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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 5447322" data-attributes="member: 92511">I totally agree. I think this has been going on for a loooong time.Let's face it, a lot of us started out in gaming as a social interaction and, I daresay, an imagination/creative outlet. Many of the people I started gaming with would be considered among the geeks, nerds and assorted other loners/malcontents of the high school "social order." We knew we were different and gaming let us BE different and be POWERFUL while being different as opposed to the general lack of esteem or "personal power" most tweens n' teens feel/are coping with in those years.Things were great for the first few editions of the game, but somewhere along the line, it seems designers started capitalizing on this "I wanna be cool in my uniqueness" mentality and so racial and class "options" began exploding to that "anything goes" kind of style.My interest in general was sorely put off and my suspension of "disbelief" sorely tested when things like half-dragons, half-celestials, genasi, gnolls, warforged, minotaurs, etc...became your "regular guy on the street"...and of course, let's not forget our friend Mr. Do'Urdlen whom I credit with beginning the whole thing by bringing hordes and hordes of drow up out of the underdark to just...ya know...saunter down main street. Every last one of them the tragically misunderstood or sole surviving exile of his or her house, naturally. After that, "traditional race" kinda went out the window.(as well as making every "Evil" race capable of "Good" characters)And don't get me started on the introductions of tieflings (apparently EVERYONE has had sex with a "fiend" at some point in their family history. These guys are EVERYwhere!), the Dragonborn, or even Eladrin.And I agree, it's cool to be the "last of your kind" or one of a very rarely encountered class/order...those characters are can be fun to play...but when EVERYONE in the party is a "one of a kind" so to speak (either with weird/rare race, or the latest race yet created and sanctioned by "the rules", or some new class/combo/kit from noone knows where) then "one of a kind" quickly becomes the norm...and you're right, when the party's the "Strangest thing" to be encountered in the realms...something's just not fun/right.You are correct, the oddity of a group definitely removes from a story...unless the DM in going to incorporate each player's distinct unique background into the plot...always a good move from a story perspective if you're sandboxing it...but if there's a "set plot" might be cumbersome to work out. But even if they did/do, all you're doing is going through one story of why this PC is the/an "exception" after the other...One oddity among a party is a plot point/potentially interesting for the story...a party of oddity's (while an interesting concept for a one shot, maybe) would get old reeeeally fast...IMHO.One of the things I have always kept a mental eye on in my own campaign world is allowing ample choice for players, but not endless options. There are nations and cultures in place...and I work with everyone to get the player a character concept they want/like/came up with within the setting's framework. And simply because WotC or any publisher for that matter, puts out a book of the month (well, not anymore, from what I've been reading. haha)...but WHEN it was a stream of "now this book gives you rules for playing XYZ and QRS." There is this kind of craze, and I submit it is an American consumer mentality in general, that the "new thing" must be the "best" or "coolest"...by no other virtue than the cultural/societal attitude that "newer automatically = better." Ok, this has gotten a bit rambley, but I'll wrap it up saying, YES, I see what you're saying and YES I agree that it can detract from the story and/or lessen one's enjoyment at the table.So I just don't allow it...Here's the races, here's the cultures, here's the classes. Haven't had any complaints about it in my game world so far.Have fun and happy de-drow,tiefling,goliath,half-dragon-ifying. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />--Steel Dragons</blockquote>

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