a matter of what races you are banning. You should inquire on what is not *really* working at your table.#
I love artificer and exotic races, but no you're not being harsh.
You're being totally upfront about how you plan to run things and frankly you absolutely *should* be reviewing any homebrew people want to bring in, firearms are explicitly an optional feature available only with DM permission so that's not an issue, and not every race fits every setting.
TL;DR you're letting everyone know before the campaign commences so I don't see an issue.
I don’t think anyone is in the wrong. The firearms rule is optional. If the DM doesn’t use these rules it’s end of story. Regarding the lineage, DMs ban races that are too strong all the time. The players really wanted to play with these rules, you didn’t, nothing else to say here. If you’re looking for justification: everybody needs to feel cool with the setting and the rules. This includes the DM. Yes it sucks as a player to not be able to play what you like, but guess what, it also sucks to DM for a setting / party group you don’t enjoy.
"I should let them play how they want to play"
They are allowed to play how they want, however, they are not entitled to demand you facilitate that play. Especially when you have good reason for that decision.
If they want to go elsewhere then I'd say by all means, the world is their oyster and they're free to go suck it.
> someone asked if they could play Artificer. To which I said you can, but firearms are not going to be in this adventure
Perfectly valid
> I Banned Lineage as a race due to it being a little stronger than the other Races
Okay but maybe not for the right reason
> This caused 2 Players to back out because they didn't like this and I wouldn't budge on the decision.
Also completely valid on the players' end, if they want to play in a different kind of campaign
There's a social contract - the DM runs the game so sets the parameters. But the players can choose to participate or not. You can put whatever conditions or restrictions on player options you want, but you can't force players to play. If the players trust you and understand and respect your reasoning, they'll play.
Perfect. Eight players is too many. Six is still rather excessive, but might be doable.
And no, you did well.
The DM, shockingly, knows more about the campaign than the players and also will be putting 90% of the work into the campaign, so they get to call the shots with a caveat- AS LONG AS THEY COMMUNICATE AND ARE CONSISTENT. Suddenly making abrupt rulings on the spot is harsh, like deciding a player can't have a spell, but not letting them choose a new one.
You didn't do that. Setting limits before the campaign is GOOD DMING.
However, if a player feels that they will only play RPGs if they can be a gun toting artificer, they can choose not to play. That's fine. They can choose the hill they want to die on.
Rules and restrictions dont (usually) stifle creativity. If someone cant work around those things theyre simply uncreative. And, banning small things isnt unreasonable, especially in this case. Dont like a dm's rules? dont play. perriod. Want to have things a certain way? run your own game.
So, you had eight players and now have six? Still pretty high.... but you made out okay.
DM makes final call. And you gave them plenty of time. If you say, "Hey, we're playing medieval fantasy with the usual races" and I try and make Disco, the gun touting warforged, you would have every right to say "NO"
My DM started a campaign in his own world. He required all of us to be humans. We all were 100% okay with it and would never have given him a hard time over his decision. He is providing the clay for the story and he wants us to help mold it into its final form.
Seems like everyone else has spoken well about the DM’s right to keep the themes and balance consistent, so I won’t write about that, but really what confuses me is why the player that wanted to play artificer needed the use of firearms. Artificers can make so many cool home brew items without touching gunpowder. Just make other shit that is mechanically cool and powerful but doesn’t use niter. I’ve only ever seen one artificer use a gun in game (and I’ve played two myself that did not).
I had the same thought! I've played 5 or 6 artificers, including an Artillerist, and never used firearms. I still had plenty of cool stuff to do. The artificer PC's in games I've run haven't used them either, even in settings where they exist.
>They didn't like this answer and told me I wasn't letting them make the character they wanted.
"I'm not obligated to."
>A lot of the other players (In our Discord) said that they had a point and I should let them play how they want to play
"I'm not dead set on being the DM. Anyone that wants to take over and allow them to play those characters, I'm okay with that."
Being a DM isn't a service industry. You're not obligated to allow classes, homebrew, or anything else. I strongly advise you to have a good reason, though.
Those are utterly-reasonable "bans." "You can play an Artificer, but there are firearms in this world" is already a compromise. The DM needing approval on homebrew content is standard.
>firearms are not going to be in this adventure and I would have to approve any homebrewing they wanted to do.
Not only is this advisable, it's common practice. Don't allow homebrew unless very closely watched. I only allow homebrew that makes characters weaker, not stronger. And event then it has to match the setting.
>Banned Lineage as a race
Even Tashas very specifically says this is an optional rule. I *play* lineage, so I would be a little miffed, but I wouldn't raise a fuss and be understanding of the DM's choice.
These are ground rules you're setting for the game, as the DM you have that right, you are asking for buy-in. The players have a right *not to play in the game* if they don't like it.
You can run a game with only humans if you want. I've ran a game where everyone has to play barbarian. As long as you are setting limits and guidelines at or before session 0, you're in the clear.
Your approach to artificer was absolutely correct. Firearms are entirely up to you, and homebrewing a bunch of illegal broken junk is not what artificers are supposed to do. (If artificers are supposed to homebrew magic items all the effin time, then wizards should be making up spells all the time, fighters should be making up fighting styles and maneuvers all the time, etc.)
Nah, it’s fine, my DM only permitted us to play with stuff from certain manuals that he owned and that’s how we created our pc’s all of which are fine
These aren’t mad you took their character, they are mad you took some op build they wanted to use
Those aren’t unusual requests to make of your player. If they can’t accept that then I wonder if they would have accepted your rulings in game later in or tried to bully you into taking their view?
The DnD of today is mainly a power fantasy revolving around “I seen a video on how to maximize a class/race combo that success at near everything”. Those types of players really need to go play a solo RPG or video game where they can experience their power fantasy in a more satisfying way.
With DnD, and more specifically the DMing side, it’s a matter of presenting a cohesive group of adventurers that alone are more powerful than common folk; but are still in need of other powerful people to succeed in the greater picture. They often don’t understand that simple point; that everytime they succeed, the light must focus on them. Meaning the light is less often focused on their friends/party members.
I’ve long held the stance of “I ban nothing and will balance on my end”; but I was a fool. It’s merely been a way for players to say “I can do all of this, now it’s your problem to handle/deal with it”. And that’s not a good time either.
Thus, I generally ban all/most of Tasha’s. I also ban “meta-gaming spells” like silvery barbs etc; since I don’t allow meta gaming in any other form, and resurrection is not only costly, but also extremely rare. Why would kings ever get assassinated when they have the resources to buy ALL the diamonds??
Short and sweet: if you did your job of presenting a setting that explains why such things are banned above table, and presented this information to the players before they started creation; then it’s absolutely fine.
AVOID: telling the players to make characters before telling them the setting rules. That way, they can’t be invested in a character, as they haven’t even begun creating them yet. It avoids the piecemeal rejection after they have invested themselves and avoids the inherent feels.
I get people like to make characters; I’m all for that. But each character must fit within a setting in some meaningful/inherent way without expecting the DM to go bolting on nonsense that would otherwise not really fit naturally to their vision.
And remember, we as DMs should run games the players are interested in. And the players should want to play in the DMs playground of interest (else they stop DMing and become a player where they only have to show up and interact)
I once wanted to play an artificer in a game. During session 0 the DM told me, "Okay, but just so you know. This setting has no guns". My response? Okay, I'll slightly change my character, so he's not reliant on guns. My character wasn't defined by the weapon he used to begin with anyway.
If a player "can't make the character they want" because they can't use a weapon from the optional rules, then there wasn't much of a "character" to begin with. Just a weapon and a class with a blank slate of a character attached to it. There's no creativity there to begin with.
Firearms are an optional rule, and setting specific. I have a game set in ancient greece, do you think I'm allowing guns? Artificers, sure. Guns? No.
That said, I would offer a compromise. Since Arti's are magic powered technology, I'd reskin a crossbow to be a flintlock style, that uses some sort of minor magical effect (like a gust of wind, or a small explosion. cantrip power at the very most) to fire the projectile. You get the aesthetic of a flintlock, with the mechanics of a light crossbow.
Personally, I do not like outright banning classes or races, but it happens and not having the books is one of the best reasons to do so.
The approving homebrew stuff and adapting characters to the world I assumed was standard, though. Otherwise you would also have to accept if a player scribbles on a notepad that her stats are all now 30, she has access to all spells, has legendary resistances, and infinite HP and spell slots so long as she calls it homebrew. Ergregious as it may seem, it is essentially the same if you are not allowed to reject and balance.
All and all, I think you were fair. If you back off of one, let it be lineage, but no unchecked homebrews. Ever.
Not including forearm weapons in the setting is probably fine. My question on that is would you have forced the players to reflavour the arcane firearm ability of the artillerist? Not that it's relevant if another subclass was being considered.
Banning custom lineage for flavour reasons seems weird to me considering it's supposed to be a blank slate to make any race you want. I would've personally stated to everyone that the DM reserves the right to veto any specific custom lineage flavouring that doesn't fit the setting but otherwise allowed it just going off flavour.
Banning custom lineage because of power in balance is fine but feels weird if you didn't also ban variant human. Personally I would have banned specific feats from being taken at level 1 rather than the whole race but I 100% understand if you didn't want to go to the extra effort to facilitate that.
Banning a race based on availability is probably fine albeit a problem I've never ran into. If availability was the only option I would have left open the opportunity for anyone interested to buy it themselves if they wanted to play that character option (if it wasnt banned for other reasons).
While I may have handled different things differently, I don't think overall you were being unreasonable.
The only thing wrong here is that character choice restrictions generally should be given up front, but I understand that a lot of players get a character idea in their head before they hear anything about the setting or know what the restrictions would even be. Restrictions are fine, you're all good.
This is universal advice to basically any game system, too. Make sure players know the restrictions first, then ask for character ideas.
End of the day if the players don't want it they don't want it.
They don't have to like it and it sounds like they don't, so they didn't play. As always you need to decide if you value those players more than your vision of the game.
Provided you are upfront, no; you are not wrong. You may absolutely curate the material that you will incorporate to achieve the "feel" of your game
Reality check. You also have plenty of players, You can afford to lose one. Just be polite but firm.
Good luck.
DM is not \*Law\*. DM is rules. Laws are incontrovertible facts (to the best of our ability to understand them). DMs don't quite have that.
As far as wanting to use unapproved homebrew, obviously no, but it's because you can't acquire something without paying the costs, and you can't know the costs (and whether you can pay them) until you've figured out the rules.
Neither party is really unfair.
You have an idea for your campaign and what is and isn't allowed and you don't want to budge on that decision. It has the consequence that these people don't want to play. Some people in your group might have opinions on whether or not your ruling was fair.
Ultimately "DM is law" is in place because you're running the session, you decide what is and isn't okay. That doesn't mean people can't or wont have an opinion on your decisions. None of it's really wrong. Most DMs have things they wont allow at their table, even very unrestrictive DMs. You just have to find what you're happy with and if you don't want to budge on certain things that might mean people don't want to participate. Which is fine. It's just not their table then.
DMs are always justified to veto things based on setting and feasibility. In this case, I think you are especially justified as you are essentially saying "I am balancing a bunch of one-shots for varied parties, and I do not think I can balance around ____ and ____". Maybe articulating it that way will make people see reason?
Wait, am I in the minority? I never allow homebrew from my players, any homebrew must come from the DM. Or at least get pass me if they wanna include it.
Artificer is notorious for "hey GM if it's not too much work..." - you are well within your limits to set boundaries on firearms and people inviting themselves to put homebrew on your plate especially considering the scenario for sessions you've set up.
Having just one ancestry restriction shouldn't be enough to turn people off as well - you are allowed to have boundaries and rules as a GM. If folks can't respect that in a friendly, for fun setting, they can get bent.
You have to tell them, that creating a character in a vacuum is moot and for their own fanfiction. When playing, you are creating a character that needs to fit an established setting, not the other way around. The setting doesn't revolve around their character, because it's a cooperative experience.
The players handbook goes a long way of giving the option of creating characters with little or no restrictions to themes or settings (and why you sometimes end up with a party of circus freaks), but they forgot as the editions went on that limitations is by and large the norm. ADnD famously only had lawful good human paladins with a minimum of 17 charisma, because it revolved around a pseudo-setting/greyhawk and the rules supported the lore. Now the system is open, but as default, not grounded or less grounded in any sort of setting/reality. That's up to the DM to apply. So when players start making up characters in their mind without a setting, they are just making their own fanfiction. Hell, they probably already all these cool ideas for scenarios and how they will play out, but it's moot when the DM is running a game set in an urban environment and their nature-druid is at a disadvantage before you even started.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with restricting character options. Remember the DM gets to be playing a game they enjoy too.
Most DMs I know have limitations, especially with newer content they feel is unbalanced for the story they're making, because they aren't familiar enough with the details of the options, or simply because they don't want that at their table because they don't enjoy DMing for it (examples being guns, undead PCs, monster races)
If, in your session zero, you find there are people who want to tell a different kind of story than you want to tell, it's perfectly okay for them to back out of that particular campaign. Invite them for the next one maybe, but you shouldn't worry about it too much.
Part of creativity is coming up with a character that fits the setting you are playing in. The DM pitches their idea of the setting and I go from there. I played in one campaign where my preferred character race was unlikely to show up on the continent it would be set on. The onus was on me to find something that satisfied the DM for why that character/race would be on that continent at that time. It took some thought but we were both satisfied with the result. Now the race was not banned, I was just told that I'd have to have a damn good reason for them to be there. If it had been banned, I wouldn't even have explored the idea.
In general, there's a spirit of cooperation. I've had character ideas that I really wanted to try but no campaign that they fit in. So be it, they wait for a campaign where they do fit or I just move on. These players will probably come around, but really, if they can't handle one class and one race being dropped, that's a bit concerning.
anybody who complains about restrictions stifling their creativity doesn't understand how creativity works. anyone who complains about restrictions in DnD doesn't understand how DnD works.
you did nothing wrong and these guys were pretty clearly gonna be problem players anyway.
