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

[Gammadoodler]

I agree. Your table, run it the way you and your players like. But, if I am the one player that is not happy, shouldn't you bend the rules for me?

Maybe, maybe not. Whole bunch of "it depends" to go around here. But if it is my rule and not a game rule, then your unhappiness is my fault.

It may be something I feel I have good enough reason to keep that I'm willing to let you be unhappy about it. But you can't make the choice for me, so it's my problem.

 

[Richards]

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?

I've always envisioned a centaur's "human" torso as being filled with massive, horse-sized lungs and an equivalent heart, while the digestive system was housed in the horse part. That means a rather long esophagus in the human part, but so be it.

Your centaurs may be built differently, but that's always been how mine work.

Johnathan

 

[Gammadoodler]

That absolutely does not hold for everybody here. You're assuming that the game rules are always the final word on what happens in the fiction for every DM, which most certainly is not the case.

Not really. What I'm saying is that the game rules are the only defined basis for the expectations for the physical reality of the settings. They need not be the final rule, but everything beyond them or contradicting them results from DMs preferences for how the world should work for them.

I think this distinction may make it clearer, stuff like centaur climb impossibility or uncapped falling damage or whatever, may make a setting more Earthlike, but it doesn't make it more realistic. The game isn't set on Earth though. There's no greater or lesser merit for making the setting more Earthlike.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Yes. And this is the actual reason I don't want them into my settings. They're just too silly to exist.

 

[Maxperson]

Not really. What I'm saying is that the game rules are the only defined basis for the expectations for the physical reality of the settings. They need not be the final rule, but everything beyond them or contradicting them results from DMs preferences for how the world should work for them.

I don't agree entirely. A lot of it is implied. The existence of gravity and basic physics for example. A lot of rules make use of those, so they exist in the game world even if not explicitly stated.

I think this distinction may make it clearer, stuff like centaur climb impossibility or uncapped falling damage or whatever, may make a setting more Earthlike, but it doesn't make it more realistic. The game isn't set on Earth though. There's no greater or lesser merit for making the setting more Earthlike.

This is really group dependent. In my group, the merit is absolutely greater as that is what we prefer. We don't want to make it identical to reality, but we want it to be more realistic than the game's default.

 

[Jack Daniel]

The game isn't set on Earth though. There's no greater or lesser merit for making the setting more Earthlike.

Not always, and yes there can be.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I don't agree entirely. A lot of it is implied. The existence of gravity and basic physics for example. A lot of rules make use of those, so they exist in the game world even if not explicitly stated.

This is really group dependent. In my group, the merit is absolutely greater as that is what we prefer. We don't want to make it identical to reality, but we don't want it to be more realistic than the game's default.

My response was to the contention that the game rules don't define the physical laws. My original assertion was that the only defined physical "laws" are those the game rules bring in. So I think we're just agreeing here?

No objective merit as defined in reference to 'reality'. Tuning your setting's physical behavior to your group's preferences is within your purview. Tuning your setting to be more Earthlike, makes it more physically relatable to your players, but doesn't make it any more coherent.

 

[Maxperson]

My response was to the contention that the game rules don't define the physical laws. My original assertion was that the only defined physical "laws" are those the game rules bring in. So I think we're just agreeing here?

The game rules don't really define gravity, but falling, flight and more imply gravity. We're almost agreeing, but not quite.

 

[Oofta]

If the game world doesn't assume basic laws of physics that are close to ours, the game completely falls apart. I don't know how you could run a game that doesn't have a baseline of reality. Other games may use Looney Tunes logic, Anime logic and so on. But that's not the baseline assumption.

It's up to the DM and the players to decide what makes sense. One of the great things about D&D is that you can adjust it to taste, can go gonzo anything goes or as realistic as you wish.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The game rules don't really define gravity, but falling, flight and more imply gravity. We're almost agreeing, but not quite.

What's your point?