Crowded Worlds

[VoxRationis]

The SRD has over 45 humanoid or monstrous humanoid races, plus scores of other intelligent, potentially society-building creatures, many of whom probably need expansive territories to support a sustainable population. Yet rarely do settings show just how 'crowded' that would be. If you split the population evenly among the sentient species and distribute their population centers evenly, then the odds of the next village being of the same village as yours becomes low; if you clump each one into a given territory, the territory becomes small, unless the entire world is available for exploration (as opposed to a continent or two, as with most settings).
Thoughts?

[Everyl]

This is one of the things that bothers me about D&D. The default assumption for a D&D setting seems to be a kitchen-sink of sentient and/or humanoid races, often with many such races living in very close proximity to one another. Considering how many of those races are depicted as violently hating one another for one reason or another, it quickly begins to strain credibility for all such races to be able to maintain stable breeding populations.

One solution is to cut down on the number of races in your setting. Settings with only one humanoid race work fine. It's also not too hard to trim the list of sentient/humanoid races down to something more reasonable during the world-building process. I tend to think that a shorter list of sentient races is a good thing for many settings, as it is difficult to find a good narrative purpose for each and every one of dozens and dozens of distinct races.

The other solution I've tried is to make a setting of unusual size. In a fantasy cosmology, there are numerous ways to have multiple worlds, or worlds larger than the real world, or unusually isolating geography that allows different races to have homelands that can't be readily conquered by other races.

In my oldest setting, I did a bit of both options. The sentient races list has been trimmed down significantly - the assumption is that any race not mentioned in the worldbuilding documents doesn't exist. The races are then divided among five different worlds, and travel between them is handled with magic similar to Plane Shift or Astral travel. The "main" setting is the human homeworld, which has populations from nearly all other races living on it, as well. Those populations don't always need to be large or concentrated, though, because each race has a homeworld somewhere where they're not in any danger of dying out any time soon.

[VoxRationis]

Yeah, most of my campaign settings have a decidedly trimmed-down version of the suite of races; some don't even have all the player races. I was just wondering how people adapted to situations where the assumption was that all of them were present.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

If I have to include all 45 races, the players are still banned from playing anything other than human. You are not the special snowflake. Elves should be demigods, not "Human-but-with-less-feats-and-pointier-ears"!!!

[Axiomatic]

Elves should be demigods, not "Human-but-with-less-feats-and-pointier-ears"!!!
Go back to bed, Tolkien, you're drunk.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Go back to bed, Tolkien, you're drunk.

I may be drunk, but thiach uanui, and in the morning I shall be sober!:smalltongue:

Back on topic, I actually prefer Human-only worlds. Helps with the bookkeeping.

[VoxRationis]

The presence of multiple humanoid, culture-developing, technology-using races poses an interesting ecological and evolutionary question in the situation. Should not competition for these niches prove fierce? How do they allay this competition? Presumably, some degree of segregation allays some of it. The lizardfolk keep to the marshes, the elves keep to either the forests or the deserts (I have noticed that elven traits are actually well-adapted to desert environments), and the dwarves keep to cold mountain ranges and underground environments.
It is possible that some of the groups developed in places separate from others and so evolved to fill similar niches without worrying about competition.
What niches do you think humans would fill in such a scheme?

[Jendekit]

The presence of multiple humanoid, culture-developing, technology-using races poses an interesting ecological and evolutionary question in the situation. Should not competition for these niches prove fierce? How do they allay this competition? Presumably, some degree of segregation allays some of it. The lizardfolk keep to the marshes, the elves keep to either the forests or the deserts (I have noticed that elven traits are actually well-adapted to desert environments), and the dwarves keep to cold mountain ranges and underground environments.
It is possible that some of the groups developed in places separate from others and so evolved to fill similar niches without worrying about competition.
What niches do you think humans would fill in such a scheme?

The thing about human evolution is that the reason we can live in so many environments is because at a critical period of our evolutionary history Africa was going from wet to dry to wet, etc. etc. in the geological blink of an eye. We aren't adapted to one specific climate or environment, our main adaptation is adaptability! There's a NOVA series on the subject called Becoming Human, there are three episodes in it and it is really interesting.

[VoxRationis]

Well, yes, obviously the advantage of being a human is adaptability. But when there are 44 other species running around with similar adaptability through tool and language use to that of humans, that is less of a "I can do anything" button than in real life. In real life, there were many kinds of hominid, but eventually there came to be only one. Some were probably a mite overspecialized for one thing or another, but competition probably killed a lot of the others. "Sure, Homo whatever: you're good, you're adaptable, but Homo sapiens is a little bit better, a little bit more adaptable, so you're out." So if they're going to survive in the same geographically linked area, they're going to have to play to what they can do better than their competitors.

