# D&D Race You Hate the Most



## Mattachine (Mar 2, 2012)

So, we have a class poll . . . how about a D&D race poll?

I included the races present in the various PHBs, plus some common sub-races and races from some settings.

Good luck!


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## avin (Mar 2, 2012)

Die, halflings, die!!!


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## Lwaxy (Mar 2, 2012)

How about none? 

I picked Mul, because this is just a half dwarf and not a race, and for the same reason I do not consider half-anythings to be their own race and thus deeply dislike them described as such.


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## Khaalis (Mar 2, 2012)

I have to add Shardmind and Wilden.  Just did not work for me.  For me... a "Crystal Being" should have been more of a sub-species to warforged (a living crystal golem) and a for a plant being, a sclaed-down Treant (aka ent, rootwalker). JMHO.


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## Mengu (Mar 2, 2012)

I went with Gnomes, that I don't really hate, but dislike, Deurgar which I do hate, and Changeling which I don't think belongs in the hands of a PC, though I know campaigns where it wouldn't matter too terribly much. 

I almost said human, because I hate that there is only one human race. There should be more human options in terms of game mechanics.

Edit: Ultimately, I would not be disappointed by any published race. It's just more optional tools for the DM, as far as I'm concerned.


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## Ahnehnois (Mar 2, 2012)

Gnomes and kender both suck. They're not cute, they're not funny, they're not necessary. (I do kind of like the RoS presentation of gnomes, but that's not how they're played).

Warforged are pretty sketchy.

Drow have had more than enough words typed about them already.

I don't know what a 'mull' is. If "eladrin" had been included I'd have voted for that, but I suppose I'm not sad that it was deemed so unimportant so as to be excluded from a poll with over 20 options.

I try to be open-minded about these things. There are many cases where I've hated a race but seen it done well as a character or in some supplement so I forgave it its flaws (Dragonborn, Tieflings, which I think 4e butchered but are not unredeemable, changelings, which I didn't like until I saw Races of Eberron, and probably others).


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## Khaalis (Mar 2, 2012)

Lwaxy said:


> How about none?
> 
> I picked Mul, because this is just a half dwarf and not a race, and for the same reason I do not consider half-anythings to be their own race and thus deeply dislike them described as such.



Ah.. the joy of races.... to each their own. I actually liked that a setting had the guts to take a new path and say that half-dwarves were: 
A) Relatively Common and 
B) produced something other than the already existent "mish-mash" half-races as they had been presented up to that point in D&D.


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## Minigiant (Mar 2, 2012)

human

elf

dwarf

halfling


I'm sure everyone knows why I picked these.


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## steeldragons (Mar 2, 2012)

I assume you are meaning, here, as a PC race?

So I did select drow. LUVUM for villains, nemeses, evil-doers in the darkest reaches of the Underworld. But PCs? Nuh-no. Hordes of broody emo outcasts, no matter how good they look in black, are not racing up out of the Underdark to be valiant heroes on the surface. Just...no.

I selected Warforged, but it's not exactly a "hate" so much as a "setting appropriate" thing. Warforged are and belong in Eberron. Since I do not play in the Eberron setting/world, warforged have no business being PCs in my games.

Dragonborn...well...just don't like 'em. No sir, I don't like 'em. They're "forced" in a way? Or "hokey"...I can't really tell you why. Just don't.

Eladrin is missing from the list, so I clicked on "Other half-races or planetouched" for them. Gods I HATE the whole concept of "Eladrin." There were always...ALWAYS ALWAYS...from 1e on down "High Elves"...they were the friggin' DEFAULT elvin race for PCs! There were also "Grey Elves" which were supposed to be more "magical" and "otherworldly" and "removed/reclusive". Why in the world did "Eladrin" ever strike anyone as necessary?! If I had to pick ONE race for pure "hatred", it would be the "Eladrin."

Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi and other "planetouched"...things...I just have a problem with.

Mostly, this is because if I allow it for one player, then it's fair game for all (and me as the DM for NPCs)...and having horned n' tailed guys, girls with flaming or blowing hair all of the time or shiny glowy folks with "angel eyes" just rubs me...in a not good way.

More than ONE of these, not just in the party, but in the whole of the Prime Material Plane just strikes me as ridiculous. Ok, maybe one EACH.

AGAIN, though, it is a setting specific thing. If you're playing Planescape or in Sigil or playing a "racing across/through the planes" campaign or "make a party of extradimensional characters starting off in the 4th Level of Hell or the Astral Plane" kind of game, then they make total sense. Just not in my "standard" setting/world (which I think/take as a fairly "vanilla" standard fantasy D&D world). 

I mean, c'mon, how many angels, devils, elemental/djinn, etc. ad nauseum are havin' sex with normal mortals (most probably humans)?

All of that said, I would be inclined to allow any or all of these races as a SINGULAR, ONLY ONE OF THEIR KIND IN THE KNOWN WORLD kind of thing if the player reeeeally couldn't do their "character concept" any other way. But, it's been my experience, that there's pretty much always another way to do them with a more..."conventional" or "traditional" race. 

Nuf sed by me. Going to my bunker now to wait out the inevitable fallout.

--SD


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## AntiStateQuixote (Mar 2, 2012)

steeldragons said:


> Eladrin is missing from the list, so I clicked on "Other half-races or planetouched" for them. Gods I HATE the whole concept of "Eladrin." There were always...ALWAYS ALWAYS...from 1e on down "High Elves"...they were the friggin' DEFAULT elvin race for PCs! There were also "Grey Elves" which were supposed to be more "magical" and "otherworldly" and "removed/reclusive". Why in the world did "Eladrin" ever strike anyone as necessary?! If I had to pick ONE race for pure "hatred", it would be the "Eladrin."



Hm, you seem to be an otherwise reasonable person, but here you've obviously lost it. 

I love the fact that elf and eladrin are different races with different abilities and flavor in D&D. The name eladrin threw me off for a while, but I've come to accept it.

If they presented wood elf and grey elf as different races with the flavor/mechanics of 4e (or whatever) would that work for you? Is it the *name* or the fact that the different "elf" races are presented as different races?


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## Lwaxy (Mar 2, 2012)

Khaalis said:


> Ah.. the joy of races.... to each their own. I actually liked that a setting had the guts to take a new path and say that half-dwarves were:
> A) Relatively Common and
> B) produced something other than the already existent "mish-mash" half-races as they had been presented up to that point in D&D.




Half-dwarfs (or any other mixes) are pretty common in almost all of my games (well, depends on setting) but they are just that, mixes. Exception for the half-elves of Eberron somewhat, as they have formed their own race in a way, except of picking a new name. Can't quite say that of the Muls as they are sterile - but I think what I most hate is the name. How dumb to name anything after a mix of equines


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## Piratecat (Mar 2, 2012)

Dammit, I didn't see kender! Now I want to go use my secret admin powers and go edit the poll.


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## Yora (Mar 2, 2012)

How can anything be more disliked than kender?

But maybe it's because lots of people don't know kender anymore, which would be a blessing and a great steps towards them disappearing from memory forever.

If you don't know kender, imagine Rob Schneider being in every movie you ever liked, appearing in every scene and having the most dialog. That's how you're supposed to be a kender. And the other people at the table are supposed to be greatful for it.


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## avin (Mar 2, 2012)

steeldragons said:


> I mean, c'mon, how many angels, devils, elemental/djinn, etc. ad nauseum are havin' sex with normal mortals (most probably humans)?




As you said correctly, it really depends on setting.

If we're talking about a world, it makes sense Tieflings and Aasimars as rare. 

But maybe we're talking about a setting where, for example, an Angel's blood is something really strong and his sons, grandsons and maybe some generations more will still be Aasimar, a whole bloodline. 

This is the way AD&D2E handled tieflings and aasimars.

As for Planescape... then we're talking about a multiverse of worlds and pantheons... there's plenty room for that.

PS. Halflings must buuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn


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## Yora (Mar 2, 2012)

In Planescape, cornugons and devas are walking down the street to the bakery every day.


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## steeldragons (Mar 2, 2012)

Brent_Nall said:


> Hm, you seem to be an otherwise reasonable person,




Thank ye. I like to thinks so.



Brent_Nall said:


> but here you've obviously lost it.




'Ky not likin' you so much right now. 



Brent_Nall said:


> I love the fact that elf and eladrin are different races with different abilities and flavor in D&D. The name eladrin threw me off for a while, but I've come to accept it.
> 
> If they presented wood elf and grey elf as different races with the flavor/mechanics of 4e (or whatever) would that work for you? Is it the *name* or the fact that the different "elf" races are presented as different races?




