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

[prabe]

I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but I have met a disconcertingly large number of people who don't watch or read fiction.

The whole, "I only watch documentaries," or "I only watch reality TV" (a. ugh, b. that's scripted, but whatever). I don't get it either, but it's fairly common.

I can't speak for @zarionofarabel either, but I haven't engaged with much fiction, either, the past decade-plus--and I've pretty much stopped watching fictional TV/movies entirely. I don't know why anyone else would stop, but I had a stretch in which I lost the ability to suspect disbelief and enjoy fiction at all and it never came all the way back.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I can't speak for @zarionofarabel either, but I haven't engaged with much fiction, either, the past decade-plus--and I've pretty much stopped watching fictional TV/movies entirely. I don't know why anyone else would stop, but I had a stretch in which I lost the ability to suspect disbelief and enjoy fiction at all and it never came all the way back.

It is not uncommon! While I have always loved (visual) fiction, I had a stretch where I stopped reading fiction; it lasted a good five years or so.

 

[Scott Christian]

There are some heaping helpings of "it depends on your setting assumptions" that should be layered in here. For example,

1. How much racial diversity is there in total.
2. Are these "races" biologically compatible?
3. How far apart are settlements, and how easy is travel?
4. How long have these peoples and settlements been around?
5. How long have these peoples been aware of each other/interacted?

All that said, I'd still disagree that simply living with another culture erases your own. Even in RL metropolises, there are the Chinatowns and Koreatowns, and Little Italy's etc, where the culture is meaningfully different than in the surrounding cities to greater and lesser degrees (And this is without addressing at all how cultures may differ inside their own houses). How much more likely does that become when the races have meaningfully different ergonomic preferences (imagine as a human trying to walk up a set of stairs built for a goblin, and vice versa).

Yes. I agree with all of this. There are assumptions. Coming from the "We see a goblin and don't even bother to give it a second look" or the "I'm used to walking into the blacksmith's and waiting in line with a dragonborn and tiefling," was the default for the original quote. Because the original quote discusses the Cantina, and none of them were staring at one another (except for Luke of course ).
And I do not think cultures erase - they assimilate. They grow together. They are added to. They expand. Not erase.
Having lived in Chicago, spend some time in Viet town or Greek town. They are, for the most part, like most of the other parts of town. A few more Greek restaurants, a few symbols engraved into the sidewalk, the smell of lamb, and an historic house or two.
Maybe going back in history we would see it more segregated. But once we get into the "hundreds of years" status, the culture has grown. America's most famous example is probably China Town in San Fran. Half of the reason it still exists is because of tourism. If it weren't for that, it would have probably become like any other part of San Fran.
As DM, we could have the races all segregated, and one part of goblin town pandering to wealthy merchants that like to go in and watch goblins climb greased poles and try the spit-beer?
I don't know the answer. I am just throwing it out there, that if all the D&D races live together and are on equal footing for resources, then the descriptions shouldn't be about races, but rather places.

 

[Mecheon]

You're the one using Homo and Human in an incorrect, limited capacity not supported by science. You can call a shoelace a shoe, but that doesn't make it the whole footwear.

Fair enough. Mind I come from the dinosaur side of things so I think it needs to be more a sliding scale like we have for birds, what with there being 4 definitions for what even counts as 'bird'. Do you only count the common ancestor of modern birds and its ancestors as 'Birds', thereby leaving out say, Archaeopteryx?

Humans in the strictest sense compared to humans in a larger sense

 

[zarionofarabel]

I do watch movies and TV though I don't find it as entertaining as I did when I was younger. I think it's the repetition of ideas that has worn me down and pushed me away from fiction in general.

There are only twelve stories!

For example, my mom has been binge watching Hallmark and Christmas movies lately and, wow, they may as well just all be the same movie! Sure one movie has a blonde woman who plans parties and the other one has a brunette man that has a dog shelter, but the storyline was identical!

I haven't read fiction in years, save a single novel a fella from work insisted I read. Just for shits and giggles in indulged him as he kept going on and on about how good it was. It was very predictable to say the least, though in the moment I enjoyed it as an exercise in nostalgia.

 

[Gammadoodler]

1. When people don't know what they don't know, or to put it a different way, when people aren't even sure of what they don't know, then hopefully they will ask questions. If you spend all of your time policing the tone ("tonally suspect") of the question, as opposed to trying to answer them, then you will not only not get a good response, you will also dissuade other people from asking questions because they will assume that if they misstate the question, or use the wrong words in asking the question, people will attack them for their "tonally suspect" language instead of trying to help them understand.

2. This assumes, of course, that you are correct in your suppositions.

3. I think Oofta has some good points, but they are not the same as mine, which is more mundane; the question of exotic races, and communication between DM and players, and the delineations of responsibilities, is evergreen. Approaching these topics with humility and compassion is more effective than slinging around terms like "badwrongfun."

1. Tone and content are both important, in varying proportions and can and should be addressed to varying degrees. You're wouldn't hug an angry boss, and you wouldn't reason with an angry toddler. And "Maybe just relax a bit" can be both condescending and...really good advice. One way to solve a "why are things different than the way I want them to be" type of question is to understand the external circumstance. Another is to change the internal one. A third is to do both. Though I would agree that advice to that effect should be delivered carefully.

