The last time I had a problem asking you guys helped a lot so here we go again. I have this player and I don’t know why but he loves homebrew a lot, which is a big contrast to me, because I believe if you’re able to make it in d&d just use the normal rules. So when I was new at DMing his first character was a homebrew class. After that he leaned heavily into power gaming customizing his build to optimize everything, he would take advantage of my kindness as a dm when rolling for stats or doing point buy, one time he left the group on a quest to collect different items for the bbeg, just to get some armor that was good. He recently decided for this campaign he was going to make a joke character, I told him he could take it seriously or not play he opted out. My other friend defused the situation and convinced my friend to play. But my friend decided right after declaring that he was going to make a joke character said he was going to be all homebrew. For him to play this was a stipulation. In the past I have showed my distancing for homebrew (mainly classes) in other campaigns, so for me to be try to bring all my friends together after quarantine was kind of upsetting. But I told him that some homebrew I would not allowed. He agreed and he set out to find a homebrew race and class not having any idea in mind for his character just searching the 5e wiki to find anything he liked, I thought this was a backwards way of making a character, but he told me this was how he was doing it, he eventually found a weird race that would do better as a homebrew monster, but one of my other players made a Thri-Kreen so I said ok it’s not op it’s not underpowered it’s well balanced(if you really care it was this storm spirit born from anxiety of a storm, it’s a goat skull for a head, human body, and moth wings that acted like a cloak) so he set out to find a class it was at this moment I realized he wanted a storm based character and we already have a tempest cleric, but i was just waiting until I could steer him towards a normal class, he found two different classes one was called The Storm Mage, just storm sorcerer+fighter, so I said no, he understood and moved on. Then he found The Healer of the Storm, who’s class abilities were just spells that already existed a first level ability was called “Thunderclap”. So I told him no. I told him that I had made my opinion on homebrew classes clear, and he said he made it clear that he wasn’t going to use normal anything. I said to him that he could respect my wishes or not and just not play, he said I could respect your wishes and not play, I was puzzled by this. Then he continued in silence until saying “Ok I’ll call you back tomorrow” what should I do, sorry for the long explanation. 

If you don’t want homebrew, that is absolutely 100% okay. You are the DM. You’re the one who has to spend all of the hours doing all of the work to put a story together for a group of people. Balancing 5e is hard enough without homebrew if one is not prepared for it. And by prepared I mean all of the literal extra work to prepare balanced encounters for the group. If they do not wish to acquiesce to your wishes, that sounds like more of a “them problem” than a “you problem.”

If you wish to be more lenient than that, stere them away from that dumpster fire over at the wiki. Maybe suggest a homebrewed subclass for a normal class? There is some descent stuff on the GM’s Guild. And the DDB homebrew may not be perfect, but on average it’s leagues better than the wiki. Even the soulless peaches that run that site shouldn’t be forced to use that garbage. You shouldn’t either.

Hahahahahaha, thanks

I'm not about homebrew, most of it is a claim to "make the character exactly that I have pictured" but turns into "i want everything" pretty quickly. Most character concepts can be achieved with the offical material and a bit of flair. 

As for the threat of a player giving an ultimatum, that only works if there is something to lose if they don't. The game would run without that player [you still need some mind] but it would run without the DM. One person puts in a lot more that the rest....

wow that sounds like a shit person you have to deal with.

there is a reason that you as DM and the players get together and lay down some foundations of expectations, what is and isn't allowed etc. if you, as the DM, do not feel comfortable with homebrew, or specific homebrew, you have every right to explain why and outright ban it from your table. especially if the player who wants to be all homebrew abuses this to create OP min-maxed bullshit characters. as DM you have the right to ban material that you do not feel comfortable with adjucating. as long as you have a good sound reasoning behind it why. most players will understand and respect it. a player outright declaring they will use content that you do not feel comfortable with is just a ******bag.

same when coming to an agreement around the table of the style of setting, seriousness of play and overall theme. this can also determine whether monster races for PCs would fit or not. what kind of stuff the players can use to create their characters and whether they can do a "Beer&Pretzel" silly PC, or a more serious PC fitting with a dark fantasy theme, or a more piratey PC to fit with nautical settings etc. If the group agrees for a more serious experience....and this one person wants to be a disrespectful ******* joke...remove them or it'll destroy the fun for everyone.

Either this person gets in line with the others. Or you remove him entirely. As DM you have to make the tough calls and manage the social aspect of the table as well as the game elements. If this player is too stubborn and selfish it is best to get rid of them. It'll only fester and erupt in unnecessary drama further down the road. Which could even ruin the game and fun completely for everyone at that point.

