The Greek city-states should all be halflings. You know I'm right.
D&D 5E How do you decide which Races to disallow (and/or Classes)?
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
*sigh* Why is it always dragonborn? I get that they're the new kids on the block, but bloody hell. D&D grew out of campaigns that were welcoming to balrogs and actual dragons as PCs, as long as the PCs were comfortable starting "low" and growing into that power over time. Nowadays, it feels like there's this huge NIMBY attitude from almost everyone who started up prior to 3e, and it just gets really frustrating after a while. I love dragonborn, for aesthetic as well as mechanical reasons (mostly aesthetic, though), and feeling like my preferences are always being put to the question is pretty damn wearying. (Inasmuch as anything from a niche hobby where I spend a small portion of my leisure time can be "wearying," of course--but I value that leisure time a lot!)
How would one go about learning this secret? Is the secret already pre-defined by the DM? Feels like it would be kind of a catch-22. Particularly if you play in a game where people aren't expected to switch characters often, and/or the DM expects you to "know" a secret she hasn't even chosen yet.
A+! This is exactly the kind of thing I like to hear. My favorite campaigns have always been the ones where both the players and the DM have to roll with the other's punches, adapting to fit. Everyone learns something and gets surprised that way.
Similar to the "race secret" bit above, I'm curious about how you'd handle this. What options would be default, and why? Would you accept player suggestions for new places to explore and/or new options that could be unlocked?
Not knowing Greyhawk, I cannot speak as to the veracity of this. I just wanted to highlight it because it shows that, even in settings that often get described as having "no place" for new concepts, there often IS a place if you're flexible/creative--and the same goes for the player seeking that concept.
Oh my God this is at least 42 kinds of awesome.
Edit:
As for my own decisions, although I have never actually run a campaign, I've wanted to, and my philosophy is simple.
Anything which fights against player enthusiasm for an RAI, non-exploitative option is a bad idea.
This is similar to what others have already said in the thread, but (IMO) more specific. Is the player being exploitative? Shut it down--they're probably more interested in the "meta" feeling of power than they are in experiencing an awesome story. Is the option weird/divergent/some other kind of strangeness? Might be more trouble than it's worth. But if players are genuinely enthusiastic and excited about something, you're talking about someone who is deeply involved, who cares about something and will be invested in what happens. Crushing that enthusiasm is a highway to disinterested players, and that will reduce everyone's pleasure. It's perfectly fine to pitch an idea--but the DM needs to carefully balance "What I want to run" with "What they want to play."
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The Grand User
Explorer
Put me in the camp of "The more the merrier" I'm generally the GM for our group and I look for ways to let my players play what they want usually. Now, I don't have a problem with a GM coming to the players with an idea for a campaign where "the normally PC race X is going to be the big bads, so no one can play those.", particularly if the stats for the PC race can be refluffed to not be the original race but perhaps something closely associated with them (which I'm actually of thinking of doing; elves/fey are the bad guys, so elf/half elf and gnomes stats are a fey-touched humans and dwarves). But in my more general campaigns, I let anything go (yeah, even something like the Aarakocras and flight at 1st level 
).
So in brief my recommended steps are:
optional: if you are a young GM decide what you absolutely can not handle and limit those options away
come to the players first and find out what they want to play/propose the basic idea of the campaign
let them make characters
if you feel like having everything is too much you can now feel free to cut some stuff out and not worry about blocking a player's creativity or fun
enjoy your new campaign world
(and try not to cut out Dragonborn, 'cause
)
).So in brief my recommended steps are:
optional: if you are a young GM decide what you absolutely can not handle and limit those options away
come to the players first and find out what they want to play/propose the basic idea of the campaign
let them make characters
if you feel like having everything is too much you can now feel free to cut some stuff out and not worry about blocking a player's creativity or fun
enjoy your new campaign world
(and try not to cut out Dragonborn, 'cause
)
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Aside from having a doofy-sounding name, I've got no problem with the dragonborn as they are in 5e or as they appeared in 4e (and their presence in 3e always felt like a bit of a tacked-on weirdness). Some folks aren't comfy with the less humanoid PC races, though. And some edition war PTSD runs deep. Dragon PC's weren't in everyone's campaign, after all.
A+! This is exactly the kind of thing I like to hear. My favorite campaigns have always been the ones where both the players and the DM have to roll with the other's punches, adapting to fit. Everyone learns something and gets surprised that way.
Thanks! Personally, it kind of grew out of lazy DMing and wanting to embed plot hooks in characters more deeply.
