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

[Paul Farquhar]

I have. From numerous people across several forums. Many of whom specifically cite Tolkien (or "tradition," which is almost always code for "what stuff appeared in early D&D," which just makes the Tolkien connection one step removed instead of no steps removed.)

Fair enough, your experience may vary, and I haven't had the misfortune to run into any Tolkien-fascists.

My gang are more into anime, the Witcher, eldritch horror and Star Trek.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What the hell are you even trying to say, here? I literally said none of it is needed, so...whatever you're referring to, no, it isn't needed.

What chapter it's in is irrelevant, but...reread the book maybe. There's plenty of stress and darkness by that point. Not only that, but the beggining of the book is lighthearted with sections of stress and darkness, which switches when they leave the Shire, and especially when they leave Rivendell.

But maybe we can not devolve into nitpicking like this? I find it utterly without value in any context, in any discussion, ever.

No, I'm right that the story of Gimli and Legolas doesn't need this detail, or the story from the Hobbit. Which is what I actually said.

Source?

I don't care, at all.

Nope.

Every great writer ignores them, because they're fake rules made up by teachers of creative writing and critics who need metrics by which to break down whats going on with what they are criticizing so that the reader of their critique can grok it.

I didn't say it is, I said I've no interest in the writing of someone who thinks these "rules" have any actual meaningful value or validity, and tries to accuse Tolkien of lazy writing for leaving some questions unanswered, which is exactly good writing.

Hardly. You're essentially accusing Lucas of bad storytelling because the original trilogy doesn't explain why Han and Chewie are friends, or explain how hyperdrives work, or tell us what the Clone Wars were, or explain why people don't like droids, when in fact those are all examples of good storytelling. You're objectively wrong.

I'm not doing any such thing, you're just speaking nonsense. People absolutely hate other people because their culture tells them to, and for literally no other reason. Gimli distrusts elves because he was raised by people who distrust elves. That's it. The reasons that his folk distrust elves Do. Not. Matter. There is no actually reason for his hatred, his racism, it's literally just a tradition he was raised with. Full stop.

Dude, I'm done. Like I said, if you are just going to be bullheaded and intractable, there is literally no reason to talk to you. I mean, you are asking for the source? How about the entire premise of the argument that spawned this. That seem like a source to you? After all, one of the responses I got back was the actual answer to why Dwarves and Elves hate each other. This thing you claim that wasn't needed was put out there.

But, the rules of writing are fake to you. Whatever, I'm actually a writer, I know better. Heck, Lucas knows better. The newer movies might have been naughty word for other reasons (some of them because of those fake rules), but there is a reason that later books and movies cover things like "What the Clone Wars were" or "Why Han and Chewie are friends", heck, I think they get into the reasons behind droid discrimination too. Because those were gaps, and gaps exist to be filled.

 

[Hussar]

Different people have different reasons. When I get invited to join a game, it's up to the DM to create the world (unless they explicitly ask for input) and set restrictions. They're doing more work than I will as a player so they can do what makes sense to them. If what they're doing doesn't work for me I'll go somewhere else.

So?

I've already stated that as a player I will do my best to embed my character as deep into the setting as I can. Mostly because I so rarely get to BE a player. But, so what?

Forcing my preferences on someone else is still bad DMing, no matter who is doing it. There are good reasons for banning stuff and bad reasons. And the primary bad reason is "Well, I don't like this, so you can't play it."

 

[Chaosmancer]

He was pretty clearly saying that if you normalize the exotic races, they are no longer exotic and people will go off and look for other exotic races. That's pretty standard human nature.

He was NOT saying anything about snowflakes or other people "doing it wrong," which @Hussar attributed to him as his argument. Hence, Strawman.

But people have, in fact Jack Daniel did, claim that people going for exotic races are "doing it wrong" in the sense that he literally said that people who want Deep Roleplaying play humans.

Sure, it was a follow-up post, but if your follow-up post doubles down on something you think people are falsely accusing you of, maybe you should double check that you didn't actually say the thing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

He was pretty clearly saying that if you normalize the exotic races, they are no longer exotic and people will go off and look for other exotic races. That's pretty standard human nature.

It's based on a false premise: elves and dwarves are not exotic. Other non-human races are.

Ergo, people who don't play elves and dwarves do so in order to be "exotic".

But this is simply not true. It depends on your background. I read The Chronicles of Narnia before I read The Lord of the Rings. So, to me, talking animals, fauns, and marsh wriggles are NOT exotic races. Elves are exotic - there are no elves in Narnia. So, if I choose play a marsh wriggle, it it not because it is exotic, it is because it is normal.

