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Yeah, rules-lawyering has always been the GM's label to apply. And it's usually much more extensive than two sentences of back-and-forth.
That said, none of my games have ever had restrictions against rules-lawyering. Even as kids we could sense when debates got tedious and the other players wanted to move on. And we'd just move on.
I find that there are two types of rules lawyers. Those that know the rules so well they can actually help a GM who doesn't have them memorized. They will offer advice in such a way as "This is what the rules say" but if the GM says "I'm doing it this way" they don't argue and just consider it a house rule. That type I find useful for myself (as I often forget rules).
Then there's the other type, whom I have never played with, that will argue every little rule and point out every little thing you are doing wrong and absolutely abhors house rules.
Basically, it's how the person goes about pointing out rules. If they just offer advice and then let you make the decision, they can be very helpful to new (or rusty) GMs. Luckily, that's the kind my friend is. He makes a VERY hand Co-GM.
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I find that there are two types of rules lawyers. Those that know the rules so well they can actually help a GM who doesn't have them memorized. They will offer advice in such a way as "This is what the rules say" but if the GM says "I'm doing it this way" they don't argue and just consider it a house rule. That type I find useful for myself (as I often forget rules).
I have one of these in my group and I'm happy to have him. I took a break from table top RPG's when third edition came out and have only started playing again in the last couple of years so everything is still fairly new to me and I take all the advice I can get.
Am I seriously the only one who does this?
What you outlined is the way that, ideally, I prefer to do things. However, sometimes that doesn't work out -- they all want a specific AP, or it's a continuation of a previous game, or the players just want to roll dice, or whatever.
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Am I seriously the only one who does this?What you outlined is the way that, ideally, I prefer to do things. However, sometimes that doesn't work out -- they all want a specific AP, or it's a continuation of a previous game, or the players just want to roll dice, or whatever.
That's fine too, but I don't see how that could cause confrontation issues with "bad-match" characters. It's like people go out of their way to run games their players will have to make concessions to play in.
The story emerges from the characters actions and the antagonist's responses against that backdrop, rather than from the players defining background or even necessarily having it shaped for them specifically.
I think I'm a mix between you and TBone, but I like what you said here.
I start play in an existing realm with some light adventure and observe the players developing their characters. As we play the players and GM plant story seeds and when the characters are around level 3-4 I check to see what story seeds have taken root and have potential to grow into something special.
It's an approach that requires a lot of observation. The campaign has a story and a direction, but the stories and direction are reactionary to the players and not mapped out to far ahead.
Tbone and thejeff, how does your approach with groups and players you are not that familiar with? I run game with friends I've known for many years and it works partly because I know them all so well. Just curious if you have had experience with players who are more or less strangers.
-MD
I'm admittedly more of a sandboxy/reactionary GM. I like to have enough of a plot to keep story moving, especially when the PCs reach that "Okay what do we do now" phase, but at the same time I'm very fond of a "Okay, what do you do?" approach from GMside and hand it over to the players and see where they take it. Enough framework to give the PCs some unity and direction, and enough plot to keep the story-focused players engaged, but the majority of the initiative for where things go is on the players, with the GM as a reactor/facilitator/storyteller who just provides the results.
My group is loving Kingmaker for that very reason, I think, and I will probably make my upcoming Savage Tide and Crimson Throne games a bit more sandboxy than they already are so that I can retain that experience. For the same reason, I don't think we'll ever run the more railroady APs like Reign of Winter (despite Rasputin Must Die! being literally made of awesome - it'll probably get run as a one-shot by SOMEBODY, since like three or four of us own it and nothing else of ROW) or Jade Regent.
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I just have a problem with the people who change 'sometimes' to 'everytime'. Sometimes it is the GM who is unreasonable.
Well sure, there will be times that a player will come up with something that can be integrated into the campaign without having to re-write anything... And I don't mind accommodating something like that.
