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

[Paul Farquhar]

In terms of mechanics, the character has the dwarf racial traits.

Within the fiction of the game, the character used to be a human farmer or forester before the magical disease changed his form and granted him these abilities.

Then your character is not a dwarf.

 

[Umbran]

Then your character is not a dwarf.

You get to decree this for all because you are the recognized Guardian of Dwarfishness?

How about, "Then, in my game, I would not consider your character a dwarf."

 

[Minigiant]

This is pretty clear and concise and well said.

DM sets parameters
DM answers questions about parameters (theme, tone, genre, playstyle, rules, races, etc.)
Player can ask about changing any of those
DM should listen and try to work with player
DM has the final say

I think the only one that causes any consternation is that last statement.

I think the issue is the third and fifth parts.

Some DMs are against players asking for changes or justifications.

Some players are against DMs having final say.

Neither of these percentages are small unless their volumes exceeds their sizes.

 

[Umbran]

This is pretty clear and concise and well said.

DM sets parameters
DM answers questions about parameters (theme, tone, genre, playstyle, rules, races, etc.)
Player can ask about changing any of those
DM should listen and try to work with player
DM has the final say

I think the only one that causes any consternation is that last statement.

I think, if we look, we will see some have consternation with both the statements before the last one. I expect that where one actually balks at that list highly correlates to the entrenched sides of this discussion.

We can, of course, blow the whole thing out of the water with presenting the Dresden Files RPG. The game has an explicit step of setting/city creation, in which the players generate most of the common setting elements to be used in the campaign. This violates the very first statement in the list, showing that it is not a general truism, merely a D&D tradition.

 

[FireLance]

Then your character is not a dwarf.

Honestly, my system is just a convenient handwave to let players have characters of whatever race they want without me having to worry about how they fit into the world.

But, as an off-the-cuff answer to the philosophical question of whether it is a "real" dwarf, I'm going to go with, "As real as a human reincarnated into a dwarf."

And that is about as far as I'm keen to overthink it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There's no soft ban. The players themselves came up with the apparently novel concept that horses can't climb walls and a size large creature will have difficulty in dungeons. All of us in my group understand what makes sense and what doesn't.

Size Medium creature, says it right there in the book.

But I guess that is another rule you find silly and decided to change.

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So your character is the equivalent of a Michelangelo art piece? Ok. You need to be at my table. Because if it is that good, then all of us need you to play at our table.

Just going to ignore Little Suzy and the Jazz musician then?

Selective reading doesn't make my point something it wasn't.

I have answered. And answered. If you have a new question, ask. I will try to answer.

And the second you answered, you started acusing me of changing my position, because I tried to move on from the question into the next point.

So, why would I want to get accused of bad faith arguing, yet again?

First question: As stated by my thesis that I have stated twenty times - yes. As per DMG, PHB, Tasha's, Xanathar's and almost every D&D publication from 1st edition.
Second Question: You are allowed to take offense. You are allowed to ask the DM for an alternative. You are allowed to give your input. You are allowed to express your side. You are even still allowed to make the character you wanted - race and all. And then convince the DM. (They still have the last say.) Save the character for another day. Or find another table. Or better yet, trust your DM that they know what they are doing and create something that fits in the initial framework.

I'm sorry, "Better yet"?

I'm actually running a... ugh, best way to describe it is a "twitch plays DnD" with a Changeling Character. Yet, Johnny (believe it was) says that Changelings are lazy storytelling. It would be better to trust that my 109K DnD story is lazy, than to tell Johnny that he is wrong, and that judging the character we have built entirely off of the race and a few bad tropes is wrong?

I specifically said in the example that they are being judgemental, and the "better yet" is to trust them?

If I just "trusted" people from ealier in this thread, I would never play anything other than a human because that is the only race worth playing. That's what those DMs were saying, so I should just trust that they are right?

Why? What have they done to earn trust by judging my character concept as poorly written, mister "to each their own, no judgement here"?

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Need I remind you that, before they were instructed to leave the thread, Pming said exactly this sort of thing? That non-humans were subjected to open and overt racist behavior until the player ceased to be a "problem"? Your sarcasm is a bit specious when we've had this exact attitude openly and earnestly expressed in this very thread.

It is also something I explicitly argued with Max about regarding Tabaxi.

But, it seems that it was his players who decided Centaurs don't follow their own rules, so it has likely never come up at his table.

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Arguments from one person in the thread on a side do not apply to all on that side. If he wants to ask me a question about it, fine. If he wants to approach me that way, he's going to get that response as that is the response it deserves.

I am applying things you yourself have said, not P Ming. But, if you think remembering what you've said in the past deserves that response, well, here we are.

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Between this thread and the erosion of racial distinctiveness post-Tasha's, I'm toying with a "Wild Cards"-like setting in which all the non-human races are humans who have survived but been changed by a magical disease.

