Question on fantasy races

[Desdichado]

I was talking with my wife last night, who is just learning how to get into character and actually roleplay, and she got upset about the nonhuman idea I had. She doesn't like or understand elves, dwarves, etc. So, I think you have something there. Well, I'll find something interesting to do with them.

Sure, make 'em the enemies. And allow orcs and goblinoids and whatnot as PC races.

Turn the stereotype on its head.

 

[interwyrm]

I think the key is just to ask your players what they want, and build your game world around those elements.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I think the key is just to ask your players what they want, and build your game world around those elements.

Sometimes you don't have the players around to ask during the world construction phase.

Also: sometimes a GM just likes a certain style (or hates certain others styles) such that those times it's more condusive to everyone's fun if the GM makes it clear up front what they're likely to do before recruiting players.

 

[barrowwight]

Sometimes you don't have the players around to ask during the world construction phase.

Also: sometimes a GM just likes a certain style (or hates certain others styles) such that those times it's more condusive to everyone's fun if the GM makes it clear up front what they're likely to do before recruiting players.

So how is that working out for you? I think it would be a lot harder for a Dm to find a group to play his style then poll a group of potential players and create something they want to play.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

So how is that working out for you? I think it would be a lot harder for a Dm to find a group to play his style then poll a group of potential players and create something they want to play.

That depends on two factors:

1. What's the point of getting together a group only to find out they want to play a style the GM just can't stand? The GM should be up front about what they are willing to put up with if they have this problem.

2. Some people are just slow designers. For them if they asked a group what they wanted to play they'd never get something together fast enough.

 

[Dausuul]

So how is that working out for you? I think it would be a lot harder for a Dm to find a group to play his style then poll a group of potential players and create something they want to play.

My experience is that willing and able DMs are much harder to find than willing and able players, so the DM has a fair bit of latitude to set the terms of play.

 

[Desdichado]

So how is that working out for you? I think it would be a lot harder for a Dm to find a group to play his style then poll a group of potential players and create something they want to play.

It's worked out very well for me. :shrug:

 

[Herobizkit]

Just a word of advice derived from experience: don't eliminate humans.

Every time I've designed a campaign world in which humans were non-existent, at least 50% of the prospective players rebelled, saying they at least wanted the option of choosing to play one.

Kindly advise them that orcs are the new humans, and enjoy.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I try that and I don't have anything to enjoy- those players will simply refuse to play.

And since these are guys I've been gaming with for more than a decade, I don't see any reason to strain our relationships by drawing that kind of line.

 

[Herobizkit]

I find it hilarious that, in this day and age, an entire gaming group will shut down because the DM says "no" about the OPTION to choose one race, even if no one in said group will choose it.

Do you, at least, put them in your setting in an area where there is little/no humanity? For example, when my players decided to play a party of elves, I decided that "if the PC's aren't human, why should they care about humans?" and put them in an elf-dominated area. The only humans they saw were deep underground... I was running them through B4: The Lost City updated on the fly to 2ed.