D&D 5E Monster Races and a quick sword thrust at the gate

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, in general as the default assumed mode of play, monstrous humanoids are evil. Says so right in the MM under alignment. So players should assume that they are evil and will be reacted to as such by the "good" races unless the DM specifically says they act differently in that game world. And as I said earlier, whatever the DM is running differently from the assumed mode of play should be communicated to the players. But a player shouldn't assume that playing a kobold or orc won't be met with hostility, but should assume they will be based on how the game worlds of D&D are set up.

Wow. Ok, my dude.

The OP let them pick those races, and punished it in game with PC death. That’s a jerk move, regardless.

Running in circles about whether the races are more commonly genetically evil or not is irrelevant. It’s common enough for them not to be, that the dm should make it clear that they are in their world when a player says they want to play one. If the player wants to be kobold drizzt, and the gm is gonna kill the pc in the first town, he should have just said no. Or explicitly said, “your character will be attacked on sight by most regular folk.”

“It will be harder for you bc fantasy racism” isn’t th same as that.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Wow. Ok, my dude.

The OP let them pick those races, and punished it in game with PC death. That’s a jerk move, regardless.

Running in circles about whether the races are more commonly genetically evil or not is irrelevant. It’s common enough for them not to be, that the dm should make it clear that they are in their world when a player says they want to play one. If the player wants to be kobold drizzt, and the gm is gonna kill the pc in the first town, he should have just said no. Or explicitly said, “your character will be attacked on sight by most regular folk.”

“It will be harder for you bc fantasy racism” isn’t th same as that.

Maybe you need to reread the OP. Looks like he told them beforehand what to expect. That’s not a jerk move on the DM. Whatever happened to personal responsibility of choices by the players?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe you need to reread the OP. Looks like he told them beforehand what to expect. That’s not a jerk move on the DM. Whatever happened to personal responsibility of choices by the players?

The OP lacks any statement that he told them that they would be killed on sight.

A warning that there’s fantasy racism isn’t the same as “you’ll get murdered faster than a Fed in a Sovereign Citizen compound”.

And the murder warning itself is just a soft “no”.

Most new players these days don’t expect that sort of thing in a fantasy world. They expect fantasy racism, sure, but “a quick stab at the gate” hasn’t been the norm in a long time.

Telling players they can play a goblin, and then having guards gank them at the gate, is absolutely a jerk move.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The OP lacks any statement that he told them that they would be killed on sight.

A warning that there’s fantasy racism isn’t the same as “you’ll get murdered faster than a Fed in a Sovereign Citizen compound”.

And the murder warning itself is just a soft “no”.

Most new players these days don’t expect that sort of thing in a fantasy world. They expect fantasy racism, sure, but “a quick stab at the gate” hasn’t been the norm in a long time.

Telling players they can play a goblin, and then having guards gank them at the gate, is absolutely a jerk move.

Seriously, go reread the OP. I wasn’t kidding. You keep making up scenarios that he never said happened. Nothing in his OP said all of time they chose monster races that they would be killed on sight, or right out of the gate. He said sometimes it has resulted in PC death, which makes sense depending on what happened and where.

He said “no matter what I tell them”, which means he has given them plenty of warning that it will be much harder. From then on, if the players insist, then it’s on them, not the DM. And I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling him a jerk for running the game like it’s designed. I mean, the first thing PCs do when the stumble upon a group of goblins isn’t invite them for tea and ask if any of them are good, but immediately roll for initiative. So it’s perfectly reasonable for a monstrous PC to be met with hostility when walkin* into town. In fact, the DM is being nice by giving his players a heads up first, and the players still insist on doing it. If they don’t like it, they can find another DM or DM themselves. Nothing about this is on the DM being a jerk.

 

[Eric V]

No, but seriously...WHY is the DM allowing the PCs to choose monster races when that choice has resulted in PC deaths? Why not just outlaw them from the get go? And what's with other DMs thinking killing the PCs is a better alternative to just saying "no" to the race choice in the first place??

