Somewhere, I advocated cutting character choices waaaay back, while remaining flexible, to help deal with player indecision. Give someone 10 races, 30 classes and 50 feats, and they'll probably be paralyzed. Tell them "You can be a Fighter, Magic-User or Thief" and they will immediately know what they want to play, if it's not an option... and then you can negotiate. This is good for weeding out idiotic players, too.

There are, of course, levels of this kind of behavior:

Low Level: Leave out an option, they ask if they can play that option... but if you say "no", that's OK. (Not Actually Idiotic.)

Medium Level: Leave out an option, and they ONLY want that option, and throw a fit if they can't have it (as per the OP. Somewhat Idiotic.)

High Level: They look around for TEH MOST!1! AWESOME!!1!! option possible and ask for more... and if you give in, they ask for STILL MORE. (Definitely Idiotic.)

The medium and high levels of this are pretty dysfunctional, but the medium level might be easier to deal with, if the option they demand isn't AWESOME!1!! These are the most likely to be just plain dicks, though... the high-level types are too self-absorbed to make demands just to be dickish.

I think the strength of RPGs is precisely that the options are unlimited - you're not limited to just the pieces that are in the box or pre-programmed choices. As others stated - this is much like one of the strengths of a restaurant as opposed to a ready-made meal is that you can make requests. Players enjoy this aspect and like to engage in it.

In much the same way, if PCs come to a corridor that turns left or right, they'll often try to break down the wall, or teleport, or go back the way they came. That's a big part of what is cool about tabletop RPGs.

I don't think that wanting stuff not on the menu is inherently being a dick. Players can be dicks about it in the same way that people can be dicks about anything, but I think it's normal to be interested in trying out choices that aren't pre-programmed.

Quote from: Old Geezer;722977They're attention whores?

This.  Some people have to be TEH UNIQUE thing, and so they read any actually available option as "normal" and therefore "boring".

If someone is really going to scream about this, and won't just find something available that they can work with, it's usually a good sign to me that I don't want to game with that person.

One of the best filters I've seen was running a D&D game with only humans allowed.  Got a great group of people out of it, with only a single troll.

Are we just making up things to hate now, I've never actually met anyone who would even remotely get upset because their favourite character type wasn't available.

Quote from: The Traveller;723179Are we just making up things to hate now, I've never actually met anyone who would even remotely get upset because their favourite character type wasn't available.

Lucky you.  I have.

The experience has generally been unpleasant.  I've found such players to almost universally be incredibly immature and problematic in other ways, and will often scream if they don't get their way.  It's almost like some mild form of Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  And, as I've said, it's since served me as a great flag for likely disruptive players.

Idiots are idiots, of any flavor.

Quote from: robiswrong;723192Lucky you.  I have.

The experience has generally been unpleasant.  I've found such players to almost universally be incredibly immature and problematic in other ways, and will often scream if they don't get their way.  It's almost like some mild form of Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  And, as I've said, it's since served me as a great flag for likely disruptive players.

I had someone who wanted to play a complete pacifist who would KILL anyone who touched his favorite knife. He fought to get his way, too, and was horrified when I suggested the only way that made sense was if he had a split personality, one side pacifist, the other violently murderous.

I had someone who, when I suggested a game of elven spies, wanted to be a grizzled human warrior who was WORLD FAMOUS. He got his way, and then complained that, for a group of spies, the characters seemed too conspicuous.

Both of those were when I was running GURPS, so the players actually had many more character options than in D&D at the time. And yet: PROBLEMS.

Quote from: talysman;723209I had someone who wanted to play a complete pacifist who would KILL anyone who touched his favorite knife. He fought to get his way, too, and was horrified when I suggested the only way that made sense was if he had a split personality, one side pacifist, the other violently murderous.

I had someone who, when I suggested a game of elven spies, wanted to be a grizzled human warrior who was WORLD FAMOUS. He got his way, and then complained that, for a group of spies, the characters seemed too conspicuous.

Both of those were when I was running GURPS, so the players actually had many more character options than in D&D at the time. And yet: PROBLEMS.

Quote from: robiswrong;723173One of the best filters I've seen was running a D&D game with only humans allowed.  Got a great group of people out of it, with only a single troll.

I've used this myself and it is remarkable. Made me realize that when I run another game be sure to memorize all penalties of such classes and use them. Often the players this sifted out admitted that they like such classes because GMs usually forget to apply all the social and other penalties from race.

