D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Bravesteel25]

I have always felt it a little jarring when I am in a party that has characters ranging from a talking bird to a centaur with nary a traditional humanoid or human in between. It really feels like a circus troupe rather than a party of adventurers. I find that to be especially the case when none (or hardly any) of the Player Characters are native to the region or are even completely unique beings. I can't specifically say that it's because I prefer a human-centric approach because I would have no problem with a majority Dwarf party, Elf party, or Gnoll party.

Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me? How can I move past it? Are there ways I can frame things in my mind to make it easier to get on with?

 

[billd91]

I agree that it can be kind of frustrating sometimes. But I fear it's just a question of play style clash. Some players want to play the oddballs, the chaos agents, the furries... and some just want to play in a group that isn't a circus troupe or belongs at the Mos Eisley cantina.
You might, MIGHT, get the oddballs to comply with a specially curated campaign feel. Or you'll end up with people posting on their gaming social media about how their agency was trampled by not letting them play their wombat warlock dedicated to a patron of sneezes because sneezing wombats are "so cute".

 

[Burnside]

Depends entirely on the tone and setting of the campaign. Fine for some campaigns, wrong for others. Expectations (and how much exactly this sort of thing matters) should be made clear at session zero.

If your campaign is something like Spelljammer or Dungeon Crawler Carl, why shouldn't it have a party of "weird" characters? Or maybe it's Curse of Strahd, but the party is composed of people drawn through the Mists from throughout the Multiverse, so it makes sense that they'd be very eclectic. But if the DM is explicitly going for a traditional campaign feel like Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, or Dragon: Age Origins where player characters are gonna come from a limited range of species, then the DM needs to put that on the table at session zero and people can decide whether they want to play in that campaign or not.

Personally, if the DM is awesome and everything else about the campaign is great, then I don't care if they tell me I have to be either a human, dwarf, or elf. Conversely, if the DM is terrible, it doesn't matter how much freedom I'm allowed in creating my character.

Freedom or limitations on my character's build probably isn't what's gonna make or break my experience at the table, as long as the expectations are all clear before we start playing.

 

[Charlaquin]

I have always felt it a little jarring when I am in a party that has characters ranging from a talking bird to a centaur with nary a traditional humanoid or human in between. It really feels like a circus troupe rather than a party of adventurers. I find that to be especially the case when none (or hardly any) of the Player Characters are native to the region or are even completely unique beings. I can't specifically say that it's because I prefer a human-centric approach because I would have no problem with a majority Dwarf party, Elf party, or Gnoll party.

Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me? How can I move past it? Are there ways I can frame things in my mind to make it easier to get on with?

I used to feel this way too. If it helps, I justified it to myself by saying, they’re adventurers. They’re already a rare bunch just by the nature of being the type of people willing to brave the dangers of the dungeon for fame and glory, or risk their lives for the sake of others. So, what’s the big deal if they also happen to be racially (or I guess specially) eclectic or 75% spellcasters in an otherwise low-magic world, or whatever. I even kind of incorporated it into my mental framework of the milieu that adventurers have a reputation for being so circus-troupe-like. There are probably plenty of “a tiefling, a drow, a dragonborn, and an orc walk into a bar” jokes about it.

It’s kind of relatable in a way, if you belong to any obscure or outcast subculture. At least in my experience as an LGBTQ person, we societal outcasts tend to be drawn to each other. The rest of society pushes us to the margins, and we end up finding each other, because we all share that common experience of not fitting in with the rest of our peers. So, we band together for community and solidarity, and we form little bands of weirdos and freaks. Who among us hasn’t been on some outing with their friends and caught a stray “is the circus in town?”

Framed that way, it doesn’t seem so strange to me that adventuring parties would be similarly conspicuous within common society. Indeed, perhaps it is this very ostracization that drives them to become adventurers in the first place. The goblins, kobolds, Tabaxi, and Shadar-Kai have a hard time finding honest work because nobody trusts them, so they end up taking on dangerous mercenary work to make their way in the world, and through that work end up meeting others who are there for similar reasons, and decide to look for the next job together.

 

[Deset Gled]

Absolutely, I feel this is a thing.

I attribute a lot to the 5e rules, where every race is just a human with a different rubber forehead. We've got everything from humans, demons, undead, near-giants, orcs, and ankle-biters all meeting up in a tavern with barely the slightest mechanical difference between any of them. Personally, I can get stuck at figuring out how they can all physically sit at the same booth without major structural redesign of the chairs and tables. Meanwhile, the narratives proceed without a care.

 

[Remathilis]

It depends on how fantastical a world you want is. Typical D&D worlds are full of sentient humanlike creatures. It makes sense that some would be part of society or even adventurers. I can certainly see a design model where their are few humanoid species (Tolkien has very few humanoids but plenty of monsters) but I feel that should cut both ways, if there are no aarakroca PCs, there probably shouldn't be aarakroca NPCs either. Keep the humanoid pool to a minimum with humans being far and away the most prolific.

 

[Gradine]

I was a bit disappointed because I thought this thread would be talking about circus troupes as a framing device for an adventuring party. I did play in a game once where we were part of a circus troupe, and it was a lot of fun! Ironically, as a part of the setting we all had to play humans too

 

[Epic Meepo]

I was a bit disappointed because I thought this thread would be talking about circus troupes as a framing device for an adventuring party. I did play in a game once where we were part of a circus troupe, and it was a lot of fun! Ironically, as a part of the setting we all had to play humans too

You ninja'd me by about 30 seconds. I was also thinking this thread was going to be about using a circus troupe as a framing device.

Which would be my advice to the OP. If the table wants to field a party that feels like a circus troupe, you could always lean into it and say they literally are a circus troupe. Eclectic circus troupes exist in the real world, so it's not much of a stretch to say the fantasy equivalent would exist in a generic fantasy world.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is one of the advantages of playing in a game with a DM who takes a more active hand in establishing setting expectations. If they care about species proportions and likelihood of appearance in the various adventuring parties, they will restrict options for players as part of their setting pitch. At which point the players can decide whether or not they wish to play in the game under those restrictions.

But I do agree that it can feel a bit off-putting when the DM gives a starting scenario for the campaign that would insinuate a certain type of character, but then doesn't actually restrict the options players can choose. And the players then make up wildly off-brand characters that have little to nothing to do with the starting scenario.

"You are all former member guardians of a Baron's security detail and your Baron has been kidnapped."
"Great! I'm going to play a Psion Sprite with the Sage background!"
"Why exactly would a psionic fairy sage be working as a bodyguard and why would the Baron have actually hired you in the first place?"
"I don't care! That's what I want to play!"
"I have made a terrible mistake."

 

[Dire Bare]

I have always felt it a little jarring when I am in a party that has characters ranging from a talking bird to a centaur with nary a traditional humanoid or human in between. It really feels like a circus troupe rather than a party of adventurers. I find that to be especially the case when none (or hardly any) of the Player Characters are native to the region or are even completely unique beings. I can't specifically say that it's because I prefer a human-centric approach because I would have no problem with a majority Dwarf party, Elf party, or Gnoll party.

Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me? How can I move past it? Are there ways I can frame things in my mind to make it easier to get on with?

It's a play style, or genre within fantasy. Nothing wrong with enjoying such a diverse adventuring party, but nothing wrong with preferring a human-centric campaign either. Only problem is when there is a disconnect between the players and the GM.

Certainly, D&D has shifted from a more human-centric play style to the "circus troupe" of diverse species, but hey, things change!

If your player group enjoys the diverse troupe style, you should lighten up and enjoy the fun along with them!

If you are the DM, and your group is open to a more traditional, human-centric party, more power to ya!