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

[Shardstone]

Nothing in the letter suggests, even through mild implication, allegory.

Hmmm.

True.

But...what if it did?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hundreds of posts and it all comes down to preference.

My advice for DMs hasn't changed.

Want to have all races? Go for it. Want to limit to humans? Fantastic. Want to have only anthropomorphic animals? Sure! Politely discuss ideas with your players but do what makes sense to you. It's your campaign world, your preferences, you have to bring that world to life and that's only going to happen if it comes to life for you first.​

​

I'm not going to tell you how to run your campaign. Just don't let yourself be bullied, pressured, or feel forced into allowing options you don't like or that don't fit your vision for your campaign world.​

The other point of view? Somewhere between (and around and variations of)

Old school dictators that never give their players any freedom are destroying the hobby by brainwashing the younger generation into being fellow fascist dictators that also dictate every move players make.. Will no one think of the children?​

and

You're somehow being rude by callously ignoring players that are begging you to play other races. You have to allow anything any player wants to be a good DM.​

I'm sorry, but if your fun is destroyed because you can't play a yuan-ti, how did you ever enjoy a game before they were published? Why is your fun being destroyed now? I get that there's a shiny new toy, that doesn't mean that I have to support it as a DM.

I like having a continuity to my campaign world from one campaign to the next. I have concrete ideas of what the cultural variances are and a history for the races (including non-playable ones) that inhabit my world. It doesn't always make a difference, but there's depth and thought behind each race. There's also a fair amount of history and precedence that I like to keep track of. I don't have hundreds of pages of history and lore, but I do have a wiki with dozens of pages for those people that care.

I don't want an anthropomorphic elephant in my campaign because they will have no history, no place in the world. Frankly, I think they're a bit silly and the image would be jarring in my campaign world. Yes, they could be from a lost island or some hidden valley, but how often can you do that? In addition, that lost island will no longer be lost.

Every PC in my campaign has a chance to go down in (campaign) history, every PC sets a precedence for future campaigns. There is no one true way to run campaigns so I'm not telling anyone else what to do, just what I do and why. For me it works well and my players enjoy my campaigns. Their only complaint is that we can't game more often.

You know, that bolded line made me think of something.

If these races have so little value, why do player options exist for them?

Why have we made playable versions of all of these races time and time and time and time again, if they are something that most people don't need?

I mean, Yuan-Ti were made playable in Third Edition, so twenty years since "shiny new toy" as you put it was introduced. Heck, even for 5e we are talking about getting close to four and half years ago that they came out as a playable race in Volos. So, it can't be "oh look at this new thing" because it isn't new.

So, how do you explain this? I mean, other than saying that we are all wrong for wanting things and all that other horrific twisting of our actual positions, how do explain that people have wanted to play a goblin in just about every single edition of the game?

This isn't just a "new player" thing, because it happened back in first edition, that Balor character from Gygax's own game keeps coming up. We've shown repeatedly that accusations of "power gaming" make no sense.

So what do you think the reason is that every single version of the game has gone beyond humans, beyond the tolkien four, and even beyond those first few obvious choices?

 

[cbwjm]

Huge in geek circles maybe, but I doubt outside that. I mean, I've seen Game of Thrones. I watch All Rise, Bull, For Life, The Rookie, and FBI: Most Wanted. I have watched Picard, and Star Trek: Discovery, though they lost me with season 3 as it's gotten so far from Star Trek it doesn't feel like Star Trek to me anymore. I watched The Boys and am now watching Lower Decks. I've watched Greyhound and 1917. I've watched all of Ken Burns' documentaries as well as almost everything David Attenborough has done. I've watched more history documentaries than you can shake a stick at. I watched every season of Law & Order the original, the spinoffs didn't grab me though. I watched the Pacific Rim movies, almost all of the Marvel and DC superhero movies. I've watched all of Tarantino's movies, and Guy Ritchie's movies, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels rocks! I watched the Bladerunner movies and just about every King Arthur movie and TV show ever made, same goes for anything Three Musketeers. Yeah, sorry I don't watch anime, but I don't think it means I live under a rock.

Considering that the only reason I know about them is because they came up at the top of the Netflix dashboard, I think they'd be easy to miss. I think too many people think that just because they love a show that every other person must surely know about it.

 

[Don Durito]

If it weren't about power then the DM wouldn't be able to ban the players from playing what they want to play. The idea that this is other than about the power of the DM and how and when it should be used is ridiculous.

It not about 'power' in the sense that 'empowerment' is meaningful.

The only power that the GM has is that which is freely granted by the players.

