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

[Maxperson]

I think that's pretty clearly unreasonable, especially if they won't even discuss using those races with a less annoying tone, and treating the novel characters as stereotypical rather than genuinely representative.

I agree that it would be odd to have a Dragonlance campaign without Kender and Gnomes. They are a significant part of that game.

Okay cyberpunk and netrunning aren't even part of Star Wars, so including them would be the unusual call. It wouldn't even be "banning" anything to not include them, it would just be choosing not to add stuff to the setting that isn't normally a part of it, even moreso the norm than not including something in a homebrew world, because the world is already defined before the GM touches it.

He said, "It would be the same with Star Wars and ewoks or Cyberpunk and netrunning." Two different examples

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree that it would be odd to have a Dragonlance campaign without Kender and Gnomes. They are a significant part of that game.

He said, "It would be the same with Star Wars and ewoks or Cyberpunk and netrunning." Two different examples

Ah. Grammar is helpful.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd say a toned down thing you don't like is still something you don't like and that it is OK to not include things you do not like.

I would not consider a DM who stuck with such call as being unreasonable.

I would. Not much else to say, I guess.

You see "I don't like kender" as a good enough reason, all by itself, to take an option away that someone else at the table wants, because the DM is being the equivlenet of the person at a party who literally just cannot sit through 3.5 minutes of a pop song they don't like and has to grind the whole party to a halt to accommodate thier dislike of one song, rather than just putting up with it because someone else at the party clearly likes the song very much and listening to it is making their night.

I don't see that behavior as anything remotely similar to reasonable.

 

[Voadam]

I would. Not much else to say, I guess.

You see "I don't like kender" as a good enough reason, all by itself, to take an option away that someone else at the table wants, because the DM is being the equivlenet of the person at a party who literally just cannot sit through 3.5 minutes of a pop song they don't like and has to grind the whole party to a halt to accommodate thier dislike of one song, rather than just putting up with it because someone else at the party clearly likes the song very much and listening to it is making their night.

I don't see that behavior as anything remotely similar to reasonable.

That party song scenario sounds more like a player trying to veto NPC kender in the middle of the game when they show up, which seems a different situation.

A DM seems like the host having a set list and saying he did not include a specific song because he did not like it. I want to add this song you don't like at your party seems equivalent to I want to play a kender race you don't like in your game. Except instead of 3 minutes and its over it is for hours every week for months.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Humans are just as much of a crutch. Consider how frequently you get a Totally Not Roman Empire culture, with literally zero work done, just assuming the players know what a classical, marble-columned culture should look like, with togas and everything. We just don't see it as leaning on "humans" as the crutch, but rather as leaning on "this one historical grouping of humans."

I don't see it.

Dwarves are often a crutch: players use "being a dwarf" as an excuse to play a loud and boorish character. Elves, too: players use "I'm an elf" as an excuse to play an arrogant character. (See also: Klingons and Vulcans.) The Lawful and Chaotic alignments? Those as well. You can bet your sweet bippy players like to use those as a crutch and a substitute for a personality.

But what the heck are stereotypical Ancient Roman personality traits? Or Ancient Egyptian, or Ancient Greek? What would that look like? "Oh, great, Bob's playing a Roman again. Doesn't it get old when he denounces Catiline in the Senate again every other game session"?

Nah; you're trying to draw an equivalence between lazy worldbuilding and lazy character portrayal, but it's a false equivalence.

Now, others in this thread have countered my own anecdotal experience that demihumans are usually just an excuse for bad roleplaying with their own experience, namely that demihumans are generally not roleplayed at all, being either "humans with funny ears" or just a set of mechanical benefits. And frankly—I wish that were my experience. I wouldn't mind that in the least. I don't go for "high roleplaying" or "deep method-acting" at all, I don't believe that makes for a good game experience, and I prefer not to see it from the people I play with. But—in equal measure—if the players are going to get into character, I'd rather have them be good at it than cringey and annoying and repetitive—and it's far easier to portray a believable and well-rounded human psychology than an inhuman (read, alien) one.

Good roleplaying is better than bad roleplaying. No roleplaying is also better than bad roleplaying.

 

[Hussar]

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.

Except for the fact that time and again when D&D Beyond has published these stats, they tell us that these actually ARE played characters - in that they have been looked at and changed more than a few times over a period of time - as in they've been leveled up through play.

So, no, the numbers don't look vastly different.