I'd probably start with the Basic set only. I'd totally be willing to accept submissions for new options that players want. And I'd imagine I'd have less character continuity than in a typical D&D campaign, to allow players to shift characters frequently and experience different options. I'd have to link players to something with some force in the world, though, if not a character....something they can watch grow and change over time. That could be a few things (a family! an organization! a kingship!), but that would change some expectations of the game pretty significantly. It might also be unreasonable in terms of gameplay time....there's a LOT of things to experience.
Players would find out about the possible "unlockables" because these would be features of adventures - maybe there's orcs attacking the borderlands and if the party grabs this plot hook and go investigate it they can unlock the Barbarian class and the Half-orc race because there is a half-orc barbarian who is chief of his tribe that you can ally with to bring down the orc assault. Or something along those lines.
Yep: Halflings = Demi-Greeks.
Think of the hoplites (hoblites?) in their masses. Think of Hellenic contributions to cuisine. To philosophy. To being hirsute.
Theseus? Tricksy.
Odysseus? Tricksy.
Alexander the Great? Tricksy.
Think of the hoplites (hoblites?) in their masses. Think of Hellenic contributions to cuisine. To philosophy. To being hirsute.
Theseus? Tricksy.
Odysseus? Tricksy.
Alexander the Great? Tricksy.
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S
Sunseeker
Guest
If it makes you feel any better, I'm running a Dragonborn-only campaign soon.
The Grand User
Explorer
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I was just thinking of this last night, so I'll share my take on it.
I decide entirely based on the desired feel of the campaign and setting. Most of the feel is going to relate to what my impressions of the D&D feel were when when I started gaming, which was in the late 80s--so TSR D&D era.
Races
I'm not concerned about published races being overpowered (none of them bother me in that department), and I can upgrade underpowered ones if absolutely necessary. I care about what makes sense in the game world. I'll comment based on how I decide what to allow in a campaign, and how I decide what (or how) to allow races in the game at all.
In the Game
To put it into my own terms, I'd say races fall into about 3 categories: Normal, Exotic, and Monsters.
Normal races are humanoid people. They are the ones that you were assumed to be playing, and generally the only ones that were assumed to be walking around in civilized towns and cities. In most worlds that translated to human, elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, and half-elf.
Exotic races are generally humanoids who are either physically or magically more exotic, or who are just generally assumed to not be peaceful citizens you see walking around town. In 5e terms, I'd include drow, half-orc, svirfneblin, genasi, and goliath. This is also where races like goblin or hobgoblin would fit.
Monsters are races who aren't morphologically humanoids. Either they have tails, or animal heads, or wings, or something else that just doesn't fit in. These creatures aren't just walking around in town, and people are more likely to scream "monster" and run than to try to hawk wares to them. In 5e this would include dragonborn, (5e) tiefling, and aarakocra. This also includes things like lizardfolk, bullywugs, thri-kreen, or gnolls.
That holds true in Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and is my default assumption about what a traditional D&D world is like until it is otherwise specified. Some worlds have different assumptions about what races are normal, exotic, or monsters, and many worlds lack some of the common races and add other races. In general, I accept whatever races were initially conceived of in a world, or placed into that world early in its publication.
I do not allow retconning of races into worlds that didn't originally have them. For instance, I don't care that 3e and 4e plopped goliaths down willy-nilly, they don't belong in any of the settings I had in 2e because they weren't there then. Warforged are fine in Eberron, but no, you can't have one anywhere else (except in a Planescape or Spelljammer campaign, where almost anything is fair game). Allowing warforged or goliaths, or race-of-the-month into my Forgotten Realms is like allowing kender or draconians--they belong on Krynn, and that's where you have to go to get them.
Dragonborn would be another example. In this case, I actually like dragonborn, but I haven't decided what to do with them yet. I have no problem allowing them in my multiverse, but I'm not sure where yet, since they weren't associated with any particular world. I'm thinking I might make a rare exception and retcon them into Spelljammer as a spelljamming race, since that seems like an interesting place to put them. If so, I might have them replace dracons (dragon-dino-taurs).
Some races just rub me the wrong way. Take the 5e tiefling. It has no place in my multiverse. I use Planescape tieflings, although I have no problem using the 5e stats to represent them. Some would say I just changed that race. In my mind I entirely threw it out and seized its stats for my own purposes.
But other than the non-Planescape tiefling, there are few races that I anticipate being published for 5e that I would actually outright ban--more often I'd just say that they aren't found on any of the established worlds, and in order to include them you'd have to go to, be on, or come from wherever it is they call home (probably a crystal sphere I could generate if need be).