And then there were the "I can only play a snooty elf or brusque dwarf" because their misanthropy was palpable and immutable, but the less said of those the better.

Quote from: talysman;723209I had someone who wanted to play a complete pacifist who would KILL anyone who touched his favorite knife. He fought to get his way, too, and was horrified when I suggested the only way that made sense was if he had a split personality, one side pacifist, the other violently murderous.

I had someone who, when I suggested a game of elven spies, wanted to be a grizzled human warrior who was WORLD FAMOUS. He got his way, and then complained that, for a group of spies, the characters seemed too conspicuous.

Both of those sound awesome to be honest, Doctor DJ from Event Horizon and Sean Connery trying his hand at espionage in North Korea. Embrace the difference.

Quote from: The Traveller;723215Both of those sound awesome to be honest, Doctor DJ from Event Horizon and Sean Connery trying his hand at espionage in North Korea. Embrace the difference.

The first seems more like a case of "concept the GM doesn't think makes sense" more than wanting to play something that's been disallowed.

The second is a bit more iffy, as if the pitch of the game is "elven spies", a human warrior is certainly a bit out of place.  It's possibly workable, presuming that humans exist in the world.

In both cases, it seems like the concepts could be workable, and I think that it's a good idea for a GM to look for ways that things *can* make sense when possible, even if it's not *precisely* what the GM thinks is perfect to start.

I don't see either of them as really being what the OP is talking about, though - the desire to play things that have been explicitly been declared not part of the world.

Quote from: robiswrong;723173This.  Some people have to be TEH UNIQUE thing, and so they read any actually available option as "normal" and therefore "boring".

Yeah, I think I've seen this or at least people on RPGnet who think this is okay behavior that ought to be accommodated by the GM. To be specific, there's two kinds:

1) Gotta play a ninja because ninjas are cool. Even though, hey, game is set in ancient Rome.

2) May look like (1) but if you set the game in 16th-century Japan, they gotta play an Aztec warrior because it's "original".

The first is kinda cute the second is Aaa! [/Sam Kinison].

I so don't want to be that guy that I often try to take the most mundane option for the setting. It's about engaging the setting and developing a character in play, with evolving status and relationships.

Quote from: Arminius;723265I so don't want to be that guy that I often try to take the most mundane option for the setting. It's about engaging the setting and developing a character in play, with evolving status and relationships.

Right?

I find that 'race/class' is the *least* interesting part of a character.

I've had people tell me that "humans are boring".  Really?  So 99% of characters *ever* in fiction are dull?  REALLY?

Quote from: talysman;723209I had someone who wanted to play a complete pacifist who would KILL anyone who touched his favorite knife. He fought to get his way, too, and was horrified when I suggested the only way that made sense was if he had a split personality, one side pacifist, the other violently murderous.

I had someone who, when I suggested a game of elven spies, wanted to be a grizzled human warrior who was WORLD FAMOUS. He got his way, and then complained that, for a group of spies, the characters seemed too conspicuous.

Quote from: robiswrong;723242In both cases, it seems like the concepts could be workable, and I think that it's a good idea for a GM to look for ways that things *can* make sense when possible, even if it's not *precisely* what the GM thinks is perfect to start.

I don't see either of them as really being what the OP is talking about, though - the desire to play things that have been explicitly been declared not part of the world.

I'm not sure where the quote from the OP came from or implies. Is ForumScavenger talking about character types are don't exist in the world at all, like Arminius' example of a ninja in ancient Rome; or about characters that exist in the world but aren't allowed as PCs in the campaign - like talysman's example of playing a human warrior in the elven spies campaign.

Part of this may be a matter of expectations. I tend to run campaigns with input from the players. I'll specify a few things that I really care about, but for most things I'm happy to go in different directions. If the players don't like elves, I might cut elves out of the campaign. If the players do like elves, I might include them even if I originally hadn't planned to.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;722971Are you one of these gamers?

And if so, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Nope, I'm not.  In fact I try to be the last, or one of the last, players to make a character so I can fill in what is needed.

However, I've certainly seen it as a GM.  Most recent example was a player in a Shadowrun game.  I said "No Deckers, because the matrix takes too long while everyone else dies of boredom."  So they made a Technomancer...