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

[Scott Christian]

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.

That is a good response. Thank you for clarifying.
I will try to and that first question. I think the reason why is because the PHB generally becomes the default for the edition. This is due to printing restrictions, readability restrictions from buyers, purchasing power from buyers, etc. The other reason is change occurs slowly for most products for fear of not making money, because the new managers grew up on the old product, and fear of backlash.
So if we take the notion that the PHB sets the "tone" and is the default setting for D&D (no matter which edition), and the fact that change comes slowly, maybe where we are now is normal?
(I am by no means stating I am correct, juts trying to think out an answer while typing.)

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.

You are spot on. Those are two very different problems. I wasn't conflating them. They are separate. But one thing both of those have in common is the DM doing more work. And isn't it fair for the DM to say, I don't have time? I plugged 100 hours into this already before session zero. I laid out my logic and setting as best as I could?

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.)

I am sorry. I must not have been clear. I am not talking about the DM's work behind the scenes. (For the record, I was discussing behind the work hours in the post directly above). In this post you replied to, I was only discussing "play time." Meaning the time the DM had in a campaign to paint their world. I was trying to bring a realization that for many of these philosophies that people bring to the table about DMing, there is only so much time to utilize them.
This is one of the reasons I am so adamant about letting a DM limit races. In my curated setting, which does not fall back on a traditional FR setting, I know much of it will be new to the players. Therefore, I have to limit the races if I want them to be able to sink into the culture. To me, it is identical to teaching. You can only teach so much in a given time period. Players shut off. Generally, in an adventure, a DM expresses maybe two, three, maybe four, all the way up to five indications of culture, history, lore, religion, etc. And to get the players to remember it generally means you have to repeat it over and over.
For example, if I wanted the players to really experience tabaxi culture, and I started them in a tabaxi village. Let's start with food. I have to do continuous food examples. The marketplace that has odd dried fish pellets, and strings of different kinds of birds, etc. A DM can't just do this once and expect that to sink in. No, it happens when the players buy provisions. It happens when they go to the local inn. It happens when the NPC invites them to dinner. There is only so much time a DM has to do these things.
So my apologies for not being clear if I wasn't. But I am talking about playing time, not prep time here.

 

[Oofta]

Y'know, I'd love to see someone do those and actually exclude elves as a thing right off the bat. Just bring 'em back to their fey roots. Go actual full mythology. I'd also argue you've got some dang good justification for dragonborn based on varying dragon myths, particularly down that whole mythic line of 'the dragon sheds its skin and becomes a prince' story, albeit probably with a differing appearance. Half-elves have justification, but not full blooded ones, likewise I'd throw dwarves and gnomes right out


Well, if you wanna be real technical, since the Noldor showed up

But its basically the root that people got stuck into those being the races to go with ages ago and haven't expanded past that. Meanwhile I come at this from Shining Force being one of my bigger fantasy things, so I'm basically on the side of "Humans, centaurs, elves, dwarves, bird-people? That's all normal. Rat-person's a bit unusual but not too bad, whereas jellyfish alien, phoenix and Gamera are the real kind of rare"

If TMNT had been a big thing back in the 70s tortles and rat men would be the go to races and we'd be complaining about being "chained to the corpse" of a comic book.

I don't think it's good or bad, I just accept the reality. They took the myths, books, tropes, cheap plastic minis made in Hong Kong, war games and threw them all into a blender. I'm not particularly fond of Vancian casting but it's part of the games just like our incarnation of elves, dwarves and gnomes. I don't see having a common starting point as a bad thing.

Personally if I get tired of anything it's the psuedo-medieval-European setting. I'd really like to find a game that does Esper Genesis, weird west/Victorian, or Eberron noire. I'd do an alternate culture (i.e. Slavic or Chin dynasty), but I'd make a hash of it. It's simply easier to run in a "standard" setting because I can paint in really broad brush strokes and there's already a lot of assumptions built in so people fill in the blanks with preconceived notions. So when I DM I stay with the tried and true because it gives me more freedom to do other cool stuff and tell interesting stories without having to fill in those blanks for people.

 

[Scott Christian]

I know it doesn't. I just wish more than the seemingly-vanishing minority of DMs ever talked about stepping outside it. The vast, VAST majority--nearly to the point of exclusivity--of DMs who speak about their settings make it pretty clear how hostile they are to anything that wasn't published before 1970 (maybe 1980, I'm a bit fuzzy on some of the specifics).

More than a fair request. Man, I really think you would really enjoy one DM I had in Chicago. It was the cantina on steroids.

