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

[FrozenNorth]

So, I have handout-equivalents available for players (they're in a GDrive folder that I share to everyone at the table/s)

Pfffff! Etched bronze tablets or GTFO!

 

[Oofta]

Here's the thing- out of those races, I don't see why one member from them couldn't have a journey to go on. So why shouldn't they be playable?

Where did they come from? What's their culture like? What's their relationship like with other races? How likely are people in villages, towns and cities to recognize them? What are their cultural norms, what do most people of their race value? What's their history?

I could go on, but you get the idea. In order to qualify as a race (playable or not) there has to be a significant number of that race somewhere. Maybe none of that matters to you, it does to me. It's part of world building for me, hopefully one that makes the world richer for my players.

 

[Crit]

In principle, I don't disagree with you. In practice, there are some races that I dislike (such as tabaxi, kenku, and drow), so ... asking me to DM something I don't want at my table seems ... kinda uncool-ish; and there are other races (on my world, the goblinoids) that I've complicated the hell out of in the lore, some of which isn't really player-facing (mostly because I know it but haven't written it), so it makes it simpler, and easier to keep the races as I want them, if I don't allow them to be PCs.

I can respect that.

I don't have a problem with settings that don't permit certain things, I just think (as a concept) the idea of "the bad guy races shouldn't be playable" to be weird, which is a vibe I'm picking up in the thread. If we're excluding races based on villainy, then what's the difference between an evil Human empire and an evil Drow empire? IMO, a species is just a species and then there's the culture most of them belong to. A PC is allowed to be somewhat related to the bad guys, which is something we can all agree upon unless you never have fought a Human, Dwarf of Elf guard or thug.

At my table, I allow pretty much anything printed in a book, unless it's actively causing a disturbance based on how it's used. As a player, especially now with Tasha's, a war forged Armorer Artificer is fun to have waiting for use. Same, with a Gith Psi Knight. I wouldn't be having as much fun without these options.

 

[Oofta]

I can respect that.

I don't have a problem with settings that don't permit certain things, I just think (as a concept) the idea of "the bad guy races shouldn't be playable" to be weird, which is a vibe I'm picking up in the thread. If we're excluding races based on villainy, then what's the difference between an evil Human empire and an evil Drow empire? IMO, a species is just a species and then there's the culture most of them belong to. A PC is allowed to be somewhat related to the bad guys, which is something we can all agree upon unless you never have fought a Human, Dwarf of Elf guard or thug.

At my table, I allow pretty much anything printed in a book, unless it's actively causing a disturbance based on how it's used. As a player, especially now with Tasha's, a war forged Armorer Artificer is fun to have waiting for use. Same, with a Gith Psi Knight. I wouldn't be having as much fun without these options.

The whole "should monstrous races be playable" is a separate topic and one that tends to get threads shut down.

I also don't see that "vibe" here - most people have been talking about not allowing tabaxi, tortles and so on. I mean, cats are inherently evil, but tabaxi are not listed as a monstrous race in the MM.

 

[prabe]

I can respect that.

I don't have a problem with settings that don't permit certain things, I just think (as a concept) the idea of "the bad guy races shouldn't be playable" to be weird, which is a vibe I'm picking up in the thread. If we're excluding races based on villainy, then what's the difference between an evil Human empire and an evil Drow empire? IMO, a species is just a species and then there's the culture most of them belong to. A PC is allowed to be somewhat related to the bad guys, which is something we can all agree upon unless you never have fought a Human, Dwarf of Elf guard or thug.

At my table, I allow pretty much anything printed in a book, unless it's actively causing a disturbance based on how it's used. As a player, especially now with Tasha's, a war forged Armorer Artificer is fun to have waiting for use. Same, with a Gith Psi Knight. I wouldn't be having as much fun without these options.