They already WERE portrayed as different races with different mechanics. I don't know anyting abotu 4e, so you'll have to forgive me on that...but they did, as various sub-races ("species", I would have preferred) have varying mechanics and edging toward certain classes.

If they'd said "Eladrin are Grey Elves" I'd probably have significantly less venom for them. Take the rarest race of elf and make them some other-worldly "fey"race? Sure, ok. Not, again the standard, "High elves."

So, to your point, yes, name does matter.

But why do you like them? Why were they necessary? Calling them "High elves" and "Grey Elves" and "Wood elves" was too complicated for people? Completely UNnecessary as a "separate race" with "separate mechanics."



Piratecat said:


> Dammit, I didn't see kender! Now I want to go use my secret admin powers and go edit the poll.




"Secret admin powers ACTIVATE!" FTW...every time. lol.



Yora said:


> If you don't know kender, imagine Rob Schneider being in every movie you ever liked, appearing in every scene and having the most dialog. That's how you're supposed to be a kender. And the other people at the table are supposed to be greatful for it.




LMAO! THANK YOU! That's perfect! I despise Rob Scheider. [EDIT] Can't even spell his name right, I hate him so much, apparently! lol. "Schneider", there. I did it. [/EDIT]

HEY PC! Can you go back in the poll and add "Kender" for me? lol.



avin said:


> As you said correctly, it really depends on setting.




Just so. I'm not about denying anyone their fun! That's what the game is about, after all.



avin said:


> If we're talking about a world, it makes sense Tieflings and Aasimars as rare.
> 
> But maybe we're talking about a setting where, for example, an Angel's blood is something really strong and his sons, grandsons and maybe some generations more will still be Aasimar, a whole bloodline.
> 
> This is the way AD&D2E handled tieflings and aasimars.




Right. I get that. And that makes total sense. I guess it's a personal understanding/acceptance of the idea of angels (at all!) and devils (much more believable) sleeping with mortals all of the time.



avin said:


> As for Planescape... then we're talking about a multiverse of worlds and pantheons... there's plenty room for that.




Absolutely! As I said.



avin said:


> PS. Halflings must buuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn




Seriously, man. As a completely untrained therapist with a single psychology class over fifteen years ago under his belt, LET THE HAIRFEET GO!


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## Yora (Mar 2, 2012)

What's wrong with duergar? Did they do something in 4th Edition? I only know earlier editions and there was everything fine with them.


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## Minigiant (Mar 2, 2012)

Dang it. I was this close to forgetting that kender exist.  Now I have order more mind erasers. *Dangit!*


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## AntiStateQuixote (Mar 2, 2012)

steeldragons said:


> But why do you like them? Why were they necessary? Calling them "High elves" and "Grey Elves" and "Wood elves" was too complicated for people? Completely UNnecessary as a "separate race" with "separate mechanics."




Elf has always meant two very different things in D&D:

1. The frolicking woodsy elves of Greenwood the Great
2. The supremely magical and distant elves of Lorien

By making them distinct races, with distinct origin, flavor, and mechanics, 4e made it clear you what you were choosing to play when you selected elf or eladrin.

Again, I didn't care for the name eladrin initially and would have preferred Grey Elf and High Elf to make the distinction. Now, I'm not so sure. I like that an eladrin is not "one of the elf races" and is instead a different thing from elf. And the name eladrin has grown on me.


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## steeldragons (Mar 2, 2012)

Brent_Nall said:


> Elf has always meant two very different things in D&D:




Yes...and no. High Elves were stated, quite clearly, as the elf that PC elves were supposed to be. Once Unearthed Arcana came out and the, what, 6 (?) elf races were listed as possible PCs the High elf was still pointed out as the elf that MOST elf PCs "should/would" be unless otherwise stipulated. 



Brent_Nall said:


> 1. The frolicking woodsy elves of Greenwood the Great.




Right, "wood" elves. Not, originally, an elvin character's race but detailed, somewhat, in the original MM.



Brent_Nall said:


> 2. The supremely magical and distant elves of Lorien




Which have ever thought of to be the model for "Grey Elves"...not "High elves."

The people/elves of Elrond's Rivendell, were High Elves, or so I always took them to be.  



Brent_Nall said:


> By making them distinct races, with distinct origin, flavor, and mechanics, 4e made it clear you what you were choosing to play when you selected elf or eladrin.




And, again, how does that make it more/"better" than saying "You're a Grey" or "High" or "Wood" elf? The 1e UA had varying ability modifications and cultural details...Why did they have to be/become "separate fey beings"?



Brent_Nall said:


> Again, I didn't care for the name eladrin initially and would have preferred Grey Elf and High Elf to make the distinction. Now, I'm not so sure. I like that an eladrin is not "one of the elf races" and is instead a different thing from elf. And the name eladrin has grown on me.




To each their own...and play with what you like. To me they were entirely unnecessary as a separate race...and relegated all "elf" characters to being "wood elves" was a completely arbitrary injustice...and, as forementioned, making eldarin="high elves" was just completely wrong to the Tolkien elf model.


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## steeldragons (Mar 2, 2012)

[EDIT "PS"] Elf being separated from Eladrin would be like saying, "OK, from now on, all Dwarf characters are, HENCEFORTH, by default, "Azer"....or "Stone Golems"....or you can play one of these fleshy bearded guys."

_*Note to 5e Developers*_ who may, or may not, be around ENworld: DON'T... YOU...DARE!!!!!


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## dangerous jack (Mar 2, 2012)

I answered the following races, based on whether:
* do they fill a niche
* would I try to find a place for them if a player wanted to play one IMC
* have I ever seen a compelling character with the race

Gnome - Tiny eladrin?  Tinker gnomes?  Rodents?  
Kender - If they aren't annoying in your game, they are being played against type anyway
Duergar - Dark dwarves?  They don't seem as flavourful or interesting as drow
Githyanki - Evil Space Elves?


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## Tallifer (Mar 2, 2012)

None really. If the world is like Eberron or Alice in Wonderland, then I like them all. If we are playing Pendragon, then humans and fey only.

As far as playing them myself, the most important thing is what they bring to my class.


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## kitsune9 (Mar 2, 2012)

I never was a fan of gnomes and kender annoyed me to no end, mainly because of how other players always played them with no depth and never against type.

I did enjoy one set of novels which featured a kender named Sindri Suncatcher as he was against type.


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## OnlineDM (Mar 2, 2012)

Drow: I prefer evil races for monsters rather than PCs.
Warforged: I don't like robots in fantasy settings.
Other: Can't stand shardminds, don't like wilden. They just have messy flavor. I'm also not a fan of hamadryad as a PC race, though I have yet to see one in action.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 2, 2012)

I love the gnomes, they never really had a type other than being tinkerers and animal friends, and that is just a base to expand on. Did your players all want to be little McGyvers talking to their badgers?


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## Gryph (Mar 2, 2012)

Evil, Black elves and Drizzzzzzzzz. If I could go back in time, they would be on my list of things to undo.


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## Kaodi (Mar 2, 2012)

Dragonborn should be the deformed children of ancient dragons who were too succesful with the whole "devouring pure heated maidens" racket, who while exceptionally delicious, are poisonous to the dragons reproductive system.

Shardminds should be Sardior's dreams of dragonborn-like servants, brought to life out of the crystal shards in his lair. 

Warforged outside of Eberron should be an engineered imitation of Shardminds.


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## Invisible Stalker (Mar 2, 2012)

1. half-orc
2. drow
3. tiefling
4. gith whatever
5. thri-kreen
6. duergar
7. mul
8. changeling
9. shifter
10. kender


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## SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS (Mar 2, 2012)

I really don´t like the "classic" races (elfs, dwafs, halflings and gnomes) if they are used in the classic way, but with some modifications (they all can be cool, like in darksun, darksun halflings rulez.


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## TrippyHippy (Mar 2, 2012)

I prefer to see 'Races' considered as a collective for each respective fantasy setting. The reason why Elf\Dwarf\Halfling\Human (and Orc) works is because they are all taken from one setting (Tolkien). You could look for symbolic connections pertaining to each of these, but the reality is that they are simply very familiar and immediately suggest a particular world and attitude, that players can build their imagination from. 

When you add to these, then you inevitably create a feeling of diluting the feel of the world. 

This is not to say that there can't be other Races to choose from (my view is that the game should be able to support any race from the Monster Manual as playable characters). It's just that I'd like to see them chosen collectively in the context of a world design. This can be done easily enough in setting books. For the _core_ books, however, I'd just stick with the Tolkien races as default, and the suggestion that the DM can add more as she/he feels fit for his/her world.


