D&D Race You Hate the Most

[Yora]

Changeling = half doppelganger
Planetouched = half elemental
Shifter = half lycanthrope
Warforged = half golem
Dragonborn = half dragon
Tiefling = half fiend
Aasimar = half celestial

I really don't like the halfblood "solution". In 4th Edition they explicitly spelled out "Dragonborn are for players who want to play dragons" and the creation of the half-orc player race was the same thing I, I heard.
But that's really not the point. If people want to play a dragon, orc, celestial, or golem, then they want to play a dragon, orc, celestial or golem. Not just a human with body paint that looks like a dragon, orc, celestial, or golem. Just getting a defanged version is not the same thing. It's just lame.

I make an exception for tieflings, because Planescape made tieflings cool for me.

 

[TwinBahamut]

But the problem then is to make those races feel flavorfully like you're playing the actual race, we're looking at a level adjustment out the wazoo. And level adjustments classically cost FAR FAR more than they were really worth. Go download the Paizo Advanced Race Guide playtest document for an idea of how simply cost-ineffective things can be.(it's actually looking like a really cool guide for species building).

This is only true if you presume a 3E or 4E style race system and use Level Adjustment (a terrible mechanic) to balance anything more powerful than the pitifully weak baseline. There are a lot of other alternatives to that which make more powerful races more of an option, and I greatly prefer those alternative to the classic mechanics. Even "race as class" is a good alternative if you want to play a Dragon.

True, but nearly all of them can be put into two categories: Anthropomorphic Creatures and Half-Bloods.

Centaur = anthro. horse
Minotaur = anthro. bovine
Satyr = anthro. goat
Rakasta = anthro. cat
Lizardfolk = anthro. lizards

Changeling = half doppelganger
Planetouched = half elemental
Shifter = half lycanthrope
Warforged = half golem
Dragonborn = half dragon
Tiefling = half fiend
Aasimar = half celestial

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing; it can be a lot of fun playing the role of a half-blooded doppelganger or an anthropomorphic cat. I just don't think it adds as much variety as people say it does.

I think you're both over-simplifying the issue and ignoring one of my key points. For one, anthropomorphic creatures can have a rather high degree of variation (it is hard to say that a Minotaur, a Centaur, and a person with bird wings are terribly similar). They all also tend to have more mythic inspiration than some of the alternatives, which always helps. You're also ignoring the fact that I just said that I dislike the halfbloods. Sure, a tiefling or aasimar don't add a lot of variety, but a full-blooded Angel or Devil as a playable race certainly would.

IMO, of the races in the poll only warforged, thri-kreen and changelings are significantly less humanlike than elves and dwarves.

(Also gith, but for "cultural" reasons - living on the astral plane has to mess with your perception of physics. You could have the same background with any race.)

Well, this is exactly why I used that "good racial choices" phrasing. I know that many people will disagree with me for this, but I don't consider the vast majority of traditional D&D races to be good racial choices.

 

[Sunseeker]

This is only true if you presume a 3E or 4E style race system and use Level Adjustment (a terrible mechanic) to balance anything more powerful than the pitifully weak baseline. There are a lot of other alternatives to that which make more powerful races more of an option, and I greatly prefer those alternative to the classic mechanics. Even "race as class" is a good alternative if you want to play a Dragon.

The buy in even for "racial classes" as traditionally been pretty high for pretty low output.

And realistically the number of campaigns in which you could use a dragon PC, a lycanthrope PC, or some other sort of 70%animal/30%human hybird or just plain old monster, are pretty low.

Making near-humans and humanoids out of these creatures makes them more plausible in the vast majority of games.

 

[CleverNickName]

They all also tend to have more mythic inspiration than some of the alternatives, which always helps.

Aye, but there's the rub. Some of us would like Wizards of the Coast to go easy on the "mythic inspiration" in the core of the new edition, so that we don't have to surgically extract it later. (Even after 5 years, I still have the occasional quabble with my players about why there are no Monks in ancient Egypt.)

