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

[Dire Bare]

What if they had wanted to play another android like Data? A Klingon isn't that hard to justify even if someone wanted to keep Worf the only Klingon in Starfleet - they'd just have to be part of the officer exchange program that we saw in "A Matter of Honor" from season 2. Then, the'd still be part of the Klingon Empire as well as available on a Starfleet vessel - lots of plot hook connections both ways.

But Data really is supposed to be unique. You could come up with yet another Soong android, but that really would cheapen the chachet of being an android if you're just going to retcon more as you need them.

Of course, the most obvious alternative... if you want to be an android like Data - play Data.

Within Star Trek lore we have plenty of androids other than Data. Within the Next Gen series, we had B4, Lore, Soong's android wife, and perhaps others I'm not remembering. Adding one more for the player character hardly seems a problem. I seem to remember android characters from the original series also. In the latest show, "Picard", more androids is a major developing plot!

And even if Star Trek canon had stuck with "the only sentient android in existence is Data, there are no others" . . . . I would totally allow an android in my Star Trek tabletop game. Player fun trumps sticking to the canon of a TV show, especially when the TV show itself doesn't really worry that much about it.

 

[Dire Bare]

Still, even if you do allow evil characters (i would not allow that at all for some campaigns), what do you think is more invasive, prohibiting a race/class or prohibiting a certain RP concept?

For me it is clearly the second, i hope you get what i try to express:
E.g.

a) Lets say the character wants to play a dragonborn rogue
The DM says no dragonborn please chose another race.

b) Let's say the dragonborn rogue is allowed and he is a bit on the shady side, and decides to lift a shop in the homebase city of the PCs which could lead to ruining the reputation of the whole party
The DM says, no now you go to far, you won't do that

c) Let's say the dragonborn rogue is of CN alingment and gets caught while shoplifting. He decides to off the shopkeeper to prevent him fro mcalling the city guard.
Now the good/neutral party he is associated with would eventually be handled by officials as complicit with a murderer, if things come to light.
The DM says your character is CN, he might do that but in the end he decides not to
(That is big meta of course, to prevent to ruin the setting for everyone else)

How would you rule in b) or c) (I know you would allow the character so a) is not an issue for you) and if you would intervene in these cases isn't that a much harsher intrusion on the PC than denying a) ?

I still don't think we are communicating well. When it comes to evil PCs (or dragonborn), I'm not banning anything at my table. I'm not banning certain alignments, or even character concepts. If I have a player who is creating problems at the table, regardless of what kind of character they are playing, THAT is the problem, not that they are playing a dragonborn, Vulcan, or evil PC.

 

[Coroc]

I still don't think we are communicating well. When it comes to evil PCs (or dragonborn), I'm not banning anything at my table. I'm not banning certain alignments, or even character concepts. If I have a player who is creating problems at the table, regardless of what kind of character they are playing, THAT is the problem, not that they are playing a dragonborn, Vulcan, or evil PC.

Yes i totally understood that point of view, but would situations b) or c) be a problem at your table that so that you would need to talk to the player out of game or is it ok for you if a player act like b) or c) ?

 

[Coroc]

I might not be understanding your point, but I am confused.

Folks who get bummed or irritated with DM's not allowing certain races (or other character options) are terrible role-players? There's no correlation there, sorry. My desire to play a dragonborn, elf, or human has no relationship to my role-playing skill. And if I am an "unskilled" role-player, I'd rather the group I'm with try to help me improve rather than simply banning character choices they perceive as role-playing challenges.

No, but they might be wanting to play a race for mechanical/optical reasons, just because they prefer the combat aspect of the game more than the RP aspect. Which does not make them bad players, just not the best roleplayers, but since this is a recreational hobby and not a competition that does not matter.

And folks should not get irritated about DMs not allowing certain races (also they should not get irritated if the DM allows every race).

If someone gets irritated because of how DM limits something (just like the PHB also does limit races) there is no evil will behind or bad intentions by the DM, but missing communication on what campaign the DM wants to offer.

