VMWare Tools do not allow changing resolution in El Capitan
Admittedly, this is a very old thread (that I found from searching for com.vmware.kext.VMwareGfx), but I wanted to update with an answer.

I was able to get a working setup using Mojave 10.14.5, on Workstation 15 Player, using the copy of VMware Tools from Fusion 11. Additionally, I did not have to do any csrutil tweaks.



So perhaps you can try using those versions and see if things will work out of the box. Good luck!

(As for the commenter talking about the Apple licence agreement, I'm not a lawyer but I understand it's not a violation if you're running on Apple hardware. In my case I'm running this on my MacBook Pro, and I'm happy to report that macOS guests worked out of the box for me.)