doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I just can't wrap my head around how human-only is a campaign idea. Or even a significant part of a campaign idea. It just...doesn't compute, to me.
D&D General The Importance of Page 33
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I guess I just...don't understand something very fundamental to other people's view of the game and of stories.
In the CoS thread, someone talked about how their run of CoS was aided by the players leaning in to the theme of despair and gothic/slavic horror by...not playing certain races. To me, the statement reads exactly as reasonable and comprehensible as, "my players helped by only eating spicy food on wednesdays." I just can't fathom how a tabaxi would every possibly change the tone of the story in literally any way.
Like, I ask players to keep their character personalities, alignments, goals, and attitudes toward cooperation with a group of trusted allies, within the themes and goals of the campaign, but...a tabaxi can have any personality, alignment, goals, or attitude toward cooperation and trust.
What am I missing? Is there some sort of emotional shorthand by association that everyone else here has for each race that I just don't have? Like, you see a tabaxi or a tortle or a grung or a gnoll or whatever and just, see something that is outside the text yet fully real for you, that I just don't see?
In the CoS thread, someone talked about how their run of CoS was aided by the players leaning in to the theme of despair and gothic/slavic horror by...not playing certain races. To me, the statement reads exactly as reasonable and comprehensible as, "my players helped by only eating spicy food on wednesdays." I just can't fathom how a tabaxi would every possibly change the tone of the story in literally any way.
Like, I ask players to keep their character personalities, alignments, goals, and attitudes toward cooperation with a group of trusted allies, within the themes and goals of the campaign, but...a tabaxi can have any personality, alignment, goals, or attitude toward cooperation and trust.
What am I missing? Is there some sort of emotional shorthand by association that everyone else here has for each race that I just don't have? Like, you see a tabaxi or a tortle or a grung or a gnoll or whatever and just, see something that is outside the text yet fully real for you, that I just don't see?
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
In a custom campaign setting a few years ago, one player wanted to play a tiefling...really, really, really wanted to play one. But tieflings didn't exist in my game world, and I was very clear about that from the beginning. There was only one other plane, the Feywild...there were no such things as angels, demons, or devils, and there never was. (I suspect that was why the player wanted to push so hard for tieflings in the first place...he saw they weren't allowed, and that made him want it. Some players live to frustrate the DM.)
So as a compromise, I allowed him to play a wood elf that had all of the abilities of a tiefling instead of elf. Basically, he got to play a tiefling in every way except flavor: we would never use the word "tiefling," there wouldn't be any references to demonic/devilish heritage, hellish rebuke was renamed to something like fiery rebuke, etc. He could even look like a goat-person with hooves and horns and whatever if he wanted, but it would be more Feylike than fiendish. Think satyr or Pan, instead of imps and Asmodeus.
He agreed to the changes, only to abandon it a half-hour later and roll up a dwarf instead. --sigh-- Ah well.
So as a compromise, I allowed him to play a wood elf that had all of the abilities of a tiefling instead of elf. Basically, he got to play a tiefling in every way except flavor: we would never use the word "tiefling," there wouldn't be any references to demonic/devilish heritage, hellish rebuke was renamed to something like fiery rebuke, etc. He could even look like a goat-person with hooves and horns and whatever if he wanted, but it would be more Feylike than fiendish. Think satyr or Pan, instead of imps and Asmodeus.
He agreed to the changes, only to abandon it a half-hour later and roll up a dwarf instead. --sigh-- Ah well.
Helldritch
Hero
Simple, some campaign are like the Mos Esley cantina in Star wars. Any race can and is accepted and will not make the story suffer for it. Other campaigns are humano centric (such as CoS). I had a campaign centered on elves where only elves could be played. The campaign was in first edition and all characters were elves (obviously) but the campaign spawned 1500 years! The players had saved Vecna from certain death only to see him destroy the Grey Elven city states one by one a few hundred years later. It was a very historically centered campaign designed to make my players understand how elves are thinking and reacting. I did the same with a dwarven campaign (which was shorter in terms of time passed but longer in the actual play time). Bringing a human to these campaign would not have worked. As decades would pass between adventures.
So, some campaign requires certain race(s) to work well for immersion and others do not require anything or have no need to restrict player's choice. CoS lends naturally toward a humano centric campaign. It can be done with any races, but it just does not feel right when played with anything but humans.
So, some campaign requires certain race(s) to work well for immersion and others do not require anything or have no need to restrict player's choice. CoS lends naturally toward a humano centric campaign. It can be done with any races, but it just does not feel right when played with anything but humans.
Li Shenron
Legend
Some campaigns require a sort of alterity between PCs and everything else. Horror stories for example, are commonly based on the "otherness" of whatever threatens the protagonists, if the norm is to already have others than humans in the group, part of the alterity effect is gone. Similarly for fantasy-historical campaign, where the plot is based on discovering the supernatural for the first time. Rokugan is instead an example of a published setting where the PCs are grounded on a culture which sees everything non-human and non-animal essentially monstrous.
For me there is also some more practical issue that has to do with wanting to emphasize fundamental differences when roleplaying non-human creatures. Like, an Elf is not just a bunch of bonuses with a funny accent, it's a completely different creature that lives and thinks in a different way... Of course most players simply roleplay everything as a bunch of bonuses with a funny accent, so when I get tired of Scottish dwarves I might just say let's all be humans, and pick whatever bunch of bonuses you want from the book and your favourite accent.
clearstream
(He, Him)
Only sentient creatures. Not only creatures.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
You’re really just gonna nitpick that and move on?
Helldritch
Hero
I guess he is. So stick to sentient creatures. You will avoid nitpicking.
clearstream
(He, Him)
Wha? You mistook what I wrote. I offered an unadorned clarification in case that helped.
You're the one who reached for the fish first
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Nitpicking isn’t ever a meaningful reply.Wha? You mistook what I wrote. I offered an unadorned clarification in case that helped.
You're the one who reached for the fish first
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