Character race restrictions, or no? (Established Settings)

[Schwann145]

5e gets a lot of flak from time to time about how everyone wants to play the most exotic and outlandish races, and from personal experience it's a pretty legit criticism - races like Tiefling, Genasi, Dragonborn, Tabaxi, Tortles, etc seem to get picked a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of character expression and if it fits the game/world then yes, I'm all in. However...

The PH *does* explicitly say that some races are much more rare than others, and NPC reactions will be a thing such players will have to deal with if such a race is allowed, etc. And in established settings, we kind of have an idea of population makeup for most places, and exotic races are rare. Like, really rare.
For example, let's look at Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms, a place where you're as like to see Tieflings as anywhere, right? At least according to the wiki:
Humans 64%
Dwarves 10%
Elves 10%
Halflings 5%
Half-elves 5%
Gnomes 3%
Half-orcs 2%
Others 1%
If you're not a Human, you're rare. If you're not a Human, Dwarf, or Elf, you're REALLY rare!

I just so happen to be looking at Rashamen lately, and they have a 99% human population as a nation. 99%!


So! To keep to setting expectations, would you limit players to certain races, with the understanding that some will be much more rare than others?
Or do you let players just make whatever and roll with it always?

[Wizard_Lizard]

Well I guess my view on that is that pcs are exceptional.. and not nescessarily from such cities?? As long as they take it into account for their character and it's cool I'll allow it, obviously things like shifters, changelings, warforged, and dragonmarked individuals tend to be on eberron without a good explaination.

[LudicSavant]

5e gets a lot of flak from time to time about how everyone wants to play the most exotic and outlandish races, and from personal experience it's a pretty legit criticism - races like Tiefling, Genasi, Dragonborn, Tabaxi, Tortles, etc seem to get picked a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of character expression and if it fits the game/world then yes, I'm all in. However...

The PH *does* explicitly say that some races are much more rare than others, and NPC reactions will be a thing such players will have to deal with if such a race is allowed, etc. And in established settings, we kind of have an idea of population makeup for most places, and exotic races are rare. Like, really rare.
For example, let's look at Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms, a place where you're as like to see Tieflings as anywhere, right? At least according to the wiki:
Humans 64%
Dwarves 10%
Elves 10%
Halflings 5%
Half-elves 5%
Gnomes 3%
Half-orcs 2%
Others 1%
If you're not a Human, you're rare. If you're not a Human, Dwarf, or Elf, you're REALLY rare!

I just so happen to be looking at Rashamen lately, and they have a 99% human population as a nation. 99%!


So! To keep to setting expectations, would you limit players to certain races, with the understanding that some will be much more rare than others?
Or do you let players just make whatever and roll with it always?

Yao Ming and Muggsy Bogues are not common basketball players but it would be pretty weird if they couldn’t team up in Space Jam.

Also, even if you’re in a place like Rashemen, 1% of a population is still several thousand people who may, on occasion, try to hang out with each other.

Seriously, four people of a 1% ethnicity hanging out together isn’t exactly an unheard of occurrence. I wouldn’t even call such a thing particularly exceptional or special.

So why shouldn’t we be able to tell stories about those specific individuals having adventures?


obviously things like shifters, changelings, warforged, and dragonmarked individuals tend to be on eberron without a good explaination.

Dragonmarked are perhaps the easiest refluff: they’re (insert base race) with a fluff similar to Magic Initiate or a caster dip or the like.

Warforged are adapted pretty easily into all the stories of sentient constructs.

Changelings and Shifters are basically just half-doppelgangers and half-lycanthropes and most official D&D settings seem to already have a precedent for humans breeding with bloody anything.

Kalashtar are probably the ones with the most setting specific fluff, mostly for the bit about dreams.

[Unoriginal]

Yao Ming and Muggsy Bogues are not common basketball players but it would be pretty weird if they couldn’t team up in Space Jam.

Also, even if you’re in a place like Rashemen, 1% of a population is still several thousand people who may, on occasion, try to hang out with each other.

Seriously, four people of a 1% ethnicity hanging out together isn’t exactly an unheard of occurrence. I wouldn’t even call such a thing exceptional or special.

Yeah, 1% of Waterdeep is about twenty thousand people.

[Draconi Redfir]

i don't see a problem with limiting race options. if you live on a human-only continent, having some Orcs walking around might be a bit hard to explain.


