D&D General Do you like LOTS of races/ancestries/whatever? If so, why?

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but if the world had sea elves, and the player want to play a triton, why not accommodate the player and replace sea elves with tritons?. By your own admission, you feel that the races occupy the same niche.

Also, I choose tritons as an example for a reason: the argument had been made that many races was unrealistic because the would compete among each other and wipe each other out. This argument does not apply to tritons who occupy a different niche than most humanoids.

See, I feel your stance is, "if the player wants something, just give it to them". I don't think its fair to the DM to just do whatever the player wants.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think @Vaalingrade ‘s point, which is a reasonable one, is that the definition of “verisimilitude” isn’t consistent.

The people who raise “verisimilitude” arguments to sideline fighters or to argue that 20 different races is unrealistic, never raise it when it comes to the existence of dragons (let alone their being able to fly), or the fact that most settings have underground dungeons.

Well, dragons are pure fantasy in a way that sentient groups of humanoids aren't. And any dungeon in one of my games has a reason to be there.

 

[AnotherGuy]

In some ways, it was ahead of its time. It had a non-white cast and featured a world with Filipino and Southeast Asian influences and a semi non-episodic storyline. It died early due to its expenses and production issues.

That was preceded by a few years by The Mysterious Cities of Gold which although never had a Tim Curry, it did have a predominantly non-white voice actor cast. The show was an amazing collaboration by the French and Japanese.
There were further sequels in 2013, 2016 and 2020 but I have not seen those as yet.
Most episodes had a 3-5 minute documentary at the end which subject matter related to topics, people or areas within the animated show. This was entertaining + educational.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Just because a player has an established lore for a species doesn’t mean the DM can just plonk them down into the world and have it fit in perfectly, what if the mountains are already occupied?

If the world is so tiny that literally every mountain is taken, there's more problems than this already.

What is this city’s relationship with the other local settlements?

Does some city on the other side of the world's relationship to it's neighbor matter to the campaign?

What is their history in this world?

Does it matter to the campaign?

Does it fit tonally?

Does a goofy human fit tonally? Are PCs all forced to 'fit' in thought and action and dress?

How do they sustain their food and supplies in the mountains?

This.... just straight doesn't matter. unless it's a plot hook.

And they don’t fit the same niche as the Goliaths and removing them is going to cause even more problems on top of adding loxodons, just because no one was playing one doesn’t mean they don’t otherwise exist in the world.

Why not also Goliaths?

Also, if no one's playing one, they might as well not exist in the world unless the DM wants to play some as NPCs.

Basically, this is just a list of excuses to justify not just letting the player do their thing. There doesn't need to be a city, or society or history or some sort of complex agricultural infrastructure. The PC is the only thing that matters; the rest is just assumed like it is for all the other playable species and monsters.

 

[Tonguez]

That was preceded by a few years by The Mysterious Cities of Gold which although never had a Tim Curry, it did have a predominantly non-white voice actor cast. The show was an amazing collaboration by the French and Japanese.
There were further sequels in 2013, 2016 and 2020 but I have not seen those as yet.
Most episodes had a 3-5 minute documentary at the end which subject matter related to topics, people or areas within the animated show. This was entertaining + educational.

Non-white voice talent? Sure the original were Japanese but the english voice talent was Canadians. The story is also about Spaniards kidnapping an Incan girl.
not really a great comparison to Pirates of Dark Water

 

[AnotherGuy]

I'm against demanding people play different species as alien and then being aggressively nasty to people for not doing so.

throwing low-key shade = being aggressively nasty?

 

[Vaalingrade]

throwing low-key shade = being aggressively nasty?

Aggressively nasty is the point at which he decided to giggle at, misrepresent and psychoanalyze me.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Non-white voice talent? Sure the original were Japanese but the english voice talent was Canadians.

Ah you right there.

The story is also about Spaniards kidnapping an Incan girl. not really a great comparison to Pirates of Dark Water

But this is a remarkably negative outlook on the series.
Have you even watched it?

 

[Oofta]

But there is a wide great area between those extremes. For instance, I like to play yuan-ti. Not exactly standard, but not a pink bunny either

Anthropomorphic snake people from Monsters of the Multiverse? A book a lot of DMs won't even have? Yeah, that's pretty out there for a "standard fantasy" world. They don't exist in my world, even as NPCs/monsters. I've run the same campaign world for decades, and if I were to allow for another race I'd find a place and story for them and they'd be allowable to anyone from then on. If I allowed an exception here and there, I'd have a kitchen sink campaign.

At one point I allowed anything, but after some bad experiences decided that to have a short list of allowed races. Honestly, it's incredibly rare that race really matters to PCs when it comes to the game.

If it's important to you to play what many DMs would consider a "monster" race, that's fine. But I don't allow anthropomorphic, well, anything. That may mean I wouldn't be the right DM for you but I stopped worrying about that a long time ago. I have no problem recruiting new players or retaining them.

P.S. Allowing a yuan-ti is the equivalent of allowing just about anything.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Aggressively nasty is the point at which he decided to giggle at, misrepresent and psychoanalyze me.

Here is the thing, I do not think you'd disagree that race should matter more than just say the mechanics at the table. Mechanics always matters so that is not something ppl disagree on or need to incentivise - but the designers of 5e saw that actual roleplaying ones character did require some sort of incentivisation (Inspiration for Traits, Ideals, Flaws and Goals). Well it would make sense then to lump in one's portrayal of one's race.
Sure the Inspiration system was not great but what is important is their intention to get players to put more effort into the other half the game.

The designers saw that. So would DM's.