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

[Oofta]

As usual we have hundreds of posts that boil down to a simple argument. Some DMs and players like kitchen sink campaigns, some don't.

My personal preference is a more focused campaign with a limited set of races whether I'm playing or running. I simply have a hard time taking a campaign seriously where a cat person, a person that looks like a fiend, an elephant person, a snake person, a bird person, another bird person completely different from the first bird person walk into a tavern. The (nearly always) human patrons and bartender don't blink an eye at this.

Other people want to open it up to anything, the more the merrier. People should have the freedom to play that manufactured entity warforged if they want.

I think either approach is fine, as are variations of the themes. We all have preferences.

The problem is the hundreds of posts that if the DM doesn't support the kitchen sink approach we're playing he game "wrong".

• The DM shouldn't be such a control freak
• How dare the DM stand in the way of people having fun
• Players have the right to demand any race they want to play
• The DM is being a prima donna who believes their campaign world is a piece of art

I could continue but basically it comes down to: if you don't run a kitchen sink campaign you're doing it wrong.

Why do people feel the need to tell DMs they're doing it wrong? Can't each DM, each table, have a different take on how to run the game? If the DM and players are all having fun, why the **** do you care?

My advice? As a DM do what makes sense to you. You set the stage and the scenery. It has to make sense to you first and foremost. If you want to have the players help build the stage, fantastic! Just don't feel forced into it no matter how many people tell you you're DMing wrong.

Advice for players? If a DM's style doesn't suit you find a different DM or start your own game. No DM can be the right one for every player and vice versa.

 

[Marc_C]

I'm 55 and have used several non-classic races over the years. Flash Gordon had flying men. Why not used them in D&D! Arneson and Gygax borrowed heavily from other influences in their private campaigns.

Some people are content with eating the same recipes all their lives, others want to try new dishes...

 

[Neonchameleon]

I see it with the Warforged (they're robots/golems and I like them), and I can kinda see it for Yuan Ti as generic "snake people" if you squint hard enough, but my main issue with a lot of the races is that they are too unique to D&D or when adapted to D&D they were given too much of a spin. Good for IP, bad for immediate playability.

I can't think of many races that are unique to D&D IP; there's surprisingly little other than Beholders and Mind Flayers* (not counting named characters) that's actually part of the D&D trademark. D&D has, I would estimate, the fifth biggest semi-generic fantasy world IP (behind Middle Earth, the World of Warcraft, the Warhammer Old World, and the Magic the Gathering setting - and Elder Scrolls/Skyrim, Hyrule/Zelda, and even Witcher fans have a good argument in 2020).

Also I think the two current biggest settings within the D&D sphere (the Forgotten Realms and Eberron) are both explicit kitchen sink settings. And the Eberron spin on quite a lot is very different from the Realms spin. To be honest I think the most distinctively D&D thing is the Underdark.

* The whole list that's remotely D&D core and not personalities or places (mostly planes) according to the original SRD was "beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar'ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki. githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti". Aarakocra, aasimar, and tieflings also probably qualify as original properties although the last two are mostly names on generic concepts.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Some people are content with eating the same recipes all their lives, others want to try new dishes...

...and some people prefer authentic dishes done well, than fusion dishes done poorly.

More importantly, I'd rather eat the food of a chef that cares about the ingredients that are used, and not the chef who does not care at all what gets tossed into the pot. "Kimchee and peanut butter and egg salad and harissa and lutefisk? Sure!"

Inapt analogies can work all sorts of ways.

@Oofta is correct. In fact, I'd go to the example that @Shardstone used- notice that no one criticized him, even though he didn't use, for example, humans, or dragonborn, or aarakocra, and he was even "preventing" drow! (Refresher- "Hope no one here ever learns about my setting that's only Shadar-Kai, Yuan-Ti, Loxodons, Ghostwise Halflings, Tortles, and Mountain Dwarves.").

This isn't really about races, per se.

 

[Crit]

• The DM shouldn't be such a control freak
• How dare the DM is stand in the way of people having fun
• Players have the right to demand any race they want to play
• The DM is being a prima donna who believes their campaign world is a piece of art

In certain circumstances, this may be the case. I have already said that restrictions can be fine, but only under certain pretenses.

How would this conflict of player vs. restriction happen?

If the DM and the players are not on the same page as to what the campaign is going to be, who's "right" or "wrong" depends on the context of when the restrictions were put in place and if all parties agreed to them. I'm saying that the DM shouldn't put restrictions in without consulting the players, assuming we are at the start of a group/campaign. Doing so is necessary to set player expectations, or change some attributes of the world to accommodate. No one is saying "give up your decades of home-brew." I would qualify that as an already established, already agreed upon restriction, but I doubt this is a majority of DnD sessions.

Players, understandably, use official books as a baseline and have a "right" to inquire about deviations they were not previously aware of, assuming the DM built the campaign without the player's input. Consent of the governed.