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## Aeolius (Mar 3, 2012)

Odd. "Winged folk/raptoran/etc." seems to be leading the pack, in regards to universal dislike (even more than kender?!?), yet no one has chimed into specify why they hate them? 

I'd assume, just like aquatic races, they are considered one-trick ponies. Unless one plays in an aerial campaign or one that deals heavily with flight, they would not be seen as useful.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 3, 2012)

Lwaxy said:


> How about none?
> 
> I picked Mul, because this is just a half dwarf and not a race, and for the same reason I do not consider half-anythings to be their own race and thus deeply dislike them described as such.



Mules and ligers say "hi."


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 3, 2012)

Aeolius said:


> Odd. "Winged folk/raptoran/etc." seems to be leading the pack, in regards to universal dislike (even more than kender?!?), yet no one has chimed into specify why they hate them?
> 
> I'd assume, just like aquatic races, they are considered one-trick ponies. Unless one plays in an aerial campaign or one that deals heavily with flight, they would not be seen as useful.



Most of the races people hate tend to be especially attractive to the "look at meeeee, I'm a SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE!" players. Being able to fly in a standard campaign is about as special snowflakey as you can get.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 3, 2012)

Mules and ligers are no races, they are mixes. People just make up fancy names for them to not have to spell it out all the time. "I'm feeding my horse donkey mix" is a bit annoying to say 

As for flying characters... nope, not special. Get wizards with overland flights eventually, too. Not to mention those annoying teleports if all you want to run is a nice travel adventure


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## Connorsrpg (Mar 3, 2012)

Where is the 'None' option?

Seriously. I like practically all races on that list. I wouldn't use them all in every campaign/setting, but I can always find a use or unique story for each of them.

Each new setting, I roll random races from a much larger list (inspired by 2E _World Builder's guide_) and then mash the results together and I enjoy the variety.

I certainly have no HATE for any of those races...yet.


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

[MENTION=95493]Tovec[/MENTION]

Why do I hate Human, dwarves, elves, and halflings?



Because WoTC like making them boring. Outside of cuture, they make them humans, stout humans, skinny humans, and short humans. Not until 4E did they kind of make them different races and only barely.
People use their inclusion to make D&D into LotR the RPG. D&D is not LotR with more dragons. If they don't get full on Tolkien, it's full on Norse or full on Celtic. People's minds get just as narrow as player who never roll non-class skills unless forced.
These races are naturally boring and you have to add stuff to them to make them interesting outside of class. No breath weapon. No eye beams. No transformations. No claws. No horns. No natural poisons. No tails. No wings. No glamours. No alternate movement modes.  No plant control. No animal control. No invisibility. No teleport.


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## thedungeondelver (Mar 3, 2012)

Kender: LOLZ HEY WHAT IF WE MADE HALFLINGS LIKE TOTALLY HATED TWINKS LOLZ.
Eladrin: You can keep your blink-elves to yourself, thanks.
Tieflings: Know what we call the offspring of demons and devils 'round here? EXPERIENCE POINTS.
Dragonborn: Cannot.  Stand.
Warforged: Wow.  Someone actually suggested "Iron golem" as a playable race...and somebody else OKed it.  _wow_.
Thri-Kreen: "BUGS, MR. RICO!  MILLIONS OF 'EM!"

So...those.


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## TrippyHippy (Mar 3, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> [MENTION=95493]Tovec[/MENTION]
> 
> Why do I hate Human, dwarves, elves, and halflings?
> 
> ...



"Boring" does not equate to a lack of kewl powers in my book. Powers do not equate to interesting either - I'm more interested in exotic cultures being represented and meshed into a believable game world. 

These races were interesting when Tolkien wrote about them, evidently, as so many other fantasy worlds have copied them since. They could be said to be overused, arguably, but even second generation fantasy worlds (like WFRP for example), have found ways of making the stereotypes fun to play still. And they _are_ instantly accessible and iconic, to new players at least.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Mar 3, 2012)

Reading that list I felt like there were maybe 25% of them that I didn't even know what the stank they were, another 25% which I kind of knew but wish heartily that I didn't, yet another 25% which weren't a very wise choice to formally allow as PC's regardless of their popularity, and the last 25% were rendered dull and uninteresting because over the last 10 years in particular game designers have ignored Gygax's warnings of 30 years ago and not just rolled over for, but played willingly (and stupidly) into players natural desires to be just that much more UBER than the guy in the chair next to them.  Now get off my lawn.


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> "Boring" does not equate to a lack of kewl powers in my book. Powers do not equate to interesting either - I'm more interested in exotic cultures being represented and meshed into a believable game world.
> 
> These races were interesting when Tolkien wrote about them, evidently, as so many other fantasy worlds have copied them since. They could be said to be overused, arguably, but even second generation fantasy worlds (like WFRP for example), have found ways of making the stereotypes fun to play still. And they _are_ instantly accessible and iconic, to new players at least.




Elves and such are good when they are made interesting.
The problem is the lore is sooooooo overused it is boring.

It's always skinny lofty forest dwelling humans with pointy ears and an insomnia problem. Slight short, round humans with long beards, beer breath, and tradition.

And WotC encourages the same boring player characters over and over with proficiencies and racial ability adjustments.. Does the halfling page HAVE to show a rogue with a blade? Can't halflings be full plate wearing paladins or wizards in flashy red robes?

Dwarf warrior. Dwarf warrior cleric. Elf archer. Elf wizard. Halfling rogue.

And the funny thing is that these races are barely different except in culture. But 95% of all DM use the same cultures so  they might as well not be races. They can just be humans from the kingdom of Dwarf and humans from the nation of Elf. 


Just like people hate dragonborn and tieflings for being different, I hate human, elves, dwarves, and halflings for not only being similar but for encouraging stereotypes to hide the fact that they are so similar.


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## Mattachine (Mar 3, 2012)

Gah! Forgot Eladrin.


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## TrippyHippy (Mar 3, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> And WotC encourages the same boring player characters over and over with proficiencies and racial ability adjustments.. Does the halfling page HAVE to show a rogue with a blade? Can't halflings be full plate wearing paladins or wizards in flashy red robes?
> 
> Dwarf warrior. Dwarf warrior cleric. Elf archer. Elf wizard. Halfling rogue.
> 
> And the funny thing is that these races are barely different except in culture. But 95% of all DM use the same cultures so  they might as well not be races. They can just be humans from the kingdom of Dwarf and humans from the nation of Elf.




Well, the game does give some avenue towards attacking the stereotypes - you can play a Dwarf Wizard, or an Elf Barbarian, or a Halfling Paladin, if you want. At least, you could since 3rd edition. 

Moreover, just because _you're_ jaded with these races doesn't mean that 
a) they aren't still iconic within the game, and should remain so, and 
b) that there can't be simple mechanisms provided for adapting different playable races for your own settings (from the Monster Manual say).


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## Lanefan (Mar 3, 2012)

On that list, the way it's organized, it was really easy to vote as I dislike as player races everything listed after half-orc - except Kender.  Done right, Kender can be great entertainment.  Done wrong - well, they don't last long in that case so who cares.

That said, I don't mind the occasional oddball race finding its way in to a party if someone rolls something weird on the random race chart.  But that's what they have to be - oddball, unusual.  If they were made chooseable the kindred races would get buried under a wave of weirdness; and I don't want that.

Lanefan


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## steeldragons (Mar 3, 2012)

Aeolius said:


> Odd. "Winged folk/raptoran/etc." seems to be leading the pack, in regards to universal dislike (even more than kender?!?), yet no one has chimed into specify why they hate them? .




Was wonderin' about this myself. They are far and away the most "hated" and yet, noone has said...is it the winged/avian folk? The raptorans? Felinoids? Lupines? Dinosaur-people? 

What?!

'Splain Lucy!


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## steeldragons (Mar 3, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Does the halfling page HAVE to show a rogue with a blade? Can't halflings be full plate wearing paladins or wizards in flashy red robes?




Dunno...here's how I see 'em...
steeldragons's deviantART gallery

steeldragons's deviantART gallery

steeldragons's deviantART gallery

steeldragons's deviantART gallery



Minigiant said:


> Just like people hate dragonborn and tieflings for being different,




Emmmm...I don't think anyone "hates" Dragonborn or Tieflings for "being different." I'd, in fact, be SHOCKED to hear anyone say that was the case.



Minigiant said:


> I hate human, elves, dwarves, and halflings for not only being similar but for encouraging stereotypes to hide the fact that they are so similar.




Oooo...KKKKKKkkkkk...moving on.


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## Stormonu (Mar 3, 2012)

Personally, I don't understand the kender hate.  Tas is one of my favorite Dragonlance characters.