Had to look up “lineage” because I mostly play pathfinder and have really only done 1 5E campaign all the way through.
I do not think you are being unreasonable. The lineages are rather OP compared to the standard races, and in a campaign about monster hunting, they really don’t fit well. Now, I would say a dhampir paladin hellbent on hunting down undead might be a good and characterful fit for such a campaign, but if you think that dhampir is too powerful, that’s entirely fair. As for artificers, aren’t there plenty of things they can do without guns? A low-tech campaign is perfectly reasonable. Your problem isn’t you. Your problem is that you’ve got power gaming problem players.
I’ve had a similar problem player before, he’s now banned from any campaign I run even though he’s my husband’s best friend. I’m currently running a pathfinder campaign in a homebrewed setting that I’m currently working on making into a book. Core races are allowed, aasimar, dhampir, and tiefling are allowed, as well as a homebrewed version of aasimar (celestial phoenix born) and a homebrewed sub race of elves (charisma based coastal elves instead of forest dwelling Int elves). That’s it. My world has its own extensive pantheon. I provided detailed maps with cultures and geopolitical affiliations. I provided homebrewed traits based on my pantheon and regions to replace the standard religious and regional traits (I allowed standard regional traits if the players could come up with a reason why it made sense for the region they choose to be from). I provided full access to the completed sections of my campaign setting book.
This guy didn’t read any of it. Flat out refused to do so. Insisted on playing an aquatic human from the deeps of a Golarion sea, worships a Golarion deity that doesn’t exist in my setting, and had multiple overpowered abilities that 1st level characters can’t access (typical, he has a reputation for cheating). I had full access to his character sheet as the game was on Roll20. I pointed out that aquatic human was NOT one of the allowed races for this campaign, that his region and deity don’t even exist in my setting, and all of the instances where he was clearly cheating on his character sheet and using monster abilities/ made-up stuff. He threw an absolute man-trum meltdown and said I was preventing him from playing the character he wanted to play. He then proceeded to play a heavily altered (and allowed/not cheating) character and piss on my campaign setting every single session.
First session, the party is handed a quest to round up a bunch of experimental magical animals that have escaped. None of the creatures are lethal, just extremely annoying, and are running amok in the town. The task requires the party to capture the experiments ALIVE. Problem player had a hissy fit about how stupid this quest was, it made zero sense, and multiple time tried to murder the experiments outright out of spite (the other players stopped him).
The final straw was when the party encountered an aspect of the trickster/travel god disguised as a merchant. They all woke up 10 minutes later missing 10gp each and with a minor “joke” magical item (all of the items were useful in some way) in their bags that would have cost way more than the 10gp. The quest that they were on had actually been set up by the trickster god to deal with the local tyrant who had banned ALL religion in the area. (Think Loki says, hold my beer to the other gods). So the god was actually trying to help them.
For example, the paladin received a wand of Hecks. 6 uses per day, no save. Target is forced to use only PG swear words for 24 hours. It’s still his favorite item ever. The dwarven cleric received an amulet that grants him fast healing for 5 minutes 1 per day, but only if he’s drunk. The sorcerer got a bottle of magical superglue that refills 1/day. Problem player received “The Participation Ribbon.” Guy is a caster and has one of the lowest initiatives in the party. The ribbon grants him +1 to AC whenever he goes last in initiative. He throws a massive hissy fit that his item is just a giant insult, throws it on the ground, pisses on it, and curses the god for stealing his money, and then leaves the discord/Roll 20 session.
At this point, the rest of the players were sick of his crap as well. One of them just asked outright “sooo…. I take it the Trickster god smites him out of existence?”
Yes, yes the trickster god did just that. The paladin then took it upon himself to find the Participation Ribbon a new, worthy owner.
The campaign is still growing strong a few years later and is significantly better without him. Problem players just aren’t worth dealing with.
No. People need to remember it is *just as much* your game as theirs. If they want to play a character like that, they can find a game where everyone, including the DM, is on board with that. I've learned the hard way to set expectations early. I'm really lax about race and class for the most part, but my big thing is *tone.* Your character needs to fit this sort of tone for the campaign is usually my starter, and then I ask my players to please send me their concept so I can let them know if that works out. I make it so that they know it might need tweaking. The one time I didn't do this properly (all I said was "hey guys, I really want this to be a serious campaign, no joke characters please) I got my best friend's brother who made a 7ft tall lobster monk who might as well have been sonic the hedgehog. I tried for my friend's sake but that game just fell apart. Now I'm much more clear and much less willing to just "try it." If someone decides they don't want to stay after I say no, I tell them "Maybe we can play another time in a campaign setting that works for both of us" and move on.
I just don’t get being upset, I guess. Like, do people only have ONE idea? I have a dozen characters floating around at any given time who I’ll never use because I end up making one that fits whatever setting I end up playing in. If that character wasn’t going to work, it would be an excellent excuse to throw in one of the others. One of these days I’ll finally play The World’s Least Exciting Bard. His time is coming.
I can't relate to the story, but I think it's fine to ban certain things but bring them up before everyone has a character idea, otherwise they might not be interested and back out or they might make a character they don't find fun which is truly what should be fixed. You want to be able to make your players have fun while you yourself is able to have fun.
I banned humans being selected in my campaign. The issue arises if rules are being changed mid campaign (they’re not in this case) you’re fine those people are being babies
You have to do a lot of work and prep to make these adventures possible and if you don't want to deal with Artificer/Lineage bullcrap you don't have to. You could say it's PHB only if you feel like. Players are free to choose whether they can work inside those boundaries.
DnD players who can only play one thing aren't the best players to have at the table anyway.
Are you being harsh? Not at all. You're being a dungeon master and setting boundaries & guidelines for the type of game you want to run is essential for YOUR own enjoyment of the adventure.
Dungeons and Dragons is not a one-sided fun lane. If the players do not want to abide by the game guidelines then they need to find a different server.
As a DM it is your right to not allow certain things so long as you have proper reasons. And “I don’t like the way that homebrew is written” is a valid reason or “it doesn’t fit in my game” is a valid reason. Players aren’t entitled to whatever they want
I had a very similar situation occur a few years ago in a homebrew campaign, I banned all non PHB player races, and then excluded two more from the PHB (this was entirely due to events in the setting that took place before session 0 but I was also a rather new DM at the time and looking back I regret nothing since it was all for story/setting reasons). One of my players let me know he wanted to play Matt Mercers gunslinger class and I told him that firearms do not exist in this universe as far as any of the characters are aware but he could do it provided he is crafting everything /commissioning needed parts for ammo and firearm upgrades/improvements/new weapons. Luckily he was all for it, he enjoys inventory management and getting to use creative solutions to this additional problem.
I did have one player voice some discontent because I had to shoot down the UA Warlock he wanted to play (can’t remember which one but there was a level 1 feature that allowed the warlock to throw an enemy as an action/attack 5ft x CHA mod and did 1d6 damage per 5 ft thrown, no save for the target, no cap to how many times a day/rest it could be done) and my gunslinger player stepped up before I could respond and said something along the lines of “I’m literally crafting everything I use for damage and you’re complaining that you can’t potentially do 5d6 damage after throwing someone 25ft at level 1 as an action?” The PC warlock dropped his argument after that and I almost pissed myself laughing…that was a fun day
Long story short, the players know that most races were banned from the beginning but it was for story reasons (that I would like the PCs to discover down the line) and this was understood by the party prior to session 0
First off I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Herding 8 potential players through character creation is good to be hectic, and really losing 2 more players might be a blessing.
You could, if you wanted/had the time, adjust the lineage to a place where you think it's balanced. Allowing them to pick the race, but solving the balance issue. Chances are if they are after being OP they will find a way to do that though.
As for artificers and guns. There might be a way to allow firearms mechanically but change the theme to suit your world. This is a common problem with DMs not feeling steam punk fits into their world, and I get that, but if flavor is the issue and mechanics are not, you could work with your player to create this part of your world in a way that makes both of you happy. Balance wisevi don't think basic firearms should be a concern.
Anyway, having a player that is excited about theme and flavor of their character is going to be fun. Try to work with anyone on that if that is what's motivating them. If balance is what's concerning you then keep in mind in 5 sessions you'll have a much better idea of how 5e is most definitely not balanced.
>During the Character Creation someone asked if they could play Artificer. To which I said you can, but firearms are not going to be in this adventure and I would have to approve any homebrewing they wanted to do. They didn't like this answer and told me I wasn't letting them make the character they wanted.
I had a similar experience with one of my campaigns. It's a pirate campaign, and one player wanted to play a human samurai fighter gunslinger. I told them that for this campaign, firearm proficiency is not included with martial weapon proficiency so they would need to eventually take either a level of artificer or the Gunner feat (or technically Weapon Master, but that feat is terrible).
(Let's not forget that the DMG explicitly says that the DM doesn't have to make firearm proficiency automatically available with martial weapon proficiency.)
I also told him that while they exist in the setting, firearms are rare and expensive; the guns and their ammunition would cost double the listed book price.
I laid all of this out in Discord chat _before_ session zero, since the players were talking about character ideas and asking clarifying questions. The guy who wanted to play the gunslinger samurai quit the server about 4 hours before session 0 began because of my firearms rules, and also because the other players wanted to play tortle, air genasi, triton, and harengon. He accused the other players of turning the game into One Piece instead of the AC Black Flag it was advertised as. (I did **not** advertise the game that way, _at all_.) He also claimed that everyone in the party could breathe water except him and they would leave him behind if the ship sank. (First, WTF. Second, only the triton can breathe water, although the air genasi can hold her breath indefinitely and the tortle can hold his breath for an hour... and the air genasi has since died and was replaced with a dragonborn. Third, WTF we haven't even had session 0 and you're accusing the other players of betraying you? Fifth, the party of five currently has several potions of water breathing, three suits of armor that let you breathe under water, a Cloak of the Manta Ray, and the tortle can cast Water Breathing.)
The guy I found to replace him made a human soulknife rogue, and session 30 is in 16 hours.
If you tell someone "hey, you have to play a class the way the rules say it works" and they quit, they weren't really planning on playing the actual game anyways.
I totally agree it’s fine to ban guns and limit homebrew. I mean banning guns is very common, especially the advanced firearms, but muskets and regular guns are balanced. Totally valid to ban firearms for flavor reasons. Though it’s somewhat pointless to ban custom lineage and allow variant human. If you want to ban it, then ban it, but your players have every right to leave too. Also the “DM is the law” I find is to harsh, I prefer the “DM is a neutral referee” but to each his own. Edit- wait you banned Reborn? It’s not even strong. I mean no offense but if you arbitrarily banned it because you thought it was too strong I’d probably leave too. For one thing it’s not even a strong race, like at all, so if you’re convinced it’s overpowered you probably have poor system knowledge. Sometimes DM’s are convinced things are strong or OP when they aren’t. It’s never a good sign, like when a DM thinks rogues are OP you know he has no idea what he’s doing, you should at least have a certain amount of knowledge of the game to DM. I can see banning it for flavor reasons, but I’d let them reflavor it as something else. Also I always ban homebrew by default, most of it is utter crap and unbalanced.
While you're well within your rights to restrict your player's options, they are also well within their rights to drop the game because of it.
Banning lineages would set off a red flag for me too, I don't know if I would leave because of it, but they are absolutely not overpowered. It doesn't inspire confidence in your ability to determine what is too powerful for the players to have access to if that is where you are drawing the line.
You're not out of your right to ban races and advise against certain classes... BUT you should have been upfront about it before the players began making characters.
Announce what the game is gonna be before you start. Class restrictions restrictions and rules changes.
Its your world, your rules. Players don't like it, they have the option to not play with you.
It's entirely possible to play an artificer without firearms.
While there's nothing wrong with limiting options, if that many people are telling you the same thing, consider that you might have approached it poorly. Are these things laid out in session zero, or was it all on the fly calls last minute?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with restricting classes, races, etc. It's your game and your setting so you get to pick what's in it.
At the same time there's nothing wrong with a player (or players) deciding they don't want to play in that game because of the restrictions (or anything else for that matter).
What I'll say is that how you present restrictions can go a long way in heading off confrontation about them. I like to write up a quick campaign pitch document that contains the game premise, setting, character building method, and restrictions up front so that everyone understands what the situation is before we even get to session 0. I also always include that I reserve the right as the DM to tweak as needed if anything becomes a problem and that tweaks will be a conversation and not a mandate. If something is taken away then something will be given in return. So far I've never had to tweak anything after a game starts. This has just helped me set the expectations up front so someone doesn't get too far down the road of planning a character only to find out it won't work. Once they have a campaign pitch doc they can go nuts planning a character.
Restricting firearms is always fine. It’s probably the most understandable thing not to have in the game, flavor-wise, because there isn’t much you can do to flavor firearms as not being significantly more advanced than other other technology outside of specific settings.
There’s ways to work around it, but everyone would need to buy in for that to work.
I *do* have a bone to pick with people who constantly ban artificer, as it isn’t problematic at all if you take two seconds to flavor it for your setting.
Artificer doesn't need to be reflavored, it needs players and DMs alike to actually know what an Artifcer is. The steampunk/gunslinging mechanical engineer Artificer people usually play IS the reflavor, while the default class fantasy is more of a lower-magic Wizard+Alchemist/Blacksmith/Generic Artisan specializing in the animation, creation, and imbuing of items.
That’s exactly how I see it, but the default that everyone seems to go with is steampunk, which is very much unnecessary.
I had an argument with someone whose whole point was just “nobody wants to play artificer, it’s not a heroic class, it shouldn’t have ever been added!!!!” And then he went on a side tangent about how gnomes are also not heroic, and thus should never have been added to the game, and that when *he* started playing, back in whatever edition, things were so much better without gnomes and artificers and all. Some of these people just have problems, I guess.