(Social dynamics of course influence power dynamics but those are completely dependent on social context - which discussion here is either ignoring or assuming).

 

[zarionofarabel]

So D&D has its own expectations.
All these other "better" rpga no one players them. The sacred cows exist for a reason.

My players and I play them. The continued existence and publishing of new editions of games like Runequest and Traveller says otherwise. As does the continued love for FFG Star Wars, as well as Star Trek Adventures. Sorry it rubs you the wrong way that people not you prefer games that are not D&D, but those people exist, and they play games that are not D&D. I am very very happy that TTRPGs are not limited to just D&D!

 

[Zardnaar]

My players and I play them. The continued existence and publishing of new editions of games like Runequest and Traveller says otherwise. As does the continued love for FFG Star Wars, as well as Star Trek Adventures. Sorry it rubs you the wrong way that people not you prefer games that are not D&D, but those people exist, and they play games that are not D&D. I am very very happy that TTRPGs are not limited to just D&D!

Yeah but the whole lot added togather are a fraction of the D&D player base.

FFG loses license soon RIP I still have the other two SWRPGs to play.

Most other RPGs are got for a few years then fade away reduced to a handful of people raving about how they're better than D&D.

If they were that good more people would play them.

D&D has its own tropes now and a big tent fantasy is always going to be more popular than something niche.

Nothing worng with been ng niche but having the self realization to know it tends to help.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hmmm.

True.

But...what if it did?

What if the letter ... was an allegory ... about the creative process?

I mean, it's like Coleridge and Kubla Khan ... maybe we are just getting too deep!

 

[prabe]

What if the letter ... was an allegory ... about the creative process?

I mean, it's like Coleridge and Kubla Khan ... maybe we are just getting too deep!

Or consumed too much laudanum.

 

[Oofta]

You know, that bolded line made me think of something.

If these races have so little value, why do player options exist for them?

Why have we made playable versions of all of these races time and time and time and time again, if they are something that most people don't need?

I mean, Yuan-Ti were made playable in Third Edition, so twenty years since "shiny new toy" as you put it was introduced. Heck, even for 5e we are talking about getting close to four and half years ago that they came out as a playable race in Volos. So, it can't be "oh look at this new thing" because it isn't new.

So, how do you explain this? I mean, other than saying that we are all wrong for wanting things and all that other horrific twisting of our actual positions, how do explain that people have wanted to play a goblin in just about every single edition of the game?

This isn't just a "new player" thing, because it happened back in first edition, that Balor character from Gygax's own game keeps coming up. We've shown repeatedly that accusations of "power gaming" make no sense.

So what do you think the reason is that every single version of the game has gone beyond humans, beyond the tolkien four, and even beyond those first few obvious choices?

I have no problem if you and your table want a kitchen sink campaign instead of a curated one. It's your choice. On the other hand, D&D has 1 critical role that must be filled: the DM. If the DM ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Could playing the bright, new and shiny (to 5E which is all that matters) race make a single player ever so slightly happier? Maybe. Maybe it's just the D&D version of attention deficit disorder. The DM has to think of the enjoyment of everyone at the table, not any one individual.

People have always wanted to play weird-ass characters. I used to allow anything. I think the straw the broke the camel's back for me was the guy that wanted to play a half dragon half vampire. With a cloak that always fluttered in a nonexistent wind (he was very specific about that).

I have my preferences, you have yours. If that means I'm not the right DM for you because I want my races to have depth, culture and a place in the history of the campaign world world I maintain then so be it.

First and foremost, the DM has to be happy with the campaign because if they are not, sooner or later they will burn out and stop DMing.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Or consumed too much laudanum.

I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm goin' to try for the kingdom of Xanadu if I can
'cause it makes me feel like I'm Kubla Khan
When I confess I eat opium every day
Then I tell you things aren't quite the same

When I'm rushing on my run
And I heard an Abyssinian maid's song
And I guess ... I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know

Laudanum, be the death of me
Laudanum, it's my wife and it's my life
Because some opiates to my brain
Leads to a stately pleasure dome in my head
And then I'm better off than dead
When the paregoric begins to flow
Then I really don't care anymore
About Wordsworth and the other clowns
And all those critics putting everybody else down
And all of the politicians makin' crazy sounds
All the aristocrats in Paris piled up in mounds, yeah

Wow, that laudanum is in my blood
And the blood is in my head
Yeah, crying Beware! Beware! - I'm as good as dead
Ooohhh, the ending of this story I'm not aware
.... and I just don't care
And I guess, I just don't know
And I guess, I just don't know