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

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Yes

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I feel the opposite. Heritages are a worldbuilding tool, within which I will allow for player desires as much as it makes sense to me.

Yikes - not my type of DM. Sorry, but I don’t think I would want to be a part of that

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Which is cool, but as nearly permanent DM I go the other way: the world is there, choose from what is in it. I don't want to recreate worlds for each new group and I've been using the same game world for decades now.

I prefer my DMs to be more flexible. Lucky I have such a DM!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yikes - not my type of DM. Sorry, but I don’t think I would want to be a part of that

To each their own. I would be (and have been) perfectly happy as a player in a game run by a DM who worldbuilds like I do. The philosophy is hardly anti-player, just not necessarily completely unrestricted.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I prefer my DMs to be more flexible. Lucky I have such a DM!

Good for you. I tell such players to find one.

I'm in the game to have fun, too, and if a player wants to play a 6' pink bunny race which I find completely silly and not appropriate for a serious fantasy game, that detracts from my fun.

 

[Oofta]

I prefer my DMs to be more flexible. Lucky I have such a DM!

When I consider what makes a good DM as a player, allowing whatever race anyone wants is way, way, way down on the list.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I'm not sure why it's a necessity to have all of them with distinct cultures and long histories. Why can't the setting just have a ton of small enclaves, with most of the races just numbering a few hundred to few thousand individuals? The lost village of Harengon or the single treetop village of the fairy folk seems much more in keeping with standard fantasy tropes.

Or one village blessed by the gods. Or transformed by a wild magic surge, or created by a wizard experimentation. Just seems weird that many people are fine with dragons running around, but tritons break their verisimilitude.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Just seems weird that many people are fine with dragons running around, but tritons break their verisimilitude.

Tritons alone? No, not at all, if it fits the game world.

Tritons + Dwarves + Firbolg + Kenku + Humans + Gnomes + Tabaxi + Goliaths + Dragonborn + etc. just might... How many you need for that to break depends on the person. For you, maybe this 10, 20, 37, 942, or infinite... For me, it is about 12ish.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Or one village blessed by the gods. Or transformed by a wild magic surge, or created by a wizard experimentation. Just seems weird that many people are fine with dragons running around, but tritons break their verisimilitude.

Verisimilitude is just a catspaw for 'I don't like it' and whoever taught D&D fans that word should be punished.

 

[Thunder Brother]

I prefer running a game with only a few playable races, as most of my favorite works of fantasy (and sources of inspiration) are typically human-centric. My personal homebrew setting only has four, for example.

I wouldn't have much issue playing in a game with a lot. But it's definitely not my preference.