If people really want it, i could see having a Possibility of playing rare or otherwise restricted races. if they can write a good backstory explaining how that character got to this location they wouldn't otherwise be in, and/or roll within a certain range on a d100, then sure why not. a chance is better then nothing right?

Otherwise yeah, limits are fine. just be sure to explain that to everyone going in.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Dragonmarked are perhaps the easiest refluff: they’re (insert base race) with a fluff similar to Magic Initiate or a caster dip or the like.

Warforged are adapted pretty easily into all the stories of sentient constructs.

Changelings and Shifters are basically just half-doppelgangers and half-lycanthropes and most official D&D settings seem to already have a precedent for humans breeding with bloody anything.

Kalashtar are probably the ones with the most setting specific fluff, mostly for the bit about dreams.

Yeah when I say like explaination I just mean something like that, if you can tell me how your race fits into the world 90% of the time it's sure, reflavouring is allowed.

[Naanomi]

It depends to some degree on what story is being told, I'm usually ok with players being very rare species as long as they know that might have some RP consequences for being so rare/exotic/unknown/whatever.

That being said, obviously setting restrictions for races that just don't exist is sometimes a thing. There are not gnomes on Athas, if we are playing Darksun you cannot be a gnome.

[huttj509]

As long as you're upfront with your players about it, sure!

By which I mean when you pitch "hey, I'm doing a new campaign, want in?" This is when you should include race/class/rulebook restrictions. Otherwise when you show up at character creation players WILL have some idea of what they want to play, and restricting things then can feel like taking that mental image away from the player.

Sure, it'd be nice if the players didn't spend any mental prep time until the normal point when your group lays out rules/concept/restrictions, but I can't control my daydreaming, I'm not gonna expect others to either.

[LudicSavant]

Or do you let players just make whatever and roll with it always?

It's okay to set restrictions. You can just say "this is a campaign about dwarves digging a hole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWz0qVvBZ0). Please play a party that predominantly consists of dwarves with familial ties to clan politics." Or "gnomes don't exist in my world. There are zero of them."

But the core question you should be answering when setting such a restriction is "why can't I tell a story about X race?"

"There are no gnomes on Athas" is an answer to that question. "1% of the people of Athas are gnomes" doesn't -- after all, you can tell a story about that 1%. If you don't want to tell that story, you can just say why.

[OldTrees1]

I don't see a problem with setting limitations as part of a campaign premise.
But remember there are 0% Hobbits in Mordor or the Lonely Mountain.

However I prefer letting the players have any species they want. Especially since it is a jumping off point for characterization.
"We are in the Underdark, why is your Goliath character here?"

[Composer99]

It's going to depend on the setting. The Forgotten Realms is, as the default setting of 5e, IMO best approached as a setting where anything goes. From what I can quickly find online, the population of Faerûn alone is circa 65-70 million, never mind the rest of Toril. With those kinds of numbers, it's... really not that hard to imagine someone from pretty much any of the PC races published so far being a PC.

By contrast, as someone's already noted, there are no gnomes in Dark Sun - and if you want to play, say, an Athasian halfing, you sure as heck ain't playing Bilbo Baggins. If you're playing Adventures in Middle Earth (a 5e OGL game, recently out of print) straight out of the book, you're not playing (half-)orcs, tortles, kobolds, plane-touched, etc. etc.

Now, having stated all that, if there's a particular set of racial features you really really want to play with as part of your character concept, but they belong to a race that doesn't exist in the setting, talk to your DM and see if you can come up with a way to re-flavour a member of an extant race so as to get those features. Alternately, you can even go with just being from another plane of existence, especially in an established D&D setting which is more or less assumed to connect to the D&D multiverse.

From the DM side, if you're going to play in a setting with restrictions, or add restrictions to a setting that doesn't nominally have them, as others have noted, tell your players upfront. And be willing to be at least a little flexible.

[HPisBS]

Lots of people choose to play fantastical races, and they're being "too exotic."
Lots of people choose to play Vuman, and they're being "too basic."

It's almost like people will nitpick what other people do no matter what....



As for game-world demographics, casters tend to be way overrepresented in PCs' parties relative to the number of casters in the fiction's overworld. Any yet, we (mostly) accept it without question because the PCs are supposed to be exceptional. It makes sense then, within the fiction, that their training and above-average ability scores wouldn't be the only things that set them apart from the norm.

- That said, DMs are, like always, free to disallow any races they don't want to exist or to be too conspicuous in their setting. Or to only allow them when the player comes up with an appropriate backstory. Or whatever else.

