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

[prabe]

Just to be clear: I could easily come up with a setting that allowed for any race under the sun. A world that's a crossroads of sorts where people from a wide variety of worlds either are pulled in at random, it's a nexus or travel between entirely different cosmologies is just commonplace.

But those aren't the campaign worlds I happen to use. For me, there needs to be a reason for the option for the 100 or so race/subraces to make sense such as your porous world boundaries.

But that's just my game, different DMs have different preferences.

Yeah, but if someone comes in with an idea for something that's not on your world, I don't think your answer is a hard "no" with no further discussion. You might not be as willing to have a singleton of a race show up as I am, but that's a finer distinction, I think. I mean, if someone shows up wanting to play a Kalashtar character on my world, I smile ...

 

[Zardnaar]

It's kinda seemed to fall on a continuum.

1) At one extreme, the DM decides, and the players need to live with that--their preferences in this instance don't matter.

2) At the other extreme, the players bring their characters, whatever they are, and the DM lives with that--their preferences in this instance don't matter.

It's seemed to me as though there's remarkably little actual clustering at the actual extremes: I think @Maxperson and @Oofta have expressed a willingness to work with players in finding stuff that fits in the world/s they run, and @Zardnaar runs some games with tight themes and some that are anything-goes; and even some of the most ardent player-rights posters have expressed a willingness to accept (or impose, when DMing) some limitations on what is available in a given setting or campaign.

I think that what's happening mostly is that a poster says something like "I don't allow Warforged on my world because I don't want mecha in my D&D game" (it me) and people from closer to the player-rights end of the spectrum focus fire; Fact is, while that's probably the one race I'd stand hard on rejecting (along with anything that flies at 1st level), I'd talk to the player about why they want to play a warforged and poke around and see if there's something I will allow that gets at those reasons. @Chaosmancer and I had a little talk about Changelings, and I think we found some common ground that if the draw of playing a Changeling is "I look human but I'm not" then I have something already in my world that does that.

I will say that wen I set up my world, I made a specific decision to allow everything in the PHB (well, other than Drow) because those were in the core book, and it seemed reasonable that someone new to the game--I was setting up a table at my FLGS--would have that, and nothing else. I have been a bit more choosy about other things I've allowed, based on how the world has taken shape and what's made sense to me--which is almost certainly derived from my own preferences. There are races that I look at and kinda say "nope." As I have said, though, the world I'm running has porous planar boundaries, even by typical D&D standards, so something from outside can arrive; if a player is willing to work with being the only adventurer of their kind, the races I haven't written into the world are technically available for play. If they're looking to play based on some stereotype--either leaning into it or rebelling against it--that's not likely to work for, e.g., a kenku, but there are other approaches available.

Planning on a second game it will be mostly anything goes, flyers banned RotFM.

Other game probably Midgard pub + Midgard races allowed so around 30 odd.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, but if someone comes in with an idea for something that's not on your world, I don't think your answer is a hard "no" with no further discussion. You might not be as willing to have a singleton of a race show up as I am, but that's a finer distinction, I think. I mean, if someone shows up wanting to play a Kalashtar character on my world, I smile ...

I always try to figure options out, but a few things will be a hard no because I'm not sure how to compromise on something like my "no drow" policy. When it comes to drow ... they're a special case because they're kind of the bogeyman in my campaign world. I mean, I suppose there could be some sort of disguise? But do I want to deal with that when they eventually get discovered? Not sure.

On the other hand, it's never been an issue in any game I've run since I just let people know what's allowed ahead of time. So a lot of this, to be honest is purely hypothetical. People know my world doesn't have any anthropomorphic animals so I've never been asked to run one. I think the last one was way back in 4E when someone wanted to run a deva in which case, yes I let them because they could still look human and I came up with an interest back story.

 

[Dire Bare]

But, D&D half elves are not related to Tolkien at all though. Elrond is not a D&D half-elf, despite the name. So, right off the bat, you're deviating from Tolkien. And, if half-elves are acceptable, why not a shifter then? After all, what is Beorn if not a shifter? And, frankly, in a Tolkien sense, what does "no evil races" mean, since Men are quite capable of being evil.

My point is, it's almost never cut and dried.

Well actually . . . D&D half-elves (IMO) are taken directly from Tolkien. Without Tolkien's influence on early D&D, half-elves would not exist in the game.

Now, they are poorly translated from Tolkien's work to D&D, for sure!

