Only one demi-human race: which one?

[Turanil]

Nearly all published, but also most homebrew settings include the standard D&D-Tolkienesque races of Dwarves, Elves (and half-elves), Half-orcs, Halflings, and Gnomes, in addition to standard humans.

Now, imagine you are going to play (or run) a neat setting, satisfying in every point except that it will have only one of the core D&D demi-human races, all the others will be discarded (don't ask why, it's not the point, ...or handwaving it: because it's "magic" ). So what race do you want to see remaining (whether you would like to play one or not), and why?

 

[Turanil]

You can also explain why it would be intolerable to not have them all, or why it's so good to get rid of them...

 

[Sejs]

Odd as it might sound: Gnomes.

They're close enough to cover both the dwarf and elf mythological niches, more or less.

They're highly magical, borderline feylike. Make magic mostly (or originally) their bag which they then later taught to humans, etc.

It'd require a bit of public image work, but it could definitely be done and well.

 

[Umbran]

So what race do you want to see remaining (whether you would like to play one or not), and why?

Insufficient information. What races exist are only one small part of a setting. What I'd like to see would depend very much on what else is in the setting.

If, for example, we were playing something intended to be akin to Viking sagas, I'd say dwarves were the good choice. If we were playing something et in a similar era of France or England, I'd say elves were the natural way to go.

 

[Tharian]

I have to agree with Umbran on this one. Without knowing the rest of the campaign backstory, it's really hard to make any sort of judgment call on this one.

 

[el-remmen]

Other: Lizardfolk - and it would a psuedo "pre-historic" setting - kinda "Land of the Lost" without the camp.

 

[Ry]

I think you could do a great fey-themed game with just humans and gnomes.

 

[Ravellion]

I voted other: orcs.

It reminds me of Warcraft 1, and the atmosphere of just the humans vs. the orcs could work.

 

[was]

other...hobgoblins

 

[DMH]

Humanity exterminated the other races long ago. So the "new" one is

1) Aquatic (triton, sahuagen, aquatic elf)
2) Cold loving (frost elves from IK, ice troll)
3) Heat loving (azer, an intelligent form of thoqqua)
4) A created slave species (kobolds from rats, gnolls from hyenas, orcs from boars)
5) Alien (ghost elves, illithids)
6) Planar invaders (genasi, genies, tons of others)
7) A manifestation of the planet's soul rebelling against humanity's actions (fey, goblins, treants)
8) An accident of human activity (similar to 4)

Enough?