[kazaryu]

So! To keep to setting expectations, would you limit players to certain races, with the understanding that some will be much more rare than others?
Or do you let players just make whatever and roll with it always?

i do not tend to restrict player. races. you know whats rarer than a tiefling? a PC. seriously. PC's are incredibly rare. with the noted exception of in the instance of faerun where adventurer league occurs, PC's are rare in most settings. They're meant to be special. they're the people born rarely with the capability of saving the entire plane once they've trained for a few weeks. if someone wants to play using one of the more exotic races, let 'em i say.

[strangebloke]

The main thing is having a backstory that works. Don't invent places and people groups that can't or shouldn't exist within the setting. IMO Tieflings and Aasimar and Genasi tend to be the least troublesome races because you can always have nominally human parents. The real trouble is when the story premise is "You're a bunch of friends from a small town" and someone writes a proud nation of centaurs into existence just outside the village.

[Droppeddead]

The real trouble is when the story premise is "You're a bunch of friends from a small town" and someone writes a proud nation of centaurs into existence just outside the village.

Yeah, this. I mean, it could perhaps work but you need to run that **** passed the DM. :P

[Mastikator]

The main thing is having a backstory that works. Don't invent places and people groups that can't or shouldn't exist within the setting. IMO Tieflings and Aasimar and Genasi tend to be the least troublesome races because you can always have nominally human parents. The real trouble is when the story premise is "You're a bunch of friends from a small town" and someone writes a proud nation of centaurs into existence just outside the village.

This is why you give players an introduction to the game setting and their expectations before they make characters. IMO if you're restricting races just give a list of accepted races before character generation starts.

[Jerrykhor]

IMO i would not like it if the DM tells me that I can't roll a Tiefling because Bob is already rolling one, and Tieflings are too rare to have a 2nd one in the party. Its a red flag.

Ban it, or allow it, there is no in between.

[Glorthindel]

If the race exists in the world setting (and with great wheel cosmology, even if they don't, but exist somewhere in the multiverse), a player can play it - as others are said, PC's are meant to be the special and the 1%.

That said, that doesn't mean the setting is going to treat you as normal. If you are of an exceedlingly rare species, one with historic hang-ups in the setting (Athasian Halflings being very different to those found elsewhere for example), or easily mistaken for something more common in the world that is a lot less friendly, you are going to have to deal with that in character, being a PC does not excuse you from the repercussions of being unique in a (sometimes very xenophobic) world. If you bring a Dragonborn into a Dragonlance game, no amount of saying otherwise will stop every NPC you meet thinking you are a Draconian, and responding accordingly. Likewise, barring a setting where Tieflings are widely understood to not be Devils (I believe the Nentir Vale setting tried really hard to dig Tieflings-as-a-race into the setting background, but that's the only one I can think off-hand), life is going to be frequently annoying or hazardous in varying measures.

[Jerrykhor]

Also, i realise there are some DMs that like to say, 'I'll let you play a rare race if your backstory is good.'

Don't do that. It feels like a job application, and the backstory is the resume. Also, it usually sparks DM vs player arguments. If i ask the DM if Race X is playable or not, you give a yes or no answer. I don't care if its 1%, 5% or 20% of the population, it doesn't matter.

At most, just ask them to give a reason why they are in a place where their type is rare. But that also depends on the adventure hook, and you shouldn't give a hook that is too restrictive, like 'This is an event where only humans are allowed.'

[MrStabby]

IMO i would not like it if the DM tells me that I can't roll a Tiefling because Bob is already rolling one, and Tieflings are too rare to have a 2nd one in the party. Its a red flag.

Ban it, or allow it, there is no in between.

Yeah, I have to massively agree with this.

However it is decided, extending privaliges to some players at character creation that you do not extend to all is a Big Problem in my eyes.

[Kuu Lightwing]

From reading online discussions (which are probably not representative of the actual game), I feel like the common approach to most things is "Anything goes".

"PC's are rare" argument is fair, I suppose, but you still kinda have to take into account that population might not be used to these rare species at all, and they could legitimately confuse a Tiefling with a demon, with all the consequences. This creates a conflict between trying to create a sense of the verisimilitude in the world vs player fun (unless player wants that kind of treatment from NPCs)

So, what I'm getting at, while "PC's are rare" does answer the question somewhat, it doesn't paint the whole picture, and PCs probably should be prepared for consequences if they decide to play "exotic" species in one of these settings.

