Exotic species aren't so exotic, eh?

[Schwann145]

To quote the PHB:

The dragonborn and the rest of the races in this chapter are uncommon. They don't exist in every world of D&D, and even where they are found, they are less widespread than dwarves, elves, halfings, and humans.
In the cosmopolitan cities of the D&D multiverse, most people hardly look twice at members of even the most exotic races. But the small towns and villages that dot the countryside are different. The common folk aren't accustomed to seeing members of these races, and they react accordingly.
Dragonborn. It's easy to assume that a dragonborn is a monster, especially if his or her scales betray a chromatic heritage. Unless the dragonborn starts breathing fire and causing destruction, though, people are likely to respond with caution rather than outright fear.
Gnome. Gnomes don't look like a threat and can quickly disarm suspicion with good humor. The common folk are often curious about gnomes, likely never having seen one before, but they are rarely hostile or fearful.
Half-EIf. Although many people have never seen a half-elf, virtually everyone knows they exist. A half-elf stranger's arrival is followed by gossip behind the half-elf's back and stolen glances across the common room, rather than any confrontation or open curiosity.
Half-Orc. It's usually safe to assume that a half-orc is belligerent and quick to anger, so people watch themselves around an unfamiliar half-orc. Shopkeepers might surreptitiously hide valuable or fragile goods when a half-orc comes in, and people slowly clear out of a tavern, assuming a fight will break out soon.
Tiefling. Half-orcs are greeted with a practical caution, but tieflings are the subject of supernatural fear. The evil of their heritage is plainly visible in their features, and as far as most people are concerned, a tiefling could very well be a devil straight from the Nine Hells. People might make warding signs as a tiefling approaches, cross the street to avoid passing near, or bar shop doors before a tiefling can enter.
It seems that many (most?) tables just totally ignore the above. I imagine a lot of this has to do with the fact that Critical Role also ignores all of the above and 5e owes a lot of it's popularity to CR.
But what about worlds other than Exandria? Tiefling seems to be a very popular pick in this edition. Are we having the conversation with players that, "you look like a fiend, and fiends are... well, fiends; the epitome of walking, talking, evil. You should be prepared for a lot of side eye at the very least."? (And that's not to mention that the tiefling of old just had a weird physical feature or quirk that made them stand out. Today's tiefling are basically indistinguishable from full-blooded Cambion!)

And that's not even getting into much more exotic and/or setting-specific races. For instance, Warforged just don't exist anywhere outside of Eberron, and Eberron is supposed to be cut off from other worlds, all on it's own.
Sure, you can ignore that if your player really wants to play as a Warforged, but the creation/discovery of a fully sentient mechanical construct with self-determination and will is a massively world/society shaking event, just as it was in Eberron! Are we letting players know that they will probably struggle with not only being the only one of their kind, but also a marvel never-before-seen that will draw unwanted attention from potential friends and foes alike?

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

[Cheesegear]

It seems that many (most?) tables just totally ignore the above. I imagine a lot of this has to do with the fact that Critical Role also ignores all of the above and 5e owes a lot of it's popularity to CR.

I think most tables ignore it, because if they don't the DM is forced to engage in fictional racism, and most DMs don't want to do even that. Can't we just go back to killing monsters? But then we go down the road of "But what if some Goblins are good, actually?" and then we go down one of D&D's rabbit hole spirals of doom.

Can we just not?


Are we having the conversation with players that, "you look like a fiend, and fiends are... well, fiends; the epitome of walking, talking, evil. You should be prepared for a lot of side eye at the very least."?

I agree that you can have that conversation, and I agree that in many cases it makes total sense to have that conversation - especially with Half-Orcs and Drow, as well. Duergar? Please. Also who even knows WTF a Tabaxi even is!?

But ultimately you're talking about preventing someone from (or at the very least providing a huge disincentive to) playing the character that they want to play, and I don't think that that's constructive.

You can have a [board probably wont let me use the word] bartender, sure. But they should be individuals, and not the norm. I have a few individuals in my campaigns every now and then. Sure. But ultimately...

Almost everyone you meet is going to hate you on sight.
So are you telling me I should roll a new character or not?

...Feels bad.

[Psyren]

Tiefling seems to be a very popular pick in this edition.

It is, and so is Dragonborn. (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1648-2023-unrolled-a-look-back-at-a-year-of-adventure#Species)


Are we having the conversation with players that, "you look like a fiend, and fiends are... well, fiends; the epitome of walking, talking, evil. You should be prepared for a lot of side eye at the very least."? (And that's not to mention that the tiefling of old just had a weird physical feature or quirk that made them stand out. Today's tiefling are basically indistinguishable from full-blooded Cambion!)

And that's not even getting into much more exotic and/or setting-specific races. For instance, Warforged just don't exist anywhere outside of Eberron, and Eberron is supposed to be cut off from other worlds, all on it's own.
Sure, you can ignore that if your player really wants to play as a Warforged, but the creation/discovery of a fully sentient mechanical construct with self-determination and will is a massively world/society shaking event, just as it was in Eberron! Are we letting players know that they will probably struggle with not only being the only one of their kind, but also a marvel never-before-seen that will draw unwanted attention from potential friends and foes alike?

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

My personal view is that anything in the PHB shouldn't be considered all that exotic in most printed worlds. There can certainly be some exceptions to this, like Dragonborn in Krynn or Dwarves in Ravnica, but for me the whole point of having a core is that it's core to the game and that there shouldn't be any narrative traps for new players/DMs to stumble into. Picking a species from the PHB only to find out that the one they picked is the "pitchfork species" that they can't take to the hamlet for fear of starting a riot or being denied entry to the tavern etc. is just going to feel bad as a newcomer.

[kingcheesepants]

Most (though far from all) tables ignore this because while it might be interesting the first one or two times, fantasy racism gets old real fast and adds little fun to the game. So sure have a scene in the first session where the questgiver is immediately hostile and distrusting because one of the players is a half orc, but if they have to do that whole song and dance every time they go into a new town or meet a new person the whole table is going to be bored.

[Schwann145]

The aversion to "fantasy racism" sounds reasonable at face value...
But if the world (worlds?) is going to be openly accepting of the PCs of exotic (potentially troublesome/evil) heritage, does that go for all species as well, even NPCs? Even the ones with alignment keywords?
Seems unreasonable, and also works towards killing a lot of potential tension in the world(s) (and tension is what drives narrative and keeps it engaging).

[Millstone85]

But if the world (worlds?) is going to be openly accepting of the PCs of exotic (potentially troublesome/evil) heritage, does that go for all species as well, even NPCs? Even the ones with alignment keywords?There is a monster treadmill, I think. Playing elves and dwarves from the Underdark has become popular (Because who doesn't want to come from the land down under where everything is trying to kill you, eh mate?) and having to make them all the rare non-evil outcasts (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0044.html) has become tiring, so now we have MotM where even drow and duergar NPCs were changed to "any alignment". Plenty other creatures remain in the kill-on-sight category for now, and more can always be created.

[MonochromeTiger]

The aversion to "fantasy racism" sounds reasonable at face value...
But if the world (worlds?) is going to be openly accepting of the PCs of exotic (potentially troublesome/evil) heritage, does that go for all species as well, even NPCs? Even the ones with alignment keywords?

Issue is in some cases the world does just lack a reaction. It's fine for it to be thrown into the PHB as an aside but that's really all they bothered to do with it, it ends up about the same as "Kenku only talk by mimicking noises they've heard" where actually acting on it is far more trouble than it's worth. You generally don't find official content actually making a point of it unless it's part of the specific theme of that content so why should a DM be expected to go out of their way to make everyone arbitrarily suspicious of the Dragonborn or Tiefling traveling alongside the Dwarf who can bench press a carriage and the Elf who can shoot lasers from his eyes?

And if it's an in universe concern then, again, Dwarf who can bench press a carriage and Elf who can shoot lasers from their eyes. Sure strong fighters and powerful Wizards are a known quantity but the main thing that's known about them is they're stronger or more powerful than the average person. You generally don't see people advocating for everyone in the setting to maintain a ten foot distance and throw salt over their shoulder every time they see a Wizard but just about every NPC in the setting should have heard a few stories of an evil Wizard while if everyone actually treats Dragonborn and Tieflings as rare then odds are pretty good they haven't heard anything truly bad about either; it's a bit difficult to see "they hate you because of how you look" going over well for why a player character is treated with suspicion while "yeah so they know you can throw fireballs and are literally able to melt their brains with a word and they're totally cool with that" is applied to the person next to them who is probably a far more immediate danger.


Seems unreasonable, and also works towards killing a lot of potential tension in the world(s) (and tension is what drives narrative and keeps it engaging).

Tension to drive the narrative and tension for the sake of tension are different things. World ending threat with a doomsday timer hanging over the players is tension to drive the narrative, it turns the entire thing into a race against time asking the obvious question of whether they'll make it or not. "They think you look creepy and are going to charge you more or just not let you in their shop" is, wait no that's not even tension for the sake of tension it's just punishing a player for making their character a specific race. At best you can try to hold up the idea of seeking acceptance as "driving the narrative" but frankly most players I know would either get tired of it quickly or start by wondering why they would even need to have the acceptance and approval of people who decided to hate and fear them by default. They're the hero, or at least something hero adjacent, they're out there fighting monsters and saving the world, heading into town after to find out that the locals don't care because they're not an appropriate flavor of I-can't-believe-it's-not-Human can take the wind out of their sails if they didn't specifically sign on for that and not many players I know bother to look at a side blurb about how people see different player-character races. If the only reason they object is a very nebulous "well it might be dangerous" then frankly nobody should let anyone else out of their sight for a second because they're all in a setting where any random Human can potentially be an adventurer strong enough to fight Dragons one on one and win and they have no way of knowing for sure that Human is nice and friendly; fear of potential threats without evidence just leads to fear of everything because everything can be threatening under the right circumstances.

Sure suspicion and fear add background details but those details are things that an increasing number of players are voicing objections to. Doesn't mean you need to drop it entirely, just know your audience and if your players are comfortable with that before throwing it at them and maybe have a reason behind it aside from "well it makes the world more realistic if people are biased jerks who jump to conclusions."

If your concern is instead with whether or not NPCs are still able to be seen in a negative light? Generally speaking most NPCs that you're expected to treat as bad are very clearly doing bad things. You don't really need "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they're Goblins so of course they are" when you have "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they attacked unprovoked, burned our crops, kicked our dog, and scrawled graffiti about doomsday weapons and end of the world cults all over the side of our barn." It's kind of a conceit of most storytelling that Good, or most morally accepted Neutral, are somewhat reactionary instead of proactive. They may go off to stop the cult summoning an Evil God before the ritual is complete but they typically reach that point after reacting to some inciting incident and learning that's what's being planned. That reactionary approach gives plenty of opportunity to show why people feel threatened by some outside force that isn't just fantasy racism.

[Mastikator]

In my campaign I gave the players a list of allowed races. One player often nags me about being allowed to play a flying race, not because of some roleplay reason, he wants the power of flight. Another player asked to play a drow (not on the list) and I asked her why, it turned out she wanted the Drow High Magic feat, I just told her she can play any elf with that feat, she ended up picking shadow elf and we just said that the feat is an evolution of her dragonmark.

I think there are two reasons players pick exotic races:
1) they want some special ability from that race, if you're OK with that special ability you could just transfer it to another race for that PC. Treat it like a unique thing for that one character.
2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.

-

On the question of "Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?" No. Talk to players. IMO player characters should be made in collaboration with the DM. Otherwise you are guaranteeing that the character won't really fit the setting, the campaign or even the party.

[Schwann145]

You generally don't see people advocating for everyone in the setting to maintain a ten foot distance and throw salt over their shoulder every time they see a Wizard but just about every NPC in the setting should have heard a few stories of an evil Wizard while if everyone actually treats Dragonborn and Tieflings as rare then odds are pretty good they haven't heard anything truly bad about either; it's a bit difficult to see "they hate you because of how you look" going over well for why a player character is treated with suspicion while "yeah so they know you can throw fireballs and are literally able to melt their brains with a word and they're totally cool with that" is applied to the person next to them who is probably a far more immediate danger.
Eh, kinda depends. As an aside, I'm in favor of classes also carrying reputations, positive and negative. It only makes sense.
Take the Forgotten Realms, the default setting for 5e: depending on the author (including Greenwood) Wizards are mistrusted and viewed as problematic... because they are. When you have that much power at your fingertips, it tends to corrupt. Even the most goodly of the powerful wizards (Elminster, the Simbul, etc) are all a) at least a bit insane, and b) at least a bit (hypocritically) tyrannical. They're more infamous than famous.


...it's just punishing a player for making their character a specific race.
Maybe I'm just not well attuned with modern gamers, but I don't see bad things happening to characters as punishment (unless it is, but if your DM has it out for you, that's a whole different thing...). I see bad things as roleplaying challenges and opportunities. For instance, if your character is mind-controlled, you now have the challenge of playing your character as such. Feeling punished because you lost your save is just totally alien to me. \_(ツ)_/


...and not many players I know bother to look at a side blurb about how people see different player-character races.
That's part of the motivation for this post: shouldn't they? Why don't they?


If your concern is instead with whether or not NPCs are still able to be seen in a negative light? Generally speaking most NPCs that you're expected to treat as bad are very clearly doing bad things. You don't really need "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they're Goblins so of course they are" when you have "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they attacked unprovoked, burned our crops, kicked our dog, and scrawled graffiti about doomsday weapons and end of the world cults all over the side of our barn."
This touches on some of my concern on the subject: aren't most goblin attacks provoked? Did that human/elven/other-pretty-race always exist there? Was there some colonialism happening? Are those goblin attacks fueled by evil or by survival? And is the killing of them actually "good" or is it just "good for the 'civilized' folk?"
IE: are we playing in a "good vs evil" world, or in a nuanced world where everything's shaky? If it's the former, then that's all the more reason for people (NPCs) to be legit scared of someone who looks like a red dragon or a demon. If we're playing in the latter, you might see more general acceptance but it also means that the PCs might be the ones doing the evil, even if unknowingly or unintentionally.

[kingcheesepants]

So a number of years ago I joined a campaign with a DM who decided to lean into the fantasy racism angle. It was a setting where there was a collision of the planes and a bunch of different races were thrown together for the first time and a bunch of nations were very reactionary and became deeply suspicious of other races. I decided to play a dwarven unity (the UA form of what later became peace) cleric who was actually saved by a genasi and his whole personal goal was to foster a culture of acceptance and understanding and bring the various races together in harmony.

So in that setting and that campaign it was highly appropriate to highlight the reaction of the various NPCs to exotic races and to have lots of roleplay about racism and such. And even with that I ended up retiring the character halfway through the game and we as a group decided to downplay the fantasy racism angle because even with a character that had a personal goal focused on combating it, the whole thing was repetitive and boring at best and brought up uncomfortable real world issues that upset the people sitting at the table at worst.

Since then when I DM a game I generally take the fantasy kitchen sink approach. If you want to play a warforged or a goblin or a centaur go right ahead. The narratives, settings, and campaigns that I like to run are agnostic about race and in my settings no player is going to be negatively singled out because of their race. Players are free to lean into it or ignore it as much as they want and if I get the sense that they want to do more RP based on their race I'll indulge them, otherwise it'll just get passing mentions and otherwise not be an issue. When I join a campaign as a player I'll be sure to bring up the issue of fantasy racism and what kind of reactions I might expect if I play an exotic race, if they tell me that I can expect a negative reaction I'll ask if we could downplay that (for the aforementioned reasons).


I think there are two reasons players pick exotic races:
1) they want some special ability from that race, if you're OK with that special ability you could just transfer it to another race for that PC. Treat it like a unique thing for that one character.
2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.

-

On the question of "Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?" No. Talk to players. IMO player characters should be made in collaboration with the DM. Otherwise you are guaranteeing that the character won't really fit the setting, the campaign or even the party.


Mastikator, I think you're generally correct in saying that people pick races either for the abilities or as a shortcut to making an interesting character. And certainly you're correct that it's the roleplaying that makes a character interesting and that the DM and players should discuss the characters beforehand to make sure it fits because not everything will fit at every table. However I think you are overlooking the fact that having an exotic race enables certain roleplaying elements that might otherwise be impossible. It isn't inherently more interesting to play as a centaur or a warforged or a plasmoid or whatever but those players have options to explore in their roleplaying that the elves and humans don't and that can be a lot of fun for everyone.