I don't really have a race I hate, perhaps _good_ drow.  Don't mind folks playing neutral or evil drow characters, but someone playing a good drow feels like they're just trying to hard to be different.

Also, half-elves do nothing for me - with the exception of Tanis half-elvin.  But then, most of the Dragonlance characters are pretty well-done anyways.


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## steeldragons (Mar 3, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> Personally, I don't understand the kender hate.  Tas is one of my favorite Dragonlance characters.




He WAS! GREAT character...to READ about...in a specTACular story of fantasy fiction...To have at the table playing _with_ you? Not so much.



Stormonu said:


> Also, half-elves do nothing for me - with the exception of Tanis half-elvin.  But then, most of the Dragonlance characters are pretty well-done anyways.




They were indeed.


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## Dragonhelm (Mar 3, 2012)

Yora said:


> How can anything be more disliked than kender?




How can anything be more _beloved_ than kender?  With a child-like wonder and a thirst for adventure, you will not find a kender hiding in a hobbit-hole!

Yeah, they have a bad reputation.  They steal everything in sight, right?  Wrong.  A kender doesn't handle someone's purse because they want money.  They handle things that look interesting.  Like a pretty purple stone, or the tooth of some monster they defeated, or maybe a pair of dice.  

Kender aren't disruptive.  Players are.  The same players who give kender a bad name are the same ones who play rogues and rob everyone blind, or find other ways of using the rules to their benefit in a way that is disruptive to the game.

Get to know them as I have.  Base your decisions on the Dragonlance Chronicles stories, not on bad players and certainly not on a bad reputation.  If, then, kender do not appeal to you, that's perfectly fine.


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## Vael (Mar 3, 2012)

I picked "Other subraces", but to be honest, what I'd pick is subraces.

One of my problems with Forgotten Realms is the plethora of variant dwarves, elves and halflings. I like that 4e initially brought us down to just 3 elf races and made them distinct.

I like the inclusion of wackier races, I like having the Mos Eisley cantina experience in my DnD. All I ask is that the races are reasonably balanced and interesting.


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> Well, the game does give some avenue towards attacking the stereotypes - you can play a Dwarf Wizard, or an Elf Barbarian, or a Halfling Paladin, if you want. At least, you could since 3rd edition.
> 
> Moreover, just because _you're_ jaded with these races doesn't mean that
> a) they aren't still iconic within the game, and should remain so, and
> b) that there can't be simple mechanisms provided for adapting different playable races for your own settings (from the Monster Manual say).




Oh they still belong in the game. Elves,humans, dwarves, and halflings are iconic.

But I will sill hate them until WOTC makes them actual races instead of human variants. Halfelves can be be human variant... as they aren't human. Elves aren't human.


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## fuindordm (Mar 3, 2012)

I am sick to death of half-elves, and have been since AD&D. Please, no more cross-breeding!

I don't mind one elf race, but did 4E really need an elf spectrum?


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## FireLance (Mar 3, 2012)

I don't think I'm a hating kind of guy, but there have been a few races that made me wonder what the designers were thinking. The following list are examples from 3e, not from any deliberate bias on my part, but because they were recent enough that I still remember them and obscure enough that they haven't yet been mentioned in this thread.

*1. Daelkyr Half-Blood*, from Magic of Eberron. Come with your own mini-aberration symbiote!

*2. Illumian*, from Races of Destiny. Your head is surrounded by floating, glowing runes.

*3. Wildren*, from Planar Handbook. Badger-dwarf humanoids from the Beastlands, descended from the spirits of departed dwarves who ended up on that plane (and who were partially transformed into badgers due to the plane's influnce) and celestial badgers. 

*4. Neraphim*, from Planar Handbook. Toad-like humanoids from Limbo. Not slaad. Really. Your iconic racial power consists of convincing your enemy that you are (or a weapon you throw is) standing still when you are actually charging at him (or have thrown it at him).

*5. Spikers*, from Planar Handbook. You are covered with sharp, metallic spikes, but you're not a bladeling. 

*6. Buommans*, from Planar Handbook. You have taken a vow against speech at an early age, and refuse to engage in traditional forms of communication. You take Wisdom damage each time you break this vow. I suspect that the designers have over-estimated the power of body language. To add insult to injury, your favored class is monk.


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## Savage Wombat (Mar 3, 2012)

As a former 3E player I wish to disavow the Planar Handbook after reading Firelance's post.


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

steeldragons said:


> Dunno...here's how I see 'em...
> steeldragons's deviantART gallery
> 
> steeldragons's deviantART gallery
> ...




Those pictures have those races in different classes on purpose. Good luck finding halfling spellcasters in the 5e book.


> Emmmm...I don't think anyone "hates" Dragonborn or Tieflings for "being different." I'd, in fact, be SHOCKED to hear anyone say that was the case.





Different is a oversimplification on my part. It's usually that "they are too weird to be PCs" or "They are too rare to be PCs" or "They live... all the way over there some it's unlikely they are PCs" or "monster shouldn't be PCs"


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## Dice4Hire (Mar 3, 2012)

Well, I dislike all races but humans.

They just do not seem .... real enough.


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## Hassassin (Mar 3, 2012)

Warforged and Thri-Kreen. Also, if Eladrin had been there, I would have selected it for the newcomer Eladrin. The planar Eladrin are OK.

Additionally, there are many races in the poll that I wouldn't allow as PC races in most campaigns, but are fine as monster or NPC races. At least Drow, Duergar, Gith* and Goliath. Still more may not exist in a particular setting: Dragonborn, Kender, Winged Folk.


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## howandwhy99 (Mar 3, 2012)

drow
duergar
tiefling

I don't like any justification for Jerk by Nature.


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## MortalPlague (Mar 3, 2012)

Can I vote multiple times for Shardmind?  Please?


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## avin (Mar 3, 2012)

Dragonhelm said:


> How can anything be more _beloved_ than kender?  With a child-like wonder and a thirst for adventure, you will not find a kender hiding in a hobbit-hole!




I should find both of them burning in a bonfire and dance and laugh and sing. Die halflings! Die hobbits! Die kenders! 



Lanefan said:


> On that list, the way it's organized, it was really easy to vote as I dislike as player races everything listed after half-orc - except Kender.  Done right, Kender can be great entertainment.




Only diehard fans of Dragonlance think kenders can be saved!  Burn them!!!!


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## Shemeska (Mar 3, 2012)

How about versions of a PC race that I found both very different from and borderline antithetical to what they are outside of that specific version. By that I mean 4e tieflings and 4e eladrin. The former went from being of any mortal stock and any fiendish heritage, and with virtually limitless variety - and the 4e version was exclusively human stock, exclusively diabolic heritage, and with homogenous appearances... what the, I don't even. The eladrin were almost worse, because pre-4e eladrin were a completely different creature. They were immortal outsiders who exemplified benevolent chaos, and the 4e PC race that took their names were mortal, albeit teleporting, elves. Arg.

And as an aside, I'm perfectly willing to help folks disavow the PC races from the 3.5 Planar Handbook. The same design notions that we later saw in 4e with eladrin, tieflings (and others like archons, etc) happened in lesser form there with spikers and neraph (compared to bladelings and slaadi).


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## Yora (Mar 3, 2012)

Dragonhelm said:


> Kender aren't disruptive.  Players are.  The same players who give kender a bad name are the same ones who play rogues and rob everyone blind, or find other ways of using the rules to their benefit in a way that is disruptive to the game.




You are entitled to your oppinion and I believe that everything can be salvaged and played ina way that makes a great addition to a party, even drow paladins. But in the case of Kenders, it's the official written material, that is awful and goes out of its way to present an image that will just piss off almost everyone.
This isn't a great piece of entertainment for no reason. It's very bad language that's not neccessary to make the point, but in fact it only highlights certain sections of the text and leaves it to readers to come to their own conclusions.

To be even more controversial, I also voted for dwarves! Yes, the race that comes only second to humans in being least disliked in the poll. 
What's wrong with dwarves? The fact that all dwarves I've ever seen, in official meterial and play, are 100% copies straight from Lord of the Rings. And those 14 Dwarves are virtually identical to each other as well. In Fantasy RPGs, there exists only one dwarf!
And I don't really like him!


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## ForeverSlayer (Mar 3, 2012)

I just want to say that I hate Warforged and it appears that there are many others who feel the same way. If they kept the race strictly to Eberron then I wouldn't see much of a problem but when they try and stick it in another setting I have an issue.

I used a Warforged one time in another setting as an enemy only. I made it where the Warforged was essentially Frankenstein's monster who broke out of the lab and started killing people on the streets.


