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Sure can. Just requires the players to agree to it before character creation. Things like that are best stated up front as part of Expectation Management. Remember a game should be enjoyable for both the players and the DM. If one or more of the players hates the idea, it may be better to shelve it for another day and propose a different premise. Team Effort!
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Yes, the GM/DM can ban any class, race, skill, feat, etc. he/she wants to. Any player who feels he simply cannot play in such a game is free to find another game in which to play.
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I've done it numerous times, when the campaign is designed around a specific group of people or a setting where certain types of thing just don't exist (just as you've mentioned with having no arcane or divine casters above.)
It really does depend on the group playing the game. I can get away with it because I've got a group that enjoys that type of game, or sometimes I recruit a new group specially to play that specific campaign.
With an existing group, you need to know whether or not that group is going to be okay with those restrictions. There's no one answer to "is it okay?" that all the varied people on the Internet can give which will apply to your own game and group. The only people that can tell you if it's okay are your group.
When it comes to systems, I love making Pathfinder (and many other systems too) fit where it wasn't originally designed to go. It's also important to remember that the rulebooks are toolkits - there's nothing that says you have to take the entire thing as it stands. Some campaign settings use the rulebooks and then say which parts just don't exist, or work differently. Some d20 RPGs (Judge Dredd, Babylon 5 1st Edition) were written to use the 3.5 rulebook and just replaced entire chapters of it, for example removing every single class and replacing them with their own.
Every GM is a game designer, to some extent. For some it's just choosing which combination of rulebook and module to put together for their group. For others there's heavy modification of that module, or writing their own adventure. Others still rewrite half the rulebook to work the way they need it to.
The only question is whether the group you have wants to play the game you've designed, because all of us telling you that it's okay, or that it isn't, to do the things you want to do doesn't really matter one iota if their opinion differs.
Simple answer: yes; simplest case: the gunslinger; in many fantasy gameworlds, they simply just dont fit.
Another: divine classes: does not work in a godless world.
In any case, as long as you are up-front about it, it's ok.
Was thinking setting a like westeros and athas or a homebrew setting. I have 2 in mind the first one is steampunk but only allowing alchemist for pcs on the magic side due to the nature of the world. Maybe to some degree psionics. Firearms are commonplace considered martial weapons. Could also do psuedo voctorian havnt decided whether simple or advamced firearms would be easy to buy. The other is a hellenic game only divine magic is allowed.
That sounds like the perfect reason to do it (and close to the kind of things I've done myself). Just bear in mind some of your group may only want to play "generic Pathfinder" - how that is handled depends on whatever social contracts exist (or not) in your group for handing that kind of situation. Assuming of course you already have a group you're looking to do this with - if your aim is to recruit a group specifically for this game, then pretty much the sky is the limit.
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Was thinking setting a like westeros and athas or a homebrew setting. I have 2 in mind the first one is steampunk but only allowing alchemist for pcs on the magic side due to the nature of the world. Maybe to some degree psionics. Firearms are commonplace considered martial weapons. Could also do psuedo voctorian havnt decided whether simple or advamced firearms would be easy to buy. The other is a hellenic game only divine magic is allowed.
For a Westeros or Athas type world, I wouldn't try to ditch magic completely (that just doesn't work well in Pathfinder as a system), so I'd just try and limit the world-shaking stuff. The simplest way to do that would be to disallow all 9 level casters, but keep the 6 or 4 level ones (except maybe the Summoner, who should probably go). This'll make Raise Dead and similar spells nearly nonexistent, but that may be more of a feature than a bug...
The Steampunk idea is problematic. Having only one spell-casting class is generally a bad idea. If going Victorian I'd add Druids and spell-using Rangers as 'uncivilized' but existing things in the setting and there's actually the Occult and Juju Mysteries for Oracles, based on Victorian spiritualism and hollywood voodoo respectively, so Oracles are probably solid thematically as well. Witches also make some thematic sense as secretive occultist types. Wizards might or might not be appropriate, though I'd lean towards not, and the other spellcasters could just go.
The Hellenic idea should have basically no problems. Scrapping Arcane Magic is pretty easy, really.
Generally speaking the best reason to ban a class or other piece of material is if it possesses a capability (or more than one) that your game world doesn't have or can't handle. For example, in a world with divine magic but no afterlife, banning raise dead makes a certain amount of sense.
However, if your issue is just one of flavor, you may not need to ban the class/bit of material. Just work with the player; ask what they're wanting out of the class/option and create new flavor for it. Some classes - like Gunslinger - may be harder to do this for. Others, like Wizard or Sorcerer, are very easy to re-adapt into almost anything else. Look into it.
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The steampunk stuff is totally doable in PF. For Game o' Thrones Westeros I'd probably use another system. To me that game implies more political intrique and role playing. I would probably reccomend Burning wheel or BRP something that gets out of the way of the story but still has barebones to hang on to.
The steampunk stuff is totally doable in PF. For Game o' Thrones Westeros I'd probably use another system. To me that game implies more political intrique and role playing. I would probably reccomend Burning wheel or BRP something that gets out of the way of the story but still has barebones to hang on to.
Or even Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying ;)
Sometimes choice of system can be dictated by familiarity, or even availability though. I've lost track of the number of times someone has asked "Why aren't you just using [system x] for that game?" and I've replied "Because we like [system y] and happen to own the books already."
I have to admit I actually take pleasure in hammering square pegs into round holes - especially when someone tells me it's just not going to work under any circumstances. Like the time I built a packet filtering bridge out of software when everyone was insisting I'd have to buy an expensive piece of hardware, just to prove I could (but, I digress :) )