D&D General What Main Factors Draw You to Playing a Fantasy RPG Race?

[Hexmage-EN]

What main factor draws you to playing a fantasy RPG race?

For me personally, my favorite race to play is the gnome (especially the deep and forest gnome varieties). The two primary reasons for this are, I think,

1) I identify with gnomes on some level. Or at least, how I'm come to conceive of gnomes. They seem to be a race that is prone to hyper fixation on subjects that they find interesting. For rock gnomes that is often machinery, for forest gnomes it is often nature, and for deep gnomes it is often mining. However, I can easily envision gnomes more than other races as enthusiastic nerds (who are also more likely to be kind and welcoming than IRL nerds can be).
2) I find the magical traits of deep and forest gnomes in particular interesting and fun to use. I'm always tempted by the gnome racial feats Fade Away and Svirfneblin Magic.
3) Background lore for the race. The svirfneblin are noticeable for being one of the only Underdark races that isn't evil, though due to their harsh environment they also are more cynical and prone to dark humor. Various sources also paint them as paranoid, untrusting, and isolationist. They construct their homes as mazes with multiple traps and hidden passages. Even outsiders the svirfneblin trust are rarely shown much of an enclave for fear that allies might spill a community's layout and defenses under threat of torture or mind control. To sum it up, they're people just trying to survive in a deadly environment with many neighbors that would do them harm.

My second favorite is (variant) humans, but for a less interesting reason:

1) Overall mechanical effectiveness. A free feat is extremely tempting and honestly the only reason I ever make a human character. In games I DM I actively counteract this by giving every PC a free feat.

My third favorite is the duergar (it's also the only race I haven't actually played but very much want to):
1) Attractive appearance. Elves are usually considered the hot ones, but check this rad duergar lady out:

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the Beholder (which is why adventurers should be harvesting their eyes).
2) Background lore for the race. From my investigations into duergar-related content as part of the Underdark campaign I'm running, duergar society is orderly, pragmatic, and cold. Though they trend Lawful Evil, said evil is usually more mundane and utilitarian than pointlessly cruel. The 3E third-party splatbook The Slayer's Guide to Duergar also adds some interesting ideas: individuals worth is tied to wealth and determines a duergar's fate after death, duergar must prove their value and survival ability by embarking on and returning from a solo pilgrimage through the Underdark called the Lonely Year, and duergar are just as likely to use their Invisibility to hide from political rivals and hold whispered communications with allies as they are to use it for an ambush. 4E took the 3E durzagon and effectively made it the default duergar for that edition, introducing devil-worshiping duergar whose greatest enclaves are stone citadels covered in hellfire that rise from deep rifts. 5E brings back Laduguer but ties him to Asmodeus (with Rime of the Frost Maiden even featuring a duergar ruler who believes he serves Laduguer but is actually a puppet of Asmodeus) while also introducing new interesting bits of lore, such as the idea that alcohol elicits pleasant ancestral memories in dwarves but inflicts the ancestral memories of oppression by the mind flayers.
3) Want to roleplay as someone unlike myself. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes provides guidance on roleplaying duergar as being raised as perpetually unsatisfied to keep them from ever growing content, spurring them on to constantly amass proof of their worth as an individual for all their days. This coupled with their dour seriousness would be an interesting roleplaying challenge for someone like me.

In typing all that out I think I just realized I like duergar even more than I thought I did.

Now that I've given three examples, I'm curious to see how others respond.

 

[aco175]

I tend to play halflings and dwarves. Some from the Tolkien books and movies as they have always been part of the fantasy D&D game from the beginning. I can identify with the traits and types of style they have. I like that they are not that far from the normal human that tends to dominate the world in most games. I find that it lends to working together since they look alike enough.

A dragonborn and tiefling look like monsters and likely would have had wars with the more human-like races over time. Maybe they now can get along, but I find that it is harder to identify with that. Similar to how the new books have orcs and drow as PC races instead of monster races. I can get the drow more since they are human-like in appearance. A more cosmopolitan game or campaign may have an anything goes race pool, but I tend to stick with what fits.

 

[pogre]

When I do play, I almost pick human or dwarf. The earthiness and practicality of dwarves appeal to me. Humans because the roleplaying is frankly more familiar and accessible for me.

 

[Charlaquin]

All of the above? I play characters of different races for all sorts of different reasons.

 

[J.Quondam]

Other. I'm not really drawn to particular races. Rather, I'm drawn to particular character concepts, namely ones which are interesting within-- but suitable for-- the setting.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I use a simple decision tree:

1. Not an elf.

2. Human.

Voila! Decision made!

 

[CleverNickName]

"Mechanical advantage," usually means a +2 bonus to an ability score (which in the grand scheme of things, only amounts to about a 10% improvement over baseline.) Nice to have, but not enough for me to build an entire character around. There are other mechanical advantages to consider like darkvision, proficiencies, and cantrips, and those are much more interesting to me. So that was my second-place vote.

But I'd say the most important consideration for me is the lore. I like to know how my character will fit into the world, and what kinds of historical, cultural, and political vibes they are gonna bring along with them. We tend to focus more on social and exploration than we do on combat, so this stuff comes up a lot more often.

And the least important for me is the appearance (of any kind). It's malleable enough that nearly any race can look like any other, if you and your DM are flexible. I once played a tiefling warlock that looked completely human in every way except he had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. (His family tree got a little tangled up with Griz'zat, you see.)

 

[Hexmage-EN]

All of the above? I play characters of different races for all sorts of different reasons.

That is admittedly a pretty significant weakness of this poll. I'd pretty much have to make one for every single PC race to be more comprehensive, though I'm curious what the results would be for each one.

For example, I understand that the 2020 D&D Beyond data indicated dragonborn are the third most popular race (at least among people who use D&D Beyond to make characters) despite 5E having so far put very little emphasis on dragonborn and a dearth of lore for them (even Critical Role hasn't added much to them). There is the possibility of 5E players stumbling upon 4E-era lore and using it for their dragonborn, admittedly.

I imagine the appeal of 5E dragonborn would be linked to their breath weapon and unique appearance as opposed to mechanical effectiveness or lore, though the upcoming book on dragons hopefully gives them more to work with in 5E in terms of backstory.

 

[GMMichael]

My first consideration is: how will other characters view my choice of race? This is important to some character goals, like "do I want to blend in" or "do I want to stick out?" So when I chose dragon(born), it was because I wanted to stick out.

The "background lore" is important to me because it plays into race relations, but it also makes suggestions about cultural influences like: I think singing and prancing through the woods are cool.

In the end though, I just want to play female Gelfling so I can dreamfast and fly

 

[Stormonu]

Mostly so I can be something other than myself.

Except when I‘m playing dwarves. Grumbles and gets back to word“smithing”