 

[Oofta]

So?

I've already stated that as a player I will do my best to embed my character as deep into the setting as I can. Mostly because I so rarely get to BE a player. But, so what?

Forcing my preferences on someone else is still bad DMing, no matter who is doing it. There are good reasons for banning stuff and bad reasons. And the primary bad reason is "Well, I don't like this, so you can't play it."

Don't you get tired of pulling out the same old canard? It's almost never a dislike of a specific race. It's almost always about setting, tone and campaign feel.

But it's also just ... I don't know. Don't you just get tired of complaining? If the DM is proposing a desert campaign and I'd love to play a pirate campaign they aren't "forcing their preferences" on me. It's just the campaign they want to run.

Not getting to play exactly what I want happens all the time, it's ultimately the DM's call on what campaign, world, restrictions and theme it's going to be when they're running.

 

[Mecheon]

Don't you get tired of pulling out the same old canard? It's almost never a dislike of a specific race. It's almost always about setting, tone and campaign feel.

Except its always "The Tolkein races are fine, we'll maybe accept gnomes, everything else is bad" which is irrelevant on tone and feel (Heck knows Tieflings are more dark fantasy and have more business running around as adventurers than any elf does if we're arguing those). Setting is justifable, but we're at a point this late into things wherein folks are decades tired of the standard bunch

 

[Oofta]

Except its always "The Tolkein races are fine, we'll maybe accept gnomes, everything else is bad" which is irrelevant on tone and feel (Heck knows Tieflings are more dark fantasy and have more business running around as adventurers than any elf does if we're arguing those). Setting is justifable, but we're at a point this late into things wherein folks are decades tired of the standard bunch

Or it's always "the campaign will be set in a pseudo-medieval world loosely based on western european culture". Except when it's not, because otherwise 40% of races being played wouldn't be "non-traditional" races (when did gnomes become a Tolkien race?) and we wouldn't have settings like Eberron.

 

[Scott Christian]

See, this notion that the PHB races are so dominant isn't really born out. Look at the D&D Beyond stats:

The PHB races account for about 60% of characters. But, that means that about a third of the characters being made are "weird races". Assimar and Aaracokra are just as popular as hill dwarves. Mountain dwarves just barely crack the top ten. And tieflings and dragonborn are both more popular than any Tolkienesque race. Heck, people lost their minds in 4e when gnomes got cut, but, looking at this, gnomes are about as popular as tabaxi or changelings.

Playing "weird" races isn't some tiny niche of players. It's a good chunk of players and pretty common. To the point of probably averaging one or two in every group. That's not rare. That's not unusual. That's pretty much standard when your numbers are that high.

While I like the use of stats, this tells us very little. Because we do not know the extent of these characters created. Was it a DM just clicking random? Does that count? Was it a DM making an entire gnome NPC faction? Was it Adventure League just creating random characters that people can use that just "pop in for a try?" Was it just a player playing around with the program to see where the numbers would fall?

Like I said, numbers are good, but we have no idea if half of these were even used. A better use of these numbers would be to ask them to publish the tracked numbers using conditions; meaning a character generated at first level, then levelled after one week's time (or more), then levelled again after another week's time (or more). Then we could probably be assured those are characters being played. I suspect the numbers would look vastly different if you did that.

 

[Mecheon]

Or it's always "the campaign will be set in a pseudo-medieval world loosely based on western european culture".

Y'know, I'd love to see someone do those and actually exclude elves as a thing right off the bat. Just bring 'em back to their fey roots. Go actual full mythology. I'd also argue you've got some dang good justification for dragonborn based on varying dragon myths, particularly down that whole mythic line of 'the dragon sheds its skin and becomes a prince' story, albeit probably with a differing appearance. Half-elves have justification, but not full blooded ones, likewise I'd throw dwarves and gnomes right out

Except when it's not, because otherwise 40% of races being played wouldn't be "non-traditional" races (when did gnomes become a Tolkien race?)

Well, if you wanna be real technical, since the Noldor showed up

But its basically the root that people got stuck into those being the races to go with ages ago and haven't expanded past that. Meanwhile I come at this from Shining Force being one of my bigger fantasy things, so I'm basically on the side of "Humans, centaurs, elves, dwarves, bird-people? That's all normal. Rat-person's a bit unusual but not too bad, whereas jellyfish alien, phoenix and Gamera are the real kind of rare"