After a couple of discussions regarding what is "D&D", and my championing of Arcana Unearthed as being a better fit than D&D3E, i noticed that the most-common sticking point was the races offered. Skipping ahead several steps in my thought chain, we get to this thread.
Currently, i'm using Arcana Unearthed (or Arcana Evolved--we're not using the Dracha, nobody's chosen to play a ritual warrior, and the PCs haven't hit level 21 yet, so the differences between the two are negligible, and some of us own one book, some the other) with the Al Qadim setting for my "D&D" game. My initial reason for choosing AE was the magic system and the classes. But as i was writing up a setting document for my players, i realized that the PC races were also a much better fit. Al Qadim is an excellent example of shoehorning the AD&D2 races into a setting where they don't particularly fit, IMHO. A couple key NPCs are dwarves; several are elves/half-elves, done in such a way that the race doesn't seem to have any impact on teh character--they may as well be humans; and i vaguely recall a couple halfling NPCs. I don't remember any gnome NPCs when reading the setting. And humans were nonetheless the vast majority of NPCs, despite the overview of the setting talking about how integrated and multicultural the setting is supposed to be. It just didn't feel like (1) elves, dwarves, halflings, or gnomes actually belonged in the setting or (2) they were actually part of the setting.
Moreover, noble giantish rulers, mystical verrik, suspect lizard-folk, nomadic tribal lion-folk, and social urban dog-folk all felt like a perfect fit for the setting. Only the faen felt at all alien to the setting--and there's the conveniently-placed exotic lands of the jungle islands for them. And none of the setting roles felt like none of the races could fit into them. So, i changed all but one ruler to giant, made the desert tribesman roughly 50/50 humans and litorians, changed appropriate NPCs to sibeccai (urban), litorian (nomad), faen (jungle/lost empire/metropolitan), verrik (region with pre-enlightenment ancient mystic history), or mojh (hermetic loners). That's a really rough summary, but, basically, it fit quite neatly, with a minimum of shoe-horning.
Now, that's just one specific campaign. The next campaign i'm working on will feature elf, dwarf, orc, goblin, kobold, gnome, lizardman, litorian, sibeccai, ironborn, and maybe centaur or something amphibious, as options along with humans.
And, for me, this is a relatively restricted set of PC races. But the real point of this thread is:
What sorts of races do you commonly see in your D&D (or other fantasy) games?
I realized in the previous threads, and from a couple other race-related threads here, that apparently my experiences are somewhat atypical. In the 2-yr campaign i played in in college, run by someone else, i only recall 2 characters that were elves, out of 2-3 dozen characters over the life of the campaign. And i'm not actually sure they were elves--rather, those are the only two characters that i can't specifically recall weren't elves. There were several dwarves, at least one halfling (one of my characters), quite a few half-elves, possibly a gnome, and i think we had a half-orc at one point. I played a lizardman for a little while. I'm not sure how much multiclassing influenced this--i know we weren't playing with non-human level limits, but i can't remember if we had to stick to the officially-sanctioned multiclass combos, or if humans could multiclass. Upshot, however, is that elves were rare.
During the 8-yr campaign i ran prior to college, the results were similar. I had changed the rules to eliminate multiclassing restrictions and non-human level limits, allowed human multiclassing, and imposed XP penalties on some of the more-powerful races. In short, the theory was that class choices wouldn't significantly impact your choice of race, and the XP penalties were just there for balance, so everyone would choose a race that appealed to them based on aesthetics. Over 3 dozen + players and well over 50 characters, i believe we had 2 or 3 half-elves and 1 elf (and the latter was effectively a guest character, brought in for 1 session). 1 or 2 dwarves. Maybe 1 gnome (maybe none). 3 or so halflings. Between a quarter and a third of the characters, i'd guess, were humans. The rest were Everything Else--uldra, tortle, draconian, half-troll, fire giant, dracon, irda, half-orc, half-ogre, anuchu, shadow drake, and many more.
My conclusion is that the D&D versions of dwarf, and particularly elf and half-elf, are insufficiently exotic. That is, if you want to play something alien and different, they don't satisfy; and if D&D elves appeal to a player, that player will probably be even more comfortable with a human character. With D&D3E's toning down of the races (balancing them, rather than giving some of the core races LAs), i see even less playing of elves and dwarves--and, IM(admittedly limited)E, dwarves are more often played for darkvision, than because the player particularly wants a non-human character.
