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

[Maxperson]

The point is that the DM always gets to pick as they do the most work and players are encouraged to compromise or take 2nd or 3rd choices die to the fears surrounding scarcity.

But they like those choices or they wouldn't play. End of story. Unless the person is crazy or a masochist, in which case they're probably enjoying it anyway.

The DM chooses. Players can only accept. Such a dynamic allows some DMs to be obstinate.

Some very rare DMs, sure. The vast majority are not that obstinate and work with the players.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, Fey, so they aren't like horses.

Maybe fey horses ave cloven hooves. Can you prove otherwise?

Yes. And I have. The centaur on page 10 has no cloven hoof. It's like.........................a horse! The one on page 88 is even more clearly a horse hoof. You ready to concede the point yet?

Also, I'm looking at the Ravnica book, no horse hooves. And it does say they have a "horse-like body" and says "equine".

It says horse.

"Centaurs have the upper bodies, down to the waist, of muscular humans, displaying all the human variety of skin tones and features. Their ears are slightly pointed, but their faces are wider and squarer than those of elves. Below the waist, they have the bodies of small horses"

Now, that is interesting, because the Equine family extends to more than just modern horses. In fact, the ancient predeccesor to the modern horse, Eohippus, had multiple toes. Since they only need an odd-number to be in the same ungulate family, it is entirely possible that the Fey Centaur evolved from that older version of the horse, and kept multiple toes on their feet, probably as an adaption to the terrain of the Feywild rarely having the large open plains that the larger modern horse evolved into.

So, seems like it could go either way. Interesting how that works out.

Yes it is interesting. It works out something like this.

Ravnica book: Centaurs are fey and have horse bodies and horse hooves.
You: It says Fey! That means that they are not like horses and have cloven hooves.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That is compromise.

No, that is one party setting the terms and saying, “take it or leave it”. To be compromise, the other party would have to have some input.

Of course, since, in your example, players play with friends, they probably wouldn't go directly against their friend's request in the first place. And since bending engenders trust, and the parameters were clear to begin with, it would probably be the player that would stay within the parameters, you know, to engender trust.

Or, the DM wouldn’t create an inflexible campaign without input from their friends, and part of the campaign “pitch meeting” (which is often a series of conversations over time, not an actual meeting) is player input about what they actually want to play.

 

[Scott Christian]

Well Yes. I got my current group together that way. But I also tried another game with random participants on Roll20 (something to do over lockdown) and ditched it after two sessions because the players were wanting to pick each others pockets and tedious crap like that and their only response to most NPCs was to want to kill them.

In reality, ditching your current group, assuming you have one, and finding a completely new group - is a far from guaranteed option. It certainly doesn't ensure you'll be able to run the game that "you really, really, really, want to run".

It may be easy, due to scarcity, to find players who will agree to a specific premise. That doesn't mean that the game will end up being actually fun to GM.

That is a bummer Don. I am sorry that happened. Unless it has been people I know, Roll20 has been hit or miss. A few good one shot sessions, but one campaign of strangers I tried to join was just not for me. I logged in the third time (I was a player) and just explained it wasn't the game for me. They understood and we parted ways. Still, it was kind of deflating.
(In case anyone is curious, the groups combat took over an hour and a half - at 2nd level. Just too slow for my taste.)

 

[Scott Christian]

Because the idea of finding the shades of grey and even light in an evil boogeyman is infinitely more appealing to me than a flat black generic always evil humanoid cardboard cutout.

It is thrilling an entertaining to discover WHY the bad guys are bad and what you can do to find some common ground with them rather than just say "It's a drow, man the harpoon and aim for the head."

So, if there is room for a way to explore those shades of grey (by incorporating a human looking raised from a baby by humans drow) you give your story and villains a third dimension. I've seen Oofta describe them many times as "the boogeyman you scare your kids to sleep with" however finding out if it's genetically ingrained, magically compelled, or just culturally accepted for them to be vicious is literally oozing your curated campaign background onto the players via an engaged PC.

My proposed Drow Moses isnt created to be obstructionist to Ooftas wishes, it's an attempt at exploring one aspect of his world that's HIS creation different from the standard. I wod think as a GM you would want your players to find reason to do that more than killing them and taking their stuff.

Three questions:

• Can you still have fun playing a different character that is within the list of 12?
• If there is a comparable race that has shades of gray that is on the list, would they do?
• And the most important: why choose a drow as a player (why even come up with a Moses backstory) when you specifically were told they are off limits?