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## Cobalt Meridian (Mar 3, 2012)

The thing that I find most interesting about this poll and the ones along the lines of "which races do you want to see in 5e" is how well Gnomes do.

As someone who has enjoyed playing Gnomes for over 30 years this does convince me that WotC were wrong to not include them as a "core race" in the 1st PHB for 4e. Hopefully they'll make it to the core of 5e.

Oh, and I voted halflings and kender. After all, when you've got Gnomes, why bother with the others


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## Yora (Mar 3, 2012)

I think most of the bad cred gnomes have is from their kenderfication, particularly in the tinker gnomes. Wait? Aren't those from Dragonlance as well?


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## Lwaxy (Mar 3, 2012)

Yeah they are, and to me they were always fun enough to play or GM for, although not in quite the silly fashion.


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## steeldragons (Mar 3, 2012)

Yora said:


> I think most of the bad cred gnomes have is from their kenderfication, particularly in the tinker gnomes. Wait? Aren't those from Dragonlance as well?




Ayup. Was revolutionary "out of the box", at the time..."There're Gnomes in Krynn...but, get this, they aren't illusionists and they aren't thieves...They're Tinker-ers!" <scratches head>


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## FireLance (Mar 3, 2012)

On the one hand, I can see where the "warforged only belong in Eberron" crowd are coming from. On the other hand, I do see a niche for an inorganic race in the game to represent species like Pratchett-type trolls, living rocks or statues, minor golems, etc. 

Perhaps tying the warforged too closely to Eberron was a mistake. Perhaps they should have taken the goliath/half-giant route and called them some generic rock humanoid name, and said that in Eberron, [generic rock humanoids] are called warforged, and were created during the last war, and [rest of Eberron warforged stuff].


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## ForeverSlayer (Mar 3, 2012)

FireLance said:


> On the one hand, I can see where the "warforged only belong in Eberron" crowd are coming from. On the other hand, I do see a niche for an inorganic race in the game to represent species like Pratchett-type trolls, living rocks or statues, minor golems, etc.
> 
> Perhaps tying the warforged too closely to Eberron was a mistake. Perhaps they should have taken the goliath/half-giant route and called them some generic rock humanoid name, and said that in Eberron, [generic rock humanoids] are called warforged, and were created during the last war, and [rest of Eberron warforged stuff].




I see them more as monsters that you encounter than a PC race to be honest. I could even see it as a type of theme much like Fullmetal Alchemist where a person's body was maimed beyond and sort of healing and their soul was transferred into a manufactured body.


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## Hassassin (Mar 3, 2012)

FireLance said:


> On the other hand, I do see a niche for an inorganic race in the game to represent species like Pratchett-type trolls, living rocks or statues, minor golems, etc.




I don't really see the need to fill every niche like this, especially in the PHB. That's why I also don't feel there should be a large race just to compensate for the small ones.

That said, the most interesting construct race IMO would be some sort of homunculus. Maybe some homunculi live on after the master has died as free willed creatures.


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## FireLance (Mar 3, 2012)

ForeverSlayer said:


> I see them more as monsters that you encounter than a PC race to be honest.



Not that it means much in D&D - it's been turning monsters into PC races (and, in the case of the Basic D&D accessory Orcs of Thar, 3e-style monster classes, and the 4e vampire, PC _classes_) for years.


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## ForeverSlayer (Mar 3, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Not that it means much in D&D - it's been turning monsters into PC races (and, in the case of the Basic D&D accessory Orcs of Thar, 3e-style monster classes, and the 4e vampire, PC _classes_) for years.




And this has what to do with what I said? I'm fully aware of the above but it still doesn't make the Warforged a good PC race in my opinion. Just because there are rules for it doesn't make it good.


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## Derren (Mar 3, 2012)

Elves, Dwarves.
Too overdone, too many stereotypes

Drow.
Drizzt fanboys...


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## FireLance (Mar 3, 2012)

ForeverSlayer said:


> And this has what to do with what I said? I'm fully aware of the above but it still doesn't make the Warforged a good PC race in my opinion. Just because there are rules for it doesn't make it good.



Just an observation that for every person who think that monster X doesn't make a good PC race, there's probably at least one other person who wants to play monster X as a PC, and is glad for the rules.

The quality of the rules is a separate issue, and is orthogonal to preference. You can have rules you like tied to flavor you don't like, and vice-versa.


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## frankthedm (Mar 3, 2012)

*gnome* Can't stand D&D gnomes.

*drow* Elves don't need cocoa butter, burnt cork and superfluous SLAs to have an evil empire.

*warforged* Immune to too many things D&D characters should not be immune to.

*goliath/1/2 giant* Abusers of the medium to large weapon damage bump need to be shown the door.

*winged folk/raptoran/etc* Flight is something to be introduced under the GM's terms, not as a starting race.


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## frankthedm (Mar 3, 2012)

Yora said:


> What's wrong with dwarves? The fact that all dwarves I've ever seen, in official meterial and play, are 100% copies straight from Lord of the Rings. And those 14 Dwarves are virtually identical to each other as well. In Fantasy RPGs, there exists only one dwarf!
> And I don't really like him!



Didn't you get the memo?

_Ever since Tolkien did his thing with some modified Norse myths, the Dwarves have been rolling off the assembly line as the same basic model. (Although many "Tolkienesque" Dwarves are more like the Theme Park Version.) Since The Film of the Book(s), they now even all talk the same..._


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## Thaumaturge (Mar 3, 2012)

I voted for duergar, but really, I wanted to vote for none. Everything has its place, and I really don't hate much. 

I fail at Internetting. 

Thaumaturge.


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## Yora (Mar 3, 2012)

frankthedm said:


> *gnome**goliath/1/2 giant* Abusers of the medium to large weapon damage bump need to be shown the door.



Instead have medium-sized earth genasi. Basically same fluff, buth with less unneccesary rules.


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## mkill (Mar 3, 2012)

This thread reads like a self-help group for narrow-minded DMs of a Middle Earth RPG. Everything is bad unless it was written by Tolkien and approved by Gygax. Yawn.

I never played a dwarf. I just know I won't be good at it because my personality isn't very "dwarven".

In 15+ years, I played one halfling. Was fun, but not enough to play another one.

I made a quite a few humans, mainly when the concept didn't call for anything exotic.

There was a half-elf and a few full elves, because it's a natural choice when you play an arcane spellcaster. I'm kind of unhappy with my last elf though, I think a different race would have been more interesting. Elves in D&D aren't that different from pointy-eared humans, compared to other fantasy sources.

That's really the key here: I want each of my characters to feel different from the ones before. But when you've been playing for a while, there are only so many "classic" archetypes left that you still want to try. That's why I'm happy about choice and variety. Trying out a new race is an easy way to make a character that's different from the ones you already played.


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## Mercurius (Mar 3, 2012)

You're all a bunch of racists!

(I haven't read the thread - sorry if someone already made this joke)

I didn't vote because I can't say that I actually "hate" any D&D race, I just don't like many of them; or rather, I just don't want them in my game. This includes dragonborn, tieflings, shardminds, wildens, etc...It isn't even that I don't want them in my game, I just don't want them as central to my game.

I love Talislanta. To me it does "zoo fantasy" best - each race is interesting, unique, and not a variation on a Tolkien race. But D&D has never done zoo fantasy all that well, and I'm not entirely sure why. I think it may be that zoo fantasy doesn't jive well with classic D&D, or at least my idea of what classic D&D is. I just don't dig the idea of a shardmind sitting at the bar, sipping a tankard, or a dragonborn merchant selling exotic flowers (actually, that's vaguely interesting), or a tiefling-run nursery school.

I'm a big fan of the classic D&D races: humans, elves, dwarves, halfings, gnomes, and orcs. Yes, orcs - I like them as a race. I think there are very interesting variations that can be done with the classic races and that new, exotic races should only be sprinkled into a classic D&D game if they really offer something. I like 4E devas, for instance - a deva avenger is a pretty cool take on the Accursed Wanderer archetype.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 3, 2012)

mkill said:


> This thread reads like a self-help group for narrow-minded DMs of a Middle Earth RPG. Everything is bad unless it was written by Tolkien and approved by Gygax. Yawn.




I might be boring to you, but I cannot stand the concept of yet "another monstrous (and sometimes misunderstood) PC".

Talk about yawn.

Everyone and his brother wants to play a monstrous race (and mostly not for roleplaying reasons, but because of class / race synergies).

I consider Tieflings and Dragonborn and Warforged and Goliaths and Changelings and Shifters and Shardminds and Wildens and Satyrs and all of the "new wave races" to mostly be monstrous.

