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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eris404" data-source="post: 1618229" data-attributes="member: 5338">I think it's because most people have a pet race that they love for whatever reason. I don't think it's always about powergaming, but that the race just has a coolness factor that speaks to them. Also, there is a strong desire with some players to have a character that is truly different and special - so it's not enough to play a generic PHB elf, he or she wants to play one of the ultra rare Sun Elves that come from a distant valley no human has ever visited. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, mind you, I'm just saying that sometimes players get tired of the familiar races and introducing new ones is one way to deal with that.Well, scifi games, Star Wars comes to mind immediately, can have hundreds easily. I'm always reminded, though, of my friend Jeff who was a huge Star Trek fan. Jeff used to complain about "forehead aliens;" that is, the show's creators would simply slap a new wrinkle or spots or a third eye or whatever, on the actors' faces to create a new alien race. What limited his enjoyment of the ST shows (just a little, though) was that he couldn't believe in the entire universe that most alien races looked pretty much human.So keeping that in mind, this is what I'm doing now. I'm designing a new world and I have made a long list of races from different sources that interest me (including the PHB races, some of which I might remove from this campaign). I have pared down the list to a total of 15 of the ones I like best. Then, I asked myself, "is this a forehead alien?"  - meaning, is the race too much like another one or is there something silly about it on second glance. I asked myself what niche does this race fill, can I come up with interesting cultural details for it and how would have this race evolved (for lack of a better term) in this world? Once it passed those tests, the true test of a race is whether the players would want to play one or not. I plan on send the list and descriptions to the players in my group for feedback and at the end I hope to have the list down to around 8-10. That seems like a fair number of options for the players, but nothing too crazy for me to manage.I keep the definition of race pretty open. I'm not a biologist and though I want my campaign worlds to feel believable, I don't feel the need to explain the biological differences between dwarves and elves (for example) in any depth. By the time one introduces magic and supernatural entities into the mix, much of hard science goes out the window anyway. The players in my group are good at suspension of disbelief, so as long as the story and characters make sense, the rest is just detail.</blockquote>

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