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

[zarionofarabel]

Imagine how many of the problems brought up in this thread so far would be avoided if the only intelligent race in D&D was human!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Imagine how many of the problems brought up in this thread so far would be avoided if the only intelligent race in D&D was human!

It is pretty bold to claim that humans are an intelligent race!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There's a saying "correlation does not imply causation". I think you are massively understating the draw of +1 to six different stats, a skill, & feat. If variant human were the bogmonster race you would see a huge percentage of bogmonsters & vastly fewer humans

Are you doing Variant Humans incorrectly? They only get a +1 to two ability scores of their choice and a feat and skill.

 

[tetrasodium]

Are you doing Variant Humans incorrectly? They only get a +1 to two ability scores of their choice and a feat and skill.

I was afb when I wrote that combining the two by mistake in the post, but do enforce it right when running the game

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I was afb when I wrote that combining the two by mistake in the post, but do enforce it right when running the game

Okay.
For the main part of your post that was quoting me, I think you were misunderstanding me. Humans are mechanically attractive, but there are other races that have better mechanical benefits, especially with the variant race rules in Tasha's (Yuan-Ti, Mountain Dwarf, Satyr).

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay.
For the main part of your post that was quoting me, I think you were misunderstanding me. Humans are mechanically attractive, but there are other races that have better mechanical benefits, especially with the variant race rules in Tasha's (Yuan-Ti, Mountain Dwarf, Satyr).

those are definately S tier now yes, but variant human dropping from S or A+ where they were to A+ or A because some other races redefine S tier alone isn't justification for reversing that. I'm not averse to variant human being improved in conjunction with improvements to the A-- b C & D races but if they aren't improving the other races variant human shouldn't be improved for the same reason wotc is not improving those other races. People have mentioned wotc having errata reluctance, but every few months they isssue a new set pf baseline hotfixes called "season N rules" for AL. & even more often they issue UA releases. Both of those could address both groups together

 

[dave2008]

I get it. And I commend you for starting session zero with almost no preconceived notion of what your world looks like. If it works for you and your group, awesome. But, the generic version of D&D, is human centric. And 50% play that version. So that makes playing a really odd group of people, many of whom are rare, awkward for 50% of the groups playing. Of course, one can just not care. And that is what usually happens. I just think it is a shame, because it takes away from some of the setting, and even further, from character arcs that could be interesting to the player.

I imagine more than 50% of games are in a human-centric world. However, that doesn't mean other races are extremely rare or weird: according to 538, the "weird" races combined are more common than humans with regard to PCs: The most Popular Races and Classes in D&D

 

[Scott Christian]

My next counter-question is why assume every part of the world has any contact or knowledge of the rest of the world? In our "monk game", I outlined before there is an animal kingdom-continent which is widely known off, but far removed. Animalistic races are assumed to come from there, so are unusual but not completely strange in most areas. So while distant places might have communication to the outside world in your game, it isn't in mine. I run more medieval games where many people never travel more than a day from where they were born and raised.

I see nothing wrong with this. Strange land far away. Maybe a small island. But if they are that different, then that is where a lot of the difficulty for the DM comes in. I mean, is everyone nice to something they have never seen before? Most of the time, no. And if something is wrong (which it seems there always is), are they going to be friendly? Probably not. In a world where monsters exist, that their main goal is to kill overlanders, eat people, plant eggs inside people, or suck their brains, are these locals in the bar or the guards at the tower gonna be like, "Oh cool, you're one of the good monsters?" Probably not.

So having it tied into the written history and somewhat commonplace becomes important, if not for the sole reason of just creating a logical (dungeon logic) continent.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I imagine more than 50% of game are in a human-centric world. However, that doesn't mean other races are extremely rare or weird: according to 538, the "weird" races combined are more common than humans with regard to PCs: The most Popular Races and Classes in D&D

It isn't just human vs. non-human IMO though, it is "typical" vs. "exotic" (for lack of better terms).

If you look at the site you mentioned, over 70% of the races are typical (human, elf, dwarf, half-elf, halfling, gnome, or half-orc), for the 5E crowd you could argue that dragonborn and tiefling should be included, but I'm not for this case.

So, if all other races would be 30% or less in total, I would think that would be a bit rare, or definitely uncommon. shrug

 

[Scott Christian]

I imagine more than 50% of game are in a human-centric world. However, that doesn't mean other races are extremely rare or weird: according to 538, the "weird" races combined are more common than humans with regard to PCs: The most Popular Races and Classes in D&D

You can only have so many common races in an area. Logic says so. Therefore, statistically some have to be rare. I would assume races live together, therefore, you have racial congregations. So unless each area has a 5% dwarves, 5% elves, 5% drow, 5% yuan-ti, 5% tabaxi, 5% human, etc. then they would be considered weird by many. It makes no sense to say the average town wouldn't be scared of a race they have never heard of, or never seen but heard of. Not every place can be cosmopolitan, and not every place wouldn't have rumors or unsettling stories of those "other folks." That is why it breaks logic.
I get it. I play in campaigns where all of this is just overlooked. They are fun. But it loses a piece of the story for me.