But many of us back in the day, before "Tolkien scholarship" was a thing and Chris Tolkien published the one million volumes of his father's world-building of Middle-Earth . . . . we mistakenly assumed that Elrond was a half-elf in the D&D sense. With an elfy parent and a human parent. It was, and remains, a common misconception of Tolkien's use of the term.

Not that this really has anything to do with the discussion at hand. I just felt the overwhelming urge to be nerdily pedantic. Carry on.

 

[Dire Bare]

Also, in Xanathar's Tiefling origin table, a Tiefling can come from two human parents due to dormant genes, which could easily switch to a curse or freak incident. In a world with magic and whatnot, having variations is almost to be expected, especially if it's ancient.

In plenty of "human-only" fantasy stories, we have a cursed character with a monstrous appearance. They are often the villain, but not always.

Caliban from Shakespeare's "Tempest". Calibos from the movie (1981) "Clash of the Titans" (clearly inspired by the earlier Caliban). There's more . . .

It's a great way to introduce a tiefling into a human-centric D&D game.

 

[Crit]

In plenty of "human-only" fantasy stories, we have a cursed character with a monstrous appearance. They are often the villain, but not always.

Caliban from Shakespeare's "Tempest". Calibos from the movie (1981) "Clash of the Titans" (clearly inspired by the earlier Caliban). There's more . . .

It's a great way to introduce a tiefling into a human-centric D&D game.

On top of your examples...
Beauty and the Beast. (fey interference, much?)
From greek mythology comes the Minotaur, a hybrid, amongst other mythological things.
Lycanthropy and shape morphing is extremely common, from classic Vampires to werewolves.
John Adams wanted to trade with subterraneans.
Mixing magic with real world conditions like dwarfism or gigantism could be ways for Halfling, Dwarves and Gnomes as well as Goliaths to splinter off of humanity into "new species," even if only as small clans.
Golems and animated objects are pretty normal, so long as you've got magic. And if you are playing DnD without any magic... I'd have chosen a different system, all-melee DnD seems kind of bare bones compared to other things out there.

Regardless of intention or desire, it's still very possible for some non human things to appear in low-fantasy settings in some capacity. It's fine if you don't do it because you just don't want to, but I don't think there's many negative consequences to its implementation if done well.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

From greek mythology comes the Minotaur, a hybrid, amongst other mythological things.

Expanding on this, we also have the Ophiogenes (literally, the "serpent-born"), Spartoi ("sown ones," no relation to Sparta; came from planting dragon teeth), and Myrmidones (literally "ant-people," allegedly the result of a weird Zeus fling) as entire groups/tribes/etc. that could be interpreted as not-entirely-human. Further, we have other one-off cases like the Minotaur, Talos the mechanical man, the weird situation of Zeus seducing Leda in swan form, and both male and female dragons (drakon/drakaina) producing offspring with humans or demigods like Hercules.

Add in the explicit inclusion of centaurs, satyrs, dryads, and nymphs, and you've got the potential for a pretty diverse palette of races purely through the lens of Greco-Roman myth. Adding in anything from neighboring cultures--Egypt, Persia, Germania, or Gaul--and you could probably find an entirely mytho-historically-derived justification for most D&D races out there. And European folklore is stuffed with things like seal-maidens and princes turned into frogs and all sorts of other things that can be mined as well.

Which is all to say: no, you don't HAVE to include anything in your campaign. But I haven't seen particularly persuasive arguments that DMs would be THAT much put out by taking a little time to hear what a player is going for and at least looking for a way to implement it, even if none ultimately is found. There's been a lot of...well, more or less saying that people already know there's no possible way a compromise could ever be reached, and I just don't get that. How can you know without actually engaging with the player and then doing some thinking? It's not like we're talking about something that must always follow a specific form or pattern (like would be the case with Evil PCs, where...y'know, they have to do things from a relatively specific category). This is pretty dang open-ended--or at least it should be if a player is making this kind of request.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Thing is a DM doesn't have to justify why races are excluded and it doesn't bother me if the exclude the core 4 or even change the fluff. Maybe Drow are twilight elves good aligned in the surface following a moon goddess.

Another reason is simplicity there's 100 odd races now. If a player can't generate a character in a 3 hour session 0 because they want to read every race available thats a problem.

So yeah a tight list of 6-20 isn't a bad idea. If I'm running Ravnica or Theros I would kind if want people to pick from the main books vs 5 or 6 players turn up wanting world travellers with no connection to the setting.

See, but as a fellow DM who has seen people say they ban content because they don't like the artwork.... yeah, I think you kind of do need to justify it. Because some of the reasons given are kind of petty.

