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

[Maxperson]

"But this is rare, so it shouldn't even be discussed" is a poor defense against something that was explicitly brought up by people to talk about player's needing to change their minds.

If someone brought it up in that manner, then I disagree with them. I wouldn't expect a player to go through it any more than I would expect the DM to.

 

[overgeeked]

So...if the DM includes something that's not in the books, that's cheating? Wow. Okay. So nothing that's not from a WOTC approved officially published book. No homebrew anything. Only published modules run exactly as written with no variation because that's cheating. FFS. That sounds like an incredibly imaginative and creative game you play. Thank FLAPPERDOODLE your opinions about how I run my games are irrelevant. I know the internet is the place to just have opinions at other people, but this is ridiculous.

 

[Chaosmancer]

How on earth is that an 'elf' in any meaningful sense? It is a living statue, not an elf.

Because it is an Elf Race, Anvilwrought background.

Or is it not an elf just because it has a unique background?

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Why should your enjoyment be cause to negatively impact my fun for a year or more? Especially when there are tremendously good odds that you can find another race to enjoy playing. It seems petty to insist on harming someone else's game just so that you can play this fun race, rather than that fun race over there.

Since I was speaking as a DM, your response makes zero sense. If my position as a DM is causing your distress, I need to change my position. Why should I force you to leave the game or force you to play something you don't want to play?


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I think it's quite likely specialised equipment wouldn't exist. If centaurs typically stick to open plains or forests then they are unlikely to develop specialised climbing equipment so the PC centaur might be the odd one out when it comes to needing to climb something.

Block and Tackle, PHB equipment.

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Sure, but the rules also say that the rules serve the DM, the DM does not serve the rules. Silly is grounds for immediate change in my game. Neither I nor my players will tolerate things that don't make sense.

"I don't like the official rules"

Well, congrats, still doesn't change the rules as written. So player can call you out that it isn't silly, and you are changing the rules for personal preference.

No. That is not what the rules say. The rules only allow them to carry, push or drag as a large creature, not lift. Pushing and dragging apply to things beyond what you can carry, not yourself. You cannot use that rule to lift yourself up by your human arms. Especially when you consider that they would need all four legs to be able to push or drag effectively.

Ah, they did leave out Lift. My mistake on that.

So, we are just left to all of the other ways to make it work.

But again, we don't allow nonsense at our table. If you want to attach a rope to the centaur's neck and heave, go for it. Maybe the head won't pop off before it chokes to death. If you want to lift one without killing it or ripping an arm out of its socket, you're going to need a horse harness to lift it

Oh no! A horse harness!!

Like... a leather piece that distrubites weight. Something that could be done entirely with rope? Something that is... trivially easy to do.


How nonsensical. I mean, we all know you can't distribute weight with a rope, it has to go around the neck and not around the body.


Oh wait. None of that is true. This is a simple piece of gear that would not only exist, but take only a few moments to improvise.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If someone brought it up in that manner, then I disagree with them. I wouldn't expect a player to go through it any more than I would expect the DM to.

Which was the point, that you drug out over a week of discussing and trying to get me to reveal the "real issue"

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So...if the DM includes something that's not in the books, that's cheating? Wow. Okay. So nothing that's not from a WOTC approved officially published book. No homebrew anything. Only published modules run exactly as written with no variation because that's cheating. FFS. That's sounds like an incredibly imaginative and creative game you play. Thank naughty word your opinions about how I run my games are irrelevant. I know the internet is the place to just have opinions at other people, but this is ridiculous.

First, language

Second, that is not what I said. But, if you are changing the rules solely to inconvenience another player, instead of running the rules as written... yeah, that is kind of cheating.

Like saying that you can't use rope to make a harness for the Centaur, and so a block and tackle wouldn't work. That is cheating. Nothing in the rules or in common sense prevents that, you just don't like the work around.

Making a boat immediately capsize when the centaur gets in, despite them not putting it over capacity, or lacking room for them, would be cheating. Because there is no reason for it to happen.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because it is an Elf Race, Anvilwrought background.

What does that mean? Is this 'elf' physically a flesh and blood elf, do they have elf parents, do they come from an elf culture? Besides mechanics, what similarity they have to an elf from say, Forgotten Realms?

 

[Oofta]

Why do you always want to make every single thing about an attack on you?

You made a general statement that applies to every DM. It's not about me specifically, it applies to every DM that doesn't run their games to your expectations. Don't want people to take as affecting them? Don't make blanket statements.

 

[Maxperson]

Since I was speaking as a DM, your response makes zero sense. If my position as a DM is causing your distress, I need to change my position. Why should I force you to leave the game or force you to play something you don't want to play?