So of course talk to the DM and pick something that fits, if you want to be a human in the building a monster town campaign that's probably not gonna fly. But also if you're a DM try to be a little open minded and work with your players to make something fun and don't automatically shoot down everything. And definitely don't punish players for their race unless you've cleared it first. We get enough of that junk in real life, no need to foul up game night with it.

[Schwann145]

The narratives, settings, and campaigns that I like to run are agnostic about race and in my settings no player is going to be negatively singled out because of their race.
Does this extend to how NPCs treat with other NPCs? Are townsfolk just unbothered by a group of actual fiends strolling up, until they start doing the evil? If they are afraid of fiends (as they likely should be; specific plot narrative aside) then why aren't they equally bothered by the tiefling player (who, by all accounts, looks exactly like a full-blooded fiend)?
If the party is brought on to help deal with a region suffering dragon attacks and pillaging, how could the locals not be bothered by the Dragonborn PC (more so if they share a color with the villain dragon[s])?

[EggKookoo]

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

Some of my favorite D&D memories are in a friend's old 2e campaign where we could only play humans. It really sold the world as a world, rather than as a game.

In my current stuff, I let players pick whatever race they want, but I still "tribalize" NPCs to a large degree. Orcs hang out with orcs, elves hang out with elves, etc. (and of course factions within those tribes). This allows the players their freedom but I'm also frequenly reminding them that their willingness to associate outside their race is viewed as at least unusual. I also have one tiefling player and we worked out that she's not welcome in her home town, and really only survives by living most of the time in a large cosmopolitan city where people are less shocked by her novelty. Tiefling NPCs are rare.

[GloatingSwine]

Almost everyone you meet is going to hate you on sight.


Do you want murderhobos? That's how you get murderhobos.

[kingcheesepants]

Does this extend to how NPCs treat with other NPCs? Are townsfolk just unbothered by a group of actual fiends strolling up, until they start doing the evil? If they are afraid of fiends (as they likely should be; specific plot narrative aside) then why aren't they equally bothered by the tiefling player (who, by all accounts, looks exactly like a full-blooded fiend)?
If the party is brought on to help deal with a region suffering dragon attacks and pillaging, how could the locals not be bothered by the Dragonborn PC (more so if they share a color with the villain dragon[s])?

Well tieflings aren't so exotic in my games that people would assume that they're fiends. I've never run a game where a group of fiends that could pass for tieflings (cambions, and succubi I guess) tried to openly walk into a town. But I suppose that if such were to happen the folks might assume that they were tieflings and leave them alone until they did something to warrant intervention.

As for a dragonborn, there's clearly a big difference between an actual dragon and a dragonborn. I don't think that there needs to be some explanation as to how some townspeople could wrap their heads around the idea that the clearly humanoid dragon guy and the gargantuan flying creature wrecking town aren't necessarily in cahoots. But if we were doing a dragon that was the same color as one of the players I'd talk to the player and see how they felt about being a descendant of that dragon. If the player was cool with it there would definitely be some scenes about that.

[grarrrg]

First and foremost, players are "Special".
Yes Tieflings may be overrepresented -from a player standpoint- (good Drow ranger anyone?), but each game is its own world, separate from other games. You still only have a couple 'important' ones per world.




Rewinding to the top a bit. So much of this actually needs to be explained with "BACKSTORY" whether DM world-building or Player Nonsense, so I'll try to keep it as vague as possible.
You lumped Gnomes and Half-Elves into the box.
Yes, they're 'rare', but no one is likely to even notice.
Humans are common, elves are common. Half-elves will blend in too well.
Likewise, Dwarves and Halflings are common. That one over there (gnome) probably just looks like a slightly un-hairy dwarf kid, and/or a weird halfling that likes wearing shoes (ew).


Extending that logic to the others a bit...
What does the common folk know about Orcs?
Big, green, loincloth-wooden-club-grunts-caveman-vibe, probably eats people.
So then this big lump of man/thing (half-orc) walks into town, wearing perfectly normal clothes, speaking perfectly acceptable common.
Well, he kinda looks Orc-ish, but he can't really be an Orc now can he? He acts like a People! Still gonna be wary of him, but no need to call the guards on him just because.

Then extend that logic to Dragonborns, who don't have the whole 'eats people' thing.

Tieflings are the trickiest. Probably why they have the worst overall reputation write-up in the book.
Worth pointing out that the book says they have "normal human skin tones, and maybe red", so we're more concerned about the "large horns" thing.


And throwing a Warforged into Greyhawk is definitely a "the DM allowed it, so the DM must fix it" problem.

[Millstone85]

If they are afraid of fiends (as they likely should be; specific plot narrative aside) then why aren't they equally bothered by the tiefling player (who, by all accounts, looks exactly like a full-blooded fiend)?
I've never run a game where a group of fiends that could pass for tieflings (cambions, and succubi I guess) tried to openly walk into a town.It is funny, isn't it? To us, the modern design of the tiefling looks like a classic devil or demon. But to D&D characters, the closest thing to a tiefling would be a cambion, another creature of mixed mortal/fiendish heritage.

[KorvinStarmast]

To quote the PHB:

It seems that many (most?) tables just totally ignore the above. Not sure how many hundreds of tables you play at ...
Well, let's see.
Dragonborn.
Not a fan but I have two PCs who play brother golden dragons. 1 Sorcerer (draconic) and one Paladin, Devotion.
Gnome. When I DM, that is not a selectable race. I have played alongside a few gnomes.
Half-EIf. We have them, but I don't see them picked a lot.
Half-Orc. If you can justify why a half orc is in the party, based on the adventure world, it's fine. I play one, still, in World of Greyhawk (began with the Giant's campaign) and we have one in the Saltmarsh campaign I run.
Tiefling. Not allowed as PCs in any game I DM. The 5e tiefling has a lot of things wrong with it, as does the Kenku.

I have had to adventure with two so far as a fellow player; one was all edge lordy. The other was a bard who was a blast to play with. (The player just got it right, that's all I'm saying).

I imagine a lot of this has to do with the fact that Critical Role also ignores all of the above and 5e owes a lot of it's popularity to CR.
I am not sure that's true, but maybe it is partly true?

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything? Who is this we? Each world goes through its own world building process.


"But what if some Goblins are good, actually?" and then we go down one of D&D's rabbit hole spirals of doom.
Can we just not? Thank you. It fits fine in a web comic.


Also who even knows WTF a Tabaxi even is!? An annoying trope that I got tired of in the 80's based on the SF I was reading. (CJ Cherryh).

But ultimately you're talking about preventing someone from (or at the very least providing a huge disincentive to) playing the character that they want to play, and I don't think that that's constructive.
Need to play something/someone that fits into the game world. (Though for one shots I can see that not needing to be a concern).

Almost everyone you meet is going to hate you on sight.
So are you telling me I should roll a new character or not?
If you followed my one page campaign summary before you created a character, you'd not havev to ask that question. I always have a pitch, and guidelines.
Always.

In my campaign I gave the players a list of allowed races. This is the way.

... turned out she wanted the Drow High Magic feat, I just told her she can play any elf with that feat, she ended up picking shadow elf and we just said that the feat is an evolution of her dragonmark. Well DM'd!
I personally detest gating feats behind race / origin, and wish they would have never done that. The above example is another reason why.

I think there are two reasons players pick exotic races:
1) they want some special ability from that race, if you're OK with that special ability you could just transfer it to another race for that PC. Treat it like a unique thing for that one character.

2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.
Well said.

IMO player characters should be made in collaboration with the DM. Otherwise you are guaranteeing that the character won't really fit the setting, the campaign or even the party. Yep. All three of those have to be addressed.

You lumped Gnomes and Half-Elves into the box. I think the PHB did that.

And throwing a Warforged into Greyhawk is definitely a "the DM allowed it, so the DM must fix it" problem. Correct.
One of my PCs (the character is now retired, RL scheduling issues) was a Fire Genasi artificer. I don't generally allow artificers, but he started while it was still UA and I like the player. He is now working with the city council in a city and working on perfecting the formula for whale curd cheese (which is a delicacy/high end item like caviar) as an NPC. (He's level 11).

[Imbalance]

Having read those same blurbs when I started, I found in practice that fantasy racism is both dull and difficult to reconcile in a weird world full of weirdos. At most, I played around with some expectation subversion in the stigma about rural intolerance vs. metropolitan acceptance where a major city, having dealt more with fiendish evil, for example, was far less sympathetic than the podunk village where the very unsophisticated community was far more welcoming of outsiders.

[KorvinStarmast]

... rural intolerance vs. metropolitan acceptance where a major city, having dealt more with fiendish evil, for example, was far less sympathetic than the podunk village where the very unsophisticated community was far more welcoming of outsiders. I play that almost the opposite, but I like what you did there.

[Unoriginal]

I've never run a game where a group of fiends that could pass for tieflings (cambions, and succubi I guess) tried to openly walk into a town. But I suppose that if such were to happen the folks might assume that they were tieflings and leave them alone until they did something to warrant intervention.

In the campaign I'm going to start soon, one of the NPCs is not only a Cambion, but also an emissary of Tiamat, and aside from hiding her wings with magic she doesn't disguise herself while walking into town at all.

It works because people aren't expecting a Cambion to just walk into town, so they just rationalize her as being "a Tiefling, and probably one of those Sorcerers with dragon bits here and there."


It is funny, isn't it? To us, the modern design of the tiefling looks like a classic devil or demon. But to D&D characters, the closest thing to a tiefling would be a cambion, another creature of mixed mortal/fiendish heritage.

And the only full-fledged Devils who look even somewhat close are Imps and a few of the Archdevils.

It's because the current pop culture of the Devil as just a guy with horns and red skin (or even just red clothes) is a very diluted and sugar-free remain of how people conceptualized that in the past, and D&D's Devils are full of call-back to those past depictions (plus D&D's own mythology).

[RSP]

I think it just all depends on what the table wants to play.

If, in making a PC, role playing that they’re a being that might not be readily accepted is part of what the Player is looking forward to, and the DM is on board with it, have fun!

If the DM or Player don’t want to put up with it, hand waive it and move on.

Certainly we shouldn’t feel beholden to such things that it impedes the fun of playing.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I think it's entirely possible to have exotic races without jumping straight to "fantasy racism", a term which poisons the conversation. Exoticism doesn't have to be negative -- it's mostly thought of that way because of the stupid chaotic-good-rebel-evil-kin thing. And if you want to be the chaotic good outcast yearning to throw off the shackles of your evil kin, there need to be some shackles to throw off! If that's the story the player wants his drow character to tell, then treating him like just a regular guy makes that impossible.

[Unoriginal]

Also, in most small communities, adventurers are going to be weirdos regardless of their species.

"Tell me where the Hydra who's terrorizing your sailors is, and we'll kill it. Me and my group need one of its head for a magic ritual that is required to free all the ghosts in a cursed bloodline from the influence of a powerful Yugoloth, so we'll fight that Hydra for free" is gonna be weird as heck for a village leader to hear. Next to that, that one of the party members looks like an humanoid toad isn't that odd.

Especially when the village leader probably heard of toad people from people who met them, or maybe they even met some themselves, but people working for free? That's unheard of, outside of legends.

[J-H]

It varies from campaign to campaign and table to table.
I usually do "Mostly PHB races" and I think I've only had one tiefling and no Aasimar (why the discrimination against Good?). Plenty of elves, humans, half-elves, and some dwarves, half-orcs, and halflings. The only dragonborn is one played by my son (wizard), and no gnomes at all.
I've had Warforged as an option a few times, but nobody's taken it.

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think it's entirely possible to have exotic races without jumping straight to "fantasy racism", a term which poisons the conversation. But it happens with tiresome frequency. :smallfrown:

Especially when the village leader probably heard of toad people from people who met them, or maybe they even met some themselves, but people working for free? That's unheard of, outside of legends. Toad people? That's Mr. Bullywug to you!


It varies from campaign to campaign and table to table.
I usually do "Mostly PHB races" and I think I've only had one tiefling and no Aasimar (why the discrimination against Good?).
The PHB team couldn't be bothered to put an Aasimar in just after Tiefling.
Lazy, or, catering to edglords, or perhpas liking the Tiefling from 4e? Some of the 5e team were also on the 4e team.


Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding. Yes.

[JonBeowulf]

<snip>

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.
Preach it! We got enough problems here and we're the only sentients present (for now). Having 4-8 should be enough to eliminate the cry of fantasy racism.

But it's very difficult to rescue some players from the inescapable pull of a certain drow elf who went on interesting adventures in the northern wastes of Faerun. "He was special, why can't I be?" Because you're not R. A. Salvatore!

[Dr.Samurai]

For my part, it seems silly to me that D&D people would live in a world full of very real and dangerous and magical and deceptive monsters, and then extend a massive benefit of the doubt to monstrous looking creatures.

It requires, to my mind, an elevated awareness of the world, lots of information moving freely between cities/nations/etc. and a confidence that allows for suppressing fear/defense responses when confronted with something that looks like other dangerous somethings.

Which is all to say, feels much more modern and much less medieval fantasy.

It also takes some of the wonder out of the world for me. I can imagine the DM describing something wondrous and fantastical, meanwhile we've been adventuring with a walking and talking ooze, a robot, and an angel.

And I agree with the sentiment that this might apply to casters as well. If you think that wizards would have such an awesome reputation to justify the "ignore the frontline, blitz the caster" galaxy brain strategy, then stands to reason that NPCs WOULD be rather cautious and distrustful around casters, given their awesome power.

When magic and monsters are ubiquitous and trivial, then it all loses its luster.

[Unoriginal]

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

I for one am very happy that D&D has a ton of sapient species and subspecies.

So long as half of them aren't elves.



Toad people? That's Mr. Bullywug to you!


I had a lot of fun making the Bullywugs my PCs met react to the Grung PC with the equivalent of "oh my god, a talking frog".

[stoutstien]

Preach it! We got enough problems here and we're the only sentients present (for now). Having 4-8 should be enough to eliminate the cry of fantasy racism.

But it's very difficult to rescue some players from the inescapable pull of a certain drow elf who went on interesting adventures in the northern wastes of Faerun. "He was special, why can't I be?" Because you're not R. A. Salvatore!

It's not so much that fantasy racism is the default option it's that that usually systems are really bad at integrating conflicts.

Good vs evil isn't something that you build off of because it's not interesting nor is there any give to it thanks rather than just objective moral views. Almost all the complaints about fantasy racism boils down to this one problem. If the conflict is about social safety versus freedom you have a lot more to work with.

**There's also nothing wrong with playing against type it just needs to be rare enough so it's actually still playing against type. Yes this means that sometimes you got to allow one player to do something and not allow the rest of the table but that might be difficult for some groups.**

[JellyPooga]

When magic and monsters are ubiquitous and trivial, then it all loses its luster.

Absolutely this. If I'm playing a non-human, I want it to be recognised for how unusual it is in human lands. I want my dwarf to be persecuted in the elven forest just as much as they'd be lauded in human lands for their fortitude and craftsmanship. I want my half-orc not to be trusted in the village plagued by orc raiders or the elf nation at war with the neighbouring orcs. Likewise, I want my half-orc to be accepted better than the human or elf when we're taking the diplomatic route with the orcs.

The problem is that too often players play non-humans as humans-with-benefits. At least in rubber-forehead Star Trek, the Klingons and Romulans have a distinct and recognisable culture that the vast majority of PCs and NPCs live up to.

[KorvinStarmast]

And I agree with the sentiment that this might apply to casters as well. If you think that wizards would have such an awesome reputation to justify the "ignore the frontline, blitz the caster" galaxy brain strategy, then stands to reason that NPCs WOULD be rather cautious and distrustful around casters, given their awesome power.

When magic and monsters are ubiquitous and trivial, then it all loses its luster. Well put. In my version of the World of Greyhawk, arcane casters are viewed with caution or suspicion as a default; divine casters face the same to a lesser degree. Magic is powerful and dangerous, so unless you show that you are reliable and not an unsafe menace, you'll be held at an arm's length.

{1} this is related to the in world origin of the Rain of Colorless fire...and my take on the ripple effects of that calamity. (As mentioned before, dragon clans tend to hunt down wizards and artificers and kill them, eat them, or banish them).