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And a lot of this most recent stuff is.... pretty much all we've been saying.

"Drow are the main antagonists of my setting, so I'm not making them a PC option" awesome. "I don't have Kalashtar, but I have this similar concept that might work." Cool.


Just don't default to "You can't do that stupid thing because I say so."

 

[Zardnaar]

See, but as a fellow DM who has seen people say they ban content because they don't like the artwork.... yeah, I think you kind of do need to justify it. Because some of the reasons given are kind of petty.

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And a lot of this most recent stuff is.... pretty much all we've been saying.

"Drow are the main antagonists of my setting, so I'm not making them a PC option" awesome. "I don't have Kalashtar, but I have this similar concept that might work." Cool.


Just don't default to "You can't do that stupid thing because I say so."

Well actually I can. I don't need a reason, I always do though. Sometimes it's as simple as I don't like the race. Might be the mechanics,might be fluff might be whatever.

I said no to Tritons with no explanation. Partly mechanical partly because I had a plan for them.

 

[Maxperson]

I'd go and quote you, but there are two problems with that. 1) I'm certain you'll fall behind the fact that I summarized, and that your exact words weren't those exact words and your definition of those words means that you actually meant something that isn't what your definition of my exact words mean. 2) Quoting your own words never seems to convince you that you said what you said.

So, I'm not wasting my time on that rabbit hole again.

You aren't, because you can't. You've taken my words and twisted them, attributing meaning that I never even implied, then responded to your own fabrications. It's a pattern with you.

The intent of your words was fairly clear. If you and a player disagree on the limits with regards to fun, one of two things happen. Either they are told to leave the table, or you leave the table. Since you are DM, you leaving the table is an attempt to just kill the entire campaign for everybody.

And that's a complete falsehood. I never once implied in any way, shape or form that I would leave the table. This is what I said.

I said that if there is an unfixable conflict between the DM and a player, one of the two has to leave and it should be the player. I also said that the DM only has two options, leave or have the player leave. Not that I said DM, not me. When I'm talking about "the DM", the intent is clear. It's clearly a general statement about DMs. It does not in any way state or imply what I would do. Further, I said in more than one response to you directly, that the DM shouldn't be the one to leave, because that would negatively impact the fun of everyone at the table.

You know what I say. Your intelligent, so you know what I mean. Yet you twist my words anyway.

Ah, I see. So when you said that the one of the two people could leave, it never was actually the DM who could leave. You meant that the DM has no choice but to stay. Which... sure, I knew the DM was staying, because you advocated for kicking the player, but I didn't realize you meant that as the fact that the DM has no choice but to stay. Seems kind of a strange line to draw, but okay, I missed that point.

The DM can leave. I'm just not one of the DMs that will.

And, while you keep saying you've never encountered a player in all your years who can't have fun with different races, (okay and?) I've also only ever encountered DMs who are so disgusted by races that they cannot possibly have fun with them at their table here on forums.

And sure, I vaguely remember something like a thousand posts ago you giving a list of races you somewhat disliked, but would allow.

I also know you've advocated for Fantasy Racism, and that you have hard lines on other races. Like Dragonborn.

Okay. That's good, but it's only one race. Dragonborn.

And, this seems to be the disconnect, because I literally cannot understand hating a race idea so much that I could not possibly run a game featuring them. I mean, I'm glad you compromise with players, I haven't seen you say that but this thread does tend to get 80 something posts every few hours. But the concept of having a race that I cannot stand to the point that including them in the game in any form would remove every ounce of joy I have from running the game (something that I enjoy on multiple levels for multiple reasons) just... it doesn't make sense to me.

You were doing well up until that point. I've never said or implied that it did that to me. I said they bug the hell out of me and it would constantly grate on me, but the reduction was never anywhere near "every ounce." Remember what I've said repeatedly, even 10% is unacceptable, for both the player and the DM.

Case in point @Maxperson and @Monayuris , yet again, things that other people like beyond Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Human are being called stupid.

For the record, I'm not calling any race outside of the common races stupid.

I'm not Anti-DM, I'm Anti-Disparaging other people's likes. I'll say your limits are restrictive, maybe not thought completely through, definitely not necessary. But I will never call you stupid for liking your four Tolkien races, yet the other side of the debate seems to be more than happy to disparage our likes.

Cool. I don't think you or your ideas are stupid, either. I don't even think Dragonborn are stupid. They're just not for me. Just like Pumpkin Pie isn't for me. Can't stand the stuff. One of the most popular pies out there, though.