doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Different groups and areas are different. IME, a lot of older gamers also steer new gamers toward the “basic” options, as well, which will change the numbers of within a group or local community.Which is somewhat surprising to me since the players I've gamed with in recent years who were under 30 typically stick to the basic races. Plenty of dwarfs and elves but not so many Goliaths or some of the other options.
Regardless, the less “common” options are popular enough to create mountains of character art, social media traffic, actual play rep, and 3pp demand for them. That’s more than enough reason to keep them in the core books.
Um...I’ve never in 20+ years seen a half-orc played in a way defined by how they were conceived. Like...”bastard child of violence” isn’t a personality type.That's not been my experience either. And I'm not sure what type there is with half-orc these days given D&D has distances themselves from the unfortunately implications rooted all the way back in 1st edition.
I mean, it’s an experience thing, too. IME they’re very, very, different.In my estimation humans and dwarfs in D&D really aren't all that different. But that's probably another thread.
Same for a lot of people. Folks like to be able to play the things they love playing.I can personally attest that the lack of druid and barbarian was one of the many reasons I avoided 4th edition.