The problem is that too often players play non-humans as humans-with-benefits. Which is at least predictable because the players are human.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Which is at least predictable because the players are human.

It's also predictable because DMs treat the characters that way.

[Skrum]

Absolutely this. If I'm playing a non-human, I want it to be recognised for how unusual it is in human lands. I want my dwarf to be persecuted in the elven forest just as much as they'd be lauded in human lands for their fortitude and craftsmanship. I want my half-orc not to be trusted in the village plagued by orc raiders or the elf nation at war with the neighbouring orcs. Likewise, I want my half-orc to be accepted better than the human or elf when we're taking the diplomatic route with the orcs.

The problem is that too often players play non-humans as humans-with-benefits. At least in rubber-forehead Star Trek, the Klingons and Romulans have a distinct and recognisable culture that the vast majority of PCs and NPCs live up to.

I lean in this direction as well, but I think in practice there's a few problems with it
1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice) over and over again gets old and time consuming and begins to distract from the game. Peppering in something like that to add a twist to an interaction, maybe. But just like mundane things like travel and buying supplies get glossed over and footnoted, pushing most interactions with random NPC's to the back is preferable. Having most NPCs be distrustful of the PCs makes that difficult
2) DnD is a game, and most people like a degree of escapism. That means not shoving things like prejudice to the forefront. Yes it's a "less realistic" way to run the game. But game is still the main word there; people gather to have fun, and again, dealing with racism or taking a social penalty because of your race choice gets old

If I was going to lean into this kind of stuff as a DM, I would want to make it clear during session 0. Possibly even restrict race choices, or at least make it clear what someone was getting in to by picking tiefling, orc, elf, etc.

[EggKookoo]

It requires, to my mind, an elevated awareness of the world, lots of information moving freely between cities/nations/etc. and a confidence that allows for suppressing fear/defense responses when confronted with something that looks like other dangerous somethings.

In my current game, most commoners don't know that there even is a difference between gnomes and haflings, let alone possess the ability to distinguish them. Same with half-elves and (most) elves. They're just "people with the pointed ears."

Actually, most dwarves are just seen as shorter, stockier humans. You need to spend time with them to understand how much "I'm a dwarf!" is biological.

[Unoriginal]

I lean in this direction as well, but I think in practice there's a few problems with it
1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice)

Having a Human NPC recognize that the dragon-person who can breath deadly ice is different form Humans isn't racism or prejudice.

It can lead to either, sure, but that's not inherently the case.


If the same interaction happens with every NPC, then it's the DM who isn't up to snuff when it comes to create varied interactions.



Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

I for one am very happy that D&D has a ton of sapient species and subspecies.

So long as half of them aren't elves.



Toad people? That's Mr. Bullywug to you!


I had a lot of fun making the Bullywugs my PCs met react to the Grung PC with the equivalent of "oh my god, a talking frog".

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I lean in this direction as well, but I think in practice there's a few problems with it
1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice) over and over again gets old and time consuming and begins to distract from the game. Peppering in something like that to add a twist to an interaction, maybe. But just like mundane things like travel and buying supplies get glossed over and footnoted, pushing most interactions with random NPC's to the back is preferable. Having most NPCs be distrustful of the PCs makes that difficult
2) DnD is a game, and most people like a degree of escapism. That means not shoving things like prejudice to the forefront. Yes it's a "less realistic" way to run the game. But game is still the main word there; people gather to have fun, and again, dealing with racism or taking a social penalty because of your race choice gets old

If I was going to lean into this kind of stuff as a DM, I would want to make it clear during session 0. Possibly even restrict race choices, or at least make it clear what someone was getting in to by picking tiefling, orc, elf, etc.

I mean I think you have to make that clear during session 0 regardless. That should be part of the setting briefing. Is the world cosmopolitan, or is it one where elves live here and dwarves live here and they haven't spoken to each other since the Dark Times? And if you have players for whom this would be troubling, adjust your game and your world. Don't trigger your players in the name of verisimilitude, because it is a game.

In terms of dealing with NPCs, if the campaign remains in the same general area, the NPCs should react differently to the players over time. Slaim the hunter (orc assassin 3/gloomstalker x) is distrusted when he arrives in Saltmarsh, but when he uncovers the smuggling ring in The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh he gains a few allies, one of whom is influential enough to assign him to handle the lizardfolk problem in Danger at Dunwater. When that's resolved successfully, and nonviolently, he and his party are the choice of a grateful population to stop the sahuagin The Final Enemy. After defeating the sahuagin, he doesn't need to buy another drink in Saltmarsh again, and those who still discriminate against him are shunned. Word spreads through the surrounding area and yadda yadda blah blah. You don't need to roleplay 'it is hard to buy bread' every single time the player wants to buy bread, but if you do it once or twice, you can then do a scene later where that same someone just gives him the bread by way of thanks and apology. Look! The world changed a little and you the players did it! For some parties, that's more rewarding than 'there was a Bad king and now there is a Good king. On to the next place!'

[Skrum]

If the same interaction happens with every NPC, then it's the DM who isn't up to snuff when it comes to create varied interactions.

Can change the words but "I don't trust you or like you because you're different than me" would get old if it gets repeated by every NPC they try to talk to. And just unnecessarily slows the game.

[Dr.Samurai]

How is it slowing the game down if it's part of the world, the player choices, and the role-playing?

This is just a session 0 thing, that's all. No reason to assume no one wants it but somehow it's being enforced. I agree it would get old having to react to a tiefling in every town; so don't allow it :smallamused:.

[RedMage125]

Player Race Options in my game are separated into 3 categories: Green/Yellow/Red Light. Green Light is most stuff, no restriction. But I do have some extra notes for how these races generally fit into my world.
Yellow Light is "yes, but..." and includes some sort of restriction (see Drow, below, for an example), and Red Light means "My default answer is 'no'". If a player has a concept that uses a Red Light element, and it REALLY impresses me, I may allow it, but they'll still be unique. I'm a lot less likely to relent if I banned an option for balance issues.

A good chunk of my setting (Antheron) has been shaped by 2 major events in the last few centuries. 1- The War of Shadows (This was the plotline of a 3.x game I ran in college), the drow invaded the surface in a war that lasted almost 20 years. A great deal of the Sylvanwood (enormous forested region) was damaged or destroyed. The old dwarven king actually allied with the drow, until he was betrayed and assassinated by them, his son (who is still the current king) broke that alliance and joined with the surface races to fight the drow. This war ended about 500 years ago. 2- The Godswar, some time after the WoS, reality was invaded by the Primordials, titanic elemental beings of great power. They caused great planar upheaval, the Prime was altered forever, and several gods died, others surrendered their divinity to successors. One key takeaway is that many deities are now worshipped across racial lines (Moradin is the god of the forge for all races, for example). This ended around 350-400 years ago.


Elves: I use longer elven lifespans. An Elf reaches Middle Age around 500, Venerable at 750, and doesn't usually die of natural causes until 900-1,000. Elves usually have a low birth rate, but that's because they naturally attune to their environment, and their population is affected by what the region can sustain. However, thousands of elves had died during the War of Shadows. On top of that, the Sylvanwood has been growing back for almost 500 years, so in that time, elves have experienced a population boom that has only recently begun to slow down. More than half the elves of the world are under 500 years old. Wood Elves typically live in forest-cities. High Elves typically live in Mountain cities. Eladrin are descended from elves who used Elven High magic to retreat to the Feywild during the Godswar, and their cities only reappeared a few decades ago, so they're relatively new to most people. Shadar-kai live in the Shadowfell (but there is no Raven Queen in my world).

Dwarves: Dwarves are also long-lived. They reach Middle Age at 300, Venerable at 500, and typically die of old age around the 700 year mark. The differences between dwarf subraces are mostly cultural. After the War of Shadows, many did not trust dwarves, and many dwarves were ashamed of what their king did. Some chose to forsake returning to dwarven lands and stayed on the surface. These are Hill Dwarves. Mountain Dwarves are the ones who returned to dwarven lands, and rarely mixed with other races. In the last century, this has started to finally relax, and some Hill dwarf families moved back to their ancestral homes, and some Mountain dwarves left the mountains to mingle with other races (so players don't have to feel OBLIGED to be one or the other).

Halflings: Stout halflings are like hobbits. They live in hilly fields and live pretty laid back lives. Lightfoot halflings are largely nomadic, travelling in communities with wagons that convert to houseboats to travel riverways.

Half-Elves: While mixing human with elf still results in a half-elf, most of them have one or more half-elf parent. No amount of breeding back into elf lines will ever result in a full-blooded elf again, and as long as they're at least 1/8th elf, they are mechanically a "half-elf".

Half-orcs: Similar to half-elves, it takes generations to breed out the orc blood to produce a full human. Most half-orcs have at least one half-orc parent.

Dragonborn: There is a southern continent that, before the Godswar, was isolated from Antheron. Here, the Drakkensari Empire (or, Empire of the Drakkensrad) rules. The culture is similar to feudal Japan, with true dragons ruling as daimyos over dragonborn. In the Drakkensrad, dragons do not always follow typical alignment conventions like in Antheron. During the Godwar, the two continents became connected by a new landmass that now bridges them. Since then, many dragonborn emigrated north, as their society offers little chance for upward mobility. Dragonborn are now very common in Antheron. Some still hold to the tenets of Bushido, but not all.

Gnomes: Not too much deviation from core. However, gnomes have not, in recorded history, ever held their own lands. They live peacefully among humans, elves, dwarves and halflings. Rock Gnomes, in particular, are viewed as "little cousins" by Mountain Dwarves. Forest Gnomes are more common among Elves. Those that live in more cosmopolitan "mixed" towns and cities are of both subraces.


Drow: Drow get special mention. Most drow worship Lolth and are evil. However, there is a small town of drow who, over the course of centuries, have created an isolated haven on the surface. The town is neutral ground for the followers of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun. Some of these drow actually disguised themselves and helped defend the human city of Cyran during the War of Shadows. In gratitude, Cyran opened their doors to them and their families. It took over a century for the residents of Cyran to get used to them, but now they are. Player Characters who wish to be drow MUST be from one of these two communities. No "underdark rebels".

Kobolds: Most kobolds live as described in Volo's. But there's one city where they're different. Scalyheart is built into a volcano, and these kobolds are somewhat cleaner and more civilized. They're still usually Lawful Evil, but they've learned the value of cooperation and trade with their neighbors. They feel little kinship with other kobolds, who live like animals to their standards. Players may choose to play as a Scalyheart kobold.

Planar Refugees: During the Godswar, the planes were in great upheaval, and extremely unsafe. Mortal races dwelling in the planes, not having immortal ties to the planes themselves, fled to the Material Plane. These races are all often collectively referred to as "planar refugees", even though some members may have lived on the Prime before the Godswar, the overwhelming majority of members of these races have only been on the Prime for a few centuries. Planar refugee races are: Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, Gith.


RED LIGHT RACES
Gnolls: While gnolls who worship Yeenoghu (and reproduce in the manner discussed in Volo’s Guide) exist, they make up only about 25% of all Antheron gnolls. The remaining 75% of gnolls are a true-breeding race, and refer to these demonic gnolls as “The Butcher’s Brood”. The majority of gnolls tend to follow Primal traditions, and the majority of them see themselves as the chosen of Ragashak, the Chaotic Evil deity of beasts, slaughter, and winter. Druids, Rangers and Barbarians are very common among them. A small number (less than 5%) of gnolls are non-evil. But these tribes are extremely xenophobic. The only non-gnolls they interact with are usually druids.

Goblinoids: Goblinoids in Antheron are usually evil, and most of them quite primitive. Hobgoblins are a notable exception, but even they, while civilized, live in a martial society where might makes right. Hobgoblins tend to dominate Bugbears and Goblins. It would be extremely unusual for a hobgoblin (and even more unusual for a bugbear or goblin) to leave their society and adventure among other races. Not to mention that most people would flee from or attack them on sight. Since the Godwar, there is an established goblinoid "nation" (really a collective of small city-states) to the east in Antheron, but not all goblinoids headed there, and contact with it is minimal.

Orcs and Yuan-ti: Very little deviation from core.

Races from other settings: There are no dragonmarks in Antheron. No warforged. No Shifters, No Changelings, and No Kalashtar. None of the races from Ravnica exist, either. Centaurs exist, but not the Medium sized variety found in the Theros book. Minotaurs likewise exist, but almost all are under the sway of the demon lord Baphomet. Leonins do not exist. Satyrs are mischievous fey that prefer their lives in the Feywild.
Tabaxi: There isn’t currently a place for Tabaxi in Antheron. And until this changes, they're Red Light.
Winged Races: This is a game balance issue, and at-will flight from level 1 is something that too easily mitigates low level challenges. So no Aarakocra, Winged Tieflings, or Owlkin.
Witchlight Races: While Harengon and Faeries exist in the Feywild, they are not known for travelling to the Material Plane, and such a character would be a unique aberrant, even among their own kind.

With regard to "fantasy racism", there's some mistrust, and it's varying degrees of justified. Orcs and goblinoids are often evil, and attack other humanoids. So most humanoids are wary of them. Drow have a reputation for evil and cruelty, and they attacked the surface a few generations ago, but some people have heard that Cyran has a community of them. What's ironic about Cyran is that the city has, in recent decades, suffered an unusually high amount of fiendish cult activity that caused all sorts of problems. And the common folk, unfortunately, are inordinately suspicious of tieflings as a result. So while everywhere else, tieflings are more or less warily accepted and drow are treated with suspicion...in Cyran, drow are completely accepted, but tieflings are treated with borderline hostility. This extends to NPCs as well. A kobold PC might be accepted in the towns and cities close to Scalyheart, but further from that, they'll experience mistrust.

Bottom line is: if a hobgoblin, kobold, or drow walks into town with a group of humans and dwarves, it's going to raise eyebrows, but not "attack on sight".

[Unoriginal]

Can change the words but "I don't trust you or like you because you're different than me" would get old if it gets repeated by every NPC they try to talk to. And just unnecessarily slows the game.

Again, why would it be "I don't trust you or like you"?

It would get old because the DM is unable or unwilling to come up with a different interaction than species-based antagonism.

Why can't it be something like "I hear Dragonborn have a strong martial tradition. Wanna spar this afternoon?" or "As a Forest Gnome who lived in a magical forest, what is your opinion on the preparations this expedition to a different magical forest is taking?" or even "you're a Duergar, you know the culture better than anyone here, what are the chances the Duergar Warlord is being truthful when they say that they're willing to help against our common enemy without expecting anything in return?"

[Ionathus]

I don't find it strange at all that players would want unique character creation options.


2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.

This take is either unkind or unimaginative. I think it's obvious why someone would see more potential for a unique backstory and worldview in something like Dragonborn or Tiefling, compared to the Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits Halflings that have been done to death and back again since LotR came out, got copied, became the Fantasy Gold Standard, got parodied, got adapted to film, and got the soul wrung out of it for profit half a dozen times.

Yes, obviously you can tell a unique story with a human fighter. Fantasy race isn't the only determining factor. But something about these unique D&D races draws people to them, and I think there's a lot more than your two options going on there.

I can't remember where, but somewhere in one of the The The Adventure Zone Zone episodes (that's not a typo, that's what they call their BTS recaps :smallbiggrin:), Justin McElroy talks about why he chose to play a wispy, selfish, antiauthoritarian, gay, effeminate elf wizard in The Adventure Zone. He was worried that if he created a character who was too similar to himself, he would wind up playing an idealized version of himself, and he preferred to make a clean break and explore a completely new world with a completely new personality and outlook instead.

Again, not to say that you have to be totally "out there." Just that there are numerous reasons why people would be interested in the exotic race options beyond "trying to overoptimize" and "lazy roleplaying".