Now, you could have the setting be about how one of the humanoid races (not necessarily human) is gradually outcompeting all of the others, but that's really depressing.

[redwizard007]

Now, you could have the setting be about how one of the humanoid races (not necessarily human) is gradually outcompeting all of the others, but that's really depressing.

That is actually brilliant! Just off the cuff I'm thinking hobgoblins. Organized, aggressive, fast breeders that are physically superior to humans and mentally our equals.

[Aella]

There are all sorts of political problems with 45 sentient races. Countries would be small and overcrowded. Resources would be consumed easily and importing would become a diplomatic battle field with different countries all vying for a different resource. War would actually be more common than it already was as the need to survive in a world with resources like food or energy fading fast.

So the big question comes down to how will everyone get along? Or rather, who will win the massive world war that will probably occur to kill off other species so the dominant species can have resources.

[Everyl]

There are all sorts of political problems with 45 sentient races. Countries would be small and overcrowded. Resources would be consumed easily and importing would become a diplomatic battle field with different countries all vying for a different resource. War would actually be more common than it already was as the need to survive in a world with resources like food or energy fading fast.

So the big question comes down to how will everyone get along? Or rather, who will win the massive world war that will probably occur to kill off other species so the dominant species can have resources.

That's not necessarily what would happen, if only because world wars presume the existence of reasonably fast, reliable, and available methods of transporting people across the world. In a medieval-fantasy setting where magical travel is assumed to be rare (like most D&D settings), wars would only be with immediate neighbors over local resources. Considering that many of those races would actually desire different resources from one another, not all of those conflicts would be inevitable, either. Races that lack a way to see and navigate in darkness won't be interested in the underground tunnels that dwarves, drow, and trogolodytes favor, while races that have sunlight sensitivity will have less interest in surface territories. Aquatic and air-breathing races have almost insignificant overlap in their areas of interest, basically limited to fishing and foraging rights in coastal waters.

Furthermore, continuing the assumption that long-distance travel is difficult and time-consuming, it's entirely possible to have dozens of distinct peoples who just don't interact very often due to geographical distance and isolating natural features. In real-world history, humans alone have been able to support hundreds (at minimum) of distinct languages, cultures, and lifestyles at any given point, and even with the rise of globalism, there is plenty of variety. There could conceivably be dozens of different sentient humanoid species in a fantasy setting because of that.

The trouble arises in that it's really, really difficult to imagine what a world like that might look like. In the humans-only world we live in, different peoples tend to mix and interbreed along borders. Politics and governing systems tend to change over time, so even if a given people or nation "dies off," odds are good their genetic legacy lives on in their neighbors and whoever took over their real estate. In a fantasy setting, however, it's usually assumed that most of the species can't interbreed with one another, or that such crossbreeds are rare exceptions rather than an inevitable result of different peoples living in close proximity. If a population dies off, it's quite possibly the extinction of a species, rather than just another chapter in the ever-changing political landscape.

It's not impossible to take all that into account while building a setting, but it's a lot of work. It's much easier to trim the list down to something more manageable, or to just not let overanalysis get in the way of enjoying the game.

[Aella]

That's not necessarily what would happen, if only because world wars presume the existence of reasonably fast, reliable, and available methods of transporting people across the world. In a medieval-fantasy setting where magical travel is assumed to be rare (like most D&D settings), wars would only be with immediate neighbors over local resources. Considering that many of those races would actually desire different resources from one another, not all of those conflicts would be inevitable, either. Races that lack a way to see and navigate in darkness won't be interested in the underground tunnels that dwarves, drow, and trogolodytes favor, while races that have sunlight sensitivity will have less interest in surface territories. Aquatic and air-breathing races have almost insignificant overlap in their areas of interest, basically limited to fishing and foraging rights in coastal waters.

Furthermore, continuing the assumption that long-distance travel is difficult and time-consuming, it's entirely possible to have dozens of distinct peoples who just don't interact very often due to geographical distance and isolating natural features. In real-world history, humans alone have been able to support hundreds (at minimum) of distinct languages, cultures, and lifestyles at any given point, and even with the rise of globalism, there is plenty of variety. There could conceivably be dozens of different sentient humanoid species in a fantasy setting because of that.

The trouble arises in that it's really, really difficult to imagine what a world like that might look like. In the humans-only world we live in, different peoples tend to mix and interbreed along borders. Politics and governing systems tend to change over time, so even if a given people or nation "dies off," odds are good their genetic legacy lives on in their neighbors and whoever took over their real estate. In a fantasy setting, however, it's usually assumed that most of the species can't interbreed with one another, or that such crossbreeds are rare exceptions rather than an inevitable result of different peoples living in close proximity. If a population dies off, it's quite possibly the extinction of a species, rather than just another chapter in the ever-changing political landscape.