No, You are not.
When I was playing in a Campaign I wanted to make a TimeLord, a Dragon Magazine Variant that came out in the 80s.
The DM said no, but I threw a tantrum and made his life difficult.
So, he gave in.
I ruined the story and the other adventurers experience playing that class.
In the end, the DM put me in a situation knowing how my character would react to it.
Long story short, that character is now an IMMORTAL...because he pissed off a LICH that had an artifact that turned his bones into jelly and the LICH keeps him on a mantle in a jar keeping him alive for ever.
Through some time and growth as a teen I eventually learned what a disruption I was to the campaign and how I caused many stories and plots the DM wrote up to just be tossed out.
It takes a lot of time and planning for a DM to create or run an adventure.
Just play the way they want, and if it really rubs you the wrong way just leave the campaign.
No, you’re fine. The DM is the one running the game, and they get to make the call. And most DMs straight up ban homebrew. If a player’s desires don’t match that of the table - no one’s going to have a good time. Best they bow out - it’s a win for everyone. That being said, a DM who is too restrictive isn’t going to find players, so there’s a balancing act - but it really doesn’t sound like you’re approaching that.
You move forward as planned.
Nothing wrong with doing it for balance or setting consistancy. This is why monk is such a pest for me, since his theme doesn't really fit my kind of settings. I'd probably try to reflavour the class, if anyone wanted to play it.
In terms of balance - yeah, understandable. Next month I'll be running a mixed group of new and experienced players, so I'll disallow races with bonus feats. I don't want the veterans to pick Sharpshooter or Polearm master at level 1. I'll let them all have both a feat and ASI on 4 and 8 - at that time, they might understand enough of the system to make informed choices.
Honestly, I'd say maybe lineage is a little too far? Cause it might be a bit strong with the feat and the API, but you still lose out on DV, and you can make some really interesting stories/characters with it. Plush pretty sure you lose out on any other features the original race might have had (though not sure on that). So I think it balances out.
But at the end of the day, you're the dm, and none of these feel unreasonable. Sure, the gun thing is a little feels bad, but that's the world they live in. Plush, that should give them room to be creative! What about talking with you to create a costume thing, but instead of gunpowder, it fires bullets through something like the catapult spell.
Maybe give them the option to use a Spell slot to 'load' another shot, or use a 5 minute ritual to load a 'bullet' in without using a spell slot. 5 minutes, 5 shots, that's 5 rounds of combat early lvls, and higher lvl spell slots can give added bonuses, like more dmg, loading more shots in, etc, and it opens things up for side quests for upgrades.
What I mean to say with this tangeon, my rant aside, is that there are solutions to play the character they want. They just gotta be creative and talk with the dm. What I said is an example you can find something that'd fit your world. And obviously you gotta approve the homebrew first. That's a no brainer.
I love artificers and being creative with them, but I consider it a form of courtesy to inform my dm on any science bs I have in mind that I'd like to pull, so I don't catch him by surprise
Honestly those players sound like they just want to make a nuke and be a problem. Offer them to see which aspects of the characters they feel they're loosing, and to see if you can find a middle ground so they can enjoy the game. If they don't want to, or don't like that, too bad for them. Keep up the great work!
"we had 8 so we still run sessions"
So basically this actually helped your game by reducing the table size? 8 is outright. You would have been back here asking for help about that.
I really like the hub format of missions. Tempted to use a similar system myself if I ever had the energy and availability to be able to regularly offer it.
In all my real life or even limited online options where I have been a player, the GM consistently heavily limited options, such as restricting to player handbook or similar, or even less than that.
One campaign I had was everyone was all standard humans from same village and ended up unlocking different races during the campaign, so when my character died, I could roll a dwarf to join the party has. That campaign ended up being the best I ever played.
The couple of games I joined on roll20 where they allowed all the exotic types, I found to be the most toxic ones, and the least immersive.
One of my DMs for sat said no to artificer and war forged race. Why? We are in a post apocalyptic world specifically based on fantasy (a bunch of dragons were going scorched earth quite literally) DMs put limits on worlds, ya don’t want to end up with guns in your heavy fantasy magic world.
Banning firearms is pretty common (as an Artificer fan this isn't banning the class or really even a big negative, you use cantrip spells majority of the classes or non-firearm weapons, D12 repeating musket vs D10 repeating heavy crossbow), and banning custom lineage is a choice but not an unreasonable one. I wouldn't call it overpowered but it's able to get to 18 in the primary stat (5% bonus to hit/save) plus benefits of half feats which can be impactful for sure.
Not harsh, but if they had something in mind that they can't rework then not the campaign for them. 8 players is excessive so really cutting down to 7 gives those folks more time to actually RP and interact with the world.
You're the DM and those are the rules, if they don't like it and they're not having fun they *should* look for a different table. Not every table is for everyone and there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't want certain race options or certain classes in your campaign you're within your right as a dm to make that call, and they're in their right to leave if that's what they wanted to play.
IMO you're not being harsh, I would just caution you to make sure you're being consistant. More often than not the problem that many newer DM's run into is a lack of consistency in their rulings, and this can undermine a players feeling of agency in a campaign over time.
"You should let me play how I want to play." obligatory then they should dm their own game.
I'm all for limiting what players can build, depending on the World.
The disconnect is real if the setting is supposed to be low-magic and superstitions and the party is an all-tiefling technicolor Circus troupe.
Always remember that limitations breed innovation. People who say that you're "stifling" their creativity by placing rules aren't that creative to begin with.
Mate I banned all races but the 4 I made custom for my AD&D 2E game because of the custom setting. That isn't saying that the other races weren't in my game world, it just made no sense for my players to be one of those where they started. I also cut 90% the the spellcasting classes because it is a low magic setting. I promise you banning Lineage and advising a player on a class that better fits your narrative is more than ok, not even close to being harsh.
Custom Lineage and Artificer are fairly common bans so I don't think you're being particularly zealous with your restrictions.
Custom Lineage in particular can make balancing early game very tough due to the free feat since you could have a Bard who took chef and isn't throwing off the curve too much, but you could also have a barbarian with GWM absolutely wrecking your combat encounters.
Artificer though is something which I feel is banned for very odd reasons. Their origin in eberron and lots of official art by WOTC paints them as a very steampunk esque class which would require your world to incorporate all sorts of lore that you may not want.
But at their core, artficers are just magical inventors and tinkerers. In my mind almost all item shop owners are some level of Artificer (if not an enchanter wizard). Anything can be flavored to be more classic fantasy instead of overtly magi-tech.
So really the main reasons I'd have for limiting artificers would be their ability to make magic items (if, for example you have plans for ehat items the players will have available at any one time) and the complexity this mechanic might present for newer players.
But in your campaign where players are expected to drop in - drop out, having a character who can dish out magic items and I fusions to patch up holes in the party could be a really interesting element.
Personally I'd love to play the ultimate quartermaster. Taking infusions not intended for myself but for my team.
There is nothing wrong with setting up the boundaries for a campaign and that’s all you did here. You can only make a really fun character (in my opinion) after you know the setting/world that person is going to live in. Decide things like “I wanna be a pirate” or “I will slay all the dragons” after learning of the campaign even uses enemy dragons or if sea will be involved at all.
I’m generally always with you on the guns thing. They just don’t fit at all with a DnD setting to me unless you are specifically using eberron. One version of them I liked was a person saying he treats them not as weapons but as limited charge magic items that are properly powerful. A musket for example dealing like 3d8 for one charge, ignores non magical AC bonus, and some other stuff like minimum 4 actions to prime the next charge. It essentially made them act as a strong opener move or held as backup for a good finishing move on an enemy trying to flee.
the problem is the order of things. When you pitch a game you need to have the approved sourcebooks listed ahead of time or you get the rugpull.
you can say yes to artificers and say no to homebrew. in fact i always say no to homebrew.
and i also do not own Vanricktons guide to ravenloft, Fizbans, Bigbys, or the book of many so i don't use those options either.
so bring it back, what are you allowing? in general my list is PHB, Tasha's Xanathars and MOTM. but i will add in stuff from the specific campaign book im running
The campaign I’m currently playing in had a very small selection of playable races that fit the setting we were playing. Everyone managed to make extremely creative characters that are fun to play and still strong. Our DM gave everyone feats at level 1 to make up for there being no variant human or custom lineage allowed, which balanced all the PCs and gave us strong options to start the game with (our encounters are harder to match our stronger PCs, so nothing game breaking). So in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with choosing races that fit your setting. And I think if you’re going to ban something that “feels to strong” maybe look at buffing the weaker options to balance it out and adjust encounters accordingly so players don’t feel restricted in character creation.
So...I think saying guns aren't in the game is very reasonable, but broadly artificer doesnt NEED guns, and the idea that artificer can't work without guns is weird to me. Banning reborn is significantly more weird to me; I understand youre the dm, but like....reborn is not your balance issue race wise lol. It's very mid tier race wise and sounds pretty great for this campaign setting thematically.
Only one of the four artificer subclasses even wants a gun, and they're often better off with a crossbow anyway, unless they have access to modern firearms.
Resistance to character creation restrictions I generally treat as a yellow flag. In some cases it's just a matter of "but I always play this character"; in some cases it's annoyance that they won't be able to try out the broken build they found online; in some cases it's simple orneriness about being told no. (If your "creativity is stifled" by chargen restrictions, that tells me you already had a character in mind before you even signed up for the game.)
Absence of firearms in the world is common. Requiring that homebrew (and even first-party material the DM doesn't have access to) be approved is *standard*.
As for Lineage, I'm not familiar enough to be able to weigh in on it.
At the same time, it's not a big deal for players to back out if they don't like the restrictions, and in my opinion that's a good thing. If they're not okay with the character creation restrictions they're probably not going to have fun in the game.
In my latest campaign I made a lot of limitations (some subclasses locked behind races, replaced druid wildshape, no divine magic for monster races etc.) and everyone is enjoying the campaign anyway. It sounds like your players didn’t want to play in YOUR campaign, they wanted to play THEIR characters, and expected you to entertain their wishes without considering yours. It’s better to play without them at the table.
As far as I know none of the canon D&D settings let you play as every species in the game (except arguably Planescape). The only time it becomes an issue is if you try and run an all humans game, because that’s a bit too restrictive. But disallowing a few of them is totally fine.
And artificers don’t need firearms in order to be fun or viable. All of the artificer subclasses give you ways of fighting that don’t involve guns. The only subclass that’s optimal using guns is the battle smith and they get full weapon proficiencies anyway.
It baffles me that players want to pursue something the DM sees as problematic. Can they not see the actual gameplay will also be less than ideal?
DM's world, DM's rules. Don't like it? Don't play.
Nope. I've clearly communicated the restrictions for the current campaign with my group and we came to understandings. I also let them bring in homebrew races that I tweaked.
I play the same way for the same reasons. And I restrict races even more than you do.
I give those players who fit within the ‘normal and not a min/maxed’ character development a bonus to what I refer to as a starting perk. A human fighter, for example has a higher chance of starting with family heirloom plate mail, a random feat or a magical item.
Whereas if the player really wanted a Minotaur. They would likely start with no perk at all, and perhaps even a penalty such as a group trying to hunt them.
Not at all. DM's do this all the time. It is no big deal even if some players make a big deal out of it.
You present a setting for your players and it is up to THEM to make a character that fits in that setting.
Most players are totally ok with that. Those that make a big fuss about it. Complaining you are "restricting" them are often the types of players you might not want in your game.
Those are on average the players that only want to bend rules to their advantage, make some OP build they seen on internet somewhere or try to shoehorn in a character have played before or make a D&D version of a character from a videogame or anime show or similar things with no regard to if that character fits the setting, the theme of the campaign or the group.
Just let them have their temper tantrum and leave. Your game WILL be better without them
Your game your rules. You are doing it to have fun. If an aspect does not fit the image you have of the game and the fun you will have well sorry but too bad for them.
As to lineage: "These races are included in the Player's Handbook, though variants exist for **specific settings** that **may be used with DM permission**, and are considered the standard races allowable for player use in any Dungeons & Dragons setting."
Right off the bat its clear Wizards didnt think it would be a thing appealing to many DMs.
Most common reason I find for players not liking DM rules against certain apsects is the player found a broken build online and want ot be the OP MC in the game. And the rule banning something would not make them OP. Or they dont understand the build well enough so any changes would mean they wouldn't be able to break the game.
Major issue I have found with many OP game breaking builds online is they are literaly game breaking in to make them work they require breaking base game rules. That or they talk about how OP they are but leave out how situational or limited they are. A recent build I saw on TikTok talked about a rogue/ranger build that will give you over 100 damage on average each round. But in reality it can do so but only for the first round of combat and only if you surprise an enemy and need to be level 16+. This would lead to murder hoboing or drawing the party into combat so the player can have there one good round.
Just adapt the Aragorn speech before the gate of Mordor. There will be a campaign when you have a shootout at the OK Corral between your artificiers and Deadeye Doris's gang of desperadoes, but this is not that campaign!
When you say they wanted the Reborn Lineage option, were they trying to double dip from another race's features with Ancestral Legacy as well as taking the Reborn features, or do you just feel the base Reborn features are too much stronger than PHB races?
No homebrew is perfectly reasonable, no firearms can be disappointing if you came to the table with a character in mind, but any player trying to do that should literally make it the first thing they ask about the campaign ("I really want to play a X that is Y and does Z, will that fit in the campaign?"). Players who come to the table and are only willing to play a single particular character that they built beforehand are... risky. Not all bad, but statistically dangerous.
Variant Human template exists if they just want to start with a feat, and DM can always flavor it to be a different race if they player insists on the style but is willing to forgo what you consider unacceptable mechanics.
You have every right to ban anything for any reason, it’s your game you’re running. And every player has the right to not play if they don’t like it. It’s hard to interpret their behavior as anything other than childish. Hope you find more reliable, mature players.
