D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Maxperson]

Maybe I'm not explaining it well.

My point is that if you magicaly popped into a random D&D table you will very likely land in

1) a published setting using 20+year old race and class tropes
or
2) a homebrew setting using 20+ year old race and class tropes

Do that with an average quality DM and you get some boring. And overexposed.

I get what you are saying, but I very much disagree with it. This is a player issue, not one of DM or setting. I and my players have been playing for 20+ years. Two of us for 30+. We still have lots of fun playing humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves and halflings(one of us anyway). And we've played 95% of our campaigns in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.

An average DM is plenty fine for enjoying these races and tropes. Some players get bored with them, but they'd be bored with them in pretty much any game. That's their issue and they should find a kitchen sink game(and there are plenty out there) where they can play catmen, turtlemen or a walking chair if that's what they want.

Most of those setting use human, dwarves, elves, halflings, orcs, gnomes with slight twwist. The lore might be different but not enough to explain at the campaign pitch.

There aren't completely shifted in tropes like a Dark Sun where you have to explain differences before Session 0.

If the DM isn't explaining the setting during session 0 to people unfamiliar with it, that's a DM failure.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have to say that the idea that racial choice doesn’t or shouldn’t impact the quality of a campaign for a player seems a bit at odds with how a curated list of allowed races can impact the quality of a campaign for a GM.

Seems to be a bit of a double standard going on.

DM: See my unique and interesting world? There are no dragonborn here and gnomes have green skin and live in trees!

Player: Cool. Are there any tieflings?

DM: What does it matter if your PC has horns and a tail?

 

[Mind of tempest]

I get what you are saying, but I very much disagree with it. This is a player issue, not one of DM or setting. I and my players have been playing for 20+ years. Two of us for 30+. We still have lots of fun playing humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves and halflings(one of us anyway). And we've played 95% of our campaigns in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.

An average DM is plenty fine for enjoying these races and tropes. Some players get bored with them, but they'd be bored with them in pretty much any game. That's their issue and they should find a kitchen sink game(and there are plenty out there) where they can play catmen, turtlemen or a walking chair if that's what they want.

If the DM isn't explaining the setting during session 0 to people unfamiliar with it, that's a DM failure.

why should a curated game be all the tolkien-ish races that sounds what is the word stale?

it is about matching inspirations together as what inspires both the dm and the players need some overlap.

that last point we just flat out agree on.

I have to say that the idea that racial choice doesn’t or shouldn’t impact the quality of a campaign for a player seems a bit at odds with how a curated list of allowed races can impact the quality of a campaign for a GM.

Seems to be a bit of a double standard going on.

DM: See my unique and interesting world? There are no dragonborn here and gnomes have green skin and live in trees!

Player: Cool. Are there any tieflings?

DM: What does it matter if your PC has horns and a tail?

you act like people ever put considerations in for gnomes as they get less inspiration than halflings who I swear are copy-pasted campaign to campaign.

 

[Stormonu]

why should a curated game be all the tolkien-ish races that sounds what is the word stale?

it is about matching inspirations together as what inspires both the dm and the players need some overlap.

that last point we just flat out agree on.

you act like people ever put considerations in for gnomes as they get less inspiration than halflings who I swear are copy-pasted campaign to campaign.

Coming from B/X, my homebrew didn’t have a place for gnomes for a long time. Only recently did I come up with a story they were created by the elves and dwarves as a “bridge” race to ease relations between the two, and instead did the opposite.

Then there’s Dragonborn. Ancient dragon war, dragons created them as soldier fodder to fight humans so as not to risk their own magnificent skins. After the war, they were cut loose. Can’t replace them with other humanoids because the entire idea is that the dragons were trying to destroy the existing humanoid races.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Coming from B/X, my homebrew didn’t have a place for gnomes for a long time. Only recently did I come up with a story they were created by the elves and dwarves as a “bridge” race to ease relations between the two, and instead did the opposite.

Then there’s Dragonborn. Ancient dragon war, dragons created them as soldier fodder to fight humans so as not to risk their own magnificent skins. After the war, they were cut loose. Can’t replace them with other humanoids because the entire idea is that the dragons were trying to destroy the existing humanoid races.

so what do the gnomes do now?

you could add the new draconians from fizbans as a mark 2 who are utterly loyal to the dragons vision?

