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

[zarionofarabel]

Having your fun completely ruined by not getting exactly 100% what you want is not normal, healthy, reasonable, well-adjusted, or even socially acceptable.

This is one of the strangest conversations I’ve had all year.

Well, you are the only person I have ever conversed with that measures "fun" in percentage points! Every other human I have ever met measures it in a "fun" OR "not-fun" way. This is THE strangest conversation I have ever had!!!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You sound a lot like one of the other GMs in my group. We've been playtesting a sci-fi setting that he created, where he's clearly put a great deal of time and thought into all this stuff and the cultures are deeply fleshed out. And the non-human characters range from near-human to super non-human. I can tell he loves thinking of these implications and is excited to be presenting such distinct and coherent cultures to us.

I like reading about these cultures, but when it comes to actually making a character, I run into a bit of a roadblock. I find it difficult sometimes to find the space to make an individual in such a pre-detailed culture. And in addition, suddenly I have to worry about playing my character wrong--to use your example, if I accidentally made a Dragonborn talk about the flower of youth, that would now be wrong because the correct term is snow. I keep hoping that if I get more familiar with the cultures, I'll internalize this stuff and it will get easier, but so far it's been an on-and-off struggle.

To summarize, I think this can be chalked up to the different things people find easy and/or exciting, and all we can do is remember that not every approach is going to work for every player.

I can promise that, at least for myself, I don't believe it is possible to play your character "wrong" if you are roleplaying in good faith. The example given was simply meant to illustrate that word choice might shift in a grand sense, not inherently always. Like that study that demonstrated that languages with grammatical gender influence but don't determine the words people use to describe things (e.g. "key" has opposite gender in German vs Spanish, and Germans use more traditionally-masculine terms for their male-gender word while Spanish-speakers use more traditionally-feminine terms for their female-gender word.) That most Germans would call a key "hard" or "sharp" doesn't mean they all do always.

If the player is roleplaying in good faith, there's very little I won't forgive or adapt to, something I learned from my first few (ironically, pretty old-school!) DMs. Since my examples run long: long story short, we initially established elves as gender-ambiguous, and then learned they were in fact actually intersex (all of them). Later on, we had drow appear but forgot to make them also intersex, so the DM rolled with it when we remembered; it became a key point of the never-directly-discussed hostility between surface elves and drow. Perhaps ironically, this all predated the 5e description of Corellon and the like.

 

[Remathilis]

So it's okay if the player doesn't get to play their favorite race? Glad we agree on that.

Depends on what I'm getting to make up for that loss. Do I get to be my second favorite race? What about my favorite subclass? What about getting some interesting element to my background like being nobility or having spent a year in the feywild learning magic? What about some cool spell or magical item tailored especially for me that I can get later down the road? Or letting me try something cool I got from the DMs Guild?

In short, what are you giving me to make fair what I'm giving up for you?

 

[jayoungr]

If the player is roleplaying in good faith, there's very little I won't forgive or adapt to, something I learned from my first few (ironically, pretty old-school!) DMs.

Well okay, but now it's become something you're forgiving and adapting to, not just "the way it is." It's fallen short of what you hoped for.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I have found that games that put my fun over the fun of my players usually bleed players to the point I don't have a game to have fun with. I'd rather take a small hit on my fun to keep a game going and let everyone have fun.

I don't run games for players that won't have fun along with my fun so there is no need for me to lose out on any fun so my players can have more fun!

 

[Remathilis]

I don't run games for players that won't have fun along with my fun so there is no need for me to lose out on any fun so my players can have more fun!

I'm glad you found a group of people who like exactly what you do.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I'm glad you found a group of people who like exactly what you do.

Me too!

 

[Oofta]

Depends on what I'm getting to make up for that loss. Do I get to be my second favorite race? What about my favorite subclass? What about getting some interesting element to my background like being nobility or having spent a year in the feywild learning magic? What about some cool spell or magical item tailored especially for me that I can get later down the road? Or letting me try something cool I got from the DMs Guild?

In short, what are you giving me to make fair what I'm giving up for you?

You get to play in my campaign isn't enough?

Seriously ... what you get is a game that's more than just a beer and pretzel's anything goes game. That doesn't matter to everyone but it's not the type of game I run. If playing a specific race is more important the playing a cohesive world that has history, distinct cultures and so on then I may not be the DM for you. See also my note on working on RP desires, I'll do my best work with the player to get the "feel" of a race if not the mechanical implementation.

Well, that and if I don't like the campaign world, it will affect the entire campaign. To reiterate: if the DM ain't happy ain't nobody happy. If the world doesn't come to life for me, I don't see how I can make it come to life for my players.

 

[Remathilis]

You get to play in my campaign isn't enough?

Seriously ... what you get is a game that's more than just a beer and pretzel's anything goes game. That doesn't matter to everyone but it's not the type of game I run. If playing a specific race is more important the playing a cohesive world that has history, distinct cultures and so on then I may not be the DM for you. See also my note on working on RP desires, I'll do my best work with the player to get the "feel" of a race if not the mechanical implementation.

Well, that and if I don't like the campaign world, it will affect the entire campaign. To reiterate: if the DM ain't happy ain't nobody happy. If the world doesn't come to life for me, I don't see how I can make it come to life for my players.

Nope. You're game is one of hundreds of thousands. You ain't special. You're finely crafted masterpiece isn't any more engaging than mine or Keith Baker's or Ed Greenwood's. So I'll ask again; I'm compromising on my choice of what character I want to play to fit your vision, what are YOU giving up to have me as a player?

 

[Oofta]

Nope. You're game is one of hundreds of thousands. You ain't special. You're finely crafted masterpiece isn't any more engaging than mine or Keith Baker's or Ed Greenwood's. So I'll ask again; I'm compromising on my choice of what character I want to play to fit your vision, what are YOU giving up to have me as a player?

Then play with a different DM. You aren't such an amazing and unique flower that I will be crushed if you don't want to join my table.

The only complaints I hear from players is that we don't play often enough.