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

[zarionofarabel]

You know, I've heard this argument many times before, and I'm not sure I can buy it. Sure, D&D achieved some name recognition for being the "first" RPG, but it wasn't the only game in town for very long at all. Not by a longshot. Why is Dungeons & Dragons huge when Tunnels & Trolls is barely remembered? Because D&D captured lightning in a bottle with its particular mix of tropes and sacred cows. I think it endures because of its cruft and oddities.

Nah. Brand Recognition.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Alright, as usual, fast thread is fast. Sorry if I'm reviving dead conversations.

But what if you did have lore for a race, and that lore made the idea of a PC of that race strain credulity? The typical example is of course the “always evil” race or the “they’d be attacked on sight” race, neither of which I’m a fan of. But, like, in my campaign, the Eladrin disappeared from the world ages ago.

As before: find what player truly wants, implement differently. Want magical elf? Maybe you're an experiment or the product of a breeding program (two Fire Emblem games have that, frex.) Want fey lord connections? Work out a Warlock pact, passion for archaeology, or mysterious blessing. Want teleport powers? MANY ways to fluff that. Etc. Few wants lie beyond the reach of (1) reskinning, (2) player okaying a mysterious backstory/plotline, or (3) adapting another option to have the desired aesthetics.

It’s something I would have to discuss with a player who wanted to play one pretty seriously, and there’s every chance we might not be able to reach a satisfying compromise. What I do is I present a set of races that are appropriate to the campaign, that the players can choose from. If they want to play something from outside of those options, they can discuss it with me and we can try to come up with a way to make it work. But there are no guarantees.

100% kosher. That means you did your job. Player must follow suit or depart (hopefully not angrily).

Side Note -> Best take on Devils. Because even if you know they are evil in theory, it is impossible to see it in the short term of a mortal life.

TYVM. Worked very hard on both devil personality and cosmology for my game.

And using the excuse that the fantasy world is in the past, and things were meaner and crueler back then? Doesn't fly. Because again, I would not treat a female character at the table with the amount of disrespect that is "historically accurate" or "realistic" they could face. So why is treating racism any different?

VERY good point. Gendered responses (both for female and, moreso, for anyone even vaguely nonbinary) are WAY more evidenced than cross-species ones. Why dispense with known history that requires different treatment, but keep a speculative pseudo-history? The logic seems like it should work either way, but if a DM treated female characters the way non-human characters were described upthread, they'd be rightly eviscerated for rampant sexism.

I have found, in my own personal experience, that most non-human PCs get played in a much more stereotypical way than human PCs, something I don't like.

Sounds like your players have been lazy about non-human stereotypes.

As you said, you can do anything with humans, something you can't do with other races, so I see no reason to use them.

I...disagree? More later.

I have also found that restricting PCs to humans only gives me a much better toolkit, it allows me to contrast the "mundane human world" with a "fantastical magical world" something I much prefer to the toolkit you imply.

Okay but like...what about a world where the fantastical lies behind every corner? I chose an Arabian Nights theme specifically because I knew it would encourage a feeling of wonder--because my players DON'T have intuitive, like-the-back-of-your-hand knowledge of the tropes and creatures of such a setting. Instead of turning the fantastical into the mundane, I have turned the mundane into the fantastical. The players know they CAN'T assume that mundane things will work as expected...nor that they can make many assumptions about the fantastical, either.

In a fantasy setting I would have no problem with a human that has demon blood, or is part demon, or even part god like Hercules. They don't need horns to have demon blood, also, they don't need to be a whole different race. Also, given the existence of magic, I could see humans that have lived long enough to see the Roman Empire rise and fall. Again, they don't need to be a different race to do that, just magic!

Okay. So you're okay with tieflings that just don't have stereotypical tiefling physiology. What about a player who--like me--just things dragon-y physiology is cool? I'm not asking for dragon-people to be planet-of-hats type. I'm asking, "why can't there be a sapient race, just as diverse and interesting and non-cookie-cutter as humans, but which has scales?" Because, while it might seem completely pointless or ridiculous to you, it's not completely pointless or ridiculous to me. It matters a great deal. I find that difference in physiology exciting. And I do think about both "mundane" concerns (like chairs, clothing, etc.) and fantastical concerns (like "how would a dragonborn prison differ from a human one, since dragonborn have breath attacks? They'd need to be inert and heat/cold resistant...maybe sandstone?") Because, despite what you've said, a race (like dragon-people) can share human culture (and thus "be just like humans") without being absolutely isomorphic in every possible sense.

Dragon-people can be cognitively and emotionally equivalent to humans, without being ABSOLUTELY equivalent. And the places where they differ can be much more interesting than just "we're warriors because ALL lumpy-forehead-people are warriors," an incredibly boring cliché.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

Not the person you asked, but (at least) two options: (1) if you can do such swapping without literally any other considerations, you're presuming race is 100% always irrelevant anyway, which makes the argument circular; (2) there can be such fluff that it doesn't work to simply swap them, e.g. my example above with dragonborn needing to design their prisons differently due to their breath attacks.

As for the whole fluff thing, it's just fluff, to me, it is meaningless, as it can be changed on a whim and has no mechanical weight.