 

[Hussar]

I will try to and that first question. I think the reason why is because the PHB generally becomes the default for the edition. This is due to printing restrictions, readability restrictions from buyers, purchasing power from buyers, etc. The other reason is change occurs slowly for most products for fear of not making money, because the new managers grew up on the old product, and fear of backlash.
So if we take the notion that the PHB sets the "tone" and is the default setting for D&D (no matter which edition), and the fact that change comes slowly, maybe where we are now is normal?

But, therein lies the problem. 45 years and nothing other than the original races that were presented in the 1978 PHB are seen as "normal". The massive backlash over adding two races in 4e shows just how prevalent this notion is. Heck, those two races are now apparently among the most popular races in the game. All it took was adding them to the PHB and not only have they thrived, but, they've surpassed all the "normal" races.

So, maybe, just maybe, if we stopped treating the 1978 PHB races as "normal" and everything else as "exotic", other races wouldn't be seen as problematic either.

It was the cantina on steroids

See, this is the issue. "Cantina" is the standard buzzword for "shallow campaign where race doesn't matter and not really D&D". No one ever uses Cantina in a positive context. "Cantina on steroids" is hardly a positive context.

Way too broad a blanket statement.
Suppose I'm running Cyberpunk 2020 and I don't like running extended netrunning sessions so I say "No PC netrunners". That's not really a "bad reason" since, if the players push it, I'm simply not going to run a game I find onerous. Granted, this is a bit of a loaded example since the type of play between netrunners and most other characters is very different, but it is a counterexample to your blanket statement. Some preferences can put a burden or impose complications on someone else and refusing a burden/complication because you don't like it isn't a naughty bad no-good reason.

But, that's the point. You're banning netrunners because of actual issues - they wind up playing a different game than the rest of the group. Totally understandable. Even the no-corporates that you point to aren't an issue of you don't like corporate characters, but, because you are worried about balance issues. Fair enough. Nothing you've said actually addresses what I said.

I am completely behind thinking a DM banning races in their game that they do not like is a valid call.

If for example a DM likes a lot of Dragonlance, say for the dragons, the knights, the wizard orders, the elven and dwarven politics, the draconians, the minotaurs as a race, and the gods, but dislikes the Kender, the Tinker Gnomes, and the Gully Dwarves I think it is fine for them to choose to offer to run a Dragonlance game with no really small folk.

It would be the same with Star Wars and ewoks or Cyberpunk and netrunning.

Again, you're pointing to elements that carry actual in-play problems. No kender (for the stealing aspect), no tinker gnomes (because they can totally derail a campaign and potentially kill their own group) and no Gully Dwarves (for all sorts of very good reasons). But, imagine that the DM instead bans Knights. No Solamnic knights in the Dragonlance game because I hate horses.

Is that fine?

 

[Scott Christian]

The majority of active characters on D&D Beyond are likely being used in a campaign. Most people on D&D Beyond don't have a subscription to access unlimited characters, so they're stuck with the free 6 slots of characters. (This is all based on my experience with the website and being a member of its community. I cannot present any proof for this, you're just going to have to take my word unless someone else can pull up data to support this.)

People on the site that have limited access to slots are much less likely to fill those slots up with randomly generated characters, and are especially unlikely to keep them long term. Most random characters are made and then quickly deleted to free up the slots for other experiments with the builder.

Based on my lengthy experience with the system, I would make an educated guess that those stats are fairly accurate. Different variables will affect it a bit, but not enough to make those percentages void.

Thanks for the info. Good to know. Can I ask a clarifying question about your second paragraph. You say they can delete slots to make new ones. Aren't these numbers about all characters made? So, if you had a DM need ten random characters. They would make one, print, then delete. Make another, print, delete. Or people who are power gaming might do the same.
I guess my question is, are these numbers representative of all characters built, not just ones that are kept?
Thanks again for the help. Just trying to understand the numbers.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Thanks for the info. Good to know. Can I ask a clarifying question about your second paragraph. You say they can delete slots to make new ones. Aren't these numbers about all characters made? So, if you had a DM need ten random characters. They would make one, print, then delete. Make another, print, delete. Or people who are power gaming might do the same.

If they have a character in the builder, they can delete it in order to make place for another character. (This only applies to people who don't have a subscription.)
The amount of paper and ink that it would take to "Print/Delete" over and over again would cost more than just buying a subscription.
Also, this data says it's from "Active Characters", which means that the graph was made from characters that hadn't been deleted.

I guess my question is, are these numbers representative of all characters built, not just ones that are kept?
Thanks again for the help. Just trying to understand the numbers.

These numbers are representative of all characters currently on the site, not all that have ever been on the site.

 

[Oofta]

@AcererakTriple6, @Scott Christian you can also "deactivate" a character to open up slots in DndBeyond.