A good GM/DM knows their audience, and if they have a player who always plays an elf, then the GM/DM should probably wait to run a campaign that does not have any elves when that player is not there or perhaps, run it for another group entirely...
That being said, I only game with like-minded people because even though I am willing to be flexible and bend sometimes, I still advocate that it is almost always easier for the player to change his or her character’s concept than it is for the GM/DM to change the concept of the campaign.
YMMV and all of that...
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Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openly
This is the pinnacle of DM douchebaggery, when you care more about your campaign than that of the PCs success.
Employing prominent NPCs/GMPCs
I don't have any GMPCs in my game since they drive a railroad spike in the campaign, but NPC characters are the backbone of a good setting. I think its more guilty to put really powerful NPCs (CR above +3) against a party than to put a bunch of tiny ones in a campaign.
Disallowing (or even placing restrictions of any kind on) full casters
This isn't as common in Pathfinder as it was when I did campaigns 3.5. I'm guilty for not allowing casters to take feats like Leadership or Dazing Spell which can trivialize action economy or steamroll through encounters. I do however allow full casting classes.
Enforcing alignment in clear and definitive fashion
I've learned this the hard way playing in an evil campaign. The more you try to enforce it, the more the party will not want to play.
Imposing an objective morality on paladins, such as disallowing prevarication for selfish gain, torture, baby- (including baby monster) killing and casual sex as inherently evil and/or chaotic
I don't enforce any of the "goblin baby dilemma" rules on paladins, but if you are a paladin in my game and you enforce your dogma on the whole group, that's a paddlin'.
Not providing the "required"/desired magical paraphernalia on schedule
I see this so often in other gaming groups in level 1 campaigns. I love dropping magic items on the party for defeating a tough foe because it rewards their efforts and gives them more power to finish the campaign faster. Magic makes the world go round.
Believing the DM's role is benevolent autocrat rather than either gleeful tyrant or impotent fantasy tour guide
Used to be one. Can't say it was fun though. Like Captain Barbossa said in Pirates of the Carribean: "The code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."
Refusal to permit evil (or even chaotic neutral) PCs
I refuse to permit murder hobos that split the party. If you want to be evil then do it but try your best not to split the party please.
Disallowing classes that violate the campaign's established and specific tone
Any class can play in any campaign with the right character concept. This is just lazy work on the DM's part. I've never done this.
Laying the smack down, hard, on abusive meta-gaming
There is no such thing as a character metagaming, there is only the player. If your goal is to calculate your chance of success in D&D, to ignore roleplaying opportunities so you can construct your win condition that trumps everything then go play starcraft. D&D is about having fun as a team.
Requiring immersive role-play rather than simple recitation of mechanics
On the other hand you might hate the metagamer so much that you disallow as much combat as possible, or maybe you aren't familiar with the rules so you make combat simple. I used to do this, my players hated it. Keep a good balance juggling combat and RP one after the other.
Taking control of PCs who refuse to role-play honestly when charmed, dominated, etc.
I only do this when the PCs are reanimated as undead, because by that definition their soulless body has none of their personal influence. Whenever PCs are charmed or dominated I let them do whatever they want under the influence of a third party. It's funnier when you give commands and the PCs simply misinterpret them.
Retaining control over magical weapons, cohorts, mounts, animal companions, eidolons, etc.
I have a rule of thumb. If its player controlled I have no business taking the reins. However I tend to limit the number of companions to a few at a time as more tends to take up time during encounters.
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Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openlyThis is the pinnacle of DM douchebaggery, when you care more about your campaign than that of the PCs success.
Impressive. You do realize that you just called about 80% of the people posting in this thread douchebags; right? Good job.
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Impressive. You do realize that you just called about 80% of the people posting in this thread douchebags; right? Good job.Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openlyThis is the pinnacle of DM douchebaggery, when you care more about your campaign than that of the PCs success.
Don't forget lazy!
