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

[Oofta]

I used the word culture for a reason.

Culture and the society within affect a character's personality greatly.

If a DM limits the cultures of their game to a few and those cultures aren't deep, there is less to work from.

Remember, many of the works that have single cultures are books with hundreds of pages. Often multiple books dripping with info of the people within. And the info books usually detail subcultures inside as well.

DMs must shy away from the pride of comparing their setting to those created by award winning authors. Even comparing one's settings to that of full on setting books is dangerous as the DM likely hasn't written a full book on their monoculture setting.

Funny, when I sarcastically joke and use extremes (I mean seriously? The kitten cannon wasn't a clue?) it gets taken seriously and I'm accused of hyperbole.

So I'm sure I'll be told I'm wrong when I say that it's hyperbole that just because a DM has a solid understanding of culture and race in their world that somehow they are claiming to be the next Tolkien. You don't have to leap from 1 to a 1,000,000. I make no claims to have the depth of Tolkien's world in my own home campaign; that doesn't mean that I don't think about how my world works and require some consistency with that world view with my player's choices.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree with everything you say there, although that might get stickier if we are talking about something not created. What I was referring to is your quote that you only have to have the races that the players choose. That is what I didn't understand.

I think the statement more meant that the only races that absolutely have to be represented in some way are the ones played by players. Not meant as a "the world begins and ends with the players," but rather that any argument which hinges on "so now I have to justify LITERALLY every race ever???" really doesn't hold water. Each player can only play one race at a time. Presuming human is expected even if there are no human PCs, you're only looking at NEEDING to justify [number of players]+1 races. That's a far cry from a hundred super overlapping things.

Even the variation that depends on running the same world through many campaigns, to get to a hundred races, you'd need to have a hundred characters. Having one dead character a month, five PCs, and never overlapping any prior choices, you'd need (100-6)/12=94/12=7.8 years. I dunno about you, but even if we get up to something like 40 races you're looking at three years of constant play and players ACTIVELY working to stuff the world with races. Most campaigns will never meet these requirements. Especially since the trend these days is more narrative-heavy play and avoiding random deaths and such; having a full twelve characters die every year would be SHOCKINGLY lethal as far as I'm concerned.

So yeah. I think the point was simply about deflating the "permitting what players want ALWAYS means dozens and dozens of options which will dilute everything to meaninglessness."

 

[Minigiant]

Funny, when I sarcastically joke and use extremes (I mean seriously? The kitten cannon wasn't a clue?) it gets taken seriously and I'm accused of hyperbole.

So I'm sure I'll be told I'm wrong when I say that it's hyperbole that just because a DM has a solid understanding of culture and race in their world that somehow they are claiming to be the next Tolkien. You don't have to leap from 1 to a 1,000,000. I make no claims to have the depth of Tolkien's world in my own home campaign; that doesn't mean that I don't think about how my world works and require some consistency with that world view with my player's choices.

My point is that some DM use books to justify their bland setting.

If you paint your setting in Greyjoy, every PC will be "Human Fighter Jerk Pirate" + (insert personality).

 

[Maxperson]

I think the statement more meant that the only races that absolutely have to be represented in some way are the ones played by players. Not meant as a "the world begins and ends with the players," but rather that any argument which hinges on "so now I have to justify LITERALLY every race ever???" really doesn't hold water. Each player can only play one race at a time. Presuming human is expected even if there are no human PCs, you're only looking at NEEDING to justify [number of players]+1 races. That's a far cry from a hundred super overlapping things.

That depends on the DM. If the DM has created a world with all of its races and politics and interactions set, then dropping in a different race would be highly disruptive. He would have to create the world with every race detailed out in order avoid that issue. Though it's possible that a unique individual might not disrupt things.

 

[Oofta]

My point is that some DM use books to justify their bland setting.

If you paint your setting in Greyjoy, every PC will be "Human Fighter Jerk Pirate" + (insert personality).

