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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrunkonDuty" data-source="post: 4381367" data-attributes="member: 54364">Hey CSL. I like your spins on the archetypes. Especially the Dwarves. I see the hand of Abbathor at work there... But as to the meta-game question of reducing indifference/dislike for various DnD races: why bother? I mean seriously: is it important? It is just a game and some people will  play with some races, others will play with others. Also, it isn't going to happen. There are good reasons for players not liking/being indifferent towards some of the races on offer. Let's start with the number of fantasy races out there. There's LOADS. Many more than can ever be included in one game. Each one is designed by someone to have certain appeals. But what is appealing to one designer is not necessarily appealing to all players. And why should it be?  How CAN it be? So all DND races are going to get a dose of indifference from someone, somewhere. (My personal response to Dragonborn is 'meh.' They just don't do it for me. Although they seem to changing slowly into monotremes and that in itself is fascinating. But I digress.) And some races are going to be so bland that they are going to be over shadowed by more interesting ones. This is a marketing design/issue. Gnomes fall in here I'm afraid. Another, and from what I can tell from reading the threads, from my personal experience and from anecdotal evidence from friends, fairly commmon problem is the way in which races can be played by the people to whom they appeal. I shall call this phenomenon 'Kenderising' for it's most infamous and annoying expression but in all honesty all DND races, by their nature, are given to sterotyping. Kenderising is the act of taking one or 2 of a fantasy race's (designed) features and playing them up to the point of being really, really xxxxxxx annoying. All gamers have met people who do this. EG: If it's a kender being played they steal stuff from everyone in sight: other party members, total strangers, powerful lords who can make the PCs lives hell (or very short) and then whine when their actions have a negative impact on themselves. Something along the line of: 'Why are you being mean to me? I'm just playing my character.' And some DND races and some DND players are much more given to this than others. There seems to be a correlation between whiny players and irritating characters. Now of course it's logically wrong for people to generalise from a few bad experiences and hate all Kender because of them. And in the real world it would be morally wrong too. But DND aint the real world. You've got to keep in mind that the races and classes stand in for particular ideas about the game. By banning Kender from a game a group effectively says: we aint having any of THAT nonsense in our group thanks. Now you might have noticed that my extended example refers to Kender throughout. That's because I really, really, really hate Kender. And that's because every time I've seen them played they have been played exactly the way I've described above. Some DND races just attract MORE Kenderising because of the way they've been designed in the first place. Their characteristics are such that they encourage annoying play styles. Kender are the worst offenders, say thanks to Tasslehoff Burrfoot for that.  Another factor that adds to DND race hate is forum threads that re-hash the argument. Nothing like a good interweb argument to get people all hot and bothered over something they would not normally even think about. Wow, reading back over this: I really hate Kender. In fact I have gone and gotten all hot and bothered over something that I never normally think about. Finally, just to give a bit of perspective on where I'm coming from as a DND player:I like to play Humans, Dwarves and Elves almost exclusively. I think this is because the other races are either nerfed by the mechanical aspects of the game or are just plain bland. (Gnomes: I'm looking at you.) Of course in earlier editions of the game humans were the hands down winners on both bland/nerfed and I never played them back then. cheers,Glen</blockquote>

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