[JellyPooga]

1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice) over and over again gets old and time consuming and begins to distract from the game. Peppering in something like that to add a twist to an interaction, maybe. But just like mundane things like travel and buying supplies get glossed over and footnoted, pushing most interactions with random NPC's to the back is preferable. Having most NPCs be distrustful of the PCs makes that difficult

The game is those interactions, though. If I'm a Wizard walking into Athkatla, where spellcasting is banned by the authority of the Cowled Wizards, I'd be pretty disappointed in my GM if my going around casting spells went A) unnoticed by the authorities and B) ignored by the locals I'm interacting with. The same should apply as much to my Dwarf finding it easier gathering rumours in a Dwarf bar as it should to a dark-cowled Tiefling with facial tattoos marking them as a devotee of Asmodeus having trouble getting services at the church of all that's pure and light. I would feel my GM is ignoring who and what my character is and part of the reason I'm playing that character. I didn't choose it for some mechanical benefit, I chose it to be exotic. If I want to play a flamboyant, outspoken and notable character, I would feel put out if none of my actions gathered any attention or fame, just as much as if I'm intentionally playing, with full disclosure to the GM, an inconspicuous character who constantly gets called out and persecuted simply because my character sheet says "Rogue" on it (often despite being more "good" than the outspoken and alleged "Lawful Good" Paladin or Cleric). My character race is a clear, outward facing and character defining aspect of my avatar in the game; I need it to mean something beyond a couple of statistics that are largely irrelevant when compared to the cultural and societal impact of that choice.

As @Unoriginal says, cultural or racial distinction by no means has to have negative connotations and though they often will, those are obstacles to overcome as readily as any trap, locked door or guard sentry and that's no less part of the game than any combat encounter.

[sithlordnergal]

The way I see it, even if those biases exist, the racist ones don't really have much of a choice but to be polite. In game, the reason is usually because the racists don't really have much choice but to accept the aid of these adventurers, along with a healthy does of fear. If your only option to stop the bandits is that Tiefling, you pay them and hope they never bother you again. If the Tiefling comes back after killing every single Bandit, you pray they don't murder the town and treat them very politely to avoid being killed. Out of game, its because I find players tend to take personal slights from NPCs very, very personally, and will go out of their way to harm that NPC. I'm no different in that regard as a player.

Pretty sure I've only ever had one NPC that avoided being punished for screwing with the players. And the only reason they didn't punish him is because they realized doing so would either be more trouble than he was worth for them. The NPC in question was an Ancient Copper Dragon that sold joke magic items that were cursed. His entire hoard was made up of nothing but Copper Pieces and a single Electrum, and he paid for everything in Copper Pieces cause he found it hilarious. They didn't want to try and take his hoard cause they didn't have a way to carry 55 million Copper Pieces, and they didn't want to subject some poor officer to having a huge fine paid in pennies. XD

[Telonius]

Some people love playing against type. For this kind of player, seeing the phrase, "This is rare," causes a ding and a "Challenge Accepted!" to appear in their brain. If Drizzt hadn't existed, they would have invented him.

Personally I just go with it, kitchen sink as long as it plays well with the rest of the party. Most of the adventures I make are pretty setting-agnostic. If someone wants to play a Kender in Eberron, or a Warforged in Faerun? As long as the rest of the party doesn't end up wanting to murder them, go for it. The people who wrote the settings don't play at my table, so I'm not too concerned about offending them.

[MonochromeTiger]

Eh, kinda depends. As an aside, I'm in favor of classes also carrying reputations, positive and negative. It only makes sense.
Take the Forgotten Realms, the default setting for 5e: depending on the author (including Greenwood) Wizards are mistrusted and viewed as problematic... because they are. When you have that much power at your fingertips, it tends to corrupt. Even the most goodly of the powerful wizards (Elminster, the Simbul, etc) are all a) at least a bit insane, and b) at least a bit (hypocritically) tyrannical. They're more infamous than famous.

I could get into debating the whole "absolute power corrupts absolutely" thing but it's repeated often enough I've somewhat given up on the idea my opinion would really sway anyone. More appropriately, sure, class reputations are interesting and can be useful in my opinion. Only issue being, like stereotypes about different player-character races, it's very easy for them to go from "interesting setting detail" to "players feel stifled or annoyed or it brings up bad associations" and relies heavily on players actually buying in to the idea to be anything but the DM just feeling like it and making everyone sit through it.



Maybe I'm just not well attuned with modern gamers, but I don't see bad things happening to characters as punishment (unless it is, but if your DM has it out for you, that's a whole different thing...). I see bad things as roleplaying challenges and opportunities. For instance, if your character is mind-controlled, you now have the challenge of playing your character as such. Feeling punished because you lost your save is just totally alien to me. \_(ツ)_/

Problem is there's a difference between "you lost your save in this clear game mechanic" and "your character is treated worse and has to work harder to prove themselves to a bunch of people who are doing their darnedest to make you hate them because I chose to act on a short blurb even the game's devs will acknowledge isn't actually that important." The Kenku example again, it's technically in their race's rules and description, it's technically a core detail of Kenku, but I'd be shocked if anyone actually decided to make a Kenku player stick to only speaking through mimicked sounds both because it's not worth the hassle and because it would get unbearably annoying real fast.


That's part of the motivation for this post: shouldn't they? Why don't they?

Should they? Why would they? Some people will, some people will get invested in all the little minor details about the settings they're playing in (despite WotC gradually homogenizing most of those settings and removing many of those unique details) and if they find a DM like you they'll probably do fine. Not every DM is you and not every player is the person who will look through and internalize every minor detail instead of going "oh well this looks cool, I want to play one of these" and picking a class.

Please correct me if I'm entirely off base here but the thread's original question kind of feels like a case of you wanting to see and do a specific story and wondering why it's not more common. That story, one about overcoming social bias and harmful associations to get the respect of people who see you with suspicion and fear, is a story that some people are uncomfortable with and some have already seen so many times that it's just an annoying hurdle they're forced to jump over. To repeat my earlier post, you can do those stories and you can have them work but it's very much a matter of "know your audience." You want players who will accept and engage with it then you have to find those players and get them in your game, but just springing it on people without warning because they should've read a specific sentence in a specific book has a chance of ending very poorly.

For context all of this is being said by a guy who has multiple Evil campaigns as both a player and DM and routinely gets into discussing and engaging with topics much worse than "they're wary of you because you're a Tiefling" in various games. When I say some players will react badly I'm not saying all, you absolutely can find people who will play those games without issues and actually work through a topic that others might find difficult in a mature way without resorting to comments in bad taste or turning something bad into a joke; but those people who do find these topics difficult are still there, they shouldn't be forgotten or ignored, and you should absolutely figure out if they'll have a problem with this kind of thing ahead of time and be open to the possibility that they overestimated their tolerance for it and feel the need to back out when actually presented with it.


This touches on some of my concern on the subject: aren't most goblin attacks provoked? Did that human/elven/other-pretty-race always exist there? Was there some colonialism happening? Are those goblin attacks fueled by evil or by survival? And is the killing of them actually "good" or is it just "good for the 'civilized' folk?"
IE: are we playing in a "good vs evil" world, or in a nuanced world where everything's shaky? If it's the former, then that's all the more reason for people (NPCs) to be legit scared of someone who looks like a red dragon or a demon. If we're playing in the latter, you might see more general acceptance but it also means that the PCs might be the ones doing the evil, even if unknowingly or unintentionally.

If you're playing in the former or the latter there's also another question not being asked here. How does Villager #8 out in the middle of nowhere even know what a Devil or Demon looks like to know the Tiefling looks like them? How do they know "yeah there's Dragons and those Red ones are super Evil" but not "also there's all these other Dragons that are Good all the time"? Or for that matter that any Dragon capable off taking a Humanoid form is more likely to be that one Noble with a ton of unexplained wealth who always dresses in a weirdly specific color palette instead of the Dragonborn who is way too on the nose to be a worthwhile disguise?

This entire issue is predicated on everyone knowing enough specific info to have a strong bias that has to be overcome but not enough info realize things are more complicated than just "this is evil." Somehow, across an entire setting, this tightrope is being walked where they have the exact level of knowledge needed for it to cause problems for the player characters to deal with, without fail. It honestly boggles the mind how that can work unless there's people whose entire job is going city to city, village to village, gossiping about only the worst things they can think of and giving unusually detailed descriptions of what they look like for comparison purposes.

[Dr.Samurai]

If you're playing in the former or the latter there's also another question not being asked here. How does Villager #8 out in the middle of nowhere even know what a Devil or Demon looks like to know the Tiefling looks like them? How do they know "yeah there's Dragons and those Red ones are super Evil" but not "also there's all these other Dragons that are Good all the time"? Or for that matter that any Dragon capable off taking a Humanoid form is more likely to be that one Noble with a ton of unexplained wealth who always dresses in a weirdly specific color palette instead of the Dragonborn who is way too on the nose to be a worthwhile disguise?

This entire issue is predicated on everyone knowing enough specific info to have a strong bias that has to be overcome but not enough info realize things are more complicated than just "this is evil." Somehow, across an entire setting, this tightrope is being walked where they have the exact level of knowledge needed for it to cause problems for the player characters to deal with, without fail. It honestly boggles the mind how that can work unless there's people whose entire job is going city to city, village to village, gossiping about only the worst things they can think of and giving unusually detailed descriptions of what they look like for comparison purposes.
I mean... we live in a world without these creatures actually being real and people had a fair idea of what they looked like before modern access to information. So no, I don't think it's a big leap to assume that D&D people have an idea of what devils and demons look like, and might assume the worst in someone that comes close to matching that description. The strain in belief is in the other direction actually, that they would master themselves, assume nothing, and provide the benefit of the doubt to something that looks monstrous. In a world full of real monsters.

When you think about what little it took to convince people that someone was a witch or a vampire or cavorting with the devil... it seems absolutely ridiculous to think having full blown horns or fangs or a tail or wings wouldn't illicit a similar reaction.

But to each their own. I'm not fond of the "every NPC is a D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives" games.

[kingcheesepants]

Again, why would it be "I don't trust you or like you"?

It would get old because the DM is unable or unwilling to come up with a different interaction than species-based antagonism.

Why can't it be something like "I hear Dragonborn have a strong martial tradition. Wanna spar this afternoon?" or "As a Forest Gnome who lived in a magical forest, what is your opinion on the preparations this expedition to a different magical forest is taking?" or even "you're a Duergar, you know the culture better than anyone here, what are the chances the Duergar Warlord is being truthful when they say that they're willing to help against our common enemy without expecting anything in return?"

Having exotic characters is fine, having NPCs treat you a bit special because you're different is fine. People aren't making DnD horror stories posts about the DM who had an NPC ask the dragonborn player to spar thanks to his rich martial culture or about the players who asked their duergar companion for help navigating underdark politics.

However many people (myself included) have had bad experiences with games where the tiefling, half orc, etc player was routinely alienated and given the whole hate and fear treatment by just about every NPC and it gets old fast. It's a common enough problem that I always ask in session 0 about it. I've been subjected to enough racism in real life, I'm not interested in playing in a game where I'll have to deal with fantasy racism. And if you haven't been at those tables, that's great. But it is unfortunately a common trope and the way that OP was talking about tieflings looking like fiends and thus they should be feared by the townspeople and how a dragon attack would mark the dragonborn player as a threat makes me think that he is interested in utilizing those tropes and asking why more people don't do so.

I don't do so because I like to have lots of options and think it's fun to be able to play a team with a robot and an angel and a slime and a centaur and I want to have fun going on adventures and beating up badguys, not slowly working to overcome implicit biases or whatever.

[MonochromeTiger]

I mean... we live in a world without these creatures actually being real and people had a fair idea of what they looked like before modern access to information. So no, I don't think it's a big leap to assume that D&D people have an idea of what devils and demons look like, and might assume the worst in someone that comes close to matching that description. The strain in belief is in the other direction actually, that they would master themselves, assume nothing, and provide the benefit of the doubt to something that looks monstrous. In a world full of real monsters.

We live in a world where before modern communication every animal that wasn't readily visible was some fantastical and monstrous thing that had to be defined (usually badly) by comparing it to what was known. Where a Giraffe was a "Camelopard", Dragons could be everything from slightly larger than average lizards to the more modern image to things with six legs and fur, and where there still wasn't a "standard" appearance for many things until much later despite common threads encouraging a shared mythology and belief across multiple communities. The "fair idea of what they looked like" is very much a case of "you saw it, or you saw art of it from somebody else who says they saw it, or you're guessing and likely have a different image than everybody else."

Communication over distances was better than some people give credit for but sharing an actual concrete and agreed upon image of things was still terrible. And yes, we're talking about a fantasy world where actual monsters exist, and many of them are rare and obscure. You've got adventurers, the people who actually go out and fight the things for a living, who can completely fail to recognize what even some of the more common ones are and I'm supposed to expect a tiny village where maybe two people are even literate will know immediately "yep, somebody in that guy's family made a deal with a Fiend" or "that guy's a Dragon when the only account I ever heard of them was a fourth hand story about them being big as a mountain"?


When you think about what little it took to convince people that someone was a witch or a vampire or cavorting with the devil... it seems absolutely ridiculous to think having full blown horns or fangs or a tail or wings wouldn't illicit a similar reaction.

But to each their own. I'm not fond of the "every NPC is a D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives" games.

You'll have to excuse me if I find "well they have horns or fangs so everyone must think they're terrible monsters" is a bit weak when you've got settings where everything from Kobolds to Hobgoblins are a normal sight in cities. What gets accepted and what doesn't is hilariously inconsistent, both between settings and even just between editions, so I don't think people noticing that inconsistency and wondering why it's being so arbitrarily applied for forced conflict means every NPC that doesn't act on it is a "D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives." The fact that we are talking about fantasy settings only makes that worse, yes, some monsters have horns, so do some things that are generally considered friendly or good.

It's really weird to me that the average person in a setting is simultaneously supposed to be so knowledgeable they're aware of all these monsters and their appearances, even the ones that like I said actual adventurers have a decent chance of failing to recognize or that they're unlikely to even see unless they've somehow been traveling between planes or took a vacation in the Underdark, but then conveniently fail to recognize a ton of different player-character races.

[Dr.Samurai]

You are requiring that in order to have suspicion/fear/distrust, a person has to have some sort of perfect or sophisticated knowledge of the creature, and then saying it's unreasonable to expect them to have that knowledge.

In fact, it's more like the opposite is true. I'm not saying that everyone in the D&D world has a perfect idea of what a devil is, but they have some idea. So if something approximates that, then distrust or caution makes sense. I don't think this is anywhere near as unreasonable as you are trying to make the case for.

And you are right in that the setting matters. In Eberron, some creatures won't be so out of place because Eberron is a kitchen sink setting with a nation of monsters and construct mercenaries, etc.

But in a world like Greyhawk where orcs have an evil nation and a cambion demigod has another evil nation with cambion soldiers, tieflings and half-orcs might be met with suspicion or worse. In Dragonlance, where draconians are horrors unleashed on a populace that had never seen them before, dragonborn might get funny looks too. And so on and so forth.

Your standard that NPCs have to be "so knowledgeable" as to recognize obscure and rare monsters in order to justify a fear or distrust of monstrous looking creatures is not reasonable in my opinion. It's like assuming that NPCs are little fawns or baby animals that don't yet know to be wary of the predators that are out there yet, so they go up and sniff a mountain lion.

Farmer, sees an aboleth in its pond: What do you think it is?
Worker: No idea, never seen it before. Must be rare and obscure.
Farmer: Let's go talk to it.
Worker: Nothing about the three eyes, and the tentacles, and the lamprey mouth, and all the slime and muck in the water, and those weird fish people standing around it with transparent skin kind of telling you that maybe we should stay away?
Farmer: No, I've never heard about this creature before so as far as I can tell, there's nothing to worry about. Heck, for all we know it could be drowning in there and need help getting out!

[GeoffWatson]

Back when I played 1st or 2nd edition, some players would often want to play exotic, non-standard races.
If they suffered distrust from NPCs, all the better. That made their character the center of attention, the game became all about them, with the other PCs just being boring sidekicks in the social scenes.
Being treated badly by NPCs was not a punishment for the player at all.

[Emberlily]

I don't find it strange at all that players would want unique character creation options.

