PHB2 Races = Mos Eisley Cantina

[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.

[aurance]

So, out of curiosity, is your complaint about the races themselves, or their artistic depictions? And what races / depictions would you have preferred instead?

[Slaved]

In walks a Group of Social Outcasts who are only Accepted because they have a lot of Coin.

Truth in Fiction!

[Bagpuss]

Originally Posted by Slaved

In walks a Group of Social Outcasts who are only Accepted because they have a lot of Coin.

You are talking about gamers visiting a shop aren't you.

[WalterKovacs]

The book itself says the races in the PHB (original) are the most common races. PHBII is showing additional races that exist in the world, not necessarily common races.

The "special party" at the front is limited to races from the book ... because it's in the book.

Also, the spectral wolf is because of class, not race.

[Jhaelen]

I don't think PHB2 is any worse than PHB1 in that regard. I also remember a similar statement about the MM1. In other words: old news.

[Kzach]

You have a problem with weird races?

Umm... you realise this is a fantasy game with fantasy races and magic and unicorns and giants and gods and other planes of existence and all that, right?

Just because you're not used to it, doesn't mean it's ridiculous. A person entirely new to the concept of roleplaying and fantasy is going to think ALL the races are a bit weird.

Personally, I don't like a lot of races in a setting. Just because it's in the book, doesn't mean you have to use them. What about the races in PHB2 makes you think that they're a part of the setting if you don't want them to be?

[Mephistopheles]

Originally Posted by Mad Zagyg

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.

Even though they are now core races as they're in PHB2 you're still free to borrow a line from the Mos Eisley cantina bartender and say "We don't serve their kind here!".

[Runestar]

I must be an anomaly here. I am actually sick of the core PHB races after so many years that I cannot picture myself ever playing an elf, dwarf, halfling or gnome ever again. So I actually prefer to select exotic races to play for the unique gaming experience.

[Dice4Hire]

I really do not have a problem with any race in the PHBI or PHBII. Having them all be equally common in my world I have major problems with.

[Garthanos]

1) Isaac Asimov Quote... "Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic."
2) Does anybody remember people complaining the space cantina looked like d&d monster manual rejects, I certainly remember it.

At least the people who complained about the cantina had there causal relationships in the correct order.

Feh.

[Danzauker]

Hope they listen to you!!! I'd like to see Wookies in PHBIII.

Seriously, in my gaming career I had a Giff PC. What's the matter?

[Storminator]

I've frequently been the only human in a party. My standard line is "I'm the ringleader of this traveling circus..."

PS

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, I assume that when that party walks into the bar...

...all of the hairy, poorly rendered, blue, short but immaculately coifed, and stony people in the bar yell, "Norm!"

And the bouncer checks the gnome's ID.

Everyone else stares at spirit wolf+the deadly bling and is very very quiet.

[Blackrat]

Originally Posted by Garthanos

1) Isaac Asimov Quote... "Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic."

I know I'm nitpicking a bit, but when quoting someone it would be nice to make sure you credit the right person. Arthur Clarke, not Asimov.

[AbdulAlhazred]

LOL

There has always been this sort of conundrum with PCs. The DM maybe wants to make his game world seem nice and consistent and thus reasons "well, humans are the major race, everything is basically like medieval Europe except off at the edge of the map someplace are all these weird races." The players OTOH go through the PHB and think to themselves "why would I want to be just an ordinary everyday human, it is much cooler to play one of these other races." And you almost certainly will, in any campaign, end up with a party made up mostly of members of exotic races.

Of course humans are good choice for a PC in terms of game balance, but that will never make up for the 'coolness factor' of non-humans. Naturally it only gets more extreme with more play. At first people are satisfied playing an eladrin or a dwarf. After a while that gets old hat and they want to play a drow. After a while that too will get old hat and they will want to play a troll or a dragon or some new made up race.

Given that the goal of the game designers is to sell games and make money, they WILL inevitably add more and more exotic options for PCs, because that is the material players will pay money for. Even if it doesn't lead to power creep, it will always lead to more 'race creep'.

There are a few things you can do in campaign design if it bothers you. First you could simply set your campaign in some very exotic locale, like a large cosmopolitan city where 'all the races of the world can be found', or a dimensional nexus. Second you could try to restrict players choices of race, but you'll have to make the existing choices more interesting for them. Third you could use the old "we don't serve your kind here" sort of thing where you just penalize people for odd race choices using story elements, but that is hard to do in a way that isn't unfun.

Frankly I think it is just an inevitable consequence of the nature of the game. Just like the fact that PCs are always going to end up vastly more powerful than any normal person would be.

