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

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Okay, quick clarification before I get into this a bit more. I do not mean that current official D&D races need to get weirder/more unique, I mean that we need future official races to be weirder and more unique. Sure, D&D already has quite a few weird/unique races, but a lot of them have quite a bit of overlap. Orcs have significant overlap with Goliaths and Hobgoblins (all three being proud warrior races), Tritons, Sea Elves, and Mermaids all fill the same niche, Elves have overlap with Gnomes and Firbolg (all being magical fey races with long lives), Tabaxi and Leonin are both cat people, Aarakocra and Owlfolk are both bird folk, and so on.

Now, I'm not saying we can't/shouldn't have new races that do have some overlap with current existing D&D races, I just would like future races to have less overlap and be more unique culturally and mechanically. Here are some examples (Keep in mind that I don't want all or even most of these to become official, I just would like some more diverse races thematically):

• Bug People. Now, most people don't like most bugs, which is understandable, but there are some bug people that wouldn't completely gross people out. An example that come to mind from fantasy series, like the Grinaldi from the 5 Kingdoms book series, who have grasshopper legs and wings, who are fantastic jumpers and are very stealthy and perceptive. Other bug people that could become official in D&D without grossing people out could be honeybee/bumblebee people, moth/butterfly people, firefly people, ladybug people, and so on.
• More Anthropomorphic Animal Races. We already have quite a few of these, like the Rabbitfolk, Tabaxi and Leonin, Tortles, Aarakocra, Owlfolk, Lizardfolk, and so on, but we could use more, especially more unique ones. What about terrestrial-birdfolk? No humanoid penguins? Or some fairly popular ones that aren't official, like Ratfolk, Bearfolk, and Foxfolk. As mentioned in the Unearthed Arcana: Draconic Options thread, we could also have Platypus and Echidna folk. Maybe even some marsupial humanoids, like Koalas, Kangaroo/Wallaby, or Wombat people. There are a ton of animals, so we could have even more races.
• Otherworldly Races. We have already been getting some of these through the Feywild and Gothic Races/Lineages, but there are a lot of planes of existence and a lot more new and unique races could be created through them. We could get a Far Realm touched race, more Celestial races, a Limbo-related race (chaos grung?), and so on.

Any thoughts or ideas?

 

[RangerWickett]

I once designed a species that dwelled in the dense clouds of a gas giant, which vaguely resembled man-sized dragonflies with several wings sprouting along the length of the central spine (sort of like Phalanx, the flying snake, if you're played Shadow of the Colossus). They had four forelimbs that could grip and manipulate things.

Bonus: they would die if brought to earth-equivalent air pressure, popping their exoskeleton like a blobfish brought up from the depths of the sea.

Then for morrus's "N.E.W." rpg, I wrote a sci-fi adventure called Waking Nightmares, which involved humans on a colony sleeper ship waking up to discover their vessel had been boarded by aliens that were individually about the size of a badger, but could link their nervous systems with elephantine trunks to create chain-of-monkeys style combinations of potentially much greater size.

 

[aco175]

The problem is that there is only so many races that need to fit a niche. Do I need a Dex-based race that would be good for a thief, or a Str race that makes a good fighter. You only really need the PHB races to fill these. The rest can be optional. I do see a lot of races posted on DMsGuild with ram-folk, otter-folk and such. What was the crystal people back in 3e or 4e? Seems like people like the Mos-Eisley approach.

My problem with some of these new races is that I find it hard to get into the mind of a being like that. It is hard enough to play a being that lives 700 years like an elf and decide to adventure and such. I find that the rest would just become humans with cool powers and not what a cat-person would think.

 

[opacitizen]

No, it doesn't, really.

If D&D needs something, it's a friendly guide to help people make more interesting, intriguing and engaging (and engageable) personalities and backgrounds for their characters, focusing on motivations, traits, and so on.

Having weirder and weirder races, and having them as what's supposed to make a character unique and interesting primarily is shallow and boring, and doesn't lead to interesting stories most of the time.

"Look, Luke, I have fourteen other hands on my back under my cape, and seven of them are made of strawberry-flavored silver jelly! And I have the face of a pink Vhereverrian skunk under my mask! Because I'm a pink Vhereverrian skunk!"
"So? Who cares?"

vs

"No. I am your father!"
"No!"