2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.
This take is either unkind or unimaginative. I think it's obvious why someone would see more potential for a unique backstory and worldview in something like Dragonborn or Tiefling, compared to the Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits Halflings that have been done to death and back again since LotR came out, got copied, became the Fantasy Gold Standard, got parodied, got adapted to film, and got the soul wrung out of it for profit half a dozen times.
even beyond this, the basic assumption that there's some ulterior motive feels extremely uncharitable. why is there an assumption it must be for some big (nefarious or no) reason someone particularly wants to play a tiefling, or a centaur, or a gnome or an orc beyond "doing so would make them happy"? it would feel only fair to assume everyone has hidden motives for playing human or elf and they really need to justify doing so. the book can say 'these are the assumptions built into most official published worlds', but I don't understand bringing in judgement for if someone wants to have their character look a certain way and (if it's not in a short list of choices) not deal with Mandatory Social Issues put in bc the book said so and not bc they are what the player wants or something that specifically aids that game's story.

even beyond desire to not be pushed into "overdone tolkien" setup, there's a very obvious reason people could (and very much do!) gravitate towards character species like that that has nothing to do with being edgy or super special (there's many of these but here's one that jumps out to me and unifies the "exotic looking" thread here): they want a chance to embody a character who looks like nothing they could ever do in real life. if I'm getting a chance to play around and create a fantasy story w my friends I have little interest in being stuck with a range as narrow as [human, human w pointy ears, stocky human, tiny human] when the game puts out all these other options. not because I want other ppl to think my character is so special bc of how she looks but bc it simply makes me happy to have the chance to embody that sort of physicality for a moment. pigeonholing anyone who picks those into very specific, universal interactions makes them less interesting to play at all. if it's something ppl agree would be cool, that works! but unless it's something everyone wants to do, pushing the group to have to include those interactions isn't just going to worsen ppls' experience, it's going to worsen the issue with these choices being felt as done for the sake of being Special and Exotic bc they are pushed into pigeonholed stereotypes instead of individual characters who have full meaning outside of their D&D species. and if yr worried about players foolishly picking a 'cheat code' to being interesting just from their D&D species, pushing all tables into making those species A Huge Deal To Encounter Most Everywhere is going to exacerbate that, isn't it?

(as for disbelief that 5e owes a lot of playerbase to Critical Role, it's definitely the case. a lot of ppl who'd never done ttrpgs before jumped onto 5th in the last several years and before BG3 came out that was p much all "actual play shows" or hearing stories of D&D games from the snowball built up from the actual play-based player rush)

[Hael]

Another anecdotal +1 for setting specific conflict, and not being afraid of having it in game.

I would say that in over 30 years of playing this game, that ”fantasy racism”, classism (fear of casters), and philosophical conflict (evils in the party) tends to be the norm in our games (even if they don’t necessarily coincide with standard tropes). For instance we often play in a setting where elves and humans are at war (loosely modeled after the French-Indian war). I actually don’t like the terms b/c there is a huge spectrum of reactions that doesn’t really fit those word. ‘in group’ vs ‘out group’ might be less loaded words.

Whenever we play Star Trek kitchen sink games, the stakes and settings automatically feel lower and it feels more like a YA novel than a mature setting. Maybe that should be the norm with online strangers, but if you have a veteran group, I don’t really think it works so well over the long term to keep interest.

[Psyren]

Player Race Options in my game are separated into 3 categories: Green/Yellow/Red Light. Green Light is most stuff, no restriction. But I do have some extra notes for how these races generally fit into my world.
Yellow Light is "yes, but..." and includes some sort of restriction (see Drow, below, for an example), and Red Light means "My default answer is 'no'". If a player has a concept that uses a Red Light element, and it REALLY impresses me, I may allow it, but they'll still be unique. I'm a lot less likely to relent if I banned an option for balance issues.

I think a system like this is fine, though I would broaden it to four categories:


Yes
Yes, but...
No, unless...
No

[KorvinStarmast]

Farmer, sees an aboleth in its pond: What do you think it is?
Worker: No idea, never seen it before. Must be rare and obscure.
Farmer: Let's go talk to it.
Worker: Nothing about the three eyes, and the tentacles, and the lamprey mouth, and all the slime and muck in the water, and those weird fish people standing around it with transparent skin kind of telling you that maybe we should stay away?
Farmer: No, I've never heard about this creature before so as far as I can tell, there's nothing to worry about. Heck, for all we know it could be drowning in there and need help getting out! How do you think an aboleth gets snacks? IIRC, aboleth have a few mind bending abilities that might result in a farmer behaving just so! :smallsmile:


In a world full of real monsters. It is sometimes needful to recalibrate that world building axiom. A lot of the world is empty, because "in those woods there are monsters. People go in and don't come out. So, none of us goes there anymore."


When you think about what little it took to convince people that someone was a witch or a vampire or cavorting with the devil... it seems absolutely ridiculous to think having full blown horns or fangs or a tail or wings wouldn't illicit a similar reaction. Which is a part of the {censored} of 5e Tiefling. Neither the horns nor the fangs nor the tail are needed for the 'trace of infernal blood' to manifest.


But to each their own. I'm not fond of the "every NPC is a D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives" games. Most pirates and sailors in my WoG world consider it bad luck for a woman to be on a ship. (That is an old superstition among some sailors in various epochs on Earth). In my WoG, Sarah Fortune/Miss Fortune (ported in from LoL) is a significant NPC who has sailed and raided the Azure Seas for some years. (And the dread pirate Gangplank finally met his demise at the hands of the party, and the executioner in Salt Marsh). She is also the most famous, and infamous, bounty hunter in the western coasts from wolly bay down to the south edge of the map. The players have learned that she has a team consisting of herself, a warlock, a trickery priest (now a captive of the local earl), a monk (died at the hands of the party) and a cute/handsome swashbuckler named Julio.

Another anecdotal +1 for setting specific conflict, and not being afraid of having it in game. Yes, but it is helpful to provide the players with some background/lore.

Whenever we play Star Trek kitchen sink games, the stakes and settings automatically feel lower and it feels more like a YA novel than a mature setting. Maybe that should be the norm with online strangers, but if you have a veteran group, I don’t really think it works so well over the long term to keep interest. It is one of the aspects of Star Trek RPG that I don't care for. Too many ruber masks.

[Ionathus]

However many people (myself included) have had bad experiences with games where the tiefling, half orc, etc player was routinely alienated and given the whole hate and fear treatment by just about every NPC and it gets old fast. It's a common enough problem that I always ask in session 0 about it. I've been subjected to enough racism in real life, I'm not interested in playing in a game where I'll have to deal with fantasy racism. And if you haven't been at those tables, that's great. But it is unfortunately a common trope and the way that OP was talking about tieflings looking like fiends and thus they should be feared by the townspeople and how a dragon attack would mark the dragonborn player as a threat makes me think that he is interested in utilizing those tropes and asking why more people don't do so.

I don't do so because I like to have lots of options and think it's fun to be able to play a team with a robot and an angel and a slime and a centaur and I want to have fun going on adventures and beating up badguys, not slowly working to overcome implicit biases or whatever.

Heck, two players at my first table as DM chose to base their PCs around fantasy racism. One was a tiefling who had been ostracized her whole life. Another was a human who had been raised by fantasy racists who were so intolerant they even tried to abuse/kill halflings -- that PC had run away in protest and now defended people against fantasy racism at every opportunity.

We got about three sessions into the campaign before both players independently said "you know, this isn't working for me anymore." And I was happy to hear it, because it was really weird and gross-feeling for me to have to constantly be the racist NPCs. Even knowing that the players wanted it to happen. We all just collectively realized that kind of world wasn't the style of game we wanted to play, and we quietly retconned it to a much more accepting Fantasy Kitchen Sink, with isolated pockets of racist jerks to shake it up every so often.


even beyond this, the basic assumption that there's some ulterior motive feels extremely uncharitable. why is there an assumption it must be for some big (nefarious or no) reason someone particularly wants to play a tiefling, or a centaur, or a gnome or an orc beyond "doing so would make them happy"? it would feel only fair to assume everyone has hidden motives for playing human or elf and they really need to justify doing so. the book can say 'these are the assumptions built into most official published worlds', but I don't understand bringing in judgement for if someone wants to have their character look a certain way and (if it's not in a short list of choices) not deal with Mandatory Social Issues put in bc the book said so and not bc they are what the player wants or something that specifically aids that game's story.

I don't want to speak for anyone else but my guess is that it comes from a place of frustration with players who DID rely on it as a crutch, or got weird and mean to other players, or were doing it for optimization reasons with no interest in the lore or story implications.

And that's totally fine and understandable to be frustrated with those things, which absolutely all do happen to DMs and are quite discouraging when you're trying to build a coherent world. The mistake is just in assuming those are the only motivations, just because they were your problem players' motivations. (Not talking to you, obviously, the "you" is for sake of example)

[Darth Credence]

In my current game, exotic species are exotic. We have what we feel is the right amount of fantasy racism.

Every PHB race exists, although not every one has been encountered. Dragonborn all came form an island chain that also has a lot of dragons. Most remain there. A not insignificant number have become pirates, having grown up around the seas and the way that dragons take what they want. A fairly insignificant number have left the place behind and tried to fit into society. Those from the kingdom closest to the islands associate dragonborn with pirates. Those from farther away mostly have no idea who they are.

Humans, Orcans, Nelwyn, and Daikini (the last three are the in-world names of half-orcs, halflings, and half-elves, respectively - calling someone half-something is a slur) are the primary peoples of the continent we adventure in. They are all treated effectively the same, as people. Players take those races for the traits because they will not get any real difference in how they are treated.

Dwarves live in some fairly specific areas, and enjoy good trade relations with other kingdoms, but they have their own. They allow others to immigrate, and a lot more have spread out than the dragonborn, but they are enough separate that they would still be noted as someone different. Many of the coastal city dwellers would have never seen a dwarf, but would know some basic things, true and untrue. If a PC plays one, they will not experience much different because of it, although they may get the occasional stereotypical challenge, like being asked to advise on mining or challenged to a drinking game.

Gnomes don't live in the human kingdoms, so as far as the players know, there are no gnomes. Dwarves would know about them.

Tieflings are scattered throughout the world, and in most places are rarely remarked on. In a kingdom the players have visited but don't spend time in, the largest criminal enterprise is run by tieflings, so there specifically there is suspicion associated with them.

Elves are present in the world, but are not a PC race. Because elves are crazy. They have lived so much longer than everyone else, they are effectively alien. The players went to the only city run by elves outside of their magic valleys, and quickly decided they wanted nothing more to do with those people - they looked down on everyone else as fleeting creatures who were little more than children and couldn't be expected to care for themselves.

Outside of the PHB races, hobgoblins and bugbears exist, but not in the hemisphere the party is in. We have one player who really wanted to play one, so we came up with a reason he had traveled from the other side of the world. People often try to figure out where he is from and what his race is, because he is for all intents and purposes unique. Some particularly learned people recognize the race and what his presence entails. Aasimar and changelings are very rare, and the players have interacted with some but don't know it, as well as a couple they do. Goblins, goliaths, kobolds, kenku, and orcs all exist and have their own societies, ranging from tribal villages to kingdoms the equal of others. Goliaths are looked on with a touch of fear due to their size, while goblins and kobolds are looked on with scorn for theirs (a PC is a kobold, and they will often get overlooked or put down because of this, but they also tend to have much better interactions with dragons, so it all works out and is fun for the group). Kenku that leave the nests are generally out working, exploiting their mimicry trait for money. Yuan-ti, Tabaxi, and centaurs all exist, although no one has gone where they are so they don't know it. Other races would exist if someone wanted them, and when we did a brief Spelljammer excursion WWE got into a bunch of them.

We have a lot of available races, and for some we get a lot of interaction, and for some almost none. I could not imagine the PC race not affecting how the world around them reacts. Some will have almost no reaction because they are "default". But if they ended up in the clutches of a race that is not the default, they may have to deal with how that affects interactions. Now, they aren't just walking down the street having people call them 'knife-ears' or anything, but if they enter into a conversation with someone, their race will definitely impact the conversation. I wouldn't want to run a game where it didn't, and my players don't want to play in such a game, either.

As to the idea that someone might want to pick something else simply for the looks of it, well, in my world they are going to get comments. Even if they say, "I want to be a human, but I want to be 7' tall, 95 pounds, with vermillion skin and indigo hair that sticks straight out from my head. I will wear nothing but a tiara and extensive tattoos." That is going to be commented on by others in-world as much, or probably more, than a bird person. But the bird person will get comments, too, even if the player says they are just a standard owlin, nothing unusual about them.

I started to type that if a player absolutely wanted to do that - to be an 'exotic' race that had no impact on the world around them - I'd let them. But that made me think about it and decide, no, I wouldn't. I'd tell them that in this world, it matters. If they can't deal with that, then they should go with one of the races where it doesn't, or this is not the campaign for them.

[Luccan]

As a player, I'm personally of the opinion that if no one mistakes my tiefling for a fiend at least once then there isn't much point in specifically playing a tiefling. There are other ways to get a charisma bonus and resistance to fire.

As a DM, I won't force players to experience anything they aren't up for, but it's definitely something you should discuss with players either way. I'm fine playing the bad guy in a situation as long as it doesn't ruin the game for anyone.

[Psyren]

As a player, I'm personally of the opinion that if no one mistakes my tiefling for a fiend at least once then there isn't much point in specifically playing a tiefling. There are other ways to get a charisma bonus and resistance to fire.

As a DM, I won't force players to experience anything they aren't up for, but it's definitely something you should discuss with players either way. I'm fine playing the bad guy in a situation as long as it doesn't ruin the game for anyone.

I'm fine with this happening a time or two also, but there's a line that needs to be drawn here. The occasional yokels mistakenly thinking you're a demon is one thing, whereas being unable to even accompany your party into the tavern without pitchforks and torches springing up like weeds is another.

[RSP]

This all just comes down to what tables want to play, and managing expectations with a session 0.

Some tables love murder hobo, and don’t want to deal with RP ramifications.

Others love to RP their characters and prefer an in-game social scene of how NPCs react to their character way more than combat. Neither preference, nor anything in between, is “wrong” or “right”.

Wanting to play a race without having to RP that race is fine, so long as it’s good with the table. Likewise, playing a PC that loves RP interactions with NPCs (positive attitudes towards the PC or negative) is fine too, so long as it’s good with the table.

I’ve played in a game where a guy who loves RPing was mid conversation with a non-hostile NPC when the “I only enjoy combat” player decided there had been too much talking already (an opinion they voiced) and just attacked the NPC to start combat.

Those two players didn’t have the same idea of what it is they were looking for in a 5e session.

Same with this: it’s not wrong to play your game as race selection having implications with NPC interactions. Just be aware of what the table finds fun and roll with that. If something comes up that is troublesome, deal with it like mature adults and adjust the game, if needed, so that it stays fun for everyone investing the time to sit in for the sessions.

[JellyPooga]

I'm fine with this happening a time or two also, but there's a line that needs to be drawn here. The occasional yokels mistakenly thinking you're a demon is one thing, whereas being unable to even accompany your party into the tavern without pitchforks and torches springing up like weeds is another.

I actually lean in the other direction and I should preface that my attitude is entirely my own preference for how I perceive my own characters. That said, if I'm playing something visibly monstrous, anything from a minotaur or orc to anything that could be mistaken for or is undead or fiendish, I expect nothing less than for it to be a royal pain in the proverbial to have even basic, civilised interactions outside of specific, forgiving circumstances (such as communities that are particularly multicultural or accepting of my specific race). I'm literally playing something that is not accepted by most of civilisation and should expect to be treated as such. If I'm not prepared for that, or my GM is going to handwave that difficulty, I will not and should not be playing as that race. The "time or two" is by definition the exception rather than the norm and the norm is that I'm an outcast. Yes, adventurers as a whole are an outcast subsect of the population and should also be treated as such, but as a monster or monstrous creature I am even further removed from that accepted norm.

I will hide features with a hood or disguise, invest in magic and magic items to blend in, slink in the shadows, avoid public locations and otherwise actively navigate the challenges of being perceived in the negative light I expect NPCs to have of my character. If I expect people to treat me as a Human, Elf or Dwarf, with all the expectations, stereotypes and accolades associated with them, then I should also expect people to treat me as a Tiefling, Orc or what-have-you too, whether it's socially positive or negative. If I'm looking to garner support with the local half-orc rebels, then I expect my being a half-orc, tiefling or other ill-perceived race to work in my favour. If I'm playing a martially inclined Dragonborn, I expect schmoozing with the local chapter of the dragon-fan DracoKnights will be a cinch. If I have a hard time in human lands as a tielfing, I expect my human companions are going to have a harder time fitting in than I when the adventure takes us to hell. It works both ways.