In a Campaign
In a standard campaign* I'll automatically allow the normal races of that world, and exotic races are an easy sell as long as it isn't the majority of the party playing them. I'd have a hard time allowing more than one monster race into the party unless that fits the theme of the campaign.
The reason I wouldn't automatically allow everyone to play exotic and monstrous races is that they are viewed as such in the world, and people will react accordingly. NPCs will attack or run from monsters if they see a group of them walking into town, and exotic characters will at least be objects of curiosity (and often fear). You can't just go about adventuring business as usual when your party is scaring away everyone by their presence.
Classes
With regards to classes, I haven't felt the need to ban any classes or subclasses in 5e. I do, however, restrict classes based on the campaign in a similar way to how I restrict races.
An example would be the monk. I don't normally allow monks unless you are playing in an Asian-themed setting. In a more traditional European-themed setting it is simply out of genre, and I don't want it to be there without a pretty good reason that doesn't detract from the overall game experience. The same principle applies for any other genre changes. Sometimes I like to run a campaign in an Asian-themed setting, and you sure as heck cannot play a paladin or an elf in it, because there aren't any of them around (perhaps not even on the world).
Another example is the Oathbreaker Paladin subclass. It exists in my multiverse, but as it is the anti-paladin/blackguard archetype, it isn't normally going to be suitable for PCs.
In 3e I eliminated some classes due to crazy class bloat, redundancy, and filling holes that didn't exist. I had a list of a few dozen classes (including standard PHB, a few psionic, Asian-themed, warlock, and a couple more that were world-specific) that I allowed (in their appropriate settings) and no other classes existed in my multiverse.
The way I see it, a class isn't just an arbitrary combination of abilities you use in conjunction with level-dipping and multiclassing to create whatever character you can think of. They are more like dedicated fields of study that have a sense of identity associated with them. There are only so many fields of study that really make sense, and just about any character concept that fits into a particular setting will fit into those classes.
I decide entirely based on the desired feel of the campaign and setting. Most of the feel is going to relate to what my impressions of the D&D feel were when when I started gaming, which was in the late 80s--so TSR D&D era.
Races
I'm not concerned about published races being overpowered (none of them bother me in that department), and I can upgrade underpowered ones if absolutely necessary. I care about what makes sense in the game world. I'll comment based on how I decide what to allow in a campaign, and how I decide what (or how) to allow races in the game at all.
In the Game
To put it into my own terms, I'd say races fall into about 3 categories: Normal, Exotic, and Monsters.
Normal races are humanoid people. They are the ones that you were assumed to be playing, and generally the only ones that were assumed to be walking around in civilized towns and cities. In most worlds that translated to human, elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, and half-elf.
Exotic races are generally humanoids who are either physically or magically more exotic, or who are just generally assumed to not be peaceful citizens you see walking around town. In 5e terms, I'd include drow, half-orc, svirfneblin, genasi, and goliath. This is also where races like goblin or hobgoblin would fit.
Monsters are races who aren't morphologically humanoids. Either they have tails, or animal heads, or wings, or something else that just doesn't fit in. These creatures aren't just walking around in town, and people are more likely to scream "monster" and run than to try to hawk wares to them. In 5e this would include dragonborn, (5e) tiefling, and aarakocra. This also includes things like lizardfolk, bullywugs, thri-kreen, or gnolls.
That holds true in Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and is my default assumption about what a traditional D&D world is like until it is otherwise specified. Some worlds have different assumptions about what races are normal, exotic, or monsters, and many worlds lack some of the common races and add other races. In general, I accept whatever races were initially conceived of in a world, or placed into that world early in its publication.
I do not allow retconning of races into worlds that didn't originally have them. For instance, I don't care that 3e and 4e plopped goliaths down willy-nilly, they don't belong in any of the settings I had in 2e because they weren't there then. Warforged are fine in Eberron, but no, you can't have one anywhere else (except in a Planescape or Spelljammer campaign, where almost anything is fair game). Allowing warforged or goliaths, or race-of-the-month into my Forgotten Realms is like allowing kender or draconians--they belong on Krynn, and that's where you have to go to get them.
Dragonborn would be another example. In this case, I actually like dragonborn, but I haven't decided what to do with them yet. I have no problem allowing them in my multiverse, but I'm not sure where yet, since they weren't associated with any particular world. I'm thinking I might make a rare exception and retcon them into Spelljammer as a spelljamming race, since that seems like an interesting place to put them. If so, I might have them replace dracons (dragon-dino-taurs).