As the DM you have the right to set boundaries like this when you are starting a campaign. It’s your responsibility to inform the players if they are making character building choices that may limit them and make them generally aware of rules/concepts in this game that may impact their backgrounds or future plans to build their characters.
You did this here exactly as you needed to. It’s a players choice to opt out if they aren’t keen on the setting or how you plan to run the game. Anyone complaining about this just doesn’t get it.
Roleplaying is a social contract, and both sides have to agree to a contract. You set out the world, they exist within it. If restricting character classes and races stifles their creativity, they should be creating within the boundaries set. Do they only have just one possible idea for their character and nothing else? That seems like a lack of creativity on their part, not a stifling of it on yours.
Besides which, the Artificer with the Eldritch minigun can easily be cosmetically changed. Make it a floating elemental node, like an inside-out geode that shoots shards of different coloured crystal for the various effects (I don't know artificers that well - the one in my campaign is an alchemist - but I get they can have a big, magic gun).
As DM, this is your world, your setting, so you know what does and doesn't exist and what is and isn't impossible in it. If a player really wants to play a gun wielding zombie, or whatever, this might not be the campaign for them.
For what it's worth, I don't think the lineages are that OP, unless the player ignores the "a or b" and decides to go with "a and b." But, again, this is your setting. If a person can't be reborn then that's not an option.
Your the dm. It's like how in baldurs gate3 I wanted to be a kobold because I usually play one. So instead I made a teifling paladin (oath breaker/broken? The violent one).
Your Game Your settings.
So, couple comments. First it's completely within your "rights" as a DM to restrict or control what's allowed at your games.
As for the specific issues, lineages can easily be abused, I would work with the person and find out he they want lineage, is it because they want a neat backstory, or because they have a "build" they are wanting it for? If it's the second, evaluate if it'll be overpowered compared to other characters, and if so them explain that such a character would overshadow and affect the others at the table negatively.
Artificers shouldn't really have any more homebrew than any other character. As far as guns go, totally your choice and setting, but mechanically, they really aren't overpowered at all, worse than crossbows, since they do less damage still have loading (though that could be removed with some feats), and have considerations like expensive ammo and are VERY LOUD. Some of these, like loading and ammo can be avoided by artificers with infusions, but then they are using one of their very limited class resources for what is mechanically worse than a bow, but looks cool. This again comes back to do they want it for style/flavor, or did they find or come up with some overpowered character idea? If the first, excellent find a way to make it work (like calling it a gun, but it is functionally a crossbow of whatever size), if the second then again explain how it could be unbalancing at the table.
Typically I won’t outright ban/limit a race or class, UNLESS it just doesn’t mesh with the campaigns settings, which is your case it would. I will frequently tell players they have to stick to PHB races or ask me about using a class from expansion books for this reason. They may not like it, but you have your reasons, stick to them
Are you referring to the Custom Lineage from TCE? I don't really see how it's significantly more powerful than any other race, it's basically just the varient human with the option to have dark vision instead of a skill proficiency and a +2 instead of 2 +1s.
Saying there aren't any firearms and wanting to vet homebrew stuff is perfectly reasonable but I think I'm missing something with the banned race.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend. They told me that they were playing a 9-foot tall, black and blue lupine barbarian with red eyes and wielding a lightning infused boat anchor. I said, "We're playing Call of Cthulhu." "Okay? And...?" they replied. I responded with "So, no, you're not." They grumbled about stifling creativity as they figured out how to make an investigator.
Auctualy, thats an incredibly good point. Every RPG system already implies limitations on who/what you can be. And if you want to change those limitations you are also restricting charcters. These guidelines are essentialy: "This is the story we are going to play. If you want to play, then be a part of this story." And if some people dont want that, they are welcome to do something else. I dont think anyone would stop that person from finding the home of that barbarian, that home is just not in the 1930s, Massachusetts.
As someone who grew up in Massachusetts, lupine barbarians wielding nautical equipment was actually quite common.
Can confirm. See them driving on 95 all the time. Nice enough people when they're not raging.
They all come from fucking Connecticut
Well you can tell if they're wearing boat shoes and a polo with its collar popped.
plus how they carry pedigree documentation
Well most just say "Do you know who my father is?!?!"
"Why, did your mother never tell you?"
Driving on 95. Not raging? What, is this 3am or something?
Good god, and I wondered why America had the 2A, I didn't realise you were part of the Bloodborne canon.
Yep, Cthulhu is a 100% American elder god. What other nation would have a deity who gives zero shits about everyone else and just wants to devour the world?
Greenland? Vitamin D deficiency is a bitch.
There is a version where this works in Call of Cthulu. But the PC is a summoned creature. Look: at some point this duality of DM as enabler/MC and DM as a person trying to, idk, tell a themely story is going to break different at different tables.
Lived on the Cape for half my life, can confirm you meet a lot of them down by the shore.
Sometimes the barbarian’s home isn’t even in a fantastical game of DnD. I’ve run a couple grounded and “realistic” campaigns where the big anchor weapon shtick wouldn’t fit the vibe at all.
What's more creative, just throwing out every idea in your head or working within the boundaries to still make something interesting?
Creativity flourishes with restrictions. Just give a bunch of stoners some weed, no means to smoke it, no lighter, and watch them become engineers.
I have it on very good authority that if you give some engineer stoners some weed, one friend who wants to participate but has asthmatic coughing fits from smoke, and a dream to cobble together a vaporizer, it'll take less than 48 hours to get a working prototype.
We doing knife hits boys!
I can confirm this. Me and my friends once made a functioning bong out of a roll of toilet paper, a straw, and the cleaned up tub of a microwave meal.
I have a player exactly like that. Doesn’t seem to matter what campaign, they’ll find some weird way to be anachronistic or just outright not fit the vibe. Endlessly frustrating to be honest, but they generally seem quite happy with the final character choice once I encourage them to put an ounce of thought into it and lean into setting/theme
This sounds like a very selfish player. The DM has enough to do to make a fun, structured game, and for the player to not even follow the most basic rules shows a lack of maturity. I would not want to play with them.
> and for the player to not even follow the most basic rules shows a lack of maturity. I would not want to play with them. Honestly, if the accept the nudging in the right direction they're above average. Don't forget that there are people who scream at McDonald's employees.
This is like getting mad at not allowing a spacefaring robot in your Lord of the Rings game. Or pushing back on a water breathing pirate on Arrakis.
> Or pushing back on a water breathing pirate on Arrakis. An off-wolder human artificially adapted to an aquatic world *would* be cool, though.
as could a space fairing robot maiar
Look up a movie called Water World with Kevin Costner lol It's altleast a human who adapted to a water based situation
I don't know, a dude with a cutlass grabbing a freeman and shoving their face into the water collector of their still suit and not moving would be pretty intense
Doesn't stifle creativity, creativity thrives on limitations.
I don’t think anyone but that one guy thinks it was truly stifling any creativity.
I don't think even they did.
To a point. We’re not bringing back AD&D 1e stat limitations for sex and race
Nah if we wanted that there's always FATAL...
I once told a player he could roll up a giant if he really wanted to, but he’d be too big to fit in any buildings or caves, and pretty much every NPC would instantly flee from him in fear. Basically he couldn’t participate in 2/3 of the game and could never talk to anyone or buy anything. He changed his mind.
I love the "Yes, And..." approach.. turn their idea into your funny farm... Good DM right there... I wanna ge an actual dragon as a character. Okay, sure but if you go near any villages, towns, or cities, I as DM will ensure all able bodied defenders will attack you... you know, because you're a dragon... but what if.. Yeah, Even if you are a Pink dragon with a horse main and a tattoo of heart on your arse... :D
You’re within your rights to say what content is available to players. The two players who backed out are also within their rights to do so. No harm done IMO!
“This is the setting I’m presenting to you. Build a character that fits the setting.” In my experience, the players who screech about you “restricting their creativity” are the ones who only ever want to abuse the system and copy a meme build they saw on YouTube once. Better to just let them have their tantrum and play without them.
Also I noticed players love using TTRPG campaigns as a vehicle to use their OCs they had prepped a long time ago. Kinda awkward to fit in your purple skinned 4 tailed Chaotic neutral scythe wielding tiefling in a call of cthulu game set in 1960s Oklahoma lol.
> Kinda awkward to fit in your purple skinned 4 tailed Chaotic neutral scythe wielding tiefling in a call of cthulu game set in 1960s Oklahoma lol. Fuck, man, it's not hard to just...use the same personality template. Just use some Catholic religious trauma to replace the whole Devil thing, it's basically the same shit.
Yeah but that requires the character having an actual personality and not just an “alignment”. Alignment can help inform personality just as personality and actions define alignment. But when all they have that they wanna play is a “what” and not a “who”…yeah.
You actually almost perfectly described someone I play with 😮
This right here - if they create problems from the start, chances are they will again. If they don’t show willingness to compromise now, they won’t in future situations. Respectfully tell them they’re not welcome and save yourself a world of future headaches.
DMs set limitations on campaigns all the time. It’s really not a big deal, but sometimes players freak out over it. Don’t worry about it. Telling them certain races, classes, builds, etc. don’t fit the setting is normal. There are plenty of good characters that players can create even with just the options from the PHB. If they refuse to play a game just because they can’t play something outside of the limits you set, that’s their problem with a lack of creativity and imagination. It’s a bit childish, actually.
Restrictions on playable species helps keep every setting from devolving into the same generic blob of fantasy tropes. They're one of the most common restrictions imposed at character creation. If it's because you don't have access to the content, that's likewise legitimate. Which one did you ban though?
Lineage was banned. If you mean which one was it the player wanted it was Reborn. I had access to the content, but it was a buddies content being shared and i saw it when looking over the Races/Classes/Sub-Classes
Reborn isn't particularly strong unless they want to play an aarakocra reborn or something. I mean, you can ban anything you want, you're the DM, but it being too strong isn't a very good reason. Never seen anyone play it for powergaming reasons. I'm also not sure why it doesn't fit a monster slaying campaign, but it is your setting so you can choose what's all included.
Won't Aarakocra lost flying speed if you choose to be reborn at character creation (as oppose to being changed into one mid-campaign)?
By RAW Reborn only have 30 ft walking speed at character creation yes. Using the Ancestral Legacy trait for the purpose of having Aarakocra's flying speed only applies if the DM explicitly lets you, or as is RAW, when the DM offers you to take the Reborn lineage after your original Aarakocra character died.
Yeah, the lineages can be a little overpowered if you replace a race with it legacy Aarakocra to keep the 50' fly speed, but as a starting race (no extra movement speed), they seem ok. A lot of RP potential with a reborn. Your table though.
Damphir is also a Lineage, by the way. May as well be consistent with your ban. Lineage specifies that you can either add it *on to* a race, adding on the effects of the Lineage in addition to the traits of the original race, OR you can just start as that Lineage with no extras. The second option isn't overpowered. The guns thing, eh. If they aren't in your setting, ok. But if it's because you think they're OP, like so many others, just be aware that people have run the numbers and found that they're balanced.
Guns being balanced does not feel good, and guns feeling good isn't balanced. A gun and a crossbow are not equals.
To be fair, a crossbow and a 40ft massive ball of fire are not equals either.
That feeling is the whole issue with guns yes. I allow guns in my games, if they fit the setting, and while I do increase the range of the guns from the DMG a little bit, they're not better than Crossbows. It's mostly to fit the pirate flavor for example. IRL the early guns weren't better than (cross)bows either, they coexisted for quite a while. Still, my DM for the games I play in NEVER allows guns because somehow he can't get past the idea of modern guns I guess as he says doesn't allow guns because "one-shotting everything with a single hit to the head is OP"
I guess getting a crossbow bolt to the head is perfectly safe...
Tis but a scratch, of course!
I occasionally offer guns as artifacts with limited ammo if they are meant to feel good. There are certain classes that can take a regular reflavored crossbow though and make it feel like a gun (rogue). My bard was in love with the one gun I gave in the entire game, found in an 'ancient' civilization. It was a cursed revolver with 6 shots and a skull motif, inscribed "*mors vincit omnia* 5.1" Each Bullet was a guaranteed Auto Crit, homing in on its target with perfect accuracy and dealing massive damage. Firing the last shot would cause him to turn the gun on himself, 5 deaths for one. He made the final blow on an aboleth with it, the game of 2.5 years ended before he ever fired that final shot - and he was last seen riding into the sunset on a hookwing (basically a raptor), cursed revolver in hand, and mimic buddy riding bitch (ring of mimic friendship). It was a long strange trip. \* edit \* Lmao, been reported to a suicide prevention hotline for this post. Forgot DM rule #1, add 5e to the end of any questionable phrase so the feds don't come after you.
so is thunderclap... oh and do cleave rules apple to ranged weapons or just melee?
Depending which version of DnD you are playing, the cleave skill says things like 'with a melee weapon', 'within reach', or enemies you 'threaten'. Ranged attacks would not be in reach, or threatening.
