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

[Chaosmancer]

It is doesn't you get to play them though even if they do actually exist.

Some of the humanoid ones sure. Even then it's an ask the DM.

In some cases could something exist? Sure does it no. It may have existed but not anymore.

I'm a "hardass" in this thread, even then you can ask just don't keep pushing it if I say no. No flyers is generally the only absolute I have campaign to campaign.

You are still missing the point.

"Why does no one complain that Call of Cthulu is Human only"?

Because Call of Cthulu, even if you play it with a d20, is not DnD. Almost every massively iconic enemy race in DnD is a sentient culture that interacts with the players. One of the biggest factors of your character is what race you are. And most different environments have different races.

Dwarves in the Mountains, Elves in the Forests, Giants in the Hills, Mind Flayers in the darkness, Goblins in the Caves.

Different races and the niches they fill are a vital part of the game. And if you decide to take every single possible race out of an area, and replace it with nothing... you are just emptying out the world.

 

[Zardnaar]

You are still missing the point.

"Why does no one complain that Call of Cthulu is Human only"?

Because Call of Cthulu, even if you play it with a d20, is not DnD. Almost every massively iconic enemy race in DnD is a sentient culture that interacts with the players. One of the biggest factors of your character is what race you are. And most different environments have different races.

Dwarves in the Mountains, Elves in the Forests, Giants in the Hills, Mind Flayers in the darkness, Goblins in the Caves.

Different races and the niches they fill are a vital part of the game. And if you decide to take every single possible race out of an area, and replace it with nothing... you are just emptying out the world.

I wasn't the one mentioning CoC.

D&D to most people is still tolkeinesque renaissance fair kill stuff loot.

That's D&D at its most basic, it's always going to be the most popular approach for the foreseeable future.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Daniels

Spoiler

Doctor Who - Don't Do That - YouTube

Humans are mediocre and prosaic. Not the stuff of fantasy.

On the one hand: what a perverse way to look at anything that exists in the real world, least of all humans.
On the other: the mediocre and prosaic make the best fantasy protagonists precisely because of that fact.

I always ask then, what are you replacing elves with?

My biggest pet peeve is when a DM takes away an option but doesn't replace it with anything. You want to make elves mysterious and unheard of? Fine. What race are you adding to make up for the loss of an iconic race? Maybe someone who wants to be an ethereal magical being could select aasimar, or someone wanting to be a nature guardian can take firbolg. If you're not allowing drow, maybe another "dark" race can fill that role like tiefling, shadar-kai (human variant) or such. No orcs? How about goliath as the bruiser race?

Unfortunately, time and again in this thread, the alternative to the removed race is nothing. There are no fey races. There are no PC monstrous races. There are no planar races. There are no animal races. There are no aquatic races.

That's what I think is my issue. When whole categories of races are cut off and that limits your types of options. It's less about a specific race, and often more about the archetype being removed that bothers me.

"More options" are not a universal good. The ability to create a wide variety of archetypical player characters in an RPG is not a universal good. You value these things; you cannot assume we all value them.

Why do people keep thinking that brining of Call of Cthulhu is relevant? Just because it is another game?

It is December now, holiday season. That means I want Egg Nog. Egg Nog is a big part of the holiday season for me. Do I want Egg Nog all year? No, but in December it is time for Egg Nog.

Would I be upset if Egg Nog wasn't offered at a 4th of July party? No, that'd be silly, it is the wrong time of year. Would I be mildly upset about going to a 4th of July party with no fireworks of any type? Yes, because that is part of the point of the celebration.

So, no, I don't get upset that Call of Chthulu is Call of Cthulu and not DnD. But if I'm playing DnD.... I'd like to play DnD.

If you really need the point to be spoon-fed to you, okay. Some of us keep brining up elves in CoC and dwarves in V:tM to drive home what is to us an obvious and absurd contradiction. If you do not mind a group of players with no elves in their Cthulhu game and you do not mind a group of players with no dwarves in their Vampire game, you do not have any grounds on which to take issue with a group of players with no elves or dwarves in their D&D game. This—

Dungeons and Dragons

—is not a sufficient reason to just outright assume or expect the presence of elves, dwarves, wizards, or even dragons. There are more ways in heaven and earth to play D&D than are dreamt of in your philosophy, and if you do not like other people playing D&D without the dragons (or whatever), tough noogies. You're not the D&D police.

