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

[ElRojo]

...

I've never said kitchen sink campaigns were stupid or that people who liked them were dumb. People need to pursue their own bliss, kitchen sink campaigns are not mine. That's all.

I cannot stand kitchen sink settings either.

But lots people seem to love them.

I have long ago resigned myself to being the minority opinion on this issue in the hobby at large.

The PHB can say anything it wants, the truth is that the DM has authority only with the permission of the group. The end.
....

Nope.

The DM runs the game. It cannot be played without him.

If a DM does not have enough players who want to play the game he is running, then there is no group.

As I do not associate with obnoxious people in real life, I have never heard of a single instance of a DM/GM lacking for players just because they said X,Y, and Z races /classes are not options in his campaign world.

 

[ElRojo]

Wow.

Well, I agree with this last part. There's no way I'd play with a DM who sees themselves as the "Ultimate Authority" (capitalized). Nor would I want to ever run a game that way.

It has nothing to do with how a DM "sees themselves".

DM/GM = Ultimate Authority, is how traditional RPG's are designed. And it is NOT an adversarial relationship with the players.

I run games and I play in games. If I have questions I ask the DM for their ruling.

If I think something should be different I ask "what about x." And the DM/GM lays down the law.

I don't argue with them. I ask, they make a ruling; the end.

I am at their table because I enjoy the way they run games. And people also enjoy the way I run games.

The occasional question about the game world or a rules clarification is not out of turn. Some things just come up in play. But the DM rulings are final.

The inmates do not get to run the asylum.

HINT:
If you find yourself regularly debating rules, or arguing against DM decisions during a session, that game is probably not for you.

If a player disagrees we discuss it. But the DM puts far more work into the campaign than the players do and they always makes the final call. Someone has to have final say and that's the DM no matter what side of the DM screen I'm on. If a player tried to bully me into changing my mind they could find another game.

Don't like it? Find a different DM or start your own game. The only people who ever had a problem with this in my game was one guy that wanted to play a half vampire half dragon and another that wanted to play an evil character, something I explicitly do not allow.

This.

Not that hard.

I shudder to think what social situation or clique someone could be in that the DM running a game is regularly given the what-for from his players, and they all continue to keep gaming together...

.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I shudder to think what social situation or clique someone could be in that the DM running a game is regularly given the what-for from his players, and they all continue to keep gaming together...

The Knights of the Dinner Table, perhaps.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I'm agree that DMs should have more say in what is happening in the setting, simply because 5e is a "traditional" RPG where the DM is the one doing most of the work. I know if I had a player tell me that I had to let them play a character simply because it was in the book, even though it didn't fit the campaign I wanted to run, I would tell them to go find a different game.

As DM I have the right to run a game I enjoy and if the premise of the campaign excludes certain things, that's the way it is, the players need to work with the premise or go away.

I know I personally have found that certain players feel they should have the right to play "special snowflake" PCs specifically because it runs against the premise of the campaign. Luckily I discovered long ago to just not play with those kind of players and instead play with players that can at least go along with the campaign premise.

 

[Scott Christian]

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.

I need to mention the railroad, as that is how many play - and many enjoy. How that is not understood, I do not know. Half the AP's are railroads, and they seem to sell and play just fine. So if they are "extremely bad," then I guess bad can be the new good.

As my other post stated. Of course the race can be added from the "Here be dragons" section. Even said that most DM's I know, do add races. I equated it to adding a new layer of concrete. It does absolutely nothing to diminish the fact that it can alter history, cause severe complications unless you just brush it off, or break immersion for many.

In a nutshell, it is about carefully controlled experiments, much like any author, game designer, or producer does.

Lastly, to say it is "easy" to simply add a race (in your example to the Elder Scrolls games), might need rethinking. They haven't added a race in 20 years for that game. In part because they are seriously fleshing out the lore that exists, and they understand you don't just blink something into existence without breaking continuity.

 

[Minigiant]

I have never heard of a single instance of a DM/GM lacking for players just because they said X,Y, and Z races /classes are not options in his campaign world.