 

[cbwjm]

Depending on the composition of the rest of the party, that is, if they are made up of the more traditionally acceptable races, then I would expend a player running a goblin to be fine with entering a town with the group. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be suspicious glances or open hostility, but he is travelling with humans, elves, and dwarves and if he has been accepted by them then he should at least be somewhat accepted if not treated with respect, at least not until he helps save the town and effectively becomes their goblin mascot.

Trying to enter a town by himself then I wouldn't be surprised if he was driven off if it is expected that a goblin belongs to a hostile race. Really speaking, I wouldn't be surprised if half-orcs and tieflings are subjected to similar prejudices, not that I'm saying they have to be, different campaign worlds will breed different relationships between races but for a generic old-school style DnD world, I'd expect it to some degree.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Seriously, go reread the OP. I wasn’t kidding. You keep making up scenarios that he never said happened. Nothing in his OP said all of time they chose monster races that they would be killed on sight, or right out of the gate. He said sometimes it has resulted in PC death, which makes sense depending on what happened and where.

He said “no matter what I tell them”, which means he has given them plenty of warning that it will be much harder. From then on, if the players insist, then it’s on them, not the DM. And I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling him a jerk for running the game like it’s designed. I mean, the first thing PCs do when the stumble upon a group of goblins isn’t invite them for tea and ask if any of them are good, but immediately roll for initiative. So it’s perfectly reasonable for a monstrous PC to be met with hostility when walkin* into town. In fact, the DM is being nice by giving his players a heads up first, and the players still insist on doing it. If they don’t like it, they can find another DM or DM themselves. Nothing about this is on the DM being a jerk.

Lol ok man. I’ve reread the OP, again, for the third time, and nope.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Depending on the composition of the rest of the party, that is, if they are made up of the more traditionally acceptable races, then I would expend a player running a goblin to be fine with entering a town with the group. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be suspicious glances or open hostility, but he is travelling with humans, elves, and dwarves and if he has been accepted by them then he should at least be somewhat accepted if not treated with respect, at least not until he helps save the town and effectively becomes their goblin mascot.

Trying to enter a town by himself then I wouldn't be surprised if he was driven off if it is expected that a goblin belongs to a hostile race. Really speaking, I wouldn't be surprised if half-orcs and tieflings are subjected to similar prejudices, not that I'm saying they have to be, different campaign worlds will breed different relationships between races but for a generic old-school style DnD world, I'd expect it to some degree.

Sure. In some games, we handwave fantasy racism from obstensibly good folk, in other games we deal with it head on, but even when we play more “old school”, and even when we were younger and were playing old school dnd, we never had any intelligent race that works in groups and raises their young and such be inherently evil or be kill on sight when trying to peacefully enter a city. It just always seemed absurd to us.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Lol ok man. I’ve reread the OP, again, for the third time, and nope.

Nope what? The things you said are not what the OP said? Glad we can finally agree.

 

[Wulffolk]

Most monstrous races do not traditionally have cities or large towns of their own anyways, so why would they want to go to a human dominated one in the first place? Why would they not expect to be killed on sight if their race is known for warring and raiding against humans? Isn't the fun of playing a monstrous race actually being monstrous, raiding and warring against humans and elves and others? Why would anybody want to create a monstrous race character just to play it exactly like a normal character? Aren't you missing out on being a monster if you are just another civilized person in a strange body?

If you want to play a monster then embrace the role! Be that monster! Threaten, kill, raid, take what you want, just don't expect to barter for it with people that are your enemies. How many Elves/Humans/Dwarves/etc just walk into an Orc camp and expect to be allowed to drink ale and haggle for their magic items? How many Halflings wander into a Kobold warren expecting to make friends? In the context of standard fantasy settings that idea is absurd.

If everybody wants to play a menagerie of special snowflakes that are openly accepted with warm embraces and whispers of awe amongst the enemies of their race then I can only guess that the reasons amount to little more than "look at what a cool and edgy snowflake I am, and all the kewl powerz I have".

That might be great fun for some groups, but players should not feel entitled to play that way if their DM doesn't have fun running that style of game.