PHB2 Races = Mos Eisley Cantina

[gribble]

They are descendants of the original elves of a millenia ago, and are a true race. In fact, they call themselves "elves", and most people think of them as "elves".

A friend of mine ran a brief (as in one session ) campaign where true "elves" were pure fey creatures, uncomprehensible to creatures of the physical world - sort of like Exalted's fair folk. The PC races - eladrin, "elves", half-elves and drow - were elves that had taken on aspects of the physical world. Essentially, the eladrin had taken on aspects of magic, elves nature, half-elves cities and drow darkness.

These elves became corrupted by these aspects of the physical world in the dawn of pre-history - essentially they became trapped, forgot their origins and became true-breeding races.

Seemed like a pretty cool concept to me.

 

[Orius]

Whoa long thread. I hate jumping into long threads, too damn much to read. And quote for that matter; you quote a post, 3 pages later and all your points have been made, and there's 5 pages more to go.

Yet small threads die quiet deaths. Ah, Internet how I hate thee.

To be honest, while I'm not all that keen on the flavor of D&D WotC's been pushing for the last few years, I don't really care too much about the individual races. Besides, there's probably some copyright/IP issues here anyway; WotC can use new(er) made up races as brand identity, where they wouldn't be able to do that with elves and dwarves as easily. WotC sure as hell can't copyright elves, dwarves, and goblins or put them under IP since they're just too common in fantasy/folklore etc.

As a DM though, I am in my right to ban things. For one, I might not want a list of playable races/classes as long as my arm or longer for reasons of balance. There's no way I can know how ALL of this stuff is going to work together, and trying to run a campaign that includes everything and the kitchen sink can get unwieldy. If I want that, I'll run Synnibar.

Also, with something like the PHB2, I don't necessarily want to just plop something into my world that might not have existed before. That makes it harder for me and the other players to suspend disbelief. If a player wants to get cranky because he wants to run something out of a splat or even core book he just bought, let him volunteer to DM for a while. Another reason is that I might not have seen the book in question, and I want to have a rules reference so I know things are being run more or less legally -- some players aren't above trying to pull a fast one on the DM.

Basically, when a campaign starts, the DM needs to be upfront about what races and classes are allowed, and stay consistant. The players should READ whatever handouts the DMs give them beforehand to this effect (though the DM should really make an effort to keep the page count down, because players won't read more than 2 plages of this stuff. K.I.S.S. applies here). After the campaign starts, a player shouldn't assume a DM is going to allow any new race/class combo that appears in a new book.

I liked the approach 3e OA took in the book's intro; that the book was presented for the DM to pick and choose which elements he liked for a setting. One problem I have with the whole PHB/DMG/MMx setup is that some players just assume because it's in the book, it has to be allowed. That's always been a problem really, but in previous editions, new stuff was labeled as "Optional. Check with your DM first." 3.x had Rule 0 which was bascially to this effect. I don't know how 4e is handling this. And as someone already said, 4e's been mixing classic and newer stuff up in multiple book releases which might complicate the issue.

 

[Wraith Form]

Hope they listen to you!!! I'd like to see Wookies in PHBIII.

You apparently haven't seen the shifter, then.

 

[kenmarable]

I think a subtle but important distinction to me isn't that my campaigns have to include EVERYTHING from every book, they only have to include ANYTHING from every book. If none of the players have any interest in playing a shifter, and I have no interest in including them in my world, then there's no need to worry about them. If someone changes their mind later, we can work together to see if we can come up with a plan.

That has served me best for all these years. We've had campaigns where certain races weren't included, but on an interpersonal level, it's always gone smoothly when the DM (me or someone else) included the players in on those decisions. In fact, for us, the players were far more engaged if it was more collaborative than dictated.

Don't take this as saying what is goodfun and badfun, of course. I'm just saying flexibility and collaboration with the players has always worked for us in the dozen or more campaigns I've been in. Plus, out of the 30 or so people I've regularly gamed with throughout my life, we never had someone who was disappointed that they couldn't play the character they wanted to play. After all, it's a game, I think people should have fun even if we model a make believe world with only 98% accuracy.

So I have nothing wrong with exclusions. I just dislike playing in games where exclusions are dictated even against player wishes (especially in the "Sorry you were killed just for showing up in the tavern, you should have known better." sort of way).

 

[Mournblade94]

When I am Playing D&D I will play in games with whatever the DM wants.

I only run fantasy games (with the exception of star wars, and Dark Sun) with races based on myth and history, though I have always allowed tieflings, assimar, and genasi. Pretty much Tolkein races from 1st edition with the Forgotten realms added in.

This does not mean I disapprove of other players liking other races, but I have never allowed an arbitrary race with no basis in myth made by a game designer for 'cool'.

