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

[Chaosmancer]

That is not an error. There is no illogical thinking. Because I state 1 doesn't mean we have to consider 0. And good for Guild Wars. Mario World is pretty popular too. Along with Final Fantasy and Bloodborne and that Horizon game where you hunt mechanical dinosaurs (that is what they look like, I have only seen previews). Samurai Jack is popular. None of those are like Tolkien. Should D&D, which has 45 years of lore, ditch it all to become new?

The problem isn't that, but the opposite.

Just because something is new, why can't we reference it?

Gygax referenced Conan because he liked Conan. He referenced Three Hearts and Three Lions because he liked that novel. He created worlds based on the media he liked. Why can't we do the same in the modern era? Why must we stick the same formulas we have been using.

And Honestly, I don't even need to reference us bringing in new influences like Bloodborne or anything like that. Why is it that despite being in the game for forty years Lizardfolk and Tabaxi are still "weird" It doesn't all have to be abadoning the old, it can be focusing on new uses of old things. It can be figuring out how old and new combine.

DnD settings aren't really zero sum. They don't need to be abandoned for us to come up with things that appeal to the newer generations.

I am very glad you think this. That is awesome. Because that is the exact reasoning I gave for why a DM would limit races in their campaign world - because it doesn't make sense! (Full circle.) Yet, notion after notion was insisted that the DM can simply wave their hand and create a race. Or the DM can bend and alter their world without so much of a thought.

Okay, but you are conflating "They don't do the work to make it make sense, so it makes no sense" with "It doesn't make sense to have them now, and I don't feel like putting in the work"

Those are two very different problems.

Can we do a thought experiment please? Pretty please?

Our average campaign lasts nine months. We play two sessions a month. Four hour sessions. Eighteen sessions at four hours each. A total of 72 hours. Out of that 72 hours probably 40 of it is combat (that is close to a table average for most I believe). We are left with 32 hours. Knock off 10 for horseplay; talking shop, personal talk, eating, people using the restroom. Now we have 22 hours. Out of that 22 hours of exploration and roleplaying, how often does the DM get to talk. 30% of the time. Maybe 40%. A verbose DM would be at 50%. We'll take 50% - 11 hours. 11 hours to flesh out a world, different settings, different people, different creatures, different cultures, etc.

This is the reason to use a standard setting. A descent DM (in my opinion) can weave their non-bearded dwarves who live in sky castles and ride balloons into the setting. But there is a lot of ground to cover, especially if you have a huge backstory and relationships to other races. A good DM (in my opinion) can weave those dwarves into relevant combat scenarios to show their culture. A great DM (in my opinion) can weave it into the personal talk at the table without it being disruptive or rude.

But the thought is that is not a lot of time. A DM can just as easily decide to spend their fifty hour work time on building appropriate dungeon designs or thinking about the ecology of the creatures that inhabit the plainlands or building memorable NPCs or writing character arcs for their players' PC's. Why fault them for this?

I don't think it is a matter of faulting, I'm not going to blame someone for having little time.

But if you have little time, then why also act offended if someone isn't into your generic work? And, while you say 11 hours, I'll remind you of a fact of Oofta's world.

20 years in the same world. If every year (about) is a new campagain that takes it to 220 hours. Now, clearly that is an extreme example, but it highlights a minor problem. The generic campaign world can be the longest running, with the most put into it... and if it is still generic, that is a problem.

(And before Oofta starts ranting at me again, no I am not claiming his world is generic. I am passing no judgements on his world. I literally just wanted to reference a real life example of a long running campaign world, and his was convenient to remember. This is not a personal attack, a judgement, or anything else. I just took the number.)

 

[Chaosmancer]

If that is true, then what does that logically tell you? It tells me that those that are tired of dwarves and elves are in the minority. It tells me that the vast number of people who play like what D&D is doing with elves and dwarves.

Sure, but "majority" doesn't mean much when the minority can still be 40% of the audience.

Edit: And if the majority doesn't limit anything, then it could be the minority enforcing limits that the majority doesn't care for. After all, not everyone does limit character races at all.

 

[Maxperson]

"There is a reason, you don't know it" does not cover you as a writer. Much like a DM's notes, until it is in front of the reader, any background details like that don't exist.

That is why you constantly get a stream of "Why? This doesn't make any sense" when dealing with movies and books that do not provide the proper context for characters, actions and plot. Because if the context was there, it would make sense. Assuming it must make sense with the proper context doesn't help the reader, because the author's job is to provide that context.

Sure. I get that. It's better for at least some reason to be given in a book. Not so much with DM's notes, though. Presumably that information is discoverable if the PCs search for it, so if they don't have it, it's probably because they didn't try or didn't try hard enough to figure it out.

"There's a reason that you don't know about." is still very different from, "The reason for the hatred is because there is hatred." One has a reason and the other doesn't, even if you know the same amount of information in both cases.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Hey, you're the one who said it. And, note, I'm not the only one who called you out for it. If that's not what you meant, then you need to be clearer because at least three people (myself included) took it to mean exactly what I said.

I meant exactly what I said. Everyone here who's complaining that elves and dwarves are boring and lazy and chained to the corpse of a dead writer simply don't get to complain when, five or ten years from now, tieflings and dragonborn are staid and dull and overplayed and solely the province of hidebound traditionalists. At that point, nobody will like them because they're new and fresh; they'll lump them in with old and boring.

Enjoy the New Car Smell while it's fresh, because it won't last.

(Hell, cat-people are already a dead horse trope if you have even one weeb in your gaming group.)

