PHB2 Races = Mos Eisley Cantina

[Kask]

Finally, I think it's disingenous to use PC races as the main "weirdness" metric in a fantasy setting. No 3e race is anywhere near as bizarre as a gelatinous cube. Or a Lurker Above. Or a cloaker. Or a beholder, for that matter. (And once we get into Fiend Folio, all of those look positively sensible.)

Umm, none of these are PC races, they are monsters. Other than that good point. ROFL

 

[Remathilis]

But the 2e DMG would agree with me. Always be wary of crap books.

You DO realize the second sentence cancels out the first, right?

 

[Kask]

You DO realize the second sentence cancels out the first, right?

Umm, no. Two different subjects.

 

[Obryn]

Umm, none of these are PC races, they are monsters. Other than that good point. ROFL

...which would be why I prefaced this statement with...

I think it's disingenous to use PC races as the main "weirdness" metric in a fantasy setting.

-O

 

[Kask]

...which would be why I prefaced this statement

Weirdness from the GM/player perspective. Building a credible world around a few related races is much better and more believable than trying to cram "weird" PC races into the mix. You can read more on the subject from the creator of the game.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

The creator of the game would have told you that you are the master of your campaign and can include what you see fit. "Credible" is in the eye of the beholder, in this case the DM - and a wise DM is on a level with his players in regards to the tone of his campaign.

Additionally, this thread smells of regeneration.

 

[Rechan]

In my experience, people pick the race they play based on the mechanical benefits; Elves and Dwarves are always picked to play classes that need Wisdom, etc.

So, I feel taht if you took out elves and dwarves, and dropped in Shifters and Deva, that it wouldn't impact the game at all.


If your concern is "There are too many PC races in my campaign world!", I liked a suggestion someone here on the forums had:

Offer all the races as an option at character creation. Once the players have picked their races... those are it.

So if they picked Humans, Tieflings and Halflings, then those three PC races are the only races that exist in the setting. Anyone wants to play anything else, they are considered "One of a kind" as far as rarity's sake.

 

[Shadowsong666]

I just threw up all over page 7 of the PHB2.

It looks like a terrible space fantasy for little kids! The whole game store I was at tonight was laughing hysterically at it!

THIS is Dungeons & Dragons?

"It's a cold and rainy night.
The village locals gather in the small tavern over mugs of ale to soothe their weary spirits after a long, hard day of toil.
Suddenly, the tavern door slams open and in walks a party of adventurers.

The first one through the door is a squat little wolfman with a hairy face and feral eyes. The second is what looks like a gnome-drow. The third, a half-orc... that is, apparently: half-orc and half vampire (worst artistic rendering of half-orcs EVER). The fourth is a blue skinned space man with a glowing, spectral pet wolf. Finally, a miniature stone giant."


When did Spelljammer become the default game world!

It's just so RIDICULOUS! It's like the Mos Eisley Cantina threw up all over the D&D universe.

I wish these designers would ease back on the cheese throttle.

Well, i simply don't get your point. Looking at the picture i see influences of different cultures and times, so whats the problem with it?

But hey, as my gaming group features a dwarven battlerager, a elven archer, an genasi wizard, a dragonborn paladin, a gnoll warlock and a wemic cleric i may just not be so picky about races.

All that counts is how the DM is able to put the stuff together and i am really glad that we get more and more official choices for our characters as players and for our npcs as DMs. If your DM is not able to translate it into a nice fantasy setting its your wasted time and not mine. Think i just try to have an open mind about new stuff.

I really like the new fresh art of WoTC (but hell, i like many old things too) in the 4e books. The art of the deva may take some time for some people to get used to, but i simply love it.

Great work WoTC.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Weirdness from the GM/player perspective. Building a credible world around a few related races is much better and more believable than trying to cram "weird" PC races into the mix. You can read more on the subject from the creator of the game.

Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. Suppose you design a campaign world so that it will have a particular sort of atmosphere to it. That may just not be compatible with the way the game designers have visualized certain races. You can reimagine them, but there is more work involved in communicating that to your players, who are likely to be more familiar with the 'default' way they are envisaged.

Plus you'll always have those players wandering in and out of most campaigns who aren't all that familiar with the world and show up with 'joe the deva' or whatever. It isn't the end of the world, but sometimes it does kind of put a dent in the setting.

The problem with just banning certain races is twofold. One is that the game actually kind of depends on those races existing. That was not true in earlier editions, but in 4e there are just a lot of classes and builds that work a LOT better with dragonborn, and if you don't happen to want to include that race in the campaign setting, then it does have some impact on play.

Secondly you WILL get player pushback. Players usually don't really care so much about atmosphere. They're busy worrying about hitting things and getting from here to there. Unless the setting is REALLY extraordinarily in your face players are just going to basically be like "yeah, so what your world has intelligent plants instead of Tieflings, I want to play a Tiefling Warlock!" What are you going to say?

Not that I'm complaining about having more races, it would be ridiculous to imagine WotC designing their system around what I want in my campaign.

In the end if you want things to be just exactly so, then write your own setting appropriate RPG. Otherwise you gotta take what you get.

Oh, and I entirely concur, the definition of Demi-Human in 1e was "player character race" and things that were not were Humanoids. It was always a blurry distinction though and there was never a really precise definition. Then of course 2e splat books included all kinds of "Humanoid" races into the ranks of playable races and it became meaningless, but remember, 2e didn't come out until 1989, that was 14 years after we started playing...

 

[Kask]

The creator of the game would have told you that you are the master of your campaign

Actually, the creator of the games said what he had to say about this in the 1st Ed DMG.