Any class can play in any campaign with the right character concept. This is just lazy work on the DM's part.
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No, if the cat people are all gone, they are all freaking gone.
Sure they are - right up until the moment the DM realizes that his player's enjoyment of the game would increase measurably if he would merely adjust his game's setting ever-so-slightly to accommodate it.
"If they're gone, they're gone!" is a statement that reflects a reality. There are no realities in a fantasy roleplaying game. The DM is utterly free to change the setting at a whim.
So when I wanted to play a gnome summoner in my friend's game, he told me that the gnomes were extinct. So I changed it to an elf. I don't get players who get butthurt over something being banned and taking it personally. Adapt for Pete's sake.
Here's a radical notion for you: The DM should adapt.
Why?
Because once the game starts, the DM controls 99% of the game world - everything beyond the fingertips of the player characters. The DM already has an incredible agency advantage over any given player. It's trivial for him to accommodate a request like that.
You should consider re-examining why your reaction was, "Adapt for Pete's sake." It reflects what is, in my opinion, a really unhealthy perspective on the relationship between a DM and players - people who are, ostensibly, friends trying to enjoy a collaborative game experience.
Impressive. You do realize that you just called about 80% of the people posting in this thread douchebags; right? Good job.Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openlyThis is the pinnacle of DM douchebaggery, when you care more about your campaign than that of the PCs success.
Consider that there is a difference between seeing an action as "douchebaggy" and considering a person to be a douchebag.
Is that your defense, though?
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There's a difference between sacrificing the purity of your headcanon and sacrificing the main plot of the campaign. If the plot of the campaign is about finding out what happened to the catpeople, then depending on what the answer to that is, having a player be the last remaining cat person might or might not work. You might have to throw away the entire backplot of your campaign to make it work.
Nah.
I have literally never seen that be the case. Most DMs don't have anywhere near that level of organization at play. Most who think they do will end up revising the plot in significant ways a hundred times before the big reveal.
What I'm seeing here is a whole lot of people saying, "Why even try? It's not the DM's job to facilitate the wants of a given player." And I'll be frank: that's as badwrongfun an attitude as it gets.
If it's literally impossible to find a creative way to accommodate your player, fine. I'd be skeptical, but whatever. You gave it your best shot.
But I don't want to hear that excuse until you've tried every creative trick in the book. The preservation of your personal vision is not worth so much more than theirs that you get to laugh this off as player entitlement.
More importantly, it's a bad sign. It's one player saying "I don't care what you've proposed for the campaign." To which the simple response would be "Why do you want to play in it then?" Maybe the answer is kick that player out. Maybe it's ditch the campaign idea and run something more generic. Maybe it's time for someone else to run something. Maybe the campaign idea can be stretched to accommodate.
Your last answer should have been your first.
That player isn't saying, "I don't care what you've proposed for the campaign." What a narrow-minded way of looking at the situation! Do you really think that a player who wants to see his own character concept come to life really doesn't care about the campaign you've proposed?
I could just as easily flip it around - how would you like it if I played this off as the DM saying, "I don't care what you want your character to be like."
Rein it in.
Even when the only problem is "sacrificing the holy inviolate purity of your personal fantasy world headcanon, which no one except you really cared about anyway", if the GM stops caring about the game, the game dies.
The DM has utter control over the game world. If his setting is so fragile that stretching it to accommodate a single player's character concept would destroy his enjoyment, that campaign is doomed. Because that character concept is nothing compared to what happens when players start interacting with the campaign concept directly.
Mind you, I don't think anyone's campaign concept is that fragile. I think that most DMs (who run their own, custom setting) vastly over-imagine how critical every aspect of their setting is to the overall value of the campaign.
So that's kind of important. Obviously it can be taken too far, but so can the idea that all campaigns must be generic kitchen sink games with every possible option available for players.
It doesn't need to be a kitchen sink. It doesn't need to accommodate every possible character concept. It needs to accommodate four to six.