And you were most definitely attacking a strawman when you tried to put these words in my mouth: "people who play Tolkienesque races do so for the deep role playing and everyone else is just doing it wrong." If you've been following this thread at all, you should know that from the earliest, I've maintained that Tolkien races and "exotic" races are both crutches, and players who want "deep role-playing" play humans. I don't appreciate my views being mischaracterized, and cut it the heck out.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I meant exactly what I said. Everyone here who's complaining that elves and dwarves are boring and lazy and chained to the corpse of a dead writer simply don't get to complain when, five or ten years from now, tieflings and dragonborn are staid and dull and overplayed and solely the province of hidebound traditionalists. At that point, nobody will like them because they're new and fresh; they'll lump them in with old and boring.

Enjoy the New Car Smell while it's fresh, because it won't last.

I'm not sure that I follow your point.

Are you saying we aren't allowed to like novel things for the sake of being novel NOW because eventually they won't be?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm tired of generic fantasy races and cultures. This is why Eberron is one of my favorite settings, with Wildemount just behind it. Eberron reimagines Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Goblinoids, and the other races in ways that are unique and specific to the setting, while also introducing races rooted in the world's history. I actually love how intrinsically the Warforged are tied in with Eberron, it makes them feel more unique and special due to the fact that there is no good explanation for their existence in any other world of D&D. The same applies (to a slightly lesser extent) to the Kalashtar. Changelings and Shifters are "unique" to that world, but can basically be dropped into any other world that has Lycanthropes and Doppleggangers.

Spoiler: Some Info on My Homebrew World's Races

My own world draws from that it its own way. The constructed race of the world are the Golmeng, who were crafted and given life hundreds of years ago by powerful Artificers who decided to see if they could invent a race of sentient creatures out of metal, stone, glass, gems, or clay. The Artificers created and perfected this race and then ended the experiment, discovering that they could indeed invent a whole species. (Golmeng are most often Artificers, Barbarians, Fighters, and Monks, but are almost as likely to be a member of any other class.)

The same artificers later created people out of lab-grown, cultured flesh of the typical humanoids (mainly humans, with some elven, gnomish, and dwarven genes mixed in), using magic to see if they could create a fully-reproducing, hyper-intelligent race of humanoids, giving them brightly colored skins to make them physically recognizable (typically Cyan, Turquoise, Magenta, Cream-Orange, Neon-Green, and other vibrant colors). Again, they succeeded on the experiment and this race of people became known as the Felshen (a mix of a goblinoid word for "Falseling" and the common name "Fleshling"). The Felshen are an extremely intelligent and innovative people, using their magical intelligence to master psionics and establish a international "web" of allied settlements who are connected through psionic devices. (Commonly Soul Knife Rogues, Psychic Warrior Fighters, Aberrant Mind Sorcerers, and Astral Self Monks.)

My world's version of Changelings are the Ecubi, humanoid shapeshifting descendants of the now extinct Succubi/Incubi. They have most of the physical features that their fiendish ancestors had, but aren't evil, don't kill people with kisses, and are spread all across the world. They also fill the role of Tieflings, as typical tieflings have been erased from the world. (Most often Eloquence and Glamour Bards, Swashbuckler Rogues, my homebrew Fiendborn Sorcerers, and most types of Warlocks.)

The more "normal" fantasy races are different, too, all changed in ways that make sense for and are unique to this world:

• The Goblinoids worship magic and get divine and arcane powers from it (often Celestial Warlocks, Arcana Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerers, my homebrew Arcane Paladin subclass).
• Orcs and Half-Orcs are nature-wardens, protecting the wilds and creatures inside of it (commonly Nature Clerics, Beast Master Rangers, Moon and Shepherd Druids, Scout Rogues).
• Drow (Sürdrae) are a nocturnal race of surface dwellers that worship the stars, believing them to be gods that are yet to be born, calling in a perfect age of the world (typically Twilight Clerics, Watchers Paladins, Horizon Walker Rangers, Circle of Stars Druids).
• Dragonborn are split into two subraces, the Othrilers (those that hate dragons and otherworldly beings) and the Hearthdrak (those who serve the Draconic Empire). The Othrilers are most often Berserker Barbarians, Vengeance Paladins, and Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers, while Hearthdrak are most often my homebrew Swords and Valor Bards, Dragon-Rider Fighters, Conquest Paladins, my homebrew Arcknight class, and my homebrew Dracon Warlocks.

Worlds are more interesting if they're unique. If everything is the same tired-old Tolkein tropes, it gets bland. "Weird" races are good and helpful to the hobby.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not sure that I follow your point.

Are you saying we aren't allowed to like novel things for the sake of being novel NOW because eventually they won't be?

If so, that's like someone saying "Don't bother having fun while you're young, as you're going to grow old and die, anyway".

 

[Maxperson]

Because no, it isn't false. Hatred cannot exist without a reason for hatred. Babies don't hate people. And it isn't nonsense if you have a character with no reason to do something doing something just because plot, you are not thinking through your characters.

Irrational hatred is a thing. It's not nearly as common as hatred that has a reason to exist, but hatred can exist without a reason.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've never seen a limit on gnomes, halflings, or half-elves, and almost never on half-orcs. And uncommonly on races like Aasimar, Genasi and such. It's not until you get to Wemics, Tabaxi and other much more exotic races that limitations become fairly common, but still not all pervasive.

I've seen plenty of limits on Half-orcs and gnomes.

Genasi were literally brought up as an example in this thread.

So clearly some people are more restricitve than you think.

 

[Maxperson]

I've seen plenty of limits on Half-orcs and gnomes.

Genasi were literally brought up as an example in this thread.

So clearly some people are more restricitve than you think.

Or else those are examples of the "sometimes" I mentioned. At least for Half-orcs and Genasi.