Which one would you choose?

YMMV, though — and it does, obviously. Which is cool. (You asked for our thoughts.)

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Like Talislanta's Races?

Talislanta Archetypes Illustrated

One of the best things about the 2nd edition of Talislanta was that the Player’s Handbook contained several pages of small but nicely-illustrated figures of every archetype available to play …

futurolog.wordpress.com

 

[Eltab]

There are Thri-kreen in Dark Sun, for a bug race. They seemed to be popular in the 4e Ashes of Athas campaign, with one or two at every table. That helped establish the Athas "not just any old D&D" vibe.

If you want to go in to this whole hog (pun-intended), several editions of Gamma World have anthropomorphic animals as a playable race. There is very little material describing mindset - why this is not just a human in a different body - though. GW rules were (usually) written with conversion compatibility to the then-current edition of D&D in mind.

P.S. I agree that a new 'weird race' needs a niche and a concept: what does this race do that nobody else does as well? It also needs an editor's eye to make sure it does not introduce power creep or take over an existing race's niche (but do it better stronger faster) and render that race obsolete.

 

[Imaro]

I think that if D&D goes down the route of more races it should look beyond eurocentric legends, mythology and fiction for inspiration. If anything this is what I feel like is missing from base D&D and D&D as a whole.

 

[TheSword]

Okay, quick clarification before I get into this a bit more. I do not mean that current official D&D races need to get weirder/more unique, I mean that we need future official races to be weirder and more unique. Sure, D&D already has quite a few weird/unique races, but a lot of them have quite a bit of overlap. Orcs have significant overlap with Goliaths and Hobgoblins (all three being proud warrior races), Tritons, Sea Elves, and Mermaids all fill the same niche, Elves have overlap with Gnomes and Firbolg (all being magical fey races with long lives), Tabaxi and Leonin are both cat people, Aarakocra and Owlfolk are both bird folk, and so on.

Now, I'm not saying we can't/shouldn't have new races that do have some overlap with current existing D&D races, I just would like future races to have less overlap and be more unique culturally and mechanically. Here are some examples (Keep in mind that I don't want all or even most of these to become official, I just would like some more diverse races thematically):

• Bug People. Now, most people don't like most bugs, which is understandable, but there are some bug people that wouldn't completely gross people out. An example that come to mind from fantasy series, like the Grinaldi from the 5 Kingdoms book series, who have grasshopper legs and wings, who are fantastic jumpers and are very stealthy and perceptive. Other bug people that could become official in D&D without grossing people out could be honeybee/bumblebee people, moth/butterfly people, firefly people, ladybug people, and so on.
• More Anthropomorphic Animal Races. We already have quite a few of these, like the Rabbitfolk, Tabaxi and Leonin, Tortles, Aarakocra, Owlfolk, Lizardfolk, and so on, but we could use more, especially more unique ones. What about terrestrial-birdfolk? No humanoid penguins? Or some fairly popular ones that aren't official, like Ratfolk, Bearfolk, and Foxfolk. As mentioned in the Unearthed Arcana: Draconic Options thread, we could also have Platypus and Echidna folk. Maybe even some marsupial humanoids, like Koalas, Kangaroo/Wallaby, or Wombat people. There are a ton of animals, so we could have even more races.
• Otherworldly Races. We have already been getting some of these through the Feywild and Gothic Races/Lineages, but there are a lot of planes of existence and a lot more new and unique races could be created through them. We could get a Far Realm touched race, more Celestial races, a Limbo-related race (chaos grung?), and so on.

Any thoughts or ideas?

You said what you wanted, but you didn’t actually say why?

What is the virtue of more unusual playable races?

 

[delericho]

I'd be in favour of that, for some settings. However, I would also advocate that those settings shouldn't increase the number of available races - a setting that adds several weirder races should also remove some or all of the standard races at the same time. No point in having bug people, vole people, and planestouched people if everyone still just plays an elf, a dwarf, and a halfling.

 

[Ixal]

When you look at every race poll most players prefer humans. And even when you play a non-human, they usually behave like a human with maybe slightly exaggerated traits.
So whats the point of ever more "weird" races when in the end they behave like humans? (And admittedly, playing something inhuman consistently is very hard. But even in setting lore weird races are still humans with a bit more X).