In a collaborative experience, the person with the most sway on everyone else's experience ideally should not be a control freak, whatever that constitutes. I get "Don't bite the hand that feeds" but that doesn't mean "kneel."

 

[MGibster]

My personal preference is a more focused campaign with a limited set of races whether I'm playing or running. I simply have a hard time taking a campaign seriously where a cat person, a person that looks like a fiend, an elephant person, a snake person, a bird person, another bird person completely different from the first bird person walk into a tavern. The (nearly always) human patrons and bartender don't blink an eye at this.

That's my preference too but I typically allow players to bring in any race for D&D games. I do this for three reasons.

1. D&D has officially created dozens of playable races players have a reasonable argument that they should be allowed to play whatever they want (they did buy the books after all).
2. Most D&D settings take a kitchen sink approach so if WotC doesn't care about how each race fits in why should I?
3. In my experience, the choice of what race to play doesn't have a significant impact on the game. In my last campaign, the kenku could have been human, halfing, or a goliath and it wouldn't have really mattered.

D&D is it's own creature. My players will accept the limitations imposed by the settings in most other games without batting an eyes. But most of the settings in D&D don't have those impositions and I'm guess it's for marketing purposes.

 

[Marc_C]

...and some people prefer authentic dishes done well, than fusion dishes done poorly.

More importantly, I'd rather eat the food of a chef that cares about the ingredients that are used, and not the chef who does not care at all what gets tossed into the pot. "Kimchee and peanut butter and egg salad and harissa and lutekisk? Sure!"

Inapt analogies can work all sorts of ways.

We all want to eat food prepared with care. There was no judgment value in my statement. Read it again.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But if a DM has written a ton on their setting, and can just add it because a player wanted, good for them. I don't know many authors of fantasy books that could do that. I don't know many movies of fantasy worlds that could do that. I don't know of many fantasy video game worlds that could do that. But, if they can, good for them.

Fantasy video game settings tend to fit into three distinct types. The ones where you're playing a specific character (Geralt of Rivia, Link, Cloud Strife, Aloy) with relatively defined personality traits and are already embedded in the setting, and the ones where even if you have a name you get to customise almost everything up to and including your species (as in Skyrim) and one could easily be added, and finally the ones where a specific racial conflict and where you fit is part of the core storytelling and you must pick a side (Dragon Age, World of Warcraft).

I'd call the first group extremely bad railroady DMing if done in a tabletop game. 2 and 3 are both possible - but almost every fantasy map I've seen has a section marked "Here be dragons". That said some settings are more xenophobic than others and I really wouldn't recommend playing a character that could be mistaken for a mutant in the Warhammer setting.

But I'd default to the permissive. Unless there is a strong in-universe reason why not (see: Warhammer and the chaos mutations) I'd allow almost anything non-gamebreaking to come out of the "Here be dragons" sections of the map or restrict it to humans only.

 

[Oofta]

That's my preference too but I typically allow players to bring in any race for D&D games. I do this for three reasons.

1. D&D has officially created dozens of playable races players have a reasonable argument that they should be allowed to play whatever they want (they did buy the books after all).
2. Most D&D settings take a kitchen sink approach so if WotC doesn't care about how each race fits in why should I?
3. In my experience, the choice of what race to play doesn't have a significant impact on the game. In my last campaign, the kenku could have been human, halfing, or a goliath and it wouldn't have really mattered.

D&D is it's own creature. My players will accept the limitations imposed by the settings in most other games without batting an eyes. But most of the settings in D&D don't have those impositions and I'm guess it's for marketing purposes.

I'm mostly done with this thread but ...

WOTC sells kitchen sink because they're a business. They want people to buy all the books with those shiny new races and class options, so of course they encourage it. So, yep. It's marketing.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That's my preference too but I typically allow players to bring in any race for D&D games. I do this for three reasons.

1. D&D has officially created dozens of playable races players have a reasonable argument that they should be allowed to play whatever they want (they did buy the books after all).

All these worlds share characteristics, but each world is set apart by its own history and cultures, distinctive monsters and races, fantastic geography, ancient dungeons, and scheming villains. Some races have unusual traits in different worlds. The halflings of the Dark Sun setting, for example, are jungle-dwelling cannibals, and the elves are desert nomads. Some worlds feature races unknown in other settings, such as Eberron's warforged, soldiers created and imbued with life to fight in the Last War. Some worlds are dominated by one great story, like the War of the Lance that plays a central role in the Dragonlance setting. But they're all D&D worlds, and you can use the rules in this book to create a character and play in any one of them.
Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.
PHB. 6.

As you start to develop your campaign, you'll need to fill in the players on the basics. For easy distribution, compile essential information into a campaign handout. Such a handout typically includes the following material:
Any restrictions or new options for character creation, such as new or prohibited races.
DMG 26.

This is so odd to me that it needs to continue to be written.