I actually think I have as much of a problem with "bad guy races" as you do--I've had orcs and hobgoblins show up as ... at least not just things to be killed--I just mucked up some things and would prefer to keep some things less predictable; maybe in one campaign there's a tribe of hobgoblins attempting to bring their gods back to the world by means of an act of conquest, while in another there's a tribe of hobgoblins mostly trying to stay out of everyone else's way, sometimes going to the nearby city to trade. I feel leaving them as NPCs leaves me more room to bend things that way.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

You are still looking at this from a "at my table, in my campaign setting with the way I run monsters" And that is not a viewpoint that is particularly helpful when talking about why someone might go to Bob's table and be interested in playing a Lizardfolk.

And saying that it "seems odd that "monstrous" communities are more accepting" misses the point about worldbuilding. This isn't about acceptance so much as it is about the idea of worldbuilding.

Let's say a new player comes to Jane's table after being told about their most recent adventure. He wants to play a tiefling. Jane responds with the "Mos Eisly Cantina" response. It would just be far too strange to allow a demon man to walk around town. But the new player is confused, because didn't they just infiltrate a local thieves guild ran by snake people who were using captive mushroom people to sell drugs to nobles, and had hired orcs as bodyguards? And didn't the week before that they encounter fish people who were going to fight bird people over the local seaside cliffs?


By focusing solely on worldbuilding as it applies to "the civilized world", are we blinding ourselves to the wider world that players might be looking at when they are trying to explain the appeal of playing one of the non-standard races.

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Edit: Well, seems like people are getting back into the dead horse argument of "I'm the DM and I have a setting" vs "I'm the player and I want a character." Which is never going to go anywhere.

To be clear, I have a personal issue with the DM who says "Dragonborn are stupid, so I don't allow them". That smacks of me of telling someone their preferences are bad, and they should feel bad about them. I don't really lend much credence to the counter point of "Well, you are trying to tell me my preference of hating your preference is bad, so shouldn't you not tell me to do this thing I don't like." because, well, I see part of my job as a DM as to facilitate play and let my players have fun.

But none of that is a useful conversation to have at this stage. At this point it is just people yelling about it as an aesthetic choice, which will never lead anywhere.

I think this ignores more interesting questions though. I think this ignores a discussion of the difference in world building for "hostile" races as compared to "allied" races, how many NPC races you can have before a setting begins feeling too full, what are the barriers to changing an NPC race to a player race and why people have slowly pushed for that over the years.

Those are interesting questions, without the need to start attacking each other over who has the higher authority over fun, the player or the DM.

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Leaving balance issues aside ... Worldbuilding is a large part of my fun as DM. Forcing me to figure out how and why there are (to use your example) lizardfolk in "civilization" in sufficient quantities as to allow some to be PC, telling me that it doesn't matter if I don't like lizardfolk as a PC race--I must allow them and write them as a PC race into my world, is telling me how to build my world.

I agree that worldbuilding is a lot of the fun for me as a DM, but I have to ask, how much thought do you give to the Monstrous Races?

Not as an insult or an attack, but I noticed I had a problem when building my world. In the role of "roaming tribes of savage humanoids" there were... a lot. The biggest driving factor in me making Orcs a PC race is that I had too many "savage tribes" as enemies. So, I made one of them an allied race.

Same thing with Kobolds. I really didn't have a place for them. The role of "small, sneaky, trap building enemy" was filled by Goblins, and I wanted to focus on goblins, so I didn't do anything with Kobolds. I've started figuring out a new place to put kobolds and dragonborn, but it wasn't something I started with.

So, for me, figuring out the Monstrous races and how they fit is a part of my worldbuilding, and I find it easier therefore to fit in some of the other races. Firbolgs and Goliaths are hard to work in... but I need to rewrite Giants and Fomorians anyways, so maybe I can mix and match something there to make that easier?

The world is mine. I'm building the world I want because I don't like the worlds on offer enough to run them. Telling me something needs to be in the world I'm making grinds my gears (which probably at least reads as "control issues").

Also, if I don't like a PC race enough to include them in my world, maybe I just don't like them. Maybe I find them deeply annoying as written up. A player setting out to play something I find deeply annoying is (or seems) likely to annoy me, whether by design or by accident.

