D&D 5E Have you played or DMed a single-race campaign? What was it like?

[Corpsetaker]

To those that have done so - did you go for long-haul campaigns, or shorter efforts? I can see an all-Dwarves game in particular being really great fun for a single, three month long, storyline about underground adventures, but I would hesitate to introduce it for a 1-20 campaign like I am currently running.

I've played and ran long term elf and drow campaigns.

It really depends on what your players like. I find these single race games to be actually better than the mix race ones, especially when it involves the longer lived races.

 

[Irennan]

In my campaign, one of my players picked an elf, and the other made a PC that has both elven and drow blood. It wasn't my decision that it had to be an elf-only game, but (IMO) it allowed to create a more thematically fitting and coherent campaign. So the idea could have merit, if you and your players have a specific story idea in mind.

 

[Eltab]

An group that participated at Winter Fantasy's LFR Battle Interactives regularly was all-Dwarf worshippers of Tempus. (And, I think, DPR Kings for the adventure.)
Another LFR table was all Minotaurs. (I can imagine frequent Intimidate checks to compel the enemies to flee...)

My new EE group is half Elf and half Human (plus two Others). The running joke so far is "good thing the Human Wizard knows Dancing Lights".

 

[Sunseeker]

DMed and played. Short answer: almost exactly the same.

By dragonborn campaign. I gave everyone the variant human stats and feat, but they had to earn their resistance and breath through questing (it was part of the story, dragonborn were essentially (d)evolving into humans). So the story was basically, find out why this is happening and either help it along or reverse it.

If you treat a race fairly like real, living creatures then it really is only a light bit of fluff that comes out differently. There is usually a central theme to any society, perhaps for Tieflings it's demons, or dragons for dragonborn, or rocks for dwarves or pranks for gnomes or trees for elves, but those things only provide a basic guidance on how everyone these should play out. There will be people for and against those things. There will be extremes and moderates of both of those groups, there will be people who are indifferent to the subject. There will be issues that are related and likewise, for and against, strongly and not. There will be gods related to those issues. And once you've got all that down, then honestly it doesn't matter what the base race is since the original fluff only provides a general flavor to the campaign.

It was no different than the all-human game I played in, save that we had scales and muzzles and various dragon themes instead of flesh and eyebrows and more humany themes.

I also run a "silly" monster game, that is substantially different, but that's the point. It's monsters!

 

[Rhenny]

I've never played or DMd for a homogeneous party, but in my current campaign, there are 3 gnomes out of 6 players.

I really like how backstory and relationships can be more interwoven when many of the PCs are from the same race or related in some way. In a way, I think the homogeneous nature aids the shared story telling aspect of the game.

 

[Vicaring]

I find character story and roleplay comes out better in a homogenous campaign.

Everybody has expectations. One of the expectations, derived by players from those same players playing years of D&D, is that everybody's a murderhobo, or "adventurer". Upsetting expectations, right from the outset, by doing something simple like limiting race choice, or class choice, or whatever, helps to reinforce in players' minds that this campaign isn't the traditional dungeoncrawl, and they start paying more attention to their own characters and roles within the world that you're building.

I'm usually the DM, and I've done this quite a bit. Once I ran a campaign where everybody had to be an arcane class. The world-schtick was that arcanes were hunted. Then I did the reverse, where nobody could be an arcane. Now they were the "witch-hunters".

Currently I'm attempting to build a human-centric post-apocalyptic (by post-apocalyptic I mean WAY post-apocalyptic, like 500 years into the new dark ages) low-magic world populated in part by non-traditional races. So far I'd say the campaign has been quite successful, and my players are having a good time.

 

[Ogre Mage]

All drow 2nd edition campaign (with the exception of one gray dwarf slave). It was a city-based game. We were all part of the same noble house in Menzoberranzan, trying to plot our way up the ladder. The DM was friends with R.A. Salvatore and knew the world well which really helped make for an immersive game. It was the first time I played an evil character who was more than a cartoon caricature.

 

[AkeishaRoberts]

While I have never had the opportunity to play in such a "game", I do think it could be quite interesting...especially if the PCs were all (non-human) Elves, Halflings, Dwarves, etc.