D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Remathilis]

My first D&D party was a minotaur, a grung, 2 gnomes, a lizardfolk, and a human child (I think literally 8 years old). The DM had given us some website that was NOT the phb to pick our characters from. He did have a ban list, but it was based on mechanical abilities he didn't like (aaracockra) rather than lore. Grung was actually on the ban list, but I was already looking at the website when he posted that and I asked him if I could play the little frog because it's cute and he said sure.

So yeah, I don't have a formative experience of Only Tolkien Trio Species to hold onto.

When I started my Dragonlance game I tried giving the Dragonlance uniques (irda, kender, kyrie, thanoi, draconians) the most interesting-sounding species descriptions to lure players into playing them. I got an irda and a kender PC out of it...and a tiefling bard but isn't that in every D&D party?

My Ravenloft game was the best and worst example of player's grabbing the theme. They consisted of:

* A human blood hunter (ghosthunter)
*A Dhampir bard (lore)
*A Hexblood cleric of Ezra (twilight)
*A human artificer (reanimator, custom made before the horror UA)
*A reborn sorcerer (shadow)
and
*An awakened cat wizard (necromancer)

Five out of six ain't bad...

 

[Gradine]

Yeah, I mean this is a problem with campaign expectations, not the game itself. I've played in and run games with all kinds of specific rules for what was or was not in play. Our college 3.5 D&D group had a character who always wanted to play a centaur. I was never in favor it, but she also had zero issues with the "all-human" campaign that was the actual circus troupe. Most of my PCs from that time were humans, but I had a few "circus troupe" characters ranging from a Kobold ninja, a Warforged monk, a dwarf that was raised by gnomes, and a telepathic seven-year old with a pet cognizance crystal and who lived in a barrel (and whose name was Beril).

Good times, all around

 

[Hussar]

Okay, but that doesn't really change any of what I said.

You don't care for "eclectic" adventuring parties. Okay, shrug. What do your players want? If they are enjoying playing anything and everything, then lighten up and join the fun! Or find a new group. Have you talked to your players? Maybe they would be game for a mostly human party, or a mostly dragonborn party, or what-have-you.

At the end of the day, this is pretty much what you have to do.

I used to bemoan the "circus troupe" group. It annoyed the crap out of me. Now? I just shrug. The player simply do not care about your setting. Full stop. They will never, ever care enough about "setting" to stop trying to play whatever whackjob race that happen to tickle their fancy. So, your choice is to either stop running games or go along with it.

 

[Hussar]

And, as far as this being new, I remember minotaur characters, ogre characters, and various other weirdness from way back in the day. Heck, even as a player in 1ed, I remember commenting that my character was typically the only human in the group of elves, dwarves, and a couple of other oddball characters.

I cannot actually ever remember having a group, either as a player or a DM, of strictly "normal" races. I cannot even recall a group where humans were in the majority.

My current crop of PC's is: Human, half-orc/half drow, dragonborn, changeling, and goblin.

Yes, I lost this argument a LONG time ago. Why do you ask?

 

[...m...]

...for traditonal fantasy settings, my rule of thumb is that all players must first create and play a human character before their second core-demihuman, and must create play both a human and a core-demihuman character before any exotic race...that generally herds character demographics into a rough resemblance of the broader adventuring world, at least close-enough for race to matter, which is also how i run traditional fantasy worlds...

...cubicle 7's a life well-lived includes a table to roll for race during character creation which affords a similar demographic breakdown; i like the idea...

A LIFE WELL-LIVED
21% - Human
20% - Elf
17% - Dwarf
16% - Halfling
10% - Gnome
04% - Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Dragonborn, Tiefling

(personally, i prefer traditional fantasy settings in which humans are substantially more common and demihumans more exotic, so i lean something like this)
TRADITIONAL FANTASY
40% - Human
20% - Dwarf, Elf
07% - Halfling
03% - Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Gnome, Dragonborn
01% - Tiefling

 

[Remathilis]

...for traditonal fantasy settings, my rule of thumb is that all players must first create and play a human character before their second core-demihuman, and must create play both a human and a core-demihuman character before any exotic race...that generally herds character demographics into a rough resemblance of the broader adventuring world, at least close-enough for race to matter, which is also how i run traditional fantasy worlds...

...cubicle 7's a life well-lived includes a table to roll for race during character creation which affords a similar demographic breakdown; i like the idea...

A LIFE WELL-LIVED
21% - Human
20% - Elf
17% - Dwarf
16% - Halfling
10% - Gnome
04% - Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Dragonborn, Tiefling

(personally, i prefer traditional fantasy settings in which humans are substantially more common and demihumans more exotic, so i lean something like this)
TRADITIONAL FANTASY
40% - Human
20% - Dwarf, Elf
07% - Halfling
03% - Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Gnome, Dragonborn
01% - Tiefling

As a general rule, I dislike forced demographics. I don't get to play a PC as often as I wish, and I would hate to have to pick human because my friend wants to play a half-orc.

A long time DM I knew had a demographic rule: he was left-handed and hated when people picked left-handedness to "be different" so he imposed a rule: only 1 out of every 10 characters you created could be left handed, unless the player themselves were left handed. That rule worked fine for years, until he met me; the only other left-handed player he knew at the time. So I made it my privilege to make every one of my characters for his game left handed because I could take advantage of the loophole and because I knew it messed up his attempt at demographic control.