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I tend to agree. If the GM spent the time making a campaign, which will take months or even years to do, and is going to take the time prepping every week, spending probably double the time than a player does at least, the player can make something that fits the setting.
Or the DM can make some changes.
As others have pointed out, if your more off the cuff that's one thing. But when I spend a year creating a homebrew, none of my players say "why can't I be a tiefling, who cares if the world has been cut off from the planes for 1000 years". They know there are the 16 races which already are reflected in the campaign world. Having to reconstruct 200 pages of lore to accommodate one player is asinine, and that player is being a serious jerk IMO.
Nah, you won't have to reconstruct 200 pages of lore. Don't be so ridiculously dramatic. You'll have to make an exception for the player. Yay, it's a mystery! You should be so lucky as to have all your players throw your such convenient and interesting hooks.
I have dozens of pc ideas i can try, if ones not going to fly at one table just pick another one.
Lucky you. That doesn't mean your players should have to do the same.
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Some stuff just isn't going to fit, Scott. My setting focuses on a specific type of game, involving the king's best monster hunters. A character who doesn't much care what the king says straight up doesn't work. Gnomes have never existed at any point during the history of the setting. The gods are dead, so a Cleric of a sun deity isn't really appropriate (We have Clerics, but they are rare and get their power from the planet itself). I don't see these as unreasonable things.
Impressive. You do realize that you just called about 80% of the people posting in this thread douchebags; right? Good job.Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openlyThis is the pinnacle of DM douchebaggery, when you care more about your campaign than that of the PCs success.
Consider that there is a difference between seeing an action as "douchebaggy" and considering a person to be a douchebag.
Is that your defense, though?
I think what he meant was my entire post. It's pretty long and I made a comment on every oldschool DM sin in the first post.
At no point in that post did I ever call anyone a douchebag or directly insult a person but opinions of people tend to get shot down very quick.
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I think what he meant was my entire post.
Obviously I cannot speak for "Usual Suspect", but I took his post as referring specifically to the part of your post that he quoted...
And my comment to your post was in reference to the part that I quoted.
My reasons for commenting, is that it is not “just lazy work on the DM's part” if I wish to design a campaign setting and consciously choose to omit a race, a class, or what have you.
Yes, absolutely, I could work that race, class, or whatever into the campaign setting, but that kind of defeats the whole point and purpose of creating a campaign which omits that race, class, or whatever in the first place... It has absolutely zero to do with laziness!
And for the record, I roll behind a screen and fudge rolls to both the character’s and npc’s/monster’s benefit, and sometimes (at least for the monsters) detriment.
YMMV and all of that...
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To address the above from Mr. Betts: Everything you said could be reversed to address the player rather than the GM.
Adapt. Compromise.
I often push that everyone should talk things out before characters are created to try to make the game a happy place. The GM can work with the player to try to incorporate their ideas and dreams, if you will, into the game.
The player should do the same, however. If your concept is so fragile that you cannot play without it, what happens when something in game damages or changes it?
If there is only way that you can have fun and things must bend to accommodate you or else you are basically going to not play and possibly make it so the others cannot play, why is letting you have your way a fair trade?
Compromise isn't a one way street. Adapting isn't just for GMs. Everyone should be working together to make the game, and you know what? Sometimes one party doesn't get their way. Sometimes the player doesn't get to play their dream idea to the fullest. Sometimes a GM has to table a game world to run Generic World because the players cannot agree on what they want, or 1-6 of them want to play something outside of the players document and in order to have a game, certain sacrifices are made.
There are no realities in a fantasy roleplaying game. The DM is utterly free to change the setting at a whim.
This? This is an irritating statement. There are realities in a fantasy game -- The ones you create. Novels and material for fantasy usually have in universe rules and realities that the characters abide by.
