D&D 5E Nonstandard Races You Love And Want Back

[Shasarak]

Way back when in my college days, a book about teen pregnancies I referenced for an essay (I apologize to the author; I do not recall her name or the title of the book) included in its concluding statements the observation that no one has a magic wand that can solve the world's problems; the best thing any of us can do is to help one person in need at a time.

There is a magic wand for Teen Pregnancies. Contraceptives are an actual thing.

 

[MechaPilot]

There is a magic wand for Teen Pregnancies. Contraceptives are an actual thing.

There's another magic wand for avoiding pregnancies too. It vibrates.

 

[Shasarak]

There's another magic wand for avoiding pregnancies too. It vibrates.

Lol,a magic wand for pregnancy that literally calls itself a Magic Wand.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It certainly makes them more interesting than high elves that can teleport which is sort of how I see them. I knew in my world that they were still in the feywild and, while developing an adventure, came up with a more interesting reason why they were still there while the other elves had moved to the prime.

I just make them part of the Tuatha de Dannan, and that seems to make them plenty interesting for my players.

But I also do a lot with the Fey in my games. So much so that I'm working on a resource thread on the dndbeyond forums about how I use the Fey in my campaigns. http://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/2776-the-fey-a-lore-thread

 

[mellored]

Corgi Possibly as a gnoll sub-race.




And shardmind. Nothing quite as fun as my swarm druid shardmind.
And unlike most other races, they aren't humans-with....

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The issue with having a lot of non-standard races is that they tend to become the standard and the more normal humans, elves and dwarves become the non-standard classes. I have DM'ed at conferences and games and saw lots of half this and half that, but few of the PHB races.

Ask yourself, is it the idea of role playing a non-standard race or roll playing a set of stats (for a lot of people it tends to be the second).

I don't see what the problem is?

The campaign setting I'm working on, off and on, has Humans as a small minority who've come from a distant region of the world, elves are important but not numerous, dwarves live in forests and aren't a common sight, halflings are nothing like phb halflings in fluff, and are one of the more populous races.

Meanwhile, Gnomes, Goliath/Firbolgs, Dragonborn, Shadar-kai, various Fey (satyrs, dryads, pixies, centaurs, sprites, etc), are the probably the most populous races. Vrylocka are up there, too, actually.

Humans are fine, in their place, but the game has no need to be focused on the phb races.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd actively remove the standard races and replace them with some of the ones here. Including humans..

But I grew up with Tunnels and Trolls *and* RuneQuest...

I'd love a game with more trolls and gnomes and shadar-kai, and no or very few humans.

In addition to the setting I posted about above, I'm building a whole game set in an alternate Earth where magic, and supernatural races, are real, and hidden, and there are 9 "Worlds" which all intersect via Crossroads, which are waypoints where the savvy, or unlucky, person can step from one world to another. In that world, the classic relationship of Knight, Monster, and Damsel, is upended in terms of who plays what role. The trolls, the villagers, or the wandering fighter/hunter could each be any of the other three, and sometimes there is no "monster", and the only way to resolve the situation and "save the day" is to realize that.

It's a lot of fun to explore what being a hero means in a world where people have false expectations of what a hero looks like, and it allows us to play with a lot of otherwise really tough issues, by viewing them through a fantastical lense. Which for me, has always been the point of Fantasy. To use a foreign lense to give a different perspective on issues that are just hard to think about without your judgement being clouded by cultural, personal, and other biases.

But at the end of the day, it's a game about saving a world that is worth saving from a variety of threats, including a horde of "Demons"* whose prisons have been weakened by stuff that would take too long to explain in this post right now, about saving people's lives, exploring a fantastical set of worlds, building a better future, and leaving your mark upon history. With trolls and gnomes and Puca, and goblins that are actually lost kids who have found a home in Goblin Town. And playable angels called Watchers.
And I mean, you can play a human, too, if you want. lol

*(the game treats Demons, Titons, Jotuns, etc, as beings that existed as part of the primordial universe before the Big Bang, and who shaped the universe, or helped shape it, and then were defeated and locked away by slightly younger beings who we call Gods. as in Greek and Norse myth, some of these First Gods are on the side of the younger gods, and some have even joined their families, like Loki. Yes, Loki is basically an Elder God. And so is Thor's mom)

 

[cbwjm]

I wouldn't mind a game based on a single race. Perhaps dragonborn with the different bloodlines being effectively the different races. You could have separate cultures based the dragon subtype, maybe some colours of dragonborn are more common as sailors while others are skilled diplomats. Perhaps the red dragonborn rule a brutal autocracy where might makes right whereas the gold dragonborn have a republic of magical enlightenment. I think it would be quite cool coming up with a setting like that. Perhaps I would even change the race a little to provide a bit more variation (such as Gold having +1 Int, Black having +1 Wis, etc).

 

[Lanliss]

I'm more into culling races.

Keep the humans.

If you want a little variety, then you can add-

Pointy-eared annoying humans (elves).

Not enough?

How about bearded drinking humans with bad Scottish accents (dwarves).

I suppose we could also have short, lazy humans (halflings).

Maybe some half-humans.

And under no circumstances can we allow those gnomes in. Can't trust 'em.

My first order of business when making my world was deciding how many of each race survived the Apocolypse, and it's aftermath. The answer for humans is almost none, as their inherent flexibility made them easy targets for Chaotic Corruption that turned them into little more than mad animals, with some odd abilities. There are roughly 2000 in an underground bunker type area, and very few out adventuring. Humans might be the only thing I have listed as "Very Rare" in my world.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*