I would prefer to have Core Rules that are generic and universally applicable to all campaign styles, and an assortment of accessories for different settings and styles. I'm not saying that aasimar, tieflings, minotaurs, warforged, etc., have no place in 5E. I'm saying that their place is in accessory books, not the core.

 

[Hassassin]

Well, this is exactly why I used that "good racial choices" phrasing. I know that many people will disagree with me for this, but I don't consider the vast majority of traditional D&D races to be good racial choices.

Ok, how about some examples to explain your point. What would your PHB race list look like and why would it be better than for example the union of 3e and 4e?

 

[Sunseeker]

I would prefer to have Core Rules that are generic and universally applicable to all campaign styles, and an assortment of accessories for different settings and styles. I'm not saying that aasimar, tieflings, minotaurs, warforged, etc., have no place in 5E. I'm saying that their place is in accessory books, not the core.

Problematically, D&D still needs to maintain something to it beyond the "generic" to make it feel like D&D. Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Elves and the D20 system could be any game. Where's the hook? Why am I buying this severely overpriced manual from Wizards and not some other guy who's selling a downloadable PDF for a quarter the price with all the same content?

This is the ever-present problem of the OGL, the more generic Wizards makes the game, the less they can claim as "theirs", which means the less reason there is to buy their products.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Dragonborn for me too, I'm not too keen on the name, and those phallic noses in a lot of the art, puts me off aesthetically, for a start.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I must say, I don't usually use the multiquote option this much... Oh well, this is interesting.

The buy in even for "racial classes" as traditionally been pretty high for pretty low output.

And realistically the number of campaigns in which you could use a dragon PC, a lycanthrope PC, or some other sort of 70%animal/30%human hybird or just plain old monster, are pretty low.

Making near-humans and humanoids out of these creatures makes them more plausible in the vast majority of games.

I'll disagree with the logic of your first point. The "it was weak before, so the concept is terrible" argument isn't a very convincing one. Simply improving the strength of the option would correct it, and that kind of balancing is an important aspect of every edition of the game. It is not like anyone thought abandoning the Fighter as a class concept was a good idea just because it was weak in 3E. I'll be the first to admit that the "race as class" idea has its flaws and is an imperfect solution, but there are better arguments against it.

I'll also disagree with your idea that race options like dragons, lycanthropes, or other non-humanoids are incompatible with the vast majority of campaigns. You present neither any evidence nor any logic to back that statement up. Without either of those, I'll simply reject the statement as you trying to over-generalize your own preferences. I, for one, would be happy to see such options.

Aye, but there's the rub. Some of us would like Wizards of the Coast to go easy on the "mythic inspiration" in the core of the new edition, so that we don't have to surgically extract it later. (Even after 5 years, I still have the occasional quabble with my players about why there are no Monks in ancient Egypt.)

I would prefer to have Core Rules that are generic and universally applicable to all campaign styles, and an assortment of accessories for different settings and styles. I'm not saying that aasimar, tieflings, minotaurs, warforged, etc., have no place in 5E. I'm saying that their place is in accessory books, not the core.

I don't really understand your point on several levels. I don't see the connection between mythic inspiration for the game and your issue with monks in ancient Egypt. I also don't really see the relevance of the "core vs. supplement" debate on this particular discussion (which I'm really extending to the broader game as a whole, not just some squabbling over the "core").

There is also the issue that I just don't like the argument that core must only contain a limited set of things that nobody hates. By that logic, the D&D core would only contain human fighters, and even then I'm sure someone around here would complain about how human fighters don't belong in their campaign! D&D's job is to present as many options as possible, not to exclude them in order to cater to particular tastes.

Ok, how about some examples to explain your point. What would your PHB race list look like and why would it be better than for example the union of 3e and 4e?

I'll say upfront that a lot of my arguments for why certain races would be better is summed up with a few guidelines, most of which rather honestly are just preferences on my part. I won't claim that these choices are better for everyone, but they will certainly be better for me (and I would presume a non-trivial number of potential players).

