D&D 5E Access to Races in a Campaign

[abirdcall]

This is another thing that I think 5e did very well.

Many races are called out in the PHB as specifically being rare and optional.

Of these races I don't allow Drow, Dragonborn or Tieflings because I don't like them.

 

[redrick]

I voted yes, though it's really more that I discourage tiefling and dragonborn in my standard homebrew setting. Neither properly exist there, so if a player wants wants to play one, I want to talk to him or her about what the implications of that would be, and come up with some story for it together. As long as the player was willing to do that with me, I'd be happy. Same goes with character races from other sources, though the odds of me saying "no" flat out definitely increase as we move into various supplemental material. It hasn't come up, beyond a new player wanting to play a Yuan-Ti in my first 5e campaign right after the PHB came out. I said "no" to that one.

That being said, I'd happily run or play in a campaign with a much more limited palette of playable races.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes and no. Running an AL table? Yeah, you're restricted to what's allowed. Running a generic game or published setting? Prettymuch wide-open, unless there's a setting restriction that makes sense and doesn't leave room for exceptions. Homebrew campaign? I'll ask for preferred races, and ban any that are too inappropriate to what I'm going for.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Generally, I try to restrict player options as little as possible. I want my players to feel free to be creative. Most of the time they do this handily with only PHB races from which to draw. Sometimes, however, someone will ask for x, y, or z tidbit from a, b, or c sourcebook. I nearly always say yes. I want my players to be happy with their character choices, and I trust them to be reasonable. I haven't been let down yet.

That said, in the context of me playing, I can't see playing a dragonborn. I like the idea of the race, but the appearance as described in the PHB is off-putting for a reason I've yet to isolate. I'd want to re-skin it if I were to play one. Or just play a sorcerer. Xenophobia at work, I admit.

 

[Lanefan]

You can only *choose* from a short list of very common races, because they're...well, common. If you want to take a chance you can roll on a table that has all sorts of less-common options mixed in with the usual suspects but you have to take what you get. This tends to keep the rare-as-PC races rare (it's done a great job of keeping the Gnome population in check, for example), but still have some variety show up now and then.

Even with that over the years my campaigns have seen a minor Devil, a half-YuanTi, a Dryad, a Drow, a Leprechaun, a Centaur, a Gnoll, and a half-Skulk/half-Frostman all as PC's entering a party as rolled, along with some...let's just say interesting...crossbreeds including two PCs who had divinity in their family tree.

Lan-"though he hasn't been played in about 25 years that Skulk-Frostie is still out there somewhere waiting to reappear"-efan

 

[Fedge123]

I don't allow Half-orcs, Drow, Tieflings or Dragonborn unless the players want to be hunted down by the local lord and his men-at-arms, and burned at the stake by frightened villagers.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is another thing that I think 5e did very well.

Many races are called out in the PHB as specifically being rare and optional.

Of these races I don't allow Drow, Dragonborn or Tieflings because I don't like them.

One person's "did well" is another person's "barely tolerable version of something deeply suspect." Directly telling people that certain races are inherently more "common" than others is a great way to stifle creativity, and forestall its growth in both new DMs and new players. Particularly when every "common" race (with the sole, and explainable, exception of human) has multiple well-known settings in which they don't exist, while several "uncommon" races (or close analogues thereof) appear in nearly as many places as so-called "common" ones do. (The Tales games often lack dwarves, and TES definitely does; Narnia and Guild Wars' Tyria have no elves; all four and WoW's Azeroth lack halflings.)

 

[hejtmane]

I voted no but I restricted it to official PHB, EE, DM and now SCAG books they can use any of them. Then again my campaigns are my own world in fact some times i can leverage things like race for my story line from being run out of a town to a tavern brawl. I do use pre built campaign but leverage for my need and sometimes will mix and match a couple together.

 

[Dire Bare]

I generally don't restrict race choices, or even class, feat, background, whatever choices. I usually find it's more relaxed and more fun to say "Yes!" rather than to say "No." I can usually find a reason to include just about anything in my campaign, even if it doesn't seem to fit at first. About the only exception is that I'm extremely leery of player's using their own self-created races or classes, I've had some bad experiences there.

I restrict races, too, but my reasons are different-slash-arbitrary:

* "Monster races", such as dragonborn/tiefling/halforc/etc, are restricted to one instance per party to ensure the feel of rarity (this is narratively expressed in the game, such as in settlements). Yes, even the PH optional races (half-elf excepted). My game world is human-centric and I don't want a party of drow, kenku, and aarakokra messing up that vibe. But in the interest of flexibility and compromise with players I permit one monster race in the party at any given time; I'm satisfied with this and my group hasn't complained (and FWIW current characters are all human).

I've thought about doing something like this, but never got around to it. Perhaps starting the campaign, before character creation, with a series of character creation bonuses that go randomly in a hat. If you draw the "exotic race" bonus, you can play something really weird or out of the ordinary.

 

[mestewart3]

I really don't like the separation of core and optional races. I agree with Ezikial. Such a separation stifles creativity. Do we really want to play the same world with the same 4 races filling the same 4 archetypes forever?