Lots of the current generation of gamers WotC has chosen to service are very much about - if it is official WotC D&D - it should be allowed.
And they cry loud and hard if it is not. Discussion on other forums and twitter are rife with "If you don't allow my half tabaxi tiefling Bard, you are a bad GM / lack creativity.."
Making "D&D your own" is what Grognards who don't want to game with a PC menagerie are told to make them shut up and bugger off to their home game so that everyone else can enjoy official WotC D&D without criticism.
What’s really amusing is when you as GM point out that multiclassing and feats are optional, and not core rules, to a table of die-hard WotC devotees, and that they won’t be used. Scream, cry, holler. Likewise, with variant humans.
The newer players devoted to WotC D&D 5th Edition want
all of the rules options to be open for them to use. But
only if they are player-facing, I have discovered.
Implement all of these in a game when “devotees” demand access to feats and multiclassing even when you’ve mentioned you don’t want to use optional rules in your game some time, and see what happens for you.
- Healer’s Kit Dependency, DMG 266
- Rest Variant - Gritty Realism, DMG 267
- Injuries, DMG 272
- Massive Damage, DMG 273
It’s the same results for me, every time. Scream and cry and holler how unfair it is, and it’s not how the rules work even when I quote DMG pages, then ragequit.