D&D 5E D&D Needs "Weirder"/More Unique Races

[Tonguez]

I played a Willowwisp Psion named Zazu in 3e and had lots of fun zapping people I did a gnome homebrew who had an empathic hivemind which made them hyper coordinated (swarm) and I’ve always wondered about playing an Otyugh (I’ve used Otyugh NPCs)

DnD races do tend to be a bit Humans with funny ears though

 

[TheSword]

how good a campaign is has nothing to do with the races or even the setting but everything to do with players and dm so that point is technically irrelevant.

what core cultures we have humans who are every variety from real life, elves who are technically identical aside from the fact they mutate based on the environment dwarves who could all be clones and we would never know and legally not hobbits which I have never seen anyone do anything properly interesting with.

race does not make an interesting character but humans are supper dependent on world setting to do the heavy lifting for them thus without it they end up with bland characters or copies of others wholesale.
plus fantasy lets you reject your humanness which I super like.

ah so your suggesting I care for only the cover and mechanics, look I do care but no one whats a character they find disgusting to think about and we all want mechanics that work well but I care about how they think and the cultures they are part of as it lets me see better how they think and what they could care about.

a default story I do not get nor see how to do those can you expand, please?

as I have been trying to hammer one out for a while that is worthy to exist.

I think people spend too much time seeing cosmetic differences between races and not enough time on psychological differences. The first is easier because it comes with abilities but the psychology is far more interesting from a RP perspective.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had an excellent set of essays about non-human psychology for elves and dwarves. The advice fundamentally changed the way I view these races.

Elves being functionally immortal in game terms would have totally different views on the shorter lived races, and a totally different approach to study, practice, social life, possibly even the value of life.

Dwarves also being extremely long lived, but also coming from below ground - and a place usually inhabited with things that want to kill them, would have fundamentally different ideas about permanence, honesty, making mistakes and work.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think people spend too much time seeing cosmetic differences between races and not enough time on psychological differences. The first is easier because it comes with abilities but the psychology is far more interesting from a RP perspective.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had an excellent set of essays about non-human psychology for elves and dwarves. The advice fundamentally changed the way I view these races.

Elves being functionally immortal in game terms would have totally different views on the shorter lived races, and a totally different approach to study, practice, social life, possibly even the value of life.

Dwarves also being extremely long lived, but also coming from below ground - and a place usually inhabited with things that want to kill them, would have fundamentally different ideas about permanence, honesty, making mistakes and work.

one would also need to account for how each culture interprets things as there is the general version, a cultures specific version and the individual in questions versions of the former to help inform the latter.

 

[TheSword]

one would also need to account for how each culture interprets things as there is the general version, a cultures specific version and the individual in questions versions of the former to help inform the latter.

Absolutely. There can be a huge amount of variation and interest just like in real life there are lots of viewpoints that define people. It’s worth writing up the psychology of the different core races.

Often the descriptions in the PhB or various supplements describe common experiences but only go into psychology in the most superficial or stereotypical way. Tieflings being bullied for instance.

It might be worth a separate thread. I’ll dig out the old article and have a read again. Maybe post something this evening.

 

[Salthorae]

Just use the new Custom Lineage and call it whatever you want. Feats can replicate many racial abilities depending on what you want to do.

Walking crystal person? Check.
Groot? Check

With the custom lineage it's all about the flavor you and your DM can agree on to work in the game.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I go back and forth on the "menagerie" adventuring party. On the one hand, adventurers are weird and do exist outside the bounds of normalcy. On the other hand, when this circus shows up to town, how does that look to your average peasant?

Yeah, that and what I tended to see, was that in a world where 95% of the population was elf, dwarf, halfling and human, parties consisted of plant man, living crystal being, aarakocra, living sludge and undead monkey. It just gets too weird for me.

I agree, giving a proper example of what a custom lineage could look like would have been useful. Or heck, even just an example of the customization of a standard race - walk us through building a character from a seafaring dwarven people. For just two pages, it's a remarkable game-changer of a section.

perhaps they have simply never seen it done well, let us face it a well-built example ends up getting copied on mass thus give a few good ones for each race and people will play better.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I go back and forth on the "menagerie" adventuring party. On the one hand, adventurers are weird and do exist outside the bounds of normalcy. On the other hand, when this circus shows up to town, how does that look to your average peasant?



I agree, giving a proper example of what a custom lineage could look like would have been useful. Or heck, even just an example of the customization of a standard race - walk us through building a character from a seafaring dwarven people. For just two pages, it's a remarkable game-changer of a section.

it looks like you were going to say something to my post what was it?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think I said my part, unless I misconstrued your initial response. I thought you were getting at how it would have helped to have examples to show people how to use the custom lineage feature.

it looks like you were going to say something to my post what was it?

 

[Tonguez]

I go back and forth on the "menagerie" adventuring party. On the one hand, adventurers are weird and do exist outside the bounds of normalcy. On the other hand, when this circus shows up to town, how does that look to your average peasant?

My PC Orbril the gnome set up a circus exactly for this purpose - it allowed any kind of character to move between towns and cities and have a reason and a base.

Otherwise I agree with you, which is why I do make a point of having town guards tell the PCs that the Dragonborn, Tieflings and Pixies will need to stay outside of town or in a cell (In larger cities I will provide caravanserai or fouburgs for them)

 

[Steampunkette]

Absolutely. There can be a huge amount of variation and interest just like in real life there are lots of viewpoints that define people. It’s worth writing up the psychology of the different core races.

Often the descriptions in the PhB or various supplements describe common experiences but only go into psychology in the most superficial or stereotypical way. Tieflings being bullied for instance.

It might be worth a separate thread. I’ll dig out the old article and have a read again. Maybe post something this evening.

Consider Wealth.

Wealth has a tendency to settle in most societies. People who own the things that other people need (Land, Water, Natural Resources) are able to leverage work for pay and generally wind up on the more lucrative side of that deal with every person they employ. These resources are typically handed down by the family, but are used almost daily, or entirely daily, by everyone (In the case of food, for example).

Now imagine an almost immortal landowner. One elf gets claim to a nice chunk of River-Valley and suddenly everyone in the region is entirely dependent on his staggering wealth from various investments and businesses over the past 400 years or so.

It'd be like Bezos' brain in a jar in 2521, owning the greater part of the solar system in a cyberpunk dystopia where Amazon bought out Earth, Mars, and the Kuiper Belt for mineral rights!