D&D 5E Are you a cat person?

[KahlessNestor]

"Short humans" isn't a racial identity. It's just...a description of some humans.

Also, personally, as someone who loves the works of Tolkien, I really don't care (in the context of DnD) about what something represented in his works, unless I'm literally playing in Middle Earth.

DnD Halflings aren't even hobbits, anyway. Gnomes are closer to hobbits than Halflings are, in the core fluff. They live in burrows, hide from big folk, etc.

Halflings don't have their own lands, tend to wander, and have been heavily influenced by Kender over the years. Which is good, because actual hobbits are incredibly boring as a player race. Their identity may as well be "intentionally boring humans", if we insist on using uselessly superficial "identities" for the races. As boring as I find core Halflings, they're definately more interesting than hobbits, in the context of a roleplaying game.

At least Gnomes have actual cultural distinction, and their physiological nature is different enough that only an indifferent player is going to play them exactly as they would a human.
[MENTION=58416]Johnny3D3D[/MENTION] there are a few races I have the same lack of experience with. I feel ya.
On Dwarves: I outright ban stereotypical pseudo-Scottish dwarves in my games. When world building, I look to northern and Eastern Europe for Dwarves, if I look to Europe at all.
The main things that stay the same are: tough, somewhat insular, some degree of greed/hoarding/vault-building tendencies, clan/tribe based mindset.

Tabaxi are cool, imo, because their stats don't really tie them to an environment. Like real cats, you can put them in any biome, and they will thrive. Want desert tabaxi, give them smaller bodies, a sand-cat look, and fur on their paws to shield them from the hot sand. Or they can be deep forest cats, or river fisher cats, etc with no mechanical difference required. They just look different.

General thread comments:

I still don't get what the deal with humanocentric campaigns/worlds is. Why do players need to play non humans as noticably alien? I don't understand what the premises and logic are that underpin the common response, "well if they aren't alien/strange/other, what's the point?"

There is a whole fundamental mindset here that just....I have no intellectual common ground with it, and thus no real tools for trying to understand it?

Help? I feel like I'm discussing beverages with someone who thinks that in order to be good a beverage has to be vinegar. It just doesn't grok, in even the very most basic way, for me.

I've toyed with the idea of "Russian" dwarves.

Or, as Matt Colville does, "Dwarves are just short Klingons."

 

[KahlessNestor]

Ok, I get that hose are different things.

I'm not sure I agree about Klingons and Vulcans, because they are both *much* more complex than that suggests, though.

Like...how different do we expect social, bipedal, tool using, cooperatively building/farming, mammalian animals to be from eachother?

Idk, I also haven't seen much of the DnD equivalent of the Australian example. Even the dwarf thing is more Salvatore's fault than any players I've seen/played with. I really despise his dwarf writing. It's awful. To a degree that makes me genuinely wonder if people who like it are reading the same books as me.

When I do encounter dumb stereotypes, it's from players who do the exact same thing with human characters.

<lightbulb turns on over head> is there a mindset that the default should be human, rather than human vs non human being a neutral/equal choice? Is that what I'm missing? Is it that simple!?

Like, are ya'll sitting here, going, "if there is no specific reason for this character to be non human, it should be human"?

if not, I still got nothin' here. The problem seems to be the specific players, not having other races available. And even then, why is a stereotyped elf worse than a stereotyped human?

I actually liked Salvatore's dwarves (at least Bruenor). Especially in Gauntlegrym. (That's how a dwarf should go out!) I like how his dwarves can play the comic relief (Ivan and his brother; Bruenor's axe always getting stuck), but also get super-serious (Bruenor and the shadow dragon; Bruenor vs the pit fiend). Part of the problem might be that Drizzt is so super-serious that other characters can't be. But then I guess Gimli was somewhat similar in his role in LOTR.

In the eternal battle of Dwarves v. Elves, I'm on Team Bruenor!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I always felt like Gimli as comical was added to the movies, and I definately rolled my eyes a lot at the addition.

To me, it betrays an indifference to the goal of imagining your characters complexely.

Not a thing I like, generally.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I always felt like Gimli as comical was added to the movies, and I definately rolled my eyes a lot at the addition.

To me, it betrays an indifference to the goal of imagining your characters complexely.

Not a thing I like, generally.

The dwarves were certainly comical in The Hobbit, even in the book. Gimli was definitely more comical in the movies than the book, I will agree.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Casting John Rhys-Davies and not taking advantage of his comedy skills would be like casting Liam Neilson for a character who doesn't talk.