D&D 5E Greyhawk, and race options for Oerth PCs

[Zardnaar]

Basic PH human. But I would like to see various human ethnic group-friendly backgrounds...

Midgard has that. Wife took the Nurian Theurge background. Nuria=Egypt sorta.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I run a Greyhawk game from the folio edition. I allow any race players want to play (although I have a party of mostly humans). I've been running Greyhawk this way since the folio first came out. It has never hurt the Greyhawk feel of the world in the slightest.

Humanocentric means that PCs of non-standard races are noticed and may have a harder time with strangers at first, but the people of Greyhawk aren't raging xenophobic klansmen who refuse to have anything to do with more exotic races. (Others are free to do what they want in their home games, of course). Give them time and they accept them as individuals, just as happened with Phoebus the lizardman).

Interestingly enough, back in the early 1980s I made references to merchants coming from far to the southwest (SW of Azure Sea and Jeraklea Bay) where civilized lizardfolk lived. These days, I just retcon the references in my notes to dragonborn.

I don't make new lands in the Flaenesse for newer races, I just have them come from beyond the continent. If players are okay with that, so am I.

I tend to treat each separate Greyhawk Chronicle as a game beginning in 576 CY. I run for a while, then do another chronicle (similar to modern Eberron).

 

[David Howery]

but the people of Greyhawk aren't raging xenophobic klansmen who refuse to have anything to do with more exotic races.

well, some of the Suel are kinda like that....

 

[Zardnaar]

well, some of the Suel are kinda like that....

Well they're basically Nazis. And villains.

 

[David Howery]

Well they're basically Nazis. And villains.

and weirdly enough, primitive jungle tribesmen. And Vikings.

 

[Zardnaar]

and weirdly enough, primitive jungle tribesmen. And Vikings.

True. I was thinking of the Scarlett brotherhood.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

well, some of the Suel are kinda like that....

That's what makes them such great villains.

 

[Hussar]

Wow.

I take such a completely different take on Greyhawk than many here. I look at this setting, which has space ships, people taking demon lords prisoner to become a god, ACTUAL gods walking around the setting, yak folk monks, and all sorts of other weirdness and wonder where the heck this idea that Greyhawk is humanocentric. There are serveral non-human nations, elven, dwarven, and places like Pomarj and the Bandit Kingdoms. All of this and people would be weirded out by a tiefling?

Naw, to me Greyhawk is the original kitchen sink. The whole point of the setting is that it has so many blank spaces that you can do anything with it. It's the DM's setting, far more than most published settings. Why would I want to limit it to a Tolkien pastiche with just the 4 basic races? Bleah. Talk about boring.

Hey, again, it's your Greyhawk, so, do what you want with it and that's great. Me, I'll stick to what I see as the original vision of Greyhawk, which is a little bit of everything D&D mixed into one cool setting.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

You could map PHB races onto human ethnic groups.
For example, I think it would work well if you say Rhenee use the rules for Gnomes.

 

[Don Durito]

I'd just stick with the basic races.

My experience is that people who will really complain about about not getting to play a specific race mostly only exist on internet forums.