D&D 5E Greyhawk, and race options for Oerth PCs

[Mecheon]

They're pushing the Gnoll demon thing hard which u think is a bit stupid.

5E is the first edition gnolls haven't been playable, plus the 4E lore was the first time they had serious lore to make them "A viable player race with a logical reason to join all sorts of parties" rather than "Let's publish playable rules for 'em, sure" like other editions

 

[Zardnaar]

5E is the first edition gnolls haven't been playable, plus the 4E lore was the first time they had serious lore to make them "A viable player race with a logical reason to join all sorts of parties" rather than "Let's publish playable rules for 'em, sure" like other editions

Gnolls arent a race I would promote to players. No one's ever asked to play one, Midgard even has a decent write up for them.

Players generally default to a demihumans or whatever is new in a specific setting IME.

Next Dragonborn rolled up will be a first, even Gnome beat them.

 

[Coroc]

.... game where rabbit people are canon ....

"But I want to play a rabbit in your darksun game!"

"You cannot, they are genocided!"

"Ok then I want to play a Gnome!"

"You cannot, they are genocided also!"

"Ok then I play a Kender!"

..... Thump noise in the background either from DM feinting or from DM facepalm ....

 

[Zardnaar]

"But I want to play a rabbit in your darksun game!"

"You cannot, they are genocided!"

"Ok then I want to play a Gnome!"

"You cannot, they are genocided also!"

"Ok then I play a Kender!"

..... Thump noise in the background either from DM feinting or from DM facepalm ....

At that point you move the player along lol.

I might have to run a D&D 101 session for newbs. Probably use precons as they might not even own a PHB.

 

[Coroc]

...
I'll give an example from my own DM'ing experience. I enjoy running "heroic" games, I don't enjoy "mercenary", "evil", or "amoral murder-hobo" games. But I don't have any rules banning "evil" or "mercenary" characters. If a player wants to create a human ranger concerned about the increase of monsters in the forest, that's easy and we don't need to have a super in-depth convo about how that will fit into my campaign. But the other player wants to play a dark character obsessed with power who will do anything to achieve it. Do I say, "Nope. Sorry, no evil PCs in my game!" No, rather I have a more in-depth convo with that player, reminding them of the tone I'm going for, and how can we do this and allow everybody (me included) to have fun? Weis and Hickman managed it with Raistlin from the very heroic Dragonlance Chronicles. It might be a challenge to successfully pull that off in my campaign, for both me and the player, but I'm willing to say "yes" and give it a try. What's the worst that can happen? The campaign begins to derail a bit and I have another convo with the player on how we can all continue to have fun . . . worst case scenario, after a while the character is "retired" if not working out, and we try something new.

Well you just sound a bit paradox with this post, you make so much drama about someone not being allowed to play dragonborn, which just not fits in everybodies world, and otoh you got two players of which one just plays the standard human ranger, but this archetype gets its niche protection from the creative player who wants to play a guy with a darker side?
The only precondition I would have in this case (unless the campaign is really a black-white good vs evil with no nuances thing then I'd agree with your post), would be that the player of the dark character must not start intra party fighting.
Other than that I assure you, no matter the setting ( except for the plain good evil example I gave) the player with the dark concept will bring more fun and life and RP to your table than the ranger guy.

Restricting players unnecessarily in a way you suggest (unless the setting is the exception I mentioned and even there you yourself noticed Raistlin as an exception in the exception), is far more intrusive for me, because that's character and roleplay which you restrict, and not some fluff about whether you are a human or a human covered with scales and with a tail (most dragonborn players) or a reptile humanoid with traits which differ really from how humans act and value things (some few dragonborn players).

 

[Fenris-77]

Restricting races in a campaign that is aiming for a particular tone or working a particular set of tropes isn't "restricting players unnecessarily" but rather the opposite. Campaigns start as a contract between the DM and the players. The DM says "here's the pitch, interested?" and then the players get to say yes or no. If I were going to run a Grey Hand campaign, for example, I would quite happily restrict the allowed races to ones that made sense in that context, regardless of what might make sense in some other FR campaign. Players are not allowed to play whatever race they want in any campaign they want simply because that race is published in a WotC book somewhere. If a player in my example was such a narrow fan of the game that he only ever roleplayed Dragonborn, and for whatever (good) reason I decided that wasn't going to work, then that player probably needs to find another game.

 

[Coroc]

Mildly disappointed is fine, it is when posters begin making presumptions about the DM that doesn't allow all the options that is when people start having issues with such posters.

I wonder if the same pushback occurs when spells or entire schools are removed - resurrection comes to mind.

EDIT: Most of the time this is discussed at session 0, but ofcourse new players and PC deaths occur so the weird and wonderful is sometimes asked for. I as DM tend to stick to much of the setting lore - fitting in as much of it that makes reasonable sense to our table.

In our ToD campaign - I do not want to have someone playing a Saurial, Dragonborn or Half-Dragon as I have enough on my plate as DM, with limited playing time, and I do not want to explore that possible aspect of the storyline.

In our Mystara campaign set in Karameikos - I do not want to blow up my world in order to cater to non-Known World races, published or otherwise. We have two elves, one is a Calarrii and the other Vyalian. The humans are a Traladaran and a Thyatian. That way I can run an official Known World module and the information I will introduce can be tied to their peoples' history and mythology. If I had a tabaxi or a dragonborn it would require more work to tie all that in. I'd have to rethink the Duchy's past. No thanks.