[RedMage125]

I think a system like this is fine, though I would broaden it to four categories:


Yes
Yes, but...
No, unless...
No


Thank you! I appreciate the feedback.

However, I am, in general, loathe to issue flat bans, because, for all I know, there might be someone out there creative enough to convince me to relent. So I don't like the idea of splitting the "no" responses.

Borrowing an idea from Keith Baker, for example. I don't have Tabaxi in my world. Let's day a player came to me with a concept for a Tabaxi Wild Magic Sorcerer, who used to be a Wizard's cat familiar. His master blew up in an arcane mishap that also resulted in him assuming a humanoid form, and having crazy Innate magic. This maintains the standard that there is no race of cat people, but allows the player to have a Red Light race. That's interesting and compelling. And I don't preclude the idea that there might be a situation where I would allow a flying race or something from a book I don't usually allow. Like, right now, I do NOT forsee a situation where I allow a changeling. But I cannot forsee all possibilities, and I've had people blow me away with their creativity in the past.

[Theodoxus]

Some of my favorite D&D memories are in a friend's old 2e campaign where we could only play humans. It really sold the world as a world, rather than as a game. 100%


Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

Given our own species history with other hominids, I have a hard time understanding why elves, gnomes, and humans exist together. It's been brought up before, and the best rationalization is that gods of these disparate humanoids keep them from being warred and/or bred out of existence. It's fine, I'll play a game like that, but it's not one I choose to run. My homebrew world has a lone sentient species, using the Custom Lineage as their stat block (so still allows for a lot more differentiation than stock humans or whatever); however there are factions of mages who have raised up 'servitors', "lesser" races that are anthropomorphic aspects of their zodiac. The servitors are unable, magically/genetically, to rise up against their creators, but otherwise have free will. Keeps wars from otherwise breaking out between species. The CL (called Raethlings) manage to wage war as much as we humans do, anyway.

This does allow players to pick other races (tabaxi, grung, loxodon, leonin, etc.) without worrying about being considered too "other", though they tend to fall sometimes into the 'we don't serve your kind here' trope. But it's certainly not always, and I find it adds a bit of tension, especially when the PCs are in a kingdom that isn't affiliated with a specific servitor race.

[Psyren]

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback.

However, I am, in general, loathe to issue flat bans, because, for all I know, there might be someone out there creative enough to convince me to relent. So I don't like the idea of splitting the "no" responses.

The "convincing me" part would be folded into the "unless." But something like, say, Volo's Yuan-Ti Pureblood that is just overpowered and has since been toned down in a later version, or Volo's Kenku that I just find annoying and badly designed, or Dragonmarked subraces in a FR campaign, is something I would indeed be comfortable saying no to without budging.

[Chronos]

I sort of feel like, most of the time when someone plays a tiefling, it's because they want to do the whole angsty "everyone hates me because of something I have no control over" thing. If that's the case, then by not playing into "everyone hates tieflings", you're actually denying player agency.

That said, while coming back to town is a part of the game, most of the time in most D&D games is spent in dungeons or wilderness or whatever, where most of the creatures you meet want to kill you no matter what your race is.

[Psyren]

I sort of feel like, most of the time when someone plays a tiefling, it's because they want to do the whole angsty "everyone hates me because of something I have no control over" thing. If that's the case, then by not playing into "everyone hates tieflings", you're actually denying player agency.

I get that (and it's definitely something to discuss with the player rather than assuming that's what they want.) But even when "everybody hates tieflings" it doesn't have to manifest as overt hostility or violence, see Baldurs Gate 3. Tiefling characters get some pretty snide comments directed at them but nobody runs you out of town or denies you quests etc.

[KorvinStarmast]

I sort of feel like, most of the time when someone plays a tiefling, it's because they want to do the whole angsty "everyone hates me because of something I have no control over" thing. If that's the case, then by not playing into "everyone hates tieflings", you're actually denying player agency. Interesting perspective. One of my players had a fire genasi who is a pretty decent chap all around. As part of his session zero/backstory development, part of what got him to be 'on the run' was that he was staying at a tavern trying to sell gems he'd polished, and the tavern caught fire. (Not his fault). The innkeeper's son knew that it was a grease fire in the kitchen which started it, but the pitchfork bearing mob were sure it was his fault. We RP'd how he'd try to convince the mob or make good his escape, and he chose to 'make good his escape' and (with the innkeeper's son's help) he did just that.

That said, while coming back to town is a part of the game, most of the time in most D&D games is spent in dungeons or wilderness or whatever, where most of the creatures you meet want to kill you no matter what your race is.
Some monsters have "Alignment: hungry" in their stat block. :smallbiggrin:

[Emberlily]

I sort of feel like, most of the time when someone plays a tiefling, it's because they want to do the whole angsty "everyone hates me because of something I have no control over" thing. If that's the case, then by not playing into "everyone hates tieflings", you're actually denying player agency.
that first bit has definitely not been the case for years. as someone who's seen a lot about ppl who came into the game in this edition, I can say the big recent expansion of D&D's playerbase has brought a lot of different perspective and feelings about how they want things to go down. a lot of ppl just find a lot of joy in having their character have horns and a tail without also wanting that it be A Stain Of Evil or anything cliché like that

but your second point is absolutely true. if the player makes that choice wanting it to be something that comes up in the game, then good thought should be given to letting that be the case (if all of the group is comfortable playing it out). and if the player makes the choice and doesn't want to have to deal with being hated for their species, good thought should be given to letting that be the case, too. the judgement and suspicion around the latter in here just feels bewildering and unhelpful. and, I mean, the thread started with "it seems a lot of groups ignore this suggestion the books push on everyone"... a lot of ppl here and elsewhere do like those ideas and should roll with them, but also, clearly they're ideas a lot of other ppl don't find fun to engage with, and should ignore them. and if you find yourself in a group where those ideas clash, you have to find a compromise that works with your specific group

also, if it's an idea that really doesn't appeal to you, "kitchen sink, star trek-style" isn't the only alternative to "the PHB's guidelines"! if it fits in with the game you're all playing, you could easily have a world where, for example, dragonborn are the most common and 'default', and humans and elves are strange and rarely seen outside of tiny regions (and dwarves and halflings don't exist), and roleplaying as one of them comes with baked-in assumptions. the homogeneity of the PHB saying 'every world of D&D has this setup or even more restricted' can be stifling, but that's not to say there's no alternatives if you like having a narrower focus on what the Peoples of your game world are.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think the conversation is sort of predicated on the premise that if a table is choosing one way or the other, it's because the table will enjoy that way. As such, all of this is really just opinion, and explaining our preferences.

To reiterate my preference, I prefer the more exotic races to have an impact if they're adventuring in the party. And the same goes for exotic NPCs found in towns; in my opinion they should have a story about how they got where they are, integrated with the peoples of a city somewhere.

I prefer this because I think it sets a better tone for the game world. Someone mentioned it being like YA fiction vs a mature setting, and I think that's a good way of putting it. It strikes me as more real, and I like a grittier realer mix to my fantasy. It also leaves space for exploration, wonder, introduction, and the normal tropes associated with fish out of water, born of two worlds, etc. It also helps differentiate settings from things like Planescape and Spelljammer, in which I would expect a more cosmopolitan feel. And the same goes within each setting. Someone mentioned a tiefling in Baldur's Gate, but I wouldn't expect every hamlet, town, and village (or city for that matter) to treat tieflings exactly as Baldur's Gate does. Similarly, Sharn, as the biggest city in the setting of Eberron, and relatively close to Droaam, has a disproportionate number of monstrous races in it, so attitudes toward them are more relaxed. But that doesn't mean it's like that everywhere.

These are all things I value and appreciate, so putting in the effort to maintain exotic races in the setting as exotic is my preference.

I also want to say that it doesn't just have to be about devils and monsters either. I think the anecdote about the fire genasi is a perfect example of a non-devil reason to run someone out of town. Presumably most people don't have the resources to just rebuild their house or place of business and replace all of their belongings. So it's quite the risk to let people with fire for hair move about freely, especially considering that they can naturally produce fire at will. Then consider that Produce Flame can kill the average commoner, and that a dragonborn can kill a handful of commoners with their Breath Weapon attack, on average and almost twice over. Bugbears can hide in tight places and reach you from 10ft away, and if they ambush you their punch will kill the average commoner. Changelings and Kenku can impersonate people.

To me it makes more sense that people would have a wariness and superstitions/stories/tall tales about these creatures, before they develop overly-friendly cosmopolitan villages.

Also, it sort of bumps into my sense of fairness as well, though this is really more of a minor and technical point. But seems to me that the exotic races offer up some nice benefits, and being able to play them with no impact because the lore of the setting is "anything goes" seems like a little too easy. Fly speeds, Natural Attacks/Armor, additional spells known, etc.

Anyways, my two cents.

[Psyren]

that first bit has definitely not been the case for years. as someone who's seen a lot about ppl who came into the game in this edition, I can say the big recent expansion of D&D's playerbase has brought a lot of different perspective and feelings about how they want things to go down. a lot of ppl just find a lot of joy in having their character have horns and a tail without also wanting that it be A Stain Of Evil or anything cliché like that.

Right - or even if it is "stain of evil"/"streak of darkness", it's just enough to make them edgy or cool, like Wolverine in a bar, not forced to hide in a church like Nightcrawler.


but your second point is absolutely true. if the player makes that choice wanting it to be something that comes up in the game, then good thought should be given to letting that be the case (if all of the group is comfortable playing it out). and if the player makes the choice and doesn't want to have to deal with being hated for their species, good thought should be given to letting that be the case, too. the judgement and suspicion around the latter in here just feels bewildering and unhelpful. and, I mean, the thread started with "it seems a lot of groups ignore this suggestion the books push on everyone"... a lot of ppl here and elsewhere do like those ideas and should roll with them, but also, clearly they're ideas a lot of other ppl don't find fun to engage with, and should ignore them. and if you find yourself in a group where those ideas clash, you have to find a compromise that works with your specific group.

Exactly.


also, if it's an idea that really doesn't appeal to you, "kitchen sink, star trek-style" isn't the only alternative to "the PHB's guidelines"! if it fits in with the game you're all playing, you could easily have a world where, for example, dragonborn are the most common and 'default', and humans and elves are strange and rarely seen outside of tiny regions (and dwarves and halflings don't exist), and roleplaying as one of them comes with baked-in assumptions. the homogeneity of the PHB saying 'every world of D&D has this setup or even more restricted' can be stifling, but that's not to say there's no alternatives if you like having a narrower focus on what the Peoples of your game world are.

Three for three!

What's "exotic" should be driven by setting, not by some kind of overly generalized tier list in the PHB. As I mentioned upthread, Elves would be exotic in Theros and Dwarves would be exotic in Ravnica, but going by the PHB they should both be more common in those settings than Minotaurs when that's not the case.

[Schwann145]

The Kenku example again, it's technically in their race's rules and description, it's technically a core detail of Kenku, but I'd be shocked if anyone actually decided to make a Kenku player stick to only speaking through mimicked sounds both because it's not worth the hassle and because it would get unbearably annoying real fast.
There is actually a player in the game I'm in right now that is playing a Kenku and doing the speech thing by choice. It's been one of the highlights of the game, thus far. :smallsmile:


Please correct me if I'm entirely off base here but the thread's original question kind of feels like a case of you wanting to see and do a specific story and wondering why it's not more common.
For me it's not about a specific game or story. For me it's more about being a huge fan of setting integrity and a huge opponent of WotC's homogenization efforts throughout 5e.
I think people who play in any given setting should be, for the most part, respecting that setting for what it has to offer. If you want to make small changes to better suit your games, obviously go for it, but if you want to make broad sweeping changes, why are you there in the first place? Pick a setting that better reflects your gaming desires, or even create your own.
Every setting has it's baggage, and that baggage is what gives it character. A group full of "exotic" characters will get strange looks in the Realms, and different strange looks in Greyhawk, and yet different strange looks in Eberron, and no strange looks at all in Planescape.


If you're playing in the former or the latter there's also another question not being asked here. How does Villager #8 out in the middle of nowhere even know what a Devil or Demon looks like to know the Tiefling looks like them? How do they know "yeah there's Dragons and those Red ones are super Evil" but not "also there's all these other Dragons that are Good all the time"?
Context and location and history and a host of things all matter for this question. Looking at the Forgotten Realms, as I'm most familiar with it:
If you're a Dragonborn in Waterdeep, you'll get side-eye a few times, but otherwise no one is going to care. It's a huge metropolitan city with all sorts of peoples coming and going at all times. Humans make up the vast majority of the population, but there are big enough populations of basically everything else that you really won't be an oddity.
If you're a Tiefling in the Dalelands, you're likely not going to have a good time. People will be mistrustful of you at best and outright hostile to you at worst. Because their neighbors to the north, Cormanthyr, have a very long and storied history of being attacked, sacked, and slaughtered by fiendish invasions, multiple times throughout their history. It's capital city of Myth Drannor is the place to go for an adventure of delving through demon-overrun elven ruins.
If you're a Tiefling in Narfel, a place famous for it's demon and devil binding, you're probably not going to surprise many folks. Treating with fiends is quite commonplace, people becoming cambion is a not-too-unregular occurrence even.
If you're a Drow in the North (let's say, in the regions between Silverymoon, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter) then you're likely to be met initially with hostility and fear, because the Menzoberranzan Drow have a long history of surface raids where they slaughter surface elves on sight, steal people to be made slaves, etc. But there are also stories of the famous Drizzt and various groups of non-evil drow followers of Eilistraee who work towards improving the perception of Drow in those regions. So the likelihood of overcoming that initial fear and suspicion is pretty good.


even beyond desire to not be pushed into "overdone tolkien" setup, there's a very obvious reason people could (and very much do!) gravitate towards character species like that that has nothing to do with being edgy or super special (there's many of these but here's one that jumps out to me and unifies the "exotic looking" thread here): they want a chance to embody a character who looks like nothing they could ever do in real life. if I'm getting a chance to play around and create a fantasy story w my friends I have little interest in being stuck with a range as narrow as [human, human w pointy ears, stocky human, tiny human] when the game puts out all these other options. not because I want other ppl to think my character is so special bc of how she looks but bc it simply makes me happy to have the chance to embody that sort of physicality for a moment.
I think I'd be more inclined towards this argument if those people were actually interested in roleplaying as said exotic races. But in several decades of ttrpg gaming, the kenku player I mention above is the very first time I've seen anyone even make the attempt.
Instead, it's just a long history of "human with horns," or "human with a tail," or "human with scales." Not at all different from your mention above of, "human but pointy ears," and "human but stocky," just the list of, "but with..." features has grown some.
(To be fair, I've never seen anyone try to play an Elf or a Dwarf as anything other than "human but..." either. That's also a big disappointment of mine. They're not human, they shouldn't be played as human.)

[KorvinStarmast]

Every setting has it's baggage, and that baggage is what gives it character. A group full of "exotic" characters will get strange looks in the Realms, and different strange looks in Greyhawk, and yet different strange looks in Eberron, and no strange looks at all in Planescape. +10.

I think I'd be more inclined towards this argument if those people were actually interested in roleplaying as said exotic races. But in several decades of ttrpg gaming, the kenku player I mention above is the very first time I've seen anyone even make the attempt.
Instead, it's just a long history of "human with horns," or "human with a tail," or "human with scales." Not at all different from your mention above of, "human but pointy ears," and "human but stocky," just the list of, "but with..." features has grown some.
(To be fair, I've never seen anyone try to play an Elf or a Dwarf as anything other than "human but..." either. That's also a big disappointment of mine. They're not human, they shouldn't be played as human.)
+1. My wood elf monk in a campaign some years back tried to lean into her elven-ness in play, but the campaign was kinda short lived thanks to RL taking our DM from us.

[Ionathus]

I think I'd be more inclined towards this argument if those people were actually interested in roleplaying as said exotic races. But in several decades of ttrpg gaming, the kenku player I mention above is the very first time I've seen anyone even make the attempt.
Instead, it's just a long history of "human with horns," or "human with a tail," or "human with scales." Not at all different from your mention above of, "human but pointy ears," and "human but stocky," just the list of, "but with..." features has grown some.
(To be fair, I've never seen anyone try to play an Elf or a Dwarf as anything other than "human but..." either. That's also a big disappointment of mine. They're not human, they shouldn't be played as human.)

