How Many PC Races?

[Torx]

GMs, how many races do you allow your players to choose from for character creation? I'd be interested to see how more or less variety affects peoples' games.

In my personal experience, with less choices I tend to have a better game overall, but my players are initially less happy. Of course most eventually end up liking their characters, but still the lack of choices is a bit discouraging to them.

On the flip-side, when I play, I love to play a slightly odd race, and enjoy it when my players do the same. But the game can be difficult to manage with a group sans human and with a couple odd-ball races thrown in the mix. It tends to cut down on believable friendly encounters.

So what are your experiences? How many races are IYC and what are the additions/subtractions?

 

[Khayman]

My players can choose anything that's native to the local area. So, in my Mystara campaign that includes humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, halflings, and half-orcs. Monsters would be possible but it's never come up. Should someone die while abroad and have to be replaced, well, then the possibilities change...

I also run an historical campaign set in the 1450's. Surprise! Everyone's human. Initially, I allowed the players to choose an ethnic background that they themselves have in the ol' family tree. While that allowed thm to get a better handle on customs, food, etc., in retrospect, I'd have made them all of one nationality. Less shoehorning that way.

 

[kolikeos]

when i dm i let my players choose any humanoid race from any dnd product as long as there is no level modifeir.
as a player i almost always play human.

 

[Li Shenron]

So far we always started a campaign by allowing the 7 PHB races by default, plus eventually subraces from the MM or other WotC supplements (by player's proposal). We don't trust the Savage Species rules and LA values very much, so typically we stay away from monster races - mostly because our players have more fun exploiting class features and combinations rather than racial features. Otherwise, templates are more popular than straight monstrous races. Anyway the game already feels massively "multiethnic"

For a change, it would be nice to actually allow only fewer races than normal, but possibly have each races being largely common in the world, instead of having hundreds of different creatures and variants.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Player Races

At the moment (i.e. until I expand out from the area I'm currently detailing) my world has 6 races suitable for PCs - humans, halflings, elves, dwarves, orcs and lizard-men. The orcs and elves are either very isolated or isolationist so there currently aren't any of them in the group and half-elves and half-orcs are so rare the only known ones are legends. However half-dwarves are possible. Plus my lizard-men are desert dwelling rather than swamp dwelling and are considered "the enemy" by most 'civilised' people, so I'm not expecting any of them. So in real terms there are 3 standard races - humans, halflings and dwarves, plus elves, orcs and half-dwarves if the player can come up with a suitable story for them being where they are.

When I expand the world out I'm intending on adding in other races, but not yet.

 

[Trickstergod]

Typically I'll allow anything that can fit into or at least hide amongst humanity and has a level adjustment that fits in with whatever level I'm starting things off at (generally 2nd, to allow a little space for multi-classing or, hey, level adjustments).

As such, generally the Player's Handbook races, along with most planetouched and the like. I also cut out a lot of the blatantly inhuman traits and appearance to some creatures to make them more viable and fit with my general opinion that the supernatural should be a bit more subtle - half-dragons come immediately to mind. Depending on the campaign world, possibly a few others.

However, I can't think of any prolonged game that's had anything more exotic then, say, a drow. As it is, the Scarred Lands game I'm running is all human except for one forsaken elf whereas my Ravenloft game is similarly all human with the exception of a half-elf (well and a half-vistani, but that's essentially just a human subrace).

A Planescape one shot I ran had a Vrock, but, hey. That's Planescape.

I've let the players know that they've more options then the basic races, but outside of a one shot here and there, they've never really taken them up. Which is fine by me; I enjoy the human majority, which is as it should be.

 

[pogre]

My players almost always choose humans. Out of 8 players I have one Elf and one Dwarf currently. I ban classes (monk purely for flavor reasons), but I leave all the standard races open.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Since I'm DMing a Forgotten Realms campaign, I allow a lot of playable races. Humans, 3 types of halflings, 3 types of dwarves, 2 types of gnomes, several types of planetouched, and elf subraces galore.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

When I exclude races, it's for setting reasons. Though, admittedly, when I design a setting I exclude races I don't like - namely, elves and halflings from the Player's Handbook, for example.

But I'm willing to make room in my game for almost anything, and the archipelago it's going to be set on is largely unexplored, which makes that very possible.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I basically allow the players to play whatever they want (as long as it's within the LA-rules). In my campaigns, I've had minotaur, orc, kobold, dragon, hobgoblin, half-celestial, half-fiend, vampire, drow, hound archon and planetouched PCs; just to name a few off the top of my head.

The game's about having fun, after all, and I feel the players should be allowed to play what they want to play.