What I'm talking about is the DMs who--again, WITHOUT a worldbuilding reason, WITHOUT any thought to what could be or what would make sense or whether there's unexplored horizons left--loudly and proudly reject anything that isn't the four good-guy, relatively widespread races found in Tolkien. (Despite Farquhar's assertions to the contrary, pretty much nobody treats Tolkien as putting aasimar, werebears, or woses out as important races.) I'm talking about people who seem to enjoy active exclusion of anything that isn't in this loose, extended shadow of Tolkien's work, because it's Not Traditional Enough

And again. We have vastly different experiences or outlooks. I just haven't even seen a DM not allow anything in the PHB as a start. (I have on this board, but not in real life.) Most allow at least one other book. And I just have to think you have had really bad luck with DMs if you have seen this.
No DM I have seen doesn't have a reason. No DM I have seen hasn't given it thought. And no DM I have seen (unless they are trying to play MERP), has limited it to the Tolkien races. But I do understand. If you have seen, especially more than once, then I would be exactly in your shoes. And I support your side 100%.

No, and no, and no, and no, and no. Like, literally all of the no.

I'm not saying that these things should never happen. I'm saying that it would be really, really, really damn nice if our community didn't respond so infuriatingly often with gleeful hostility or blanket opposition to things that DO make such breaks.

And again, I think I just see things very differently. I haven't seen but a small tiny handful of people respond negatively to any setting that falls outside of the norm (if it is even the norm). I have seen massive encouragement, interest, and even offers to help without being paid. Whenever someone brings in a new setting, people respond positively for the most part. Some do not, but I rarely see negative or hostile reactions. (In fact, I have never really seen a hostile reaction unless the person stated this should be the new and only way.) At worst, in person, I have seen a group of players shrug their shoulders, try to act nice, and say: "I really don't want to play a campaign where we are different dog breeds." That's the worst I've seen.

I have absolutely never said that it should be done as a handwave, and I have definitely never said that they should "bend and alter their world withotu so much of a thought." What I have, however, said is that I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims to have nailed down their world so tightly, to have given such a thorough accounting of everything in it, that it is now impossible to add anything new. That adding anything further would unavoidably break things. Because, to use the phrase I've now repeated a dozen times or more, there should always be something beyond the horizon. If your world has become so well-defined that you can't have something surprising and unknown sail into it, I remain unconvinced that this world actually allows much to happen in it. With boundary conditions absolutely fixed, there's only so much one can do before one runs out of world to see.

Broken record here, but we see things very differently. You are skeptical of the DM that says their world is set. I see it as a DM who must have put in a lot of work, and it shouldn't be my place as a player to walk up and demand they change it. Should something exist beyond the horizon? Sure. Should the DM who has put in this work have to let the player create what that is? In my opinion, no.

Okay, but doing only fortnightly sessions is, itself, rather limiting things, isn't it? I get that that's what you do, but it's hardly universal. I will not use the term "white room" because I despise it utterly, but I do think you are misapplying your specific personal circumstances in a way that generalizes what should not be generalized.

Fair enough. It is my experience.

And even beyond that, do you really never talk about setting information outside of playtime? Because that's literally the second-best time to flesh out your world (after, as you've noted, explaining things in play). I provide my players with written material on occasion, ask them questions between sessions, and flesh out NPC backstories and interactions even while play is not happening. I keep an accessible log (through a Discord bot) of NPCs we've interacted with that were relevant, which players can access at their leisure. You have many, many, many more than 20 hours to share and explore a world--and this is only counting time spent after you've started playing for real. The game pitch and early discussion should be several hours of almost pure setting exposure; Session 0 should be more hours yet of exploring at least the fundamentals of a world and why the things in it are what they are.

I do not talk about it outside the game. In part because if I do mention something, I want to make sure it is heard by everyone. I have had a DM that would spend hours upon hours talking to his roommate about the setting. And every time we sat down to play half the table was confused because either: A) The DM assumed we had the knowledge because it got confusing to keep track of who they told what to or B) The entire table was confused because they assumed they mentioned something about the subject in their hour long conversation. (And in truth, they probably did. But again, a player will only remember so much.) This is why I am adamant about repeating things related to setting and plot, and making sure everyone hears it.

 

[Maxperson]

It's based on a false premise: elves and dwarves are not exotic. Other non-human races are.

Ergo, people who don't play elves and dwarves do so in order to be "exotic".

I'm not sure it is a false premise, though. Sure, compared to real world humans, elves and dwarves are exotic, but within the game after 47ish years, they're pretty normalized races to play. You can make arguments either way.

But this is simply not true. It depends on your background. I read The Chronicles of Narnia before I read The Lord of the Rings. So, to me, talking animals, fauns, and marsh wriggles are NOT exotic races. Elves are exotic - there are no elves in Narnia. So, if I choose play a marsh wriggle, it it not because it is exotic, it is because it is normal.

This isn't really about the books, though. This is about the game D&D. If you've only read the books, they would all be exotic. It's the game that is BASED in significant part on Tolkien that has normalized the elves and dwarves through decades of seeing them played over and over and over and over and over...

