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

[Dausuul]

I wasn't expecting to get answers. I was expecting to get opinions, and I was curious about the reasoning for the opinions.

There haven't been a lot of 'humans only' folks through here, so some level of diversity exists and doesn't break theme. But there do seem to be boundaries where different folks seem to think that the setting breaks thematically. I'm curious about that boundary and the break.

It's one of those things where you don't know what you don't know and so you ask.

It depends on the theme and the setting. Mostly I find 3-4 nonhuman races is about the limit of what I can work in and have it feel cohesive.

 

[Scott Christian]

I don’t gloss over race, I don’t think. I’m not sure what you mean by that, though, so it’s hard to say.

But where you’re from matters in my games, and I’m certainly not out here trying to simulate a “color-blind” world.

But at any point in a campaign, I won’t have told the players every detail of the game world, so there is no way that saying there are tabaxi are part of the world would cause consternation.

Yeah, I doubt you gloss over race either. The campaigns I am a player in glosses over when it becomes a problem, which I think is pretty close to the norm for "cantina" campaigns. Outside of that, the races are noted here and there. Culture a little less. But again, I think that is normal for those types of worlds.
For other worlds I have Gm'ed and played in that are either intimately and detail written or follow very specific lore/themes/playstyles, it has been quite the opposite. But this was always shared with us prior to making a character. The DM saying: "You have these races to choose from. You need to know that the wood elves have pissed off the human kingdom so much, that they almost wiped them out. They are hated in most places, tolerated as slum workers in other areas. That's the best you are going to get if you are in one of these three human kingdoms." And so on and so on. Heck, I even made a video for my players so they could watch the three minute history of the continent they were playing on. Some DM's I know hand out small term papers on the history and places we would know about. I think in that style of campaign, that is a good idea.

 

[Umbran]

Holy sh**.

Mod Note:

Hey! Watch your language! Rule #2 is "Keep it clean."

While you are at it, watch your emotional engagement that leads you to using that language. We are talking about leisure activities about pretending to be elves. Keep your response proportional to the actual subject. There's precious little we should be talking about on these boards that calls for cursing at people.

 

[Dire Bare]

I have been saying throughout the thread that no one is saying that Kender need to be accepted.

And no one is saying that the DM can't veto things. Just that they should only in exceptional circumstances.

Kender are utterly loathed by most people because most races are built round themes - the kender theme is a mix of (a) stealing from the rest of the party and then making excuses and (b) pushing every button including the big red one whatever the rest of the party wants. They are literally a race intentionally designed to promote anti-social behaviour at the gaming table. And that is why they are despised and most DMs ban them.

Heh. Kender.

You should NEVER ban races from your game . . . except kender.

More seriously, D&D has a problem in the way it deals with race and culture. Dragonlance amplified that tenfold with how kender, gully dwarves, and most of the other "small" and also "evil" races are portrayed. I would be extremely uncomfortable as a DM with kender, or Paladine forbid, gully dwarves being player characters as written in the original setting. And that's before the immature player get to abuse the kender race to play as an anti-social jerk.

But if I had a player ask to play one in my (non-Dragonlance) campaign . . . I'd see if we could make it happen. We'd have a discussion about why exactly the player wants to play a kender, and why I'm not too keen on the idea. If I was convinced the player could handle the character concept in a mature and fun way, and that this sort of character wouldn't cause problems with the group or the campaign, it gets greenlit. Likely with modifications to the original concept!

As a DM, my role isn't as the Ultimate Authority or God, but is rather closer to that of a teacher, coach, or facilitator. If I enjoy worldbuilding, and that's part of the reason why I DM (and it is) . . . I always remember that I'm not writing a novel, but a collaborative story that involves the players too. I need to have fun, but so do they.

But I have a background that includes improv theatre, where the rule is to never say "No" but rather always say "Yes, and . . ."

 

[Scott Christian]

Also, for folks on the "everything is always on the table" side, what's your red line? What's the point at which a player's idea is so out-of-bounds that "due consideration" and "adult conversations" and "willingness to compromise" become replaced by a simple veto? Sentient sword? Astromech droid? Mecha pilot? Saiyan? Hutt? Decepticon? What if player B (who, of course, just wants to have a conversation) doesn't like player A's idea?

Great point and thanks for the laugh. I can say I have not seen a limit to my friends campaign. I mean revenants don't even exist as a 5e race, but a player wanted to play one - in ToA - Chult - where we are trying to solve the death curse! The DM was fine with it. He just made some stuff up and boom - we have a revenant walking beside a tabaxi walking beside two dwarves walking beside two humans (paladin!) walking beside a halfling walking beside a warforged (who is changing now into something else since Tasha's came out because he can change the ability score and he is tired of sinking in mud and rivers). No logic whatsoever. But it's fun.

 

[Mecheon]

It depends on the theme and the setting. Mostly I find 3-4 nonhuman races is about the limit of what I can work in and have it feel cohesive.