Monstrous PCs should be attacked in the streets by mobs of locals. Instead, they are heroes. That is so non-plausible and reeks of political correctness in gaming.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 3, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> Monstrous PCs should be attacked in the streets by mobs of locals. Instead, they are heroes. That is so non-plausible and reeks of political correctness in gaming.




A monster, by my definition, if defined by intend. Any race can be a hero race if the PC is not evil (unless of course it is an evil campaign).

I'm really tired of the racism in the games so I'm happy for most of the races, even if they do not all belong in our settings. 

We used to have a world where the elves and dwarfs were mostly monstrous instead of having drow and the like.


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## Aeolius (Mar 3, 2012)

avin said:


> Only diehard fans of Dragonlance think kenders can be saved!




Kender, spelled backwards, is rednek... there's a lesson there for all of us.


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## Aeolius (Mar 3, 2012)

frankthedm said:


> *winged folk/raptoran/etc* Flight is something to be introduced under the GM's terms, not as a starting race.




Unless the campaign is set on an aerial world without solid ground.   C'mon, I've been running undersea games since 1998. There HAS to be a DM out there with an aerial campaign, somewhere.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 3, 2012)

Lwaxy said:


> A monster, by my definition, if defined by intend. Any race can be a hero race if the PC is not evil (unless of course it is an evil campaign).
> 
> I'm really tired of the racism in the games so I'm happy for most of the races, even if they do not all belong in our settings.




First, intent shouldn't mean squat to a bunch of locals. How would local NPCS know that a monstrous PC isn't just trying to trick them? A hobgoblin shows up? Kill it. A dragonborn (which for all intents and purposes looks like a lizardfolk)? Kill it.

The default points of light setting should encourage xenophobia, not enlightenment. Playing it the opposite way reeks of current 21st century "human rights" activism, not most medieval thought. Suspicion at best, slaughter at worst, but not open handed acceptance. Even dwarves and elves should often be considered fair game in many human settlements in a points of light setting. Look at your racism comment. It drips of current human rights entitlement that in real human history, hasn't been a strong part of human culture until the last century.

I find it vastly amusing that the PCs go around trespassing, murdering NPCs, and looting them right and left, but PCs have this "PC stamp" on their foreheads such that NPCs in an NPC community should consider them heroes instead of the murderous (monstrous in come cases) cutthroats that they really are. snort


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> First, intent shouldn't mean squat to a bunch of locals. How would local NPCS know that a monstrous PC isn't just trying to trick them? A hobgoblin shows up? Kill it. A dragonborn (which for all intents and purposes looks like a lizardfolk)? Kill it.
> 
> The default points of light setting should encourage xenophobia, not enlightenment. Playing it the opposite way reeks of current 21st century "human rights" activism, not most medieval thought. Suspicion at best, slaughter at worst, but not open handed acceptance. Even dwarves and elves should often be considered fair game in many human settlements in a points of light setting. Look at your racism comment. It drips of current human rights entitlement that in real human history, hasn't been a strong part of human culture until the last century.





Hornsbury the Minotaur: "Fine. I'll leave, townsfolk. You don't want help from the scary minotaurs. Fine."
Gorrax the Dragonborn: "Good luck with the goblin marauders!"
Rage the Tielfing: "Hope they only steal half your livestock and kill only one of your children."


Just because they are monstrous looking, they don't have to be misunderstood redeemer. They can be jerks with dollar signs for eyes who are crazy enough to do the dangerous quest. 

The townspeople could be racist but the PCs are stronger than them and wiling to help. They don't have to be nice when they give the quest. It's even more fun for the townspeople to eventually trust the heroic monsters that help them.... only to for the monstrous PCs to ask for more money because the citizens of Elmville were so inhospitable.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 3, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Hornsbury the Minotaur: "Fine. I'll leave, townsfolk. You don't want help from the scary minotaurs. Fine."
> Gorrax the Dragonborn: "Good luck with the goblin marauders!"
> Rage the Tielfing: "Hope they only steal half your livestock and kill only one of your children."
> 
> ...




Yeah and the Barbarian Minotaur with a -1 Diplomacy is going to convince the townspeople to put away their pitchforks because he found out that Goblins are attacking them.

This is a form of Deux Ex Machina. The NPCs act the way the PCs want them to because it continues the DM's story instead of because of how NPCs should really act in that situation.

Townsfolk being attacked by Goblins should sound the alarm and shoot arrows at monstrous PCs before those PCs even get close enough to talk to the townsfolk. The townsfolk are already on alert because Goblins have already attacked them. If not already alerted, the townsfolk should probably scatter when monsters come to call. 

That's why they are called MONSTERS. What part of MONSTERS is not understood?

Wouldn't a Minotaur be even more scary than Goblins? This should be an instant situation of NPC Fight or Flight, not conversation.

Granted, I am talking about a Points of Light setting (the default of 4E) where the very definition of the campaign world is one where there are islands of light surrounded by seas of darkness. Other campaigns can and are totally different. But I've always preferred campaigns with dangerous wilderness areas where monsters are outlaws by definition and not ones where monsters walk the streets of cities. If they walk the streets of cities, they shouldn't be called monsters. Instead, they'd be called citizens.


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## Derren (Mar 3, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> That's why they are called MONSTERS. What part of MONSTERS is not understood?




When it can speak and reason why would it be a "monster"?
What makes a kobold different from a gnome?
Imo the term "monster" is not one applied because of inherent racial traits but because of social stigmas. And those can change depending on the world or region.

A village can easily see elves as monsters because they kill everyone who sets foot into their forest but have no problem with kobolds because they trade ore for supplies once a season.
Even in a 4E PoL setting what speaks agains the "Point of Light" being a civilized minotaur underground city beset by marauding bands of dwarves (descandants of a fallen dwarf kingdom turned barbaric)?


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## Lwaxy (Mar 3, 2012)

And that's the thing, you are going by a campaign setting I don't use (or don't know anything about). 

I totally agree that in the setting you describe, I'd either not allow any out of the norm PCs or maybe allow one rare one and make him/her an outcast. 

However, in our settings (except when we use the official ones and even then we tend to modify them somewhat) the normal everyday people know, in theory, that it matters not what you look like. They may have a minotaur as mayor. The further you leave civilized area, the less this is the case though and you'll find even the humans and elves as monstrous savages. 

We used to have a setting where all dwarfs were seen as monsters because some of them helped an evil god to kill civilization. No dwarf PCs there.


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## the Jester (Mar 3, 2012)

I voted for Drow, duergar and raptoran/winged folk- because they are monster races, not pc races (or ought to be IMHO).

I also voted for kender because nothing, nothing, NOTHING has ever been more annoying. 

If DragonLance tinker gnomes were on the list, you better believe I'd have voted for them, too.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 3, 2012)

Derren said:


> When it can speak and reason why would it be a "monster"?
> What makes a kobold different from a gnome?
> 
> Imo the term "monster" is not one applied because of inherent racial traits but because of social stigmas. And those can change depending on the world or region.




Racial traits should often have social stigmas associated with them by definition. No different than ranchers in the real world killing wolves, regardless of whether wolves actually kill their lifestock.

If the Orcs have been attacking the City State of the Invincible Overlord for hundreds of years, why wouldn't Half-Orcs PCs be imprisoned or killed at the gates for being spys?


This is why the concept of evil monsters worked so well in earlier editions of the game system. Players often knew who they could attack with impunity.

When 4E came along and many different monsters were no longer evil (or no longer good) or even monsters by definition and when PCs could no longer Detect Evil, the game became more of a non-deterministic smorgasbord of creatures.

The players could determine the capabilities of a same race monster (knowing the difference between a Frost Goblin Cutter vs. a Corrupt Goblin Cutter vs. a Goblin Thorn vs. 200+ other types of goblins), with a monster knowledge check, but the players couldn't often determine the social stigma of an entire race of monsters because the monster could actually be played as a PC.

It doesn't make sense. Either all goblins are considered monsters and treated that way by most NPCs, or goblins should be able to willy nilly walk into any town unmolested until they actually attack. If the PC goblins are unmolested, then so should the NPC goblins.

Goblins shouldn't be given "*inalienable* human rights" just because the game system allows them to be played as a PC. They should be monsters first, attacked on sight by many different types of non-monstrous humaniods, and players playing them should be aware that this might be the case.

I don't think the game system by default should have racial political correctness tones where monsters walk the streets as if they were not monsters.

Tieflings are half-devils. They should be hunted down and slaughtered in a general default campaign setting.

