D&D General Have you ever had a Gnoll PC?

[doctorbadwolf]

So, Gnolls. They're monstrous non-PC things canonically in 5E (previously were humanoid, but pretty monstrously behaving).

Have you played one in previous editions or this edition? Do you have a friend who did? Did you never really want to before you learned this, but now really do?

I love gnolls as a player race. We had a few in 4e, and we've had I think 2 in 5e, and it's always great.

 

[humble minion]

I've always had a soft spot for gnolls, though have never had the chance to play one. There was a brief phase in (I think) the 90s when, in the absence of half-orcs in the PHB, it looked like gnolls were being set up to be a new 'monster' PC race that didn't have all the baggage of orcs or goblinoids. David Cook wrote a novel to that effect I think - Soldiers of Ice. One of the better earlyish FR reads.

But with the reintroduction of half-orcs and de-monsterising of orcs etc in general, I think WotC wanted an unambiguously evil humanoid race for PCs to kill without complicated morality questions arising. So they got their very sad lore retcon in 4th ed, and the rest was history. Midgard's gnolls are still pretty great though, I'd love to play one in that setting.

 

[Tonguez]

I've always had a soft spot for gnolls, though have never had the chance to play one. There was a brief phase in (I think) the 90s when, in the absence of half-orcs in the PHB, it looked like gnolls were being set up to be a new 'monster' PC race that didn't have all the baggage of orcs or goblinoids. David Cook wrote a novel to that effect I think - Soldiers of Ice. One of the better earlyish FR reads.

But with the reintroduction of half-orcs and de-monsterising of orcs etc in general, I think WotC wanted an unambiguously evil humanoid race for PCs to kill without complicated morality questions arising. So they got their very sad lore retcon in 4th ed, and the rest was history. Midgard's gnolls are still pretty great though, I'd love to play one in that setting.

yeah I absolutely hate the demonising of Gnolls, just making them Hyaena with all the trappings of hungry predator was enough to present them as the 'beastly enemy humanoid' without giving them to Yenoghu

 

[Scribe]

I haven't, what's the hook?

 

[Reynard]

I chose "a friend did in a previous edition" and here is the story:

Like all good and sanepeople, I hate gnomes and always have. So when i created a setting for a AD&D 2E campaign in 1996 or so, I said that the gnomes in the region had been hunted to extinction by the gnolls. Because they tasted good, you see. The gnolls served as an antagonist species for most of that campaign but as things came to pass in the game, they became more of the TNG Klingon species (fierce warriors who were former enemies blah blah). There was a heroic gnoll NPC in that campaign who sacrificed himself for the party, etc.

The follow up campaign was in 3E when it came out and the PCs were all descendants of the previous campaign's characters. So, of course, one player took a gnoll PC (playing the Whorf, effectively). It was fun and it fit with the story of the campaign.

Note that my gnolls were more like wolf-men than hyena-men, and did not have any of the demon worshipping aspects.

 

[Oofta]

I played one in 4E, but we pretty much played them as anthropomorphized Scooby-Doo with a hyena laugh. It was LFR so we didn't take the game too seriously.

 

[ninjayeti]

Gno I have gnot played a gnoll and I gnever will.

 

[overgeeked]

Sure. Why not? I haven’t played one yet, but I love “monstrous” PCs. Everything should be playable. Yes, everything. Especially with settings like Planescape and Spelljammer. Just scale it to match the other PC options.

 

[Mecheon]

There was an old dynamic gnoll model for NWN, so I've given 'em a shot

.... Someone really should fix that model up for the newer armor sets though, huh.

 

[billd91]

I had 2 PC ideas picked for the game my daughter is running for us, depending on which AP the group picked. If we had chosen Tomb of Annihilation, I was going to play a gnoll life cleric. Cannibalism was going to feature prominently into his theology.

The group elected to do Curse of Strahd instead. Goodbye, gnoll life cleric. Hello, halfling blood hunter.