It's not impossible to take all that into account while building a setting, but it's a lot of work. It's much easier to trim the list down to something more manageable, or to just not let overanalysis get in the way of enjoying the game.

1. A World War Does Not Equal One Conflict
That's how most people view world wars: one side made up of multiple armies fighting against the other. A world war could also mean many nations fighting out smaller conflicts, but they'd be everywhere.

2. Many Races, Many Resources Needed.
Every country (even in human terms) has different needs. The U.S. imports all sorts of products cheaply from China and other Asian countries. China imports oil and other natural resources from other places like Saudi Arabia. So even aquatic races are going to need some things. The ocean may supply much, but seaweed isn't exactly a good cloth fiber.
Dwarves and other earthen races would need things food or wood. Other countries and races would want raw natural resources like iron or oil.

1. Isolation Escalates Conflict
The whole point of everyone having their little corner only makes the potential problems worse. Because if long-distance travel is tough, that only makes the needed resources scarcer and thus more will war over them. Politics would be a mess as people try to fit in a world where everything is in enormous demand and supply is limited while consumers grow.

[VoxRationis]

Given that nation sizes now are generally larger than nation sizes in the past, there's room for somewhere between 200 and 450 "countries" in the world, which means somewhere between 4 to 10 countries per species. That's not terribly crowded.
However, that is in the entire world, while most campaign settings cover an area much smaller than that. If your setting is about the size of Europe, there's room for about 50 to 100 countries (that does conflict somewhat with the previous math... Assume more countries in the previous paragraph). That's between 1 to 2 countries per species, assuming you want all of them represented. But that's not necessarily a given. Most of the humanoid and monstrous humanoid races in the SRD are from temperate climates, so you could potentially cut that number down if the continent portrayed is wholly climate. In any case, it's not necessarily a life-or-death struggle, for the following reason:
There's no reason that dwarves can't trade with humans, who trade with elves, who trade with halflings, who trade with gnomes, etc.. While racial tensions will be a problem, the humanoid races can largely act interspecifically in ways that aren't that different from how they act intraspecifically. Unless there's a greater total population density than in comparable historical periods, there's no reason to assume that life would be inevitably harder.
That said, it is likely that people would specialize to environments and niches that suited them better. Competition between generalists produces specialization. The ideal niche is larger than the realized niche in situations with interspecific competition, as each species retreats to what they can handle better than their rivals. This is possible with absolutely no warfare whatsoever, through purely economic competition, but works equally well with warfare.

[Everyl]

I generally agree with VoxRationis on this one. Given that most of the races are specialized for specific environments and situations, it seems likely that trade would cover a lot of the desire for resources that come from other regions. Subterranean races need wood or other surface resources? Trade some of their spare rocks and metal goods to get them from surface-dwellers who can't see in the dark. Then you don't get dark-blind people risking their lives in mines and light-dazzled people trying to engage in large-scale lumbering.

And about the aquatic example, why would they need cloth to begin with? Clothing isn't useful for keeping warm underwater, and it adds a lot of drag when swimming. Most other uses for cloth either don't apply underwater or could be replicated (often with better results) using materials made from animal-based sources that are plentiful in the water. There is definitely room for trade, but the demand is unlikely to be so great than anyone would see going to war between land-based and sea-based species as productive.

[redwizard007]

To touch on the original thoughts here.

The desire to construct a perfect system in an RPG is silly. That applies equally to racial demographics, population density, economy, trade, weather patterns, currents, mating habits of the dragon turtle, and evolution. First, we are talking about a FANTASY GAME. Second, all the time spent detailing why race a was able to grow peacefully next to races b and c and develop close ties with race d could instead have been spent inserting plot hooks and conflicts into the campaign instead.

That being said. In games I've been involved in which do include the entire menagerie, we usually keep populations low and regionalized when using them as written or nerf aspects of culture or personality to make them a little easier to blend into society.

Lets exhaust a thread on weather patterns next. The dangers of not factoring el nino into your weekly precipitation tables...

[sktarq]

I find one of the easiest ways to deal with this is it break the world up in an archipelago or at least have a geographic equivalent of highly fragmented ecological setup.

[VoxRationis]

To touch on the original thoughts here.

The desire to construct a perfect system in an RPG is silly. That applies equally to racial demographics, population density, economy, trade, weather patterns, currents, mating habits of the dragon turtle, and evolution. First, we are talking about a FANTASY GAME.