 

[Zardnaar]

I still don't think we are communicating well. When it comes to evil PCs (or dragonborn), I'm not banning anything at my table. I'm not banning certain alignments, or even character concepts. If I have a player who is creating problems at the table, regardless of what kind of character they are playing, THAT is the problem, not that they are playing a dragonborn, Vulcan, or evil PC.

I'll use an example. This is a real example.

I gave my players several choices. I bought the Midgard setting, Drow don't really exist apparently there's a few left as they got eaten by a ghoul imperium.

The imperium is located near Zobeck. The players chose not Egypt so I switched the focus to that area which has Ravenfolk, Gnolls, Minotaurs etc.

On that world someone wants to play a Drow. In Nuria Natal the Southland races and Dragonborn are a lot more prominent. Let's say I let you play a Drow. You're a survivor a long way from home with light sensitivity in a desert setting. Would you rather play a Gnolls, Aasimar, Dragonborn/kin.

Had they chosen Zobeck you are right beside the Vampire kingdom. They're allied with the ghoul imperium who ate your people. There's a nice revenge plotline there and the few survivors are close by. You can rally the survivors, find a new home for them etc.

It's a lot easier for the DM to work the Drow into the story in Zobeck than Nuria Natal.

The DM tells you this up front and why.

The game is set in Nuria Natal. There's an expansionist Dragon empire nearby with political exiles in Nuria Natal opposed to the current regime in that empire.
Do you insist on playing your Drow with no real built in plot hooks or ties to the area. Or do you play ball with the lore and tone if what the DM is offering?

DM 2 can't be bothered with that and limits the races to ones in Nuria Natal and immediate environs.

No Drow are allowed along with the races from the far north. DM suggests to tie your characters to the local area in some way and had custom back grounds and new back grounds to support that.

Or you want your special snowflake Drow from 2000 miles away with the outlander background?

Even though the DM has spent hundreds of dollars on the books and time spent designing a game and back grounds.

Are you really going to insist on playing what you want!

This is why I just boot players who won't play ball. They're contrarian just because

 

[Don Durito]

It's a warning sign isn't really?

This is a the game I want to run. It's a desert fantasy Egypt. It's going be a bit different from your usual variety of D&D - this is a chance to do something different. Here are the major races that are part of this area and are thematically appropriate.

Player: Awesome man. I'm in. Hey - can I play a Drow?

The signal this would send me as a DM is "I don't really care about the game you want to run. I have no real interest in honestly collaborating on making the game work, I just want to play a game of D&D and your game will do, because it's available and I can't play it on my own."

 

[Zardnaar]

It's a warning sign isn't really?

This is a the game I want to run. It's a desert fantasy Egypt. It's going be a bit different from your usual variety of D&D - this is a chance to do something different. Here are the major races that are part of this area and are thematically appropriate.

Player: Awesome man. I'm in. Hey - can I play a Drow?

The signal this would send me as a DM is "I don't really care about the game you want to run. I have no real interest in honestly collaborating on making the game work, I just want to play a game of D&D and your game will do, because it's available and I can't play it on my own."

Yeah it's a very big sign. If it's not going to be the Drow it will be something else that pops up later.

I spent about 10-20 hours developing it and literally hundreds of dollar on books, postage and PDFs.

I did give the players the choice of Midgard as well along with the starting locations basically far north, South or center.

The Drow don't really exist except for a blurb saying they're almost extinct. I could work the Drow in very easy around Zobeck.

In the south the Dragonkin Empire is a big deal. If I went with Vikings it's thousands of miles away and would prefer people to play northern races- humans, bearfolk, trollkin.

Additionally in Midgard there's also leylines which are also located in specific areas.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

*not really sure "grounded" is the right word. But "not looking like Mos Eisley's Cantina" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue either.

Try "consistent with the story's themes."

 

[Dire Bare]

No, but they might be wanting to play a race for mechanical/optical reasons, just because they prefer the combat aspect of the game more than the RP aspect. Which does not make them bad players, just not the best roleplayers, but since this is a recreational hobby and not a competition that does not matter.

And folks should not get irritated about DMs not allowing certain races (also they should not get irritated if the DM allows every race).

