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

[Drazen]

I rather suspect by 'us' he means modern humans, though I'm open to correction.

I think the more fundamental problem is the viewpoint that one version of "imagine you're different than you actually are" is somehow superior to another.

I concur
After all, who wants to be human XD?
Kidding of course.

 

[Undrave]

It IS in the town where you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, after all. A less offensive example of course would be Bree from Lord of the Rings - this is a place populated by Humans, Halflings, Dwarve,s Half-Elves, and Half-Orcs. All core PHB peoples of course, but you don't really find that sort of admixture pub ANYWHERE else in Middle-earth. Another great Star Wars example is the make up of the Alliance Council in Rogue One, or the Galactic Senate during the Prequels.

Or Point Central from Valerian and Laureline. A multicultural space station so old and so vast that some of the species that used to reside there no longer exist and no one even remember who first built it. Going into its depth is like an archeological dig (some species even imported full chunk of them planets!).

This is an incredible claim. It is extremely unlikely to be true.

We literally coexisted and mated with them while growing our population much faster, until we consumed them into us as a species.

They were not alien to us.

I bet our ancestors couldn't tell there was that much of a difference. They were probably just "Those other guys" or "that other tribe" and not much else.

 

[Undrave]

I rather suspect by 'us' he means modern humans, though I'm open to correction.

Well yeah, but out ancestors would probably feel just as alien.

I'm reminded of the book Eifelheim about aliens crash landing in medieval Germany. A point of the book is that both the aliens and the rural people who uncomfortably make contact with the extraterrestrials are both alien to use modern people in different ways.

 

[Minigiant]

Not feats — class progression. Older (TSR-era) editions had "front-loaded" classes. You got most of your abilities at lvl1, and you gradually got better at them over the course of the levels.
Now, players "map out" level progressions and each time they gain a level, they carefully pick and choose feats, level-dip, multiclass, etc. CharOp is a "sub-game" in the style of Diablo or WoW and I don't like it one bit.

Actually the culprit is how rigid classes were back in the day which lead to- multiclassing and the trouble balancing it. This both moved class features back and created feats as patches for rigid class features

Most Elves in the games I have played are between 50 and 150 years old. By that token, most adventuring elves also have no idea what it is like to live hundreds of years

I have only seen one person play an elf of middle age or older (in D&D). And they didn't roleplay him as it was a pure combat, dungeon delving campaign.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I bet our ancestors couldn't tell there was that much of a difference. They were probably just "Those other guys" or "that other tribe" and not much else.

"That other tribe, you know, the ones with the weird foreheads?"

 

[doctorbadwolf]

.

I think the more fundamental problem is the viewpoint that one version of "imagine you're different than you actually are" is somehow superior to another.

Agreed.

Or Point Central from Valerian and Laureline. A multicultural space station so old and so vast that some of the species that used to reside there no longer exist and no one even remember who first built it. Going into its depth is like an archeological dig (some species even imported full chunk of them planets!).


I bet our ancestors couldn't tell there was that much of a difference. They were probably just "Those other guys" or "that other tribe" and not much else.

Yep.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"That other tribe, you know, the ones with the weird foreheads?"

They didn’t look that different from us. Like the common conception is exaggerated in difference, IIRC from papers from the last decade or so.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

They didn’t look that different from us. Like the common conception is exaggerated in difference, IIRC from papers from the last decade or so.

Yeah, I know. If a Neanderthal was dressed in modern clothes, properly shaved, and acting like a typical person, in public no one would notice anything really different about them. We humans are a diverse race, anyway.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, I know. If a Neanderthal was dressed in modern clothes, properly shaved, and acting like a typical person, in public no one would notice anything really different about them. We humans are a diverse race, anyway.

Except, apparently if you look at their thumbs which apparently may have been better for holding spears and such but not as good at fine manipulation.

 

[Undrave]

Now, players "map out" level progressions and each time they gain a level, they carefully pick and choose feats, level-dip, multiclass, etc. CharOp is a "sub-game" in the style of Diablo or WoW and I don't like it one bit.

God forbid people play characters they actually like and actually picked...

"That other tribe, you know, the ones with the weird foreheads?"

"You know, the dumbasses?"