What about others? Do lots of players seem to choose elves and dwarves (and other core races)? Does this change when more-exotic alternatives are available?
Currently, i'm using Arcana Unearthed (or Arcana Evolved--we're not using the Dracha, nobody's chosen to play a ritual warrior, and the PCs haven't hit level 21 yet, so the differences between the two are negligible, and some of us own one book, some the other) with the Al Qadim setting for my "D&D" game. My initial reason for choosing AE was the magic system and the classes. But as i was writing up a setting document for my players, i realized that the PC races were also a much better fit. Al Qadim is an excellent example of shoehorning the AD&D2 races into a setting where they don't particularly fit, IMHO. A couple key NPCs are dwarves; several are elves/half-elves, done in such a way that the race doesn't seem to have any impact on teh character--they may as well be humans; and i vaguely recall a couple halfling NPCs. I don't remember any gnome NPCs when reading the setting. And humans were nonetheless the vast majority of NPCs, despite the overview of the setting talking about how integrated and multicultural the setting is supposed to be. It just didn't feel like (1) elves, dwarves, halflings, or gnomes actually belonged in the setting or (2) they were actually part of the setting.
Moreover, noble giantish rulers, mystical verrik, suspect lizard-folk, nomadic tribal lion-folk, and social urban dog-folk all felt like a perfect fit for the setting. Only the faen felt at all alien to the setting--and there's the conveniently-placed exotic lands of the jungle islands for them. And none of the setting roles felt like none of the races could fit into them. So, i changed all but one ruler to giant, made the desert tribesman roughly 50/50 humans and litorians, changed appropriate NPCs to sibeccai (urban), litorian (nomad), faen (jungle/lost empire/metropolitan), verrik (region with pre-enlightenment ancient mystic history), or mojh (hermetic loners). That's a really rough summary, but, basically, it fit quite neatly, with a minimum of shoe-horning.
Now, that's just one specific campaign. The next campaign i'm working on will feature elf, dwarf, orc, goblin, kobold, gnome, lizardman, litorian, sibeccai, ironborn, and maybe centaur or something amphibious, as options along with humans.
And, for me, this is a relatively restricted set of PC races. But the real point of this thread is:
What sorts of races do you commonly see in your D&D (or other fantasy) games?
I realized in the previous threads, and from a couple other race-related threads here, that apparently my experiences are somewhat atypical. In the 2-yr campaign i played in in college, run by someone else, i only recall 2 characters that were elves, out of 2-3 dozen characters over the life of the campaign. And i'm not actually sure they were elves--rather, those are the only two characters that i can't specifically recall weren't elves. There were several dwarves, at least one halfling (one of my characters), quite a few half-elves, possibly a gnome, and i think we had a half-orc at one point. I played a lizardman for a little while. I'm not sure how much multiclassing influenced this--i know we weren't playing with non-human level limits, but i can't remember if we had to stick to the officially-sanctioned multiclass combos, or if humans could multiclass. Upshot, however, is that elves were rare.
During the 8-yr campaign i ran prior to college, the results were similar. I had changed the rules to eliminate multiclassing restrictions and non-human level limits, allowed human multiclassing, and imposed XP penalties on some of the more-powerful races. In short, the theory was that class choices wouldn't significantly impact your choice of race, and the XP penalties were just there for balance, so everyone would choose a race that appealed to them based on aesthetics. Over 3 dozen + players and well over 50 characters, i believe we had 2 or 3 half-elves and 1 elf (and the latter was effectively a guest character, brought in for 1 session). 1 or 2 dwarves. Maybe 1 gnome (maybe none). 3 or so halflings. Between a quarter and a third of the characters, i'd guess, were humans. The rest were Everything Else--uldra, tortle, draconian, half-troll, fire giant, dracon, irda, half-orc, half-ogre, anuchu, shadow drake, and many more.
My conclusion is that the D&D versions of dwarf, and particularly elf and half-elf, are insufficiently exotic. That is, if you want to play something alien and different, they don't satisfy; and if D&D elves appeal to a player, that player will probably be even more comfortable with a human character. With D&D3E's toning down of the races (balancing them, rather than giving some of the core races LAs), i see even less playing of elves and dwarves--and, IM(admittedly limited)E, dwarves are more often played for darkvision, than because the player particularly wants a non-human character.
What about others? Do lots of players seem to choose elves and dwarves (and other core races)? Does this change when more-exotic alternatives are available?