Again, I disagree. There are things you can't do with humans, because humans have certain implied things. Frex: needing to eat and sleep and breathe, having to be raised as children before adulthood, living only finitely many years, not having elemental belches, etc. Warforged can't just be swapped to humans without somehow accounting for the fact that they don't eat/breathe/sleep and come alive as full adults (albeit potentially inexperienced ones). My bard player's devil ancestor can't just be reskinned into a human because said ancestor (whomever it is) is immortal, and humans aren't immortal. A dragonborn (or eladrin) ex-con's story is going to be different from a human's, because prisons for dragonborn (or eladrin) will have to be different. I'm sure there are more examples out there.

I don't.

Um...except you've specifically said you do. You've specifically said that things have to fall into the following (false) dichotomy:
1. Non-humans are only different from humans in a set, stereotypical way, and thus are automatically uninteresting.
2. Non-humans are absolutely, perfectly equivalent to humans in every conceivable way, and are thus extra DM work for no benefit.

I'm articulating that both of these stances are wrong. That you can have non-human races which are overall equivalent, but which have meaningful differences in their culture induced by differences in physiology. I mean, for a very simple example, dragonborn hatch from eggs, so dragonborn females don't spend the bulk of a year pregnant. (They're similar to monotremes, but more reptilian.) That's going to have some pretty significant effects on their background culture, without having any affect on whether they CAN have cultures as diverse as humans'. Paying attention to these differences is where the benefit from the (alleged) "extra work" appears.

If non-human characters can be whatever a human can be then why bother?!? If a Klingon can be NOT an honor bound warrior, then they are just a funny looking human. I posted a whole bunch of stuff on this earlier in the thread, feel free to go read it.

Because I find the physiology interesting, and because that physiology can have interesting consequences that aren't strictly about what behaviors are possible for a character.

So, all non-human races are just funny looking humans? If yes, what's the point of having non-humans? Funny looks and mechanical bonuses? That's what I think, that's why I don't bother using them.

Nope. They're sapient beings whose physiology has different implications, but whose capacity for mental and physical behavior is otherwise equivalent.

You sure like to read into what I'm posting. You should stop that.

Well, what else am I supposed to think, when you tell me that either dragonborn must be cartoonish stereotypes OR "rubber forehead aliens"? Saying that non-humans just inherently make cartoonish stereotypes means that they can't have the diversity and cultured differences of humans. But I know, for a fact, that that isn't required in the abstract...which means it must be something happening at your table. Hence, it must be something you're choosing, since you've been so clear about how much control you have over the world.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Did you play the same story? Or start a new one with the same players? If the same, did the old DM hand over his notes (along with his ceremonial DM key, assumedly)? If they didn't, how did you continue the campaign? Was it a published adventure?

We just kept going. I'm sure the story went a different way than it would have, but that would also be true if a player had left and another had joined the campaign.

Only one of them was in a homebrew world, and obviously the setting changed from the original vision by virtue of us growing it with the campaign rather than the original DM.

if the DMs fun is being reduced by a players demands, what is the DM supposed to do?

Have 3% less fun so that the player can have 10% more fun.

How on Earth is this even a question!? How!?

Seriously, I am a very smart person, and in person I have little trouble understanding other humans in most situations. But this whole conversation just...I feel like I'm talking to people from a completely different planet!

Like...we compromise for our friends. Social interaction is compromise. Full Stop.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Redacted to save space.

So in your games rather than going on adventures you debate the finer points of Dragon People physiology? I would love to read those session reports!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So in your games rather than going on adventures you debate the finer points of Dragon People physiology? I would love to read those session reports!

Uh...no?

These things matter as part of the background. They aren't going to be an every-single-session event. That would be tedious, even for me, and I have a much higher patience for nit-picking, pedantic tedium than most people.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Have 3% less fun so that the player can have 10% more fun.

How on Earth is this even a question!? How!?

Seriously, I am a very smart person, and in person I have little trouble understanding other humans in most situations. But this whole conversation just...I feel like I'm talking to people from a completely different planet!

Like...we compromise for our friends. Social interaction is compromise. Full Stop.

It's not a matter of percentages, but it since you insist...

I will lose 100% of my fun if I have to run a game where there are rubber forehead aliens.

The player will lose 100% of their fun if they can't play a rubber forehead alien.

What is the solution? I don't want to lose 100% of my fun, cause it's my fun.

For a person that claims to be smart, you sure can't seem to understand a very simple concept!

Again, what is your solution for me not wanting to lose 100% of my fun?

 

[Jack Daniel]

Like...we compromise for our friends.

We don't always play D&D only with people who are our friends.

 

[Zardnaar]

We don't always play D&D only with people who are our friends.

I said no a lot to my friends back in 2E. Complete Book of Humanoids, Drow if the Underdark etc.

Sometimes I said yes just depended on the situation.

Normally used settings for weird stuff eg Darksun.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I said no a lot to my friends back in 2E. Complete Book of Humanoids, Drow if the Underdark etc.

Sometimes I said yes just depended on the situation.

Normally used settings for weird stuff eg Darksun.

That too. Being able to say "no" when it's appropriate is just… healthy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So is this even actually a real problem in real life or is this just one of these internet things? How many of you have had your must-have character idea denied by the GM? How many of you have had players insist to make characters totally incompatible with the pitch? Because I can't really recall either of those having happened to me in real life... There may have been some discussions about could this or that work, but I really cannot remember any actual serious disagreements. I mean I have played for decades, so it is possible that something like that has happened at some point and I've just forgotten, but in my experience this doesn't really seem like a common problem.