D&D General Do you like LOTS of races/ancestries/whatever? If so, why?

[jasper]

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Agin, y’all know every race doesn’t need to have a significant population, history, and be important to how the world works, all in one region, right?

So, 68 * 3 pages per race write up = 198 pages of history and crunch. And You hit the mark. IMPORTANT to the World. So, if Drow are not important to the world, boom 67 races. BUT in one region you can "Play how you want" ; and WOTC, comments here, and other where will say you are taking away Player Agency. Or how dare you have the towns folk where the evil Drizzle (Drizzits evil clone) just poison the well treat Jasper's Drow like scum. Before they get to know him.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Not doing that is not worthy of the low key shade of 'that's fine but something is lost'.

On the contrary... "low-key" shade is exactly the amount of shade that should be thrown. Precisely the same amount of shade that the players who are all about "game balance" and "CR and encounter design" throw when the rest of the folks out there tell them that they don't think D&D needs it that much-- and they are happy to show those people why the game does. Both sets of us believe the game to be better for having it-- at least in a quantifiable amount.

Yes, I believe something is lost in a Roleplaying Game when you cannot tell a huge facet of a Character (like who they are as a People) from how a person roleplays them and the only difference being mechanical. Thus in my view pretty much defeating the purpose of playing a Roleplaying Game rather than just a Tactical Miniatures Combat Game. And I will not apologize for believing game mechanics to be the lower side of the RPG game experience, with characterization and story being the top.

 

[jasper]

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(Also, for reference, if we ignore reprints and stick to just the baseline, not the 17 variants of elves and 9 variants of halflings etc., there are 54 total races available in 5e. And this is counting all the obscure stuff, the giff, the kuo-toa, the bullywug, the hexblood, the plasmoid, everything. Genuinely not sure where the 68 number is coming from, because there's a lot more than 14 total variants between human, elf, dwarf, and halfling, and that's not counting stuff like the variant origin half-elves and the Dragonmarked options.)

From. Me. And if my counting wrong. Correct me and give me the book and page number. I counted them while reading the One D&D first play test. V for dark vision, e for elf, underline for non al.
AARAKOCRA , AAISMAR v, ASTRAL ELF v e, AUTOGNOME, BUGBEAR v, CENTAUR, CHANGELING, DEEP GNOME v,
DHAMPIR RAVENLOFT v, DRAGONBORN , DROW v e, DUERGAR v, DWARF HILL v, DWARF MOUNTAIN v , ELADRIN FEY ELF v e, ELF HIGH v e, ELF WOOD v e, FAIRY, FIRBOLG, GENSAI AIR v, GENSAI EARTH v, GENSAI FIRE v,
GENSAI WATER v, GIFF (hipp), GITHYANKI, GITHZERAI, GNOME FOREST v, GNOME ROCK v, GOBLIN v,
GOLIATH, GRUNG, HADOZEE, HALF-ELF v e, HALF-ORC v, HALFLING LIGHTFOOT, HALFLING STOUT, HARENGON,
HEXBLOOD RAVENLOFT v, HOBGOBLIN v, HUMAN, KALASHTAR EBERRON, KENDER, KENKU, KOBOLD v,
LEONIN THEROS v, LIZARDFOLK, LOCATHAH, LOXODON RAVNICA , MINOTAUR, ORC v, OWLIN STRIXHAVEN v,
PLASMOID v, REBORN RAVENLOFT , SATYR, SEA ELF v e, SHADAR-KAI SHADOWFELL ELF v e, SHIFTER v,
SIMIC HYBRID RAVNICA v, TABAXI v, TIEFLING v ,THRI-KEEN v, TORTLE, TRITON v, VEDALKEN RAVINICA,
VERDAN ACQUISITIONS , WARFORGE EBERRON, YUAN-TI v
68 RACES 55 AL LEGAL 7 Elfs, 37 Darkvision 32 AL Legal

Looks like I included the book if the race was non AL. Since I a 95% AL DM, I needed a list on what was legal. Sources mainly D&D Beyond, and the AL rules.

 

[Charles Lowry]

My homebrew campaign has a limited pallette. This is primarily a result of my own imagination trying to have it internally work. I can focus on setting dynamics (we play in a post war setting). If a player wants to run something outside of the pallette, I want them to help me develope how to integrate it into the campaign world. It's a big world and I certainly don't have it all fleshed out, but I would really welcome others in the worldbuilding task.

We also use a limited number of books utilized (newer players overall) which also has a harder cap than other games I suppose.

 

[Reynard]

The absolute crapton of incredibly trite, boring, dime-a-dozen Brooding Silent Warrior humans and Elderly Cackling Wizard humans and Lesbian Stripper Ninja humans and Smite-Happy Moral Policeman humans and "Would Sell Out My Grandmother For A Single Corn Chip" humans etc., etc., ad nauseam would seem to prove you wrong here.