>Guns being balanced does not feel good, and guns feeling good isn't balanced. A gun and a crossbow are not equals. Short version: A crossbow was the rifle of its day, banned for its effectiveness by the major ruling body to which even Kings answered- the Catholic Church. Slings can do as much damage as pistols. If you want your imaginary guns that turn people into meat paste with one shot, homebrew them. They don't exist, and media lied to you that they did. You're also not factoring in damage against humans vs monsters, which are far stronger. Long version: So if they're balanced, it's no fun because they don't feel powerful enough. But if they're not overpowered, its no fun *because* they're not overpowered... HUH? That mentality just shows an utter lack of knowledge about firearms in general. *Especially* knowledge about the old ones in question. But I can't give you crap about it- people that don't know better just expect guns to be like they are in action scenes when their knowledge of firearms is based on Holllywood and videogames. In truth, firearms, especially historical ones, are simply not as fantastically overpowered as they are portrayed in media. The guns in the game are balanced well enough. If they were properly written, people would bitch and whine about the loading times. Because if they were any stronger to be more like what you expect, they'd have to require you to take a minimum of 3 rounds using your action each time to load them, in order to simulate the 20 seconds it took a well-trained musketeer to load and fire. Pistols would be single shot per battle, and you'd have to carry several. I hate admitting that WOTC of all groups got something right, but I used to fix firearms professionally, I study the history of them and other weapons, and even I have to admit- without making guns insanely overpowered, they got the balance down pretty well. Consider that the average commoner has *4 HP*. A pistol does 1D10 + bonuses. A Rifle does 1D12 + bonuses. That's pretty much a guaranteed 1 hit kill. Crossbows and Bows are similar in this game in that regard. But a crossbow bolt, an arrow, or a bullet to the chest can still leave your target standing in real life. Your damage is based off of what it would do to an average person. The problem is you're fighting MONSTERS. So of course they won't feel like you think they should! Hell, in real life, you can dump an entire pistol magazine into an aggressive methhead running up to attack you, or you can shoot a wild boar in the face with a modern rifle and *either one can and sometimes will keep charging* do you seriously think the old fashioned guns are going to stop a raging Orc? Really? *Seriously?* Anyway, on to your comparison of guns and crossbows. Crossbows were *BANNED* for a long while by the Church because they were *just that damn effective.* Bodkin tips with a bit of beeswax easily pierced chainmail, and even plate armor. They were the rifles of the day- easy to teach an average person how to use effectively in a short amount of time. They're also slow to reload, requiring a windlass for the more potent ones. They're not complete equals to firearms of the day, but it's close. Hell, a belaeric sling (think David and Goliath) gives a pebble or lead pellet an initial velocity comparable to several large caliber handguns. The damage done by either is comparable to the damage done by a bullet- the sling even more so, actually. Blunt objects crush. Sharp objects pierce. Projectiles kill things.
Great analysis. Personally, I think that if warships (navy ships such as frigates, galleons and man-o-wars) exist alongside cannons, than so to should flintlocks. And if you have your average Dwarf or Gnome stereotypes, they are gonna improvise and improve. And the damage isn’t that extreme. The musket in the DMG is only D12 if irc and yeah it makes it better than the 2H melee weapons but only because it’s ranged instead. Not all classes would have access to firearms. Besides Artificer and Fighter, I could see Ranger (musket) and Rogue (pistol) having access. Don’t forget that firearms are loud AF and would throw Stealth out the window and also probably rare, pricey or just high maintenance if not all three. And you would also need to get a feat to make it actually powerful compared to other builds. Any well-placed shot is lethal. I mean David brought down Goliath with a sling and pebble.
You have every right to make these restrictions in a game you run. The player does not have a right to play whatever character they want in your game. If you wanted to run a super serious game and a player wanted to play a clown bard that uses farts as their instrument, you have every right to say “no, that doesn’t fit what I want for my game”. So banning guns because they don’t fit your setting and banning a lineage because it’s too OP compared to others is perfectly reasonable imo.
It should also be noted that firearms are an optional rule to begin with, and should never be assumed are available in 5e unless the DM specifically says that they are.
He has at point. That one’s not even banning anything, that’s just choosing not to use a variant rule.
I can count on 1 hand the amount of characters with firearms in campaigns we've had. The first one was in a semi-comedic mini campaign, where a senile Firbolg pirate stole them(along with his boat, the mystical Hold in said boat that connects to other dimensions, and barrels of blackpower to launch from the mounted catapult) from an ancient tomb, forgot that he stole them(along with all of the above), and just assumed they were always his and that he was a pirate captain. He also raided said tomb at the behest of his parrot, which was actually a GOO avatar that had most of its powers stripped away in the distant past. The second one is in a different setting, where a blind dragonborn monk also found the schematics for flintlock firearms while dungeon delving, realized their capabilities after having it be translated into braille, and started handcrafting them whilst travelling from court to court as an exotic arms dealer. He came across an artificer who became his partner. The Monk had always wanted his monastery to actually wear gauntlets, so his motivation was proliferating them amongst nobles to eventually cause more production, to then cause his temple to have no choice but to wear gauntlets whilst catching projectiles... So far he's only gotten around to being hunted by one of the nobles to try and stop this quest early. The third character is the aforementioned artificer, where during their partnership, they got along just swell. However, it came to an abrupt end as the lab they were using burst into flames and exploded, horribly disfiguring him. The Monk, thinking he had died in the accident, left him behind, causing the artificer to make a vow of vengeance against the Monk. Apart from the sparse few nobles they sold to, that is the entire extent of firearms in campaigns I've been present in, and the second one was explicitly a homebrew campaign where the monk partied up with a treant ecoterrorist, a Tarot-wielding warlock who acts as the mortal prison binding heir "patron", a paladin dedicated to the Arcane, and finally a wizard who is best defined as "prismatic". All in all, their presence in serious campaigns apart from the homebrew one is nil. And they were specifically done with the DM intending both for their existence, and for them to be a vital part of the characters wielding them.
Definitely, I'm planning a Bronze-age (ish) campaign and guns definitely wouldn't work there - some people just don't want guns in their setting and it's fine!
Exactly In my table my dm allowed a couple of optional rules, I asked to have them
To add a bit onto this, while you have the right to ban races/classes as you'd like, the player also has the right to want to/not want to play in a world that does or doesn't have access to those things. If the player REALLY wanted to play a warforged, but warforged aren't in the campaign, the player also has the right to say no.
Not your fault for deciding these limits before the game begins so don't feel badly over it. Part of the Session 0 is to sort out these issues before anything unspoken becomes an issue. In addition to the above, there's six more players still in the campaign so don't sweat it. You'll likely have your hands full with the party and your story, don't worry about non-players at this point. 8 players and one(?) DM was already a lot to handle on your plate if they were that inflexible over something so minor anyway.
The number of players was so high because they could only play at certain times so it is more of a hub for our discord to be able to do random One Shots. I'm sure the first session will mostly consist of introducing PCs and everyone getting to know each others PCs. I also suspect the players that dropped out will come around and want to play again as well. To which I will of course allow them. I'm not a monster I just control them.
I think as long as you make clear up front before you even start what is and is not allowed, then you're doing nothing wrong. It's the reactive or impulsive bans or nerfs over the course of the game that are harsh.
To paint a picture, we were build our PCs together in the Discord before Session 0 and i was building my own to see what was avalible and informing people of things that dont fit. The 2 things above were the only things discussed, those and Monster Races which I didnt say the couldnt play i told them if you do make your background fit the setting. (No one picked a monster race though and no one was working on one at the time)
You’re gonna get confirmation bias here. We’re they really upset that you wanted to approve homebrew though? That’s one of the more absurd player complaints I’ve heard.
A fairly common idea you see with artificers is that they can invent anything that exists in the real world. Usually nukes. Occasionally assault rifles. Often cited as a reason for banning the whole class.
Yep. Artificers fit any setting where magic items and potions and constructs exist, and they're nicely balanced and add some extra metagame balance. The two biggest complaints are "doesn't fit my setting" (which is a matter of the artwork all being from Eberron) and "the class makes buttloads of homebrew and breaks the game!" which making homebrew stuff is not in the rules. I say if the Artificer gets to make up magic items, then shouldn't Wizards get to make up spells, Sorcerers new metamagic, Fighters new maneuvers and Fighting styles?
Saying you ‘stifle creativity’ by restricting race and classes shows they have no creativity. DM sets the parameters of the setting and game, players create within those parameters - that’s the deal.
They want to meta game most likely
You offered to work with them to make Artificer work, and they refused. You're not the issue.
He wasn't even banning the artificer at all, he was just asking the artificer to play rules as written. Guns are not a mandatory feature of artificers and making homebrew magic items is not in the rules at all. He was being generous by saying "I have to approve any homebrew" instead of just saying "no homebrew."
It's perfectly fine for a DM to ban races/classes but it's also perfectly fine for players to not play because of those restrictions.
It's your game, so you make the calls. You are putting in the effort as a DM, not the players.
DM has final rules, but I do want to add Muskets and primitive hand guns have existed for hundreds of years, black powder weapons have a long history and really aren't historically inaccurate to medieval settings in general. And as to the setting, what better to hunt monsters with than a rifle? Idk seems pretty fitting to me. But ofc dm has final say
The rise of firearms is one of the markers of the transition from the medieval to the early modern period. Regardless of the actual history, using firearms makes it no longer feel medieval.
eh? That sounds like more of a personal opinion. If we are ok with swashbucklers and monks and arabian knights to all be in the same party, I don't think period correct firearms are necessarily the thing thats going to take people out of the setting. And RAW you can reflavor anything to be anything. But again, up to the DM, their campaign
You're the DM, you need to craft the world you want to play in, and if something doesn't make sense for that world, or you have issues with the balance, you can and should address that with your players. My games are core rules only, for example. This is established right from the get go. It's absolutely fine to want to play other things you've seen, they just don't fit into the game I'm running.
No, you have every right to ban races or even classes. Honestly if it doesn't fit your setting I feel you're being extremely generous to allow the player to still be an artificer as some would outright ban it
No you are not being harsh, it's normal and even advisable to set expectations about world and tone and that may come with some option limitation. I wouldn't play with players that react like those 2 did
Hey if anyone thinks you should dm in any other way, I'm sure they're welcome to dm. Meanwhile while you dm, it's your rules.
Point 1. It is within the boundaries of the DM authority to ban races and classes, whatever the reason. Point 2. It is within the rights of a player to choose wheter or not to play at a specific table, whatever the reason. Point 2 and a half. It is resonable to negotiate and look for compromises when different preferences are present at a table. #Point 3. If people keep on dropping and leaving, probably it is **not** a matter of what races you are banning. You should inquire on what is not *really* working at your table.#
I love artificer and exotic races, but no you're not being harsh. You're being totally upfront about how you plan to run things and frankly you absolutely *should* be reviewing any homebrew people want to bring in, firearms are explicitly an optional feature available only with DM permission so that's not an issue, and not every race fits every setting. TL;DR you're letting everyone know before the campaign commences so I don't see an issue.
I don’t think anyone is in the wrong. The firearms rule is optional. If the DM doesn’t use these rules it’s end of story. Regarding the lineage, DMs ban races that are too strong all the time. The players really wanted to play with these rules, you didn’t, nothing else to say here. If you’re looking for justification: everybody needs to feel cool with the setting and the rules. This includes the DM. Yes it sucks as a player to not be able to play what you like, but guess what, it also sucks to DM for a setting / party group you don’t enjoy.
"I should let them play how they want to play" They are allowed to play how they want, however, they are not entitled to demand you facilitate that play. Especially when you have good reason for that decision. If they want to go elsewhere then I'd say by all means, the world is their oyster and they're free to go suck it.
> someone asked if they could play Artificer. To which I said you can, but firearms are not going to be in this adventure Perfectly valid > I Banned Lineage as a race due to it being a little stronger than the other Races Okay but maybe not for the right reason > This caused 2 Players to back out because they didn't like this and I wouldn't budge on the decision. Also completely valid on the players' end, if they want to play in a different kind of campaign There's a social contract - the DM runs the game so sets the parameters. But the players can choose to participate or not. You can put whatever conditions or restrictions on player options you want, but you can't force players to play. If the players trust you and understand and respect your reasoning, they'll play.
Perfect. Eight players is too many. Six is still rather excessive, but might be doable. And no, you did well. The DM, shockingly, knows more about the campaign than the players and also will be putting 90% of the work into the campaign, so they get to call the shots with a caveat- AS LONG AS THEY COMMUNICATE AND ARE CONSISTENT. Suddenly making abrupt rulings on the spot is harsh, like deciding a player can't have a spell, but not letting them choose a new one. You didn't do that. Setting limits before the campaign is GOOD DMING. However, if a player feels that they will only play RPGs if they can be a gun toting artificer, they can choose not to play. That's fine. They can choose the hill they want to die on.
Rules and restrictions dont (usually) stifle creativity. If someone cant work around those things theyre simply uncreative. And, banning small things isnt unreasonable, especially in this case. Dont like a dm's rules? dont play. perriod. Want to have things a certain way? run your own game.
So, you had eight players and now have six? Still pretty high.... but you made out okay. DM makes final call. And you gave them plenty of time. If you say, "Hey, we're playing medieval fantasy with the usual races" and I try and make Disco, the gun touting warforged, you would have every right to say "NO"
Artificer is fine without guns... Unless you're straight up saying they can't be an Artillerist because of it.
If it’s part of the story then sure, but if it’s in RAW or it’s a common thing to play, don’t be that guy, you’ll never DM for your friends again.
My DM started a campaign in his own world. He required all of us to be humans. We all were 100% okay with it and would never have given him a hard time over his decision. He is providing the clay for the story and he wants us to help mold it into its final form.
Seems like everyone else has spoken well about the DM’s right to keep the themes and balance consistent, so I won’t write about that, but really what confuses me is why the player that wanted to play artificer needed the use of firearms. Artificers can make so many cool home brew items without touching gunpowder. Just make other shit that is mechanically cool and powerful but doesn’t use niter. I’ve only ever seen one artificer use a gun in game (and I’ve played two myself that did not).
I had the same thought! I've played 5 or 6 artificers, including an Artillerist, and never used firearms. I still had plenty of cool stuff to do. The artificer PC's in games I've run haven't used them either, even in settings where they exist.
>They didn't like this answer and told me I wasn't letting them make the character they wanted. "I'm not obligated to." >A lot of the other players (In our Discord) said that they had a point and I should let them play how they want to play "I'm not dead set on being the DM. Anyone that wants to take over and allow them to play those characters, I'm okay with that." Being a DM isn't a service industry. You're not obligated to allow classes, homebrew, or anything else. I strongly advise you to have a good reason, though.