Anyways, here's my preferences and/or assumptions:

1) Racial choice should have a significant impact on the game. More than just a few minor bonuses and stat mods, it should open the possibility of a significantly different game experience.
2) People who want to play something inhuman don't want to play a humanized version of the target concept. They instead want to play the actual target concept.
3) Intelligent creatures should not be arbitrarily divided into "playable races" and "monsters". For the most part, just because something is presented as a potential opponent shouldn't exclude it from being a player choice. Violent bigotry on the part of human peasants towards anything not very humanlike should not be a default assumption of D&D.
4) There are a lot of fantasy races out there with a lot of traction that are not usually seen or given a proper treatment in D&D.
5) Various "rubber forehead alien" style races distinct to D&D, like the Giths, are simply rather boring and tend to crowd out more flavorful and widely acceptable concepts. Some of these are just offensively bad.

As for the race list that I would propose (understanding that this is neither a suggestion for the PHB1 or an exhaustive list of what the game should contain), I'd propose the following.

Humans - Naturally.

Elves - They can be decent once in a while.

Dwarves - They can also be decent once in a while.

Halflings - Because their fans would lynch me if I omitted them.

Orcs - I see no problem with just letting them in as a main race, same as elves or dwarves.

Centaurs - I grew up reading Narnia, what can I say?

Werecreatures - I'd create a few variants, actually... I'd much rather have the interesting mechanics of transforming in a full beast form than the "be Wolverine from the X-Men!" style of the Shifters.

Minotaurs - They're a good candidate for a big and tough race that is still smaller than a proper Giant. Much better than a Half-Giant. Unlike a goliath, the name is more recognizable and their appearance is more distinctive.

Giant - Speaking of Giants, they would work quite well as a racial choice. Being big has its advantages and disadvantages, but it would be a very different experience than being a human. Sounds fun to me.

Pixie/Fairy - At the opposite end of the spectrum from Giants are these. Unlike halflings, they are small enough to make the concept fun. Just... please no more flavoring them as Tinkerbell knock-offs.

Angel - If you want a character associated with goodness and celestial cosmology, skipping past Aasimar and going straight to angels is the road I'd take. Since they are mostly humanlike anyways, I see no need to halfblood them.

Demon/Devil - A bit harder to justify than Angels, but still possible. Again, why use Tieflings if the pureblood version is mechanically viable?

Genie - To round out the planar set of races, we get the elemental version. Not too different mechanically from the Genasi, but better flavor.

Dragon - Because it just sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to play. I know this one would be popular.

Intelligent Animal - Too iconic to myth and fantasy to possibly ignore.

Nymph - Includes various varieties like Dryads and Nereids. Creatures of nature who draw strength from various forms of terrain. 4E proved that this can work, so it just needs to be generalized.

Merfolk - Iconic and makes oceanic campaigns a lot more viable.

There are a lot of other things I'd like to see, though many of those are a bit more campaign-specific. Warforged are a good race, for example. I could probably go on for a while, actually, but I'll stop here.

 

[Sunseeker]

I must say, I don't usually use the multiquote option this much... Oh well, this is interesting.

Isn't it? I once got called schizophrenic for breaking up things into multi-quote parts so that I could better address the point. Dunno how breaking things down for easier replies makes one crazy.

I'll disagree with the logic of your first point. The "it was weak before, so the concept is terrible" argument isn't a very convincing one.

No, it's not. It's more of my opinion on the skill or desire of Wizards to do so. I think Pathfinder has a pretty reasonable buy-in for most of their templates and level adjustments. I'm looking forward to see their Advanced Race Guide come out this summer. But this is part of my point. Where Paizo is developing a system to enhance customization further and retool LA issues, Wizards went from high-customization of 3.5 to almost no customization in 4e.

I think that's one of the lessons they've learned for 5e, or at least I hope it is. The way Wizards wants you to play should not be the way you HAVE to play, it at least sounds like this is a core principle to 5e. I hope.

