I am tinkering with something similar right now, with the elf-equivalents being virtually illegal outside the borders of their own empire.

So, here’s what I would suggest you consider:

• First, discuss it with your players and make sure you’re not going to piss any of them off by doing this. If any of them were planning on playing said race, make sure they’re okay with the impact on their play style.

• Consider the storytelling conflicts you want to explore with this. What encounters do you want to put your players through, and why? What themes are you looking to explore?

• Consider the larger impact on other parts of your world. Try to make this more than a point that exists in isolation and a vacuum.

Welp. Since Hasbro overall seems intent on running its properties into the ground, I have little doubt the next one will continue the cycle of enshittification. I’d love to be wrong, but I doubt it.

So, this is a bit of a “depending on the group & situation” thing.

Fudging HP is definitely a thing DMs (myself included) do. However, with an experienced group who can get a sense for how much HP is typical for mobs at a given level, and if the amount of damage done is quite clearly far enough that he ought to be dead, it can be hard to add HP without “showing the finger on the scales” - at which point the illusion breaks and it becomes “un-fun”.

This is exactly why single chunky bosses drive me nuts. I once watched a rogue annihilate a major chapter boss with a single opportunity attack and some very lucky rolls.

Going to echo the prior comment. But here’s my thoughts:

1. Was there a “session zero” in which the group’s expectations for the campaign and interactions were laid out? If not, it may be a good idea to pause and have this. Sometimes groups who are familiar with each other skip this because they “know each other”, but it can still be good on a campaign-by-campaign basis.

2. When you discuss it with them, try to start by determining why the DM is acting this way: Since it sounds like the DM likes firmly heroic characters, is this just what they find ‘cool’ or do they actually object to playing / having grey-er characters in their party or campaign? (Same kind of applies to the cleric’s player - are they just “playing the character”, or is this what the player feels is right?)

3. Ask if there’s been any miscommunications involved. The thing that sticks out as odd to me here, is that the DM clearly seemed to be urging you towards combat with stereotypically evil enemies in these scenarios… but views you initiating combat as “evil”? It’s possible something is getting lost in translation.

4. Since you and the rogue are both clearly enjoying less cut-and-dry characters, express that this isn’t just you-versus-them. Or you-versus-cleric-player. Broadly, try to avoid turning this into an argument between people.

5. This will fluctuate a bit depending on how roleplay-heavy your group is, but consider asking if this could be dealt with in-character. Is the cleric open to having a crisis of faith over working with such “tainted” people? Are you okay with your character sometimes being held back by other party members when they’d like to be proactive, so long as their view isn’t changed?

This is the problem I have as well. With a group new to D&D, it’s not so bad - they’re likely to take creatures which are cool, but not necessarily stealthiest or most situationally-fitting. It’s okay to have the bandit ask “…wait, why is a raven this far into a giant underground mine?”

Then you have the veteran players who have invisible, indefinite, sometimes incorporeal familiars… the most egregious was one who would cast through his nigh-undetectable familiar, making many encounters moot as the familiar could just ping down stuff without ever being spotted in return.

This is a big thing killing my interaction with Lemmy as well. I want to like it, but I drop into a discussion thread and the top-engaged/boosted comments are spicy and almost designed to promote maximum anger. And I feel like, “Do I really, really want to spend significant time writing out a deeper comment to engage with this community…?”

I feel like this is one of those rules that’s only really necessary if you have a player who cheeses it like that. If a player discovers it and uses it in moderation, well, that’s less likely to break things. If you have a player who builds their character to exploit it…