 

[Stormonu]

so what do the gnomes do now?

you could add the new draconians from fizbans as a mark 2 who are utterly loyal to the dragons vision?

The gnomes share a country of their own with halflings, doing as they choose. Humans once tried to take the country over, and the gnomes did the same pranks and baiting they did to the elves and dwarves, eventually making the human invaders withdraw as being too much trouble.

As for Draconians, I prefer to leave them in Dragonlance, but that’s an option I hadn’t considered that I could use for a Dragon War 2.0.

 

[Maxperson]

why should a curated game be all the tolkien-ish races that sounds what is the word stale?

Dunno. I never said it should.

A curated game is any game where curation is going on, whether that's including catmen and turtlemen, but cutting out dragonmen and robotmen or including those four and cutting out humans, elves, halfings and dwarves.

That wasn't my point, though. My point was that if you find a race boring, that's your issue, not a DM issue. Sure a boring(below average) DM isn't going to help, and a super brilliant DM might help a bit, but primarily it's a player problem.

it is about matching inspirations together as what inspires both the dm and the players need some overlap.

I think that if the DM and player are both excited about a character concept it will go over much better than if one or the other is excited and the other is not, yes.

you act like people ever put considerations in for gnomes as they get less inspiration than halflings who I swear are copy-pasted campaign to campaign.

Wait. Gnomes are a race?! When did that happen?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Looking up Molday basic for another thread and near the end...

View attachment 149406

No offense man, because I usually find most of your posts very reasonable, but...so what?

I mean, the whole point is that some of the top-down view of how games should be run dates back to the beginning of the hobby. That's why its often taken as gospel. But that doesn't say anything about whether its the best approach, just that its functional and what people are used to (especially in the D&D sphere).

 

[Scars Unseen]

I have to say that the idea that racial choice doesn’t or shouldn’t impact the quality of a campaign for a player seems a bit at odds with how a curated list of allowed races can impact the quality of a campaign for a GM.

Seems to be a bit of a double standard going on.

DM: See my unique and interesting world? There are no dragonborn here and gnomes have green skin and live in trees!

Player: Cool. Are there any tieflings?

DM: What does it matter if your PC has horns and a tail?

You're a bit off there. The idea is that campaigns in general being good or not has nothing to do with the number of races allowed, but rather the skill and effort of the DMs who run it. It's a highly generalized assertion. It doesn't mean that a given DM will do better with a style they don't prefer than one they do. That would be a specific claim that might not apply. It would be like saying that Stephen King would have been just as accomplished if he had tried to be a mystery writer or a romance novelist. Could he write in a different genre if he chose? Probably. But he clearly has a primary interest in the horror genre, so it's safe to assume he wouldn't do as well forcing himself to write in a genre he didn't like.

To make it even more generalized: People who do well at the thing they like doing do well when doing the thing they like.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The gnomes share a country of their own with halflings, doing as they choose. Humans once tried to take the country over, and the gnomes did the same pranks and baiting they did to the elves and dwarves, eventually making the human invaders withdraw as being too much trouble.

As for Draconians, I prefer to leave them in Dragonlance, but that’s an option I hadn’t considered that I could use for a Dragon War 2.0.

it is just an idea and the stat blocks are just there use it if you like.

Dunno. I never said it should.

A curated game is any game where curation is going on, whether that's including catmen and turtlemen, but cutting out dragonmen and robotmen or including those four and cutting out humans, elves, halfings and dwarves.

That wasn't my point, though. My point was that if you find a race boring, that's your issue, not a DM issue. Sure a boring(below average) DM isn't going to help, and a super brilliant DM might help a bit, but primarily it's a player problem.

I think that if the DM and player are both excited about a character concept it will go over much better than if one or the other is excited and the other is not, yes.

Wait. Gnomes are a race?! When did that happen?

you see I do not believe in dm problems or player problems just group problems.

gnomes must have been a race since at least 2e I think they are oddly unmemorable.