Exotic species aren't so exotic, eh?

[Psyren]

Oh dear, I didn’t mean to kick the hornet’s nest. Sorry.

But yeah, Dr.Samurai and KorvinStarmast have the best read of my position. The sidebar implies a certain malleability that by default Krynn does not have. If the DM makes the call of their own volition to let a player play an orc in Dragonlance, that’s fine and good. But in my opinion there’s enough ambiguity that a player may (mistakenly) believe the sidebar to be a case of Specific Beats General overriding p. 6 of the PHB in this specific instance.

There is no rule more specific than "Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if that setting is a published world." And a DM who is incapable of asserting themselves even with that text in hand, would be incapable of asserting themselves no matter what is written in any rulebook. At that point, the designers are not the problem.

(Moreover - they put that text at the front of the PHB, so the players can't even credibly claim that they weren't exposed to it, or at least that it's unreasonable for them to have been exposed to it.)

I am of the belief that while ultimately no amount of rules text can truly defeat a bad-faith/jerk DM or player, the rules can provide some guardrails to prevent misunderstandings or clear up confusing cases that would otherwise cause players and DMs to not be the best person they could be at the table.

I completely agree, and they've done that.

[RedMage125]

(IME players who go to the effort to make it fit are usually worth working with on any number of things, not just chargen).

I am of the belief that while ultimately no amount of rules text can truly defeat a bad-faith/jerk DM or player, the rules can provide some guardrails to prevent misunderstandings or clear up confusing cases that would otherwise cause players and DMs to not be the best person they could be at the table.

I second both of these statements.

[Chronos]

What's a player doing reading the module, anyway? The only way a player should even be encountering that sidebar in the first place is if the DM chooses to share it with them.