So far the OP seems to be similar to me. In regards to being fairly lenient and open to ideas. Re-fluffing and adjusting to fit the demands of the Player. However there are boundaries that vary per group and dm. Set those boundaries. Be clear and transparent about them. Be consistent in their application no matter how harsh.

ps. yes you might want to ban the usage of DNDwiki in general. its filled with unbalanced bullshit. its nice for some general ideas, but ignore anything related to mechanics.

I do not ever allow third party homebrew "as-is" into my campaign. I will occasionally, if I like the concept, allow it after doing a balance pass to make sure nothing is broken, with the caveat that it may be adjusted should it cause issues with balance. If a player wants something homebrew, and it's not going to be a huge pain in the behind to make, I'll work with them on it. But I always state that I do not allow homebrew. I'd rather have players have no expectation of homebrewing and then be pleasantly surprised than to say "Sure" and then have to cut them off.

As a DM, you have the right (and the responsibility, in my opinion) to say to a player using homebrew "Look, I know that you're interested in this, but it's messing up encounters. Nothing challenges you, but it would wipe out the entire party if I balanced to do that. You have X ability that keeps anyone else from doing things, and it's become something that negatively impacts the rest of the group. " You can say that picking a vanilla class/race is a requirement of the campaign. Not every character needs to be a special snowflake using special tailored homebrew. Some of the most interesting characters I've seen have been fairly generic but have personalized well through play. 5e provides tons of options between classes and archetypes- probably close to a hundred options now given that we have all the cleric domains we could ever possibly need and a ton of flavors of wizard. Add in the diversity of backgrounds and you've got hundreds of thousands of race, class, and background combinations to make unique characters. If you're going to homebrew as part of your character creation process, you're almost certainly being a disruptive player. Maybe you're looking through a barbarian archetype and think "That would be cool if it was slightly more like this..." That would be a time to look at homebrewing a few changes or seeing if someone already made something like that, but not when you're first making a character.

As an aside, I hate dndwiki with a burning passion. The number of times I've had to straighten out players who see homebrew without realizing it's not official, the number of times I've had DMs throw completely unbalanced encounters at parties, and the number of times I've cringed at an edgy homebrew someone wanted to run have permanently conditioned me to hate that site and I don't think anything can change my mind. I used to love homebrew, and now I feel so bitter about it because relying on bad homebrew encourages people who should know better to try to get away with broken, powergaming builds or unbalanced encounters instead of appreciating RAW and learning how to balance characters and fights. I am definitely someone who could be a powergamer (and, if it's not part of a campaign, I will theorycraft to no end about broken builds), but my time as a DM has reminded me to play balanced characters so I can be a better player and have more fun with the game, instead of just reducing it to numbers. People who lean too heavily on homebrew sacrifice the story and world of the table for one of two things- the special snowflake bouncing around in their head that doesn't work with the party's or the DM's view of the world, or raw numerical performance over everything else- and sometimes both.

Now, properly balanced third party content is a different story, but, again, I would only allow it after giving a once over. As a DM, your word is law, and if your player isn't interested, they can take a break from the campaign. Explain your concerns- the homebrew they're wanting would break balance and possibly harm the story and worldbuilding. If your player isn't sympathetic, they can find another campaign.

Lemme try and offer something more actionable on this one.  Indignant DM rage is cathartic, and in the DM forum it's easy to find folks who will - absolutely rightly - tell you that the DM controls the game and the players can suck it up or leave.  But on the assumption that you want to try and keep this guy...:

I would recommend pulling the player aside and asking him a few questions.  Don't be pushy or aggressive - frame it as exactly what it should be, trying to understand where his viewpoint is coming from so you can help figure out games for both him and the group.  Try and find out why he's so opposed to using official content, and perhaps steer him to Unearthed Arcana.  Some UA is a little wincy, but for the most part it's all playable and might suggest a middle ground between 'HOMEBREW EVERYTHING' and 'RAW ONLY'.

I will point out that one reason many DMs don't suspect is behind a 'powergamer' player trying to use stuff beyond the books is that the vast majority of DMs never run much of any content above level 5.  A player can see this constant, tantalizing promise of all the cool awesome badass things waiting for them in their class, but by the time they're just starting to unlock that potential, the game blows up or the DM goes "well, that was great!  Next campaign time, everybody back to level 1!"  It could be that this guy, and similar powergamers, are insisting on homebrew because they're fed up with constantly being blocked from higher-level play and experiencing the extra strength they're logning for.  So they hunt down homebrew that gives them some of that power within the reduced level cap of their campaigns.

