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

[Crit]

I find it difficult to believe that most people find it easy to understand what other people whom they are close to - their friends, families, and lovers, truly think. Let alone those people who have opinions that are truly different. Let alone those who come from different cultures.

if you know what it is like to walk in the shoes of all humanity, you are a better person than I will ever be.

IME, many people who play non-humans are exploring stereotypes that they would be embarrassed to ascribe to a human.

Superficial (but still valuable) exposure to other species and cultures through semi-casual RP, is what I'd call playing alternative races in DnD.

I do not think playing Warforged is going to provide insight comparable to truly understanding other real people, but RP is quite literally trying to put yourself in other people's shoes, even if it's one "ok" character at a time. Even if it's superficial, playing a non-human is still a different experience than being a Human character- gameplay (a more than sufficient reason) and otherwise, if you care about RP (which has equal merit). You get out as much quality as effort you put in, and that principle is proof enough that there's merit to having the options we have, even if they're "weird." Same goes for classes, settings, specific ideas, etc. Anything can be a great, fully worth it idea/implementation.

I'm playing a pretty stereotypical Elf Wizard right now, but I feel like I'm thinking about more facets of the character's life in the world than if I played Human. Simple stuff, like what does he do with the free time Trance gives? How will he react to the party being magically put to sleep around him? What led to him being who he is, in more detail? Hey, a Gith I've got coming up has me thinking about the race's lore. There's stuff that isn't best achieved through Human.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Superficial (but still valuable) exposure to other species and cultures through semi-casual RP, is what I'd call playing alternative races in DnD.

I do not think playing Warforged is going to provide insight comparable to truly understanding other real people, but RP is quite literally trying to put yourself in other people's shoes, even if it's one "ok" character at a time. Even if it's superficial, playing a non-human is still a different experience than being a Human character- gameplay (a more than sufficient reason) and otherwise, if you care about RP (which has equal merit). You get out as much quality as effort you put in, and that principle is proof enough that there's merit to having the options we have, even if they're "weird." Same goes for classes, settings, specific ideas, etc. Anything can be a great, fully worth it idea/implementation.

I'm playing a pretty stereotypical Elf Wizard right now, but I feel like I'm thinking about more facets of the character's life in the world than if I played Human. Simple stuff, like what does he do with the free time Trance gives? How will he react to the party being magically put to sleep around him? What led to him being who he is, in more detail? Hey, a Gith I've got coming up has me thinking about the race's lore. There's stuff that isn't best achieved through Human.

Again, it’s a crutch, a shortcut.

A caricature is still a caricature. It is still demeaning and superficial; slapping a name on something so that you can exaggerate characteristics and speak in an offensive patois is hardly roleplaying.

Show me a table that has mastered rp’ing complex humans, and then I’ll buy the idea that they need an added challenge.

if people want to say that they are in it for the optimizing, or that they just like the dress up aspects (look, I can play a cat person) then that’s cool. But saying that humans are boring just means that they haven’t given much thought to the complexity of our existence. Again, IME etc.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I apologize for the small essay, but at this point it's a response to the general thread.

You joke about the Human height thing, but I'll take it seriously- coming from a culture where everyone has some sort of significantly different feature changes things up compared to being a single anomaly in Human Society. "Why play Tiefling if you were born a human with horns and a tail!" Races and their cultures add up to things that cannot generally be attributed to humans. See: Gith, Tortle, Warforged, etc.

I don't see why forums would need to really bring up the realistic implications of lore, at least not to the extent of Gameplay discussions- lore vids on YouTube haul massive views, and personal character story seems like something handled most by players on their own. There's more questions to ask about builds to the community then there is about making up a personal story. And from what I've seen, anyone that plays an obscure race brings with them SOME relevant role play stuff- that is to say, they aren't playing the same as they would as a Human. Wouldn't all humanoid races have some fundamental behavior stuff in common, anyway? Wouldn't that support the idea that all races have something in common, rather than the rest ripping off Human?

And for the record, even a Human character is just another hat being worn by the human player. It's the one that pushes the fewest boundaries and provides the least varied RP experience, because anything you can explore there is roughly possible with any of the others on top of their individual quirks. There's nothing inherently more valuable or reasonable in regards to choosing Human, Elf or Dwarf than Tortle, Warforged or Tiefling. That does make me curious though- is there a reason that the "normal races" are supposed to be more appealing?

To sum up, I think dismissing the value of alternate races because of some arbitrary Human-centrism in DnD writing is not right. Every character (or character race) is a silly hat, a vehicle for mechanics, prone to misuse by some population, theoretically the same as the others, etc. If you're gonna say it about some, at least acknowledge it's the same for all. "Humans in funny hats and NOTHING MORE" is dismissive without due cause.

I can respect folk who want a consistent setting and such, but anyone who's taking a stance against build-based players, or "obscure" races for being obscure, just seems so... un-fun. It's fine if it's not to your taste for X reasons, but taste should not lead to proclamations of objective value.

I wasn't making fun of the height thing, I was being serious, there are 3ft tall humans and 8ft tall humans.

I have never said anything about human centric organization in D&D.

What I said is I see very little evidence that people want to play races other than human for any reason other than mechanical bonuses.

Never do I see long involved essays about what it might actually be like to be an Elf, or Dwarf, or any other Non-Human race. Personally I think that a being that lives for hundreds of years would have a completely alien mindset and viewpoint.

Never do I see long involved essays about what the societies of those alien mindsets and viewpoints would be like. How they would go about conducting themselves within the world, especially one populated by other intelligent speaking beings.

Even the Granddaddy of them all, Tolkien, didn't write his books to examine the minds or lives of these beings he created. He wrote those books as allegory about the industrial revolution.