I see no relevance to the conversation. I get inspiration from books, movies, history, daily events. It makes no difference to the fact that some DMs enjoy world building.

If you run a beer and popcorn game where anything goes, more power to you. That doesn't mean that anyone that doesn't do it exactly like you is going to have a Greyjoy campaign or any other insult you want to add in.

 

[Minigiant]

I see no relevance to the conversation. I get inspiration from books, movies, history, daily events. It makes no difference to the fact that some DMs enjoy world building.

If you run a beer and popcorn game where anything goes, more power to you. That doesn't mean that anyone that doesn't do it exactly like you is going to have a Greyjoy campaign or any other insult you want to add in.

The questioning and criticism of the bad DMs of the world is not an attack on you.

There are bad DMs out there. Saying their settings are stale or shallow is not an insult to you.

A DM who creates a bad setting will have trouble finding players. And if players settle for him or her due to a lack of available DM, they are compromising heavily. Andwhen one side compromises so heavily, both sides of the table will have tons of strife and be upset.

It's best for us good DMs to give DMs tips of what not to do or bad habits will infect the community.

Again, if the players don't understand the world they play in, their RP will suffer.

 

[Remathilis]

Why is trying to adhere to some sense of biological realism the "worst" reason? The single sahuagin god in my example gave them an ability and they are creatures. Notice the DM also said - they DIE when out of the water. What is that PC going to do when they are out of water? See how there is a logical consistency there.
- DM: Oh, you want to be like the suahagin and be blessed by the shark god. Um... okay, but how will you trek through the desert? The forest? The city? Are the other characters carrying around an aquarium?
As for the other creatures you listed, I would think a good DM could defend those or leave them out. Necromantic magic is a strong and powerful force. Owlbears were the creation of a wizard, much like a liger, only stranger. There are no sentient golems. They are inanimate objects that are able to move through spells and components. Oozes are creatures, just like a worm, only deadly. And dragons, there is a fly spell.
I'd imagine a thorough DM would have a backstory on all of it and reasons why these creatures exist.

"Biological realism" is a rabbit hole that often leads to more problems than it fixes. I mean, your sahuagin example already nullifies it: why do sahuagin breathe water? Because a god said so. There is no biological reason or rationale; "magic" has already short-cutted to the desired result. So already, your "biological reason" is arbitrary since sometimes a God can override it and sometimes it doesn't, depending on what you decide you want. If you want gnomes to be forty feet tall and eat nothing but tar, a biological rationale for it is pointless since "the gnome god" can just make it so anyway. Either stick with realistic fantasy or go with "a wizard did it" but don't give me one when you want to explain a monster and then use the other when I want to play Aquaman.

I opt for the simple explanation: Its magic, I ain't gotta explain $#!%. It opens a whole world of ideas without worrying how a dragon is able to fly.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As for fewer races remember GoT was basically human's only and lotr is 4 maybe 5?

Notice that there's no real epic work of fantasy with a massive amount of D&D races and the protagonists are usually human?

Sure it might be because we're humans ourselves but that also applies to game logic.

Even at 30 races that's kinda annoying let alone 100 odd.

I had 30 odd but in Midgard and then kind of narrowed it down to the starting region and surrounding areas.

1. And yet the universes that actually involve gaming tend to have many more--and more distinctly non-human--races. WoW's Azeroth literally does have dozens of sapient races, and pushing a couple dozen playable ones now. TES's Nirn famously has two prominent "beastman" races. FFXIV has not-orcs, two flavors of cat-people, bunny-people, vaguely-dragony-people. Guild Wars' Tyria may have only five playable races, but several non-playable ones, and all of the non-human races are pretty strongly distinct (horned industrial bear-lion people, chonky various-animal were-goliaths, vaguely bat-eared football-headed gremlins, and vaguely elfin innocent plant-people). Mass Effect's Citadel Space has numerous sapient races, easily a dozen. Endless Legend is profuse with races. Divinity: Original Sin 2's Rivellon is fairly diverse. Dragon Age's Thedas and The Witcher's setting are some of the only ones I can think of that have a highly restricted set of sapient races.