There is a reason I use published settings and modules, less work for me as DM. When it comes to background though, I'm all ears. That is when the player gets to blow up creatively.

In our ToD campaign - we have a restitched up PC, Amon, with shattered memories of the previous soul that inhabitted that body (a now dead PC, Montano). He was remade by Kelemvor on a mission to stop a Kavah, a deranged cleric, from resurrecting the merciless dead god, A'tar.

All three were played by the same player.
Montano died. Kavah was retired. Amon is his current character.
The is entirely the player's creativity.

Kudos for the saurials, dragonborns 2e predecessors. There was one in eob3 myth drannor, but they also had the weretiger guy (who could not hit anything requiring magic weapons to hit if transformed), and a pixie mage.

Still weretiger guy was cool, but saurial? I thought to my self do they put that in because of the kiddos who like dinosaurs?

 

[Oofta]

In my campaign intro document, I have fewer than a dozen house rules. Those include no evil characters, play someone who wants to be part of a group, don't play chaotic stupid and a list of allowable races. There's also links to a ton of other information and history for the world. Along with more doco and history than even I can keep track of. There's a lot of history to the campaign world.

But no, I don't explain why I don't allow dragonborn or kenku or whatever race of the week comes up. They simply aren't part of my vision for my campaign world. That consistency, that ongoing feel of a campaign may not matter to you, but it does to me. In my 4E campaign I was able to come up with a reason for eladrin, they were outcast Sidhe from the feywild. I allowed a deva because I came up with a reason for them to exist which was not revealed to the player until the end of the campaign much to his amazement/surprise/enjoyment.

But those were exceptions to the rule. If I allow dragonborn, what's next? Kenku? Tabaxi? Loxodons? Shard Minds? Could I find a place in my world for warborn? I suppose I could. None has ever been around since the beginning of the campaign decades ago, but if nothing else there's always a shipwreck from a far off land or a rift to another plane of existence. But I would want a race of sentient constructs to be the start of or the result of an earth shaking event, not just a race of the week.

But I don't see what it would add to the campaign world. That's all the justification I need, sorry I'm not sorry. Maybe that makes me a curmudgeon, maybe that means I'm not the DM for you. On the other hand I tend to DM for the same group of people for years on end, the only reason I needed to start up a new group recently was because I moved.

 

[Fenris-77]

Don't be sorry for running the campaign you want to run. That's the game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't disagree that restrictions on player choices can be useful. I want to start off by saying that.

And I know a lot of this has to do with the nature of online discussion. I've never really experienced such strong clashes of this type at the table. Typically, when this kind of thing comes up, we work it out amicably. The player either changes their mind, or the GM changes things a bit to accommodate the player request.

What I struggle with is the idea of theme, as it's used in these discussion. Or "vision" as it pertains to the game world. I genuinely believe that there can and have been compelling reasons for restricting player choices in games. But I also believe that there are plenty that are more capricious, but are kind of disguised as "setting integrity".

I very rarely feel like the restriction is justified.

Again, I'm not saying it can't be. We can all imagine a world where the gods have moved on, and there is no more divine magic. The world is more gritty and harsh, and there are no clerics. Okay, got it. Setting aside any concerns for if the game can still function with such a change, I can understand the theme and the story elements that went into that decision. Someone pushing to play a cleric in such a setting would be a bit annoying, and the player should work with the DM to come up with something else.

In most cases, though, I don't know if I agree that the justification really works. I have two examples, one that comes up a lot in these talks, and another that I recently experienced.

Dark Sun and gnomes. So you sit down to play Dark Sun and one of the players, for some inexplicable reason, has made or wants to make a gnome. Per the setting lore, the gnomes were wiped out, so the DM is leery of allowing the gnome. But really, why? Who cares if it contradicts the lore? We make our own lore. Okay, maybe it's a long standing Dark Sun game and there has been no mention of gnomes before now. Again, so what? Athas is a huge place. The gnome can be a wanderer from some other area where a small tribe remains, or whatever other idea may work. The gnome PC does not mean that hundreds of gnomes have to show up all of a sudden. Maybe it can be a focus for that PC, or maybe it won't matter at all. Dark Sun has all kinds of mutated creatures, so it's insanely easy to justify the gnome. And as I've said before, if one gnome can upset the theme of your Dark Sun campaign, then you're likely not focusing on the themes that actually make Dark Sun compelling.

There's really no compelling reason to block gnomes from Dark Sun. And I say that as someone who really doesn't care about gnomes or even get what they bring to the game.

The second example came up recently in a game of Star Trek Adventures that my group played. We have one member of the group that is a huge Star Trek fan. We have two others who are also big fans, and then three that are moderate fans (including me). So the GM decided that the game would be set in The Next Generation era. One of the players who is a casual Star Trek fan wanted to make a Klingon character. The GM restricted that race because "there was only one Klingon Starfleet member at that time, and it was Worf". So the player wound up making another character. There was no big dustup or argument about it....but this struck me as really odd. The GM's sense of fidelity to the setting trumped the player's desire. Basically, the GM decided to maintain the unique nature of a NPC rather than allow the player to play what he wanted. As if having a second Klingon in Starfleet would somehow "ruin" the setting.

To me, this is a clear case where it's basically let the player play what they'd like. The justification to maintain the setting status quo as it relates to Worf seems a very odd decision to me. Who cares about Worf? He never even showed up in our game at all.

So all this is to say that although I think there can be good reasons for restricting player choice for races, classes, or whatever other options there may be.....I don't think all reasons are good. I think there are some bad reasons, or meaningless reasons, more often than good ones.