If you and yours enjoy free form chaos, that's great. Not everyone does, however, and they create worlds with concrete boundaries -- and example? There are no Klingons on any of my worlds unless we are expressly playing Star Trek. No, you may not play a Klingon. No, you may not fall through a gate with a bat'leth.
Now, if you want to play a race or culture with a honor code we can talk about that and I can show you where they are and what they are about. But one of the realities in my specific games is that Klingons aren't there.
The long and the short of all this is this: you adapt too. Work with each other.
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To address the above from Mr. Betts: Everything you said could be reversed to address the player rather than the GM.
Oh we know. We've done it every time it came up. Every GM has said 'no YOU bend'. So we've found the answer to 'when is it our turn' has been a resounding 'NEVER'.
To address the above from Mr. Betts: Everything you said could be reversed to address the player rather than the GM.Oh we know. We've done it every time it came up. Every GM has said 'no YOU bend'. So we've found the answer to 'when is it our turn' has been a resounding 'NEVER'.
Yes, I keep seeing that in these threads. And I keep saying "Both of you should be bending." No one has to give up 100 percent of their ground, but should be meeting in the middle. Or maybe just find better/other people to play with. I've run across maybe a handful of people over the years that just wouldn't alter the game or their character -- a far smaller number than the boards seem to indicate are roaming the lands. Maybe I am special or just darn lucky.
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Every GM? Don't you GM?
Yeah, but as I said before, when I ask what my players want I get blank stares and questions about what I want.
Hyperbole aside, the one GM I've had that qualifies I did not get nearly enough play time due to the 3 hour drive to his house. It's a little harder to drive to Kirth's now, but maybe we can do something online.
It's a little harder to drive to Kirth's now, but maybe we can do something online.
I'd like that. JAM412 has been begging me to start a Savage Tide campaign; maybe we can do one PBP - invitation-only. I'd save you a spot.
Alternatively, I'm still hoping you'll do that Shackled City one we were set for a few years back...
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I'm glad I've had great GMs. In an old campaign I was in, I wanted to be a Naga (of the L5R/Oriental Adventures 3.0 kind). The GM said there aren't any others left, you are the last of your kind. You don't know what happened to the rest of them. I said cool.
It was a great game.
Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openly
1 Employing prominent NPCs/GMPCs
2 Disallowing (or even placing restrictions of any kind on) full casters
3 Enforcing alignment in clear and definitive fashion
4 Imposing an objective morality on paladins, such as disallowing prevarication for selfish gain, torture, baby- (including baby monster) killing and casual sex as inherently evil and/or chaotic
5 Not providing the "required"/desired magical paraphernalia on schedule
6 Believing the DM's role is benevolent autocrat rather than either gleeful tyrant or impotent fantasy tour guide
7 Refusal to permit evil (or even chaotic neutral) PCs
8 Disallowing classes that violate the campaign's established and specific tone
9 Laying the smack down, hard, on abusive meta-gaming
10 Requiring immersive role-play rather than simple recitation of mechanics
11 Taking control of PCs who refuse to role-play honestly when charmed, dominated, etc.
12 Retaining control over magical weapons, cohorts, mounts, animal companions, eidolons, etc.
1 is bad if it steps on the PCs toes. Very Bad because it can destroy the fun.
2,5,8,10,12 are thematic or style choice... neither good or bad.
3,4,7,9,11 are good practices at heading off certain player troubles.
6 Huh?
I certainly wouldn't call any except possibly #1 a sin in any way.
It's a little harder to drive to Kirth's now, but maybe we can do something online.I'd like that. JAM412 has been begging me to start a Savage Tide campaign; maybe we can do one PBP - invitation-only. I'd save you a spot.
Alternatively, I'm still hoping you'll do that Shackled City one we were set for a few years back...
Awww... I wanted to see this group in action. If you do do something online maybe you can leave me a spectator link?
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To address the above from Mr. Betts: Everything you said could be reversed to address the player rather than the GM.
My point exactly!