 

[Maxperson]

But people have, in fact Jack Daniel did, claim that people going for exotic races are "doing it wrong" in the sense that he literally said that people who want Deep Roleplaying play humans.

Sure, it was a follow-up post, but if your follow-up post doubles down on something you think people are falsely accusing you of, maybe you should double check that you didn't actually say the thing.

I've skipped posts, so I'm not going to argue whether he did or did not say that. I will say this, though. If the follow-up post does not in fact say anything about "doing it wrong," then it is not doubling down on that statement and stating that the follow-up post is "bring us back to..." is a Strawman. People are allowed to have different arguments in follow-up posts. You can't just declare a post says something that it doesn't, just because that poster said something else in a prior post.

 

[Maxperson]

While I like the use of stats, this tells us very little. Because we do not know the extent of these characters created. Was it a DM just clicking random? Does that count? Was it a DM making an entire gnome NPC faction? Was it Adventure League just creating random characters that people can use that just "pop in for a try?" Was it just a player playing around with the program to see where the numbers would fall?

Like I said, numbers are good, but we have no idea if half of these were even used. A better use of these numbers would be to ask them to publish the tracked numbers using conditions; meaning a character generated at first level, then levelled after one week's time (or more), then levelled again after another week's time (or more). Then we could probably be assured those are characters being played. I suspect the numbers would look vastly different if you did that.

Yeah. That place twists stats. If you don't pay for the service, then you only have the choice of PHB races, Goliath, Aaracokra, Genasi and Aasimar as non-PHB races, which skews those numbers. It's no wonder that Aaracokra and Aasimar are as high as some of the PHB races.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This isn't really about the books, though. This is about the game D&D. If you've only read the books, they would all be exotic. It's the game that is BASED in significant part on Tolkien that has normalized the elves and dwarves through decades of seeing them played over and over and over and over and over...

I read books long before I played D&D, they where what determined my what was familiar and what was exotic.

And I think most new players, who seem to come to D&D in their 20s, bring ideas of what it and is not normal fantasy from the books, TV and films they have seen before playing D&D.

Remember, new players haven't had decades of seeing something played over and over. Neither have people like me, who play a variety of different genre RPGs rather than just D&D.

 

[billd91]

Forcing my preferences on someone else is still bad DMing, no matter who is doing it. There are good reasons for banning stuff and bad reasons. And the primary bad reason is "Well, I don't like this, so you can't play it."

Way too broad a blanket statement.
Suppose I'm running Cyberpunk 2020 and I don't like running extended netrunning sessions so I say "No PC netrunners". That's not really a "bad reason" since, if the players push it, I'm simply not going to run a game I find onerous. Granted, this is a bit of a loaded example since the type of play between netrunners and most other characters is very different, but it is a counterexample to your blanket statement. Some preferences can put a burden or impose complications on someone else and refusing a burden/complication because you don't like it isn't a naughty bad no-good reason.
I can, as easily, say no corporates because I don't want someone playing a character with access to corporate resources or, in the most recent edition, no lawmen because I don't want anybody with backup resources they can call on or because I find a cop-inclusive campaign to be problematic.

You keep saying that imposing preferences on someone else is a bad thing, but only characterize that as a DM's offense. That goes both ways. If I don't like elves and design a campaign world without them, don't impose your preference to play elves on me. If the game as pitched doesn't work for you, just say so and move on. We can have a frank talk about why and I'll be up front about it (as I should be) because that's a respectful approach, but players should extend the same respect and not try to wheedle and cajole the DM into relenting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You might say that if you don't like netrunning Cyberpunk 2020 would be an odd game to choose to DM in the first place, but if you had an idea for an adventure in that world that didn't involve netrunning (maybe a more serious version of Paranoia?), I would be inclined to say to players "this adventure won't involve netrunning" rather than "you can't create a netrunner". But there are always going to be things that some players aren't keen on (e.g. science fantasy) and things the DM isn't keen on (e.g. anime). The trick to running a successful game is to aim for the spot where there is the greatest overlap of interests.

 

[billd91]

You might say that if you don't like netrunning Cyberpunk 2020 would be an odd game to choose to DM in the first place, but if you had an idea for an adventure in that world that didn't involve netrunning (maybe a more serious version of Paranoia?), I would be inclined to say to players "this adventure won't involve netrunning" rather than "you can't create a netrunner". But there are always going to be things that some players aren't keen on (e.g. science fantasy) and things the DM isn't keen on (e.g. anime). The trick to running a successful game is to aim for the spot where there is the greatest overlap of interests.

We played quite a bit of Cyberpunk 2020 without a PC netrunner. Plays just fine without them between all the fun you can have with medics, solos, nomads, rockerboys, etc. There are a lot of themes inherent to the cyberpunk aesthetics that are still available to be explored. Actual hacking is such a narrow slice of it.