2. None of this addresses the fact that it is very unlikely that you'll "need" 30+ races in most games. Like, even if you've established a dozen races and SOMEHOW no one wants to play a single one of them, I do not buy that any but a very rare game is going to need even 20 races, let alone 30 unless you decide to offer 30 (or whatever). I don't think I've ever played a game where there were even 20 typical playable races.

That depends on the DM. If the DM has created a world with all of its races and politics and interactions set, then dropping in a different race would be highly disruptive. He would have to create the world with every race detailed out in order avoid that issue. Though it's possible that a unique individual might not disrupt things.

A DM that has created a world where all such things are fixed is a DM that isn't actually interested in accepting player input. That's literally what I've been arguing, repeatedly: the DM that fixes so much of the world that the players can't ever touch or change or even question it.

Like, is this really a thing? Do DMs really fix the "races and politics and interactions" so frequently? I thought the whole point was to play to find out what happens. What's the point of being a player in something where the DM has pre-figured so much of the world? I honestly don't feel like it would be hyperbolic to ask, "Ah, and is the DM setting the players' alignments and favorite colors, too?"

And, yes, one-offs should be perfectly acceptable, if a player is looking for something particular. Just as the DM should listen and consider, the player must need to accept a spectrum of answers. If the player isn't satisfied, maybe it just doesn't work. If even a one-off is a problem for the DM, maybe it just doesn't work--but at least giving the player the time of day, letting them talk and honestly considering the possible options--doesn't seem like it's this horrible offensive thing. It doesn't need to

 

[Oofta]

The questioning and criticism of the bad DMs of the world is not an attack on you.

There are bad DMs out there. Saying their settings are stale or shallow is not an insult to you.

A DM who creates a bad setting will have trouble finding players. And if players settle for him or her due to a lack of available DM, they are compromising heavily. Andwhen one side compromises so heavily, both sides of the table will have tons of strife and be upset.

It's best for us good DMs to give DMs tips of what not to do or bad habits will infect the community.

Again, if the players don't understand the world they play in, their RP will suffer.

I never said there are no bad DMs. In my experience the worst ones allowed kitchen sink*. What I object to is your constant correlation of curated campaigns with established worlds with bad DMs.

There is no correlation between correlated vs kitchen sink campaigns and bad DMing. My advice is that DMs should do what makes sense to them and don't be bullied or pressured into doing something that doesn't make sense to them. Not insulting to anyone, just advice. Feel free to offer your advice instead of just telling people the obvious fact that bad DMs are bad.

*Including the guy who bragged about how hilarious BobTown was. The town where everybody's name was Bob. Hil - wait for it - larious.

 

[Maxperson]

A DM that has created a world where all such things are fixed is a DM that isn't actually interested in accepting player input. That's literally what I've been arguing, repeatedly: the DM that fixes so much of the world that the players can't ever touch or change or even question it.

Depends. There are different kinds of input. As I said earlier in the thread, my players create minor content(towns, villages, NPCs, etc.) during their background creation. Major things like entire races are something else entirely. You can both have a mostly fixed world and still allow player input.

Like, is this really a thing? Do DMs really fix the "races and politics and interactions" so frequently? I thought the whole point was to play to find out what happens. What's the point of being a player in something where the DM has pre-figured so much of the world? I honestly don't feel like it would be hyperbolic to ask, "Ah, and is the DM setting the players' alignments and favorite colors, too?"

Not frequently, no. It takes a great deal of time and effort to write up a world that thoroughly, but one guy I used to play with would do it every 3-5 years. And I believe there are a few here on this site that also put that kind of time and effort into their games. By and large, though, most people either design their games more loosely or use a pre-made campaign world like the Forgotten Realms.