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

[R_J_K75]

Would it? Never has in my experience.

In my experiences, yes it did make the gaming experience for me better as both a player and a DM.

 

[DND_Reborn]

OneD&D is even pondering getting rid of dwarves and halfling subraces because they are so similar and have only ignorable cultural differences.

Because they were poorly developed for 5E.

2E had a lot more subraces and did enough to make them different.

So, like with everything "wrong" in 5E, I blame WotC.

 

[Incenjucar]

WotC priorities tend to be on efficient mechanical content delivery and adventures, rather than the fluff side, compared to TSR. 2E remains the best fluff with most granularity and details. Oddly enough this even extends to flavor-first spells. 2E had wacky stuff like bubble bath spells. This does at least mean fewer types of elves - that got ridiculous.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Sometimes it is the GM's setting. Many GMs are intense world builders and they invite players to explore those worlds in their campaigns. They don't want player input on the nations of the south (or whatever) because then it wouldn't be their (the GM's) world any longer. That's a totally valid way to do it, and a smart one if you are the kind of GM that runs many campaigns (concurrently or serially) in your world. As long as the GM is up front about it, a player asking for some change to meet their preferences is the one acting a little out of line.

Sure they can. But consider this. DMs that do this are acting more strictly than many actually published settings.

Let’s not talk about Forgotten Realms, since that’s low hanging fruit.
Matt Mercer’s Exandria? You better believe that he accommodates player’s concepts.
Dimension 20? Even more diversity.
Keith Baker’s Eberron? When 4e came out, he added dragonborn and tieflings to core.
Dark Sun? Also added dragonborn when 4e came out.

Even considering that the DM considers it “their world” and runs multiple games in it, what does it matter if one campaign within it has a small tribe of Loxodon monks that live on a mountain somewhere. That game could be non-canon to the setting.

 

[Minigiant]

Because they were poorly developed for 5E.

2E had a lot more subraces and did enough to make them different.

So, like with everything "wrong" in 5E, I blame WotC.

Subraces were lame in 2E too.

It's not just WOTC. TSR had lame subraces one you passed the first 2.

It's "creating stuff you don't really care about but I gotta print another book".

Like I said video games and card games tended to have better subraces because they were forced to make actually new experiences.

 

[Oofta]

I think both sides of the debate are in agreement. I don't see anybody disagreeing that it's within the rights of the author of the setting to say what fits inside (be it the GM or a setting designer -- there are no tinker gnome in Lyonesse, but maybe some kind of fae would fit?) and that the GM should be clear about it if he intends to put forth restrictions on players. I think the point that is being discussed is when the GM hasn't put a lot of thoughts about it and naysay "for the sake of naysaying" or fail to communicate why a player option is denied. Maybe there is a disagreement on whether the answer "because it doesn't fit my aesthetic choices for this campaign world" is acceptable, but I'd say then, it's a case of GM and players agreeing that each other's style isn't for them, much like a GM and players would agree not to play together if the GM was proposing a campaign around a theme that doesn't interest the players.

Bad experience stems from mismatched expectations, like a GM naysaying without explanation or being all passive agressive about players marring his setting with their stupid half-loxodon, half-gnome of draconian descent when a player simply asks whether he can play a goliath, or like the players trying to get the most bizarre option without ever inquiring about the setting (for optimization reasons, perhaps) and being infuriated about any restriction even being suggested. I think 99.9% of situations fall in the reasonsable middle.

It is probably something that is best sorted when discussing on what game to run (or "session 0" as the fancy name goes).

When I recruit new people I'm very clear on what I allow and how my world works. So I agree, the DM should set expectations which includes not only races allowed but any other restrictions and general campaign style and feel. For some people that's going to be a campaign pitch of "show up and we'll figure it out together" to "This is going to be a pirate themed adventure with a Tabaxi crew, Pirates of the Calico!" I don't think either approach is wrong, there's a lot of options.

Unfortunately, some people insist that any restrictions are somehow wrong. We get things like "All these selfish, hurtful, petty players, with their intentional vandalism of the poor, beleaguered GM's beautiful setting. [it continues on in the same vein]". While also complaining about how using a phrase like "Mos Eisley Cantina" as an example of multiple species that basically everyone can relate to is somehow derogatory.

Meanwhile pretty much every poster that supports curated lists seems to be more "this is what I do and why but do what makes sense to you". I just don't see much support for the "both sides do it".

 

[FrozenNorth]

Sorry to interject, but can you just agree with @Crimson Longinus that there are levels to this. If I worked on a setting for several years, and finally came to a place where I feel comfortable bringing it to players, in part, because it is fully fleshed out - why on earth would the very first choice of a player be to change this? It seems rude, or at best, ignorant?

Isn’t part of presenting something like this to your players seeking constructive feedback?

If you want me to play with you in your setting, shouldn’t I have some say as well, particularly if you are expecting me to commit to a potentially multi-year campaign?

 

[J.Quondam]

2E had wacky stuff like bubble bath spells. This does at least mean fewer types of elves - that got ridiculous.

Ooh! Now I'm going to include a variant called "tidy elves" who can cast bubble bath and speak with rubber ducky as racial cantrips.

 

[Oofta]

Ooh! Now I'm going to include a variant called "tidy elves" who can cast bubble bath and speak with rubber ducky as racial cantrips.

My dwarf has a bubble bath with no added soap all the time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Honestly, swindling out-of-towners is xenophobic, not better than racism.

I disagree. Charging out of towners extra is a time honored tradition that is continued today by tourist trap restaurants and bars the world over.

It’s not great, but it’s nowhere near the level of charging members of a particular race more than you charge members of your own race.

And swindly people randomly, while inclusive, is still something that would be, like racism and xenophobia, be considered illegal and despicable, at least worthy of a song if the authorities don't deal with it.

Not really relevant to what I posted, but sure. IME PCs don’t care that much about dishonest business owners unless they are the ones being swindled by said business owners. Bigoted business owners, though, get messed with.

As a side note, having the guards do nothing about it was totally common in the past settings, because morally corrupt authorities were commonplace, as much as on Earth. The more the settings implies a much better general awareness of societal issues among the fantasy population, to the point that the population of fantasy settings is more advanced than us in that regard, the more it sounds strange to me that the population to tolerate those authorities as much.

(I understand it wasn't the crux of your argument, but I needed to react to the idea that it a bigoted barkeep would be worse than a xenophobic one or a scamming one).