That feels like it's veering into "only I can decide what qualifies as 'human but XYZ'!" territory to me.

It's hard to play a fundamentally non-human character. I try to do it as a DM and I struggle terribly every time. It's even harder if you need to get along with a bunch of other party members -- you must necessarily be some degree of human-relatable, i.e. social and cooperative and moral. And you, yourself are a human, so your own worldview and baseline assumptions are always going to bleed through.

TL;DR - I don't think "inhuman" should ever be someone's benchmark for roleplaying non-human races. It's just not feasible and, unless everyone is onboard, it's likely to hurt the party dynamics. "Human but XYZ" is honestly a much more realistic expectation.

[RSP]

TL;DR - I don't think "inhuman" should ever be someone's benchmark for roleplaying non-human races. It's just not feasible and, unless everyone is onboard, it's likely to hurt the party dynamics. "Human but XYZ" is honestly a much more realistic expectation.

Yes, it’s not easy to play a non-human with only human experiences to draw from.

But I’m also surprised others say they don’t get any non-human RP flavor in their games.

I’d say we have something RP come up related to races at least once a session. A lot of times it’s similar to the basic stuff found in the PHB write ups, or in-character knocks on other PCs (such as the Wood Elf telling the Dwarf to try to catch up; or making a remark about how Elves only like wine as opposed to ales, etc.).

But there’s also just RP related to our races that are emphasized, and I wouldn’t say my current table is overly RP heavy.

Again, tables certainly vary, I’m just surprised there’s comments of zero racial RP involved in games: I wonder if this counts even simple stuff like “let the elf lead the talk with the other group of elves we encounter”.

[GloatingSwine]

Context and location and history and a host of things all matter for this question. Looking at the Forgotten Realms, as I'm most familiar with it:


Context and location and history are the fundamentals of this whole shebanc.

And the dirty little secret is that most people are not sufficiently attached to the fiction of any given D&D setting to have a serious plan for what it means for different fantasy races in different places, especially as there are ever more of them.

If you want to be playing a game where this sort of thing is relevant you need to be playing a game where the setting comes first, and that's not really D&D's bag, the settings are intentionally broad and vague and filled with a lot of blank spaces that are only marked "here be adventures".

[JellyPooga]

Yes, it’s not easy to play a non-human with only human experiences to draw from.

I kind of disagree. To touch back on Star Trek, Worf (TNG) could be seen as a classic example of a human player playing a Klingon character without actually being very Klingon; our Worf player finds it difficult to emphasise the bombastic and rough-around-the-edges culture of your average Klingon. Compare his performance to any other Klingon; they're brash, outspoken, violent, arrogant. We rarely see these traits in Worf, but the actors that play the other Klingons don't seem to have any trouble portraying those traits, nor does Michael Dorn on the occasional episode where he lets his Klingon out (which can be seen more often after he joins DS9). The excuse we're given is that Worf himself, as a character, was raised by humans and is still learning what it really means to be a Klingon, having really only experienced his species' culture in theory from textbooks and holosuites, but it's clear that it's possible to act as a Klingon as a player, just as it's possible to subvert some the stereotypes of the species. Worf being a Klingon on Picards bridge staff sometimes causes a problem and sometimes it's of benefit, but it's rarely uncomfortable for the viewers to observe the tension between him and humans or any other race, despite it constantly coming up whenever his character is on screen. Even though he's playing a "not-very-Klingon" Klingon, we never forget that he is one and it's not because of his rubber forehead.

[Psyren]

+1. My wood elf monk in a campaign some years back tried to lean into her elven-ness in play, but the campaign was kinda short lived thanks to RL taking our DM from us.

I... hope you only mean scheduling/location :smalleek:


Context and location and history are the fundamentals of this whole shebanc.

And the dirty little secret is that most people are not sufficiently attached to the fiction of any given D&D setting to have a serious plan for what it means for different fantasy races in different places, especially as there are ever more of them.

If you want to be playing a game where this sort of thing is relevant you need to be playing a game where the setting comes first, and that's not really D&D's bag, the settings are intentionally broad and vague and filled with a lot of blank spaces that are only marked "here be adventures".

There's also the simple fact that "the fiction of D&D settings" is mutable rather than static. Take Forgotten Realms - back in 2e and even early 3e, something like a Tiefling or Dragonborn walking around the Sword Coast would indeed be a fairly big deal. But by the time 4e and 5e rolled around, the setting had changed - after the Spellplague, Abeir showed up again and Avernus got a lot more active and now bam, they're both core races, and not just mechanically. Obviously we don't have census figures, but if we somehow did, there's be an explosion of both races across that century, plenty of time for other races to get used to seeing them around.

(Funny thought: now I keep imagining some insular/xenophobic elves on Evermeet angrily shaking their fists and pining for the good old days when Faerun was just Tolkien.)

[RSP]

I kind of disagree. To touch back on Star Trek, Worf (TNG) could be seen as a classic example of a human player playing a Klingon character without actually being very Klingon

If the counter argument to “it’s not easy to play a non-human with only human experiences to draw from” is “but it’s been accomplished by a professional actor who’s only job while doing so was solely doing that, and who had assistance from writers and directors, as well as probably creative directors and acting coaches”; well I’ll just assume, in the context of what this thread is discussing and considering that 5e participants are very rarely professionally trained as actors (and much less are doing so professionally) and clearly do not have the staffing support of Star Trek at their tables; that the above statement holds true and the “counter argument” in fact supports the statement.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Since this is the 5E thread, I do feel like it's worth pointing out that there are at least three published adventures that kind of rely on the PCs being at least a little exotic. Descent into Avernus and Curse of Strahd both throw the PCs into hostile environments that operate by different rules than they're used to. Out of the Abyss includes specific DM guidance recommending that player-characters not be from any of the Underdark races to really emphasize the alienness of the Underdark and the social structures they're going to encounter, at least in Unpronounceable Kuo-Toa-Land and Neverlight Grove. The PCs aren't exotic species per se, but drow NPCs reacting to a human PC isn't that different from human NPCs reacting to a drow PC. Shadows of the Dragon Queen should probably include some of this too, but everything I've heard about that module is that it's awful so I haven't bought it.

[Chronos]

Come to think of it, when I DMed for a group that had a tiefling in it (mostly in Waterdeep), I only really made race relevant twice, and both times it was subverting the trope. Once, when the group was walking down the street, an angry drunkard started on a tirade about "you people" coming in and messing everything up, but when the tiefling started getting offended, it turned out that he was actually talking about the gnome in the group.

And another time, the party decided on their own to visit a tattoo parlor (it was in the find-out-what's-going-on phase of the campaign, and one of their leads was that a witness had seen the tattoos on a couple of perpetrators), and I decided that the tattooist was heavily body-modded and liked freakish appearances, and he led off with "Dahling, I love what you've done with your horns". Which I think actually made the tiefling even more uncomfortable than outright hostility would have.

[Psyren]

Out of the Abyss includes specific DM guidance recommending that player-characters not be from any of the Underdark races to really emphasize the alienness of the Underdark and the social structures they're going to encounter, at least in Unpronounceable Kuo-Toa-Land and Neverlight Grove.

A line like that doesn't say anything about how common those races are in the setting as a whole though, it's just setting up the fact that you were likely captured during a raid. There's even background options you can take to increase your familiarity with the Underdark in character.


The PCs aren't exotic species per se, but drow NPCs reacting to a human PC isn't that different from human NPCs reacting to a drow PC. Shadows of the Dragon Queen should probably include some of this too, but everything I've heard about that module is that it's awful so I haven't bought it.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen, rather than ban races 'exotic' to Krynn, takes an "ask your DM, here's a potential way you can use to justify it" approach. I see nothing wrong with that.

[P. G. Macer]

Shadow of the Dragon Queen, rather than ban races 'exotic' to Krynn, takes an "ask your DM, here's a potential way you can use to justify it" approach. I see nothing wrong with that.

Looking at the sidebar right now, that’s not what it says. It says:


PEOPLE FROM BEYOND

Peoples who aren’t native to the world still might find their way to Krynn. It’s possible to find individual members—or even small enclaves—of folk like dragonborn, halflings, tieflings, or any other race in Ansalon. Perhaps such individuals stepped through a portal and found themselves on Krynn, or traded with one of Krynn’s great empires before the Cataclysm. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn.

(Emphases added)

This sidebar is in the player-facing section of the book, “Character Creation”. It makes no mention of requiring the Dungeon Master’s permission or collaboration to play a race/species not native to the setting, and while the DM can fall back on Rule 0 like any DM, that they have to go against the text of the book to do so weakens their position should the issue of a player wanting to play, say, a loxodon in a Dragonlance campaign devolves into a player-vs.-DM argument.

Sorry, that particular sidebar is a pet peeve of mine in a module I otherwise enjoy quite a bit.

[Wintermoot]

Looking at the sidebar right now, that’s not what it says. It says:


(Emphases added)

This sidebar is in the player-facing section of the book, “Character Creation”. It makes no mention of requiring the Dungeon Master’s permission or collaboration to play a race/species not native to the setting, and while the DM can fall back on Rule 0 like any DM, that they have to go against the text of the book to do so weakens their position should the issue of a player wanting to play, say, a loxodon in a Dragonlance campaign devolves into a player-vs.-DM argument.

Sorry, that particular sidebar is a pet peeve of mine in a module I otherwise enjoy quite a bit.

Just so it's clear.

In a hypothetical situation where a DM says "i'm running a Krynn campaign" and six players show up and five of them are playing Krynn native races and one guy shows up with a War-forged.

DM: "Sorry, I guess there was some miscommunication. This is on Krynn, so there are no war-forged"

Player: "I don't need your permission. The rules say I can play exotic species because maybe they fell in a warp hole."

In your mind... the DM is the jerk in this situation?

[Dr.Samurai]

My guess is it's a pet peeve of PG Macer's because it gives the impression that the player can choose any race so long as there is an explanation, as opposed to making it more clear that the setting has certain restrictions and they should speak with their DM about selecting a race not normally found in the setting.

[GloatingSwine]

Just so it's clear.

In a hypothetical situation where a DM says "i'm running a Krynn campaign" and six players show up and five of them are playing Krynn native races and one guy shows up with a War-forged.

DM: "Sorry, I guess there was some miscommunication. This is on Krynn, so there are no war-forged"

Player: "I don't need your permission. The rules say I can play exotic species because maybe they fell in a warp hole."

In your mind... the DM is the jerk in this situation?

They should probably kick themselves for not hashing out at least the broad strokes of who's playing what in session 0, at least.

"We're playing this setting, only races in this setting's core book are involved" is peak session 0 framework-of-the-campaign material.

[Psyren]

Looking at the sidebar right now, that’s not what it says. It says:


(Emphases added)

That is what it says. "It's possible to find X" does not mean "you can choose to be X regardless of your DM's wishes." Moreover, even if it did somehow mean that, PHB pg. 6 gives the DM explicit authority to supersede any element of a printed module - so even if you are dead set on reading the sidebar that way, your DM can still just throw it out entirely.

[KorvinStarmast]

Just so it's clear.

In a hypothetical situation where a DM says "i'm running a Krynn campaign" and six players show up and five of them are playing Krynn native races and one guy shows up with a War-forged.

DM: "Sorry, I guess there was some miscommunication. This is on Krynn, so there are no war-forged"

Player: "I don't need your permission. The rules say I can play exotic species because maybe they fell in a warp hole."

In your mind... the DM is the jerk in this situation?
No, the player is being a jerk.

You also forgot to finish the conversation.
DM: "The DMG says DM is master of rules. DM rule is No Warforged on Krynn. If that's a deal breaker for you, sorry, I am sure there is a DM somewhere who will be happy to include your Warforged PC into their campaign.
If you still want to play in this campaign, please select one of the races that exist and give it a whirl.
And if you end up with buyer's remorse, you can respec your PC up to the end of level 4."

Also, PHB page 6 says DMs word is final on setting and lore.

Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.
I agree with PG Macer that the sidebar is WotC setting up a DM vs Player situation.

I am not alone in feeling a bit backstabbed by WotC in my DM hat as regards any number of things they have carelessly dumped into the splats.

[Wintermoot]

My guess is it's a pet peeve of PG Macer's because it gives the impression that the player can choose any race so long as there is an explanation, as opposed to making it more clear that the setting has certain restrictions and they should speak with their DM about selecting a race not normally found in the setting.

Oh okay. Well then, that's different than how I read their post. My bad.

Carry on then.



No, the player is being a jerk.

You also forgot to finish the conversation.
DM: "The DMG says DM is master of rules. DM rule is No Warforged on Krynn. If that's a deal breaker for you, sorry, I am sure there is a DM somewhere who will be happy to include your Warforged PC into their campaign.
If you still want to play in this campaign, please select one of the races that exist and give it a whirl.
And if you end up with buyer's remorse, you can respec your PC up to the end of level 4."

Also, PHB page 6 says DMs word is final on setting and lore.

"Player: Actually, this is a tinkergnome named Thadwitzit whose great life work was building this metal automaton suit of armor for helping his people in mining and exploration. Sadly, because he's a tinkergnome, it only kind of worked and he got trapped inside then buried in a mine collapse. he died a long time ago, but years later, when the other gnomes dug up the armor, it was somehow automated as if by the spirit of Thadwitzit. Now he wanders the earth in his metal form, the decayed skeleton of his former self still strapped into the cockpit in the chest, trying to figure out who he really is. "

"DM: Oh, okay then."

[KorvinStarmast]

"Player: Actually, this is a tinkergnome named Thadwitzit whose great life work was building this metal automaton suit of armor for helping his people in mining and exploration. Sadly, because he's a tinkergnome, it only kind of worked and he got trapped inside then buried in a mine collapse. he died a long time ago, but years later, when the other gnomes dug up the armor, it was somehow automated as if by the spirit of Thadwitzit. Now he wanders the earth in his metal form, the decayed skeleton of his former self still strapped into the cockpit in the chest, trying to figure out who he really is. "

"DM: Oh, okay then." If the two work together to find a way to make it work and fit into the game world, then Good Job To Them Both!
(IME players who go to the effort to make it fit are usually worth working with on any number of things, not just chargen).

[Psyren]

I agree with PG Macer that the sidebar is WotC setting up a DM vs Player situation.

If any attempt by WotC to say "here's a possible thing you can ask for" is "setting up a DM vs Player situation" then I would say both sides of that 'situation' are in dire need of thicker skins.

[P. G. Macer]

Oh dear, I didn’t mean to kick the hornet’s nest. Sorry.

But yeah, Dr.Samurai and KorvinStarmast have the best read of my position. The sidebar implies a certain malleability that by default Krynn does not have. If the DM makes the call of their own volition to let a player play an orc in Dragonlance, that’s fine and good. But in my opinion there’s enough ambiguity that a player may (mistakenly) believe the sidebar to be a case of Specific Beats General overriding p. 6 of the PHB in this specific instance.

I am of the belief that while ultimately no amount of rules text can truly defeat a bad-faith/jerk DM or player, the rules can provide some guardrails to prevent misunderstandings or clear up confusing cases that would otherwise cause players and DMs to not be the best person they could be at the table.

[Psyren]

Oh dear, I didn’t mean to kick the hornet’s nest. Sorry.

But yeah, Dr.Samurai and KorvinStarmast have the best read of my position. The sidebar implies a certain malleability that by default Krynn does not have. If the DM makes the call of their own volition to let a player play an orc in Dragonlance, that’s fine and good. But in my opinion there’s enough ambiguity that a player may (mistakenly) believe the sidebar to be a case of Specific Beats General overriding p. 6 of the PHB in this specific instance.

There is no rule more specific than "Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if that setting is a published world." And a DM who is incapable of asserting themselves even with that text in hand, would be incapable of asserting themselves no matter what is written in any rulebook. At that point, the designers are not the problem.

(Moreover - they put that text at the front of the PHB, so the players can't even credibly claim that they weren't exposed to it, or at least that it's unreasonable for them to have been exposed to it.)


I am of the belief that while ultimately no amount of rules text can truly defeat a bad-faith/jerk DM or player, the rules can provide some guardrails to prevent misunderstandings or clear up confusing cases that would otherwise cause players and DMs to not be the best person they could be at the table.

