A multitude of disliked races

[The Green Adam]

So in the recent slew of threads on Elves and how you like your other fantasy humanoids, I've noticed a lot of people not liking a lot of races. So, what can your players be? Does anyone run a humans only campaign? If not, who or what populates your world?

My main campaign world operates on the theory that you never can have too many species Aside from my versions of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs we have...

Half-Ogres (One and his descendants)
Rakasha (Not the D&D monster but a species of jungle dwelling cat-people)
Ebuzz (Rare, as they originate on a parallel world, these are essentially bipedal, humanoid dogs)
High Golems (Only one is known to exist, a living metal statue-Only an NPC)
Chimeric Homonculi (Strange arcane experiments that combine elements from various creatures to create a hybrid monster)

In my more traditional campaigns I tend to stick to the classics but I almost always use all the standard D&D races. I'm more of an SF fan then a fantasy fan so I like having many different species for my players to choose from.

 

[Mark CMG]

There's a lot of semi-intelligent fungi at our table . . .









. . . and they mostly play humans.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

If not, who or what populates your world?.

Humans
Dwarves
Elves
Half-Elves
Half-Orcs
Quarter-Elves

Rabbit folk
Dog folk
Cat folk
Bear folk
Non-psionic snake folk
Mice/Rat folk

All are playable races with no or low LA (meaning +1 - +3).

 

[derelictjay]

I've never had problems with allowing races in my campaigns. My next campaign I run (after the eventual TPK of our party, and my subsequent election to DM*), I will probably limit the player races to the core races and adding the orc, as these are the only races available at the onset of the campaign.

*hey its the first time in years I haven't been DMing.

 

[The Green Adam]

Quarter-Elves

Interesting. What is the reason behind having this as a seperate race?

Non-psionic snake folk

As opposed to all those nancy Psionic Snake Folk?

 

[babomb]

You know, I've always wanted to play a three-quarterling...

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Interesting. What is the reason behind having this as a seperate race?

Basically I've just house ruled the following: Elves preggers by humans begets Half-Elves; Humans preggers by elves begets quarter-elves

As opposed to all those nancy Psionic Snake Folk?

Don't know what you mean by nancy. Basically they look a lot like Yuan-Ti abominations, except for the high variety that actually have legs. Also, the snake folk aren't nearly as tough as Yuan-Ti Abominations.

 

[Arkhandus]

I use all kinds of races in my games, both as a player and a DM.

My Oriental Adventures campaign that ran for around 1-1/2 years used a tweaked Rokugan where all the PHB races were available and present in or very near Rokugan proper, along with all the OA races. Plus I had psionics in the setting, though they remained only a minor presence (nobody chose to play a dwarven psychic warrior or anything, despite my cool integration of them in the setting).

Besides the numerous, varied NPCs I had show up in the game as friends, foes, or others, the party included at various points humans from multiple clans (even a foreign human cleric), hengeyokai, vanara, nezumi/ratlings, and I think I recall a half-orc or half-elf at some point. Too bad most folks played humans in that campaign.

My Rhunaria campaign uses about a dozen different races from the core rules and such, including monster races, from humans to lizardfolk, kobolds, gnomes, bugbears, and three kinds of elves, among other things. Once again most folks have played humans, though we've had an occasional jungle elf, dark elf, goblin, kobold, or half-dragon human. And yet it's mostly a different group.

My Aurelia campaign hasn't gotten started yet, but I have some two or three dozen 'standard' races in the setting, that can be worked into a group of adventurers with little trouble. From humans to elves (only 1 kind though!), orcs to half-orcs, korobokuru to vanara, four gith subraces to six races of human planetouched, three subraces of thri-kreen to two varieties of sprite, a dozen or so subraces of spiritfolk and two varieties of hengeyokai with several different subraces (i.e. badger hengeyokai are one type of common hengeyokai, while tiger hengeyokai are one type of greater hengeyokai).

Though, unlike Rhunaria, goblinoids and kobolds and lizardfolk aren't 'standard' races in Aurelia, being more monstrous and more thoroughly villainous (well, sorta; lizardfolk at least have more of a neutral bent, but Aurelian goblinoids are profanely-infused and have the Evil subtype, while kobolds of Aurelia are an evil race of cursed air-element dragons, stuck in tiny humanoid form and grounded by the loss of their wings, to suffer at the hands of the humanoid races they were defeated by in the dragon wars so long ago).

 

[Imp]

Okay, I'm pretty stingy about races in my setting. I just have a hard time dealing with a whole lot of intelligent walking bipeds of different origins. Most of the PHB nonhumans have gotten kicked off the Prime Material Plane. What's there:

- humans
- half-elves; "faerie bloods"
- half orcs; "bestials"

uncommon types being

- goblins
- mongrelfolk

and LA+ types being

- bugbears (big goblins, that is)
- grimlocks
- lycanthropes
- janni (who are immortal and reincarnate upon death; some are cursed into other forms, which are unique monsters. Such as the Medusa.)
- lizardfolk & poison dusk lizardfolk (who live far away from the main setting)
- the brood monkeys from the Wizards website
- homebrewed stone-trolls
- aranea

 

[Lanefan]

I've always had what I consider the core 7, with subraces noted in brackets:

- Human (Barbarian)
- Dwarf
- Elf (Wood, Fair)
- Gnome
- Hobbit
- Part-Elf (1/8 to 7/8)
- Part Orc (1/8 to 7/8)

I've also always had the small chance of rolling up something wacko, which has led to the following appearing in my games as PC's at some point:

- Drow
- Centaur
- Leprechaun
- Pixie
- Gnoll
- Hobgoblin (same character as the Gnoll after a race-change curse!)
- Dryad
- Lizardman
- Mixed - a few characters have had such bizarre genetic backgrounds as to not really be any one race at all.

However, in my old age and grognardiness I'm becoming more and more fond of Human-centric games, or at least keeping the PC race selection just to the core 7. I've no use at all for all these weird things such as celestials, aasimar, half-Ogres, half-Dragons, etc. as members of the adventuring party; they should instead be what the adventuring party is out to kill.

Lanefan