Even if I played 4e, I could only ever see dragonborn as a monster race for NPC's.

Part of the problem I have with 4e is that 'designer' races are core. I prefer 'classic' races. I never minded expansion books wiht new races (though I rarely ever used them) but I don't like 'designer' races to be core.

This has never been a problem with any game I have run.

 

[Hellzon]

You apparently haven't seen the shifter, then.

The Shifter on that fabled picture that spawned the thread looks more like an Ewok. My only beef with it.

(And we know WOTC can draw non-ewok Shifters. There are perfectly good ones in the MM and in the PHB2 Shifter entry.)

 

[rjdafoe]

The great thing about new races that alot of people do not seem to think about is that it is an oportunity to maybe change your world a little bit. Who cares that there were no Shifters in your world before? Is your world fully explored? When the players go into an area that has not been explored before, they can encounter any of the races that you did not incude in your world design. Sure, there is no reason to all of a sudden place Shifters in your major city, but the fact is, they CAN exist in any world.

In our own world, we are still finding marine life that we thought was extinct or that we have never seen before. The great thing about the D&D worlds is that (for the most part) the world is now where near explored.

There could even be a city of Shifters that your player characters expose to the general world. For role players, this seems to me to be a huge role playing opportunity. Now that they are exposed, you can then deal with the opportunities (or not) of integrating them the rest of your world as they travel to the cities/villages that your players have already been to.

 

[Obryn]

The great thing about new races that alot of people do not seem to think about is that it is an oportunity to maybe change your world a little bit. Who cares that there were no Shifters in your world before? Is your world fully explored? When the players go into an area that has not been explored before, they can encounter any of the races that you did not incude in your world design. Sure, there is no reason to all of a sudden place Shifters in your major city, but the fact is, they CAN exist in any world. In our own world, we are still finding marine life that we thought was extinct or that we have never seen before. The great think about the D&D worlds is that (for the most part) the world is now where near explored. There could even be a city of Shifters that your player characters expose to the general world. For role players, this seems to me to be a huge role playing opportunity. Now that they are exposed, you can then deal with the opportunities (or not) of integrating them the rest of your world as they travel to the cities/villages that your players have already been to.

Yep, this is how I take it.

The world is a big place. Even if, say, shifters are unknown in the main region of play, I can't imagine that they couldn't exist on other continents. Even if not many people travel around that way, a shifter PC could easily be one of the few who would.

In lower-magic campaigns, I think this is even more possible. After all, it wasn't all too many years ago that the writings of Marco Polo were considered basically factual and accurate.

-O

 

[Barastrondo]

Most people - even most dragonborn or gnolls - aren't adventurers. Sure, the average gnoll might be a subsistence hunter who's not afraid to raid a human or half-elf farmer's land and make off with her cattle to be slaughtered for his tribe, if most gnolls live a nomadic, predatory lifestyle, but that just makes him the equivalent of that human farmer - compared to a gnoll warlord who stirs the tribe to battle, he's not so much.

A good point (and an excellent example, by the way). One of the things that I find most interesting about actual fantasy races and cultures is finding out all the little things about them: what they do all day, what sort of crafts they indulge in, what they eat, what their idea of music is, and so on. Now, I don't really approve of giant infodumps as a way of beating this knowledge into players' heads, but I like a race that has plausible stuff to do away from the adventure.

This is certainly an area where tastes vary, but to me it doesn't destroy the mystique of a race or culture to see them while they work or eat or haggle. Familiarity may cut out a touch of the exoticism, or even breed contempt depending on the viewer, but it makes a setting feel more fantastic without sacrificing plausibility. If you see a few tiefling children playing a game of "Who's the Ogre?" in the street, yeah, it does make tieflings seem less of a hardcore sinister race, but it also does a lot to broaden them beyond the stereotype.

 

[Scribble]

I only run fantasy games (with the exception of star wars, and Dark Sun) with races based on myth and history, though I have always allowed tieflings, assimar, and genasi. Pretty much Tolkein races from 1st edition with the Forgotten realms added in.

This does not mean I disapprove of other players liking other races, but I have never allowed an arbitrary race with no basis in myth made by a game designer for 'cool'.

That's fine, to each his own... But it seems somewhat limiting to me.

I like new races because they give people the opportunity to explore new ideas, and new societies. To create new stories and legends.

Do you include these other races as monsters? Or are the ONLY races existing on your world the tolkien ones?

If so, why are the players banned from them? What does that achieve?

Also why the difference between Starwars and D&D? What makes creatures not "based on myth and legend" ok in one format and not the other?

One last question... do you research each race to see where the new "designer" races might have been inspired from? (After all Tolkien's races aren't exactly the original myths and legends they came from... Where did Hobbits come from anyway?)

I'm not trying to knock your games. Just honestly curious.