Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Does Your Fantasy Race Really Matter In Game? (The Gnome Problem)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7635151" data-attributes="member: 19857"><p>100% yes, because I make it matter. In fact, I consider it one of my primary jobs as the DM to take the story hooks that the players have given me for their characters and figure out how to use them. If a player is playing an gnome in my game, then gnomes are somehow going to be in the foreground of my game. If nobody is playing an gnome, then it doesn't matter and gnomes will regress into the background and maybe never show up at all because some other collection of people are going to be taking center stage.</p><p></p><p>Having said that - nobody in any of my current games is playing a gnome, and honestly nobody in the last 20 years I've DM'd has expressed an interest in playing a gnome, so gnomes don't have a real role in any of the three games I'm running and only ever mattered in one game that I ran decades ago that used some vague stuff about gnomes from the Basic Set as a springboard for a few adventures. OTOH, one of my games has a dwarf in it so the dwarf kingdom is very important in that game, while my other two groups that have no dwarves haven't had a single reason to interact with dwarves at all and have been going down different paths. All of my groups have elves in them, and honestly every game I've run ever has had at least one elf or half-elf in it, so in just about every campaign I've ever run the elves have some kind of recurring influence that I've had to think out (and in two out of the three current games, elven dynastic politics is a major plot point because they both contain players who are elven nobility of some kind - kids love their elven princes and princesses, I guess). One group has a dragonborn in it and another has a warforged (or "forgeborn" really, since it's the 13A game), and so dragonborn are "important" in the former but not in the latter and warforged are the opposite.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As an aside - tieflings do not have to be half-demons. When I've had them in the game, we've played them as the descendants of some other group whose ancestors were "blessed/cursed" with demonic power (which IIRC was the 4e explanation of them). No actual demon in their heritage, just a visible mark of the foul things their ancestors did.</p><p></p><p>Similarly, "half-orcs" in any game I runs never have any actual orc in their heritage - because orcs in my settings are never naturalistic creatures that breed with each other let alone with humans. They are always supernatural infections of some sort that reproduce through some suitably horrific means (which varies from campaign to campaign where orcs matter, but often either something like how the aliens in Alien do it, or a spawning pit if I want something less nightmare inducing). I use this background for orcs in all of my games - even if I'm running them in a published campaign setting - partly because I like to have something to distinguish hobgoblins and orcs from each other, but mostly because I like there to be some things that my players don't have to have any moral qualms about slaughtering (having been scarred by old-school modules where you enter a cave with 50 orc women and children, I suppose). When I had a player who wanted to play a "civilized goblin" we used the half-orc and he was a hobgoblin with a unique background, because if I have a player who wants to try out something for its mechanical benefits but isn't interested in the story aspects of it, or if the story aspects conflict with our established lore for a game, we work together to reskin it to something that both of us will enjoy having in the game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My attitude is always "see what kind of world my players want to play in, then shape the world around that". But I have a strong preference for gonzo worlds where anything goes, so I know other folks' mileage will vary.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7635151, member: 19857"] 100% yes, because I make it matter. In fact, I consider it one of my primary jobs as the DM to take the story hooks that the players have given me for their characters and figure out how to use them. If a player is playing an gnome in my game, then gnomes are somehow going to be in the foreground of my game. If nobody is playing an gnome, then it doesn't matter and gnomes will regress into the background and maybe never show up at all because some other collection of people are going to be taking center stage. Having said that - nobody in any of my current games is playing a gnome, and honestly nobody in the last 20 years I've DM'd has expressed an interest in playing a gnome, so gnomes don't have a real role in any of the three games I'm running and only ever mattered in one game that I ran decades ago that used some vague stuff about gnomes from the Basic Set as a springboard for a few adventures. OTOH, one of my games has a dwarf in it so the dwarf kingdom is very important in that game, while my other two groups that have no dwarves haven't had a single reason to interact with dwarves at all and have been going down different paths. All of my groups have elves in them, and honestly every game I've run ever has had at least one elf or half-elf in it, so in just about every campaign I've ever run the elves have some kind of recurring influence that I've had to think out (and in two out of the three current games, elven dynastic politics is a major plot point because they both contain players who are elven nobility of some kind - kids love their elven princes and princesses, I guess). One group has a dragonborn in it and another has a warforged (or "forgeborn" really, since it's the 13A game), and so dragonborn are "important" in the former but not in the latter and warforged are the opposite. As an aside - tieflings do not have to be half-demons. When I've had them in the game, we've played them as the descendants of some other group whose ancestors were "blessed/cursed" with demonic power (which IIRC was the 4e explanation of them). No actual demon in their heritage, just a visible mark of the foul things their ancestors did. Similarly, "half-orcs" in any game I runs never have any actual orc in their heritage - because orcs in my settings are never naturalistic creatures that breed with each other let alone with humans. They are always supernatural infections of some sort that reproduce through some suitably horrific means (which varies from campaign to campaign where orcs matter, but often either something like how the aliens in Alien do it, or a spawning pit if I want something less nightmare inducing). I use this background for orcs in all of my games - even if I'm running them in a published campaign setting - partly because I like to have something to distinguish hobgoblins and orcs from each other, but mostly because I like there to be some things that my players don't have to have any moral qualms about slaughtering (having been scarred by old-school modules where you enter a cave with 50 orc women and children, I suppose). When I had a player who wanted to play a "civilized goblin" we used the half-orc and he was a hobgoblin with a unique background, because if I have a player who wants to try out something for its mechanical benefits but isn't interested in the story aspects of it, or if the story aspects conflict with our established lore for a game, we work together to reskin it to something that both of us will enjoy having in the game. My attitude is always "see what kind of world my players want to play in, then shape the world around that". But I have a strong preference for gonzo worlds where anything goes, so I know other folks' mileage will vary. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Does Your Fantasy Race Really Matter In Game? (The Gnome Problem)
Top