D&D General How To Reconcile the Settings

[Son of the Serpent]

I limit playable races in my campaign for a couple of reasons. One is simply that I don't want taverns to look like Mos Eisley's Cantina. If you have a campaign where races from multiple worlds mix, having any number of intelligent races may make sense, but too many races makes me wonder where they all live and how they continued to exist. We know that until relatively recently (from a geological standpoint) we had multiple humanoid races on earth, but Neanderthal and Denisovans were absorbed or went extinct. I'm okay with multiple in a fantasy campaign because "magic", but there's a limit.

Another reason is that I like to take into consideration how the different races react to each other and interact. I want each race to have their own cultural biases and leanings (although there is variaton). If I have too many races it becomes really muddied.

Last, but not least, in my campaign monstrous races are for lack of a better word monstrous*. Gnolls were artificially created. There are no good gnolls, all gnolls crave destruction and chaos. While they are sentient, they are not furry humans and are simply wired to be CE. That means that if anyone sees a humanoid creature that doesn't match one of the "known" races, it's likely they will be attacked on sight. Not really much different than if a tiger were found near a playground.

*Yes, I know this is overly simplified for some people. While there's a lot of who-can-I-trust and moral dilemas in my campaign, I've never wanted killing monsters to be one of them

i wish more people would consider simple things like "if there are 1000 races, where is the 1000 races worth of space? What is keeping their populations sustained? It hurts my brain. This is just not logical. Ergo i dont have 1000 races running around the same planet. Its just too silly."

 

[gyor]

Personally I will play and run a variety of settings, the default expectatiin is roughly the phb sans Tieflings, Dragonborn and Drow.

Even then I'm not opposed to them existing they are just on the bottom of the heap for being cut in Homebrew.

I'm not exactly a purist either when it comes to old settings. I'm not opposed to adding things as long as they are not shoehorned in or don't fit.

For some settings such as FR anything goes even if your PC is from lands unknown. Shoehorning something in like dropping huge nation's if Dragonborn in a'la 4E.

Some races don't exist in some settings eg Orcs on Krynn. Other races shouldn't be allowed based on the setting. No fire Genasi on a water world or Warforged in Darksun. Warforged can be made out if other materials but they get around the environmental hazards and magic is hard theme of the setting.

And just because something exists doesn't mean players should have access to it. Drow are a prime example.

So say you're playing Greyhawk. GH is a bit more humanocentric but it's also a bit more sandbox than a few setting such as Dragonlance. Similar thing with Ravenloft.
Anything that's not a human or one of the AD&D races is restricted to a single party member.

This could also apply to Darksun. Athas has mutants so rather than shoehorn in Dragonborn make a Dragonborn mutant. If Dray exist they can be a Dragonborn variant with different abilities from the PHB. A mutant can also have the Dray stats but has no connection to the Dray which are a hidden evil type thing.

Other races can also be added if they fit the setting. Yuant Ti and Genasi make sense in Darksun for example. Just don't shoehorn in major nation's.

Generally less is more IMHO., for each phb race cut replace it with something else. Exceptions are settings like Eberron, FR, Spelljammer which lean towards anything goes.

I'll point out that there are ways to have fire underwater, so I could see Fire Genasi in a Water World.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I'll point out that there are ways to have fire underwater, so I could see Fire Genasi in a Water World.

Ah yes the much feared albino genasi. Once lit it will even burn under water.

Born from one of the sultan's few escapades with fleshlings.

 

[Oofta]

i wish more people would consider simple things like "if there are 1000 races, where is the 1000 races worth of space? What is keeping their populations sustained? It hurts my brain. This is just not logical. Ergo i dont have 1000 races running around the same planet. Its just too silly."

I do the same thing with monstrous races. So gnolls primarily exist in one region and orcs in another. Some, such as ogres and some of the giants, are found in scattered pockets here and there but that has more to do with world building decisions than anything (they're descended from giants originating in Jotunheim).

Unless there's a planar breach or invasion of some sort the number of unique sentient monstrous races in any region can normally be counted on one hand. Sometimes I'll reskin a monster to give me a style of monster that doesn't fit published materials or create a custom version of an existing monster.

 

[gyor]

i wish more people would consider simple things like "if there are 1000 races, where is the 1000 races worth of space? What is keeping their populations sustained? It hurts my brain. This is just not logical. Ergo i dont have 1000 races running around the same planet. Its just too silly."