2. I legitimately don't know what this bullet was intended to reference.

3. With respect, in this instance, Oofta put Oofta's words into the OPs mouth (which was my primary complaint). Separately, it is a reasonable thing to state how you feel someone communicated their message, and a valuable thing to understand as the communicator. You may not like 'badwrongfun' as a term slung around, but the original message reads as part honest inquiry and part complaint about "kids these days", and it isn't gatekeeping to point that out. For my part though, I will try to be more judicious in the words I choose for such communications.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Yes. I agree with all of this. There are assumptions. Coming from the "We see a goblin and don't even bother to give it a second look" or the "I'm used to walking into the blacksmith's and waiting in line with a dragonborn and tiefling," was the default for the original quote. Because the original quote discusses the Cantina, and none of them were staring at one another (except for Luke of course ).
And I do not think cultures erase - they assimilate. They grow together. They are added to. They expand. Not erase.
Having lived in Chicago, spend some time in Viet town or Greek town. They are, for the most part, like most of the other parts of town. A few more Greek restaurants, a few symbols engraved into the sidewalk, the smell of lamb, and an historic house or two.
Maybe going back in history we would see it more segregated. But once we get into the "hundreds of years" status, the culture has grown. America's most famous example is probably China Town in San Fran. Half of the reason it still exists is because of tourism. If it weren't for that, it would have probably become like any other part of San Fran.
As DM, we could have the races all segregated, and one part of goblin town pandering to wealthy merchants that like to go in and watch goblins climb greased poles and try the spit-beer?
I don't know the answer. I am just throwing it out there, that if all the D&D races live together and are on equal footing for resources, then the descriptions shouldn't be about races, but rather places.

It would be interesting to explore how much of this assimilation happens just through mortality. Old enemies die and their kids grow up together. Would it work the same way for an Elftown or a Dwarftown, where the same shop owner might serve 10 or 12 or 20 generations of humans.

 

[Scott Christian]

Sure, but most DMs have Lizardfolk in their game worlds already. They are just generally atangonists instead of PC options. Same with Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Yuan-Ti, and Kobolds.

The biggest difference is taking those races from "always the enemy, kill on sight" to something that could be talked to, reasoned with and traded with. And considering how often in human history vicious enemies also had trade relations because they were next door neighbors? Not outside the scope of reason.

I mean, take the MM, and find every single creature with an intelligence higher than 5. Even if you take out the Undead, the extraplanar creatures, and the constructs, you have a lot of sentient beings running around your world doing things.


So, the problem never seems to be "we have too many sentient beings in the world" but is instead "we have too many beings let into the towns and cities of the world instead of being antagonists out in the wilds"

I don't want to speak for Oofta here, but I'm not really sure that is what he means. I don't know of any GM out there that pushes for the: kill on sight, unless there is already a logical constitution in place. Such as: "The lizardfolk have been eating all the crews coming down the river. One escapee even said there is a huge pile of bones."
Of course, this could be misdirection.
Also, I don't think anyone is saying lizardfolk can't trade. But if the world logic is they might double-cross you and eat you, then it is risky to trade with them. But knowing that, it might be fun to set up a trade meeting because they have something the PC's need.

In the end, I guess the complication is, if a DM wants to imply their logic to a world (D&D logic), and they want to make these creatures cannibals and thieves, are they allowed? Or does every sentient race need to be able to enter the PC's society on some level?

 

[Scott Christian]

It would be interesting to explore how much of this assimilation happens just through mortality. Old enemies die and their kids grow up together. Would it work the same way for an Elftown or a Dwarftown, where the same shop owner might serve 10 or 12 or 20 generations of humans.

That is a cool thought bubble.

 

[Oofta]

I don't want to speak for Oofta here, but I'm not really sure that is what he means. I don't know of any GM out there that pushes for the: kill on sight, unless there is already a logical constitution in place. Such as: "The lizardfolk have been eating all the crews coming down the river. One escapee even said there is a huge pile of bones."
Of course, this could be misdirection.
Also, I don't think anyone is saying lizardfolk can't trade. But if the world logic is they might double-cross you and eat you, then it is risky to trade with them. But knowing that, it might be fun to set up a trade meeting because they have something the PC's need.

In the end, I guess the complication is, if a DM wants to imply their logic to a world (D&D logic), and they want to make these creatures cannibals and thieves, are they allowed? Or does every sentient race need to be able to enter the PC's society on some level?

I'm used to @Chaosmancer misrepresenting or twisting pretty much everything I say but I think it's best to avoid the whole "having evil monsters that happen to be humanoid is wrong somehow and how should it be handled" argument. It leads to threads being shut down.
For the record I don't "encourage" behavior much one way or another other, the players can have their PC's do what they want and I will do my best to decide what the logical consequences would be. I will only step in if I think they may not understand the scene to clarify what is going on. I also have very few intelligent races running around, as I said early on. I don't even allow all the races from the PHB and I still think it's too many.