D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Oofta]

I’ve rarely seen someone dismiss an idea out of hand without feeling justified.

What players want isn’t less important than what you want.

Denying them what they want requires justification, or it is at best rude, and at worst petty and selfish.

Justification allows them to make informed decisions about whether you are being fair, and gives them the assurance that you give a naughty word about your players.

If you disagree, good for you. I don’t care.

In my best Yoda voice: The one true way, strong with this one it is.

 

[zarionofarabel]

• If they all lived together, the culture would homogenize, not stay separate. Therefore, the culture should be about a place, not necessarily the race.

WHAT?!?!? Do you not live on planet Earth? Do you not watch the news?

What makes you think for even a moment that the cultures would homogenize? This doesn't even seem to happen here in reality even when the only race is the human race. You think it would get better if it was a bunch of different races?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As for the third option, I stated it seemed that was more for people who begin without a lot of their world already built.

Why? Seems like that being true requires that the PCs have directly interacted with at least 1 of every race that is known to exist by the common folk, which seems...unnecessary.

“You all know that tabaxi live in the forest and don’t trade as much as the other folk of the region, but are seen in the cities on occasion. You may have seen one or two in your life, but unless you can justify it without direct retcon, you haven’t had direct dealings of any significance with them.”

You could plop that into any world. I could, if playing with non purists, state that in a Middle Earth game, and there are few worlds more detailed.

 

[Zardnaar]

The unfortunate truth is, IME, there are far, far, far more players out there and DM's who think this way than think that backstory or motivation is important. I've had so many Man Without a Name characters presented to me for play. Far, far more than ones with actual thought and backstory.

And, honestly, I think it's because those players are trained from early play by DM's who insist that PC's are blank slates.

Case and point:


It's been one of the main reasons why I've pretty much given up on detailing settings over the years. Players don't give a toss and so many are just happy that the DM rolls up the plot wagon and spoon feeds the adventure du jure every session. I really wonder if I shouldn't just go through alphabetically in the Monster Manual, session after session.

After all, if the players are going to provide so little input into the game, why should I bother?

Yeah I'm going into lazy mode these days. Most players want to kill stuff and eat popcorn with some sort of half baked plot.
I've basically winged the last 3 sessions.

 

[Zardnaar]

WHAT?!?!? Do you not live on planet Earth? Do you not watch the news?

What makes you think for even a moment that the cultures would homogenize? This doesn't even seem to happen here in reality even when the only race is the human race. You think it would get better if it was a bunch of different races?

I have fantasy racism in my games, I just let the players know if they want to play.

Right now it's the elves because they're Imperialists using bio engineered slave soldiers. Wars just broken out and PCs are trying to get help, organize defenses etc.

They haven't made themselves to popular putting it mildly.

 

[Charlaquin]

WHAT?!?!? Do you not live on planet Earth? Do you not watch the news?

What makes you think for even a moment that the cultures would homogenize? This doesn't even seem to happen here in reality even when the only race is the human race. You think it would get better if it was a bunch of different races?

People living in the same place tend to develop a lot of shared cultural traits. Obviously there is local and individual variation, so “homogenize” is probably not the best way to describe it. But people who live together tend to have a common culture.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But what if I don't want to create a history for my PC? What if I don't want to come up with a story about a pumpkin something or other? What happens if I have zero interest in creating setting details? What happens if all I want to do is bash stuff with a sword?

Every group I’ve ever know, regardless of playstyle, that’s just fine. Some, you will eventually be a bad fit, if you’ve no interest in ever actually telling a story beyond “bash stuff with sword”, but most groups will still give you a chance to see if the fit works.

 

[Zardnaar]

People living in the same place tend to develop a lot of shared cultural traits. Obviously there is local and individual variation, so “homogenize” is probably not the best way to describe it. But people who live together tend to have a common culture.

Rwanda, Lebanon, Bosnia......

 

[Maxperson]

People living in the same place tend to develop a lot of shared cultural traits. Obviously there is local and individual variation, so “homogenize” is probably not the best way to describe it. But people who live together tend to have a common culture.

Culture is a strange term. Here in Los Angeles we'd have a Los Angeles culture. However, each minority(including variations such as Cuban, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) would also have a culture. Then of course there are things like the Punk Culture and so on. So a Chinese American Los Angelino Punk rocker would be part of at LEAST 5 cultures. There are so many different cultures involved in even a relatively small area like Los Angeles, that the idea that there would be any sort blending into one culture is just not true. At best you'll have the strongest culture soften the edges of the others, but they aren't going to lock into a single culture.

 

[prabe]

Seems like that being true requires that the PCs have directly interacted with at least 1 of every race that is known to exist by the common folk, which seems...unnecessary.

If you don't want some portion of the game to devolve into "WTF are you?" on a regular basis, you at least need for the race to be somewhat knowable/known. Depending on what the player wants to do, that ignorance might grate for one of a few reasons: Among other, they might not want that kind of interaction everywhere they go; or, they might want to lean into/against a stereotype and if no on on the world knows what they are there is no stereotype.

Culture is a strange term. Here in Los Angeles we'd have a Los Angeles culture. However, each minority(including variations such as Cuban, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) would also have a culture. Then of course there are things like the Punk Culture and so on. So a Chinese American Los Angelino Punk rocker would be part of at LEAST 5 cultures. There are so many different cultures involved in even a relatively small area like Los Angeles, that the idea that there would be any sort blending into one culture is just not true. At best you'll have the strongest culture soften the edges of the others, but they aren't going to lock into a single culture.

I think that if there are that many (sub)cultures in close proximity, there will be some rubbing off on each other, which might not necessarily mean "homogenized" but there will likely be some overlap. In some instances, those overlaps might heighten tensions rather than ease them, of course.