I have to agree though, that particular piece of artwork isn't maybe going to go down in history as one of the better illustrations in 4e. Still, compared to the artwork that TSR products generally had, even the worst stuff in 4e is pretty good...

[Darkness]

I know I'm nitpicking a bit, but when quoting someone it would be nice to make sure you credit the right person. Arthur Clarke, not Asimov.

Agreed, Aeson, agreed.

[Gargoyle]

The book is about adding new options, so I don't have any objections about art that features the new races, or their inclusion in the book for that matter.

However, personally, I don't like the "zoo crew" aspect that some campaigns take on. I like campaigns that have at least one or two humans because it makes the other races more special. While I respect that people want to play something different from themselves, I also think that these same players often play non-human races just as if they were pointy eared (or short, or tall) humans anyway. You can play a human from a different culture and be interesting, from a roleplaying point of view.

I don't care for goliaths, not sure why, but I don't. One thing I will probably do with the new book is instead of making goliaths a player character race, I will probably take the description of their culture and apply it to a clan of mountain elves or something like that. It's odd and different, but without adding a new race to the mix.

Of course, if one of my players is just dying to play a goliath, I'd probably let him or her....more important to let the players have fun, even if I end up with a zoo crew.

[gtoasnt3]

Ever hear of having your campaign world limited to certain PC races? I like to thumb through a book prior to buying it, and if I felt like you did about the PHBII, I wouldn't buy it and continue to play the game the way I want to. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't judge it.

We normally play Eberron, so the shifter works for us.

[ferratus]

I kind of get where the original poster is coming from, even though I'm a big fan of 4e and its cosmology. The ones I have a big problem with are dragonborn and tieflings for two different reasons.

I just can't get over the whole "sure you're descended from ultimate evil who betrayed the gods who provide us succor and seek to enslave us and suck out all of our souls to fuel their war against goodness itself, but you've been our neighbours for awhile now so we know you're good people" backstory for tieflings. They just shouldn't be common inhabitants of most small towns, with one operating your local general store in Winterhaven. It really takes the vinegar out of what made tieflings cool in the first place, namely that they're a bad seed. Seeing tieflings like this reminds me of a death metal fan who has become an accountant. Sure they might still have the long hair and have blasphemous tattoos under his pressed white shirt, but he's still an accountant.

The dragonborn work just fine in the dungeon, but they are hard to integrate in the social side of the rpg play. I was rather surprised to find this out, because I had been planning on using lizardmen as a core race in my campaign setting. The dragonborn is just too monstrous to really "fit in" a casual social gathering at a pub or a fancy dress party. This is especially problematic for romance subplots. While all the other PC races are near-human enough to be able to kiss and be relatively assured that they have the proper parts, dragonborn can only really have romance subplots with other dragonborn.

I have less problems with the new races in the PHB2.

Goliaths - As Wolfgang says, they are a race without deep roots in traditional fantasy. However, I think they fill the role of "strong and noble savage" admired by 19th century victorian romantics fairly well. Their warpaint and highland territory makes them fairly easy to imagine as a semi-barbaric people on the fringes of a fantasy kingdom.

Shifters - I think these should have been the replacement for the half-orcs in the PHB1 instead of the dragonborn. They match the half-orc's savage temper and hint of being monstrous without the need for mass rape in the backstory. You can easily imagine a people who went into the wilds and became bestial and savage. Lyncanthropes are also not quite as evil as literal devils, so it is more plausible that you get used to shifters while still not quite trusting them to always control their rage. After all people were able to live with Egil Skallagrimsson, and he was the grandson of a werewolf.

Devas - I think everyone thinks the new emphasis on Devas being reincarnated blessed souls with the capability of becoming Rakshasas makes these the most interesting new race to come out of WotC since 1e. I think a different visual look helps cement the fact that they are something special rather than just a variant human. The illumians for example, always seemed like they should be a variant of the wizard class rather than a race in and of themselves.

Gnomes - The gnomes have had a massive reboot, so I guess you can consider them a new race. I really like the ditching of the tinker baggage and focusing on the trickster aspect with aspect of the 2e forest gnomes, keeping their secrets with illusions. I'm one of the people who doesn't like the art direction the gnome has taken, but I do like the black eyes and harsh angular features, so I hope some traditional gnomish features (such as beards and large noses) find themselves mixed back in with the current art design in the future.

Half-orcs - Half-orcs have had a minor reboot, but the fact that it makes them good brutal rogues is awesome.

So in short, I find the Dragonborn and Tieflings to be more of "Mos Eisley problem" than the PHB2 races are.