Too, too many races

[Buttercup]

1. How do you define race?
2. What is the maximum number of sentient races a game can support before it loses integrity and believability?

1. Species that I intend to let the PCs choose from. Thus, Goblins are not a race, Orcs are not a race (IMC) and even Elves (again, IMC) are not a race. I generally don't go in for half-X types, though I'm currently running a Freeport campaign, and one player really wanted to play a half-elf, so I let her.

2. If you mean playable races, then for me, about 5. I'm still thinking about how many sentient antagonist races (Goblins, Orcs and the like) make sense to me. Probably not more than two or three though.

 

[Urbannen]

As many people have alluded to, the current take on races in D&D makes more sense for a science fiction game in which all the races come from different planets than a fantasy game in which all the races share one continent. As JDJarvis points out, it's hard to believe that the races live together as well as they do. All the PHB races (except perhaps half-orcs) live together in peace and harmony in the FR. I could buy the huge variety of races if some were geographically limited. Say, "kobolds are only found under the mountains of Kazan, where it is said their ancestors have lived since being spawn by dragonlings." But no, every evil humanoid can be found in every different country. I understand that it's done for the purpose of the game (i.e. you have to make every PHB race available everywhere and every evil humanoid has to be present in order to create challenges for low-level parties everywhere (because of course you can't have them fighting members of the PHB races, even if they were bad)).

 

[William Ronald]

Well, there is the fantasy tradition of multiple races of sentient beings. Toliken used this concept, Fritz Lieber to a lesser extent, and even Robert E. Howard had a few non-human things crop up in a story. I guess the question is what do you want in your world and how to make it work? With the presence of magic and deities who sometimes take a direct hand in a world, the D&D rules and various settings make multiple races easy to explain. As for the Forgotten Realms, many of the races such as dwarves, elves, and orcs are said to have arrived via portals. So, once again the answer boils down to what do you want to do? Rule Zero: The DM's best friend.

 

[Desdichado]

A couple of questions, then:
1. How do you define race?
2. What is the maximum number of sentient races a game can support before it loses integrity and believability?

1. An ethno-cultural group that is distinct from other etho-cultural groups, and which has a separate "starting package" from a game-mechanics point of view.
2. That depends. If you look at the many, many ethno-cultural groups that you could put together for a historical medieval Europe game, and take that perspective, then you can make a case for having dozens and it being believable. Also, if you have a game in which multiplanar contacts are common, then you should have yet more. However, if you define race differently than I just did, then a much smaller number should be the default -- in fact, it becomes difficult to imagine more than half a dozen if races are equivalent to biological species, for instance.

The problems come from the separate treatment in the core game of humans and other races, IMO. For example, under elves, even in the MM, we have, what, half a dozen varieties, all with different starting packages in terms of ability score modifiers, favored class, etc.? These all make sense from an ethno-cultural standpoint. Yet humans, regardless of culture, are all the same. In the FR setting, and the Wheel of Time game (and Oriental Adventures too, IIRC) this is handled by crafting a hybrid system wherein the human bonus feat can be a regional (i.e., "racial") feat that is specific, as well as a few other minor bonuses, like a certain culture always has certain skills be class skills, for instance.

Which is really the "correct" way to handle races; the sub-race mechanical standpoint, the regional packages mechanical standpoint, or the plain old Core Rulebook human "it's all in the roleplaying" standpoint? And why isn't it handled consistently across the various demihuman varieties?

It's stuff like this that makes races problematic for homebrewers, IMO. What I've done for my current campaign is eliminated all the deminhuman and humanoid races except human. My intention was to create regional "starting packages" for various cultures, but I never got around to it, and nobody's making new characters at the moment. Then, I created a few "races" that historically were humans bred for certain purposes by former slavemasters, much like various working breeds of dogs. Therefore, much as a St. Bernard, a Bloodhound and a Chihuahua should probably all have different stats and different strengths and weaknesses, my races are technically human, but have most of the mechanical considerations of race. They don't have any of the cultural considerations of race, though. I guess my campaign is a bit different than most, though.

If I were running a more standardized setting (and I do have one in the back of my head under development at any given time) I'd eliminate all of the subraces, and get rid of most of the humanoid races as well, except as one off strange occurances. That'd leave me with no more than 8-10 races tops for the whole world.

 

[Particle_Man]

In one world I am dreaming up, I limit the number of sentient races severely.

PC or NPC: goblin, kobold, orc, elf (wild), dwarf, human, xeph, maenad, elan.

NPC only: demons, devils, celestials, undead, (and I suppose technically) the 9 gods.

Special: constructs, intelligent magic items.

I took out everything from the mm and xph that had an int higher than 2 except for the above races (except Wyvern, which I simply made non-sentient). Makes for a different flavor of game.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I agree that there can be too many races in a given campaign setting, I don't think it hurts to introduce new races to the game as a whole. Then again, I play Star Wars, which has an awful lot of species in it, and it works just fine. Difference in genre, maybe?

 

[Sigurd]

The Race Overwhelm has so many problems.

You have to viciously limit a game world for any sort of race ecology. The sheer number of possibilities means that your world is like a zoo with small enclaves everywhere. There is a reason that races fight for dominance, security and world view.

If you aren't careful every dark hole, every back alley if filled with some half dragon, half fiend, ancient race. Its a marvel of fertility by uniqueness rather than birth.

sigurd

 

[rowport]

I think there is validity in limiting races for versimilitude, but there can be fun in celebrating wild creature types in a gonzo-style campaign world, too. One of my group's games is a classic D&D style (i.e. Tolkienesque) with humans, elves, dwarves, and half-orcs. But, the other intentionally uses savage species, races from Unearthed Arcana, tempates, and lots of weird class combos. Both games are entertaining- they just feel completely different.

I agree totally with BiggusGeekus' observation that giving players options that are fun for them is right on target as well. Even in a story-driven, grim & gritty realistic setting there might be a way for a player to play an unusual PC race/class if that is preferred- it might be a magical experiment, an outer planes creature, or whatever backstory to get it into the world. That just means that the party will not encounter others like that PC- so what?

 

[AIM-54]

It sounds like I'm in the minority here, but I actually like sub-races. Part of this stems from the fact that I want to minimize the total number of races, but still capture the cultural/ethnic variety present in human history. I tend to do it by climate/terrain. I think I get this from the fact that I spent half my youth in The South and the other half in Western Canada, thereby gaining firsthand experience with different climates and their effects on culture (in some sort of visceral sense).

In the world I'm currently constructing, life began from three races and only over time have new races and sub-races evolved. I like it, but from the sounds of it, I may be the only one.

 

[Gez]

I don't really define race. The metagame erm, the in-game term, and the real world term are all different, so, I don't care.

The maximum number of sentient race a system can support before losing credibility is calculated by solving the unknown factors of the Drake Equation, as adapted to heroic fantasy.

Simply put, when you have gods and spirits and wizards and whatnot that have fun mixing, matching, and mutating various biological material to create new races, sentient or not, for a number of reasons, not all rationnal; and you have countless parallele worlds and extradimensional planes; and you have magic; then the number of races the setting can support becomes equal to (1+square root(Phi(e^Pi)-1))/2, plus or minus 10%.