Some races just rub me the wrong way. Take the 5e tiefling. It has no place in my multiverse. I use Planescape tieflings, although I have no problem using the 5e stats to represent them. Some would say I just changed that race. In my mind I entirely threw it out and seized its stats for my own purposes.
But other than the non-Planescape tiefling, there are few races that I anticipate being published for 5e that I would actually outright ban--more often I'd just say that they aren't found on any of the established worlds, and in order to include them you'd have to go to, be on, or come from wherever it is they call home (probably a crystal sphere I could generate if need be).
In a Campaign
In a standard campaign* I'll automatically allow the normal races of that world, and exotic races are an easy sell as long as it isn't the majority of the party playing them. I'd have a hard time allowing more than one monster race into the party unless that fits the theme of the campaign.
The reason I wouldn't automatically allow everyone to play exotic and monstrous races is that they are viewed as such in the world, and people will react accordingly. NPCs will attack or run from monsters if they see a group of them walking into town, and exotic characters will at least be objects of curiosity (and often fear). You can't just go about adventuring business as usual when your party is scaring away everyone by their presence.
Classes
With regards to classes, I haven't felt the need to ban any classes or subclasses in 5e. I do, however, restrict classes based on the campaign in a similar way to how I restrict races.
An example would be the monk. I don't normally allow monks unless you are playing in an Asian-themed setting. In a more traditional European-themed setting it is simply out of genre, and I don't want it to be there without a pretty good reason that doesn't detract from the overall game experience. The same principle applies for any other genre changes. Sometimes I like to run a campaign in an Asian-themed setting, and you sure as heck cannot play a paladin or an elf in it, because there aren't any of them around (perhaps not even on the world).
Another example is the Oathbreaker Paladin subclass. It exists in my multiverse, but as it is the anti-paladin/blackguard archetype, it isn't normally going to be suitable for PCs.
In 3e I eliminated some classes due to crazy class bloat, redundancy, and filling holes that didn't exist. I had a list of a few dozen classes (including standard PHB, a few psionic, Asian-themed, warlock, and a couple more that were world-specific) that I allowed (in their appropriate settings) and no other classes existed in my multiverse.
The way I see it, a class isn't just an arbitrary combination of abilities you use in conjunction with level-dipping and multiclassing to create whatever character you can think of. They are more like dedicated fields of study that have a sense of identity associated with them. There are only so many fields of study that really make sense, and just about any character concept that fits into a particular setting will fit into those classes.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
Do tell
It's basically set pre-humanoid civilization, the dragons who once ruled the world have all but died off and the societies of dragonborn, whom the dragons created because hey, what are immortal, god-like cretures supposed to do for fun after the first 10000 years, are slowly collapsing. So it will be up to the party to basically investigate what's going on and eventually determine if dragons die out and some kind of new dragonborn empire arises, if the dragons should return to the world, of if both are fated to wane into legend. Some other races will exist, such as elves, since they are ostensibly from another dimension. But their numbers will be incredibly small and their existence is completely unknown at the start of the game.
I don't tend to enjoy running a free for all campaign kitchen sink settings. So I do end up restricting things. I base it on what make sense for the setting and the world I am building. For example in my one campaign their are no teiflings the world has been shut off from the other planes for centuries so there are no asamir either. I use the dragonborn from Races of the Dragon so no one is born a dragonborn it is a ritual you go through. So no first level character is starting out as dragonborn.
I also don't like to shoe horn in classes and races that were made for specific settings. So warforged most likely won't be in my Dragonlance game and Kender most likely won't be in my game set in Kalamar. You noticed I said most likely because there are always exceptions usually based on a player coming up with a creative idea to make it work.
I don't like to shut players down completely so I will try and re skin things to make it fit so they can play their concept. But I have low tolerance for player's whines about playing restricted classes when there are plenty of choices available. It seems rather childish to me to insist that the only possible concept you can come up with it is this one narrow thing and you can't have any fun unless you play this one concept.
I rarely restrict that same thing in every game so maybe you can't play a warforged in this game but you can in the next.
I also don't like to shoe horn in classes and races that were made for specific settings. So warforged most likely won't be in my Dragonlance game and Kender most likely won't be in my game set in Kalamar. You noticed I said most likely because there are always exceptions usually based on a player coming up with a creative idea to make it work.
I don't like to shut players down completely so I will try and re skin things to make it fit so they can play their concept. But I have low tolerance for player's whines about playing restricted classes when there are plenty of choices available. It seems rather childish to me to insist that the only possible concept you can come up with it is this one narrow thing and you can't have any fun unless you play this one concept.
I rarely restrict that same thing in every game so maybe you can't play a warforged in this game but you can in the next.
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