[Naanomi]

If the race exists in the world setting (and with great wheel cosmology, even if they don't, but exist somewhere in the multiverse), a player can play it - as others are said, PC's are meant to be the special and the 1%
I'm not quite that permissive... Just because Athas is technically on the Great Wheel, and the Great Wheel technically contains both the MtG universes and the Border Peaks adventure, and we have one example of canon extraplar incursions into Athas from a spelljammer vessel... doesn't mean I'm signing off on a Vedalken Cyborg for our next Darksun game

[Kurt Kurageous]

To keep to setting expectations, would you limit players to certain races, with the understanding that some will be much more rare than others?
Or do you let players just make whatever and roll with it always?

I set expectations in advance. Not just for race. Sometimes class. I've tried to be an all rules guy, but Tasha's broke me. I can't bring myself to read it again.

[strangebloke]

This is why you give players an introduction to the game setting and their expectations before they make characters. IMO if you're restricting races just give a list of accepted races before character generation starts.

Yup. I think every DM starts out to eager to appease and allows everything but this easily leads into an incoherent mess.

[TyGuy]

I got flak from one player for having a curated race list. He got over it eventually. I think it's an appropriate way to craft a setting.

I'm in full support of curating the races that exist in the setting. I think it's acceptable to restrict adversarial races in the setting or making it crystal clear up front how interactions will likely play out with certain races. A little less on board with restricting a race as an option if it exists in the setting because of rarity. The adventures are rarities to begin with. And I'm not at all ok with race limits, e.g. one tiefling allowed for the party.

[Darth Credence]

I run my own world, rather than an established setting, but I think there is some relevance here.

I have yet to actually restrict a race, because my players haven't asked for any that I would, and I don't want to go through and list every restriction. If I had to make a list, I'd say that I am allowing everything from any book except EGtW, MOoT, TTP, AI, LR, OGA, or UA. And then I would follow it up with if you want to play a warforged, hobgoblin, or bugbear, we need to work something out.

The reason why I would say no to the books I do is because there are none in my world. They just don't exist, so no one can play them. I'm not confident enough in the UA stuff to roll with it, and we are far enough into the campaign that adding stuff like that now wouldn't make sense.

But the hobgoblin, bugbear, and warforged are where I'm sure some people would hate me as a DM. I would probably allow one warforged, and only one, and we have a limit on the number of bugbears and hobgoblins allowed. This was covered in session 0, though, so I don't feel bad about it. In my world, there is one hemisphere where the campaign is taking place, and it is fairly similar to FR in terms of level of technology. During the last time that everything got reset, it happened in that hemisphere, not the other one. During that event, that hemisphere lost the knowledge of the other one, even though the other one still knows about it. Well, the other one has advanced, and are now closer to Eberron. H1 was chosen by the initial players as where they wanted to do the campaign, as a choice between four different possibilities. So, lower technology, no warforged, and no hobgoblins or bugbears. They had been wiped out on H1, but are the dominant force on H2.

Now, a new player came in, really wanting to play a hobgoblin artificer - would have been great on H2, but not so much on H1. So I worked with him, and we decided that he was from H2, and was part of an expedition meant to re-establish trade with H1, although he was the only survivor of an attack on their ships. Great, we have a story that works. Another player decided they were not happy playing a beastmaster ranger (pre-Tasha's), and wanted to change. He wanted to play a bugbear. So, we made a backstory for him that he was sent to check on the previous expedition (which was technically illegal), and bring them back to face justice. His time in H1 while looking caused him to decide to not follow up on that, and eventually joined the group when he tracked down the first one. If someone else wants to play a bugbear or hobgoblin, we'll have to come up with some other explanation, and no, I would not allow them to just be a person from a village the rest of the party passed through and wanted to adventure.

For a warforged, I'm pretty much only going to allow it if the original hobgoblin artificer builds one, and someone ends up playing it. I have no desire to attempt any other explanation, I would talk about it with everyone before I would allow any warforged, and if it is a problem I would just disallow it in general. I do not see a problem with that, as long as everyone in the campaign is on board with the reasons for the restrictions and agree that it is what will make the campaign work.

[JonBeowulf]

I'm going to beat on my "choices have consequences" drum again.

I make it very clear in the campaign description what is not allowed (with reasons) and what is discouraged (with reasons). If a player wants to go with something that is discouraged, then they also implicitly agree to deal with why it was discouraged.

Personally, I prefer to play humans, dwarfs, half-elves, and elves (in that order) but that's prob because I've been playing since OD&D and these new-fangled races are too strange for me to get my old-man brain around. I don't mind other people playing them, though, as long as the character's behavior is believable.

