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

[doctorbadwolf]

Uhm, no, I've been running open tables, con games and other games with complete strangers. People being or not being friends doesn't change the fact that the end result is a group effort, not only GM's.

This. I run games for kids at the library, when such a thing was possible.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Uhm, no? The order is: theme -> tone -> character concepts -> world building.

Like, Superman doesn't live in Metropolis, Metropolis exists in order to support Superman.

Again, the order can be either. Plenty of DMs have a world-building idea first, and then characters come to meet it. Others do it like you say. To me, world-building is one of the most fun aspects of engaging with the game, and as long as I'm flexible, I see no issue with doing that on my own at first, and including player ideas moving forward.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Batman isn't brooding and broken because he lives in dark and dangerous Gotham. Gotham is dark and dangerous, because it exists solely to make Batman as a character work.

 

[Crit]

I'm try to imagine any story I could not tell with core races, or even just a non-variant human. Having a hard time coming up with anything that's not just pretty inconsequential fluff. Want to struggle against a dark background like a tiefling? Your father was a serial killer and pirate, you have a tattoo on your chest and vague memories of a ritual promising your soul to dark powers. Want to be a cat person? You're PC is obsessed with cats or believes they are a cat that was polymorphed. Feel like an outsider? Easy enough to do through straight role playing.

A story about a struggle against a dark background changes a lot depending on what that background is. If you come up with a rough equivalent/approximation, of course you can tell a similar story. And what you consider inconsequential fluff is a matter of opinion, because its significance depends on what the DM and Player actually do with it. Playing a Tiefling specifically has significance if that specific thing is given significance. I still look to Warforged and other more varied races like Aaracockra or Tortle as examples of much more consequential characterization influencers.

 

[Charlaquin]

Uhm, no? The order is: theme -> tone -> character concepts -> world building.

Like, Superman doesn't live in Metropolis, Metropolis exists in order to support Superman.

On the other hand, the most famous fantasy setting of all time was written in the order: languages -> world building -> languages -> theme -> tone -> languages -> worldbuilding -> languages -> character concepts.

There are many valid ways to approach developing a story.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Superman was just an example. Here's another, still superhero (I don't know why, maybe because I'm staring at a giant BvS poster).

Batman isn't brooding and broken because he lives in dark and dangerous Gotham. Gotham is dark and dangerous, because it exists solely to make Batman as a character work.

Are you arguing that the sole purpose of setting is to provide context for the characters? That it has no value on it's own? I can't believe that. I've always treated setting as a place where things can happen. That's why detailed, real-feeling settings can have multiple, unconnected stories happen in them. If you don't do that, if the setting instead serves solely to support the character's story, it seriously rings false to me.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Superman was just an example. Here's another, still superhero (I don't know why, maybe because I'm staring at a giant BvS poster).

Batman isn't brooding and broken because he lives in dark and dangerous Gotham. Gotham is dark and dangerous, because it exists solely to make Batman as a character work.

Gotham is an old nickname for New York (and there's still a paper called The Gothamist). Even now it's heavily based on some AU where the trends of 80s New York continued. Now those trends possibly continued to make Batman as a character work - but Gotham predates Batman.

 

[Oofta]

A story about a struggle against a dark background changes a lot depending on what that background is. If you come up with a rough equivalent/approximation, of course you can tell a similar story. And what you consider inconsequential fluff is a matter of opinion, because its significance depends on what the DM and Player actually do with it. Playing a Tiefling specifically has significance if that specific thing is given significance. I still look to Warforged and other more varied races like Aaracockra or Tortle as examples of much more consequential characterization influencers.

A PC I was going to play in a game that (unfortunately) didn't happen (yet) was human with keen mind feat. Abbreviated version: he and his sister had been raised by his mother, and he basically worshipped his father. Then one night he found that his father was a pirate who was conducting a ritual to sacrifice his sister, there was a dark ritual book (which found and remembers every letter because keen mind). He destroyed the book and fled while his mother held off his father and goons. He saw his mother die as he was fleeing. Oh, he also has a tattoo that he's tried everything he can to remove and all he knows is that it burns if he pours holy water on it.

Is that not dark enough? Maybe he was tricked into helping with the sacrifice or worshipped his father so much that he went along with it only to realize later what he had done. Any "dark" story you can come up with for a tiefling I can fit into a a human mold.

I don't see this as any different than someone coming to my game insisting that they must play a gunslinger (6-shooters and all) because there are optional rules for firearms. If you allow all races, good for you. I just don't believe any story a human can relate to couldn't be recreated with a human. Unless of course that story is that you can fly, in which case you're playing a bird man because of an ability.

 

[Crit]

How am I supposed to demonstrate it? I think that, IRL, the existence of Ohio has had a different impact on the world compared to, say, One Direction. How am I supposed to prove that? A group of people is interacted with in a different way than a geographical feature. A group of people makes choices, can move around, and personally contribute to/partake in a culture. Ohio is a specific real world thing that relies on a lot of real history to form its identity, which would have serious world building affects. A Tabaxi could just have ambiguous history, or be brought into the world in any number of ways, because the idea of a Tabaxi is not coupled to an objective truth or setting.

@zarionofarabel

How so?

Again, how so? Both are asking to include something the GM doesn't want to work with.

But what if the GM is aiming for a specific campaign premise, and that premise excludes Cat People?

The above is a response for you too. The only thing Tabaxi and Ohio have in common is that the hypothetical DM doesn't want either. Why that's the case could vary wildly, and what's being requested (when looked at with any specificity) is very different too. Tabaxi can just be an uncommon race, natural to the landscape. Easy inclusion. The entire city of Ohio? Maybe not, because that is a much larger and more specific request that depends on a lot more attention. What does it take to accurately portray Ohio in world building? A lot, because the world building done for a PC is different than a whole city. They come from different source materials, will not be engaged with in the same way by the DM or the players, have different amounts of narrative flexibility- it's easier to say what they DO have in common, than what they don't.

I don't want to answer that what-if because I already have, many times.

Did the DM already make the setting, and what do the players know? If not, they should be able to work in a fractional population of another race, which can be done in ways limited only by the imagination, and engaged with as little as they want. If so, then the player probably agreed to/already knows about the restriction so they should accept denial. I'd be surprised to see a campaign which so desperately relies on the exclusion of cat people PCs, but whatever- Oofta's "human polymorphed into cat" feels relevant. How much does the player care about it, and how strong do you feel about this topic? So on, so forth.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Is that not dark enough? Maybe he was tricked into helping with the sacrifice or worshipped his father so much that he went along with it only to realize later what he had done. Any "dark" story you can come up with for a tiefling I can fit into a a human mold.

Any story you can come up with for an elf or dwarf I can fit into a human mold with a splash of magic.

Yay! We've just proved that D&D should abolish all the core races and stick with humans.

Alternatively race underscores and emphasises character themes. This makes it useful but not necessary.