I claim "humans in funny hats" with cause, in that, all the anecdotal evidence I have leads me to believe that in D&D that's all they are. The D&D forums of this site and others is more than enough evidence in my opinion.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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

30% is pretty common. That’s more, IIRC, than the percentage of Black folks in the US. That’s a really big chunk of the population.

You've never had an half-orc or gnome?? In any edition? Huh. I see them about as much as the others personally, but YMMV of course

Wild! In my games I’ve seen way more of both races than elves or dwarves.

I would totally be inclined to agree if the D&D forums were inundated with people arguing over what it would be like to live for a thousand years. Or what it would be like to have the soul of a demon. Or what it must be like to be part dragon (or whatever Dragonborn are supposed to be).

All I see is lots and lots of discussion as to what cool mechanical bonuses each race should or shouldn't get and which ones are cooler or more effective.

Humans in funny hats, nothing more. Also, humans can be 8ft tall or 3ft tall, so there!

As someone who delves into this stuff with most of my characters, you won’t see me coming here to discuss it, because I don’t see it leading to especially interesting or fruitful discussion. In general, IME, the times I’ve seen such discussions (and I have seen them), they quickly get derailed into basically the discussion happening now.

IME, many people who play non-humans are exploring stereotypes that they would be embarrassed to ascribe to a human.

A less cynical sounding way to look at it; they are exploring the weird in themselves and those around them, or just things that aren’t comfortable to explore directly but are very interesting with a layer of separation and the ability to put it down and walk away.

He wrote those books as allegory about the industrial revolution.

No, he didn’t.

 

[zarionofarabel]

No, he didn’t.

That's what English lit majors tell me. Did Tolkien tell you different?

 

[oreofox]

You don't see long involved essays about what it might actually be like to be an Elf, because that's all subjective and dependant upon the setting being played within. What it's like to be an Elf on Faerun is different than what it is like to be an Elf on Eberron which is different than an Elf on someone's homebrew world. It is much easier to have discussions about mechanical aspects of a race because for the most part, it is the same across every setting that uses the traits outlined in the PHB.

As for me? I like playing "weird fantasy races" because I am so tired of the "humanocentricity" of default D&D settings. I see so many humans because they are the power-gamer/optimizer/whateveryouwannacallit go-to choice for OP characters. I've grown so tired of it that humans became extinct in my homebrew setting. My brain automatically goes to the "weird" races because I "identify" with them more. It is easier for me to come up with a concept for a "weird" race than a "normal" race. And I prefer the aesthetics of them as well. It feels more natural for me to play a non-human (even more to play a "non-tolkien" race) than it does to play a standard typical race. If I have to choose something from the PHB, it would usually be a dwarf or half-orc, seldom a dragonborn.

One of my favorite characters I made was a gnoll raised by a dwarf paladin, who tries to fight against the demonic influence (started off paladin, gained a level of barbarian for the rage (manifesting demonic bloodlust), then started gaining involuntary levels of fiend warlock as Yeenoghu began taking notice of one of his children fighting his "gift" and getting the chance to corrupt a paladin in the process). Sadly, the character didn't pan out as the play dynamic switched from RP-centric to combat centric when some new players were added who's entire focus of their characters was pumping out high numbers (not the focus of my character at all).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's what English lit majors tell me. Did Tolkien tell you different?

Explicitly. Repeatedly. Both bluntly and with nuance. Over decades.

Seriously no serious argument can be made that he wrote his works as allegory without explicitly and directly calling the man himself a bald faced liar.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Explicitly. Repeatedly. Both bluntly and with nuance. Over decades.

Seriously no serious argument can be made that he wrote his works as allegory without explicitly and directly calling the man himself a bald faced liar.

Citation needed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Citation needed.

This one is one that is quite easy to google, so no. I don’t do other people’s research for them unless I’ve referenced something difficult to find.

Feel free to read his letters, or any of the thousands upon thousands of articles that have been written about them over the decades that LOTR has been one of the most important works of fiction in the English speaking world.

 

[zarionofarabel]

You don't see long involved essays about what it might actually be like to be an Elf, because that's all subjective and dependant upon the setting being played within. What it's like to be an Elf on Faerun is different than what it is like to be an Elf on Eberron which is different than an Elf on someone's homebrew world. It is much easier to have discussions about mechanical aspects of a race because for the most part, it is the same across every setting that uses the traits outlined in the PHB.

As for me? I like playing "weird fantasy races" because I am so tired of the "humanocentricity" of default D&D settings. I see so many humans because they are the power-gamer/optimizer/whateveryouwannacallit go-to choice for OP characters. I've grown so tired of it that humans became extinct in my homebrew setting. My brain automatically goes to the "weird" races because I "identify" with them more. It is easier for me to come up with a concept for a "weird" race than a "normal" race. And I prefer the aesthetics of them as well. It feels more natural for me to play a non-human (even more to play a "non-tolkien" race) than it does to play a standard typical race. If I have to choose something from the PHB, it would usually be a dwarf or half-orc, seldom a dragonborn.

One of my favorite characters I made was a gnoll raised by a dwarf paladin, who tries to fight against the demonic influence (started off paladin, gained a level of barbarian for the rage (manifesting demonic bloodlust), then started gaining involuntary levels of fiend warlock as Yeenoghu began taking notice of one of his children fighting his "gift" and getting the chance to corrupt a paladin in the process). Sadly, the character didn't pan out as the play dynamic switched from RP-centric to combat centric when some new players were added who's entire focus of their characters was pumping out high numbers (not the focus of my character at all).

That's very convoluted.