Granted, a given campaign world could have Tiefling or any other race as benevolent creatures that most humans and other humanoids would trust, but that shouldn't be the default.

Races that are generally aggressive and non-benevolent should be considered monsters, regardless of their ability to speak and reason. For example, many PCs of any race.


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> Yeah and the Barbarian Minotaur with a -1 Diplomacy is going to convince the townspeople to put away their pitchforks because he found out that Goblins are attacking them.
> 
> This is a form of Deux Ex Machina. The NPCs act the way the PCs want them to because it continues the DM's story instead of because of how NPCs should really act in that situation.
> 
> ...




See that's the issue. What the average person sees as monster is based on setting and DM, not be default looks. In my game, elves are not trusted on sight as a person can't tell if they are rational natives to the plane or the extremely irrational beings of the Fey world. Whereas dragonborn, kobolds, and anything scaly with metallic colors are instantly trusted at first sight as servants of Bahamut.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 3, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> It doesn't make sense. Either all goblins are considered monsters and treated that way by most NPCs, or goblins should be able to willy nilly walk into any town unmolested until they actually attack. If the PC goblins are unmolested, then so should the NPC goblins.




Yeah true enough. 



> Goblins shouldn't be given "*inalienable* human rights" just because the game system allows them to be played as a PC. They should be monsters first, attacked on sight by many different types of non-monstrous humaniods, and players playing them should be aware that this might be the case.




Again, all depends on setting.



> I don't think the game system by default should have racial political correctness tones where monsters walk the streets as if they were not monsters.




There is no such thing as a default setting. The setting is what you make it, even in published settings. 

If you mean that players tend to feel entitled to playing a monstrous race because it is in the rules, then yeah that can be annoying.



> Tieflings are half-devils. They should be hunted down and slaughtered in a general default campaign setting.




Unless the default setting is Golarion and you play in Cheliax...



> Races that are generally aggressive and non-benevolent should be considered monsters, regardless of their ability to speak and reason. For example, many PCs of any race.




I don't do generally aggressive races. I do generally aggressive cultures. The halflings may be the friendly hobbits where you grew up, but the ones over the mountains hate strangers and shoot first and ask later. And yeah, they do dark rituals and may steal your blood. 

I disagree about not making sure to portray every race as possibly benevolent, especially as I play with kids a lot and need to make sure that in general, the way you look does not equal the way you are treated. The way you behave does. This does not mean there are no places where prejudice is not abundant. But there also need to be places where this is not the case. 

Tieflings are, in our worlds, by definition distrusted thanks to their infernal heritage. Of recently,  those who redeem themselves lose the devilish features and abilities after a while. Was not my idea but I like it.


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## Tovec (Mar 3, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> @Tovec
> 
> Why do I hate Human, dwarves, elves, and halflings?
> 
> ...





 I'm not going to try and argue your personal taste. I can understand your criticisms but to me if you add too much flavour, or flavour people dislike you end up with things like....



thedungeondelver said:


> Kender: LOLZ HEY WHAT IF WE MADE HALFLINGS LIKE TOTALLY HATED TWINKS LOLZ.
> Eladrin: You can keep your blink-elves to yourself, thanks.
> Tieflings: Know what we call the offspring of demons and devils 'round here? EXPERIENCE POINTS.
> Dragonborn: Cannot.  Stand.
> ...






> These races are  naturally boring and you have to add stuff to them to make them  interesting outside of class. No breath weapon. No eye beams. No  transformations. No claws. No horns. No natural poisons. No tails. No  wings. No glamours. No alternate movement modes.  No plant control. No  animal control. No invisibility. No teleport.



As per this. I really dislike then they add things like breath weapons, claws, horns, eye-beams, etc. to a race that has no business having them.


I'm not saying I like boring or bland or generic things but I think you have to be very careful what you add, instead of just adding craziness and being done.


I like the story, or rather feel, they gave dragonborn (for example) but I think much if not nearly all the dragonborn flavour should have belonged to dwarves.
I think you have a little burnout in seeing too many "generic" elves, dwarves, humans and halflings. If they have flavour and personality they can be great.


I voted against the creatures that had mechanical problems or were just really silly or stupid to me. It never occurred to me to strike at the "core four" but again that is just my opinion and experiences with them.


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## Minigiant (Mar 3, 2012)

Tovec said:


> [/LIST]
> I'm not going to try and argue your personal taste. I can understand your criticisms but to me if you add too much flavour, or flavour people dislike you end up with things like....




My problem is not flavour, it is with the "genetics."

What is the difference between a human with Str 14, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 8, and Cha 15 and an elf with  Str 14, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 8, and Cha 15?

Really it isn't mmch at all Pre 4E.

Therefore the only thing that differentiated the races is flavor. But flavour is based on the setting and DMs. And a good 75% of the settings and DMs use the same thing. Overused flavor over bland races.



> As per this. I really dislike then they add things like breath weapons, claws, horns, eye-beams, etc. to a race that has no business having them.
> 
> 
> I'm not saying I like boring or bland or generic things but I think you have to be very careful what you add, instead of just adding craziness and being done.
> ...





You can't hand special abilities out like candy with no rhyme or reason. 
But races should be *different*. They are different races. They should be somewhat different.

Lions are not big hyenas.
Monkeys are different from turtles.
Apples are not oranges.

If D&D was a scifi game, this would barely fly. But somehow we are fine with elves being pointy eared skinny humans who don't sleep.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 3, 2012)

Elves sleep the same as everyone else in my games


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 3, 2012)

Yora said:


> In Planescape, cornugons and devas are walking down the street to the bakery every day.



Yeah, but that night hag's cupcakes are awe-inspiringly delicious!

My vote put Kender into triple digits. I'm so proud. Has there ever been a Kender player who didn't steal from the party?


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## Yora (Mar 3, 2012)

How do dragonborn make it into third place? I always assumed they are lizardfolk with a breath weapon, but that couldn't cause that much backlash.


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## grimslade (Mar 4, 2012)

I only really hate gully dwarves, but they weren't on the list, so kender it is.
Fearless hobbits are good. Fearless, kleptomaniac hobbits afflicted with the worst ADHD imaginable? The Stupid. It burns. the goggles they do nothing. 
Tasslehoff Burr nnnniiinngg Aiiiieeee!!!

I understand the aggravation that the monstrous races give some classic fantasy world players/DMs. I just think it is misplaced. Disallow any race that does not work in your world. Explain to players why a devil spawned tiefling would not live a long life in the Theocracy of the Palish. The Diocese of  Devil's Bane patrolled by the Paladin Inquisitors of Torquemada would not be swayed by the plight of the PC and raise him in secret. Not gonna happen. 
The thing is not every campaign is as restrictive or traditional fantasy. I like a campaign like Star Wars, lots of aliens mingling with the token humans. I still want lizardfolk to be a PC race. Not Dragonborn, but swamp living, gator-raising, cajun spicin' lizardmen. I want a corrupt empire of Devil worshiping evil humans that fell and gave rise to modern day tribes of tribal horse nomad tieflings. Give me sentient magical automatons. Give me a race of doppelgangers for my conspiracy theorists to focus on. 
Half races aren't worth it. Give me full races and half races can choose which side they want to emulate.
Large PC races are a tough thing to balance so they need to be an option in the MM or DMG. But, toy ogres and miniature minotaurs are fine.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 4, 2012)

TarionzCousin said:


> Has there ever been a Kender player who didn't steal from the party?




Yes 

However, the party always gave her other targets. "Have you sen the group camping at the river? The merchant's wife with the colorful bracelet? That guy in the next room who has so much luggage?"


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## SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS (Mar 4, 2012)

Well at least everybody hates kenders, it is something :-D


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## FireLance (Mar 4, 2012)

Yora said:


> How do dragonborn make it into third place? I always assumed they are lizardfolk with a breath weapon, but that couldn't cause that much backlash.



Because they only rose into prominence rEcEntlEE.


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## Mokona (Mar 4, 2012)

There is a lot of hate for the dragonborn. What would a lizard race look like that would _*not*_ draw so much hate? Is such a thing possible?

Me, I wish they would have used plain old lizardfolk or cleaned-up trogs.


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## FireLance (Mar 4, 2012)

Mokona said:


> There is a lot of hate for the dragonborn. What would a lizard race look like that would _*not*_ draw so much hate? Is such a thing possible?



Yes, if it fulfills two criteria:

1. The females have no breasts.

2. The race is not in the first PH.


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## SensoryThought (Mar 4, 2012)

My number 1 is drow - they are great for a npc enemy, but the 'good drow' has become a sad cliche. I'm sorry, but for me drow are a forbidden pc race and need to be left in an ra salvatore novel where they belong. 