So, you're ignoring that this conversation for 100+ pages has been about both sides. Got it.

 

[Jack Daniel]

sigh

The fact that you even have to ask means you weren't really paying attention.

No, I think the fact that I very much have to ask means that I'm the one paying close attention here. You're making a lot of very telling assumptions.

The DM creates a world, they refuse to let any player do anything to change their world before session 1. Following?

Kosher so far.

Okay, now during the campaign, the players build the Barony of Bob. This is a new thing that they added to the DMs campaign, the thing the DM previously would never have allowed.

It's a thing high-level PCs do all the time.

Then, after that campaign they are starting a new campaign and find out that the Barony of Bob was destroyed utterly by Mel, everything the PCs built and added to the campaign world is erased, and the world is.... back to the status quo the DM set before the last campaign, the thing that they would not allow the players to change.

I never mentioned anything about one campaign ending and another beginning. Or that our Chaotic 15th level magic-user in question was necessarily an NPC under the DM's control. He could have been (since, in a sandbox game, it's incumbent upon the DM to keep track of all the high-level NPCs' plots, comings, and goings, precisely because the PCs aren't privileged over the NPCs—this campaign style largely treats them equally), but then again, he could just as easily have been a player character operating at the same time as Sir Bob the 10th level fighter. Maybe a former party member of Bob's before Bob moved on from dungeon-delving and switched to domain-building; maybe a former member of an entirely different party operating in the same campaign. (Are you working under the assumption here that "a campaign" means that the action only follows one party of tight-knit player characters, all staunch allies and bosom friends, and that only one mostly-stable PC party can be at work in the setting at a time?)

Or, let us say that the build the Barony of Bob, and then at the start of the new campaign, the DM sets the Barony to be the villain of the new campaign, with the player's goal being to destroy the Barony. Which... puts the world back into the status quo that the DM didn't want the players changing.

So there's another set of assumptions here (and in the previous paragraph), that the destruction of Bob's castle must somehow involve villainy on either one side or the other, and that said villainy must have been orchestrated by the DM. And that the DM is "setting" the players' goals. (That one is very odd to me.) And that the DM's goal in doing this is restoring the world's status quo, which is just… telling, again, but not accurate regardless. Because the initial status quo was empty wilderness. If Player #1 builds a barony there, that's the new status quo. And then, if Player #2 (or NPC #743) comes along and destroys that castle, now there's a smoking magical crater there, which is hardly the original status quo. (If the barony had peasants and citizens, it's also an open question as to whether they're all dead now, or conquered by the interloping magic-user, or whatever else. We're getting further and further away from that pristine wilderness!)

To me? This is clearly a sign that the DM being "perfectly willing" to allow the players to change their gameworld through the campaign is a lie and a smokescreen. Because the reality is that the DM is just going to find a way to destroy their contributions and reset the world to how the DM wants it to be.

You're bringing the reset button to this example. (And notably ignoring the other example I gave, of a PC cleric who literally overthrows a DM-created kingdom.) It's all you. It's another curious assumption you're making about this hypothetical DM's motivations.

And that is why it matters. Because if the DM is just going to hand-wave and destroy the things the players made, then have they really allowed the players to affect the world in a meaningful way, or do they just want the status quo of their vision to remain?

All you, buddy. You can posit a DM reset button all you like, and you can draw whatever speculations and accusations from it that you like, but at that point you're just talking to yourself.

I gave some fairly straightforward examples of PC actions that could alter the face of a campaign setting. You're inexplicably fixated on the notion that something a PC does can also be undone (quite possibly by another PC).

 

[Mecheon]

Simple centaur fix: They can bend the human part of their body a good 90 degrees to use those parts to help them climb

I mean, let's be honest. They're hexapodal beings that have the top half and the upper digestive system of an omnivore and the back half and subsequent digestive system of a dedicated herbivore. Where are the lungs? Where's the food go?

Climbing is the least of a centaur's problems from a biological perspective and singling out 'climbing' as the issue seems a bit.... Eh.

 

[overgeeked]

Simple centaur fix: They can bend the human part of their body a good 90 degrees to use those parts to help them climb

I mean, let's be honest. They're hexapodal beings that have the top half and the upper digestive system of an omnivore and the back half and subsequent digestive system of a dedicated herbivore. Where are the lungs? Where's the food go?

Climbing is the least of a centaur's problems from a biological perspective and singling out 'climbing' as the issue seems a bit.... Eh.

Right. Things like how long can they hold their breath? How much more food and water does it take per day for a centaur? But, according to some in the thread, since that info isn't in a WOTC book, it's cheating to even think about it.