D&D General I think the choice of Species / Race / Ancestry has more to do with Story than Rules...

[Voadam]

All I ever wanted was to play a small-sized species that I find physically attractive without a head (halfling) or nose (gnome) the size of the Grand Canyon. Fairy loyalist, even if they had no mechanical bonuses.

 

[Tonguez]

I once played a human paladin who was 7’ 6” ft tall, strong and intelligent (based on Shaq Oneal) just to make the point that I didnt have to be a giant to play with big tropes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

People who care more about the story would pick the same race regardless. Optimizers would complain about lack of mechanical benefits, then they’d pick something that used to be mechanically “bad” for the novelty.

Isn't Kids on Bikes a more narrative game than D&D anyway?

 

[Micah Sweet]

But, homebrew isn't what leads to heritage mattering. GMs leaning into heritage mattering is what makes heritage matter.

If the GM doesn't care to make heritage matter, their homebrew will be heritage-blind. If the GM does care to make heritage matter, running a published adventure is not a barrier to making it matter in play.

My point is, published adventures generally don't care what the PCs are in any way beyond character level. A homebrew GM at least might.

 

[James Gasik]

If I want to play a given race, I'll do it, even if that race isn't particularly good at what I'm planning to do. I've played Halfling Barbarians and I have a long-running 2e character who is a Gnome Fighter/Priest.

My current 5e character is a Kobold Wizard, not because the Kobold racial traits are particularly useful to me (I'm playing the Kobold Press variant, and I have the ability to get advantage on a melee attack that I've yet to use despite being level 9 now).

But I won't do this if I think my choice will drag the party down. I once had this great idea for a Tabaxi Wizard, but starting with a 14 Intelligence made me a bit less useful to my party, so I retired the character despite enjoying them. D&D is a team game, after all. If I'm not pulling my weight, I don't expect others to pick up my slack.

All that having been said, yes, I totally will choose a race if they have some neat or unique feature that I can build around for a fun and novel experience. In 4e, they published a flying race with at 10' maximum ceiling for their flight. People said it was useless, I played a Knight Fighter and flew over medium and smaller foes giving them no good choices to escape punishment- move and get hit. 5' step and get hit. hit someone else and get hit. Better attack the little flying bug floating above you, sucker!

Sure, some players are min/maxers, and why wouldn't they be? Dungeoneering is a dangerous game, it makes sense that the best will succeed. But modern games are slowly evolving to make sure that the difference between one race and the next really does come down to aesthetic, lore, and maybe a neat special ability.

So someone might pick a Wood Elf for 5' more speed, or a Tabaxi for a climb speed, or an Eladrin for a teleport, or a Plasmoid for the bizarre ability to squeeze into tiny spaces. I don't see a problem with that. But I do think it's better that they acknowledge their character's uniqueness in their play, of course.

If you're 8' tall and struggle to fit inside doors made for normal humans, commenting about how you have to stoop or are uncomfortable in chairs or how you can never find clothing that fits you is just as neat and interesting as commenting about the customs of your species and the significance of your birthmarks in your culture.

Simply put, players make the choices they do for reasons of their own, and it can be story, rules, or something else- I know someone who plays Elves in every game they play in because "they're pretty". And another who always plays humans (even when variant humans are banned) because they aren't comfortable with being a non-human.

If they have fun, and it doesn't impact other people's fun, I can't see anything wrong with that.

 

[lall]

View attachment 355491

I respect you so much that I prioritize eye contact with you over my own safety and wellbeing, though in full disclosure, I am holding my breath.

 

[Voadam]

Isn't Kids on Bikes a more narrative game than D&D anyway?

Could be, I read the 12 page rules handout the DM prepared for our D&D themed version and not the actual core book.

My experience of the system was more rules light than D&D, less in depth combat system, ours was more open ended ad hoc themed power rules, it has a few token mechanics to modify success and activate powers, still has the classic six stats (assign a different die type to each based on priority instead of a static score), uses a roll under DC task resolution mechanic with degrees of success. Default it had us collaboratively come up with setting elements.

We played it as just more rules light D&D with a bunch of people more focused on first person roleplaying.

 

[pawsplay]

I think it's great if your origin or species or whatever you call it is mostly for background. On the other hand, I would want some traits available for things like having a protective shell, or being able to see in the dark. The gripping hand is, those things don't really, truly have to tied to a particular ancestry or species.

 

[MoonSong]

My preference will aleays be ore crunchy races. Mechanical possitive support and negative support. Some race/class combos should be harder to pull off. Having said that, given the current trends, I'd rather have race/whatever as purely cosmetic and lore based. Just like with backgrounds, you are still buying fictional space with your choice and it's up to you and the DM to make it count. Because otherwise it gets reduced to choose your superpower and not needing torches. (I'm also not a fan of darkvision, too many races have darkvision)

 

[Lanefan]

Let's say you sit down to play D&D, and the DM has introduced a house rule... There are no mechanical differences between the species. Whether you choose to play an Elf, a Human, or a Tortle, you gain no mechanical benefits. (Let's ignore flying races for right now and say this DM has come up with a way to boost character stats and powers in another way.)

What species would you play?

Human. And I'd push hard for limiting all PCs to Human.

Why? Because now there's no reason to play anything else.

Side benefit for the DM: all the other previously-PC-playable species can now become non-playable monsters, opening up all kinds of opportunities.