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

[Oofta]

I'm not saying old school bores players.
I'm saying DMs who just cut and paste the same things over and over with no expression of inspiration by definition is Not Fresh.
...

What does that have anything to do with races (or other options) allowed? Because it seems like you keep trying to make a connection that simply isn't there.

Boring DMs are boring. Wow. Shocker.

 

[Scott Christian]

So, I think everyone agrees there is a problem at B and C.

Good. We agree.

At this point after pulling teeth for a week, it seems that everyone is on board with D and E. D is a bit mutable, but seeing as how we are talking generally, and people will bring up half-dragon vampires and the like, I can assume that the listening part includes enough discussion to be reasonable.

Awesome. We agree again.

F is tricky, because without knowing why the conflict is occurring it is hard to say who I would agree with.

Bummer. We disagree.

A is also tricky for me, because there is little context, it is also in a vaccuum. Making a list isn't a problem, how you use it might be.

I think context does make A vague. But, I posed it that way on purpose. One DM might make the list because they don't want a player playing a centaur because they think it will slow the game down too much or leave the player out in many circumstances. The other DM might not want a centaur because they are not in their "curated" world. And another might just think it is stupid. But in the end, does the reason really matter? (Real question)

Okay, but you are missing a lot of different factors here.

First of all, you are ignoring the fact that the entire game is run by and played by professional actors. That is a big factor in people's entertainment.

Secondly, many of the cast members (if memory serves) would say that the game they are playing is their first time playing DnD. I know Matt played before, and Liam was the one who proposed the game, but I'm pretty sure that Sam played for the first time when he made Scanlan. Might have been the same for the others.

Minigiant on the other hand, seems to be a person who, like a few of the people on this thread, have been playing DnD consistently for decades. They might be bored playing an elf, because they've been playing for 20 years. They've seen dozens of elves.

Finally, Tal'Dorie, the world, is not restricted in the same sense. Between Exandria and Wildemount, I think the majority of the options are there explicitly.

I don't watch the show. So I do not know the backstory. What I do know are the scenes that I have watched (including a clip prior to them actually becoming a show), showed players and a DM having fun - with traditional races, i.e. the PHB. So my point was it is incorrect to make sweeping generalizations about the player base being bored with the PHB's standard array. Critical Role was evidence of this.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I thought I'd post a thread-fork for "pizza as race" here-

D&D General - Races as Pizzas ... Put in your Contributions

In order to move away from contentious discussions about players and/or player haters, I thought I'd fork the best conversation I'd seen recently into its own thread. Admittedly, there is some danger in using the word "fork" anywhere in proximity to the word "pizza" but I am willing to take that...

www.enworld.org

This is a topic too important to be shoehorned into this thread!

 

[Minigiant]

What does that have anything to do with races (or other options) allowed? Because it seems like you keep trying to make a connection that simply isn't there.

Boring DMs are boring. Wow. Shocker.

Boring DMs are more likely to copy others work.

Unfortunately the more famous settings have fewer races.

It's not about restrictions per se.

 

[prabe]

Boring DMs are more likely to copy others work.

The great DMs, of course, just outright steal others' work. ;-)

 

[Scott Christian]

I'm not saying old school bores players.
I'm saying DMs who just cut and paste the same things over and over with no expression of inspiration by definition is Not Fresh.

It's just like the other thread about traditional races and dwarves. Lazy, uninspired, or uninspiring DMs are ruining dwarves for many players. So a large percentage of dwarves are played by goofs and hardcore power gamers.

Bad DMs are ruining the player base for good DMs.
Bad Players are ruining the DM base for good players.

That is not how your initial post read. But thank you for clarifying.

So you are saying DM's that make a dwarf use a Scottish accent and distrustful of outsiders or new people are ruining the player base? And players that model their elven ranger after Legolas are ruining the DM base?

If that is the case, all I can say is, in my experience, people dig a lot deeper than those initial qualities when playing an entire campaign. To make them one notes shows a lack of circumstance or desire. I guess I am just lucky. I play with people that utilize some of the "stereotypical" qualities, yet also make the character interesting through individual qualities not noted as stereotypical. Because it is possible; to use the stereotypical cultural description in the PHB for the dwarven people and also use the ideals, bonds and flaws that don't follow the traditional culture.

Like I said, maybe I am just lucky.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That is not how your initial post read. But thank you for clarifying.

So you are saying DM's that make a dwarf use a Scottish accent and distrustful of outsiders or new people are ruining the player base? And players that model their elven ranger after Legolas are ruining the DM base?

If that is the case, all I can say is, in my experience, people dig a lot deeper than those initial qualities when playing an entire campaign. To make them one notes shows a lack of circumstance or desire. I guess I am just lucky. I play with people that utilize some of the "stereotypical" qualities, yet also make the character interesting through individual qualities not noted as stereotypical. Because it is possible; to use the stereotypical cultural description in the PHB for the dwarven people and also use the ideals, bonds and flaws that don't follow the traditional culture.

Like I said, maybe I am just lucky.

I think that sometimes, we can be too harsh in our judgments.

Most people (I'm being general- not all) start RPGs by modeling stereotypes, archetypes, or specific characters. It's easier to "play as yourself (or idealized version of yourself)" and then move on to "playing as someone you want to be." It's about learning the process of roleplaying. It takes a while to get to the stage of inventing an entire new persona, and playing as that persona.

This happens, even moreso, with a lot of DMs as they learn to do it; instead of modeling one character, they have to play as all the NPCs and monsters.

 

[Oofta]

Boring DMs are more likely to copy others work.

Unfortunately the more famous settings have fewer races.

It's not about restrictions per se.

The single most popular campaign setting is The Forgotten Realms which has always been designed as a catch-all campaign that allows for everything. The most popular D&D stream is CR which has a ton of races, including IIRC some unique ones (or was that just classes?).

Eberron? That has everything, and unique spins on traditional races. Planescape? That had everything. Dark Sun? It was interesting because it was different but did the implementation different than Eberron. Dragonlance? Well, it's been a decade since that petered out. Greyhawk? Well, now you're talking even older.

So I don't know what claim you're making. Well, I do have a clue. You want to associate curated worlds with boring. Say it often enough and people might think there's a causation that doesn't exist.

On the other hand if you're saying that FR can be just boring generic mush at times then we agree.

 

[Minigiant]

The single most popular campaign setting is The Forgotten Realms which has always been designed as a catch-all campaign that allows for everything. The most popular D&D stream is CR which has a ton of races, including IIRC some unique ones (or was that just classes?).

Eberron? That has everything, and unique spins on traditional races. Planescape? That had everything. Dark Sun? It was interesting because it was different but did the implementation different than Eberron. Dragonlance? Well, it's been a decade since that petered out. Greyhawk? Well, now you're talking even older.

So I don't know what claim you're making. Well, I do have a clue. You want to associate curated worlds with boring. Say it often enough and people might think there's a causation that doesn't exist.

On the other hand if you're saying that FR can be just boring generic mush at times then we agree.

What I am saying is the boring DMs doing kitchen sinks are modelling boring dwarves, elves, and halflings the same way the boring DMs doing themed settings.

The noticeable difference is that the second group is the one saying No to players more. So they look worse in player's eyes by default.

The exotic races are less touched and thus less stale in the hands of DMs, good and bad.

 

[prabe]

The exotic races are less touched and thus less stale in the hands of DMs, good and bad.

I can think of few things that stale faster than persistently having NPCs unable to get past a character's exoticness. It stales for the player of the exotic, and it stales for the players of the other characters. My point is, bad DMs can stale the "exotic" races just as easily as they've staled the standard ones.