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

[Oofta]

In some campaigns I will agree that it seems odd that "monstrous" communities are more accepting than "demihuman" communities.

All I can say is that in my campaign, an elf, dwarf or halfling that walked into (for lack of a better term) "monster town" would probably be killed and eaten unless they kill the first dozen or so ogres that try it. You have to establish a reputation of being the biggest badass around before being accepted.

The problem is that it's really difficult to do the opposite. If a human walks into monster town they can kill their way to grudging acceptance. They can (maybe) prove they aren't to be messed with. Doesn't mean they'll be safe or that it will work, but it's at least an option.

But what could an ogre do? Not kill people? In theory they could help people in one area enough that eventually people would realize the Grog the ogre isn't like every other ogre. But the moment they step foot in the neighboring region (which may only be a day or two travel by foot) they have to start all over again.

Even in a best case scenario, I don't see the ogre being able to integrate into society in all but the rarest of cases.

If a large population of ogres doesn't follow the MM default description then the answer may be different.

 

[Crit]

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.

I think this is actually quite relevant to your problem with caricatures/stereotype players. First, I will add that a player playing a stereotype or not is equally accessible regardless of character race. Even Human is a stereotype. Not the point.

People who write fiction, be it a DnD character or a Hallmark movie, simply lack the will, option or ability to break the mold out of archetypes and standards set by the culture. I don't think, truly, fiction is limited to 12 stories, but it will feel true if everyone acts like it is. Foreign cultures have alternating story "shapes" that don't fit the mold, and hell, it's littered across history too. Verbal tales from Africa followed a cyclical structure, and in Japan there is something called Kishotenketsu which is about the presentation of information, rather than plot itself. But these things, for us, are once again limited by what's actually been made.

Ideas like "Hero with a thousand faces" paint big enough borders for stories that influence each other to be lumped together, but people often seem to make the mistake of calling a trend a rule. The only reason that ideas like this survive is because they are reinforced by people who believe in them. Fiction itself isn't a problem, it's the authors making use of the same toolbox rather than working without one.

A typewriter monkey, given enough time, could create some string of words that tells a genuinely new story, and possibly lead to the discovery of new storytelling paths. It's a shame there's no feasible way to make text randomizers only give us the good stuff, so this will never be viable.

But because most fiction creators march to the same beat, I can see how it'd become tiring, boring, so on and so forth. I have an interest in writing, and I have become familiar enough with many aspects of it to feel like you do. I stick around because I find different ways to enjoy or get something out of it, though I don't think I'll be watching Hallmark anytime soon. I wish there was something different about fiction in culture, be it its accessibility or production, but I can understand leaving it.

As for how that relates here, though, any PC's qualities are dependent on the Player's intent and writing ability. There's nothing inherently good or bad about a tool that can be discerned by its use. If Billy makes a derivative stock character, he did a bad job and he probably thought he could get away with doing less- Billy is one of the players you talk about that make a better character when they're a human. In this regard, a meh player played a Race, the race didn't make Billy a bad player.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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!

See, sometimes the guy is wearing green, and is on the left, and sometimes the woman is wearing red, and is on the left.

 

[Oofta]

See, sometimes the guy is wearing green, and is on the left, and sometimes the woman is wearing red, and is on the left.

Exactly. Completely different stories because some of the presentation is different.

 

[Crit]

For a lot of DMs it's about building a believable cohesive world. Saying that it has anything to do with being "tolerant" is insulting.

The idea of tolerating other people's fun/choices becomes more relevant when table-option banning is done on false premises, like a Tortle somehow being the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of believability in a DnD campaign. If you're going to cut something, cut it because you don't want it there, or the setting has literally no room for it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The idea of tolerating other people's fun/choices becomes more relevant when table-option banning is done on false premises, like a Tortle somehow being the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of believability in a DnD campaign. If you're going to cut something, cut it because you don't want it there, or the setting has literally no room for it.

But that, also, doesn't make sense.

Think of it this way-

We don't (or shouldn't) demand that players come up with "valid" reasons for their choices, right? For example, I think most people would have an issue with the DM giving a player the third degree and saying that they can't play a Dragonborn because they are doing it on "false premises" and the player has to provide a logically satisfying reason to the DM for their desire to play it.

But this is a two-way street. We also shouldn't be demanding the the DMs justify every single choice they make, right? I mean, that sounds like the definition of un-fun. "What, you aren't allowing me to play this? I think you have false premises, and demand that you justify the exclusion to me."

Ugh. Sounds like the worse session 0 ever.

Look, you acknowledge that the DM can cut races because they don't want them. So it doesn't matter if the DM's premise is faulty or not, or if the DM is lying to herself or to the world. People like what they like, and they have idiosyncratic reasons for that.