I think that putting the effort into developing a detailed, logically consistent world is worth it both for its own sake and for the player's enjoyment. When my DM tells me specific reasons why a thing is the way it is, or gives me a detailed history of a region, I feel like I'm a part of that world.


Second, all the time spent detailing why race a was able to grow peacefully next to races b and c and develop close ties with race d could instead have been spent inserting plot hooks and conflicts into the campaign instead.

Some tensions exist in every campaign, yes. I was arguing that a setting composed entirely of race riots and ethnic cleansing wouldn't necessarily be a logical conclusion of the Monster Manual.

[avr]

For one thing, some of these races can be given a common background &/or shared territory. See the Daelkyr in Eberron and the various aberrations they created, or the goblin/hobgoblin/bugbear society in Darguun.

For another, most published worlds are astonishingly small. Here's (http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/120/tesar8192.jpg) an image which shows a bunch of D&D's worlds mapped on to one Earth-size map. If your world has even as much land as the USA and you assign one US State's worth of territory to each, you have at least 5 states left over.

Also, some races may have lost their territory already and exist only as minorities in other lands. There's no reason you have to have an empire of medusas, though it might be cool for there to have been one at some stage.

[Scurron]

Well, in my settings I like to choose up to five or seven sentient races that are varied and make sense for the setting and end it there. I've never been the fan of having races just to have them.

[VoxRationis]

If your world has even as much land as the USA and you assign one US State's worth of territory to each, you have at least 5 states left over.


It'd be fun to see a setting that's geographically the United States but is otherwise a normal D&D fantasy world.
Dwarves are from Alaska;
Elves from the Pacific Northwest;
Orcs from Canada (adjacent to both elves and dwarves, plus the combination of Canadian stereotypes with the completely opposite idea of orcs is hilarious);
Centaurs from the Great Plains;
Halflings from Hawaii, if you have it (chalk it up to island dwarfism).

[Everyl]

It'd be fun to see a setting that's geographically the United States but is otherwise a normal D&D fantasy world.
Dwarves are from Alaska;
Elves from the Pacific Northwest;
Orcs from Canada (adjacent to both elves and dwarves, plus the combination of Canadian stereotypes with the completely opposite idea of orcs is hilarious);
Centaurs from the Great Plains;
Halflings from Hawaii, if you have it (chalk it up to island dwarfism).

There's already a significant amount of that sort of thing done in published fantasy worlds. If you consider the entire planet that the Forgotten Realms campaign setting takes place on, you have a series of continents laid out roughly like those of the real world, but with Europe (the region used in Forgotten Realms) exaggerated. Several other major regions and continents have their own campaign settings - pseudo-Aztec/Mayans in the Maztica setting in the "Americas," pseudo-African/Middle East in the "Africa" area of Al-Qadim, and an Oriental Adventures-esque setting far to the east of Forgotten Realms, but on the same supercontinent.

Real-world geography is really useful as inspiration for setting-building. It's less useful for sorting out the crowded-world problem, though, unless you're running a setting somewhat low on the kind of magic that would make intercontinental travel trivial.

[VoxRationis]

I didn't mean a world with a lot of cultural analogues (which I agree is common) or a lot of geography roughly based on real-world; I mean a world where the physical map looks exactly like a physical map of the US and Canada, mostly as a joke.

[QED - Iltazyara]

I'm pretty damn sure I've seen the real world map used as a fantasy world map with no cultural references before, but no chance of telling you where.

The way I try to manage my kitchen-sink racial scenario (which might even be worse than what most people consider to be the kitchen-sink scenario) is to compartmentalise my regions. I have several 'super-clusters' of nations that trade, talk and interact with each other regularly. Then I have the few (currently three) nations who have accurate maps, good sailing skills and ships, move between them. So in one region I have three Human kingdoms, one centaur controlled plain, a somewhat ruined elven land, a small dwarf colony (my Dwarves get around over land, but very slowly. Theoretically they've been migrating south for two millennia) a half-elven mountain retreat and a kobold dominion. Just across the sea (none of the local nations can sail out of sight of land reliably) to the west there are no humans at all, or elves, dwarves or any of the others.

I have a lot of other races; like harpies, merfolk, orcs, ogres and the like live in more tribal units. There isn't a harpy kingdom; they have a colony and live in a land 'ruled' by someone else. Main thing I tried to do overall was not make humans over abundant, there are six human territories in the world total. And orcs control more land than humans do, even if they spend most of their time fighting themselves over who gets the best bits.
My world is probably around the landmass of Europe, circling the edge of a massive ocean. World isn't planetoid, as a note. But I have seventy four 'planned' races to incorporate in various places, and that list is very much not complete. So far I've comfirmed and actually written information for sixteen and used less than a tenth of my land, and a hundredth of my seas.

