D&D 5E Access to Races in a Campaign

[rollingForInit]

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.)

Totally agree with you. What's common, uncommon or non-exist should be listed on a per setting basis. So in Forgotten Realms, Tieflings might be uncommon while Elves are common, but in another place the opposite might be true. Or, hell. In a Forgotten Realms Underdark campaign, Drow, Dwarves and Svirfneblin might be the only "common" races and everything else might be "uncommon".

I also think that "I dislike them so I'll ban them" is a pretty stingy move from a DM, as well, especially if there's a player that would love playing one. Discouragement, I can understand. "If you play a dragonborn, people will be suspicious of you and they will more readily turn hostile", is fine, is all fine in my book.

 

[meomwt]

I don't allow tieflings, as they are not very Greyhawk.

If anyone wanted to play a Dagonborn, I would treat them as "half-dragons" in the sense that they had draconic powers but looked mostly human. That does have a GH heritage.

 

[Mercule]

Definitely and always. Sometimes it's after the players make characters, sometimes before.

For published settings, I use what's found there. There should be no controversy with this. Published settings are chosen based on the flavor they provide. It makes zero sense to break that flavor by, say, adding dragonborn to Middle-Earth. Every once in a great while, I'll allow a PC of a "remote race", but they're subject to much prejudice and clearly don't fit in. In these cases, it still needs to make some sense in the setting; adding goliaths to Eberron is no big deal, but thri-kreen wouldn't make sense in a Game of Thrones inspired setting.

For home brew, I let the players pick what they want, if it's a new world. If it's an established world (like my 30 year old primary home brew), then it's established and treated like a published setting, except that it can be easier to add in a new race, like I did with dragonborn, since I have control over the frontiers. Also, even for a new setting, there are certain races that annoy me (tinker gnomes, drow, kender) and aren't an option.

 

[Noctem]

The only race I restrict in 5e is the variant human because it is so much more mechanically powerful than the other options that it makes about 3/4 of the other races obsolete outside of RP / flavor reasons. Basically, if variant human is allowed you're making a conscious decision to nerf yourself right off the bat because you want your character to have pointy ears. Every other option is available at my table

 

[hejtmane]

The only race I restrict in 5e is the variant human because it is so much more mechanically powerful than the other options that it makes about 3/4 of the other races obsolete outside of RP / flavor reasons. Basically, if variant human is allowed you're making a conscious decision to nerf yourself right off the bat because you want your character to have pointy ears. Every other option is available at my table

That is the case with any max build if you are making a Monk you should always take a character with Dex stat but hey it is cool to have a Dwarf Monk.

 

[Ahrimon]

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?

That is apparently what some DMs want according to this thread. Hey, outside the box can be scary if you've never been there.

 

[Mercule]

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?

IMO, it's setting defaults for the genre or the "standard" table. Maybe I'm just old enough to remember when Human, Elf, Dwarf was actually "standard" and anything else was groundbreaking. I appreciate having a "assume these unless you have reason not to". D&D is interesting in that it has an implied setting without having a baked in setting. In this case, the "common" races really represent what is consistent across most officially published worlds. If you want to build your own, it's not a big deal to break that assumption.

That said, the way it was done isn't necessarily the way I would have done it. Dragonborn and tieflings are fairly new to the D&D "core". I can totally see having them in a separate section. I, personally, have grown annoyed with half-human races and don't mind seeing them listed as optional, but they have long history in the and that is really kind of a weird way to do it. Also, I'm completely baffled as to why gnomes would be optional, which the incredibly bland halflings made the "common" cut.

All that applies to the meta-game part of the racial listing. As far as calling out which races are common in the game worlds, that seems like something that should be done in a published setting guide, not the PHB. Maybe. Gygax had a way of adding flavor into the core rules without it feeling stifling that no one has duplicated.

 

[hejtmane]

That is apparently what some DMs want according to this thread. Hey, outside the box can be scary if you've never been there.

Which is why I would skip their games; I understand not allowing someones home brew that is another entire can of worms. Like i said if they are in the WOTC books (PHG, EE, DM or SCAG) I will allow it have them but then again I am not married to GreyHawk, Forgotten Realms or for us old timers Dragon Lance. Yes I read books from all those realms but I did not just read D&D realm Fantasy books. I read so many different authors hey I loved Michael Moorcock for his weird unusual characters as much as I did for his story lines maybe that is why I like outside the box.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

As far as I'm concerned, when a GM says he doesn't want a certain option in his campaign because "he just doesn't like it", what he's telling me is that enforcing his little pet peeves is more important to him than letting his players have fun.

Bad GM, no dice.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As far as I'm concerned, when a GM says he doesn't want a certain option in his campaign because "he just doesn't like it", what he's telling me is that enforcing his little pet peeves is more important to him than letting his players have fun.

I hesitate to use the "f-word" (fun, of course!) in these conversations, because that's a huge can of worms and you'll get drilled left, right, and center, even by people who agree with you, if you use it. Instead I prefer framing it in terms of enthusiasm. If a DM pitches something to me from the outset, e.g. "I want to run a campaign with centaurs" (to give an example often used on a different forum), or "I'd like to run another game in the campaign world I used last time," then that's one thing. It's a wholly different, and IMO lamentable, thing to offer to run "a game" with no such restrictions or limitations presented up front, allowing players to get excited about stuff present in the PHB, only to turn around and say, "No, sorry, you can't do that, doesn't matter how enthusiastic you are."

I think it's pretty much self-evident that anything which categorically opposes legitimate player enthusiasm--that is, enthusiasm without abusive or coercive intent--is to be avoided whenever possible, especially when new players are involved. Flat, unquestionable and unalterable "no, you can't have this thing you think is cool" is just...sad. It crushes that beautiful thing, the natural, unbidden enthusiasm a player has before they even get to the table--a thing that, in my experience, is very difficult to rebuild once lost, but which, if properly nurtured, can smooth over many other issues.

Like I said: I have no problem with honestly and straightforwardly presenting a more-limited set of options prior to getting player buy-in. That's fair and honest dealing, and averts all but the "diehard fan of a thing not present" cases--and while that still sucks, it's an acceptable breakpoint. Springing this kind of stuff on someone after you've already given them the chance to get excited about stuff...just...yeah. It's so easily addressed from the beginning, that I can't really sympathize with the DM who fails to speak up and then wonders why people get upset to learn it much later on!

Bad GM, no dice.

I can't help reading this in my head as, "Bad GM! No dice! Bad!"