What in the world are you on about?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

From. Me. And if my counting wrong. Correct me and give me the book and page number. I counted them while reading the One D&D first play test. V for dark vision, e for elf, underline for non al.
AARAKOCRA , AAISMAR v, ASTRAL ELF v e, AUTOGNOME, BUGBEAR v, CENTAUR, CHANGELING, DEEP GNOME v,
DHAMPIR RAVENLOFT v, DRAGONBORN , DROW v e, DUERGAR v, DWARF HILL v, DWARF MOUNTAIN v , ELADRIN FEY ELF v e, ELF HIGH v e, ELF WOOD v e, FAIRY, FIRBOLG, GENSAI AIR v, GENSAI EARTH v, GENSAI FIRE v,
GENSAI WATER v, GIFF (hipp), GITHYANKI, GITHZERAI, GNOME FOREST v, GNOME ROCK v, GOBLIN v,
GOLIATH, GRUNG, HADOZEE, HALF-ELF v e, HALF-ORC v, HALFLING LIGHTFOOT, HALFLING STOUT, HARENGON,
HEXBLOOD RAVENLOFT v, HOBGOBLIN v, HUMAN, KALASHTAR EBERRON, KENDER, KENKU, KOBOLD v,
LEONIN THEROS v, LIZARDFOLK, LOCATHAH, LOXODON RAVNICA , MINOTAUR, ORC v, OWLIN STRIXHAVEN v,
PLASMOID v, REBORN RAVENLOFT , SATYR, SEA ELF v e, SHADAR-KAI SHADOWFELL ELF v e, SHIFTER v,
SIMIC HYBRID RAVNICA v, TABAXI v, TIEFLING v ,THRI-KEEN v, TORTLE, TRITON v, VEDALKEN RAVINICA,
VERDAN ACQUISITIONS , WARFORGE EBERRON, YUAN-TI v
68 RACES 55 AL LEGAL 7 Elfs, 37 Darkvision 32 AL Legal

Looks like I included the book if the race was non AL. Since I a 95% AL DM, I needed a list on what was legal. Sources mainly D&D Beyond, and the AL rules.

So...yes, you're counting a whole bunch of different elves as being not actually the same race (even though they really are, just with slight variations.) While simultaneously ignoring all of the Dragonmarked variations, all the alternate versions of half-elf, for some reason not counting lotusden halflings and numerous other races (several of which should be AL-legal, like gem/metallic/chromatic dragonborn.)

 

[Reynard]

For those who talk about how their players only choose races for the benefits and don’t actually portray their races - what do you do to reward portrayal?

I mean if I sit down and talk about how my elf remembers walking through this same forest centuries ago in a former life, what happens? IME there are a lot of dms who will just cut that sort of thing short or pretty much entirely ignore it.

At which point there isn’t much reason to do it.

I hate this sort of attitude. It comes up whenever I talk about the "bath after a long journey" thing (which I think is essentially the same issue). You don't need a Bennie or inspiration for pretending to be an elf. Ostensibly that's why you are playing an elf in an RPG. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if they are playing an elf in the elfiest way possible, but if they do they shouldn't expect rewards for doing so. Again: rpg.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes, I believe something is lost in a Roleplaying Game when you cannot tell a huge facet of a Character (like who they are as a People) from how a person roleplays them and the only difference being mechanical. Thus in my view pretty much defeating the purpose of playing a Roleplaying Game rather than just a Tactical Miniatures Combat Game. And I will not apologize for believing game mechanics to be the lower side of the RPG game experience, with characterization and story being the top.

The stupid 'people in funny hats' argument has NOTHING to do with roleplaying and everything about people not roleplaying the way you want them to and probably don't do yourself as, again, it's a skill the vast, vast majority of people don't have.

Stop pretending everyone that doesn't xenofic non-humans isn't roleplaying and is just looking for a mechanical advantage.

You know what you get when you try to xenofic even the most basic deviation from humans? The Complete Book of Elves, AKA how to play your character utterly insufferably.

 

[Aldarc]

I hate this sort of attitude. It comes up whenever I talk about the "bath after a long journey" thing (which I think is essentially the same issue). You don't need a Bennie or inspiration for pretending to be an elf. Ostensibly that's why you are playing an elf in an RPG. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if they are playing an elf in the elfiest way possible, but if they do they shouldn't expect rewards for doing so. Again: rpg.

A lot of RPGs have incentives and Skinner Boxes for cultivating certain play experiences. We may be playing an RPG, but getting XP for gold, for example, will reward certain player behaviors, goals, or objectives. Playing a RPG does not preclude in-game incentives for roleplaying.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As have others already said before me in the thread, I like lots of options to choose from but the options curated appropriately for the specific setting, picked with intent for their place in and impact on said setting.

That does not mean I don’t want or like kitchen sink settings but they need to be in the appropriate framing, such as star wars galaxy-sized setting or a crossroad world between the worlds.

Something was said to the effect earlier of ‘i don’t want my entire party to be composed of every 1-in-million-stranger-from-over-the-horizon on the continent, i want them to be part of the world they’re playing in’ and I absolutely agree

Yeah, that was me.