D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Shiroiken]

Players just have various preferences from us. I'm also old-school, but I've been obsessed with elves since the beginning, across every edition. Clearly that's my preference, just as a friend of mine is just as obsessed with dwarves. New players are going to have more options to initially choose from, thus opening more options for initial introduction, whereas we had only a half-dozen or so.

Of course, there are the contrarians. They're the people who play the race and class that is most inappropriate for the campaign, simply because they want to screw it up. Of course, they tend to cause more problems than just playing weird races.

 

[embee]

Shining force had some very big D&Dism in it.

Want to know something that will really bake your noodle?

Birdmen are an older concept than Hobbits.

Birdmen date back to Flash Gordon in 1935. The Hobbit was published in 1937.

 

[DammitVictor]

Daniel Tiger is an animated series set in Mr. Roger's Land of Makebelieve.

Me <-- Gen Xer with a small child

If you believe it or not, it's Mister Rogers' Neighborhood with all of the subversive elements removed... made safe for the doctors' offices' waiting rooms. Which is to say it's perfectly fine educational entertainment for small children, but it lacks the punch of Mister Rogers himself staring into the camera and telling young children what assassination means in a way they can process.

 

[Zardnaar]

Want to know something that will really bake your noodle?

Birdmen are an older concept than Hobbits.

Birdmen date back to Flash Gordon in 1935. The Hobbit was published in 1937.

I know but they weren't playable in D&D earlier. Still aren't really they're opt in.

 

[ccs]

Yeah, their place in the 4e PHB 1 actually fit their place in the setting perfectly. Unfortunately, not many people read too deeply into the lore.

To be fair most people didn't read 4e....

 

[Undrave]

I would expect to get a chance to explore what the clan of my character is, how it formed my character's world perspective, etc. I would expect it to matter in the game, not just as a vague afterthought. I have yet to meet a dragonborn player who spoke about its clan as more than a throwaway line in its background.

Heh, I rarely see that kind of background depth out of humans, I dunno why Dragonborn would need to do more than that.

however in a Human dominated world, all those weird races are defined as monsters and should be treated as such - if they try to enter a Town they will face prejudice, hostility and out right aggression. The players roleplaying challenge is how they deal with being monsters

Yikes... yeah no. Don't force player to play fantasy racism if they don't want to and just want to be a cool creature. That's not cool.

Want to know something that will really bake your noodle?

Birdmen are an older concept than Hobbits.

Birdmen date back to Flash Gordon in 1935. The Hobbit was published in 1937.

And dog people are so old they have their own term : Cynocephaly - Wikipedia

 

[Charlaquin]

To be fair most people didn't read 4e....

Most people don’t read any edition, beyond the character creation rules.

 

[DammitVictor]

It's funny that no matter how much the mechanics of the game don't support their assertions-- and to be crystal clear, they never, ever have-- the people who don't want "weird people" in their games always fall back on the idea that anyone who wants to play anything that wasn't core in the AD&D PHB (and... even then, sometimes half-orcs) is "powergaming" and not interested in playing a "real character".

And somehow, always, it falls back to the ideal solution-- if you can't just ban these people entirely from their games-- of having human civilization utterly spurn these characters, refuse to do business with them, and even suddenly transform from helpless commoners into high-level lynch mobs to drive these characters out of the adventuring party they're trying to ask for help. Despite what the monster description says about their trade relations, despite what the setting says about the community's position.

It doesn't matter if the DMG and MM say they trade with humans. It doesn't matter if they're not "Always Chaotic Evil". It doesn't matter if they canonically have a peace treaty with the neighboring kingdoms. The only thing that matters is that the DM doesn't like it, and isn't smart enough or brave enough to have a conversation with their players about why they don't want it in their games. If they don't like it, then the only reason anyone else must like it is for some kind of unfair advantage that has to be "balanced".

It's funny how it always works out that way.

 

[Ace]

Most people don’t read any edition, beyond the character creation rules.

I fully admit I don't read lore unless I am playing in that world. None of it is relevant to the homebrew that makes up 90% of my gaming and 100% of what I run.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

As with all things in genre pop-culture I don't really understand I just assume it has something to do with anime I haven't seen and move on.