D&D 5E What Races (classes) do you allow or disallow in your campaign?

[Ancalagon]

There's a wound you don't want salt in!

The adoption rate has been sluggish.

Seriously speaking... I have a "dual" policy.

My campaign is a bit unusual because I both allow and disallow certain races. The PCs have the choice of being locals or being foreigners. The foreigners can be any "standard" D&D race they want (although I do warn them in advance about how certain races would be perceived). The locals have a smaller choice set, but this set includes "non standard" races: - human, slugmen, crabmen or dwarves. In the future I would consider expanding this set to some of the Volo book races as well.

 

[Coroc]

The adoption rate has been sluggish.

Seriously speaking... I have a "dual" policy.

My campaign is a bit unusual because I both allow and disallow certain races. The PCs have the choice of being locals or being foreigners. The foreigners can be any "standard" D&D race they want (although I do warn them in advance about how certain races would be perceived). The locals have a smaller choice set, but this set includes "non standard" races: - human, slugmen, crabmen or dwarves. In the future I would consider expanding this set to some of the Volo book races as well.

To joke a bit on those demanding anything goes campaigns only and all the time:
[MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION]: "Oh cmon man, you totally gotta let dragonborn and tieflings be locals or you are unbalancing things and RAW and diversity and I want to play a kender ninja in your campaign so just you know "

 

[Ancalagon]

To joke a bit on those demanding anything goes campaigns only and all the time:
[MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION]: "Oh cmon man, you totally gotta let dragonborn and tieflings be locals or you are unbalancing things and RAW and diversity and I want to play a kender ninja in your campaign so just you know "

To which I would reply that my games are very diverse. Slugmen are hermaphrodites, although a few have adopted the male or female gender. Meanwhile a number of humans are eunuchs. Sounds like you want to play eunuch to me!

A bit more seriously, I think the GM has to be a bit flexible, but at the same time the player has to accept that choices have consequences. There are no local elves in Yoon Suin, because elves see Yoon Suin as a perilous place that endangers their souls and would never go there willingly (they are correct). But two of my players really wanted to play elves/half elves! So what they did - without me having to ask I should add (I really do have good players) - is create characters that were out of touch with their elven heritage, so only dimly aware, if at all, of the cultural taboo.

And there were consequences! Elven blood has magical properties and people have been after their blood ever since they arrived in port... it's actually become a significant plot point in the campaign.

If players want to be special snowflakes, let them

P.S. I will start a Yoon Suin game sometimes in the future on the pbp board, and I would accept... wait you said kender? I thought you wrote kobold. Fine. You land and are seized by locals who dissect you for your organs. Make a new character. A GM has limits you know!

 

[sekigahara08]

i have a lot of issues with the way certain common fantasy species/races (namely orcs, elves, and dwarves, and gnomes to a lesser extent) reflect ethnocentric/racist/antisemitic ideals present in the real world and its creators. for the campaign i've been working on, i've been doing a lot of modification of the flavor of the races to simplify the overall selection and extensively modify the fantastic backstory to ensure there is some sort of logic as to why these various species/races coexist.

players choose a species/race they like from amongst humans, elves, halflings, or the touched races (which consist of dragonborn, feytouched [satyrs, for example], and tieflings). once they pick their species/race, we work together on their backstory to give them custom racial abilities that make sense and are balanced within the metagame (humans get an extra +1 to a stat, an extra skill proficiency, and a feat instead of racial abilities), along with a custom background and feature. everyone gets +2/+1 to stats they choose that fit with the character's backstory they roll 4d6k3 and pick their stats appropriate to what fits the class they've chosen, and then we're off.

 

[Coroc]

i have a lot of issues with the way certain common fantasy species/races (namely orcs, elves, and dwarves, and gnomes to a lesser extent) reflect ethnocentric/racist/antisemitic ideals present in the real world and its creators. for the campaign i've been working on, i've been doing a lot of modification of the flavor of the races to simplify the overall selection and extensively modify the fantastic backstory to ensure there is some sort of logic as to why these various species/races coexist.

players choose a species/race they like from amongst humans, elves, halflings, or the touched races (which consist of dragonborn, feytouched [satyrs, for example], and tieflings). once they pick their species/race, we work together on their backstory to give them custom racial abilities that make sense and are balanced within the metagame (humans get an extra +1 to a stat, an extra skill proficiency, and a feat instead of racial abilities), along with a custom background and feature. everyone gets +2/+1 to stats they choose that fit with the character's backstory they roll 4d6k3 and pick their stats appropriate to what fits the class they've chosen, and then we're off.

Antisemitic? So because I like archetypes that is transferable into being RL antisemitic? Please now, this is a game.

I do not know if I should feel insulted by your post, for me you are calling a lot of people who like a certain style of D&D a bad name, and these might be people who have married interracial and are all but racist in RL.

