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

[Scott Christian]

I definitely did not get the impression you were saying "the PHB in its entirety, including tieflings and dragonborn" from what you said. Especially since you specifically used the phrase "old school world" immediately before talking about Exandria and the character choices of the Critical Role crew. I did not get even the slightest notion that you were trying to capture the whole of the PHB by saying that. In fact, even going back and looking at the post you responded to, it very much seemed to me that the intent WASN'T that the whole PHB list was on offer, but rather that a much smaller subset (typically the so-called "core four") were it. At least, the implication of the "the same 5-6 settings" line, as it reads to me, is that people are sticking to settings with extremely long already-defined history (as in, literal decades, plural, of regular play) where it may be just humans in one, just the core four in another, etc.

Yeah, sorry too. I should have started with the PHB message. I do consider the entirety of the PHB races probably the first setting of the "same 5-6" presented. To me it has always been about D&D setting the preferences. They do this by choosing what races should go into the PHB. They know that for the next year or two, these are the races players get to choose from. So that, imho, is the default setting. The fact they put dragonborn and tiefling in 4e was cool. The backlash for leaving out the gnome... ugh!

 

[Scott Christian]

Is that action poor practice?

And now the argument changes again.

 

[Scott Christian]

See, I read that as a two-way street. The DM advises what is off-limits to them (more in the vein of slavery, harm to children, etc. rather than “halflings”), and the players do likewise.

Even the last paragraph, I read that as happened in my last Session Zero “hey guys, this campaign is set in fantasy Arabia and you will be fighting gnolls and in desert and mountainous environments. Because it is hot, bear in mind that wearing heavy armor could be a challenge”.

To quote Tasha’s, I “advised” the players that certain characters were more appropriate and I “encouraged” the players to make characters with a personal link to the adventure. I didn’t ban any races (except for yuan-ti, aarakra and winged tieflings for being overpowered).

And no one was cloudkilled.

I 100% agree with you. But, it can read both ways. And that is the point. Because tables can play differently. Btw, your setting sounds cool. Desert gnolls have always been a cool thought; jackals using canyons as traps, water resources against their enemies, etc. A gnoll wizard with a high level mirage spell could spell (pun intended) doom for the players.

 

[Scott Christian]

Ah, so this is a question of what is good and poor practice by some objective standard, then. As opposed to, what works at the table to make an enjoyable game for everyone there. Nice to know DM'ing is subject to objective assessment by the hive mind.

Thank you.

 

[Scott Christian]

Here's the thing I think that should be said.

It is not good for D&D to create a situation that because DMS have to do more work than the players that they should not care about the player's desires and simply fish for players that match their desires (or browbeat players into acceptance)

The DM's desire are more important. However it is not a good idea to foster an idea that the DM shouldn't care about the player's. That just feeds the powermad and creates the bitterness from past experiences seen here.

I see no one arguing this. Caring about their players is what every decent DM does.

 

[Maxperson]

There is no both ways here. I'm assuming the DM is being honest about their preferences. "I say no because I don't like what you like" is being honest. It's still bad DMing practices. I realize I said "bad faith" there in that second quote which is where it might cause confusion. My bad. I used the wrong phrase there.

How is forcing the DM to DM a game that will not be fun, good practice?

 

[prabe]

Here's the thing I think that should be said.

It is not good for D&D to create a situation that because DMS have to do more work than the players that they should not care about the player's desires and simply fish for players that match their desires (or browbeat players into acceptance)

The DM's desire are more important. However it is not a good idea to foster an idea that the DM shouldn't care about the player's. That just feeds the powermad and creates the bitterness from past experiences seen here.

I think the extra work GMs have to do is partly responsible for the movement/s in some quarters toward zero-myth and/or collaborative worldbuilding in TRPGs; I suspect devolution of authority to the players in those games is not an unintended consequence.

 

[Scott Christian]

Would you feel the same if someone said "to recreate the feeling of the Fellowship of the Ring, Il won't be allowing female PCs. All characters must be male?"

? So now we are saying not allowing a race: a race with an independent culture, probably a sovereign nation or empire, and a race that might consist of .1% of the population is the same as playing a female?
If someone were to come up to me and say that, I would ask about Eowyn, Arwen, and Galadriel. If they insisted that we were recreating the Fellowship to see how it plays out, I might give it a go. If someone came up to me and said, my world is based off: Y The Last Man, so you have to play a female. I would give it a try.

 

[Maxperson]

Let's cut through to a basic question. Is a DM who bans something for the sole reason that "I don't like it" engaging in poor practice? They can still make a good game, their players can still be happy, everyone can be completely satisfied with the status quo, I don't care.

Is that action poor practice?

No. The poor practice would be to force the DM to run something he doesn't like and won't have fun with in order for the player to play this fun concept, instead of that fun concept over there. The DM is not a slave to the players.

 

[billd91]

Trust them with what?

I don't know - you're the one guessing that people shouldn't trust each other because they don't know them.

I don't know what your point was in emphasizing the trust between lifelong friends, lovers, and colleagues in the first place was, so I don't know why you are suddenly dismissing it either.

Yes, they know and trust their GM - they know he's got reasons for things that he does and can host a good game despite house rules/restrictions/etc.
The question is: why would you not extend the courtesy of trust to the GM at the game store when they pitch a game? Why insist on going outside or contrary to their pitch? What intent would you suppose that implies to the GM?