[D&D 5e] Consequences of limiting race choices to only Human.

[Inchoroi]

So, I'm making a campaign. Its going along, but the logical extension of one of the points of the formation of the world is that there would not be any other races besides Human--probably human variant, just because that's what everyone goes for, anyway.

What would be the consequences of that?

From what I can tell, the only thing I can think of is limiting choices, but I'm not sure I actually like that. Instead, what if I created new variations on human, from each area of the world?

Has anyone else ever done something like this?

[Prince Zahn]

I'd imagine imagine where only major loss goes into versatility.:smallconfused:

The game can live with only humans, but the players would miss out on a lot of options for racial traits, which I think can be very important.

I suppose one option you could do to remove the feat, and compensate it with real racial features. You might reimagine races like elves and halflings as races, cultures, or communities of humans - one race of human might be notoriously lucky, another human culture might be hardier folk who are skilled with fighting and drinking ale, while a third community supposedly knows a secret technique to sneezing out cones of lightning damage :smalltongue:

If you want a simpler version to keep the variety, perhaps allow each player to pick one or two racial features from a race they like and use it with their human? What do you think of that?

[Stan]

From what I can tell, the only thing I can think of is limiting choices, but I'm not sure I actually like that. Instead, what if I created new variations on human, from each area of the world?


I've done this for historical fantasy D&D (or to simulate a fantasy book full of humans) but not for 5e. It's some work as you are basically making new races. It can feel more racist to, instead of saying humans are X, elves are Y, say French are X, Germans are Y.

[Inchoroi]

I've done this for historical fantasy D&D (or to simulate a fantasy book full of humans) but not for 5e. It's some work as you are basically making new races. It can feel more racist to, instead of saying humans are X, elves are Y, say French are X, Germans are Y.

Actually, the first thing that occurs to me is basing the various versions of human on the nine alignments, since the greater gods of the setting are also based on the alignments.

[eleazzaar]

So, I'm making a campaign. Its going along, but the logical extension of one of the points of the formation of the world is that there would not be any other races besides Human--probably human variant, just because that's what everyone goes for, anyway.

Let's define terms a little. Here in the real world we use "race" to indicate those superficial but noticeable variations in our species. When talking about fantasy we use it for that too, but also to indicate entirely different species (like lizardfolk).

But if we met them in the real world, all but two or three of the PHB races would be considered part of the human species. We have very short humans. We have slim and beautiful humans. We have short and stocky bearded humans. We don't have pointed ears, but really is that important?

So by just adjusting the fluff slightly you could consider most of the PHB races as simply a sub-division of humanity.

Weather that works for you or not, you must decide...

[DracoKnight]

You can do something similar to what I did for my Westeros setting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B66RprYE6_HHVUlRREVjWG8waWM/view?usp=sharing

It makes for diversity without sacrificing your vision for the world :)