I like your drow idea. I really do. I think it would be a cool intro to any FR campaign I ran. I like exploring the nuances of evil, and how sometimes evil acts come from good intentions and vice-a-versa. I like character motive. I think it is one of the single most important aspects for anyone trying to RP. But until question three gets answered, you (not you personally, but the fictitious player creating the drow) has no leg to stand on. They are breaching the social contract from the start.

And I will state it again:
Can they ask? Yes.
Should the DM consider? Yes.
In the end the DM has the final say.

 

[Scott Christian]

Depends.

I might want to be a race to explore it's niche in the fiction OR I might want to be a race that has a breath weapon and fits a theme unrelated to the fiction. It could be both.

I wanted to play a primitive warrior in ToA because having a character living in the jungles of Chult is super thematic.

I didnt want to use magic or wear armor so my best option to fit the theme was monk. I filed off the karate bits and reskinned the powers to be primal instead. I then picked Wood Elf as my race strictly for the faster move speed and useful stat bonuses.

So my character concept is half thematic and half mechanical and the end result is a PC that makes sense in the setting is effective in battle, and is fun to play outside of combat.

I like all this. I appreciate all this, both as a player and DM. (We are in Chult right now!) But, if the DM put the restriction on something (I assume they didn't), why not try to fit within those boundaries? Maybe they have something equally as thematic for you, and unless people fit within their niche, they can't pull it off. Just a thought. Again, no one way is better or right.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Both of which are 4-5 times lighter than the centaur, have slight builds, and specialized hooves. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Big horn sheep averages 315 lbs.

Ravnica Centaur averages about 660. So, they are barely twice as heavy, and no where near four or five times as heavy. They are also likely both medium, so in DnD terms they have similar builds. And we've already been discussing hooves.

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Which is part of what I was saying.

Yet, somehow, the other position seems to be that virtually anything should be allowed and that having a limit somehow means the DM (or worldbuilder) is somehow in the wrong.

I would agree that most DMs should make some effort to accommodate something, but I also believe that there are justifiable reasons for saying something does not fit.

If you think that is the opposing position, then you haven't been listening to the multiple times we have said that that is not our position.

Further (as a few others have mentioned,) where those lines are for a person may change depending upon setting, genre, or other factors. But the lines still (typically exist).

Lines exist, but not everything you think is past the line for the genre is something the player thinks is past the line for the genre.

Shifters exist in Tolkien. Beorn is a blatant example. So bringing a shifter to a Tolkien game is not crossing the line. Yet, some DMs claim that it is, and that trying to play one is disrespectful to the DM, and the player just wanting to be a special snowflake and break the rules they laid out.

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Seems like a no brainer, that you as a DM, could say no changelings because it is lazy storytelling. Even if the character had a cool concept. But, you would be wrong according to some. They would pin that into "I just don't like it." I would pin it in, "story purposes." It seems legi to me. But, I doubt that is how some will see it.

At what point are you calling the player's concept for the Changeling lazy storytelling?

I mean, haven't you said there should be no judgements from either side, but a player going to @Johnny3D3D 's table with a Changeling character, wanting to explore the tension between a character with multiple identities seems like they are going to get told "No, that is lazy storytelling and I won't allow it." or "I know you are just trying to disrupt the game at the worst possible times, no I won't allow it."

Both of those seem like judging the player and their character solely for being interested in the Changeling story.

And what if the DM says "That would cause a lot of changes to the security apparatus's of the various nations, and I don't want to deal with that much work." and the player's response is "Actually, I've been thinking about anti-changeling security, here are the ideas I've had". If they are doing a lot of the work... should they still be told no because it is too much work for the DM?

This is why I keep pressing. Because while you claim that your side is the only side saying "no judgements" or "think about the extra work for the DM" you seem to constantly be judging (centaurs are silly, Changelings are lazy, this player is just trying to break the rules to feel special) and not open to the possibility that the player might be willing to do quite a bit of the work.

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Yes. And I have. The centaur on page 10 has no cloven hoof. It's like.........................a horse! The one on page 88 is even more clearly a horse hoof. You ready to concede the point yet?

page 10 has a loxodon, a simic hybrid and human. No centaur.

The one on 88 doesn't show enough of the hoof to tell if it is split or not. It looks like it might be a normal hoof, but a normal hoof wouldn't allow the climb speed that the Centaur is explicitly given, and it could be something else.

