PHB2 Races = Mos Eisley Cantina

[Kask]

Originally Posted by Obryn

Finally, I think it's disingenous to use PC races as the main "weirdness" metric in a fantasy setting. No 3e race is anywhere near as bizarre as a gelatinous cube. Or a Lurker Above. Or a cloaker. Or a beholder, for that matter. (And once we get into Fiend Folio, all of those look positively sensible.)

Umm, none of these are PC races, they are monsters. Other than that good point. ROFL

[Remathilis]

Originally Posted by Kask

But the 2e DMG would agree with me. Always be wary of crap books.

You DO realize the second sentence cancels out the first, right?

[Kask]

Originally Posted by Remathilis

You DO realize the second sentence cancels out the first, right?

Umm, no. Two different subjects.

[Obryn]

Originally Posted by Kask

Umm, none of these are PC races, they are monsters. Other than that good point. ROFL

...which would be why I prefaced this statement with...

Originally Posted by me

I think it's disingenous to use PC races as the main "weirdness" metric in a fantasy setting.

-O

[Kask]

Originally Posted by Obryn

...which would be why I prefaced this statement

Weirdness from the GM/player perspective. Building a credible world around a few related races is much better and more believable than trying to cram "weird" PC races into the mix. You can read more on the subject from the creator of the game.

[Keefe the Thief]

The creator of the game would have told you that you are the master of your campaign and can include what you see fit. "Credible" is in the eye of the beholder, in this case the DM - and a wise DM is on a level with his players in regards to the tone of his campaign.

Additionally, this thread smells of regeneration.

[Rechan]

In my experience, people pick the race they play based on the mechanical benefits; Elves and Dwarves are always picked to play classes that need Wisdom, etc.

So, I feel taht if you took out elves and dwarves, and dropped in Shifters and Deva, that it wouldn't impact the game at all.


If your concern is "There are too many PC races in my campaign world!", I liked a suggestion someone here on the forums had:

Offer all the races as an option at character creation. Once the players have picked their races... those are it.

So if they picked Humans, Tieflings and Halflings, then those three PC races are the only races that exist in the setting. Anyone wants to play anything else, they are considered "One of a kind" as far as rarity's sake.

[Shadowsong666]

Originally Posted by Mad Zagyg

I just threw up all over page 7 of the PHB2.

It looks like a terrible space fantasy for little kids! The whole game store I was at tonight was laughing hysterically at it!

THIS is Dungeons & Dragons?

"It's a cold and rainy night.
The village locals gather in the small tavern over mugs of ale to soothe their weary spirits after a long, hard day of toil.
Suddenly, the tavern door slams open and in walks a party of adventurers.

The first one through the door is a squat little wolfman with a hairy face and feral eyes. The second is what looks like a gnome-drow. The third, a half-orc... that is, apparently: half-orc and half vampire (worst artistic rendering of half-orcs EVER). The fourth is a blue skinned space man with a glowing, spectral pet wolf. Finally, a miniature stone giant."


When did Spelljammer become the default game world!

It's just so RIDICULOUS! It's like the Mos Eisley Cantina threw up all over the D&D universe.

I wish these designers would ease back on the cheese throttle.

Well, i simply don't get your point. Looking at the picture i see influences of different cultures and times, so whats the problem with it?

But hey, as my gaming group features a dwarven battlerager, a elven archer, an genasi wizard, a dragonborn paladin, a gnoll warlock and a wemic cleric i may just not be so picky about races.

All that counts is how the DM is able to put the stuff together and i am really glad that we get more and more official choices for our characters as players and for our npcs as DMs. If your DM is not able to translate it into a nice fantasy setting its your wasted time and not mine. Think i just try to have an open mind about new stuff.

I really like the new fresh art of WoTC (but hell, i like many old things too) in the 4e books. The art of the deva may take some time for some people to get used to, but i simply love it.

Great work WoTC.

[AbdulAlhazred]

Originally Posted by Kask

Weirdness from the GM/player perspective. Building a credible world around a few related races is much better and more believable than trying to cram "weird" PC races into the mix. You can read more on the subject from the creator of the game.

Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. Suppose you design a campaign world so that it will have a particular sort of atmosphere to it. That may just not be compatible with the way the game designers have visualized certain races. You can reimagine them, but there is more work involved in communicating that to your players, who are likely to be more familiar with the 'default' way they are envisaged.

Plus you'll always have those players wandering in and out of most campaigns who aren't all that familiar with the world and show up with 'joe the deva' or whatever. It isn't the end of the world, but sometimes it does kind of put a dent in the setting.

The problem with just banning certain races is twofold. One is that the game actually kind of depends on those races existing. That was not true in earlier editions, but in 4e there are just a lot of classes and builds that work a LOT better with dragonborn, and if you don't happen to want to include that race in the campaign setting, then it does have some impact on play.

Secondly you WILL get player pushback. Players usually don't really care so much about atmosphere. They're busy worrying about hitting things and getting from here to there. Unless the setting is REALLY extraordinarily in your face players are just going to basically be like "yeah, so what your world has intelligent plants instead of Tieflings, I want to play a Tiefling Warlock!" What are you going to say?

Not that I'm complaining about having more races, it would be ridiculous to imagine WotC designing their system around what I want in my campaign.

In the end if you want things to be just exactly so, then write your own setting appropriate RPG. Otherwise you gotta take what you get.

Oh, and I entirely concur, the definition of Demi-Human in 1e was "player character race" and things that were not were Humanoids. It was always a blurry distinction though and there was never a really precise definition. Then of course 2e splat books included all kinds of "Humanoid" races into the ranks of playable races and it became meaningless, but remember, 2e didn't come out until 1989, that was 14 years after we started playing...

[Kask]

Originally Posted by Keefe the Thief

The creator of the game would have told you that you are the master of your campaign

Actually, the creator of the games said what he had to say about this in the 1st Ed DMG.

[Greg K]

Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred

Plus you'll always have those players wandering in and out of most campaigns who aren't all that familiar with the world and show up with 'joe the deva' or whatever. It isn't the end of the world, but sometimes it does kind of put a dent in the setting.

Don't let them just show up with a character.

Unless the setting is REALLY extraordinarily in your face players are just going to basically be like "yeah, so what your world has intelligent plants instead of Tieflings, I want to play a Tiefling Warlock!" What are you going to say?

"See the door? That is the exit. You can choose to play in the setting or use the door." Actually, my players would show the person the door first.

In the end if you want things to be just exactly so, then write your own setting appropriate RPG. Otherwise you gotta take what you get.

No. There is no need to create you own rpg. Create your setting is perflectly viable.

[Mallus]

Originally Posted by Kask

Actually, the creator of the games said what he had to say about this in the 1st Ed DMG.

Actually, the other creator of the game created Blackmoor, so powerful weirdness we have always had with us...

[Nivenus]

I think alot of people forget that some players genuinely like playing the social outcast who's too tough to mess with anyway. That said, having any race stigmatized needs to be something that's based on player-DM agreement. A DM should be completely upfront about what place each race has in the setting and not sugar coat it nor try to discourage the player. If the player still wants to play the race than it is the DM's responsibility not to deliberately try and kill the player off. Similarly, it is the player's responsibility to accept what she or he signed up for and not complain about their race being mistreated.

Currently, my game has the following:

1 Dwarf
1 Elf
1 Eladrin
1 Gnome
1 Human
2 Tieflings

The last bit sort of informs my point. I made it clear tieflings weren't well liked and would attract suspicion and prejudice. The players were fine with that and, in fact, I think that's part of what attracted them to the race. After all, it wasn't long before it was written into their backstory.

As for the original topic, the only appearance I really have trouble with is the deva's. Not because it isn't cool (it looks pretty good actually) but because it's really, really hard to reconcile with the aasimar (as is the backstory), which is a problem given that, in the setting I'm running (FR) devas are aasimar, as RAW.

[Kask]

Originally Posted by Nivenus

If the player still wants to play the race than it is the DM's responsibility not to deliberately try and kill the player off.

DMs should run the world as it exists. If a player jumps off a cliff and knows gravity exists, the only job of the DM is roll damage dice and describe what happens, not make an air bag materialize...