There are different nations and cultures, but they are not built around race. "Changed" humans, whether elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, dragonborn, tiefling, tabaxi, shifter, warforged, centaur, satyr, triton, loxodon, kobold, orc, goblin, or whatever, are a known quantity and are tolerated - or not - based on culture and individual preference.

With this, the default response to a player asking, "Can I play Race X?" is, "Sure, you got changed by the disease."

This is basically the idea behind Shadowrun, and it is amazing.

I'm actually toying with, in my new setting, having humans be very susceptible to magical influences, and putting Genasi, Aasimar, Tieflings, Shifters, and... I think there was one more, oh right, the Yuan-Ti, as subraces of humans.

It is a bit more complicated than that, but it is still in very early development.

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I never suggested putting them outside with a bowl of warm milk. An Inn may not have centaur capable rooms, but the stables comment was beyond the pale.

Well, at least you aren't denying that I was referring to ideas that you yourself put out.

And, curious, no Centaur capable room, it is very cold outside... where are you going to offer the Centaur to sleep at the the inn? The inn that, since you keep saying they are large, they likely don't even fit inside?

Maybe I was less "beyond the pale" and more "seen this song and dance"

 

[Maxperson]

Size Medium creature, says it right there in the book.

But I guess that is another rule you find silly and decided to change.

1) Perhaps you've missed the multiple times where I've this has happened over my entire time playing D&D, so 37 years.

2) they are size large, not medium. I do not run Ravnica or Theros.

I am applying things you yourself have said, not P Ming. But, if you think remembering what you've said in the past deserves that response, well, here we are

Things that I have said? I'm sure that you will have no difficulty quoting me saying that I would put centaurs in the stables,

And, curious, no Centaur capable room, it is very cold outside... where are you going to offer the Centaur to sleep at the the inn? The inn that, since you keep saying they are large, they likely don't even fit inside?

That would be up to the centaur PC. Are you going to expec that all my inns fit giants and dragons, too?

Maybe I was less "beyond the pale" and more "seen this song and dance"

Nope.

 

[Oofta]

This is pretty clear and concise and well said.

DM sets parameters
DM answers questions about parameters (theme, tone, genre, playstyle, rules, races, etc.)
Player can ask about changing any of those
DM should listen and try to work with player
DM has the final say

I think the only one that causes any consternation is that last statement.

Better said than I seem to be doing. I think there's some advice as to when some of this happens. For example I always make the parameters of the campaign clear when I initially start talking about a new campaign. By the time we're discussing actual PCs, classes, relationships (or lack therein) between the PCs, we should have agreed on what races (and any other limitations) we have. So there's details we could fill in, but I agree with the outline.

The problem is we seem to keep getting caught up on both sides with examples of bad players and bad DMs. The bad player accepts the invitation knowing what the restrictions are and then argues that they must be allowed to ignore those restrictions even if everyone else is okay with it. A bad DM backtracks and bans things after the campaign started or a dozen other bad DM behaviors. To me, these are all red herrings.

If the DM has final say as it states in the rules (including the option to change the rules), then I don't see what the issue is or why we're closing in on 200 pages. I think that when you say "Yes, Kelly, I want to join your campaign" you are accepting that Kelly is the referee and has final call on rules, house rules and restrictions. A player can always ask for a change, the DM can say "yes", "no" or something in between, but the DM makes the final call. The DM can and should ask for feedback, what they do with the feedback is up to them.

This means there's a ton of options. The DM does the world design, the players have minimal impact until the PCs are introduced to the world. The group decides to share DMs and worlds (I share my campaign world with my wife, though we rarely DM for the same group at the same time). The group does a collaborative campaign building with some form of design conflict resolution. There are probably other ways as well, I don't think any style is inherently better.

But I just don't see how "a single player other than the DM makes major decisions about how the world or how a specific rule works" as an alternative is functional in most cases*. I've been in games (as player and DM) where one player continuously challenged the authority of the DM. Even as a player, it was annoying. Eventually the player leaves, the DM stops DMing out of frustration or the player is not asked to the next session.

*There are exceptions to every rule and I'm not talking about someone clarifying the actual rule text.

 

[embee]

And, curious, no Centaur capable room, it is very cold outside... where are you going to offer the Centaur to sleep at the the inn? The inn that, since you keep saying they are large, they likely don't even fit inside?

There is still the issue of the stairs. Average tread depth is less than 12." A large inn presumably has rooms on the second floor. The centaur can go up the stairs but damn if he isn't going to have a bitch of a time coming down the stairs.

 

[Umbran]

Size Medium creature, says it right there in the book.

But I guess that is another rule you find silly and decided to change.

How about you slow your snarky roll there, dude. It isn't constructive.

Ravnica has Medium sized centaurs. D&D Beyond, however, lists centaurs and horses as Large creatures, in general. You should probably leave some room for folks to be dealing with the inconsistency.