D&D General Does Your Fantasy Race Really Matter In Game? (The Gnome Problem)

MGibster · Jul 18, 2019

Shadowdweller said:
From a gaming standpoint, I think the myriad races serve an important and valuable role. In some ways BECAUSE of the stereotypes: They provide a scaffold (much like Class and in 5e, Background) with which to develop a personality.

I would certainly agree with that assessment. As D&D is written, the races in the book are designed to be dropped as is into any campaign setting but I think that's part of the appeal of D&D. I can expect to join just about any D&D game and know what the elves, halflings, dwarves, and all the classes are all about. I can hit the ground running without having to look up a bunch of background information.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 18, 2019

the Jester said:
You sure can make a muddy mess when you throw every color on the canvas.

You can...if you do it without a plan, without control, without intellect.

OTOH, if you use your mind before attacking the canvas...

doctorbadwolf · Jul 18, 2019

jasper said:
Kender were proof that the gawds were still around Krynn. Any law abiding town would shot kender on sight, and arrested their companions for bring dangerous animals into town.

Gross

Zardnaar · Jul 19, 2019

The philosophical question is.

Kender genocide is a good act? Alignment repercussions?

They are a clear and present danger to the multiverse.

Blue · Jul 19, 2019

I created a setting and one of the defining points was that it's planar boundaries were thin and various deities had used this land over the age to deliver their faithful from other material planes where they were going to be wiped out. Both PC races but also intelligent monster ones. And there were things like two different, geographically separated orcs who had completely different traditions and cultures. The only original inhabitants were underdark halflings (that had spawned normal halflings)

In other words, the same thing bothered me. WHY would there be so many intelligent races sharing a world?

Laurefindel · Jul 19, 2019

Looks like the discussion is still relevant to the OP (which at 100+ posts is a feat in itself), so I'll add my two coppers worth...

Do fantasy races really matter? I'd like to say that they don't and that I can play whatever as a player, and have whatever played when I'm the DM, but that'd be a lie.

While I can easily attribute many cultures to a single PC race, I have a hard time dissociating these races from their respective cultures (which even if they diverge a little, remain very archetypical). I'm still debating whether this is a bad thing or not.

I don't like playing a gnome, or a half-orc, or a dragon born, or a dark elf, mostly because of cultural reasons (or how others perceive your culture). I actually like their racial abilities a lot. Allow me to reskin my gnome as a lighter-frame human from the city, or my half-orc as a human Viking-like culture, or my dragon born as a tribal human from the southern plains, and I'll be they happiest man around.

actually, I made a setting based on that concept...

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 19, 2019

Blue said:
In other words, the same thing bothered me. WHY would there be so many intelligent races sharing a world?

Such a thing pretty much implies the existence of meddling by intelligent beings.

(Except, in a fantasy setting, that would be deities, not aliens.)

oreofox · Jul 20, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Such a thing pretty much implies the existence of meddling by intelligent beings.
/snip

(Except, in a fantasy setting, that would be deities, not aliens.)

Aren't they kinda the same thing, at least in D&D? They are extraplanar beings, not part of the "material plane", which would make them aliens.

Tonguez · Jul 23, 2019

Blue said:
In other words, the same thing bothered me. WHY would there be so many intelligent races sharing a world?

In our own World there was once a time when the planet featured more than one Homonid species - besides our own Homo Sapiens. It is know that Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons*, Denisovans and Homo Florensis, possibly Homo Erectus all lived on Earth at the same time, overlapped, killed and interbred until only one species remains.

If we imagine a fantasy world that is bigger and more fertile- allowing races to develop further in isolation - and touched by magic (giving each race its own special advantage/niche) then why not a situation where Many advanced races share the world.

Maybe something like Homo Florensis - Gnome (fey-touched niche), Neanderthal = Dwarf (endurance advantage and subterranean niche), Cro-Magnon = Orc (Toughness advantage), Denisovans = Elf (arcane advantage). Then of course you have Fey and Extraplanar races rounding out the group

billd91 · Jul 23, 2019

sim-h said:
What irks me is that Gnomes can have as high strength as half orcs! Should be capped at 12 or something, in my opinion

Lowered caps aren't a good rule choice, if you ask me. I'd rather go back to having a penalty to Strength on small characters as in 3e/PF. The PCs aren't outright barred from having as high a strength as the half-orc, but it's gonna cost them more.