I have no idea if this is the case with your guy, but if you've seen this player get bummed out about campaign deaths before, maybe ask.  Is he looking for homebrew because he wants to experience some of that higher-level ability he never gets to?  Because he hates the idea of playing something somebody else has done before?  Because he's sick and tired of Standard Fantasy Archetropes and wants to play something outside the box?  Finding out why this player is so insistent on avoiding the books would be the first step in figuring out how to fix it, even if it's simply telling the people here what reasoning he gives so we can try and help.

I'm always keen on reflavoring or making minor adjustments to existing content versus pure homebrew. For example, I DM'd a one-shot for my 9-year-old niece a few weeks back, and she's not really familiar with D&D and isn't ready to look through all the different content to figure out what she wants to be, so when she said she wanted to be an angel who fought with a crystal axe, we statted her as a human fighter with a pair of winged boots and a +1 axe. If your guy really, desperately wants to play as a goat-skulled monster with wings, just stat them as a winged tiefling.

Does someone really want to be a storm-based caster but aren't happy with the lightning/thunder spells available? Let them cast fireball but it deals lightning damage instead. There's some balance issues... the power of fireball is partly balanced against how many creatures are resistant to fire damage. But it won't be a major factor in most play.

I'd especially be wary of someone who wants to play a fully homebrewed Class, and not just a subclass. There's more than enough variety in the combination of classes, subclasses, and even multiclassing to cover almost any idea someone could have.

As a longtime DM, I try very hard to let my players pick classes and races they want to play. However, whenever I hear "I'll only play if", that person usually does not play in my game. I respond poorly to ultimatums and have little to no back down. Those are flaws of mine.

Giving in to that sort of ultimatum conditions players to bad behavior. The "I get what I want or I go home" mentality is poison to any situation. My answer is "go home". Homebrew classes and spells are too often unbalanced wish fulfillment, main character, spotlight hogging bs. The motorcycle riding, katana wielding, orphan from the worst gang but has a heart of gold and all the ladies love him. The edgiest edgelord who ever lorded an edge.

Gag me with a D20.

If your player wants to play, he will play. If he will only play if he gets his way, your table is better off without him. 

My 2 cents, for what it's worth.

Thank you all so much, I love all the input you’ve given, I’ve attempted to steer him towards unearthed arcana but changed the subject quickly so I’ll be talking to him soon about his disdain for official content, Yurei1453. TransmorpherDDS I love that your 9 year old niece is playing d&d that’s so cool. I encourage flavoring of spells or features it adds a lot to roll playing, I try to encourage changing some mechanics such as Fire ball being a lightning ball. The_Black_Fox I regret to inform you that I am also this way and believe that if your going to be rude about it you can just leave. Thank you so much. 

I get wanting to home-brew spells for a character you are playing... submitting them to the DM and hoping they are balanced enough to begin your Dynastic Work of Spells.  I get having a character concept and trying to find something that works with it but failing and asking permission to try something out.  On the other hand I get DMs that create a class or sub-class or spell-list that is available to players to try out if they want to.  I do not understand a player DEMANDING that they get to find some obscure Homebrew ruleset for a concept they haven't defined or they are taking their ball and going home.  I'm all for players being creative.  I'm all for making new things and bringing richer magic into the world.  I don't think this player is creating anything but misery for other people.  I mean, I get a player that wants to use Homebrew.  Usually that means they are the one creating things.  Someone that wants a Homebrew stipulation just so they can go find other people's works is bizarre.  It makes me wonder if they have actually ever played a Core Race before.  

If I were close friends with this person, I would have to sit them down at this point and ask point blank.  "I understand that you love looking through lots of options, but at this point you are coming across as selfish and that you seem to be more interested in how much table time is devoted to your character than you are in being a part of the group.  I am playing this game because I care about the entire group, not just your character and everyone deserves a chance to shine and have their own special place in my game.  How about you come up with a compelling concept for a character and put some time and effort into a backstory and let's work from there.  If we can't find it in official sources, I'll be open to helping you find something that suits both you and this campaign.  I have a feeling that this is going to take a lot of extra effort on my part as well as yours and I'm afraid it is going to delay the start of the campaign for everyone.  If you do not have a compelling concept for a character and are just throwing ideas of a character because you found a home-brew you like, then I'm not really interested.  Keep on working on your concepts and we'll add you in to the next campaign."

But... I would have to be close friends to not just move on without them and start the campaign.  There is enough weirdness in official literature without going down the unbalanced rabbit holes of other sources, which likely aren't even built for 5e and have to be entirely reworked.

And... maybe it is time for this person to step up and be a DM for a change.  Let the players know our boundaries for using Homebrew and let's all go for it!  Maybe the spice of life is even better for this person as a DM.  (Sorry... should have thought of that first without it being a post-edit thought)