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

[EzekielRaiden]

Wikipedia says 50m to 115m, so I went with 100m.

Your post comes across like it’s arguing with me, but other than the initial prehistoric population number I think we are making the same general points.

My apologies; not strictly my intent. More one of "if we limit things to just what we can estimate from real-world medieval society, we don't even need that many and it still works just fine."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do want to clap back on one issue that I feel misrepresents the position of the more player-centric players. Someone upthread cited yuan-ti as a race they like to play that is relatively uncommon, so I’ll use it as an example.

Player: I’d love to play a yuan-ti.
DM; Ugh, I hate snakes, their skin is icky and their eyes freak me out.
Player: How about if her bottom half is a scorpion and she can speak with arthropods instead?
DM: Sure, why not?

Player: I’d love to play a yuan-ti.
DM: Are you kidding? Poison immunity, innate spellcasting AND magic resistance? No way!
Player: How about I get rid of magic resistance and downgrade poison immunity to resistance.
DM: Sure, seems balanced.

As described by some posters, the situations described above constitute DMs being “forced” to accept changes demanded by the players. Except that’s not what happened. Both sides compromised.

In the first example, the player went with an arthropod rather than a yuan-ti. In the second, they accepted a weaker version of yuan-tis.

Ah, but players are always the demanding ones, you see. It's simply impossible for the DM to be a tyrant, since they work their fingers to the bone, slaving away for ungrateful and scornful players, who never lift a finger nor do anything whatsoever to contribute. It's truly a wonder anyone is ever willing to take up the mantle of unrestrained absolute power, when the legions of vicious players out there stand ever ready to assault and deface the artistry so delivered with their "could I do X?" or "would you be willing to consider Y?"

 

[Scribe]

Ah, but players are always the demanding ones, you see. It's simply impossible for the DM to be a tyrant, since they work their fingers to the bone, slaving away for ungrateful and scornful players, who never lift a finger nor do anything whatsoever to contribute. It's truly a wonder anyone is ever willing to take up the mantle of unrestrained absolute power, when the legions of vicious players out there stand ever ready to assault and deface the artistry so delivered with their "could I do X?" or "would you be willing to consider Y?"

In no way is this a reasonable post.

 

[Hussar]

But, I was just told that the curated side of the issue is perfectly fair and balanced and not in any way like this.

I’m confused now.

You folks have really different experiences from me. The fastest way for me to get five characters from a curated list would be to ban those races. Any time I say “no X” that’s all anyone wants to play.

 

[Hussar]

Oh and it would be nice if logic wasn’t being redefined as “things I like”. That’s not what logical means.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ah, but players are always the demanding ones, you see. It's simply impossible for the DM to be a tyrant, since they work their fingers to the bone, slaving away for ungrateful and scornful players, who never lift a finger nor do anything whatsoever to contribute. It's truly a wonder anyone is ever willing to take up the mantle of unrestrained absolute power, when the legions of vicious players out there stand ever ready to assault and deface the artistry so delivered with their "could I do X?" or "would you be willing to consider Y?"

The hyperbole is a little thick here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh and it would be nice if logic wasn’t being redefined as “things I like”. That’s not what logical means.

I'm perfectly willing to stipulate my stance as, "this what I like".

 

[Oofta]

Oh and it would be nice if logic wasn’t being redefined as “things I like”. That’s not what logical means.

Depends on how the DM constructs and views their world. If they start with assumptions about the world and the themes that they want to support, the fact that there's a curated list that grows out of those assumptions can be logical. It's all make-believe of course, but I don't exclude tieflings from my allowed list because I don't like them. I don't really care one way or the other. I don't allow them because there's a long history of fiendish incursions in my history so the logical response to someone that looks like a fiend showing up in town would be to assume that they're the vanguard of an invading army. They wouldn't last long.

But even it is "what I like", so what? If the DM doesn't like the campaign world I don't see how they're going to be enthusiastic about running it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They would logically be killed on sight fairly quickly so it's easier to just say no.

Logical based on what? Based on your game’s assumptions? Great!

But that isn’t how statements like this come across.

The point is you don't get to tell the GM he has to accommodate these things. You can only decline to play.

I’ve kicked GMs out of campaigns.

My apologies; not strictly my intent. More one of "if we limit things to just what we can estimate from real-world medieval society, we don't even need that many and it still works just fine."

Ah fair enough.

Yeah whether we hit 6 billion by adding ancient human populations or assume RL population levels in a given year and split that amongst the races, or really any math other than weirdly assuming human pop numbers for every race using the same century you’re trying to emulate without increasing food production exponentially using magic, there no reason to see 60, or even 100, sentient tool using species as impossible.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The hyperbole is a little thick here.

That was, in fact, the point.

When people are straight-up literally comparing ANY form of such requests to literally defacing an artwork, we've already long since entered the hyperbole zone. I'm using the weapons already deployed. Where was this criticism back then?