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

[Scott Christian]

Sorry, did not have time to read the whole thread. Just a quick 2 coppers.

One of the things massive diversity does to a setting is make it less diverse. Might seem counter-intuitive, but if you have a small winter seaside village of 200 people, and your elephant bard, turtle fighter, dragonborne cleric, and crab person druid show up, in most settings, they would be run out of town. Heck, throughout the original Icewind Dale trilogy, Drizzt is constantly battling society. Once you make it where all races are the norm, and they are all accepted, then you lose some of your setting.

Most novels I know have an outsider... someone not accepted. But when there are all these different races you lose the outsider. Hence, you lose culture. It breaks a setting's logic too. I mean, cultures are ripe with aweing, hating, not trusting, fetishizing, and worshipping someone who is different. Too suddenly blank that out of the culture also means to blank out little things: not having the bartender shake his head when the bird barbarian asks for worms stew; having the fisherfolk not get attacked by the crab druid when pulling up their crab traps; or have the little girl playing in the street scream at the dragonborne. It seems hallow.

Granted, you could be a petty DM and make everything difficult for your players because they chose something odd. But that's no fun either.

I sympathize with the OP. One group I play with walked into Saltmarsh as an asimaar, drow, human, triton, and tabaxi. It's ridiculous Saltmarsh didn't lynch, throw out, goggle, or begin to worship us. This is a town that is 90% humans. No matter how easy travel is, it is still a little belief breaking. (Full disclosure: Liked the campaign. Great job by the DM and players. But we never really discussed the races because if we did it wouldn't have made any sense.) I mean, even sci-fi, with its space age travel, has strong themes of those who are different.

Last thing I can note is we played a campaign where only humans were allowed. But, we could choose any of the race's attributes and proficiency bonuses. The DM just had the culture built. So choose a wood elf, get everything a wood elf gets, but you are human that grew up with a similar culture to wood elves (who did not exist). That worked out really well. It was, this is Lanitheer, he's from the forest kingdom, where they hide amongst the deep woods, so on and so on.

 

[Ace]

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.

Absolutely. Gaming is supposed to be fun and making people deal with sexism , racism and whatever else isn't fun for some people. If the players are fine with it and you are, go for it. Otherwise , just don't.

The best solution is if you don't want critter folk in your game world than just say "Sorry but they don't exist in this game world." Its absolutely fine to say no.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

I’m not even talking about fluff, people don’t read the rules. They just figure “yeah, I know how D&D works, pretty much” and learn the exceptions to their expectations one at a time as they come up. Which leads to a lot of common rules misunderstandings and carrying over habits from previous editions that are ill-suited the edition they are actually playing.

 

[Scott Christian]

Like really man, dwarves and elves, those sure are normal, lmao. I guess after Tolkien and Dragonlance were written, Fantasy as a whole was tapped for some of you, eh?

I doubt it was "tapped" for anyone here. But since that road is being trodden...

Perhaps it is "tapped" for you. Perhaps you can only dig superficially into a culture, and then want to move on. Whereas, many DM and players might start by playing an elf and playing with the woodsy concept. Then they switch over and start peppering in what their wood elf eats. Later, with another character, they start showing other players the symbology used for their elves. After playing a few other characters they can revisit that elf, and start discussing family trees. Then they start thinking and describing the wood elves clothing styles that are their heritage. After a few more years, they might draw spellbooks because they like art and tailor it to their elf. Then they start to wonder about elven haircuts and whether there should be anything specifically that reflects the elven culture. Then later...

You get the point. Some can keep digging into a subject. Others like to read at a glance, then move on. Neither one is "tapped."

 

[Undrave]

One group I play with walked into Saltmarsh as an asimaar, drow, human, triton, and and tabaxi. It's ridiculous Saltmarsh didn't lynch, throw out, goggle, or begin to worship us. This is a town that is 90% humans.

Why is Saltmarsh 90% human? I assume a place with that kind of name is not far from water, why not have a decent ammount of Triton? Or a Triton trading outpost nearby? You're the DM, just change the population.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

I just say no.

Or I have a handful of approved goofy races you can pick from that make sense for the setting.