Simply improving the strength of the option would correct it, and that kind of balancing is an important aspect of every edition of the game.

Reducing the cost is valid as well. I thought the layout for racial classes in Savage Species was pretty good, but I don't like the idea that once you set down the path of your race, you HAVE to finish it. Not to mention, again, the buy-in was WAY too high for the purchase.

I'll also disagree with your idea that race options like dragons, lycanthropes, or other non-humanoids are incompatible with the vast majority of campaigns. You present neither any evidence nor any logic to back that statement up. Without either of those, I'll simply reject the statement as you trying to over-generalize your own preferences. I, for one, would be happy to see such options.

I doubt there are many studies on what people play the most in D&D adventures, however, given that the history of the game and the majority of fantasy RPGs in general focus on human, humanoid and near-human characters, I would stand to wager that the majority of games and characters reflect this. I understand there is certainly some room for monstrous campaigns, I've wanted to run them myself. But out of some half a dozen campaigns I've run and the others I've played it, I've only wanted to do a monster campaign once.

2) People who want to play something inhuman don't want to play a humanized version of the target concept. They instead want to play the actual target concept.

True, but there's middle ground here as well, and people can be willing to compromise.

3) Intelligent creatures should not be arbitrarily divided into "playable races" and "monsters". For the most part, just because something is presented as a potential opponent shouldn't exclude it from being a player choice. Violent bigotry on the part of human peasants towards anything not very humanlike should not be a default assumption of D&D.

To this I agree, and I think the first step would be to present a "base" version of the race. The monster found in the manual may have half a dozen attacks and 20 weapons and so on, but stripped of those things there is a BASE here. Short of a race-as-class or large LA however, you're not going to get the full-power of a creature @ level 1.

4) There are a lot of fantasy races out there with a lot of traction that are not usually seen or given a proper treatment in D&D.

Yep, and that's something I'd love to see in 5e, is allowing for more production of 3PP stuff, which is where I would expect to find a lot more of the monstrous creatures as PCs.

5) Various "rubber forehead alien" style races distinct to D&D, like the Giths, are simply rather boring and tend to crowd out more flavorful and widely acceptable concepts. Some of these are just offensively bad.

To be fair to Giths, I don't think you're giving them the credit they're due.

Humans - Naturally.

Elves - They can be decent once in a while.

Dwarves - They can also be decent once in a while.

Halflings - Because their fans would lynch me if I omitted them.

Orcs - I see no problem with just letting them in as a main race, same as elves or dwarves.

Centaurs - I grew up reading Narnia, what can I say?

Werecreatures - I'd create a few variants, actually... I'd much rather have the interesting mechanics of transforming in a full beast form than the "be Wolverine from the X-Men!" style of the Shifters.

Minotaurs - They're a good candidate for a big and tough race that is still smaller than a proper Giant. Much better than a Half-Giant. Unlike a goliath, the name is more recognizable and their appearance is more distinctive.

Giant - Speaking of Giants, they would work quite well as a racial choice. Being big has its advantages and disadvantages, but it would be a very different experience than being a human. Sounds fun to me.

Pixie/Fairy - At the opposite end of the spectrum from Giants are these. Unlike halflings, they are small enough to make the concept fun. Just... please no more flavoring them as Tinkerbell knock-offs.

Angel - If you want a character associated with goodness and celestial cosmology, skipping past Aasimar and going straight to angels is the road I'd take. Since they are mostly humanlike anyways, I see no need to halfblood them.

Demon/Devil - A bit harder to justify than Angels, but still possible. Again, why use Tieflings if the pureblood version is mechanically viable?

Genie - To round out the planar set of races, we get the elemental version. Not too different mechanically from the Genasi, but better flavor.

Dragon - Because it just sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to play. I know this one would be popular.

Intelligent Animal - Too iconic to myth and fantasy to possibly ignore.

Nymph - Includes various varieties like Dryads and Nereids. Creatures of nature who draw strength from various forms of terrain. 4E proved that this can work, so it just needs to be generalized.

