hawkeyefan
Legend
HOWEVER, I strongly disagree with you about campaigns. Many, if not most, DMs run a standard "kitchen sink" fantasy campaign setting. And that's fine (I have run many of those). But if the DM is running something else, then you should try and abide by those strictures. Because, well, respect is a two-way street. Not to beat a broken drum, but I have never seen a game of D&D played, yet, where the DM didn't have the most in terms of commitment (time). If the DM is going to run a specialized campaign, and put that effort it, then why not play within those strictures? To use the Dark Sun example- you can always play a gnome, so why not, for this one DS campaign, play a DS race (for example)?
In other words, if you are lucky enough to have an involved DM (not just a "my way or the highway jerk DM") why shouldn't the players at least try to make it work in a campaign, instead of just creating a "whatever" generic character?
In the end, it's about communication- if the DM makes it clear what type of campaign it is going to be, then you can make your choice. But IMO, I can't imagine that I would want a player, who, after I put together a list of particular rules for that campaign, was all like, "Yeah, whatever man, I wanna play this instead of the countless other options."
I would agree. I think perhaps I tailored my post too much toward the DM; I am primarily a DM when my group plays, and I used to think such setting restrictions were valid. And I would say that they may even be valid.
My point is that I don't think the reasons presented wind up being all that valid. Most of the time, the reasons seem to be personal preference masked as "the setting". At least in the discussions I've seen online. Very rarely do I ever see anyone describe a restriction like "No Tieflings" and then explain why, and I think, "wow, that really makes sense." Usually all I win up thinking is "wow, you really hate tieflings."
The examples I gave are more restrictive, and therefore a bit different, I think. But most of the ones I see online don't accomplish what they claim to. This is from my admittedly limited poin of view of hearing about them online rather than in playing in the actual game, of course. But that's why I use Athas as a go to in these discussions...it's a common ground we can all use as a baseline for discussion.
But aside from that, yes, I think that players can be just as guilty of a dick move by deciding to play a character that goes against the campaign concept. I agree with that totally. I just don't know if I think that targeted racial restrictions really do all that much for a campaign's feel. I also don't think that picking a specific race really MUST be counter to the feel of a campaign.
Perhaps the player has an interesting concept for their Athasian gnome. Perhaps that player has even given more thought to the setting than a player who simply looked at the list of allowable races and classes and said "okay I'll play a human fighter".
In your opinion. Personally, I think it's one of the better reasons to remove a race from play. If the DM wants to work with a setting with only a limited set of races, that's fine as far as I'm concerned. We do that kind of thing reasonably frequently in the games I play in.
Well, yes, it's my opinion of course!
Do you have a specific example that would illustrate how such a restriction could be useful to establishing the vibe of a campaign? Do you think that the lack of gnomes (or orcs or trolls or a myriad of other non-playable races) really brings all that much to Dark Sun? Because I don't think most of the time that such specific racial restrictions do much for a setting. That's all I was saying. I'd like to hear some examples that may change my mind. Usually, people don't get specific about this topic, so it's hard to judge....but generally speaking, it seems that the restrictions usually boil down to personal preference and little more.
I think that an all human or all elf, etc. campaign can have a specific feel. But I don't think that's nearly as true of a no dragonborn or no halfling campaign.
To me, once you've let the dwarf and the elf in, you may as well let them hold the door for the dragonborn and tiefling.