It's not silly at, look at how many species of animals the world has, there is no reason you couldn't 1000 sentient race. Heck humanity has well over a thousand cultures and subcultures. Not every self aware species has to have millions of individual. If say a race of humaniod ducks only live on 1 island the size Newfoundland, that would leave a massive area for other races, heck you could have chain of such islands each with a different humaniod race evolving. Or an Empire that creates different races to serve specific functions, creating a biological caste system. Maybe Goliths live in one mountain range and stone giants in another. Maybe one species leaves on a different world altogether, and the only examples on the setting world in question are an ambassador and his servants and their families from the home world.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I do the same thing with monstrous races. So gnolls primarily exist in one region and orcs in another. Some, such as ogres and some of the giants, are found in scattered pockets here and there but that has more to do with world building decisions than anything (they're descended from giants originating in Jotunheim).

Unless there's a planar breach or invasion of some sort the number of unique sentient monstrous races in any region can normally be counted on one hand. Sometimes I'll reskin a monster to give me a style of monster that doesn't fit published materials or create a custom version of an existing monster.

that makes perfect sense. (I foresee this eventually becoming a standard again perhaps in 6e because right now people are forgetting that part of good writing is remembering when NOT to have something be present. This everything salad fad wont last forever)

 

[Son of the Serpent]

It's not silly at, look at how many species of animals the world has, there is no reason you couldn't 1000 sentient race. Heck humanity has well over a thousand cultures and subcultures. Not every self aware species has to have millions of individual. If say a race of humaniod ducks only live on 1 island the size Newfoundland, that would leave a massive area for other races, heck you could have chain of such islands each with a different humaniod race evolving. Or an Empire that creates different races to serve specific functions, creating a biological caste system. Maybe Goliths live in one mountain range and stone giants in another. Maybe one species leaves on a different world altogether, and the only examples on the setting world in question are an ambassador and his servants and their families from the home world.

Yes there is. I could give heftier reasons but id have to write a blog just to lay out all the points so instead ill just say this.

Highly intelligent races are going to effect the balance of trophic levels. 1000 intelligent humanoid races (d&d style races which are more like species and subspecies), for this reason, doesnt physics. It doesnt physics at all. Unless the space is much larger than earth.

Hmmm...if a large percentage of these are all eating eachother though...then maybe. But if we assume that doesnt happen at all. No.

 

[Oofta]

It's not silly at, look at how many species of animals the world has, there is no reason you couldn't 1000 sentient race. Heck humanity has well over a thousand cultures and subcultures. Not every self aware species has to have millions of individual. If say a race of humaniod ducks only live on 1 island the size Newfoundland, that would leave a massive area for other races, heck you could have chain of such islands each with a different humaniod race evolving. Or an Empire that creates different races to serve specific functions, creating a biological caste system. Maybe Goliths live in one mountain range and stone giants in another. Maybe one species leaves on a different world altogether, and the only examples on the setting world in question are an ambassador and his servants and their families from the home world.

Sentient races as a rule are going to be far more flexible than animal species in what ecological niche they can inhabit and tend to be much more mobile. When one sentient race moves into a region, there's bound to be conflict or at least competition for resources. Geographical barriers that will stop many animal species be they mountains, deserts or oceans will not stop most sentient races.

 

[dave2008]

Sentient races as a rule are going to be far more flexible than animal species in what ecological niche they can inhabit and tend to be much more mobile. When one sentient race moves into a region, there's bound to be conflict or at least competition for resources. Geographical barriers that will stop many animal species be they mountains, deserts or oceans will not stop most sentient races.

Yes, but it can work in fantasy for the same reason your gnolls are all chaotic evil. The world was made that way. If the deities wanted to have more sentient servitor races, then there are as many as they wanted. It is hard-wired into the world.

 

[Nellisir]

Yes, but it can work in fantasy for the same reason your gnolls are all chaotic evil. The world was made that way. If the deities wanted to have more sentient servitor races, then there are as many as they wanted. It is hard-wired into the world.

This is where it's often very hard to put science aside. People generally think in terms of the world they know now, and that includes evolution and a skewed sense of distance. There were literally THOUSANDS of years when our species was a) not the only sentient human species (I think we're at 4-5 and counting, if you go back about 80K years); and b) not the dominant predator species. Now, those were stone age times, and most campaigns aren't stone age, but there's a precedent. Also, you don't necessarily need a large population, or a lot of space. Languages fracture amazingly fast, and if evolution worked faster, so would speciation.

Evolution is another bugaboo. The Shadowend region isn't large, but it has its share of monstrosities. How? Spontaneous generation. A chicken hatches a cocktrice. A bad magic region spawns perytons and manticores. Jotunar, or giant-blooded, are born to people who might have a trace of giant blood back a half-century, or might just live near giants, or a giant passed by the night the character was conceived. Several deities (particularly Kajalla) and the Typhos in general (titan-like monstrosities, born of the divinities but lacking in divine power themselves) actively twist small populations of existing races into new forms. Lamarkian genetics are the standard here, if you really need something to scientific to hang onto.

That's all my campaign, naturally - not hard rules that everyone should follow. But neither is "science".