Unearthed Arcana vs Environmental splat books. Should I include both races?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all

I am currently compiling a list of the races in my world, along with which ones live where, or have to come from overseas/another plane.

Now, I have Sandstorm, Frostburn and Stormwrack, as well as UA for my games. But I am wondering, whats the point of the Arctic Dwarf when I have Glacial Dwarf? Or Desert Elf when I have the elf from Sandstorm? Should I even bother with the races from UA? Do they add anything? Seems sort of like a waste to me but I dont know if I am missing anything.

Thanks

[Red Fel]

"Should I use both races?" Null answer.

You're asking the wrong question. It's not "Should I use both races," because the answer to that is, "If you intend to use both races." Which isn't remotely helpful.

It's, "Do these races serve a function in my setting?" And the follow-up, "Are any of my players using any of these races?"

First: Do they serve a function in your setting? Not in a vacuum, but in your setting specifically, is there some function served by Arctic Dwarves, Glacial Dwarves, or twenty-some-odd other varieties of Dwarves? Or is it enough to have one or two and call it a day? Does it add something to your setting - other than simply more races - to add more races? If the answer to that is "Yes," then use the races that fill in the holes in the setting, whichever those races might be. If the answer is "No," then why add them? There's no obligation.

Second: Are any of your players using one of these races? Unless you want to let your PCs be "last of their kind" special snowflakes, there's no harm in using a PC's race in your world. For instance, if a player really wants to play a Shifter, you can take a random population of, say, Wild Elves, and replace them with Shifters. Easy. Similarly, if someone wants to play a Gold Dwarf, that's not too hard to slip in between the other Dwarves. And keep in mind, you don't have to say yes - if someone wants to play a Genasi, you're always within rights to say, "No Planetouched in this setting, sorry," and be done with it. But if you have a PC of a given race, it generally helps to work that race into your setting.

But in a vacuum, there's no right answer to "Should I include X race?" Frankly, I think including all of the races is quite a bit of overkill, but that's me; I can't tell you how to create your setting.

[Albions_Angel]

Sorry, I didnt want to get into my world too much because it would take forever.

In brief, the playable area of my world is temperate to frostfell in temp, with everything from bogs to mountains to fjords to forests. There is a place for all races in PHB, most of the elf and dwarf races from MM, All races from frostburn and stormwrack and all races from Races of Stone and The Wild. Rarer races are present, featuring Planar Hanbook, Dragon Magic, Magic of Incarnum, Destiny and Races of the Dragon. While there is no playable area of desert, I include Sandstorm races as visitors from other areas of the world.

My issue isnt "should I include Glacial Dwarves and Arctic Dwarves", its "What purpose do the UA races serve when they have counterparts in other books?"

What does an Arctic Dwarf get that a Glacier Dwarf doesnt? Given the above list of books I am pulling races from, will my players hurt if I exclude the races from UA (I am using only some parts of UA. At the moment, its Races, Spells, Variant Classes and Feats, no flaws or rules).

Does that make my question clearer? I am not really sure if the UA races were there because things like a snowy dwarf or elf were missing, then Frostburn came along and sort of... replaced them?

[Telonius]

What does an Arctic Dwarf get that a Glacier Dwarf doesnt?

Free legal access to anyone who can connect to the SRD, mainly. They're open game license, and Frostburn & Co. aren't.

"Dwarf that lives where it's cold" fits both of them pretty accurately. You could cross out the Glacier Dwarf's stats in Frostburn and write in the Arctic Dwarf's, and vice versa, and they'd still fit the concepts. Mechanically, they're a little bit different; if you don't like losing Dex, then Arctic is not for you. But conceptually? They're pretty much interchangeable.

[Zaq]

Does it hurt anything to include them? It's not like you need to necessarily separate them. Why not have both glacier dwarves and arctic dwarves (for example) living together and not even really differentiating between themselves? It would be easy to have them not think of themselves as being "glacier dwarves, who are not arctic dwarves" and "arctic dwarves, who are not glacier dwarves," but instead they just think of themselves as being "dwarves from Northpeak" (or whatever), and if they don't all have the exact same racial stats, that doesn't really change things, you know? Not everyone is exactly the same, and that's not a bad thing.

That gives you the flexibility to use whichever race you need if it happens to come up (either because an NPC becomes relevant or because a player wants to use that race or whatever), but it's only going to be a big deal if you make it be a big deal. No one is going to say "how come this dwarf NPC has a +2 to a different thing than this other dwarf NPC?" It's not really extra work, because it's only going to be as relevant as you make it. So I say just throw everything in and then focus on it as it becomes relevant, rather than spending a ton of time deciding which specific subraces are in and which specific subraces are out.