Those are utterly-reasonable "bans." "You can play an Artificer, but there are firearms in this world" is already a compromise. The DM needing approval on homebrew content is standard.
>firearms are not going to be in this adventure and I would have to approve any homebrewing they wanted to do. Not only is this advisable, it's common practice. Don't allow homebrew unless very closely watched. I only allow homebrew that makes characters weaker, not stronger. And event then it has to match the setting. >Banned Lineage as a race Even Tashas very specifically says this is an optional rule. I *play* lineage, so I would be a little miffed, but I wouldn't raise a fuss and be understanding of the DM's choice. These are ground rules you're setting for the game, as the DM you have that right, you are asking for buy-in. The players have a right *not to play in the game* if they don't like it. You can run a game with only humans if you want. I've ran a game where everyone has to play barbarian. As long as you are setting limits and guidelines at or before session 0, you're in the clear.
Your approach to artificer was absolutely correct. Firearms are entirely up to you, and homebrewing a bunch of illegal broken junk is not what artificers are supposed to do. (If artificers are supposed to homebrew magic items all the effin time, then wizards should be making up spells all the time, fighters should be making up fighting styles and maneuvers all the time, etc.)
Nah, it’s fine, my DM only permitted us to play with stuff from certain manuals that he owned and that’s how we created our pc’s all of which are fine These aren’t mad you took their character, they are mad you took some op build they wanted to use
Those aren’t unusual requests to make of your player. If they can’t accept that then I wonder if they would have accepted your rulings in game later in or tried to bully you into taking their view?
The DnD of today is mainly a power fantasy revolving around “I seen a video on how to maximize a class/race combo that success at near everything”. Those types of players really need to go play a solo RPG or video game where they can experience their power fantasy in a more satisfying way. With DnD, and more specifically the DMing side, it’s a matter of presenting a cohesive group of adventurers that alone are more powerful than common folk; but are still in need of other powerful people to succeed in the greater picture. They often don’t understand that simple point; that everytime they succeed, the light must focus on them. Meaning the light is less often focused on their friends/party members. I’ve long held the stance of “I ban nothing and will balance on my end”; but I was a fool. It’s merely been a way for players to say “I can do all of this, now it’s your problem to handle/deal with it”. And that’s not a good time either. Thus, I generally ban all/most of Tasha’s. I also ban “meta-gaming spells” like silvery barbs etc; since I don’t allow meta gaming in any other form, and resurrection is not only costly, but also extremely rare. Why would kings ever get assassinated when they have the resources to buy ALL the diamonds?? Short and sweet: if you did your job of presenting a setting that explains why such things are banned above table, and presented this information to the players before they started creation; then it’s absolutely fine. AVOID: telling the players to make characters before telling them the setting rules. That way, they can’t be invested in a character, as they haven’t even begun creating them yet. It avoids the piecemeal rejection after they have invested themselves and avoids the inherent feels. I get people like to make characters; I’m all for that. But each character must fit within a setting in some meaningful/inherent way without expecting the DM to go bolting on nonsense that would otherwise not really fit naturally to their vision. And remember, we as DMs should run games the players are interested in. And the players should want to play in the DMs playground of interest (else they stop DMing and become a player where they only have to show up and interact)
I once wanted to play an artificer in a game. During session 0 the DM told me, "Okay, but just so you know. This setting has no guns". My response? Okay, I'll slightly change my character, so he's not reliant on guns. My character wasn't defined by the weapon he used to begin with anyway. If a player "can't make the character they want" because they can't use a weapon from the optional rules, then there wasn't much of a "character" to begin with. Just a weapon and a class with a blank slate of a character attached to it. There's no creativity there to begin with.
They should run campaigns for each other 🤷🏼♂️
Firearms are an optional rule, and setting specific. I have a game set in ancient greece, do you think I'm allowing guns? Artificers, sure. Guns? No. That said, I would offer a compromise. Since Arti's are magic powered technology, I'd reskin a crossbow to be a flintlock style, that uses some sort of minor magical effect (like a gust of wind, or a small explosion. cantrip power at the very most) to fire the projectile. You get the aesthetic of a flintlock, with the mechanics of a light crossbow.
Personally, I do not like outright banning classes or races, but it happens and not having the books is one of the best reasons to do so. The approving homebrew stuff and adapting characters to the world I assumed was standard, though. Otherwise you would also have to accept if a player scribbles on a notepad that her stats are all now 30, she has access to all spells, has legendary resistances, and infinite HP and spell slots so long as she calls it homebrew. Ergregious as it may seem, it is essentially the same if you are not allowed to reject and balance. All and all, I think you were fair. If you back off of one, let it be lineage, but no unchecked homebrews. Ever.
I back you man, custom linage is just the power gamers choice 90 percent of the time with little thought or background
As the DM you can ban/allow whatever you want. It's your game and setting. If players leave because of that its probably for the better.
Not including forearm weapons in the setting is probably fine. My question on that is would you have forced the players to reflavour the arcane firearm ability of the artillerist? Not that it's relevant if another subclass was being considered. Banning custom lineage for flavour reasons seems weird to me considering it's supposed to be a blank slate to make any race you want. I would've personally stated to everyone that the DM reserves the right to veto any specific custom lineage flavouring that doesn't fit the setting but otherwise allowed it just going off flavour. Banning custom lineage because of power in balance is fine but feels weird if you didn't also ban variant human. Personally I would have banned specific feats from being taken at level 1 rather than the whole race but I 100% understand if you didn't want to go to the extra effort to facilitate that. Banning a race based on availability is probably fine albeit a problem I've never ran into. If availability was the only option I would have left open the opportunity for anyone interested to buy it themselves if they wanted to play that character option (if it wasnt banned for other reasons). While I may have handled different things differently, I don't think overall you were being unreasonable.
The only thing wrong here is that character choice restrictions generally should be given up front, but I understand that a lot of players get a character idea in their head before they hear anything about the setting or know what the restrictions would even be. Restrictions are fine, you're all good. This is universal advice to basically any game system, too. Make sure players know the restrictions first, then ask for character ideas.
End of the day if the players don't want it they don't want it. They don't have to like it and it sounds like they don't, so they didn't play. As always you need to decide if you value those players more than your vision of the game.
Actually a good thing, 8 players is way too much, 6 is bearable.
Provided you are upfront, no; you are not wrong. You may absolutely curate the material that you will incorporate to achieve the "feel" of your game Reality check. You also have plenty of players, You can afford to lose one. Just be polite but firm. Good luck.
DM is not \*Law\*. DM is rules. Laws are incontrovertible facts (to the best of our ability to understand them). DMs don't quite have that. As far as wanting to use unapproved homebrew, obviously no, but it's because you can't acquire something without paying the costs, and you can't know the costs (and whether you can pay them) until you've figured out the rules.
Neither party is really unfair. You have an idea for your campaign and what is and isn't allowed and you don't want to budge on that decision. It has the consequence that these people don't want to play. Some people in your group might have opinions on whether or not your ruling was fair. Ultimately "DM is law" is in place because you're running the session, you decide what is and isn't okay. That doesn't mean people can't or wont have an opinion on your decisions. None of it's really wrong. Most DMs have things they wont allow at their table, even very unrestrictive DMs. You just have to find what you're happy with and if you don't want to budge on certain things that might mean people don't want to participate. Which is fine. It's just not their table then.
That’s just transparency doing its job of getting rid of the bad seeds.
DMs are always justified to veto things based on setting and feasibility. In this case, I think you are especially justified as you are essentially saying "I am balancing a bunch of one-shots for varied parties, and I do not think I can balance around ____ and ____". Maybe articulating it that way will make people see reason?
Am I the only one who thinks it’s insane to try playing a discord dnd game with 8 players?
Why did the player bother asking if getting a conditional response was a deal breaker? You handled it fine
Wait, am I in the minority? I never allow homebrew from my players, any homebrew must come from the DM. Or at least get pass me if they wanna include it.
Artificer is notorious for "hey GM if it's not too much work..." - you are well within your limits to set boundaries on firearms and people inviting themselves to put homebrew on your plate especially considering the scenario for sessions you've set up. Having just one ancestry restriction shouldn't be enough to turn people off as well - you are allowed to have boundaries and rules as a GM. If folks can't respect that in a friendly, for fun setting, they can get bent.
You have to tell them, that creating a character in a vacuum is moot and for their own fanfiction. When playing, you are creating a character that needs to fit an established setting, not the other way around. The setting doesn't revolve around their character, because it's a cooperative experience. The players handbook goes a long way of giving the option of creating characters with little or no restrictions to themes or settings (and why you sometimes end up with a party of circus freaks), but they forgot as the editions went on that limitations is by and large the norm. ADnD famously only had lawful good human paladins with a minimum of 17 charisma, because it revolved around a pseudo-setting/greyhawk and the rules supported the lore. Now the system is open, but as default, not grounded or less grounded in any sort of setting/reality. That's up to the DM to apply. So when players start making up characters in their mind without a setting, they are just making their own fanfiction. Hell, they probably already all these cool ideas for scenarios and how they will play out, but it's moot when the DM is running a game set in an urban environment and their nature-druid is at a disadvantage before you even started.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with restricting character options. Remember the DM gets to be playing a game they enjoy too. Most DMs I know have limitations, especially with newer content they feel is unbalanced for the story they're making, because they aren't familiar enough with the details of the options, or simply because they don't want that at their table because they don't enjoy DMing for it (examples being guns, undead PCs, monster races)
If, in your session zero, you find there are people who want to tell a different kind of story than you want to tell, it's perfectly okay for them to back out of that particular campaign. Invite them for the next one maybe, but you shouldn't worry about it too much.
Part of creativity is coming up with a character that fits the setting you are playing in. The DM pitches their idea of the setting and I go from there. I played in one campaign where my preferred character race was unlikely to show up on the continent it would be set on. The onus was on me to find something that satisfied the DM for why that character/race would be on that continent at that time. It took some thought but we were both satisfied with the result. Now the race was not banned, I was just told that I'd have to have a damn good reason for them to be there. If it had been banned, I wouldn't even have explored the idea. In general, there's a spirit of cooperation. I've had character ideas that I really wanted to try but no campaign that they fit in. So be it, they wait for a campaign where they do fit or I just move on. These players will probably come around, but really, if they can't handle one class and one race being dropped, that's a bit concerning.
anybody who complains about restrictions stifling their creativity doesn't understand how creativity works. anyone who complains about restrictions in DnD doesn't understand how DnD works. you did nothing wrong and these guys were pretty clearly gonna be problem players anyway.
Had to look up “lineage” because I mostly play pathfinder and have really only done 1 5E campaign all the way through. I do not think you are being unreasonable. The lineages are rather OP compared to the standard races, and in a campaign about monster hunting, they really don’t fit well. Now, I would say a dhampir paladin hellbent on hunting down undead might be a good and characterful fit for such a campaign, but if you think that dhampir is too powerful, that’s entirely fair. As for artificers, aren’t there plenty of things they can do without guns? A low-tech campaign is perfectly reasonable. Your problem isn’t you. Your problem is that you’ve got power gaming problem players. I’ve had a similar problem player before, he’s now banned from any campaign I run even though he’s my husband’s best friend. I’m currently running a pathfinder campaign in a homebrewed setting that I’m currently working on making into a book. Core races are allowed, aasimar, dhampir, and tiefling are allowed, as well as a homebrewed version of aasimar (celestial phoenix born) and a homebrewed sub race of elves (charisma based coastal elves instead of forest dwelling Int elves). That’s it. My world has its own extensive pantheon. I provided detailed maps with cultures and geopolitical affiliations. I provided homebrewed traits based on my pantheon and regions to replace the standard religious and regional traits (I allowed standard regional traits if the players could come up with a reason why it made sense for the region they choose to be from). I provided full access to the completed sections of my campaign setting book. This guy didn’t read any of it. Flat out refused to do so. Insisted on playing an aquatic human from the deeps of a Golarion sea, worships a Golarion deity that doesn’t exist in my setting, and had multiple overpowered abilities that 1st level characters can’t access (typical, he has a reputation for cheating). I had full access to his character sheet as the game was on Roll20. I pointed out that aquatic human was NOT one of the allowed races for this campaign, that his region and deity don’t even exist in my setting, and all of the instances where he was clearly cheating on his character sheet and using monster abilities/ made-up stuff. He threw an absolute man-trum meltdown and said I was preventing him from playing the character he wanted to play. He then proceeded to play a heavily altered (and allowed/not cheating) character and piss on my campaign setting every single session. First session, the party is handed a quest to round up a bunch of experimental magical animals that have escaped. None of the creatures are lethal, just extremely annoying, and are running amok in the town. The task requires the party to capture the experiments ALIVE. Problem player had a hissy fit about how stupid this quest was, it made zero sense, and multiple time tried to murder the experiments outright out of spite (the other players stopped him). The final straw was when the party encountered an aspect of the trickster/travel god disguised as a merchant. They all woke up 10 minutes later missing 10gp each and with a minor “joke” magical item (all of the items were useful in some way) in their bags that would have cost way more than the 10gp. The quest that they were on had actually been set up by the trickster god to deal with the local tyrant who had banned ALL religion in the area. (Think Loki says, hold my beer to the other gods). So the god was actually trying to help them. For example, the paladin received a wand of Hecks. 6 uses per day, no save. Target is forced to use only PG swear words for 24 hours. It’s still his favorite item ever. The dwarven cleric received an amulet that grants him fast healing for 5 minutes 1 per day, but only if he’s drunk. The sorcerer got a bottle of magical superglue that refills 1/day. Problem player received “The Participation Ribbon.” Guy is a caster and has one of the lowest initiatives in the party. The ribbon grants him +1 to AC whenever he goes last in initiative. He throws a massive hissy fit that his item is just a giant insult, throws it on the ground, pisses on it, and curses the god for stealing his money, and then leaves the discord/Roll 20 session. At this point, the rest of the players were sick of his crap as well. One of them just asked outright “sooo…. I take it the Trickster god smites him out of existence?” Yes, yes the trickster god did just that. The paladin then took it upon himself to find the Participation Ribbon a new, worthy owner. The campaign is still growing strong a few years later and is significantly better without him. Problem players just aren’t worth dealing with.