The further back you go the smaller kingdoms, territories and known lands get. 'I rule as far as the eye can see' sounds impressive, but even compared to pre-roman times didn't mean too much to the civilised nations. And yet, works perfectly in a fantasy campaign where humans, elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes are most certainly not at the top of the food chain.

At least, that's how I feel about it. All this starts to fall apart if teleportation magic gets thrown around, as that ruins the concept of "We know of these far off places, the merchants of X talk about them." rather quickly.

[lsfreak]

One of the big ways to cut it out is to eliminate races and implement cultures. Different cultures exist side-by-side regularly, and the farther back in time and more isolating the region (mountain, jungle) the more fragmented things tend to get (less mobility, slower exchange of culture across distances, fewer historic empires that upset populations and cause wide-scale cultural assimilation/mixing). My current setting has elves and goblins, and five major human cultures representing five different population movements into the campaign region. Two have completely assimilated, and all have largely similar social organization (clans claiming decent from a mythic ancestor, ruled by semi-hereditary councils), cultural practices (similar death and marriage rituals, semi-formalized raiding of nearby clans, similar beliefs about magic), and religious beliefs (ancestor worship and veneration of spirits overlapping polytheism/mythic hero worship, at least a three-way distinction between priests, shamans, and oathkeepers), as a result of long-term contact with each other. Goblins have similar traits as well, and elves are entirely assimilated, being an ethnically-distinct aristocracy enforced by genetic incompatibility with humans.

[Devils_Advocate]

The SRD has over 45 humanoid or monstrous humanoid races
Well, some of those are subraces, but that still indicates distinct populations, which is probably your point. (Giants and Fey are other good creature types to look at if you want to get a count of Types Of Things What Has Opposable Thumbs.)


Presumably, some degree of segregation allays some of it. The lizardfolk keep to the marshes, the elves keep to either the forests or the deserts (I have noticed that elven traits are actually well-adapted to desert environments), and the dwarves keep to cold mountain ranges and underground environments.
It is possible that some of the groups developed in places separate from others and so evolved to fill similar niches without worrying about competition.
What niches do you think humans would fill in such a scheme?
Temperate plains. I infer this from the Planetouched Monster Manual entries, much as I infer that humans have the Humanoid (Human) type from the table of possible Ranger Favored Enemies. Why humans don't just have a Monster Manual entry is beyond me.

Anyway, the number of races that share a single environment is generally small, usually only a handful I think you'll find if you check through the d20 Monster Filter (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20monsterfilter/). Of course, including ALL of the monsters from ALL of the books (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/monsters) in a relatively small region gets silly quickly.

I actually sketched up a ****ty little continent map a long time ago based on the d20 Monster Filter and some basic assumptions (climate varies with latitude; Bonus Languages and combat bonuses indicate who lives next to who; etc). With pretty much all of the creatures with land environments, I think, not just humanoids.

[rlc]

To touch on the original thoughts here.

The desire to construct a perfect system in an RPG is silly. That applies equally to racial demographics, population density, economy, trade, weather patterns, currents, mating habits of the dragon turtle, and evolution. First, we are talking about a FANTASY GAME. Second, all the time spent detailing why race a was able to grow peacefully next to races b and c and develop close ties with race d could instead have been spent inserting plot hooks and conflicts into the campaign instead.

That being said. In games I've been involved in which do include the entire menagerie, we usually keep populations low and regionalized when using them as written or nerf aspects of culture or personality to make them a little easier to blend into society.

Lets exhaust a thread on weather patterns next. The dangers of not factoring el nino into your weekly precipitation tables...

While this is true, some people enjoy that type of thing. Nerfing the culture is one answer, sure, but let's say that I want my campaign to explore social issues, like many fantasy stories do. Obviously, there can't be a well thought out reason for every minor point, but it'd be pretty upsetting if the major questions always got answered with, "because I didn't feel like wasting time and wanted to get on with the actual story." The backstory can be just as interesting as the current story sometimes.

[Yora]

That's just the fundamental basis of setting design. You put into the world and describe in detail the things you consider important for the setting and leave out the stuff that is irrelevant for the world you want to create.

Poor design tends to happen when stuff is introduced into the setting without really having any importance or relevance to the world as a whole. I love gnolls and they are among my favorite humanoids, but there's just no role for them to fullfil in my setting. There are already a bunch of savage big guys who delight in slaughter and gnolls wouldn't add anything new to the world.