[Wolfwood2]

Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred

The problem with just banning certain races is twofold. One is that the game actually kind of depends on those races existing. That was not true in earlier editions, but in 4e there are just a lot of classes and builds that work a LOT better with dragonborn, and if you don't happen to want to include that race in the campaign setting, then it does have some impact on play.

This is a pretty weak problem. There's not a class in the game that doesn't play perfectly fine as a human. Dropping a few races, or all of them except humans, won't suddenly mean that roles go unfilled and game balance flies out of whack.

Secondly you WILL get player pushback. Players usually don't really care so much about atmosphere. They're busy worrying about hitting things and getting from here to there. Unless the setting is REALLY extraordinarily in your face players are just going to basically be like "yeah, so what your world has intelligent plants instead of Tieflings, I want to play a Tiefling Warlock!" What are you going to say?

Say no. Or even just be totally honest and say, "You can play whatever you want, but I will have your PC mobbed and killed in the first NPC encounter and you will have wasted your time creating the character."

Saying yes when you don't really mean yes will lead to way more player pushback than an honest no.

[Wolfwood2]

Originally Posted by Kask

DMs should run the world as it exists. If a player jumps off a cliff and knows gravity exists, the only job of the DM is roll damage dice and describe what happens, not make an air bag materialize...

No, the job of the DM is pause the game and find out why the player thinks having his character jump off a cliff is a good idea. Either:

A. Some cirumstance has come up where the player believes this is a survivable and intelligent plan. Perhaps he misunderstood the height of the cliff. Perhaps he just spent twenty minutes describing his character tying cloth to a wooden frame and believes that his character should be wafting to safety on a glider.

or

B. The player is trying to kill his character. In that case, there's no need to disoblige him by rolling dice. Declare the character dead and move on.

[Nivenus]

Originally Posted by Wolfwood2

No, the job of the DM is pause the game and find out why the player thinks having his character jump off a cliff is a good idea. Either:

A. Some cirumstance has come up where the player believes this is a survivable and intelligent plan. Perhaps he misunderstood the height of the cliff. Perhaps he just spent twenty minutes describing his character tying cloth to a wooden frame and believes that his character should be wafting to safety on a glider.

or

B. The player is trying to kill his character. In that case, there's no need to disoblige him by rolling dice. Declare the character dead and move on.

qft

In such a case as the player jumping off a cliff it is clear that either of the two situations is the case. Either the player really has no clue what he or she is doing, in which case it is the DM's responsibility to pull them aside and clue them in, or they're tired of the game and want to kill their character (either in order to give them an exit or a reason to make a new character). A possible third option is they're baiting you. But the two responses listed above are the only reasonable ones.

Playing a smart--- with your players is a quicky way to get them to resent you. It's fine so long as you're actually being clever and entertaining in the process. But killing off players for not doing things exactly the way you'd like them is not good DMing.

[darjr]

Originally Posted by Kask

Actually, the creator of the games said what he had to say about this in the 1st Ed DMG.

That very same guy, in that very same book, also suggested that a great way to play would be to include characters from gamma world. Those PC's would make the Cantina seem like candy land.

[davethegame]

Originally Posted by Kask

DMs should run the world as it exists. If a player jumps off a cliff and knows gravity exists, the only job of the DM is roll damage dice and describe what happens, not make an air bag materialize...

I don't think the DM should do anything except what he and his group agree on. Maybe in your games your players like it when they pick an unusual race and your townsfolk always try to kill them (and that's fine), but I prefer to run a game where my friends can play the character they want to play (because the race sounds cool, because they have a specific concept in mind that fits a weird race, etc.) without having to deal with being forced to sit out while the rest of the party visits a town. I really don't think there's a "correct" answer here except for what works for your group.

[Reynard]

Originally Posted by Wolfwood2

This is a pretty weak problem. There's not a class in the game that doesn't play perfectly fine as a human. Dropping a few races, or all of them except humans, won't suddenly mean that roles go unfilled and game balance flies out of whack.

I might actually be convinced to run 4E if I could do it as an all human, all martial gritty S&S game.