D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[Lanefan]

Please stop with this "Draconians as PCs are bad" idea. The fact they are not "mere monsters" has been true since 1999.

Which was when WotC, in an egregious and unforgivable blunder, introduced them as a standard PC race.

Ditto for Tieflings. Ditto for Drow.

Both are first and foremost monsters, and for one to become a PC should be an individual DM's choice as a glaring and rare exception to the norm. And I say this as a DM who has had - among other things - Drow, Gnoll, Dryad, Centaur and Leprechaun PCs in his games: they were all glaring exceptions to the norm, generated either by sheer luck via extreme rolls on race tables or by good/bad luck when Reincarnated.

Never would I allow a player to outright choose any of these. The chooseable races at roll-up in my games are in fact extremely limited, based on what lives around where your PC will be joining the party; for anything else you have to roll on the racial abundance table for that region until you get two options, and then pick from those.

Why is there a desire to outright ban things that players might enjoy? Better to work with a player so that can realise their concept in a way that doesn't destroy a campaign. And that's at your table. All campaign settings should support playing any PHB race. Whether the race is rare or not is irrelevant - even if the PC is the only one in the world, the option still needs to be there. Doing otherwise is a strange form of puritanical policing.

For one thing, since day 1 the intent has been that the game be at least vaguely human-centric. As time's gone on that has "centrism" expanded to include at least Elves and Dwarves; but the farther you stray from that the closer you get to - as someone very aptly put it upthread - the Star Wars Cantina party.

That, and IME any time someone has come to me wanting to play an oddball race it's been because they're either trying to jump the power curve or are operating (intentionally or otherwise) in ignorance of how the rest of the party is likely to react, or both.

I once had a player lobby me for ages back in the Twilight era wanting to bring a PC Vampire into a party. I shut this down for two reasons: one, a Vampire would have been grossly overpowered for that party (and to chop it down enough to suit would have in effect made it no longer a Vampire); and two, that the existing party would have 99% likely tried to kill it on sight* - and I wouldn't blame them for a second.

* - or hire someone else to kill it; fighting a Vampire themselves might have been somewhat above their pay grade at the time.

 

[Mecheon]

Which was when WotC, in an egregious and unforgivable blunder, introduced them as a standard PC race.

I'm not the biggest fan of Dragonlance but, honestly, Draconians as a playable race makes sense given how it went "Hey, dragon people, we've forced you to work for us because we hold the secrets of your creation. Oh, the moment you reclaim that for yourselves you're setting off on your own because it turns out you kind of want to live as actual people and not living weapons?"

Makes more sense than bloody tinker gnomes having a functioning civilisation in that universe and hell knows I'm one of the biggest fans of gnomes around or, well, anything to do with gully dwarves.

Both are first and foremost monsters, and for one to become a PC should be an individual DM's choice as a glaring and rare exception to the norm. And I say this as a DM who has had - among other things - Drow, Gnoll, Dryad, Centaur and Leprechaun PCs in his games: they were all glaring exceptions to the norm, generated either by sheer luck via extreme rolls on race tables or by good/bad luck when Reincarnated.

They're sapient beings, not 'monsters'. They're as valid as any other sapient thing around as a playable race. Heck, Tieflings started as a playable race. Drow are a civilisation and despite D&D's habit of just having its various theme-park regions, civilisations near each other will interact with each other for trade and diplomacy and, lo and behold, the Drow are one of those civilisations people gotta put up with

 

[Zardnaar]

Drow are an optional race, ask your DM.

That's basically what were asking for. Don't really want the ifdbal stuff baked in on certain world's.

In Draconians case do they have death effects when reduced to 0 hp? What type of Draconian do you get to play with?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did Gygax work in languages other than modern English? (I've never heard that he did.)

No, but he looked at mythologies that Tolkien never touched (e.g. Native American, Slavic).

 

[Fenris-77]

Tolkien was a renowned scholar in his field, Gygax was a hobbyist. It's not taking anything away from Gygax to suggest that it's an apples and oranges comparison.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tolkien was a renowned scholar in his field, Gygax was a hobbyist. It's not taking anything away from Gygax to suggest that it's an apples and oranges comparison.

Don't underestimate the hobbyist. Many important scientific discoveries where made by hobbyists.

And, as a novelist, Tolkien was a hobbyist.

 

[Fenris-77]

Don't underestimate the hobbyist. Many important scientific discoveries where made by hobbyists.

And, as a novelist, Tolkien was a hobbyist.

All true and yet it changes nothing. Gygax wasn't a discipline changing hobbyist in terms of history or folklore studies. He had his own area of genius, but scholarly work wasn't it. This isn't matter of preferencing the academy either, there just isn't a comparison here when it comes to depth of learning. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a discipline changing hobbyist as an author. This isn't a criticism of Gygax, or an indictment of non-academy scholars (which Gygax wasn't anyway).

 

[GreyLord]

All true and yet it changes nothing. Gygax wasn't a discipline changing hobbyist in terms of history or folklore studies. He had his own area of genius, but scholarly work wasn't it. This isn't matter of preferencing the academy either, there just isn't a comparison here when it comes to depth of learning. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a discipline changing hobbyist as an author. This isn't a criticism of Gygax, or an indictment of non-academy scholars (which Gygax wasn't anyway).

I think that more fantasy today is based on Gygax's works than Tolkiens. During Gygax's time more fantasy was probably derivative of Tolkien, but today I think D&D has had a profound influence on the fantasy novels and works being released currently.

I would not discount the effect Ggyax (and Arneson) in creating D&D had upon fantasy nor the works of fiction in both written form and film.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that more fantasy today is based on Gygax's works than Tolkiens. During Gygax's time more fantasy was probably derivative of Tolkien, but today I think D&D has had a profound influence on the fantasy novels and works being released currently.

I would not discount the effect Ggyax (and Arneson) in creating D&D had upon fantasy nor the works of fiction in both written form and film.

On the one hand, I think you're correct, D&D has had a massive influence on popular culture and fantasy in general, that's undeniably true. On the other hand, there are many fantasy authors who have had a similarly large influence on fantasy fiction in particular. Many of those authors, especially from the 70's and 80's own a bigger debt to Tolkien than they do to D&D. In turn, those authors have had a huge influence on authors writing today (as does Tolkien). The lineage of Tolkien is pretty clear, both through his influence on D&D and also on the genre of fantasy fiction, which, arguably, doesn't exists in its current form without Lord of the Rings.

I find it mildly humorous how quick some people are to jump to Gygax's defense. No one's trying to downplay the influence of Gygax or D&D here.

 

[jasper]

1.Please stop with this "Draconians as PCs are bad" idea. ....... Really some people are invested in a Dragonlance that hasn't existed since the 1980s.
2. Why limit players?....

Why is there a desire to outright ban things that players might enjoy?
Better to work with a player so that can realise their concept in a way that doesn't destroy a campaign. And that's at your table.
3.....All campaign settings should support playing any PHB race. Whether the race is rare or not is irrelevant - even if the PC is the only one in the world, the option still needs to be there. Doing otherwise is a strange form of puritanical policing.

1. Draconians as PC are bad. Why? Because I thought DL sucked and never bought any DL game product after as certain year. What year? I cannot give a specific year to you because I dump a lot of game stuff around 2008. But it was before 1994.
2.Why do players demand the kitchen sink races of pcs? IF you want the kitchen sink of races, you dm. A DM in within his rights to limit anything as long as they are upfront about it.
3 NO. The races and options should fit the theme of campaign.
…Doing otherwise is a strange form of puritanical policing….. Well okay. I can’t even think of way to answer this