D&D 5E Reflavoring races

[Temporalgod]

Does anyone else do this?,

Like for example I reflavor Half-Orcs as Three Quarter Orcs, mechanically they're still Half-Orcs but flavorwise they're the byproduct of what you get when Half-Orcs mate with pureblooded Orcs, sure it's really not as groundbreaking as Reflavoring Tieflings as Fey'ri, but it's still a nice personal touch.

 

[Oofta]

Does anyone else do this?,

Like for example I reflavor Half-Orcs as Three Quarter Orcs, mechanically they're still Half-Orcs but flavorwise they're the byproduct of what you get when Half-Orcs mate with pureblooded Orcs, sure it's really not as groundbreaking as Reflavoring Tieflings as Fey'ri, but it's still a nice personal touch.

I do it with monsters all the time. With player races, I've only done it a few times. My campaign world is very human-centric with a small handful of other races thrown in, something like a tiefling just doesn't make sense.

On the other hand if you want to play that aasimar for RP and abilities, we can talk about it. It's just that most of the time they'll pass as human, perhaps with some things slightly off.

 

[Stormonu]

Back before Volo's and Mord's Tome of Foes, I reflavored the gnome as a goblin so my youngest son could use it.

Beyond that, my halflings are Hillenfaey - nature spirits that took mortal form out of curiosity, so they're not the homebodies most halflings are. Likewise, I've reflavored Tieflings, Aasimar & Genasi into Hellchilde - they appear as albino humans, but when they use magic they take on fiendish, celestial or elemental traits. Doesn't change the abilities, but these now all initially appear human until they start using their abilities.

 

[Synthil]

All the time. Warforged as undead (before the Reborn was a thing), Plasmoid as an Oblex spawn, and in one campaign there were basically only humans allowed, but a lot of them were reskinned; like a Goliath and a Gnome as a particularly tall and small human.

 

[Xamnam]

I've always liked the image of 'organic' Warforged. Especially wooden ones, but stone or gem too.

 

[J.Quondam]

Yes, often. Reskinning other races as variations of human is an easy way to get mechanical diversity in a humans-only campaign.

 

[Weiley31]

Want to play as a space clown from Spelljammer? Refluffed Tiefling. Extra flavor, add the OneDND Tiefling options.

 

[Steampunkette]

I've played Half Elves as Half Goblins and Warforged as Undead.

I've used Tabaxi as Athasian "Running Elves" and reskinned Gnomes as a Halfling Subrace.

Sure. People do it.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Quite a lot. I often say that the Firbolg powers are closer to the ones a gnome should have. Same with the Harengon and Elves or Satyr and Eladrin or whatever. Just remove the bits that dont fit, and voilà!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Does anyone else do this?,

Like for example I reflavor Half-Orcs as Three Quarter Orcs, mechanically they're still Half-Orcs but flavorwise they're the byproduct of what you get when Half-Orcs mate with pureblooded Orcs, sure it's really not as groundbreaking as Reflavoring Tieflings as Fey'ri, but it's still a nice personal touch.

Depends on context.

For the game I currently run, not very much. Taking inspiration from Zakhara, my campaign world has many races usually considered "monstrous," such as minotaurs, orcs, ogres, etc. as perfectly acceptable members of society. They're still more or less the same kind of being, but they can be caravanserai owners or sellers of fine china or glassmakers or guard captains.

I have at least two other campaign notions, for whatever unknown future awaits where my current game has ended. Both involve meaningful reflavoring of dragonborn and tieflings, and possibly some other races as well. For one example, Campaign A dragonborn come from the far future, where a disaster has nearly completely wiped out their interstellar society, but one colony ship has been flung back in time to the distant past and crashed on the planet where the campaign is set. The ship has been repairing itself but is running out of resources, so it's woken up a small portion of the occupants in order to secure replacements. They are ill-adjusted to life in a completely pre-industrial society, but their weapons are Star Trek/Star Wars levels of tech, making them extremely formidable but almost completely unable to expand beyond the area surrounding their crashed ship. Eventually they might be able to build up an industrial base, but for the time being they are stuck either depending on the tech and infrastructure of the crashed ship, or (from their perspective) living like Bear Grylls pretends to.