See, usually this is leveled at the player. Almost invariably, in fact! The DM controls the setting and the players must work to accommodate that in their character design. Rarely, if ever, does the DM humble himself to accommodate the player characters in his setting design.
Adapt. Compromise.
I often push that everyone should talk things out before characters are created to try to make the game a happy place. The GM can work with the player to try to incorporate their ideas and dreams, if you will, into the game.
The player should do the same, however. If your concept is so fragile that you cannot play without it, what happens when something in game damages or changes it?
Wouldn't it be cool if DMs did this sometimes? I think it would be really cool.
You know what else I think would be cool? If DMs would lose the knee-jerk reactions they have to players "demanding" that their character design being accommodated, as though the DM's setting is worth a truckload of invalidated character concepts. That would just be swell.
If there is only way that you can have fun and things must bend to accommodate you or else you are basically going to not play and possibly make it so the others cannot play, why is letting you have your way a fair trade?
Are you just as willing to apply this criticism to DMs?
Compromise isn't a one way street. Adapting isn't just for GMs.
Just for DMs? In my experience, compromise (when it involves changing the setting, even in minor ways) is almost never for DMs.
This? This is an irritating statement. There are realities in a fantasy game -- The ones you create. Novels and material for fantasy usually have in universe rules and realities that the characters abide by.
If you can change it at a whim - like you can do in any roleplaying game - it isn't a reality. You need to understand that. This should be a trivial statement to accept - there are no realities in a fantasy game. If you are having trouble accepting that, there can be no communication between us. As a DM, if I say something is true for my world, it is true for my world - right up until the moment I say that it is no longer true for my world.
The conversation goes something like:
Player: "I want to play a Gworf."
DM: "You can't play a Gworf. Gworfs don't go adventuring. That's just a reality of the setting."
Player: "Why is it a reality of the setting?"
DM: "Because I said so."
Player: "But can't you just say otherwise, right now? Maybe this Gworf is different."
DM: "No. Stop acting so entitled. Am I going to need to remove you from this game?"
Note that last line isn't an exaggeration - there have been posts in this thread suggesting that an acceptable solution to this issue is to remove the player from the game, before the DM altering his setting in any significant way is even considered.
If you and yours enjoy free form chaos, that's great.
Is this what you believe? That either the game world must contain immutable realities or the game world is "free form chaos"? I certainly hope that this was just hyperbole on your part.
Yes, I keep seeing that in these threads. And I keep saying "Both of you should be bending." No one has to give up 100 percent of their ground, but should be meeting in the middle. Or maybe just find better/other people to play with. I've run across maybe a handful of people over the years that just wouldn't alter the game or their character -- a far smaller number than the boards seem to indicate are roaming the lands. Maybe I am special or just darn lucky.
We'll go with that explanation.
The problem with the "everyone should compromise" is that it gives DMs an excuse to say, "You first." We should be past that. DMs bear a responsibility to move this hobby forward. So let's have the DMs start bending first. Think we can do that for the next ten years? Then we can consider revisiting the possibility of both sides bending in unison.
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So, despite a bunch of people posting here about there accommodating GMs. Despite some players, like me, saying they're fine with restrictions. Despite many talking about how they would usually compromise, but on somethings it just won't work. Despite me personally having seen more games collapse due to the GM not enforcing his initial strictures than the reverse.
Yes, despite all those things.
You think the solution is 10 years of players getting whatever they want and GM's changing whatever they had in mind to the player's slightest whim?
Not whatever they want. I just want 10 years of the DM bending first. Bending; not breaking. I won't get that, of course, but I think it would be good for the hobby.
I don't know. Maybe I'm weird. I never come to a table wedded to a particular character concept, much less a particular build. I'm usually looking to the GMs description of the setting and campaign for clues as to what will fit into the game.
That's not weird, just like coming to the table excited to play a new character concept and then being disappointed when the DM shoots it down over an easily changed setting concern isn't weird.
