On the rarity of PCs

[FireLance]

Wierd stuff always happens to PCs. That's why even in a world where wizards and magic are supposed to be rare, they seem to run into one every other day.

Incidentally, I did run a (3e) campaign where the PC elf was the only one left (that she knew about, anyway). The BBEG massacred all the elves a few decades ago. At the time of the massacre, she was only a baby, and her mother managed to escape with her to a (human) monastery before dying herself. It was kind of like Avatar: The Last Airbender, but without the suspended animation.

 

[Wormwood]

In my experience, PCs are *always* the exception. That helps differentiate them from the common scum they are saving/killing.

 

[Asmor]

Doesn't the Deva flavor say that they are rare, and a Deva may never encounter another of his own race?

Honestly, I didn't read the deva flavor... I have this nasty habit of putting on blinders and only seeing artwork and crunch.

 

[pawsplay]

Wierd stuff always happens to PCs. That's why even in a world where wizards and magic are supposed to be rare, they seem to run into one every other day.

Incidentally, I did run a (3e) campaign where the PC elf was the only one left (that she knew about, anyway). The BBEG massacred all the elves a few decades ago. At the time of the massacre, she was only a baby, and her mother managed to escape with her to a (human) monastery before dying herself. It was kind of like Avatar: The Last Airbender, but without the suspended animation.

That would be an interesting dynamic. Did the rest of the party treat her like a living treasure?

 

[jdrakeh]

I've always had this assumption, I'm not entirely sure whether it was conscious or not, that core PC 'things' were relatively common.

You seem to have stumbled onto one of D&D's 'dirty secrets', so to speak.

Since the early days of D&D, there have always been lots of statements in official products about how certain races (e.g., elves, dwarves, drow, etc) are very rare in official D&D settings. Talking about official settings in terms of humanity was always stressed when it came to writing ad copy. The reality was a little different.

There are droves of sourcebooks, entire novel lines, and other considerable amounts of D&D material dedicated to detailing huge populations of these supposedly elusive creatures, either living in their own kingdoms or amongst humanity on an often prolific scale (it is the rare D&D city sourcebook that doesn't contain entries for dozens of demi-human inhabitants).

Astral Devas may end up like this, or they may not. I would really rather they didn't but that is traditionally how D&D has handled such things (which is probably why that's how you have thought of such things). You're right, though — things do not have to be that way. If you want to actually make a D&D setting human-centric instead of just calling it human-centric, you can do that

 

[Wik]

You know, though, I sort of like the default assumption in a lot of campaigns - these are the races you can play, because they ARE the most common ones. I really like it in a campaign like DARK SUN, where the assumption is that there are relatively fewer humanoid (or semi-humanoid) races in existence.

That being said, I've been subconsciously using this in my current 4e campaign. The minotaur PC has attracted notice a couple of times, and the Drow gets some weird looks. I haven't really touched on classes yet, but if I make a new campaign world, I'm going to ignore classes entirely - a PC fighter and a PC warlord could both be considered "knights", and they could meet another knight who actually was an NPC rogue or Paladin. I think that'd be a fun way to run 4e.

 

[Dice4Hire]

It is always a problem when a campaign setting says mages (or whatever) are very rare and the party has three of them.

 

[(un)reason]

Something struck me while reading about Devas.

I've always had this assumption, I'm not entirely sure whether it was conscious or not, that core PC 'things' were relatively common. That is to say, if PCs were allowed to be elves, then elves are common, and if PCs are allowed to be wizards, than wizards are relatively common.

However, I simply cannot reconcile myself to the ideas that Devas are common, at least in the mortal plane.

And so this lead me to an epiphany... They don't have to be! They can be a core PC option and still be almost entirely unheard of in the world. Hell, maybe even the PC playing the Deva is the only Deva in the world (at the moment).

It goes beyond that, too. Avengers and Invokers in particular I think work a lot better in this paradigm. Neither one of them seems like the sort of thing every god should have in the first place, never mind that any god should have in any numbers for their existence to be noteworthy. Eladrin and Gnomes should be pretty damn rare in the mortal world, too. Oh, and warlocks also work a lot better for me when I drop the assumption that there are great numbers of them.

Maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but it's really been an enlightening discovery for me.

Yup. It does very much depend on the setting. In white wolf games, the opposite generally seems to be true, with things like 1 vampire per 100,000 people in a city, and only 100 sidereals to look after the whole world in Exalted, so I'm used to the idea. It really does make a huge difference, and deciding if something is common, rare but known, or virtually unique is a fun and usually easy bit of worldbuilding.

 

[erf_beto]

Yup. It does very much depend on the setting. In white wolf games, the opposite generally seems to be true, with things like 1 vampire per 100,000 people in a city, ...

I was going to bring this up, but also say that I've played in Vampire campaigns that had over 30 vampires living in a small town (you NEEDto have more than one vampire for EVERY clan possible, right? ). And there were also werewolves, mages and even a couple of other creatures of the night...

I think the "problem" was that the storyteller didn't realize that unlike a D&D game, where you travel a lot around the world and beyond - wich gives you the chance to meet the most exotic of races and cultures -, most white wolf campaigns take place inside the boundaries of a single town or state.

But that wasn't just a WW problem. We are always running the risk of cramming everything we have in the bookshelf into a confined space: betwen homebrew and plublished material and rotating gamemasters and new Monster Manuals, there are so many good ideas and plot hooks and interesting races and classes, how can you leave anyone out or put them in a kingdom far far away? What if you need it for next session?

 

[Raven Crowking]

It is always a problem when a campaign setting says mages (or whatever) are very rare and the party has three of them.

Not if these are the initial PCs.....But as PCs die or are retired, and new PCs take their places, the "rare" warforged/devas/wizards/whatever apparently pop up out of the woodwork.



(In the campaign with the last elf, for example, what would have happened if Bob died and brought in an elf, and then Sue did the same? And then their characters died again, and they brought in new elves? And then everyone started playing elves because the DM was treating them as special?)


RC