Very agreed

I come from a Warcraft background wherein there's a good 30 races of varying degrees of 'native', and that's discounting the 4 sub-races of troll, or the fact that elves are technically trolls, or going on from there. And that's also discarding the stuff from other planets and planes

warcraft's a wild ride, y'all

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps I misunderstood, but it definitely came across as "players shouldn't contribute things to the world-story, they should only contribute to the world through the choices directly made by their characters." This seems like a pretty reasonable description of @Jack Daniel 's position; please correct me if I'm wrong, Jack.

Should or shouldn't is completely up to the DM. In my game my players can world build NPCs and small areas, such as naming a mountain or town/village. After the game starts, they rarely get to do that, but it does happen on occasion, primarily contributing through game play. Other DMs give no ability to contribute to the game world outside of game play, and yet others give a great deal of control to the players both before and during game play. There's no objective right or wrong there. The DM should do what makes the table(including him) happy.

Right. Even with friends, though, I see little reason in forcing the gaming equivalent of a constitutional crisis...ever, really. Absolute power that "grants tacit permission" to do things the absolute power would prefer not to do, as far as I'm concerned, is not absolute. Full stop.

I don't agree with that. Doing what you prefer is what absolute power is about. If you don't prefer to be a dictator and prefer to listen to what the players want and give it to them, you are still using your absolute authority to do it. The players have no ability to make that happen. It's entirely a DM decision.

Sure. But how is this that much different from banning dwarves for literally no reason other than "ugh I hate dwarves, they're so stupid and short and lame"? Shitting on your players' preferences and unilaterally declaring that no preferences other than your own will ever matter is corrosive to trust. Citing that the players should have trust in their DM despite that sort of thing is not a good thing!

Let's leave out the "they're so stupid and short and lame." It doesn't mater why the DM hates dwarves. All that matters is that he does and his enjoyment would be lessened or ruined if dwarves are in the game. Decent human beings don't want to force negativity on people when they could just play an elf or gnome or something and be happy. There's no erosion of trust, because the DM has told them that he hates dwarves. No deception was put over on the players.

As for how the above is different from, "We don't have dwarves and have no idea why." is pretty clear. One has a reason and one does not.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I believe if you look at the border towns you will see they have homogenized.

And if you look to may native Canada you will see how a huge portion of the population hasn't homogenized. In fact protections against such a thing happening are not just law, the are enshrined in our Constitution. As long as people resist homogenization it doesn't happen.

 

[Dire Bare]

Very agreed

I come from a Warcraft background wherein there's a good 30 races of varying degrees of 'native', and that's discounting the 4 sub-races of troll, or the fact that elves are technically trolls, or going on from there. And that's also discarding the stuff from other planets and planes

warcraft's a wild ride, y'all

And yet the world of Warcraft (heh) wouldn't be out of place as the setting of a D&D game.

The only question I have about Warcraft is . . . how long until I give in to the Shadowlands hype and re-up my subscription that's been dormant for a few years . . .

 

[Monayuris]

Hiya!


My guess? "They look cool!". After that, it's purely the munchkin/min/max/PC-Build-Is-All-Important type people who only see the mechanical effects and could care less about anything else. Then there's the majority of people who think somewhere in between.

But, from MY EXPERIENCE, mostly the first "it looks cool" side of the equasion. It's never been a 'problem', not for long anyway.

What I mean is that my campaign is quite "old school humancentric". Humans rule the roost, so to speak. They are THE most adaptable and variable and most mutable of ALL the races in existence. It's their 'schtick', so to say. So, if a party of two Tieflings, one Half-Orc, one Dragonborn, and a Gnome walk into town...well...they are going to get the cold shoulder, mostly. The Gnome will be the one who gets addressed 9/10 times, often to the point of rudeness.

For example, the group is at a leatherworkers stall in the marketplace. The Dragonborn is looking at an unusually decorated large belt pouch with belt and asks "Is this oiled? You know, water resistant?", the vendor may give the Dragonborn a slightly quizzical look, then turn to the Gnome and say "Uh, yes, but only lightly. Does he want it?".

That kind of "human-centric", with the 'typical friends of humanity' being generally accepted as equals (re: elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes; half-elves and half-orcs, a bit less so, but still ok). The races that look "more something-else" than human are treated as just that...something else.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

This kind of points towards a point I've made earlier.

My campaign is also very human-centric in a swords & sorcery / Science Fantasy sort of way. There are fantastic creatures and cultures and entities out there, but most of them are alien and intended to be NPCs or monsters only.

So, if I let the flood gates open with regards to option selection, I put myself in an awkward situation where I have to think logically about my human centric settlements and consider how they would react to more monstrous races.

As DM, I'd rather not role-play entire settlements treating my players' characters as Frankenstein's monsters. I'd much rather just label such races as non-playable.

Perhaps certain races can be opened up as playable, if in game the players form alliances or treaties and establish diplomatic ties. The more obscure and monstrous races can remain off limits until they have been contacted and befriended through role-playing.