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

[Gammadoodler]

I didn't say the centaur couldn't do it. I said it would be problematic. The centaur could fit into the room like you fit in a couch. Lie down, stick torso and first pair of legs in, shimmy until back legs are in, then treat possible scratches and sore spots.

A horse couldn't do that.

In this instance I haven't said anything about your beliefs for what a D&D centaur PC could or couldn't do. And it's pointless for me to do so since you're making up what your version of the centaur can do or not do on the fly.

So if you agree with me it's "well mine works that way"; if you disagree, it's "well that's silly, my table doesn't tolerate absurdities, that would never work at my table". I just don't see how that can be a productive conversation.

 

[Umbran]

"Wild Cards" is a good reference, as your idea is very comic book! I'm getting X-Men mutant vibes from your idea.

For those who are not aware, "Wild Cards" is a shared-world anthology superhero series, edited by George RR Martin, that started back in the 1980s. It has its origin in a 2-year long Superworld RPG campaign Martin ran, with other authors as players. At this point, there's something on the order of 30 books in the series.

An alien virus (called the "Wild Card virus") gets released in New York City in 1946. Not everyone catches the disease, but if you do, there's a 90% chance you die, a 9% chance you "draw the Joker" and get mutated without gaining a lot of superpowers, and a 1% chance you "draw an Ace" and become super-powered. There's a sideline joke about "Deuces" - who get a really crummy power like changing their hair color at will.

 

[Oofta]

Not exactly. It's not about how old you are or how long you've been playing the game. It's about mindset. You can certainly characterize the mindset of "DM as Ultimate Authority" as old school, but as we discussed in this thread 300 pages ago, many DMs back in the 70s and 80s were a lot more open-minded and flexible than some of the folks in this thread. I think it's also been demonstrated in this thread that this isn't a binary thing, but rather a continuum with Ultimate Authority on one end and perhaps a more freeform collaboration on the other.

The DM doing all the heavy lifting with world-building and story generation, and being the "Ultimate Authority" at their table, is a traditional way to play D&D. In part, because D&D in the 70s and 80s was a pretty nerdy past-time, and nerds have a tendency to be obsessive, detail-orientated, and sometimes control freaks. While D&D is a lot more mainstream today with a wider variety of folks playing, the game still attracts some pretty nerdy types. Note: I'm not slamming "nerds", I wear the badge proudly myself. The father of D&D himself, Gygax, started out with a relatively freeform game, but he was definitely "in charge" at his table and he became more "Ultimate Authority" after he published the game, and even more so after publishing AD&D.

Ultimate Authority was the way I played when I was younger, because it was the norm. I didn't like it back then, although I couldn't articulate why. I'm much older now, hopefully wiser, and I don't want to play that way anymore, as a player or as a DM. If I'm invited to a game, I'll put up with a degree of Ultimate Authority, as many folks do still play that way . . . but there are quite a few closed-minded folks in this thread where I'd walk after Session 1. The games I run, will be closer to the open collaboration end of the spectrum as possible. I'm a big fan of the developing Arium: Create ruleset, a collaborative RPG that is both standalone and can be used with other games like D&D.

You say you don't believe in DM as ultimate authority, but what does that mean to you?

Some examples:

• Specific game rules: take (random thing that has come up based on text that could be interpreted multiple ways) Heat metal. If cast on armor player says "they are at disadvantage as long as I maintain concentration". DM says "the way I interpret it, the target gets a con save every round to see if they're at disadvantage". Or even the DM banning/modifying the spell. How do you resolve this?
• Playable options: player says they're playing a tortle. DM says no to anthropomorphic races. Does it matter if the rest of the group is also against anthropomorphic races?
• Player disagreeing on power level: Player says they're chosen of their god so their god helps out in ways that are not indicated by the rules (see also specific game rules). How do you resolve that?
• World building: player points to a spot on the map and makes up a kingdom and story. DM says that conflicts with previous lore or doesn't fit the campaign such as a highly technologically advanced civilization in a low technology world.
• Player wants to play a gunslinger with 6-shooters in a world where guns don't exist.

I would assume that in most games the DM and player would try to work something out, but what if they can't?

Some of these examples come from my personal experience - including a guy who thought he could run so fast that he could create a tornado like The Flash or the guy who wanted to play a half-dragon half-vampire. I had a guy who worshipped Odin who insisted that since Odin "saw all" he could find anyone in the world just by calling up his buddy on speed dial.

Not saying what you're doing is right or wrong, it's just not anything I've seen in real life. In my experience someone simply has to be the referee at times.

 

[Maxperson]

In this instance I haven't said anything about your beliefs for what a D&D centaur PC could or couldn't do. And it's pointless for me to do so since you're making up what your version of the centaur can do or not do on the fly.

So if you agree with me it's "well mine works that way"; if you disagree, it's "well that's silly, my table doesn't tolerate absurdities, that would never work at my table". I just don't see how that can be a productive conversation.