[MoiMagnus]

If you're not a Human, you're rare. If you're not a Human, Dwarf, or Elf, you're REALLY rare!

If you're a commoner, sure.

But if you're a wizard, it would not surprise me if at least 30% of all the Wizards in the world were Gnomes (despite them only making 3% of the population).

Additionally, if you're an adventurer, you're likely an outcast of some sort, which significantly increases your probability of being of another race than the main races.

Combine the two, and half of the adventurer & wizard are probably Gnomes.

[This is an interpretation that might not match the interpretation you or your GM choses for the campaign]


So! To keep to setting expectations, would you limit players to certain races, with the understanding that some will be much more rare than others?
Or do you let players just make whatever and roll with it always?

The latter. The setting is not that relevant.

However, to keep to the campaign expectation, races might be restricted. In a lot of campaign I've played, the GM has a very precise idea of the starting point of the campaign they want, so if your character idea doesn't match, you would need to either change it, or work with the DM and build enough of a backstory to justify why your character is compatible with the starting point of the campaign.

[nickl_2000]

As a player I've had DMs make race restrictions.

For example:
-No Aarakocra or Winged Tielfling because I don't want to deal with at will flight at level 1.
-These are common races, these are rare races, there are ultra race races. As a group, please have at more 1 ultra rare and one rare race.
-No monsterous races as I don't want to have to deal with that in a city.


I don't see any issue with any of these. The DM is doing a lot of work to create an environment in how the want the campaign to go, so this isn't an unreasonable request.

[Joe the Rat]

As long as you're upfront with your players about it, sure!

By which I mean when you pitch "hey, I'm doing a new campaign, want in?" This is when you should include race/class/rulebook restrictions. Otherwise when you show up at character creation players WILL have some idea of what they want to play, and restricting things then can feel like taking that mental image away from the player.

Sure, it'd be nice if the players didn't spend any mental prep time until the normal point when your group lays out rules/concept/restrictions, but I can't control my daydreaming, I'm not gonna expect others to either.

This is key - if you are going to restrict options, it should be for setting-related reasons, and you should be clear with your players about what is and isn't in the pool.

But for my current game, I pulled a silly. I let my players build whatever they wanted, no limits. And what they chose determined what absolutely was in the world. So I have gnomes and warforged and genasi and changelings. I have humans and tortles because it fit player's stories. And no elves or reptilian/draconic folk or goblins.

I also had the wonderful opportunity of dropping an entire approach to magic, because of class selections - there is no Wizardry. It let me redefine the origins and flavors of magic.

[thoroughlyS]

I will echo other poster who say this is a Session 0 question. Does your party want to play "average" people who come from mundane backgrounds? Or do they want to be seen as "unusual" in character? If your players want to be a ragtag band of a tiefling, tortle, warforged, and aarakocra, how do they want the world to react to that? If the aarakocra wants to be seen as "mundane" then you can have NPCs react that way. On the other hand, if the tortle wants to be noticed you can do that too.

The answer to this question depends entirely on the opinions of you and your players.

[Xervous]

Jumping on the obvious session 0...

It’s about what game everyone is getting together to play. You should have that ironed out at the start and gotten buy in. You could contrive examples where I’d argue a GMs ban of specific races stems from incompetence but generally there’s no moral weighting on such restrictions. Just because you have the whole spice cabinet doesn’t mean you let everyone toss a handful of whatever into the mix. Agree on what you’re cooking first!

[micahaphone]

You can certainly pitch this idea in session 0, I'd be interested in playing in such a game if a DM suggested it.

But as to "this city is 99% x" the 1% could also be in a party because being an outsider can lead you to seek out other outsiders in the same area, form your own community. After all, how many DnD parties end up becoming the Found Family trope?

[Unoriginal]

Speaking of "99% of the people in the city aren't [X PC option]", have you ever seen people limit how many PCs can take the Noble background?

[OldTrees1]

Speaking of "99% of the people in the city aren't [X PC option]", have you ever seen people limit how many PCs can take the Noble background?

While there are fewer noble than non nobles in the population, nobles tend to be able to afford the hobby of adventuring without losing the farm.
Sir Pellinore's Questing Beast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questing_Beast)

Although, does that reasoning apply to the PC classes and species? (IDK, I just allow the PCs)

[KyleG]

Im running restrictions but at session it's laid out. Following that a second lot of restrictions, setting rules are applied based on character selections. Eg. No druids selected, perfect, there are now no druids in or setting. No one selected tieflings, poof, no longer relevant. Would new impact only on character change/death, or new player.