Anything goes can also work but best done when built from the ground up to enable it vs shoehorning stuff in.

I'm looking at running a second game, probably gonna be almost anything goes.

But something like 10 are going to be default, anything else is a mutant. They're common enough no one cares to much.

Out of the 10 featured races I want 3 or 4 from outside the PHB. One if them are Warforged still thinking about the others.

Elves will probably make it with different fluff along with gnomes, humans and half elves.

Got called a fun Nazi for saying no Dragonborn, reason I said no is they stink mechanically.

 

[Ace]

I’m not even talking about fluff, people don’t read the rules. They just figure “yeah, I know how D&D works, pretty much” and learn the exceptions to their expectations one at a time as they come up. Which leads to a lot of common rules misunderstandings and carrying over habits from previous editions that are ill-suited the edition they are actually playing.

Ah I gotcha. I try to read the rules when I can but sometimes well its "Gonna play 5e today." and since you had no warning and have never played or seen the game before you gotta roll with it.

Worst part though is when DM's who are bored with playing and champing at the proverbial bit to run don't bother with leaning the rules. That annoys me to no end. Its also why back in days when Gygaxasaurus roamed the Earth DMing was sort of a second job that if you wanted to do it very often you needed rules mastery. Ye Olden Daze weren't always all they were cracked up to be but that DM needs skills notion ought to come back.

Also sometimes I think a D&D rules podcast you could play on the phone or in the car might help learn the system. Today on the podcast we explain Attack of Opportunity or whatever.

 

[Scott Christian]

Why do you assume they are playing in a human-centric world? When I have heavily mixed groups I typically assume the rest of the world is the same. It is typically a humanoid-centric, but not human-centric

To be fair, if you look at the major cities in D&D, and all the modules, and all the adventure paths, it is human-centric.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ah I gotcha. I try to read the rules when I can but sometimes well its "Gonna play 5e today." and since you had no warning never played or seen the game before that before you roll with it.

Worst part though is when DM's who are bored with playing and champing at the proverbial bit to run don't bother with leaning the rules. That annoys me to no end. Its also why back in days when Gygaxasaurus roamed the Earth DMing was sort of a second job that if you wanted to do it very often you needed rules mastery. Ye Olden Daze weren't always all they were cracked up to be but that DM needs skills notion ought to come back.

Also sometimes I think a D&D rules podcast you could play on the phone or in the car might help learn the system. Today on the podcast we explain Attack of Opportunity or whatever.

I seem to be the only local DM who can hold a group together longer than a year or so.

Another group has potential but it seems to skew older with some parents plus kid playing.

Next game probably no flyers, and nothing underdark. Mainly because there is no underdark and what's down below is super secret (it's a spaceship).

 

[DammitVictor]

I just say no.

Or I have a handful of approved goofy races you can pick from that make sense for the setting.

I mean, regardless of quibbling over whether or not the "weird people" should be included-- this is how grownups handle it.

I have been known to run a race-limited game from time to time myself, though I don't normally say "PHB YES ALL OTHERS NO"... it's actually based on a specific game-type or specific world.

But I think there's a reason that most people who say "anything outside the PHB is powergaming" don't do this. It's because they don't feel confident laying out their vision for the game-- they need an external authority to validate their restrictions.

Anything goes can also work but best done when built from the ground up to enable it vs shoehorning stuff in.

Might surprise you, but I hate like Hell that they shoehorned tieflings into the FR and DS the way they did. I am 100% A-OK with dragonborn in the FR, and warforged in Eberron, and say mul or half-giants in DS but I'd never mix them up. I see no problem with changelings or shifters in any world that doesn't specifically preclude them, like DS or... a theoretical moonless world.

Thri-kreen are a different story, because they were canonically in GH and FR before they were made playable in DS and they're one of my favorite races.

Got called a fun Nazi for saying no Dragonborn, reason I said no is they stink mechanically.

If there's enough interest, maybe beef them up? In Shroompunk, I combined them with tortles.

Not really a 5e fan, so I don't know the current meta but I like taking the OGC races on d20PFSRD and smushing them together to see what I get-- or nixing all of the planetouched races to make them human subraces.