My issue with this (because I did call this out as something that annoys me) is that I generally find that if there is something I dislike enough about the race, sometimes it is something the player either doesn't like or doesn't know about anyways.

Kenku only talking in mimicry is annoying but I also found that the guy who wanted to play a Kenku in my game fully agreed that it was annoying and had no interest in that aspect of them.

Or, the Duergar. I DESPISE the official duergar origin. Like, a firey passion of hate. I have yet to meet a player at my tables who argues that keeping that lore is a good thing, most players had no idea about it.

So, since I rewrite things anyways, my players are often willing to work with me to rewrite the race into something we both like more. Therefore, I don't see the need to deny something just because I don't like the official version of it. I'm probably working on changing it anyways.

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Where did they come from? What's their culture like? What's their relationship like with other races? How likely are people in villages, towns and cities to recognize them? What are their cultural norms, what do most people of their race value? What's their history?

I could go on, but you get the idea. In order to qualify as a race (playable or not) there has to be a significant number of that race somewhere. Maybe none of that matters to you, it does to me. It's part of world building for me, hopefully one that makes the world richer for my players.

Those are great questions.

Maybe your player wants to toe-dip into DMing and answer them.

 

[Minigiant]

Leaving balance issues aside ... Worldbuilding is a large part of my fun as DM. Forcing me to figure out how and why there are (to use your example) lizardfolk in "civilization" in sufficient quantities as to allow some to be PC, telling me that it doesn't matter if I don't like lizardfolk as a PC race--I must allow them and write them as a PC race into my world, is telling me how to build my world.

I think the issue is less forcing DMs who don't like (insert intelligent race here) as a PC to make them one and more forcing DMs who want (insert intelligent race here) to provide a good reason why they are in the setting but not a PC race.

Essentially, the world has changed to a point where simply "they're ugly" they're savage" or "they're exotic" are not convincing reasons for a lot of players anymore.

 

[Crit]

The whole "should monstrous races be playable" is a separate topic and one that tends to get threads shut down.

I also don't see that "vibe" here - most people have been talking about not allowing tabaxi, tortles and so on. I mean, cats are inherently evil, but tabaxi are not listed as a monstrous race in the MM.

When I see Gith, Drow, Yuan Ti etc. also being mentioned, that's where I'm getting the vibe from. The options deserve to exist if people want them, and I find it hard to believe that, out of a whole race or civilization, not one can be on a journey as a PC for reasons. A party can be all Human and fight Human guards, thugs and criminals, but you can't have a good and bad Orc? Do tables like this also ban the Evil alignment for players, or is it just being the same species as the bad guys? If this is a story problem, that sounds like the author messed up. IMO there's only a problem if the DM makes it a problem. Considering I'm not a veteran of this site, I'll let the topic go now, but I don't see a reason this should be evenly contested.

 

[Crit]

I think the issue is less forcing DMs who don't like (insert intelligent race here) as a PC to make them one and more forcing DMs who want (insert intelligent race here) to provide a good reason why they are in the setting but not a PC race.

Essentially, the world has changed to a point where simply "they're ugly" they're savage" or "they're exotic" are not convincing reasons for a lot of players anymore.

Seconded, and you said it better than me. If they're in the setting, then them not being playable probably won't have a good justification. Why would a whole species have to be exclusively NPCs or villains?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

When I see Gith, Drow, Yuan Ti etc. also being mentioned, that's where I'm getting the vibe from. The options deserve to exist if people want them, and I find it hard to believe that, out of a whole race or civilization, not one can be on a journey as a PC for reasons. A party can be all Human and fight Human guards, thugs and criminals, but you can't have a good and bad Orc? Do tables like this also ban the Evil alignment for players, or is it just being the same species as the bad guys? If this is a story problem, that sounds like the author messed up. IMO there's only a problem if the DM makes it a problem. Considering I'm not a veteran of this site, I'll let the topic go now, but I don't see a reason this should be evenly contested.

Really?

You've ... never ... run across a table that bans evil alignments?

I think I am seeing part of the disconnect.