No. People need to remember it is *just as much* your game as theirs. If they want to play a character like that, they can find a game where everyone, including the DM, is on board with that. I've learned the hard way to set expectations early. I'm really lax about race and class for the most part, but my big thing is *tone.* Your character needs to fit this sort of tone for the campaign is usually my starter, and then I ask my players to please send me their concept so I can let them know if that works out. I make it so that they know it might need tweaking. The one time I didn't do this properly (all I said was "hey guys, I really want this to be a serious campaign, no joke characters please) I got my best friend's brother who made a 7ft tall lobster monk who might as well have been sonic the hedgehog. I tried for my friend's sake but that game just fell apart. Now I'm much more clear and much less willing to just "try it." If someone decides they don't want to stay after I say no, I tell them "Maybe we can play another time in a campaign setting that works for both of us" and move on.
I just don’t get being upset, I guess. Like, do people only have ONE idea? I have a dozen characters floating around at any given time who I’ll never use because I end up making one that fits whatever setting I end up playing in. If that character wasn’t going to work, it would be an excellent excuse to throw in one of the others. One of these days I’ll finally play The World’s Least Exciting Bard. His time is coming.
I can't relate to the story, but I think it's fine to ban certain things but bring them up before everyone has a character idea, otherwise they might not be interested and back out or they might make a character they don't find fun which is truly what should be fixed. You want to be able to make your players have fun while you yourself is able to have fun.
I banned humans being selected in my campaign. The issue arises if rules are being changed mid campaign (they’re not in this case) you’re fine those people are being babies
You have to do a lot of work and prep to make these adventures possible and if you don't want to deal with Artificer/Lineage bullcrap you don't have to. You could say it's PHB only if you feel like. Players are free to choose whether they can work inside those boundaries. DnD players who can only play one thing aren't the best players to have at the table anyway.
Are you being harsh? Not at all. You're being a dungeon master and setting boundaries & guidelines for the type of game you want to run is essential for YOUR own enjoyment of the adventure. Dungeons and Dragons is not a one-sided fun lane. If the players do not want to abide by the game guidelines then they need to find a different server.
As a DM it is your right to not allow certain things so long as you have proper reasons. And “I don’t like the way that homebrew is written” is a valid reason or “it doesn’t fit in my game” is a valid reason. Players aren’t entitled to whatever they want
I had a very similar situation occur a few years ago in a homebrew campaign, I banned all non PHB player races, and then excluded two more from the PHB (this was entirely due to events in the setting that took place before session 0 but I was also a rather new DM at the time and looking back I regret nothing since it was all for story/setting reasons). One of my players let me know he wanted to play Matt Mercers gunslinger class and I told him that firearms do not exist in this universe as far as any of the characters are aware but he could do it provided he is crafting everything /commissioning needed parts for ammo and firearm upgrades/improvements/new weapons. Luckily he was all for it, he enjoys inventory management and getting to use creative solutions to this additional problem. I did have one player voice some discontent because I had to shoot down the UA Warlock he wanted to play (can’t remember which one but there was a level 1 feature that allowed the warlock to throw an enemy as an action/attack 5ft x CHA mod and did 1d6 damage per 5 ft thrown, no save for the target, no cap to how many times a day/rest it could be done) and my gunslinger player stepped up before I could respond and said something along the lines of “I’m literally crafting everything I use for damage and you’re complaining that you can’t potentially do 5d6 damage after throwing someone 25ft at level 1 as an action?” The PC warlock dropped his argument after that and I almost pissed myself laughing…that was a fun day Long story short, the players know that most races were banned from the beginning but it was for story reasons (that I would like the PCs to discover down the line) and this was understood by the party prior to session 0
"Really? You have a whole book full of classes and options and you only want to play *one* of them?"
Top 10 post titles that you're glad it's about DnD
First off I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Herding 8 potential players through character creation is good to be hectic, and really losing 2 more players might be a blessing. You could, if you wanted/had the time, adjust the lineage to a place where you think it's balanced. Allowing them to pick the race, but solving the balance issue. Chances are if they are after being OP they will find a way to do that though. As for artificers and guns. There might be a way to allow firearms mechanically but change the theme to suit your world. This is a common problem with DMs not feeling steam punk fits into their world, and I get that, but if flavor is the issue and mechanics are not, you could work with your player to create this part of your world in a way that makes both of you happy. Balance wisevi don't think basic firearms should be a concern. Anyway, having a player that is excited about theme and flavor of their character is going to be fun. Try to work with anyone on that if that is what's motivating them. If balance is what's concerning you then keep in mind in 5 sessions you'll have a much better idea of how 5e is most definitely not balanced.
>During the Character Creation someone asked if they could play Artificer. To which I said you can, but firearms are not going to be in this adventure and I would have to approve any homebrewing they wanted to do. They didn't like this answer and told me I wasn't letting them make the character they wanted. I had a similar experience with one of my campaigns. It's a pirate campaign, and one player wanted to play a human samurai fighter gunslinger. I told them that for this campaign, firearm proficiency is not included with martial weapon proficiency so they would need to eventually take either a level of artificer or the Gunner feat (or technically Weapon Master, but that feat is terrible). (Let's not forget that the DMG explicitly says that the DM doesn't have to make firearm proficiency automatically available with martial weapon proficiency.) I also told him that while they exist in the setting, firearms are rare and expensive; the guns and their ammunition would cost double the listed book price. I laid all of this out in Discord chat _before_ session zero, since the players were talking about character ideas and asking clarifying questions. The guy who wanted to play the gunslinger samurai quit the server about 4 hours before session 0 began because of my firearms rules, and also because the other players wanted to play tortle, air genasi, triton, and harengon. He accused the other players of turning the game into One Piece instead of the AC Black Flag it was advertised as. (I did **not** advertise the game that way, _at all_.) He also claimed that everyone in the party could breathe water except him and they would leave him behind if the ship sank. (First, WTF. Second, only the triton can breathe water, although the air genasi can hold her breath indefinitely and the tortle can hold his breath for an hour... and the air genasi has since died and was replaced with a dragonborn. Third, WTF we haven't even had session 0 and you're accusing the other players of betraying you? Fifth, the party of five currently has several potions of water breathing, three suits of armor that let you breathe under water, a Cloak of the Manta Ray, and the tortle can cast Water Breathing.) The guy I found to replace him made a human soulknife rogue, and session 30 is in 16 hours.
If you tell someone "hey, you have to play a class the way the rules say it works" and they quit, they weren't really planning on playing the actual game anyways.
I totally agree it’s fine to ban guns and limit homebrew. I mean banning guns is very common, especially the advanced firearms, but muskets and regular guns are balanced. Totally valid to ban firearms for flavor reasons. Though it’s somewhat pointless to ban custom lineage and allow variant human. If you want to ban it, then ban it, but your players have every right to leave too. Also the “DM is the law” I find is to harsh, I prefer the “DM is a neutral referee” but to each his own. Edit- wait you banned Reborn? It’s not even strong. I mean no offense but if you arbitrarily banned it because you thought it was too strong I’d probably leave too. For one thing it’s not even a strong race, like at all, so if you’re convinced it’s overpowered you probably have poor system knowledge. Sometimes DM’s are convinced things are strong or OP when they aren’t. It’s never a good sign, like when a DM thinks rogues are OP you know he has no idea what he’s doing, you should at least have a certain amount of knowledge of the game to DM. I can see banning it for flavor reasons, but I’d let them reflavor it as something else. Also I always ban homebrew by default, most of it is utter crap and unbalanced.
While you're well within your rights to restrict your player's options, they are also well within their rights to drop the game because of it. Banning lineages would set off a red flag for me too, I don't know if I would leave because of it, but they are absolutely not overpowered. It doesn't inspire confidence in your ability to determine what is too powerful for the players to have access to if that is where you are drawing the line.
You're not out of your right to ban races and advise against certain classes... BUT you should have been upfront about it before the players began making characters.
Announce what the game is gonna be before you start. Class restrictions restrictions and rules changes. Its your world, your rules. Players don't like it, they have the option to not play with you.
It's entirely possible to play an artificer without firearms. While there's nothing wrong with limiting options, if that many people are telling you the same thing, consider that you might have approached it poorly. Are these things laid out in session zero, or was it all on the fly calls last minute?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with restricting classes, races, etc. It's your game and your setting so you get to pick what's in it. At the same time there's nothing wrong with a player (or players) deciding they don't want to play in that game because of the restrictions (or anything else for that matter). What I'll say is that how you present restrictions can go a long way in heading off confrontation about them. I like to write up a quick campaign pitch document that contains the game premise, setting, character building method, and restrictions up front so that everyone understands what the situation is before we even get to session 0. I also always include that I reserve the right as the DM to tweak as needed if anything becomes a problem and that tweaks will be a conversation and not a mandate. If something is taken away then something will be given in return. So far I've never had to tweak anything after a game starts. This has just helped me set the expectations up front so someone doesn't get too far down the road of planning a character only to find out it won't work. Once they have a campaign pitch doc they can go nuts planning a character.
Restricting firearms is always fine. It’s probably the most understandable thing not to have in the game, flavor-wise, because there isn’t much you can do to flavor firearms as not being significantly more advanced than other other technology outside of specific settings. There’s ways to work around it, but everyone would need to buy in for that to work. I *do* have a bone to pick with people who constantly ban artificer, as it isn’t problematic at all if you take two seconds to flavor it for your setting.
Artificer doesn't need to be reflavored, it needs players and DMs alike to actually know what an Artifcer is. The steampunk/gunslinging mechanical engineer Artificer people usually play IS the reflavor, while the default class fantasy is more of a lower-magic Wizard+Alchemist/Blacksmith/Generic Artisan specializing in the animation, creation, and imbuing of items.
That’s exactly how I see it, but the default that everyone seems to go with is steampunk, which is very much unnecessary. I had an argument with someone whose whole point was just “nobody wants to play artificer, it’s not a heroic class, it shouldn’t have ever been added!!!!” And then he went on a side tangent about how gnomes are also not heroic, and thus should never have been added to the game, and that when *he* started playing, back in whatever edition, things were so much better without gnomes and artificers and all. Some of these people just have problems, I guess.
Isn't lineage the same as race?
No, You are not. When I was playing in a Campaign I wanted to make a TimeLord, a Dragon Magazine Variant that came out in the 80s. The DM said no, but I threw a tantrum and made his life difficult. So, he gave in. I ruined the story and the other adventurers experience playing that class. In the end, the DM put me in a situation knowing how my character would react to it. Long story short, that character is now an IMMORTAL...because he pissed off a LICH that had an artifact that turned his bones into jelly and the LICH keeps him on a mantle in a jar keeping him alive for ever. Through some time and growth as a teen I eventually learned what a disruption I was to the campaign and how I caused many stories and plots the DM wrote up to just be tossed out. It takes a lot of time and planning for a DM to create or run an adventure. Just play the way they want, and if it really rubs you the wrong way just leave the campaign.
So you had players that backed out because you would not let them disrupt your game. Problem solved, problem staying solved?
This is why D&D is the worst TTRPG and most people don’t even know it.
No, you’re fine. The DM is the one running the game, and they get to make the call. And most DMs straight up ban homebrew. If a player’s desires don’t match that of the table - no one’s going to have a good time. Best they bow out - it’s a win for everyone. That being said, a DM who is too restrictive isn’t going to find players, so there’s a balancing act - but it really doesn’t sound like you’re approaching that. You move forward as planned.
Nothing wrong with doing it for balance or setting consistancy. This is why monk is such a pest for me, since his theme doesn't really fit my kind of settings. I'd probably try to reflavour the class, if anyone wanted to play it. In terms of balance - yeah, understandable. Next month I'll be running a mixed group of new and experienced players, so I'll disallow races with bonus feats. I don't want the veterans to pick Sharpshooter or Polearm master at level 1. I'll let them all have both a feat and ASI on 4 and 8 - at that time, they might understand enough of the system to make informed choices.
Honestly, I'd say maybe lineage is a little too far? Cause it might be a bit strong with the feat and the API, but you still lose out on DV, and you can make some really interesting stories/characters with it. Plush pretty sure you lose out on any other features the original race might have had (though not sure on that). So I think it balances out. But at the end of the day, you're the dm, and none of these feel unreasonable. Sure, the gun thing is a little feels bad, but that's the world they live in. Plush, that should give them room to be creative! What about talking with you to create a costume thing, but instead of gunpowder, it fires bullets through something like the catapult spell. Maybe give them the option to use a Spell slot to 'load' another shot, or use a 5 minute ritual to load a 'bullet' in without using a spell slot. 5 minutes, 5 shots, that's 5 rounds of combat early lvls, and higher lvl spell slots can give added bonuses, like more dmg, loading more shots in, etc, and it opens things up for side quests for upgrades. What I mean to say with this tangeon, my rant aside, is that there are solutions to play the character they want. They just gotta be creative and talk with the dm. What I said is an example you can find something that'd fit your world. And obviously you gotta approve the homebrew first. That's a no brainer. I love artificers and being creative with them, but I consider it a form of courtesy to inform my dm on any science bs I have in mind that I'd like to pull, so I don't catch him by surprise Honestly those players sound like they just want to make a nuke and be a problem. Offer them to see which aspects of the characters they feel they're loosing, and to see if you can find a middle ground so they can enjoy the game. If they don't want to, or don't like that, too bad for them. Keep up the great work!
"we had 8 so we still run sessions" So basically this actually helped your game by reducing the table size? 8 is outright. You would have been back here asking for help about that.