Merfolk - Iconic and makes oceanic campaigns a lot more viable.

Specifically to the ones highlighted, how would you go about balancing them to the others? These are creatures with INCREDIBLE powers.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Reducing the cost is valid as well. I thought the layout for racial classes in Savage Species was pretty good, but I don't like the idea that once you set down the path of your race, you HAVE to finish it. Not to mention, again, the buy-in was WAY too high for the purchase.

Lowering the cost of something is certainly an important way of making it more powerful, and this is indeed where too many previous bad implementations went awry. I really hope that any future version of this sort of thing completely sidesteps the Level Adjustment/Savage Species style of mechanics.

I doubt there are many studies on what people play the most in D&D adventures, however, given that the history of the game and the majority of fantasy RPGs in general focus on human, humanoid and near-human characters, I would stand to wager that the majority of games and characters reflect this. I understand there is certainly some room for monstrous campaigns, I've wanted to run them myself. But out of some half a dozen campaigns I've run and the others I've played it, I've only wanted to do a monster campaign once.

Well, the problem with looking at D&D campaigns for this sort of data is that the historically bad mechanics for this sort of thing tended to push people away from the choice. If you look at something relevant outside of D&D campaigns alone, then other trends become apparent. For example, many MMOs have pretty crazy racial choices, and they can be rather popular. I think that once you get past the group of players who just want to play humans (which is rather large), then the remaining set seems to feel as comfortable playing orcs, trolls, or panda-men as they do elves or dwarves. That's a bit of a vague generalization, but it's my impression.

Also, I again want to express that I don't think you need to play a "monstrous campaign" in order to have races like dragons in a group of PCs. I know not everyone is okay with this flavor, but I'm rather fond of a group of PCs including 3 humans, a dwarf, and a dragon. When the humans and dwarf head to the pub, the dragon just chills outside, maybe wandering off to glean some information from the dragon who protects the king's castle.

To this I agree, and I think the first step would be to present a "base" version of the race. The monster found in the manual may have half a dozen attacks and 20 weapons and so on, but stripped of those things there is a BASE here. Short of a race-as-class or large LA however, you're not going to get the full-power of a creature @ level 1.

You would certainly need this approach. I have no interest in implementing these races simply by making players play their characters straight out of the Monster Manual. That would be a terrible approach. You need to build mechanics for them as races, the same as elves or dwarves. That will certainly require a somewhat different approach to race design than past editions, but it is possible. You won't get a fully powered Great Wyrm dragon at level 1, but you can certainly get a character who looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon, and has all the mechanics of not wearing armor and breathing fire needed for him to be unmistakably a dragon.

Yep, and that's something I'd love to see in 5e, is allowing for more production of 3PP stuff, which is where I would expect to find a lot more of the monstrous creatures as PCs.

I don't want this to be left up to third party works. WotC needs to tackle this one. This kind of thing needs to be built into the central mechanics of the game if it is ever going to work. It can't just be hacked in by some third party. I'm not really a fan of third party stuff anyways... I only ever bought two third party d20 books (both for Iron Heroes, actually).

To be fair to Giths, I don't think you're giving them the credit they're due.

What can I say? I just can't see the appeal...

Specifically to the ones highlighted, how would you go about balancing them to the others? These are creatures with INCREDIBLE powers.

I suppose I would start by not assuming that every creature of those types has that kind of power. For the most part, any given member of one of those types has a few fairly iconic abilities. Angels are holy and have wings. Demons/devils are unholy. Genies are elemental. Dragons breath fire. You don't need to replicate the full stat block of a Solar, Pit Fiend, or Djinni Prince in order to get the flavor across or get to the heart of their mechanics. Some could also have severe drawbacks that limit them compared to Humans (this is clearest with a Dragon's inability to wear armor or carry a sword, but similar drawbacks may apply to the others). Generally speaking, a very low level Angel, Demon, or Genie might very well closely resemble an Aasimar, Tielfing, or Genasi. It is only at high levels that the major differences would begin to shine through.