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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Negflar2099" data-source="post: 5273624" data-attributes="member: 65944">Recently I've made a terrible discovery about myself. Since 4e came out I've heard a lot of complaints from people who feel the oddball races (like Tieflings and Dragonborn) are too out there, too weird to be included among the "normal" races of human, halfling, elf and dwarf. Even the Eladrin have struck some people as too strange to be part of D&D. In the past I've dismissed those concerns. I like letting players have lots of options, and the last thing I want to do is dictate to players what they can and cannot play. Even limiting their options to the five or six typical races smacks me of DM micromanagement. If you're going to limit them to five why not limit them to only human, or just choose for them what races and classes they are going to play?At least that's how I've felt in the past but recently I came to sympathize with those DM's who don't like it when their parties don't feel very typically fantasy. My players tend to gravitate to the strange and with the number of racial options (and subsequent weirdness) ballooning out in 4e, they've had a lot of strange races to choose from. If it's not living golems or beings of pure crystal it's nice guy Gnolls or former dead guys now alive and kicking. I can't remember the last time someone played an elf or half-elf let alone a human. Now I hate myself for feeling this way but that bothers me. Not only does it not seem very D&D to me, it feels like the group doesn't belong together. After all we all love Wolverine but if everyone plays a feral loner then what's so special about being a feral loner? I've thought about just saying no, but that doesn't sit well with me. I don't want to completely eliminate strange races. On their own the freaky races are pretty cool. It's only a problem when every group is nothing but freaks. To that end I've come up with this idea: What if we split races into common, uncommon and rare (like the new magic item distinction which gave me the idea). Common races would include the usual D&D suspects (human, elf etc...). Players can double up on common races (there could be two humans or two elves in a group) and their are no restrictions on race (that is everyone can play a member of a common race). Uncommon races would include the slightly strange but not too strange (Goliaths, maybe Dragonborn etc...). There would be two restrictions on uncommon races. First there can't be two of the same race in the same party (so only one Dragonborn for instance) and not more than half of the party (rounded down) could be uncommon races (so 2 players in a 5 player party could play uncommon races but the others would have to pick either common or rare). Rare races would be those truly bizarre races (Shardminds, Deva). Only one person in the party can be a member of a rare race. What do yo think? Is this still too unfair to players? Am I still micromanaging? If a DM used this system in a game you played, would you protest or would you be okay with it?Thanks ahead of time for your comments.</blockquote>

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