D&D as humanocetric ... or not?

[doctorbadwolf]

...but enough about Emo Drizzt.

.......

I KID! There is a reason roleplaying is used in therapeutic settings as well as just "kill dem orcs"-style play.

One benefit is, as you posit, imagining yourself as the other. The weak kid who is the brawny fighter. The bullied teen who is the charismatic and popular bard.

....The normal and well-adjusted non-jerk who plays a Paladin.


That would be the flip (and beneficial) side of what Gygax is discussing; the desire to play "the other" as a means of domination; dominating the game (abilities) or the roleplaying (because of all your quirks and differences).

There is a fine line between self-expression and self-absorption, just as there is a fine line between clever and stupid.

I think you may still be missing something, though. It’s not just the scrawny kid playing the big strong guy.
It’s also the bullied ugly kid playing an “ugly” race and either getting to play in a world where people mostly don’t care how he looks, or where he can do something about the naughty words that do try to bully (or attack, or discriminate) him for his appearance.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Fenris-77]

It's all good. Again, though, that self-expression can be achieved in a number of ways.

Except as a Gnome. Or a Paladin.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[HarbingerX]

I voted for PHB but limit options. But as discussed elsewhere, if a player proposes to play a particular race that doesn't normally show up in my setting then I'll allow it after figuring out where they came from and how they come to be with the adventuring party. If the world will view them as hostile, to be driven off or killed, then I'll also warn all the players of that. In that case all players have to be cool with it, as they're going to be the ones trying to stop the villagers from killing their monstrous party member.

 

[Zardnaar]

Voted for 6. Atm anything in the phb is fine and anything from the Midgard Heroes Handbook.
You can request anything suitable for Egypt theme which is mostly animal headed stuff. Yuan Ti and Tabaxi are fine no to Githyanki. No flying races such as Aven.

Volos and other books aren't being used except for variants for allowed races like Aasimar and Tieflings.

Next campaign will be different not sure what will be allowed or not I thunk the theme may be pirates.

 

[Cobalt Meridian]

6. My current game has six available PC races (at present), mostly from the PHB. As the group travel the world and meet newer races then those will also become available as PC options but I doubt there'll end up being more than a dozen or so available races in total.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

7, with the caveat that 3rd party and homebrew options are primarily to be used to fill in for race options for a setting that haven't been officially published yet (such as gnolls for Eberron or thri-kreen for Dark Sun) or as (balanced) alternatives to official content that players are dissatisfied with the mechanical implementation thereof.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

6. Any choice from a limited selection of curated races.

Basically the same as Zardnaar above, as I'm also running Midgard. The exception is that I'm willing to approve races from another source IF I think they fit the setting. Of our core party, two of the six characters are of races I approved - both from the Eberron book. One player wanted to make a Warforged; we decided he was a Gearforged of a new model (Warforged are in part made from darkwood - and in Midgard, darkwood equals Shadow Fey. Hehehhe….). Another wanted to make a Changeling; I decided those fit well with the Fey themes in the setting, and her character would essentially be a human of unknown parentage with unique powers... whose origin she's trying to discover.

Like I told a player the other day, as long as it fits the setting, I'll allow it. Midgard is pretty kitchen-sink, but there are some things that just don't fit because they simply don't exist - Half-Orcs, Drow, and Samurai for instance. But that said, 98% of the options in the core and Kobold Press books work fine.

 

[nogray]

I voted 5 (any official) but could have gone with 7 (any anything).

I typically allow and encourage refluffing, and have taken advantage of such when other DMs offer me the opportunity. I once (in 4e) played as a "human" that used the rules for thri kreen. Was that character a human? To anyone on the street, he looked it, but he was "blessed by the panther-spirit," and so moved with a preternatural grace that made it obvious to onlookers that he wasn't a normal human.

Other recent (5e) campaigns have involved a fairly "normal" mix of near-humans (dwarf, a couple half-elfs, changeling). Very light on the pure humans, though.

On the DM-for-peculiar-players side, I get some odd requests. One of my players has expressed interest in playing a sentient elemental spirit of fire. I'm trying to figure out some mechanical options to satisfy the kind of things such a character would want to be able to do. Another wants to try out playing as undead pre-teen psychically linked twins. The long-running 4e campaign I have has two tieflings, a human, and a revenant as current player characters, but has had a dwarf, a dragonborn, a shade (originally an eladrin who transformed in the game), and a few others I'm forgetting as pcs that have left the campaign for various reasons. Once again, pretty light on humans.

Most of the background, though, is pretty human-centric. On both a player and a DM side. PCs are special, though, as others mentioned.