[the_david]

Out of the 48 (monstrous) humanoid races I see a lot of subraces, like weretiger lycanthropes and wood-elves. Some of them are aquatic, and some live underground so not all of them would compete for the same land.
Ofcourse, then there are all the other races not mentioned like giants and aberrations. My suggestion would be to chuck them all out and only put in those that add a little something to the story. So if you're sick of all the dwarves, elves and hobbits fighting against the orcs, you could always come up with a world that's populated by illumians and raptorans. Come up with your own races for a change, or if you feel adventurous, tell your players to make up some race for their characters and let their descriptions be your guide to create the campaign setting.

[viking vince]

You could also just start the campaign world with a low worldwide population. 1E Greyhawk is well known for having a low population density.

[Tzi]

As much as I try to trim down on the races I find my biggest problem is players wanting to play any race that I NEVER intended to be in my world.

Considering my area has a limitation of players, I'm stuck in a compromise between the worlds initial design and the players absolutely fighting insistance to play whatever. Often races are chosen for the purposes of optimization or simply because they want to be something unique in the world. But it sometimes seems alien and out of place.

Currently I have a world that is a mix of ancient earth, with an area akin to Sumer, Babylon and Assyria and an Ancient India and Egypt, and a series of Minoan Islands and then some other wilderness areas. With a few races, Mostly Humans and half humans and demi-humans. BUT one players ABSOLUTELY insists on being an anthropomorphic Penguin person INSISTING that this character is vary serious. I KINDA don't like the idea, but at this point the player is so determined and I'm very short on players so it's like.... *Shrug*

Over time I find any setting gets overrun with many races because players keep wanting more and more races added.

[VoxRationis]

You shouldn't let your players walk over you like that, particularly not with something so ridiculous as an anthropomorphic penguin. If something's in your world, it's in your world, and if it's not, they don't get to play it. I every now and again see this weird mentality of "I can play anything I can find in a sourcebook somewhere" and I just shake my head sadly.

[Tzi]

You shouldn't let your players walk over you like that, particularly not with something so ridiculous as an anthropomorphic penguin. If something's in your world, it's in your world, and if it's not, they don't get to play it. I every now and again see this weird mentality of "I can play anything I can find in a sourcebook somewhere" and I just shake my head sadly.

I'm in the tense negotiations over it. If I had access to more players I'd be in a better position but I'm somewhat in a difficult bind of like ..... a SEVERE deficit of players available and they tend to want to play ANYTHING in any sourcebook no matter how intensively alien to the setting it would be.

One player once wished to join a campaign in a world that was ONLY humans BUT insisted for a week to play a lizardfolk. I have some real horror stories about this.

[jqavins]

Yeah, most of my campaign settings have a decidedly trimmed-down version of the suite of races; some don't even have all the player races. I was just wondering how people adapted to situations where the assumption was that all of them were present.
Mainly by not thinking too hard about it.

In the setting I'm slowly building, I long ago decided to do without gnomes, halflings, and a sizable majority of sentient races. I've also decided that orcs, goblins, and ogres are all surviving branches of the homonid family tree, more closely related to humans than chimps are, but more distant than neanderthal. They will inhabit greatly overlapping geographic areas, and the human tendancy to see the others as "usually evil" is at least half due to the competition for resources (mostly land.)

[jqavins]

I'm in the tense negotiations over it. If I had access to more players I'd be in a better position but I'm somewhat in a difficult bind of like ..... a SEVERE deficit of players available and they tend to want to play ANYTHING in any sourcebook no matter how intensively alien to the setting it would be.

One player once wished to join a campaign in a world that was ONLY humans BUT insisted for a week to play a lizardfolk. I have some real horror stories about this.
The key is to put one's foot down, calmly and politely, before a new character is made up. "You'd like to join my game? Great! I need players. By the way, all the characters are human." Then, when the new player comes in with a lizardfolk shaman, it's a whole lot easier saying "Look, I told you, humans only" than "Gee, sorry, but we only have human characters."

Of course, maybe that's exactly what you did. If the player still insists "Yeah, I know you said that, but lizardfolk are a valid race in the book and that's what I'm going to play!" then that's a pretty good sign that you don't want this player, shortage or no shortage, because this will be the first of many arguments.

[Devils_Advocate]

Why not ask your players what they want to play first, and then construct a campaign setting that includes those things? (This goes for classes, vocations, and various other things as well as races.)

Of course, that doesn't help if you have a high rate of player turnover, or players who often want to switch to new and different characters. In that case, making a "kitchen sink" setting might be the best way to avoid feeling like you have to ruin your setting later.