Everything being optional doesn't mean that a game about fantasy races shouldn't have any fantasy races.

D&D is not a game "about" fantasy races. It's "about" whatever the hell we want it to be. When I play, it's "about" hex-crawling and dungeon-crawling. When most other people play, it's "about" their le epic story, or "about" their pretend-to-be-an-elf uniqueness/power fantasy, or "about" their getting away with Chaotic Stupid shenanigans, or a million other unrelated things.

Jeff Rients once gave the pithy description, "You play Conan, I play Gandalf. We team up to fight Dracula." That doesn't encapsulate D&D for me personally (I prefer the even pithier "We explore dungeons, not characters"), but it's punchy enough that I do like to quote it.

 

[billd91]

DnD has been a game about Fantasy races since basically the beginning.

D&D is a game that includes fantasy races, it’s not really about that. Excising some of them doesn’t make it any less D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D is a game that includes fantasy races, it’s not really about that. Excising some of them doesn’t make it any less D&D.

Even then it's mostly about a few of them. Tolkeinesque ones plus Gnomes, Half Orcs, Half Elves.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What I don't understand is why people keep asking about other games like that is a profound statement of DnD. "You don't dribble the ball in baseball do you?" Isn't exactly a good retort for changing the rules for dribbling for Basketball.


And, I'm also getting annoyed with this continued pattern of "Well, players can just adapt or play a different game." Yes, but the DM can also run a different game. That is also a valid option.

DnD has been a game about Fantasy races since basically the beginning. This is a core part of the game experience. There is a reason the "joking insult" is that DnD is a "Magical Elf Game" instead of a "Fantasy Kingdom Simulator" or "Historical War Game" A large part of the appeal of DnD is the vast array of races, both that you play as and that you fight. Comparing it to Call of Cthulu, which is based on a series of novels and stories about Humans and Cosmic Horror, is just not a good argument, no matter how you try and make this about "why is it okay for the company to make these restrictions"

Yeah, sorry, not everyone sees D&D as a genre, they see it just a rule system among many others. It has rules for a lot of stuff, and not everything needs to be used any more than everything GURPS has rules for needs to be used in in one campaign.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Even then it's mostly about a few of them. Tolkeinesque ones plus Gnomes, Half Orcs, Half Elves.

I'm sorry. I really, really am. But the pedantic Tolkien loving trivia nerd in me cannot not keep his mouth shut:

"Well, actually, there are half elves and half orcs in Tolkien."

Again, I am sorry. Even I want to punch me right now.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm sorry. I really, really am. But the pedantic Tolkien loving trivia nerd in me cannot not keep his mouth shut:

"Well, actually, there are half elves and half orcs in Tolkien."

Again, I am sorry. Even I want to punch me right now.

I know that, not sure about casual players.

It's a tolkeinesque facsimile not a simulation of his world.

At least that's the D&D core for most people imho.

 

[Don Durito]

I'm still not getting it.

The argument seems to be "people expect D&D to have elves". Fine. So if I say, "my campaign of D&D doesn't have evles", then you know not to expect elves. Just like you know not to expect elves in Call of Cthulhu.

And yes of course the players can just walk. As can the DM. What else is there to say? The DM should allow elves even if they don't want to? Why? Are they being paid? If they don't have to run the game unless they choose to, then everyone involved, players and gms can set whatever conditions they like. What else is there?

If the GM has some kind of moral obligation to include elves, what is it based on? Fidelity to corporate branding? Some kind of weird semantics?

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm still not getting it.

The argument seems to be "people expect D&D to have elves". Fine. So if I say, "my campaign of D&D doesn't have evles", then you know not to expect elves. Just like you know not to expect elves in Call of Cthulhu.

And yes of course the players can just walk. As can the DM. What else is there to say? The DM should allow elves even if they don't want to? Why? Are they being paid? If they don't have to run the game unless they choose to, then everyone involved, players and gms can set whatever conditions they like. What else is there?

If the GM has some kind of moral obligation to include elves, what is it based on? Fidelity to corporate branding? Some kind of weird semantics?

They are a core race, you are into houserule territory there.

You could do it but I would expect less player interest for that one.

If you had a tier list of popular races I guess elves would be up there.

I wouldn't argue with you if you said no elves though.