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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zappo" data-source="post: 1920327" data-attributes="member: 633">After reading the campaign setting, I've explained them that they should choose between playing a Horde campaign (with orcs, tauren and goblins) or an Alliance campaign (with humans, dwarves, high elves, night elves and goblins; gnomes exist but they never reached Kalimdor and can't be played).  One week later, the players showed me their characters: an orc, a tauren, a goblin, a human, a dwarf, a high elf, a night elf, and a goblin. And a player complaining about the absence of gnomes. They pointed to a small paragraph in the book which said something to the effect of "you may want to play a mercenary/neutral/unaligned campaign, but it isn't a very good idea". Even after the events in Warcraft 3, the hatred between horde and alliance is very strong on Azeroth.  [minor personal rant]At the time, I found the thing rather irritating. In fact, I still do. After the first two or three PCs made, everyone else just had to pick a different race, simply for the sake of being different. When I said to one player, "why don't you play a human?", he answered "I would, but that other guy is already playing one" as if that was the most obvious answer in the world. When I tried to explain him that this wasn't an issue, he gave me a blank stare, and an unconvinced "well, yes, but...". He simply didn't understand. It was as if somewhere in his mind, there was an axiom that someone has to play every new race. A second PC of the same race can only be chosen after every other race has been covered. He isn't the only one with this syndrome, either. Honestly, if there is something I would change about my gaming group, this is it. I mean, when we got the Epic Level Handbook, one player made a shambling mound barbarian. Another made a zelekhut monk. Good thing that I wasn't DMing. The fact that these choices were uninteresting and unfunny except for the first half hour or so, and ineffective in battle to boot, didn't stop them or even slow them down. You don't want to know what happened when we got Savage Species. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f635.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="o_O" title="Er... what?    o_O"  data-smilie="12"data-shortname="o_O" /> Recently, a PC bit the dust in CotSQ, and the player convinced the DM to let him play a troll. He got bored and changed it after one session. I'd better stop now; I could go on for hours on how much I hate this mindset.[/minor personal rant]  Nevertheless, this doesn't stop me from enjoying the game. I've put together a good story arc which justifies and makes use of their weird composition. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> The party has troubles everywhere they go because of their composition. There is just one truly cosmopolitan settlement in the world; anywhere else, either the orc and tauren or everyone else are going to face anywhere from a serious disdain to being killed on sight.Make that a typical three months and still no sign of getting better. This adventure is nasty. Link in my signature for details. R-rated; this is the Abyss, not Disneyland.</blockquote>

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