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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5743775" data-attributes="member: 2067">I feel like a bit of a broken record, but...There are five people in an archetypal D&D group. There are five members of the usual five-man band. They fall into five main party roles. This is not a coincidence. It's a very useful psychological trick. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> If I was going from zero, I'd say a DM should have about five races, and that those five races should be humans (as the Hero) + four others:One that contrasts the humans. These might be evil underdark-dwellers, or violent orcs, or immortal elves, or robots, or angels, or whatever. They should be distinctly alien -- their otherness is the defining quality.One that is very smart and tricky. These might be elves, or gnomes, or halflings, or ratmen, or a race of super-intelligent elephant-people, or whatever. They should be smart as a defining quality.One that is very strong and tough. These might be dwarves, or half-orcs, or robots, or minotaurs, or earth elementals, or whatever. They should be tough as a defining quality.One that is spiritual and wise. These might be elves, or gnomes, or pixies, or forest-unicorn maidens, or a race of ancient scholars, or whatever. They should be deep and meaningful as a defining quality.With those five, you've got enough to cover the class archetypes snugly (smart = rogue; tough = fighter; wise = cleric; alien = wizard), with the humans left over to do everything.Going through this process for my monotheistic campaign, and using 4e analogues, for instance, gives me:HumansGenasi (otherworldly spirits once tamed by poets, but now free)Tieflings (fiend-touched humans given to great intelligence -- but often lost souls)Warforged (golems created by a philosopher-civilization for protection and servitude)Devas (god-touched humans given to great inspiration and a divine calling -- but often judgemental of lesser beings).This is thus a very human-centric setting, influenced by a multitude of otherworldly sources, given to questions of souls, subtsnce, and morality (which fits with my Qur'anic/Biblical/Torah/Mysticism source material). This doesn't limit the population, of course, it just gives me the primary focus for the game. If someone wanted to play a shardmind or whatever, I would have a place for it, I just would talk with the player about what place that is (in this setting, forex, it might be a specific type of golem created to assist the philosophers).</blockquote>

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