Who Else likes the Cantina?

[Cyronax]

This thread reminds me (vaguely) of all the old discussions about gnomes and half-orcs straying 'laming' up the race roster in older editions of D&D.

More is better in many cases -- as long as each race feels different and can be written with enough flare to give a DM a good idea of that race's place in a campaign world.

Yes, gotta love the Cantina scene in Star Wars, but I tend to run that sort of 'effect' only in certain/specific areas of the campaign world. For instance, a gatetown to another plane ...... an entrepot city-state known for illicit and wide-ranging dealing (i.e. a hive of scum and villainy) ..... a mad wizard's castle chock full of ensared and imprisoned servitors (Castle Greyhawk) ..... an interplanar tavern with portals to everywhere and nowhere.

C.I.D.

 

[BryonD]

I don't think it ends up being that important either way.
And having the options exist is a good thing, so the net result is positive.

My own campaigns tend to be human centric in terms of setting. And yet more often than not less than half of the party is human. Frequently, far less than half are human. But the mixed bag party of traveling adventurers does not change the racial look of the setting as a whole.

If a good DM ran a human exclusive campaign, it would be good.
If a good DM ran a every race +1 campaign, it would be good.

And even in my human-centric world, a Mos Eisely style gathering place where the worst of every race you every heard of, and several you haven't, fits in is great.

But options are great. And a good DM should be able to say "that race isn't allowed because it is stupid" and still have no problem having happy players.

 

[Cyronax]

What bothers me (and only a little) about the Cantina being the default in 4e is that settings that want to limit options more have bigger problems doing so officially, leading to an exclusion of awesome things that don't have a lot of species diversity.

Like, if 4e Dark Sun feels the need to include Eladrin as a key component, I will be a Sad Panda.

If 4e can have some balls and can nix some races where they're not welcome, this is merely an academic concern.

WotC will not have the 'cajones' to not include every single class and race in Dark Sun (outside of FR and EB books possibly). Its just the design philosophy WotC has been operating under since way back when Eberron first came out (2004 - ish?)

Dark Sun is probably my favorite 2e world (close second - Planescape) and I don't know if it will translate well into 4e.

I mean what of races that were specifically killed off in Dark Sun already -- Gnomes?!? What about the fact that there weren't orcs in Dark Sun ... as far as I remember.

But outside of Dark Sun's translation, I think the 4e design philosophy works. Its up to the DM and the players to self-limit. I generally do this by initially asking the characters what elements they really want to play or include in a game world, and then I might hack off some outliers.

C.I.D.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Dark Sun is probably my favorite 2e world (close second - Planescape) and I don't know if it will translate well into 4e.

The reason my concern about this is low is because I do think the 4e team has the cojones. They've mentioned excluding the Divine power source, and if they're willing to cut entire classes and splatbooks from the mix, I don't think they'll be adverse to effectively cutting out individual races. I honestly expect gnomes to still be extinct (perhaps with some advice on changing that for a player who really wants to play a gnome). Though, really, DS is a bit of a cantina already, what with the thri-kreen and the half-giants and the halfling cannibals and the templars. And Planescape is an even bigger cantina!

I'm optimistic about WotC's understanding that not every rule element is great for every campaign world. And if they do grok and implement that, then there is really no problem I personally have with a cantina in the core (though I get that others might, due to their own tastes).

 

[Fanaelialae]

I like the cantina. I consider having more options to be more enjoyable than having less.

One of my group absolutely loves the cantina. He isn't truly happy unless he's playing something fairly bizarre (such as the mostly-friendly zombie with a vocabulary of about a dozen words). He often goes above and beyond for his own campaigns, creating anywhere from one to two dozen homebrewed races based around whatever the central theme of the campaign happens to be. Though he has run a few campaigns with a more traditional selection, in each of those we eventually discovered strange new races (which then became playable options).

 

[Oni]

In my personal experience a player created group usually ends up more closely resembling the crew of the Moya rather than the Fellowship of the Ring. May as well embrace the dysfunctional weirdness.

