What is wrong with race class limits?

[Aaron L]

Really, is playing an elf any different than playing a twi-lek? Or a Klingon? Or an android? Sci-Fi and fantasy has been making aliens/races/species all humans in funny suits for years. It allows us to emphasize an element of humanity by setting it as contrast (dwarves are like humans except with emphasis on honor, work, axes, and grog).

Exactly.


Not letting someone play make believe as an elf or dwarf because they can't possibly get it right seems to me to entirely defeat the purpose of playing a game like D&D.

By the same logic you shouldn't ever allow magic-users, either, because you couldn't possibly get magic right.

 

[dcas]

The only reference to dwarves being some kind of antimagical race is, well, old D&D.

True enough. Old D&D removes the Norse "flavor" from dwarves as befits a neutral game system.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I think something else to consider in the origin for level/class limits on demihumans is that they are actually monsters allowed as player characters.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I think racial class and level limits were a result of Gary being too liberal. Nevermind that in OD&D a dwarf (for example) can reach only 6th level as a fighter. The fact that a player could play a dwarf (or any other non-human) is actually lenient,

Exactly - demihumans are actually monsters and playing one at all is a cool privilege.

 

[Xyanthon]

I realize that most D&Ders like Tolkienesque demihumans hobnobbing with humans. I don't, and so I don't allow it at my table. Just think how weird an Australian Aborigine from 20,000 years ago (for example) would seem to a 21st-century American, and vice versa. If even we humans seem incomprehensibly bizarre to each other, how much more so beings who aren't even human? Even those beings "closest" to humanity (such as elves, dwarves, etc.) should seem more outre and weird to us than any conceivable human would.

I can sympathize with you on the whole demihuman thing. For me, the feel that OD&D and 1e AD&D were trying to capture is that these demihumans were mysterious and strange and not likely to associate with humans on a regular basis. Thus, they were less likely to want to go adventuring and need to be classed as player characters. I think the rules tried to reflect that they would only rise so far in terms of human professions and then just simply want to return to the comforts of their hobbit holes or get back to the important business of mining or enjoy their contemplation of nature.

I think that the rules were meant for PCsand did not apply to NPC characters. If I recall right, Gary even said back in the day that there are clerics and what not from other races, just not PC clerics. So if I extrapolate this, there is no reason that I couldn't have a powerful Dwarven general, or elven archmage as an NPC. I know that in terms of what is acceptable in today's fantasy such humanocentric game engineering seems quaint and some may find them even utterly stupid; however, it was very different back then. Elves and dwarves in fantasy were not the main protagonists, let alone plane thouched characters and the like. Most stories revolved around human heroes (as always there exceptions such as LotR and Moorcock's Elric).

So if I want to play an over-the-top adventure with characters from completely different races and cultures interacting on an intimate level and not thinking it strange, I'll use the 3.x rule set. If I want to capture the feel of other sentient species being alien in their world view and only by exception entering into the world of men I'll play 1e or earlier. When looked at in terms of having a fundamentally different view of the world than humans, I find the class and level restrictions make much more sense.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Exactly - demihumans are actually monsters and playing one at all is a cool privilege.

[sing-song] No they're not and no it's not. [/sing-song]

I mean, honestly. Privilege? Thanks for the largesse, my liege.

 

[FireLance]

I mean, honestly. Privilege? Thanks for the largesse, my liege.

Just accept the fact that some peoples' ideas of the kind of social structure and interpersonal relations that make up a good game group are different from yours, and move on.

 

[Gentlegamer]

[sing-song] No they're not and no it's not. [/sing-song]

I mean, honestly. Privilege? Thanks for the largesse, my liege.

Is playing a monster as a PC a privilege (either granted by the rules or by DM)?

 

[Aaron L]

Is playing a monster as a PC a privilege (either granted by the rules or by DM)?

Humans are in the MM too. Why aren't they monsters?

 

[Gentlegamer]

Humans are in the MM too. Why aren't they monsters?

Is that a serious question?