I'm pretty sure races, particularly the aesthetics and imagery of the races, is pretty darn important to a lot of people. That's why their inclusion or exclusion is so divisive. I'd argue they're probably the single most important element for flavoring a setting to a specific taste, even more so than classes or other optional rules.
It's impossible to introduce a single member of a race into a campaign without also granting the race as a whole a place in the campaign world (barring reskinning or a backstory of the character as a singular entity.) And since that will flavor the whole campaign world, this is a case where I think the tie has to go to the DM, since establishing setting flavor is one of their primary duties (outside of cooperative, no-myth setting generation).
I both agree and disagree with your second paragraph.
First of all, it is entirely possible to introduce a "single member" of a race into a campaign without giving the race as a whole a "place". My Genais Storm Sorcerer came about because he was struck by lighting in a sacred grove. His "race" is simply an extension of his power source as a Storm Sorcerer, I don't need a race of Genasi for that to work. So, on that end, I disagree with you.
On the other end, when a friend of mine wanted to play a Changeling, in a world where I hadn't created them yet, I did create them a place in my world. That world had heavy themes of "nature vs civilization" and so I made Changeling artificial creations of the Fey. They were created by powerful fey to complete a specific purpose (pretend to be this woman's child for sixteen years, then reveal that you aren't and her real child was taken so long ago) but then abandoned afterwards and left to their own devices.
But, maybe the world is much more about Arcane magic and the Evil magical Empire that dominates people's lives, and we decided that Changelings would instead be magebred creations of the empire to serve as infiltrators and assassins.
So, this is where I agree with you. A race if fully introduced needs a backstory that fits with the world. And sometimes that can make your theme and your world better.
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My players fun does matter, just not at the expense of my own. I'm not sure why you have a hard time understanding that. As DM I don't want rubber forehead aliens in my game, the player wants to play a rubber forehead alien. What am I supposed to do other than tell them to go find a DM that wants rubber forehead aliens in their game? Please tell me, I am genuinely curious as to what your solution is!
What do you mean here? You say that everyone's fun is supposed to matter. Again, if the DMs fun is being reduced by a players demands, what is the DM supposed to do? What other option does the DM have other than telling the player to find a game where they will be able to do what they want?
I mean, your position is so extreme that I honestly don't know if I could give you anything useful. You reject anything that isn't human or doesn't look human. So you will never compromise on any part of your position.
Me? I tend to try and find a good compromise. I fit a lot of races into my world already, and sometimes a few magical accidents helps cover some of the rest of the ground.
But... I have also have rarely had a character brought to the table that I couldn't stand. And the only times that it did happen were with a player who was seeking to play something way outside of the power level of the game. And even then, I talked it out to the player, explained my side, explained how that concept was far too powerful for the game, and tried to find some common ground.
That's what I do. Talk to them, and try and compromise.
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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.
oooh... Dang, I hadn't considered that you couldn't really do bars either, because the attack could go through that and hit the guards. Feeding the prisoners would also be risky. I'd have to do a lot of planning to figure out how they would resolve all those issues. My first gut instinct was a muzzle like device that would reflect their breath back at them, while allowing space for a fork or spoon for eating.
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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.
I have made characters who turned out incompatible, because I either cared about the location I was told we would spend most of the game in or I didn't make a cold-hearted mercenary. But those were much more communication problems.
I've also... never really had a DM who said that we couldn't play certain races because it would ruin their vision. Or if they did have a limit like that, I was never playing a character who would trigger that.
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This is real. There have been countless polls about rural(and even urban) people not knowing who the current president is, what the branches of congress are and more. Do I think that the vast majority of people under the age of 40 don't know about that comet? Yep! Do I think that older people tell lots of stories about it? Nope!
That's real.
Know what else was real? The poster from Rural Kentucky who told you that they did know about the Comet.
You know what else is real? Orion's Belt. How can I possibly know about it? Orion is a mythological concept from Ancient Greece, over two thousand years old. And I've known about it for a large part of my life.
And lions! They live across the ocean from me, how could I possibly know about them! How could King Richard "
the Lionhearted" know about them back during the medieval ages! I mean, they lived on different continents.
And all of that is real.
This is what you aren't getting. The DM is not your slave. He doesn't exist to serve your fancy at the expense of his own fun. Unlike the DM, you actually have options(the DM sacrificing his fun is not an option). You have the option to play some other enjoyable character. You have the option to try and find another game where you can play the character you want. You have the option to play a completely different game(I recommend Terraforming Mars. Great game). You have the option to go fishing. Or bowling. Or whatever.
If you are unwilling to play another enjoyable character, the only options the DM has are to ditch you or ditch everyone, and ditching only you is the best of the options available to him.
And this is what you aren't getting. As the DM I am not a slave, but I am also not treating my players ideas like they are toxic waste that will pollute my world. My fun is not such a fragile thing that any deviation from my "master plan" will ruin it, and I must keep my players in line and doing only what I allow them to do to keep it fun for me.
You seem to think that this is a zero sum game. Either the DM must leave or the player must leave, because they cannot possibly find common ground. And, if this is what you propose to your players, if this is how you present it, I'm not shocked to find many players back down rather than letting you nuke the game.
I mean, I hate pizza (four years as a delivery driver will do that to you) and I fully expect that if I moved into an apartment with someone and told them "Pizza will never enter this apartment. If you don't like that, you can leave and find somewhere else to live, or if you won't leave, I'll leave and since I pay the majority of the rent, you will go into default and get evicted anyways." Then they won't order pizza, because I''ve essentially made such a huge deal out of it, that we could both end up homeless over it.
But just because I cowed them into doing what I said doesn't mean what I demanded was reasonable, or that I was right.
And yet oddly enough, how the game plays doesn't change even a little.
Which it doesn't change for other mechanical changes I listed before, so I don't know why that would surprise you.
I quoted the above bold portion from the 5e DMG, not a novel. That's the important bit you are deliberately overlooking. I don't give a rats behind if it was in a novel, because the novel is completely irrelevant to my quote. The portion I quoted showed you that in 5e as written, there are lungs that are used to breathe air.
Until you can quote me something from an official 5e book about them having retractable claws, I was not and still am not wrong.
I'm sorry, but again, that is not how quoting works. Every word and bit of text you quoted was an excerpt from the novel
Condemnation by Richard Baker, the Third Book in the War of the Spider Queen Series. Just because an excerpt of that text was in the DMG does not mean it did not come from that novel. You can tell, because the writers of the DMG were very explicit in showing that it was an excerpt from a novel, and not the text of the DMG.
So, if you can quote a novel from the era of 3e, then my quotes should stand.
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If my fun being compromised because you absolutely need to play your special snowflake character then yes, I will be "unreasonable" as you call it. My fun is my fun, I won't compromise it so someone else can have fun at my expense. Sorry that bothers you, it sure as hell don't bother me one bit! FULL STOP!!!
Right, and if you were a player with that attitude you'd be a "problem" or insisting on playing "to stereotype" or any number of other things people have called people on my side of the debate.
But since you are a secial snowflake DM you get to be "strong" and playing a "deeply curated world, with culture and history."
Same attitude, same uncompromising stance. But you get praised for it, because you have the title of Dungeon Master instead of being merely a lowly player.