I don't think that a DM being unwilling to change her setting is any more virtuous than a player being unwilling to change her character, although I certainly don't think that it's any less virtuous either. That I don't see either of those positions as being virtuous at all probably helps with that.

Maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that people often actively invest a surprising amount of emotional energy into caring way more than they need to about things, even when caring about those things only winds up leaving them feeling dissatisfied and unhappy.

[VoxRationis]

A DM's setting is entitled to a lesser degree of flexibility than the players who make characters in it. A properly created setting is intricate and well-thought-out, and is a much larger body of work than a character. Asking the DM to rewrite it for a character who might well not live more than a few game sessions is a bit much.

[Tzi]

It can be hard for me to do a kitchen sink approach. Peoples imaginations and even over all styles and interests can be radically different.

It comes down to often either a conflict over creative vision, OR simply a player's DEEP deep desire to optimize and min-max. In one case it's blatant. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CANT PLAY AN AASIMAR CLERIC!!!?!?!" with the implicit fact that an Aasimar of any other class would never be made. OR simply the need for something "not human."

I suppose if a player wished in the heart of hearts to play an elf I could respect that. But often it comes down to either blatant optimization (THEY are always elf wizards) or simply keeping with standard tropes in a world were those tropes don't exist. (Elves have a bond with nature, humans don't.... even though in the context of this world they totally can)

Often many races become clutter, excessive clutter that adds WAY too many complications.

As is stated, and I agree, re-writing a world for the sake of playing anything, kind of defeats the point of world building. IMHO, at that point just crack open a copy of Forgotten Realms and pick a spot and have at it. Anything I DO, would simply be re-skinning that or Galorian.

[Stellar_Magic]

Well, call me strange but I don't usually see much of a problem with a world having all these races at once. Hell, in the real world Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) coexisted with Neanderthal, Denisova hominin, Homo sapiens idaltu, Homo rhodesiensis, and Homo floresiensis ('hobbits'). Also bear in mind that there are a couple more human species that have been found in the last few years which are not properly defined yet, so we're probably looking at a world with 7+ human species or subspecies existing at the same time.

That's six confirmed human species at once, with all but two of them being found in either Africa or Europe. If you consider that Australia and the Americas were empty up until at most 40,000 years ago, there was a lot of room that could have been filled by other species and races.

So can you have a fantasy world with the 7 core pathfinder races represented? Easily. What about the 16 uncommon added in?

Sure... Keep in mind with the under-dark and planes we've got a lot more land area to play with then the actual planet. A lot of those uncommon races have connections to other planes or are genetic anomalies of normal races.

The last 14 official races? What about them?

They're just as easy to handle... and I'm not even counting the monstrous humanoids that probably could be considered races (gremlins, gnolls, centaurs, satyrs...)

Our planet's carrying capacity is estimated at around 8-10 billion people. Divide that by 50 races and you end up averaging around 160 million per race. Of course 160,000 is more likely the average population of a race because of lower technology, but the point remains... You can fit everyone on one planet, even without throwing in the underdark or planes.

[Tzi]

Well, call me strange but I don't usually see much of a problem with a world having all these races at once. Hell, in the real world Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) coexisted with Neanderthal, Denisova hominin, Homo sapiens idaltu, Homo rhodesiensis, and Homo floresiensis ('hobbits'). Also bear in mind that there are a couple more human species that have been found in the last few years which are not properly defined yet, so we're probably looking at a world with 7+ human species or subspecies existing at the same time.

That's six confirmed human species at once, with all but two of them being found in either Africa or Europe. If you consider that Australia and the Americas were empty up until at most 40,000 years ago, there was a lot of room that could have been filled by other species and races.

So can you have a fantasy world with the 7 core pathfinder races represented? Easily. What about the 16 uncommon added in?

Sure... Keep in mind with the under-dark and planes we've got a lot more land area to play with then the actual planet. A lot of those uncommon races have connections to other planes or are genetic anomalies of normal races.

The last 14 official races? What about them?

They're just as easy to handle... and I'm not even counting the monstrous humanoids that probably could be considered races (gremlins, gnolls, centaurs, satyrs...)

Our planet's carrying capacity is estimated at around 8-10 billion people. Divide that by 50 races and you end up averaging around 160 million per race. Of course 160,000 is more likely the average population of a race because of lower technology, but the point remains... You can fit everyone on one planet, even without throwing in the underdark or planes.

Theoretically yes, but even then it does rarely jive with the theme of a setting I tend to make. TO ME, my favorite setting of all is Conan the Barbarian. Yes, a world focusing more on people struggling against the world. Having multiple races, for me, often distracts heavily from a lot of core content.