You might think it's crazy that a DM draws the line at tortle; but that's just, you know, your opinion man.

 

[Oofta]

The idea of tolerating other people's fun/choices becomes more relevant when table-option banning is done on false premises, like a Tortle somehow being the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of believability in a DnD campaign. If you're going to cut something, cut it because you don't want it there, or the setting has literally no room for it.

I fail to see how a ban could be done on "false premises". I don't allow drow in my campaign because I'm not even sure if they exist, or if they do they are not native to the prime material plane. What stories are told of drow are that they are the boogey man, coming at night and wiping out entire villages.

Is that a "false premise"? Who gets to judge? I don't allow dragonborn because they've never existed and continuity of story is important to me. Is that the straw that broke the camel's back?

 

[Shardstone]

People play caricatures of human fighters, wizards, elves, dwarves, rangers, and so on. Saying that those are good but the caricatures of other races are not is inanity.

The caricature argument is a non-argument. I don't know why its gone on for so long.

People making the argument that GMs want to created curated worlds are making a non-argument. Tell your players no. If they insist, explain to them why. If they still insist, don't play with them. Its that simple.

This thread is filled with people taking the smallest possible arguments and thinking that they are legitimate.

 

[Dire Bare]

I chose to ignore the original "furry roleplay" comment because I assumed it was simply spoken in ignorance, but now I guess I should say something.

It doesn't really matter if you didn't mean judgment when you said "as if it were Zootopia," or if the OP meant derision when referring to my preferences as though they were a fetish community. Derision and judgment were communicated, regardless of the intent.

I don't like dragonborn because of some kind of art I like or don't like. I don't like dragonborn because of any film published by any company. I like them because I think dragons are awesome, and therefore that playable dragon-people are awesome available for me to play. I like them for the same reason I like Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books, or the Temeraire books, or Dunkelzahn and drakes from Shadowrun: dragons are awesome, and stuff that makes dragon-y things ready to hand is cool. I literally have no further, deeper, or prior motive than that.

Yet for that simple preference--one which, I should note, is a BIG reason why the second D is Dragons, so I'm hardly alone for thinking dragons are awesome and therefore gaming which includes them is awesome--I am frequently labelled as a "special snowflake," a furry, someone who "throws a fit" if I don't get my way, someone with "weird" (meaning, abnormal) preferences, someone who can't be "happy" with "traditional" options (and must, apparently, thus be difficult to please?), someone that secretly wants to undermine DM authority or pervert DM vision or whatever else. People feel free to insult me--whether or not they intend to--purely because of a thing that brings me joy and does nothing whatever to them. People feel free to act like my preferences are not worth catering to. I have, in fact, even been told that I should be grateful that I even got the explicitly ghettoized, weaksauce options provided in the 5e PHB. (It is worth noting, the person who said that--on these very forums--meant it in a bitter "they could have done you worse" kind of way, not a smug "we deigned to allow you this incredible compromise" sense.)

So...yeah. There's an awful lot of implicit or explicit judgment thrown around in this thread...and from the very first post, it was stacked up against the people who like less-human-looking races and races that came about only 15 years ago rather than 30 years ago or whatever.

You're not alone! Dragonborn were "invented" in 3E for this reason, dragons are popular, and folks want to play them! WotC is on record that their dragon-themed books are best-selling, and it's why we got "Races of the Dragon" and "Dragon Magic" in 3E. Dragonborn are now a core race, and there's a reason for that!

Similar reason why tabaxi and kenku are on the B-list in D&D right now (one step away from "core") . . . folks enjoy playing them! If you enjoy this type of character, it doesn't make you a "furry" with some sort of mental issue or weird kink.

The problem doesn't lie with players wanted to play "weird" races, the problem lies with DMs that have "setting purity" issues and/or micro-managing/control issues.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't like dragonborn because of some kind of art I like or don't like. I don't like dragonborn because of any film published by any company. I like them because I think dragons are awesome, and therefore that playable dragon-people are awesome available for me to play. I like them for the same reason I like Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books, or the Temeraire books, or Dunkelzahn and drakes from Shadowrun: dragons are awesome, and stuff that makes dragon-y things ready to hand is cool. I literally have no further, deeper, or prior motive than that.

Hell, I like dragonborn in spite of them being mechanically weak, and I'm an optimizer that normally hates playing weak races. If dragon people are cool enough to convince me to play them, that says a lot about them.

I 100% agree with everything said in this post. There is no reason do judge someone based on their table's playstyle, like what the first post in this thread and many since have been doing. There is no incorrect way to play D&D if you and everyone else at the table is having fun.