[Trask]

There is nothing wrong with curating the race availability IMO. I think its already kind of being done by default, I imagine most tables don't have aaracockra, bugbears, orcs, changelings, loxodons and whatnot, though some definitely do go with the "if its in a book, its fair game approach." The tables I go to usually don't do that though, there usually is a limit.

In my own personal philosophy on the matter, I think that its somewhat virtuous to at least make sure theres a place for every race in the players handbook, especially if you play with a lot of newbies so they can just pick what they want. I dont extend the same to non-core races though, and even within the PHB I dont think anyone would blink too hard if you said the rare races like dragonborn and tieflings didnt exist, might be a harder sell if you said there are no elves and dwarves, this is D&D after all, people come to the game with certain assumptions.

[Elandel]

I think the DM should have a chance to express his favored races for the game he's organizing.
You're adventurers, weirdos seeking danger, and any race may be found among you. But I can totally see why some people would restrict the race selection - if four players pick "special" races every entering of a city may fill a whole session cuz why should the guards let an orc, a drow, a bugbear and that... slimy thing pass if all of them are their natural enemies?
But well, do as it fits for you and your group and, never forget that, have fun! :)

[NorthernPhoenix]

There's nothing wrong with restricting certain races, and DMs (especially new ones) shouldn't feel pressured to hide behind settings, official of otherwise. It could simply be that you don't enjoy have playable X (for example Orcs), in which case you don't have to purge them from the setting to not have them playable.

That said, i do agree that there is such a thing as being over-zealous with this and that you probably shouldn't remove more than 1 of the PHB races without being very clear about the fact up front. Those are the ones new players reasonably expect to play, after all.

[KorvinStarmast]

It depends to some degree on what story is being told, I'm usually ok with players being very rare species as long as they know that might have some RP consequences for being so rare/exotic/unknown/whatever. This. I lay that out ahead of time as DM before Chargen.
"But I already rolled up a tiefling sorcerer!"
"Roll up, or otherwise create, a different PC; there aren't any tiefling PCs in the world."
"But I want a tiefling sorcerer."
"You sure do, and that's cool. You also just told me that you want a different DM."

It's going to depend on the setting.
By contrast, as someone's already noted, there are no gnomes in Dark Sun -

From the DM side, if you're going to play in a setting with restrictions, or add restrictions to a setting that doesn't nominally have them, as others have noted, tell your players upfront. Yes. Dialogue is a good thing.
Lots of people choose to play fantastical races, and they're being "too exotic."
Lots of people choose to play Vuman, and they're being "too basic."

It's almost like people will nitpick what other people do no matter what.... That's what internet boards are for, right? :smallbiggrin: (Emphasis added)

As for game-world demographics, casters tend to be way overrepresented in PCs' parties relative to the number of casters in the fiction's overworld. Might be due to torches and pitchforks being a thing ... :smallcool:

That said, DMs are, like always, free to disallow any races they don't want to exist or to be too conspicuous in their setting. Or to only allow them when the player comes up with an appropriate backstory. Or whatever else. Yep.


The real trouble is when the story premise is "You're a bunch of friends from a small town" and someone writes a proud nation of centaurs into existence just outside the village. DM looks at the map, and advises the writer that they need to create a game world and DM it some time, since DM would like to play now and again also ... :smallcool:

This is why you give players an introduction to the game setting and their expectations before they make characters. yep.


IMO i would not like it if the DM tells me that I can't roll a Tiefling because Bob is already rolling one, and Tieflings are too rare to have a 2nd one in the party. Its a red flag. Your red flag is also a red flag, to some DMs. :smallwink:

I got flak from one player for having a curated race list. He got over it eventually. Glad to hear it.

Just because you have the whole spice cabinet doesn’t mean you let everyone toss a handful of whatever into the mix. Agree on what you’re cooking first! As someone who cooks a lot, this is a great analogy! :smallsmile:

[False God]

If the setting has guidelines on what races make up the population, or exist at all, I follow them. (unless we're doing some kind of "teleported from another realm" sort of setup). We have Session Zero first to discuss this, that way noone shows up with some random other thing that I clearly stated was not available. Had a couple players do that even after a Session Zero, they were kindly asked to pack their things.

I also include racial restrictions in homebrew settings, depending on what I think makes a good world.

Personally, I find myself playing 5E Humans a lot.