More over, a rule of ecology, no two species can occupy the same ecological niche. You'll notice all those other humans are extinct now.

[jqavins]

More over, a rule of ecology, no two species can occupy the same ecological niche.
But they can occupy niches so similar as makes no practical difference. Skunks and raccoons, for example. Both are scavengers with diverse diets, about the same size, and enjoy similar climates and habitats. Both would rather live away from people but are found in the suburbs and cities going through trash cans. Both are significantly hurt by, and vectors for, rabies. Their ranges overlap by a whole lot. Similarly for grey squirels and chip monks, and plenty of other examples.

[Stellar_Magic]

Well, how many predators do we have in the African Savannah that target the same prey? Lions, Hyenas, Leopards, Cheetahs, and Wild Dogs. Then you've got a whole bunch of smaller ones... Jackals and so forth. So you can have a lot of different species in the same general area with the same general prey so long as they go about filling that niche different ways.

Moreover the competition that results from having similar ecological niches is a driving force for conflict between sapient peoples. Dwarves, Duergar, and Kobolds are all subterranean miners. They regularly clash.

The standard fantasy alliance of good peoples is Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. The three races normally have three separate ecological niches. Elves are forest dwellers, Dwarves are mountain/cave dwellers, and Humans are generalists.

[...]

Moreover the competition that results from having similar ecological niches is a driving force for conflict between sapient peoples. Dwarves, Duergar, and Kobolds are all subterranean miners. They regularly clash.


This leads to an even more interesting conversation: Are the three races above the only three that you could classify as miners?

[Stellar_Magic]

No, but they are the groups that would drive everyone else out of the mining business if they're in the area. At the same time they're all a bit different.

Dwarves are more stone architects then straight up 'lets get the metal out of these rocks' miners.
Kobolds are the wold's best sappers and straight up 'lets get the metal out of these rocks' miners.

Looking back at the Duergar stats, and I just realized they're not actually that good at mining. They just live in the deepest depths of the world. Gnomes are actually better with their +2 to any craft or profession.

Which would explain why Kobolds hate Gnomes, they can compete with them.

[...]

No, but they are the groups that would drive everyone else out of the mining business if they're in the area. At the same time they're all a bit different.

Dwarves are more stone architects then straight up 'lets get the metal out of these rocks' miners.
Kobolds are the wold's best sappers and straight up 'lets get the metal out of these rocks' miners.

Looking back at the Duergar stats, and I just realized they're not actually that good at mining. They just live in the deepest depths of the world. Gnomes are actually better with their +2 to any craft or profession.

Which would explain why Kobolds hate Gnomes, they can compete with them.

Actually, in LoM, there are a few Mind Flayer grafts that pertain to mining, so they want a cut of the money too, it seems. I guess they are the "lets enslave people to get the metal out of these rocks" miners.

[Stellar_Magic]

I do say that if you're running a campaign with a city under siege, if the besieging force has kobolds... You really better not be relying on your walls to protect you. Tunneling under your walls, then setting fire to the supports rapidly results in a huge hole in your walls. I bet the dwarves and gnomes do the same thing in warfare more often then other races.

[Tzi]

This leads to an even more interesting conversation: Are the three races above the only three that you could classify as miners?

That is kind of my problem with it....

Like, could I not just have a nation of human's who happen to focus on mining?

In my worlds I've made Kobolds more akin wot worker drones in an Ant (Or in this case Dragon) colony. Basically Queen Dragons breed them to be servants, helpers, protectors. They are all basically sterile worker bees for the colony.

I've toyed with it back and fourth, but in the end I ultimately rest on that notion of A) Why would an entire species be miners? B) Why do races all occupy niches in economic senses only?

In a sense it defeats the point of humans as the diverse race with many nations because almost every economic occupation is dominated in a cliche sense by some other race that basically owns an entire industry.

IDK, I simply just don't like the questions a litany of player races bring up. A song of Ice and Fire does well enough being more or less all human. This isn't to say a race of Elves or dwarves might not exist but are not necessarily player races but more supernatural races. Like Fey creatures.

[Tzi]

As an example of how I structured a "Humans Only," Setting, there were offshoots and slightly different then normal humans.

In general it broke down to,

Elemental Blooded (Which were Human stats without the bonus feat and some slightly different traits)

Divine Blooded (Kind of an Aasimar/Tiefling Mashup)

Eldar Blooded (Half Elves)

Curse born (Dhampir)

And a brutish strong half giant variant.

But for purposes of gameplay these were all treated as humans. In terms of lore and fluff, all were just simply people who had roughly the same lifespan, roughly the same physiology, ect. The purposes of gameplay I wanted the main differences in people to be cultural, not physical.