It's not much. Just assume large size, not fey, and can't walk up walls and ropes. I personally wouldn't make a centaur roll for normal stairs, though it would be slow going.

 

[Umbran]

2) Petty adversarial DMing of a type I’ve not seen IRL since I was a kid.

Yeah. Seems a lot like punishing the player. Is that what you really want to do as a GM?

 

[Gammadoodler]

I didn't say they couldn't do it and you know I didn't say they couldn't do it. Here's what I wrote:



Difficult, not impossible.

You want to play a centaur? Fine. Have at it.

First, give me a DC 15 DEX check to go up the stairs. Fail by more than 5 and you break a tread because you weigh 2,000 lbs. It's not a question of can a horse walk up stairs; it's a question of whether wooden steps can hold a horse's weight.

For comparison, 29 CFR 1910.24(c) states; "Fixed stairways shall be designed and constructed to carry a load of five times the normal live load anticipated but never of less strength than to carry safely a moving concentrated load of 1,000 pounds" [emphasis added]." Therefore, with respect to the design calculation, the normal live load is spread over the whole stair tread area and the moving concentrated load is considered to be a point load applied at a location on the stair system where the maximum stress would be experienced by the system (the 1000 lbs loading criteria is a minimum).

Now, are this inn's stairs up to OSHA code? (fun exercise: read about moving long gun safes into basements - the safe weighs 1,000 lbs and the people weigh another 600 lbs)

Mazel tov! You made it upstairs. Now, give me a DC19 DEX check to come down the stairs. Why? Again, because you weigh 2,000 lbs and are now trying to walk down those wooden stairs with the lower body of a horse. You are trying to put your hooves on 11" treads (at the deepest) and assuming the risers are even. If the treads are shallower, maybe a DC 20. If the risers are uneven, DC 22.

Can a horse walk up stairs? If the stairs are strong enough to hold a horse, sure, with difficulty. Can a horse walk down stairs? Yes. With extensive training. Without extensive training, it's damned hard to do and a misstep will cause injury to the horse and the stairs.

Like I said, the centaur is going to have a bitch of a time.

For the record, I enjoy discussions regarding the scale of common objects and spaces in D&D settings. I think it's something I've seen a lot of DMs fail to address, and it's something that absolutely would be reflected in a place with various sizes of sentient folk running around.

That said, this particular adjudication reads like trolling. Like are you forcing athletics checks for halflings to ascend barstools? (Or dex checks for humans to avoid tripping over halfling-appropriate barstools)

 

[Remathilis]

A lot of this centaur discussion reminds me of the older methods of handling monster races: don't ban them, but make it REALLY inconvenient to play them. D&D has used all manner of methods to keep them unplayable: lizardfolk needing to constantly be damp, aquatic races only able to breathe for a few hours out of water, "large" races unable to use found magical weapons and armor, underdark races losing their magic powers (but not thier light penalty) on the surface, and of course the unholy abomination that was racial HD and level adjustment. All of the trap options made to discourage players from playing outside the Tolkien box of races.

I'm glad the game had mostly moved away from the "balanced by crippling penalties" method of racial design.

 

[Sock Puppet]

Why do people chose these races?

Because they want to be special.
Because in real life they're anything but.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Because they want to be special.
Because in real life they're anything but.

Obvious troll account is obvious

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There is no old or new guard on here. Nor is there new or old thinking. I have mentioned this before, but I've ran the high school D&D club in several schools for quite a while now. They play whatever they want, until the DM has an idea for their world, and then they don't play whatever they want. It literally is that simple. One DM had an idea that they were all half-orcs, captured after a long war. They started on a prisoner ship. The players all made half-orcs. Simple. No fuss. No mess. The other table had every race under the sun - because the DM didn't set a restriction.

By the way, this isn't me explaining to them the DM has this control. This is them reading the books and inherently understanding what the PHB and DMG is saying.

My own experience with running D&D groups at the library for kids suggest to me that you have more influence than you realize, or there are conversations happening that you aren’t seeing.

Or, perhaps there are enough short campaigns that no one feels any loss at playing something they’re not that interested in.

But when I observe kids play D&D, they are much more collaborative, much more into their OCs, much more willing to compromise and play a campaign conceived of by the group in a conversation, than most adults I’ve seen.

And less willing to accept what they see as bad calls by the DM.

Why would setting specific rules apply to any other setting?

They are the only official rules for playing a centaur, so they’re the only playable centaur rules we can reasonably discuss. No one is interested in discussing whether a thing makes sense with your personal homebrew centaur that will never actually exist.

Yeah. Seems a lot like punishing the player. Is that what you really want to do as a GM?

Yeah, saying no would be better in pretty much every way, but I’d just not even consider it a good idea to play in a campaign where that sort of thinking is employed.