 

[JohnSnow]

It seems to me that everyone has a different definition of "cantina." Going way back to 1e, D&D has had dozens of sentient races. The only reason D&D hasn't been a cantina for years is that some races have been deliberately marginalized. But to me, IF they exist, it's logical that they can (sometimes) co-exist.

In fact here are SO many sentient races that some form of consortium of peaceful races makes sense. Which races those are will obviously vary from campaign to campaign and the preferences of those playing. Personally, in my game it breaks down roughly as follows:

1. humans
2. dwarves
3. halflings
4. elves
5. dragonborn
6. half-elves
7. tieflings
8. half-orcs
9. shifters
10. eladrin
11. goliaths
12. gnomes
13. changelings
14. devas

I guess you could call them the "A-list," "B-list," and "C-list." The A-list consists of what you could call the "Tolkien" or "classic D&D" races, who define the basis of society: humans, followed by dwarves, elves and halflings, in no particular order. The "B-list" includes the less-common (or slightly outsider) eladrin and dragonborn, as well as the "human-descent races" which includes: half-elves, tieflings, half-orcs and shifters. Then comes the "C-list," consisting of goliaths, gnomes, changelings and devas who either usually live apart (the former two) or are quite rare and frequently overlooked (the latter two). In my campaign changelings usually go in disguise, whereas devas tend to look like very human-like (I use the deva's backstory with the aasimar's look, I guess).

The rest of the sentient races (the D-list?) tend to live outside "normal" civilization, or be more xenophobic. That doesn't mean that they're never found in civilized areas, but in most communities, their presence would raise eyebrows. An individual community might be different though. For example, near a swamp one might see lizardmen come to trade, whereas a forest enclave might have centaurs dropping by.

So far, my players have drawn all their PCs from the A & B lists (although we have no dwarves, dragonborn, half-orcs, or shifters yet). I try to be adaptable though, and if a particular player wanted to play a particular race, it might gain traction and "move up." So, for example, if a player really wanted to play a minotaur, gnoll, or githzerai that race could move on to the list at C, or even B-status.

I'd liken it to the movement of klingons upwards due to Star Trek: The Next Generation or the bajorans and ferengi as a result of Deep Space Nine. A D&D example would be gnomes in Krynn or thri-kreen and half-giants in Athas.

 

[BryonD]

I'd liken it to the movement of klingons upwards due to Star Trek: The Next Generation

I think that is a good way of putting it.

A D&D example would be gnomes in Krynn or thri-kreen and half-giants in Athas.

These I don't buy nearly as much because gnomes were already around and half-giants really don't seem to be presumed in D&D at large.



But to go back to Star Trek, and Star Wars as well, the highly integrated cultures were prominent. But they were prominent as exceptions. The main cast is both cases is at least somewhat mixed bag, though predominately human. And they travel from place to place. Wherever they go may have any kind of special race. But that race is usually singular.

Integration is used to convey something significant about special locations. Federation bases are semi-utopian oases away from those wild (and non-integrated) realms where man is yet to boldly go. Jedi enclaves are similar, and the vast multicultural city in the prequel exists while the Jedi are still a force of good. Whereas Mos Eisley is the same in reverse. It is a worst of all worlds, and as was pointed out above, serves to establish Han Solo's character more than anything else. (Though a chance to establish that Ben ain't just some old man is also taken).

The point is that having a highly diverse base to draw upon is one thing, and having ubiquitous intense diversity is far and away another. In my opinion if you have total diversity everywhere, then diversity just becomes homogeneity. To me that is both silly and simplistic as an idea and boring as an on-going engagement. But that is the difference between character potential and setting definition.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

In my opinion if you have total diversity everywhere, then diversity just becomes homogeneity. To me that is both silly and simplistic as an idea and boring as an on-going engagement.

It doesn't have to be simplistic: if your message is that outer identity doesn't matter than having so many multitudes of outer appearance that people start to ignore it actually becomes a party of the theme.

 

[Garthanos]

I like having a cantinas worth of options and usually skinning them as humans.

Also the party might have a cantina look but the world at large looks very human
and the world at large wonders if they are heros or horrors.