The artificer and fighter in my Saturday group are both DMs whose players ditched their settings and tables because the players didn't like the setting and table and the DM couldn't find replacements.

It does happen.

DMs and Players are salesmen. And not every one of them are successful. Sometimes a product doesn't get sold.

 

[Scott Christian]

I don't get what playing in a good or evil campaign has to do with anything.

Unless you are saying that they don't start in the area, so they don't bother even thinking about it, but in that case why are such DMs so adamant about the vision for their world?

"My world must fit my vision, but since we are starting in Kalay, I'm not going to bother designing or thinking about anything not directly connected to Kalay and the party"

Personally, I wonder if your answer highlights exactly what I'm talking about, since it seems that building the world that the PCs aren't interacting with and may never interact with doesn't seem to even occur to you as what I was discussing.

I would ask that you go back and reread what I wrote. I, no matter how it is interpreted, said the DM does not make those empires. They do. I know I have for my lore. They interact, trade, and have all the culture that a human town has. In fact, they might even be more fleshed out, as they are probably an area of primary conflict for the PC's.

If you are referring to me saying they are recessed, think of recessed from common cultural norms. Hence, why I mentioned slavery as your top four empires.

And I thought it was obvious why I would mention an evil campaign. Because that most likely would be the origin of some of the PC's. Just like if they were elves, I wouldn't start them out in an evil druegar city (well maybe ), I wouldn't start out a bunch of drow PC's in a city that wants to kill them. (Again, provided where going with the common typical FR lore.) This is why I used the word "focus." Maybe I should have used the word focal when referring to starting a campaign. But, when it comes to world building, all is built.

I find it fascinating that many don't seem to believe or understand or accept that.

My guess is that if one were to ask a DM that has spent a lot of time building their world, that person would receive a metric ton of papers, notebooks, maps, characters, etc. (Especially if printed out of flashdrives!) I don't know. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am in the minority. But I know every sentient group on my continent. I know how they interact. I know their religion and its effect on the population. I know the climate. I know the primary forms of communication. I know their culture: their fashion, their language, their rituals, their food, etc. I know who they trade with. I know how their economy is doing. I know their strengths, and their looming problems. I know how educated they are. I know their laws. I know how they settle disputes. I know their natural resources. I know their leaders. I know what their leaders are up to. I know their military might. I know how their military works. I know their primary modes of transportation. I know how safe it is for them.

I say none of that to appear as a braggart. I say it because I am assuming that many many other DM's know these things too. I say it to validify my previous statement that we should give sympathy to a DM that has done all this work and now it needs t be changed because (fill in the blank).

 

[Jack Daniel]

DMs and Players are salesmen.

This is such an odd perspective.

When I play with my friends and family, I don't have to sell anything. I'm the DM because I like DMing more than playing, and most people I know who game prefer playing over DMing.

When I run a game at my FLGS (or ran, anyway, pre Black Death), I don't have an advert or an elevator pitch. I set up my stuff up on a table and wait for people to sit down and play. People always do, and some of them get into it and keep coming back week after week.

That's really all there is to it. It's not some kind of "soft sell" technique, and to claim otherwise would be a grotesque commodification of the simple act of sharing I hobby I enjoy with others.

 

[Campbell]

You mean like elves and dwarves and stuff?

Ducks

 

[Minigiant]

This is such an odd perspective.

I'm a salesman by trade so that's why I see it that way.

When I play with my friends and family, I don't have to sell anything. I'm the DM because I like DMing more than playing, and most everyone I know well who games likes playing more than DMing.

That's called a monopoly.

If you are the only one providing a desired service, the urge and need to sell is lowered.

If you are the only baker in town, you are automatically the best baker in town. It has nothing about your quality. And if more bakers open up bakeries, you will have to sell the attributies of your bread and pastries or risk losing customers. If you don't ming losing certain customers,then you don't have to change nor advertise.

But if you do..

Same goes for DMing.