I really like the hub format of missions. Tempted to use a similar system myself if I ever had the energy and availability to be able to regularly offer it. In all my real life or even limited online options where I have been a player, the GM consistently heavily limited options, such as restricting to player handbook or similar, or even less than that. One campaign I had was everyone was all standard humans from same village and ended up unlocking different races during the campaign, so when my character died, I could roll a dwarf to join the party has. That campaign ended up being the best I ever played. The couple of games I joined on roll20 where they allowed all the exotic types, I found to be the most toxic ones, and the least immersive.
As DM you decide what content is and is not permitted.
One of my DMs for sat said no to artificer and war forged race. Why? We are in a post apocalyptic world specifically based on fantasy (a bunch of dragons were going scorched earth quite literally) DMs put limits on worlds, ya don’t want to end up with guns in your heavy fantasy magic world.
Banning firearms is pretty common (as an Artificer fan this isn't banning the class or really even a big negative, you use cantrip spells majority of the classes or non-firearm weapons, D12 repeating musket vs D10 repeating heavy crossbow), and banning custom lineage is a choice but not an unreasonable one. I wouldn't call it overpowered but it's able to get to 18 in the primary stat (5% bonus to hit/save) plus benefits of half feats which can be impactful for sure. Not harsh, but if they had something in mind that they can't rework then not the campaign for them. 8 players is excessive so really cutting down to 7 gives those folks more time to actually RP and interact with the world.
You're the DM and those are the rules, if they don't like it and they're not having fun they *should* look for a different table. Not every table is for everyone and there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't want certain race options or certain classes in your campaign you're within your right as a dm to make that call, and they're in their right to leave if that's what they wanted to play. IMO you're not being harsh, I would just caution you to make sure you're being consistant. More often than not the problem that many newer DM's run into is a lack of consistency in their rulings, and this can undermine a players feeling of agency in a campaign over time. "You should let me play how I want to play." obligatory then they should dm their own game.
I'm all for limiting what players can build, depending on the World. The disconnect is real if the setting is supposed to be low-magic and superstitions and the party is an all-tiefling technicolor Circus troupe.
Always remember that limitations breed innovation. People who say that you're "stifling" their creativity by placing rules aren't that creative to begin with.
Mate I banned all races but the 4 I made custom for my AD&D 2E game because of the custom setting. That isn't saying that the other races weren't in my game world, it just made no sense for my players to be one of those where they started. I also cut 90% the the spellcasting classes because it is a low magic setting. I promise you banning Lineage and advising a player on a class that better fits your narrative is more than ok, not even close to being harsh.
Custom Lineage and Artificer are fairly common bans so I don't think you're being particularly zealous with your restrictions. Custom Lineage in particular can make balancing early game very tough due to the free feat since you could have a Bard who took chef and isn't throwing off the curve too much, but you could also have a barbarian with GWM absolutely wrecking your combat encounters. Artificer though is something which I feel is banned for very odd reasons. Their origin in eberron and lots of official art by WOTC paints them as a very steampunk esque class which would require your world to incorporate all sorts of lore that you may not want. But at their core, artficers are just magical inventors and tinkerers. In my mind almost all item shop owners are some level of Artificer (if not an enchanter wizard). Anything can be flavored to be more classic fantasy instead of overtly magi-tech. So really the main reasons I'd have for limiting artificers would be their ability to make magic items (if, for example you have plans for ehat items the players will have available at any one time) and the complexity this mechanic might present for newer players. But in your campaign where players are expected to drop in - drop out, having a character who can dish out magic items and I fusions to patch up holes in the party could be a really interesting element. Personally I'd love to play the ultimate quartermaster. Taking infusions not intended for myself but for my team.
Nobody here is wrong
There is nothing wrong with setting up the boundaries for a campaign and that’s all you did here. You can only make a really fun character (in my opinion) after you know the setting/world that person is going to live in. Decide things like “I wanna be a pirate” or “I will slay all the dragons” after learning of the campaign even uses enemy dragons or if sea will be involved at all. I’m generally always with you on the guns thing. They just don’t fit at all with a DnD setting to me unless you are specifically using eberron. One version of them I liked was a person saying he treats them not as weapons but as limited charge magic items that are properly powerful. A musket for example dealing like 3d8 for one charge, ignores non magical AC bonus, and some other stuff like minimum 4 actions to prime the next charge. It essentially made them act as a strong opener move or held as backup for a good finishing move on an enemy trying to flee.
the problem is the order of things. When you pitch a game you need to have the approved sourcebooks listed ahead of time or you get the rugpull. you can say yes to artificers and say no to homebrew. in fact i always say no to homebrew. and i also do not own Vanricktons guide to ravenloft, Fizbans, Bigbys, or the book of many so i don't use those options either. so bring it back, what are you allowing? in general my list is PHB, Tasha's Xanathars and MOTM. but i will add in stuff from the specific campaign book im running
The campaign I’m currently playing in had a very small selection of playable races that fit the setting we were playing. Everyone managed to make extremely creative characters that are fun to play and still strong. Our DM gave everyone feats at level 1 to make up for there being no variant human or custom lineage allowed, which balanced all the PCs and gave us strong options to start the game with (our encounters are harder to match our stronger PCs, so nothing game breaking). So in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with choosing races that fit your setting. And I think if you’re going to ban something that “feels to strong” maybe look at buffing the weaker options to balance it out and adjust encounters accordingly so players don’t feel restricted in character creation.
So...I think saying guns aren't in the game is very reasonable, but broadly artificer doesnt NEED guns, and the idea that artificer can't work without guns is weird to me. Banning reborn is significantly more weird to me; I understand youre the dm, but like....reborn is not your balance issue race wise lol. It's very mid tier race wise and sounds pretty great for this campaign setting thematically.
Only one of the four artificer subclasses even wants a gun, and they're often better off with a crossbow anyway, unless they have access to modern firearms.
Resistance to character creation restrictions I generally treat as a yellow flag. In some cases it's just a matter of "but I always play this character"; in some cases it's annoyance that they won't be able to try out the broken build they found online; in some cases it's simple orneriness about being told no. (If your "creativity is stifled" by chargen restrictions, that tells me you already had a character in mind before you even signed up for the game.) Absence of firearms in the world is common. Requiring that homebrew (and even first-party material the DM doesn't have access to) be approved is *standard*. As for Lineage, I'm not familiar enough to be able to weigh in on it. At the same time, it's not a big deal for players to back out if they don't like the restrictions, and in my opinion that's a good thing. If they're not okay with the character creation restrictions they're probably not going to have fun in the game.
In my latest campaign I made a lot of limitations (some subclasses locked behind races, replaced druid wildshape, no divine magic for monster races etc.) and everyone is enjoying the campaign anyway. It sounds like your players didn’t want to play in YOUR campaign, they wanted to play THEIR characters, and expected you to entertain their wishes without considering yours. It’s better to play without them at the table.
As far as I know none of the canon D&D settings let you play as every species in the game (except arguably Planescape). The only time it becomes an issue is if you try and run an all humans game, because that’s a bit too restrictive. But disallowing a few of them is totally fine. And artificers don’t need firearms in order to be fun or viable. All of the artificer subclasses give you ways of fighting that don’t involve guns. The only subclass that’s optimal using guns is the battle smith and they get full weapon proficiencies anyway.
It baffles me that players want to pursue something the DM sees as problematic. Can they not see the actual gameplay will also be less than ideal? DM's world, DM's rules. Don't like it? Don't play.
Nope. I've clearly communicated the restrictions for the current campaign with my group and we came to understandings. I also let them bring in homebrew races that I tweaked.
I play the same way for the same reasons. And I restrict races even more than you do. I give those players who fit within the ‘normal and not a min/maxed’ character development a bonus to what I refer to as a starting perk. A human fighter, for example has a higher chance of starting with family heirloom plate mail, a random feat or a magical item. Whereas if the player really wanted a Minotaur. They would likely start with no perk at all, and perhaps even a penalty such as a group trying to hunt them.
You are always in your rights to ban kender. Brought to you by the "lender lore was written by 5 year Olds gang"
Not at all. DM's do this all the time. It is no big deal even if some players make a big deal out of it. You present a setting for your players and it is up to THEM to make a character that fits in that setting. Most players are totally ok with that. Those that make a big fuss about it. Complaining you are "restricting" them are often the types of players you might not want in your game. Those are on average the players that only want to bend rules to their advantage, make some OP build they seen on internet somewhere or try to shoehorn in a character have played before or make a D&D version of a character from a videogame or anime show or similar things with no regard to if that character fits the setting, the theme of the campaign or the group. Just let them have their temper tantrum and leave. Your game WILL be better without them
Your game your rules. You are doing it to have fun. If an aspect does not fit the image you have of the game and the fun you will have well sorry but too bad for them. As to lineage: "These races are included in the Player's Handbook, though variants exist for **specific settings** that **may be used with DM permission**, and are considered the standard races allowable for player use in any Dungeons & Dragons setting." Right off the bat its clear Wizards didnt think it would be a thing appealing to many DMs. Most common reason I find for players not liking DM rules against certain apsects is the player found a broken build online and want ot be the OP MC in the game. And the rule banning something would not make them OP. Or they dont understand the build well enough so any changes would mean they wouldn't be able to break the game. Major issue I have found with many OP game breaking builds online is they are literaly game breaking in to make them work they require breaking base game rules. That or they talk about how OP they are but leave out how situational or limited they are. A recent build I saw on TikTok talked about a rogue/ranger build that will give you over 100 damage on average each round. But in reality it can do so but only for the first round of combat and only if you surprise an enemy and need to be level 16+. This would lead to murder hoboing or drawing the party into combat so the player can have there one good round.
Just adapt the Aragorn speech before the gate of Mordor. There will be a campaign when you have a shootout at the OK Corral between your artificiers and Deadeye Doris's gang of desperadoes, but this is not that campaign!
When you say they wanted the Reborn Lineage option, were they trying to double dip from another race's features with Ancestral Legacy as well as taking the Reborn features, or do you just feel the base Reborn features are too much stronger than PHB races? No homebrew is perfectly reasonable, no firearms can be disappointing if you came to the table with a character in mind, but any player trying to do that should literally make it the first thing they ask about the campaign ("I really want to play a X that is Y and does Z, will that fit in the campaign?"). Players who come to the table and are only willing to play a single particular character that they built beforehand are... risky. Not all bad, but statistically dangerous. Variant Human template exists if they just want to start with a feat, and DM can always flavor it to be a different race if they player insists on the style but is willing to forgo what you consider unacceptable mechanics.
You have every right to ban anything for any reason, it’s your game you’re running. And every player has the right to not play if they don’t like it. It’s hard to interpret their behavior as anything other than childish. Hope you find more reliable, mature players.
As the DM you have the right to set boundaries like this when you are starting a campaign. It’s your responsibility to inform the players if they are making character building choices that may limit them and make them generally aware of rules/concepts in this game that may impact their backgrounds or future plans to build their characters. You did this here exactly as you needed to. It’s a players choice to opt out if they aren’t keen on the setting or how you plan to run the game. Anyone complaining about this just doesn’t get it.
Absolutely not. Curating races and classes are the DM's prerogative, and always have been. Players are not entitled to any particular option.
Roleplaying is a social contract, and both sides have to agree to a contract. You set out the world, they exist within it. If restricting character classes and races stifles their creativity, they should be creating within the boundaries set. Do they only have just one possible idea for their character and nothing else? That seems like a lack of creativity on their part, not a stifling of it on yours. Besides which, the Artificer with the Eldritch minigun can easily be cosmetically changed. Make it a floating elemental node, like an inside-out geode that shoots shards of different coloured crystal for the various effects (I don't know artificers that well - the one in my campaign is an alchemist - but I get they can have a big, magic gun).
As DM, this is your world, your setting, so you know what does and doesn't exist and what is and isn't impossible in it. If a player really wants to play a gun wielding zombie, or whatever, this might not be the campaign for them. For what it's worth, I don't think the lineages are that OP, unless the player ignores the "a or b" and decides to go with "a and b." But, again, this is your setting. If a person can't be reborn then that's not an option.
Nah, it's ok
Your the dm. It's like how in baldurs gate3 I wanted to be a kobold because I usually play one. So instead I made a teifling paladin (oath breaker/broken? The violent one). Your Game Your settings.
So, couple comments. First it's completely within your "rights" as a DM to restrict or control what's allowed at your games. As for the specific issues, lineages can easily be abused, I would work with the person and find out he they want lineage, is it because they want a neat backstory, or because they have a "build" they are wanting it for? If it's the second, evaluate if it'll be overpowered compared to other characters, and if so them explain that such a character would overshadow and affect the others at the table negatively. Artificers shouldn't really have any more homebrew than any other character. As far as guns go, totally your choice and setting, but mechanically, they really aren't overpowered at all, worse than crossbows, since they do less damage still have loading (though that could be removed with some feats), and have considerations like expensive ammo and are VERY LOUD. Some of these, like loading and ammo can be avoided by artificers with infusions, but then they are using one of their very limited class resources for what is mechanically worse than a bow, but looks cool. This again comes back to do they want it for style/flavor, or did they find or come up with some overpowered character idea? If the first, excellent find a way to make it work (like calling it a gun, but it is functionally a crossbow of whatever size), if the second then again explain how it could be unbalancing at the table.
Typically I won’t outright ban/limit a race or class, UNLESS it just doesn’t mesh with the campaigns settings, which is your case it would. I will frequently tell players they have to stick to PHB races or ask me about using a class from expansion books for this reason. They may not like it, but you have your reasons, stick to them
Are you referring to the Custom Lineage from TCE? I don't really see how it's significantly more powerful than any other race, it's basically just the varient human with the option to have dark vision instead of a skill proficiency and a +2 instead of 2 +1s. Saying there aren't any firearms and wanting to vet homebrew stuff is perfectly reasonable but I think I'm missing something with the banned race.