 

[Coroc]

double post

 

[sekigahara08]

Antisemitic? So because I like archetypes that is transferable into being RL antisemitic? Please now, this is a game.

I do not know if I should feel insulted by your post, for me you are calling a lot of people who like a certain style of D&D a bad name, and these might be people who have married interracial and are all but racist in RL.

chill a bit. it's an indictment of the tropes that are present in traditional fantasy settings, especially in regards to the depiction of more "brutish" races vs. more "refined" races, that reflect either subtle or overt ethnocentric/racist/antisemitics ideals of the creators of those tropes. it's possible for someone to enjoy those traditional fantasy settings and even love them without necessarily embodying those ethnocentric/racist/antisemitic ideals, but for me personally, i would be remiss to do that because of the ideals, however subtle or overt, i see represented in these narratives make me and my players uncomfortable.

aside from that, i mostly find them boring and kind of played out and really love creating my own worlds, and 5e has given me the backbone and structure i need to do that without having to use a wholly unfamiliar system or creating one from scratch that fits my needs. much like it's easier to homebrew a new creature by modifying an existing one, i feel the same way about custom-tailoring the narratives of races/classes/factions/worlds/etc. within the confines of 5e rules and systems.

it's a personal choice for the campaigns i DM. i still play in a campaign run by a DM that uses the standard forgotten realms + traditional 5e lore on the side and have a lot of fun with it, but when it comes to my campaigns, i run things differently.

 

[Obryn]

Antisemitic? So because I like archetypes that is transferable into being RL antisemitic? Please now, this is a game.

I do not know if I should feel insulted by your post, for me you are calling a lot of people who like a certain style of D&D a bad name, and these might be people who have married interracial and are all but racist in RL.

Nah - but it's good to go into it with open eyes.

For example, I love Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian roleplaying in general. But both the man himself and many of his stories (which I also love, for the record) are intensely racist/xenophobic/classist - sometimes in text, but almost always in subtext. So when I'm running a Cthulhu game, I'll want to steer my way clear of (for example) using Deep Ones as a metaphor for race-mixing. I'll make an effort to use cultists who aren't 'primitives' or 'backwards woods-folk' or whatnot. And so on. But in order to do that, I need to acknowledge the problems in the source material.

 

[sekigahara08]

Nah - but it's good to go into it with open eyes.

For example, I love Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian roleplaying in general. But both the man himself and many of his stories (which I also love, for the record) are intensely racist/xenophobic/classist - sometimes in text, but almost always in subtext. So when I'm running a Cthulhu game, I'll want to steer my way clear of (for example) using Deep Ones as a metaphor for race-mixing. I'll make an effort to use cultists who aren't 'primitives' or 'backwards woods-folk' or whatnot. And so on. But in order to do that, I need to acknowledge the problems in the source material.

my sentiments exactly! i love and owe a lot to the incredible amount of time and energy that was put into narratives by authors like lovecraft and tolkien and numerous others in the past, but i can still critique the latent (or not-so-latent) prejudices that inevitably leaked into the creation of these fantasy worlds and the people that dwell within them and their narratives in order to create something new and (ideally) something better.

 

[Coroc]

chill a bit. it's an indictment of the tropes that are present in traditional fantasy settings, especially in regards to the depiction of more "brutish" races vs. more "refined" races, that reflect either subtle or overt ethnocentric/racist/antisemitics ideals of the creators of those tropes. it's possible for someone to enjoy those traditional fantasy settings and even love them without necessarily embodying those ethnocentric/racist/antisemitic ideals, but for me personally, i would be remiss to do that because of the ideals, however subtle or overt, i see represented in these narratives.

aside from that, i mostly find them boring and kind of played out and really love creating my own worlds, and 5e has given me the backbone and structure i need to do that without having to use a wholly unfamiliar system or creating one from scratch that fits my needs. much like it's easier to homebrew a new creature by modifying an existing one, i feel the same way about custom-tailoring the narratives of races/classes/factions/worlds/etc. within the confines of 5e rules and systems.

it's a personal choice for the campaigns i DM. i still play in a campaign run by a DM that uses the standard forgotten realms + traditional 5e lore on the side and have a lot of fun with it, but when it comes to my campaigns, i run things differently.

No one hinders you to put these features into your campaigns, but still these days people are drawing the Nazikeule a little to fast, and things tend to overshoot.

This happens in a way that meaningful discussions are not possible anymore, because if anyone has an opinion which does not confer 100% to the official PC correct narrative of the media, and some one else does not like this opinion even if it is based on absolute facts, then he calls out the former a racist whose arguments should not even be heard.

I really like USAs freedom of speech, I do.

You know, I live in Germany and in my country atm. I feel Nazibehaviour is coming rather from people who claim themselves SJWs and liberal. I myself was married to a colored women, and I still love colored women, and my son is nearly 50% black. So call me racist all day long if you want to make a fool of yourself.