If someone gets irritated because of how DM limits something (just like the PHB also does limit races) there is no evil will behind or bad intentions by the DM, but missing communication on what campaign the DM wants to offer.

Players choose their character concepts (race/class/background/etc) for all sorts of reasons, including the mechanical aspects. Sure. So? D&D is a form of storytelling, yeah . . . but it is also a game and the "stat-block" for a race or class is a game-piece, which is totally OK to get excited about. Doesn't make the player a bad-wrong-fun player, a poor role-player, or anything really. You can both role-play and min-max at the same time, they aren't mutually exclusive. Do some players prioritize min-maxing character options over role-playing their characters? Yes, of course, that's a play style some of us love to hate, and others find a lot of fun.

If you are running a game heavy on the role-play and want to avoid min-maxing . . . . do you ban certain character options (races, classes, etc), or just communicate what you're going for with the players and work together to create appropriate characters? YMMV, but I think it's pretty clear I'm on the more open and collaborative end of the spectrum rather than looking to establish arbitrary (as I see them) restrictions.

 

[Dire Bare]

Still, even if you do allow evil characters (i would not allow that at all for some campaigns), what do you think is more invasive, prohibiting a race/class or prohibiting a certain RP concept?

For me it is clearly the second, i hope you get what i try to express:
E.g.

a) Lets say the character wants to play a dragonborn rogue
The DM says no dragonborn please chose another race.

b) Let's say the dragonborn rogue is allowed and he is a bit on the shady side, and decides to lift a shop in the homebase city of the PCs which could lead to ruining the reputation of the whole party
The DM says, no now you go to far, you won't do that

c) Let's say the dragonborn rogue is of CN alingment and gets caught while shoplifting. He decides to off the shopkeeper to prevent him fro mcalling the city guard.
Now the good/neutral party he is associated with would eventually be handled by officials as complicit with a murderer, if things come to light.
The DM says your character is CN, he might do that but in the end he decides not to
(That is big meta of course, to prevent to ruin the setting for everyone else)

How would you rule in b) or c) (I know you would allow the character so a) is not an issue for you) and if you would intervene in these cases isn't that a much harsher intrusion on the PC than denying a) ?

Yes i totally understood that point of view, but would situations b) or c) be a problem at your table that so that you would need to talk to the player out of game or is it ok for you if a player act like b) or c) ?

In an ideal game, I'm going to run a "session zero" where we discuss the type of campaign I want to run and the type of characters I see as appropriate to the theme or setting. However, I'll also let the players know that if they have a character idea that seems outside of what I'm looking for, bring it up anyway and we'll talk about it to see if it will work. We'll then get down to character and party creation.

If one (or more) of the players creates a character I'm worried about, let's say an evil-aligned PC obsessed with power at all costs, we're going to talk about it some more, to make sure that the character doesn't disrupt anyone's fun, mine included. But we'll try to make it work as-is or perhaps with some adjustments. We might even junk the character and start over . . . . but I see all of that as a collaborative discussion between DM and player rather than a list of "banned" character options.

Once we start playing, if ANY of the players starts disrupting the game and upsetting other players (again, including me) . . . . let's say by murdering innocent shopkeepers who catch him shoplifting . . . . we're going to have to take a break from the game and discuss what happened, again, hopefully collaboratively between players and DM. And again, it's not about the player creating a character with certain game options (race/class/alignment), it's about how the player is interacting with the story (the DM's part of the game) and the other players.

If a player consistently plays selfishly through power fantasies (at the expense of the story or adventuring party), cheating, playing "chaotic stupid" (or "lawful stupid" I suppose), or is just being a dick at the table . . . . than, yeah, it might mean that player isn't playing in the right group and might need to be asked to change their behavior or leave the game. Maybe asking the player to create a new character might help them break out of the mindset they are playing through, maybe not.

Would it be easier to just ban evil characters at the beginning of all of that? Probably. But, IMO, not really effective as poor player behavior isn't inherently tied to playing evil PCs, dragonborn, or duel-wielding drow rangers with panther pets.