I completely agree, and they've done that.

[RedMage125]

(IME players who go to the effort to make it fit are usually worth working with on any number of things, not just chargen).



I am of the belief that while ultimately no amount of rules text can truly defeat a bad-faith/jerk DM or player, the rules can provide some guardrails to prevent misunderstandings or clear up confusing cases that would otherwise cause players and DMs to not be the best person they could be at the table.

I second both of these statements.

[Chronos]

What's a player doing reading the module, anyway? The only way a player should even be encountering that sidebar in the first place is if the DM chooses to share it with them.

[Devils_Advocate]

People aren't going to confuse a tiefling for a fiend under normal circumstances. Those who have seen fiends know that they don't look the same, and those who have never seen fiends are unlikely to leap to the conclusion that this stranger is one of those monsters that you only hear about in stories. ("If they believe in angels, why should they be surprised to see one?") Dragonborn are even less likely to be mistaken for dragons; they're humanoid bipeds, for Bahamut's sake!

Someone's reaction to an unfamiliar species will probably be more about the unfamiliarity. Not "I assume that this dragon-lookin' guy is exactly like a dragon" so much as "I've never seen a dragon-lookin' guy like this one before". Someone who knows nothing about dragonborn and nothing about tabaxi probably isn't gonna just be like "Well, dragons are dangerous, but cats are harmless". Someone might tentatively guesstimate that a dragonborn is more dangerous than a tabaxi, but probably isn't gonna be a lot more wary of one than of the other.

Realistic societal attitudes towards specific peoples vary regionally based on history and current events. Humans of one country might well hate humans from a neighboring country more than they hate orcs. Like, if raiders from Flarkland routinely pillage Blarkland, Blarks probably wind up disliking the Flarks a lot. Whereas, if orcs regularly raid Flarkland and give Flarks a lot of trouble, most Blarks might like the orcs! Sure, there was an incident a while back where some orcs ate a Blarkish diplomat, and some folks in Blarkland are still fairly resentful about it, but ultimately an enemy of the Flarks is a friend of the Blarks.

These sorts of divisions get glossed over in generic fantasyland, where all of the governments are monarchies, everyone uses coins of the same weight made of the same 3 to 4 different metals, everyone speaks "Common", etc. If you don't strive to make your setting more diverse than that, the appeal of fantasy racism isn't that it serves setting verisimilitude; it's just a genre trope. Which, hey, fair enough, but let's call a spade a spade, in that case.

On the other hand, if you want something non-generic, it might be helpful to dump the usual elves, dwarves, and even humans. In that case, you might consider making a setting inhabited entirely by whatever weird non-standard races your players like. Plenty of space on the map for their homelands if you that's where you start from. And this will hopefully produce something original, if nothing else.

[Amnestic]

On the other hand, if you want something non-generic, it might be helpful to dump the usual elves, dwarves, and even humans. In that case, you might consider making a setting inhabited entirely by whatever weird non-standard races your players like. Plenty of space on the map for their homelands if you that's where you start from. And this will hopefully produce something original, if nothing else.

One of my settings (mostly) did that. It had humans, mermen (male only), bird people, dragonborn, and genasi as playable races. No elves/dwarves/gnomes/etc.

It was also my first foray into scrapping Common as a language and having regional languages only. It had...eh...mixed results.

[Theodoxus]

It was also my first foray into scrapping Common as a language and having regional languages only. It had...eh...mixed results.

Heh, I've contemplated doing that. My homebrew world has 12 nations, and 12 unique dialects for them, but after a bit of mental gymnastics on how much work it would be to initiate international commerce - where you'd either need to know the language, or hire a translator... I ultimately decided that a "Common" trade tongue just works better all around. Especially since the players wouldn't be dealing with the headache of talking as NPCs.

I did keep the regional dialects though. It think it's a bit more fun for intrigue when the party all knows some esoteric language that no one else in the region does. (Plus it amps up the 'other' when you're talking 'foreign' and everyone is staring at you, thinking you're talking about them.)

[schm0]

I run campaigns exclusively in the Forgotten Realms, and while I do allow species outside the PHB, the number of species are limited. No monstrous species from Volo's is a big one, and of course most species from another setting (MtG, Ravenloft, Eberron, Spelljammer, etc.) is excluded as well. But from a lore perspective, anything outside the PHB is exceedingly rare, and that is often reflected in the NPCs they come into contact with.

I've considered restricting the ability to play a more exotic species to a dice roll (say, rolling a nat 20) at the beginning of the campaign, but I'm not sure that's the best approach. I've also
dabbled with the idea of borrowing some mechanics for creating characters in the Realms such as those found in this D&D Beyond article (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/783-heroic-chronicle-sword-coast-and-the-north). The idea would be to offer traditional character creation, but also incentivize the players to use the Chronicle to roll for their characters (including rolling or choosing from a short list of species) with the promise of a starting magic item or boon for doing so, allowing so many re-rolls in case they don't like a certain result. This way I can incentivize creating a character that would be statistically probable to live in the Realms.

But in general, yes, almost always my players lean towards the more rarer species and the party ends up looking like Guardians of the Galaxy instead of the Fellowship of the Ring.

[Caffinicus]

[QUOTE=Psyren;26008310]Right - or even if it is "stain of evil"/"streak of darkness", it's just enough to make them edgy or cool, like Wolverine in a bar, not forced to hide in a church like Nightcrawler.

Yet the logic of Nightcrawler hiding in a church works perfectly, and surprises no one.

[Caffinicus]

There is actually a player in the game I'm in right now that is playing a Kenku and doing the speech thing by choice. It's been one of the highlights of the game, thus far. :smallsmile:


For me it's not about a specific game or story. For me it's more about being a huge fan of setting integrity and a huge opponent of WotC's homogenization efforts throughout 5e.
I think people who play in any given setting should be, for the most part, respecting that setting for what it has to offer. If you want to make small changes to better suit your games, obviously go for it, but if you want to make broad sweeping changes, why are you there in the first place? Pick a setting that better reflects your gaming desires, or even create your own.
Every setting has it's baggage, and that baggage is what gives it character. A group full of "exotic" characters will get strange looks in the Realms, and different strange looks in Greyhawk, and yet different strange looks in Eberron, and no strange looks at all in Planescape.


Context and location and history and a host of things all matter for this question. Looking at the Forgotten Realms, as I'm most familiar with it:
If you're a Dragonborn in Waterdeep, you'll get side-eye a few times, but otherwise no one is going to care. It's a huge metropolitan city with all sorts of peoples coming and going at all times. Humans make up the vast majority of the population, but there are big enough populations of basically everything else that you really won't be an oddity.
If you're a Tiefling in the Dalelands, you're likely not going to have a good time. People will be mistrustful of you at best and outright hostile to you at worst. Because their neighbors to the north, Cormanthyr, have a very long and storied history of being attacked, sacked, and slaughtered by fiendish invasions, multiple times throughout their history. It's capital city of Myth Drannor is the place to go for an adventure of delving through demon-overrun elven ruins.
If you're a Tiefling in Narfel, a place famous for it's demon and devil binding, you're probably not going to surprise many folks. Treating with fiends is quite commonplace, people becoming cambion is a not-too-unregular occurrence even.
If you're a Drow in the North (let's say, in the regions between Silverymoon, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter) then you're likely to be met initially with hostility and fear, because the Menzoberranzan Drow have a long history of surface raids where they slaughter surface elves on sight, steal people to be made slaves, etc. But there are also stories of the famous Drizzt and various groups of non-evil drow followers of Eilistraee who work towards improving the perception of Drow in those regions. So the likelihood of overcoming that initial fear and suspicion is pretty good.


I think I'd be more inclined towards this argument if those people were actually interested in roleplaying as said exotic races. But in several decades of ttrpg gaming, the kenku player I mention above is the very first time I've seen anyone even make the attempt.
Instead, it's just a long history of "human with horns," or "human with a tail," or "human with scales." Not at all different from your mention above of, "human but pointy ears," and "human but stocky," just the list of, "but with..." features has grown some.
(To be fair, I've never seen anyone try to play an Elf or a Dwarf as anything other than "human but..." either. That's also a big disappointment of mine. They're not human, they shouldn't be played as human.)


That feels like it's veering into "only I can decide what qualifies as 'human but XYZ'!" territory to me.

It's hard to play a fundamentally non-human character. I try to do it as a DM and I struggle terribly every time. It's even harder if you need to get along with a bunch of other party members -- you must necessarily be some degree of human-relatable, i.e. social and cooperative and moral. And you, yourself are a human, so your own worldview and baseline assumptions are always going to bleed through.

TL;DR - I don't think "inhuman" should ever be someone's benchmark for roleplaying non-human races. It's just not feasible and, unless everyone is onboard, it's likely to hurt the party dynamics. "Human but XYZ" is honestly a much more realistic expectation.

Or would be if the "XYZ" wasn't just a physical descriptor.

[Caffinicus]

Context and location and history are the fundamentals of this whole shebanc.

And the dirty little secret is that most people are not sufficiently attached to the fiction of any given D&D setting to have a serious plan for what it means for different fantasy races in different places, especially as there are ever more of them.

If you want to be playing a game where this sort of thing is relevant you need to be playing a game where the setting comes first, and that's not really D&D's bag, the settings are intentionally broad and vague and filled with a lot of blank spaces that are only marked "here be adventures".

Maybe they are now, but settings back in the TSR days, and even through 3e, were much more rich and detailed than the 5e versions are.

[Psyren]

Yet the logic of Nightcrawler hiding in a church works perfectly, and surprises no one.

My point is that you're not required to be an outcast to be a tiefling these days. If that was the case in prior editions, fine, go play one of them then.

[MoiMagnus]

IMO the role of the PCs in-universe also matters.

Sure exotic races are rare, but are they rare among mercenaries? After all, "an outcast with uncommon abilities" has nothing to lose and everything to win from mercenary lifestyle. Are they rare among legends? Having an exotic race might make it easier to be remembered by generation of bards.

If your world is somewhat medieval, the simple fact that the PCs are wandering from a town to another is already enough for them to be weird/untrustworthy/probably-an-outlaw. And while some table roleplay that part, IME the same tables that ignore this whole "exotic races" also ignore this whole "the PCs are kind of weird even if they're humans". It's not that they don't care specifically about exotic race, it's that they're not interested in RPing the consequences of living on the fringe of the societal order.

[Schwann145]

My point is that you're not required to be an outcast to be a tiefling these days. If that was the case in prior editions, fine, go play one of them then.

Required? Of course not.
But even this edition suggests that you should expect to be a spectacle. This isn't relegated to "ye olde editions," or anything of the sort; it still applies in 5e.

[Psyren]

Required? Of course not.
But even this edition suggests that you should expect to be a spectacle. This isn't relegated to "ye olde editions," or anything of the sort; it still applies in 5e.

At which point they realized "hey, maybe our #3 and #4 most popular species by volume shouldn't be fringe options anymore." So they're changing that expectation, and rightfully so. Mearls deciding on something 10 years ago isn't a manacle.

[Blatant Beast]

But in general, yes, almost always my players lean towards the more rarer species and the party ends up looking like Guardians of the Galaxy instead of the Fellowship of the Ring.

This has been my experience throughout my D&D play experience, which goes back to 1981.
Humans, have almost always been supposed to be the predominate race in most published campaign worlds, but it is not uncommon to find Adventuring Group rosters with no humans in it.

In a way, this phenomena makes a certain sense. If we look at jobs that are considered dangerous or have the patina of being socially undesirable, the individuals that take those jobs often lack social mobility, and belong to groups with less established political capital.

A member of a patrician family is likely not working in a Tyson Meatpacking plant as a line worker, for example.

If being a grubby adventurer in a human kingdom means living a life that is brutish and short, whom is constantly overcharged by Company store style shopkeeps, (2 sp for a loaf of hard bread, some hard boiled eggs, and greasy, preserved sausage for a days worth of rations), and in general the nobles and powerful will just ignore you, unless you might serve some purpose, or by some miracle you become powerful enough that the powerful can't ignore you.........then it stands to reason that most adventurers would probably come from groups that are not socially powerful...sometimes know as the downtrodden.

[KorvinStarmast]

In a way, this phenomena makes a certain sense. If we look at jobs that are considered dangerous or have the patina of being socially undesirable, the individuals that take those jobs often lack social mobility, and belong to groups with less established political capital.

A member of a patrician family is likely not working in a Tyson Meatpacking plant as a line worker, for example.

The Noble background doesn't fit your point here. :smallwink: Nor does Acolyte, and nor does sage.

If being a grubby adventurer in a human kingdom means living a life that is brutish and short, whom is constantly overcharged by Company store style shopkeeps, (2 sp for a loaf of hard bread, some hard boiled eggs, and greasy, preserved sausage for a days worth of rations), and in general the nobles and powerful will just ignore you, unless you might serve some purpose, or by some miracle you become powerful enough that the powerful can't ignore you.........then it stands to reason that most adventurers would probably come from groups that are not socially powerful...sometimes know as the downtrodden. OK, you have covered Urchin, and probably Cirminal and maybe Charlatan backgrounds.
Soldier? Maybe, depends on whom the soldier served.
Sailor? No.
Knight? No.
Faction Agent? Probably not.
Enterntainer? Could go either way.
Outlander? Simply out doorsy doesn't make one downtrodden.
Folk Hero? OK, I can buy that as down trodden or at least from a lower run in society (as written)
Smuggler? (Salt Marsh) Maybe. You can argue that Smuggler and Thief overlap enough for a yes. But some smugglers are merchants who move illicit/tax avoiding goods on the side ...
Archeologist (ToA)? No.
Clan Crafter? Cloistered Scholar? Nope.
Scholar? nope.
Guild Artisan? Nope.
Far Traveler? Nope.

While I get what you are aiming for, the wide variety of backgrounds allows for a lot of social strata to be represented in the adventuring life choice.

[Blatant Beast]

The Noble background doesn't fit your point here. :smallwink: Nor does Acolyte, and nor does sage.

Sure it does, Backgrounds are in the past. The last Emperor of China, eventually became a gardener if I remember correctly. His fortunes went from being a living Divine Representative, to being a prisoner, and then finally an assistant gardener in Beijing.

Ferdinand Marcos went into exile from the Philippines and moved to Hawaii, and did not have a large influence on his now host country.

I have family members that were academics in the Soviet Union, but they had to work what would be commonly termed "menial" jobs in the USA, until they received certifications that were recognized by the United States.

Being the child of the former Duke of Defense for the now defunct country of Tabaxistan, might still afford a PC some connections in Noble circles, but it amounts to maybe a dinner invitation or two, and is entirely consistent with the Background ability granted....you can use your past to set up meetings with people in a certain social circle.

[Tanarii]

Just house-rule a charisma penalty whenever interacting with a species not common in the local community and be done with it.

Then players know the exact effect and as long as you communicate the common races in local community, and can make an informed decision when selecting character race. And a decision point as to if they should really let the human sorcerer/warlock open their trap when in dwarf/elf/orc-town.

[Witty Username]

There is no rule more specific than "Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if that setting is a published world." And a DM who is incapable of asserting themselves even with that text in hand, would be incapable of asserting themselves no matter what is written in any rulebook. At that point, the designers are not the problem.


Eh,
I feel like that moves into the sidebar being superfluous from the outset though.

I mean, I have actually had these kinds of discussions with my playgroup for our Ravnica game.* We didn't need anyone to tell us to go with what makes sense or cover what was satisfactory for our play group. People who want to work orcs into Dragonlance will tend to figure that out on their own.

*The focus was half-elves, lizardfolk, and Dragonborn. We went with yes for lizardfolk and dragonborn because that is essentially Viashino, and no with half-elves because MTG doesn't seem to go for that. That being said, we went with half-elves being on the table for the reincarnation spell. We sorta accidentally brought back someone as a half-elf, I think the DM flavored it that our spell went strange because of the Simic lab we were in.
--
I always read unusual as, doesn't exist on all or most worlds, not, considered lesser by civilized society.
The inclusion of Tieflings and Dragonborn was because of using FR as the default setting which they are fairly significant for. Gnomes, for that and having not made the initial jump to 4e. And half-orcs/half-elves because they have always occupied a strange spot in lore and being somewhat rare in the worlds they are in.