It says horse.

"Centaurs have the upper bodies, down to the waist, of muscular humans, displaying all the human variety of skin tones and features. Their ears are slightly pointed, but their faces are wider and squarer than those of elves. Below the waist, they have the bodies of small horses"

So? An Eohippus is still a horse. And the Centaur could have zebra style colorations, something we see quite often in depictions of ancient horses. Who, by the way, tended to be smaller.

So, this doesn't prove anything.

Yes it is interesting. It works out something like this.

Ravnica book: Centaurs are fey and have horse bodies and horse hooves.
You: It says Fey! That means that they are not like horses and have cloven hooves.

Or, how about what I'm actually saying.

Since they are fey, maybe their bodies are closer to ancient horses which had different hoof structures.

That way, instead of you just saying "these rules are stupid, I am going to ignore them, because modern horse hooves don't work that way" you can say "okay, the rules work if I assume X"

 

[Don Durito]

From my perspective as a player - it would seem much more fun to talk with the DM about the game and go back and forth to see what I can play. "Ok so the Tribe of the Elk is a big part of this setting - maybe I can be an exiled member of the Tribe of the Elk. Hmmm there all human though, I don't really want to be human - are there any elves around? Maybe I can be half-elf - perhaps that could be part of why they've exiled me." Now I fit the setting and I've got a good role-playing hook - I'm bitter about the tribe of the elk, but also would really like them to accept me - and it's not meaningless background because I'm likely to actually encounter them in the course of the game.

This seems to me the first step of collaboration. It's a game we play together - it just seems very odd to me for players to come to a game and what to fit in a character they're pumped to play for reasons completely independent of the specific game they're going to play. I mean even if it's an adventure path - if you said "We're playing Curse of Strahd" I'd be starting to think about based on what I knew already what would be a fun character for this type of game - I certainly wouldn't be thinking "Great, I made this character a while ago who is an orphaned Tabaxi monk from a south-east Asian culture. Now is the chance to play it". Not that it couldn't work - but it wouldn't seem the most fitting showcase for that character - and it's really not hard to come up with new character ideas.

I also don't think I would get very far with a game if the GM just said, "play what you like, it doesn't matter" and there not being a conversation about what would fit the game and what wouldn't. To me this would be an indication that characters are basically just interchangeable tokens.

This is a paradox I've seen before. A player wants to jam a very specific character they've created into a game where the concept is not particularly meaningful- and then if they succeed they are visibily disatisfied because their character's story is not meaningfully engaged. The background they wrote for their exiled Tabaxi son of a far away sultantate who longs to return home and defeat the Rakshasha who have taken it over, doesn't amount to anything in Icewind Dale.

 

[Scott Christian]

No, that is one party setting the terms and saying, “take it or leave it”. To be compromise, the other party would have to have some input.

It is, in your terms, the DM bending. Bending was good remember?
But, it is exactly as I keep insisting it is - which is why I keep asking questions instead of trying to give examples. Because the reality is: The DM is wrong if they don't concede to the player. That is your take. Every question I have given, you, Chaos and others have simply refused to answer or... answered and then changed your answer. Call it varying levels of degrees or whatever. But, the perspective from the DM side is - no matter how we bend, we are not bending enough unless we concede to the player. And, in many cases, when we are not conceding the following words have been used to describe us:
"Unimaginative"
"Control Freaks"
"Edgelords"
"Diluted" (As in our worlds)
"Silly and Poor Reasoning"
"Using Arbitrary Nonsense"

And the list goes on.

If I am wrong about this concession, then I will admit it. But, after being asked twenty times about why a DM should ban something - and giving reasons upon reasons - only to see the reasons just not be quite good enough. Then the reasons are not valid for one some people on one side. I just simply wish they would come out and say it. Oofta, Max, myself and others have stated our thesis a hundred times. Ours differ. But we have stated them. For some reason, the player side, without throwing in a bunch of clauses and partially acceptable phrases, can't do this.

And the thing that really grinds my gears is none of you will answer why the player would do this if they know up front exactly what they are allowed and not allowed to play based on the DM giving clear guidelines. Why would they do this?
(Edit: One person did answer and I do appreciate it.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And the thing that really grinds my gears is none of you will answer why the player would do this if they know up front exactly what they are allowed and not allowed to play based on the DM giving clear guidelines. Why would they do this?

Why would they do what? Advocate for themselves?

I’ll get back to the rest later. Working now.