I think that part of the reason that portions of the gaming community see DMs banning easily-accommodated character concepts as normal is that we've been acclimated over decades to the idea that the DM "deserves" to have his way and that player concerns come second.
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Why did the player even make a character concept before consulting the GM and looking up the setting first?You don't read books and get character ideas without a GM present?
Yeah and then I jot it down and run it by the GM. And we see if we can fit the concept in the setting. And if it doesn't work, I save the concept for later and come up with a new one, or pick one of the other ones.
I don't whine about injustice. I work with the GM.
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I just hate extreme positions on either sides. Both are horrid. Player entitlement and GM entitlement.
Player entitlement only seems to be worse because there are more players in a group.
I really make sure to work with the GM, and I also make sure to work with my players as a GM.
I do have knee jerk reactions to some things, but I usually moderate my position if I see that the player really wants to play this concept. But I also don't approve, what is for me, ridiculous demands and stuff that just doesn't fit.
Plus shelving it for later seems like an OK idea, it's not going anywhere.
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Do people really just get attached to whatever their current character concept is and demand to play it in the next game to come along? Is that what all the fuss is about?
Nope. But when you get your concept shot down by every GM you begin to wonder when you will find a game that allows it.
Player: "I want to play a Gworf."
DM: "You can't play a Gworf. Gworfs don't go adventuring. That's just a reality of the setting."
Player: "Why is it a reality of the setting?"
DM: "Because I said so."
Player: "But can't you just say otherwise, right now? Maybe this Gworf is different."
DM: "No. Stop acting so entitled. Am I going to need to remove you from this game?"
Replace Gworf with Halfling and you have the premise for The Hobbit.
Hobbits don't adventure. Except that weirdo Bilbo Baggins.
1) Isn't that essentially what 15 years of 3.x/PF taking power from the GM and pushing it towards the player have already done? Aren't we actually at the start of a wave back in the other direction, with the old school revival and even 5E?
What in the rules for 3.x/PF/4E gave you that impression? If there was any shift in that period, it was in the culture, not the game.
And Old School Revival is about many things. Far more about going back to a simpler, less bloated rule system than the GM/PC relationship.
Player: "I want to play a Gworf."
DM: "You can't play a Gworf. Gworfs don't go adventuring. That's just a reality of the setting."
Player: "Why is it a reality of the setting?"
DM: "Because I said so."
Player: "But can't you just say otherwise, right now? Maybe this Gworf is different."
DM: "No. Stop acting so entitled. Am I going to need to remove you from this game?"
Replace Gworf with Halfling and you have the premise for The Hobbit.
Hobbits don't adventure. Except that weirdo Bilbo Baggins.
In my setting pretty much nobody adventures in the part of the world where the action is currently taking place, and the PCs are not at all representative of the average citizen. The vast majority of people never come close to joining the kingdom's best monster killing unit, so the PCs are automatically unusual people. Paladins? The game takes place in a province with a population of just over a million. You can count the number of Paladins in the province on your fingers and toes. Clerics, Inquisitors, and Oracles are exceedingly rare, too, but not quite so much as Paladins. All of those classes are still available to players. The world's population of "German" elves is about 10,000 and put a lot of importance on their community, while "Scandinavian", "Gaelic", and "English" elves all number in the millions. A player can be a "German" elf. "Japanese" dwarves? Our nation has one expat community of around 1000, and they are a wary lot do to what their community has gone through, and are baffled by our society. Of all the ethnic groups in our nation, they are the most unlikely to leave their community. A player can be a "Japanese" dwarf. Planetouched are another thing that is rare in setting and allowable for players. I get not allowing options that don't fit the theme of the setting, but at the same time the PCs should be allowed to be special. Plus, as a worldbuilder I don't believe in creating cultures that lack outliers, and I use culture as statement of societal values and popular trends, not a description of what people in that culture's personality is.