My number 2 is common to many - dragonborn. While I like other new 3e/4e races, the warforged and changelings of Eberron have world context that the dragonborn lack. There is also something horrific about lizard men (which is basically what they are with a breath weapon). In fantasy and sf, lizardmen are traditional enemies that embodied cold bloodedness. Or the twisted draconians of dragonlance, which they also remind me of. 

They are the only D&D race removed from my game in a sense. I have kept the race but houseruled it the offspring of humans and good dragons in human polymorphed form. They look human (not lizard man) and cannot take the breath weapon (only the dragon fear). They tend towards being warlords and draconic sorcerers. 

Most of the other new races including shardminds (I dislike psionics), wilden and pixies don't do it for me, but I don't have a visceral hate like I do for drow and dragonborn.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 4, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Yes, if it fulfills two criteria:
> 
> 1. The females have no breasts.
> 
> 2. The race is not in the first PH.




Tieflings are not in the first PH.

I think some of the hate for Dragonborn stems from the fact that WotC for all intents and purposes put a mini-dragon race into the PHB. Many people play the game to kill dragons and their ilk, not to play one. Some players started playing the game when Dragonlance came out (or played through that timeframe), so a Dragon race might seem like playing a more traditional monstrous race like a Hobgoblin.

If one looks at the current list, traditional races have 8 to 36 votes with an average of 22 (9%). Non-traditional races have 55 to 111 votes with an average of 75 (31%). That's over 3 times the average. Some of this is to be expected, but I also think that WotC went a bit too crazy with 4E and monstrous PCs.

Tiefling at 68 is 28%. Not nearly as high as the Dragonborn at 97 (40%), but still coming in the middle of the pack. I think the reason Tiefling is better received is because it has the Warlock natural synergy and people like playing Warlocks. Playing a Dragonborn Paladin just doesn't seem as natural and hence, doesn't quite have the draw.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 4, 2012)

Don't know, we had quite a few dragon/pseudodragon PCs over the years and didn't need dragonborn for that.


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## FireLance (Mar 4, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> Tieflings are not in the first PH.



They are in 4e.


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## Pour (Mar 4, 2012)

At least we all find common ground in our outstanding hatred of kender and avians. That's... something.


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## Shemeska (Mar 4, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> I think the reason Tiefling is better received is because it has the Warlock natural synergy and people like playing Warlocks. Playing a Dragonborn Paladin just doesn't seem as natural and hence, doesn't quite have the draw.




I'm more inclined to think that's it's because tieflings have been a PC race since 2e, and they got a lot of popularity out of their rather entrenched place in Planescape.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 4, 2012)

FireLance said:


> They are in 4e.




4E wasn't the first PHB.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 4, 2012)

Shemeska said:


> I'm more inclined to think that's it's because tieflings have been a PC race since 2e, and they got a lot of popularity out of their rather entrenched place in Planescape.




That's probably part of it as well.

Dragonborn showed up at the end of 3.5, they were actually other races turned into dragon men via Bahamut, and nobody knows this or anything else about pre-4E Dragonborn. They're just brand new monstrous PCs that virtually nobody has pre-4E history with.

Too bad Eladrin were not on the list, but people like Eladrin because the teleport is just so potent.


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## FireLance (Mar 4, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> 4E wasn't the first PHB.



You know what I mean. There's a segment of the gamer population who take dolorous umbrage at any "new" class or race in the "core".


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## Holy Bovine (Mar 4, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> 4E wasn't the first PHB.




Unless you started playing D&D with 4E...

About the only 2 races I have never gotten behind are gnomes and tieflings.  Gnomes just bore me (and I *love* taking the piss out of gnome lovers) and tieflings are, to me, the only races that screams "I'm evil!" to me.  I don't do or allow evil PCs and a good (or even neutral) tiefling seems a big contradiction to me.  Demons and Devils (and Angels) are the only beings that have 100% fixed alignments in my games.  You will never run into a LG Demon (or a NG or CN or anything other than CE!) in my games but you can certainly encounter a tribe of NG goblins...


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## Mithreinmaethor (Mar 4, 2012)

There was not a choice for All Monster races.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 4, 2012)

FireLance said:


> You know what I mean. There's a segment of the gamer population who take dolorous umbrage at any "new" class or race in the "core".




Oh, you mean like Tieflings?

I don't think your theory holds too well since Tieflings didn't get the short shift that Dragonborn got here.

I think Shemeska's theory that Dragonborn are basically brand new across the board is more on the mark.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 4, 2012)

Holy Bovine said:


> Unless you started playing D&D with 4E...
> 
> About the only 2 races I have never gotten behind are gnomes and tieflings.  Gnomes just bore me (and I *love* taking the piss out of gnome lovers) and tieflings are, to me, the only races that screams "I'm evil!" to me.  I don't do or allow evil PCs and a good (or even neutral) tiefling seems a big contradiction to me.  Demons and Devils (and Angels) are the only beings that have 100% fixed alignments in my games.  You will never run into a LG Demon (or a NG or CN or anything other than CE!) in my games but you can certainly encounter a tribe of NG goblins...




I agree about devils and angels, but I expand that a lot more.

I actually like the concept of standard racial alignment and behaviors. Racial, not cultural.

It allows players to understand the world system easier without a lot of extra unknown baggage.

When every race can be any alignment (more or less human personality where anything goes), it brings up a lot of moral conundrums that don't belong in an FRPG. I'm playing the game to have fun, not to constantly second guess my PC's actions. Having NG goblins is like meeting a tribe of creatures and getting attacked because the PCs didn't bow when they approached. There's no way that the players can know in either case shy of the DM throwing out a bunch of clues, so the players make cultural mistakes. Meh. That level of campaign world detail isn't necessary to make the game fun, in fact it often does the opposite.

I have no problem with an occasional NPC of a given race being atypical, but I don't like the concept that racial stereotyping in a game system is not allowed (and I think that NPCs should resort to racial stereotyping as well, Changlings are sneaky and baby stealers, hence, don't allow them in your town). I can be a human rights advocate in the real world, I don't want to do that in a game. In a game, I want to kill evil things, help good folk, and not have the DM throw me an NPC alignment curve ball based on his mindset du jour half of the time.

DM: "That was actually a good tiefling you killed."
Player: "Of course. You know the saying, the only good tiefling is a dead tiefling. He's now good."


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## Lwaxy (Mar 4, 2012)

Then you need to make all races fixed, like all humans are true neutral, all elves are CG and all halflings are NG... or whatever you think fits them best. Why should they be different? 

Racial stereotyping is so silly and boring to me. And given that I have seen players equal certain races with RL cultures before I do think it is somewhat essential to abandon it.


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## SensoryThought (Mar 4, 2012)

And to clarify, I prefer earlier Tieflings to the look of the 4e uber demonic versions. I find the best pc races tend to look the most 'human'.


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## Yora (Mar 4, 2012)

Planescape tieflings are mutants caused by traces of the fiendish blood of their ancestors. 4E tieflings are an actual race of humanoids with consistent traits shared by all individuals.
As so often in 4E: Same name, different thing.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 4, 2012)

And they are still different in PF


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## KarinsDad (Mar 5, 2012)

Lwaxy said:


> Then you need to make all races fixed, like all humans are true neutral, all elves are CG and all halflings are NG... or whatever you think fits them best. Why should they be different?




No you don't. Not all. You just have to have races have typical alignment propensities and have certain races treat other races according to custom. Dwarves kill Orcs on sight. That's what they do. If as a general rule, NPC Dwarves do this, then PC Dwarves should as a general rule do this as well.



Lwaxy said:


> Racial stereotyping is so silly and boring to me. And given that I have seen players equal certain races with RL cultures before I do think it is somewhat essential to abandon it.




I think racial stereotyping is exactly what people do in real life though. Ranchers hunt wolves not because they kill their livestock, but because they are seen as killers of livestock. Dolphins are consider intelligent and even benevolent, but sharks are not. So, one is slaughtered more than the other. Elephants and chimpanzees and rats and dogs are all in the top 10 animal intelligence level, but people use them for experiments and some people still mistreat them even in today's enlightened Internet knowledge sharing society. What would happen in a points of lights world where knowledge is not shared?

In a world of multiple tool using intelligent different race creatures, that racial stereotyping would still occur. Survival of species (and hence race) would still be a dominant factor. Playing the game as if it would not occur is ok, but it's not very plausible. A lot of real life "human rights" have been assigned to different races in D&D by a lot of DMs and players, rights that intelligent creatures if they actually existed probably wouldn't give. Even in our real world, there are cultural differences so diverse that some cultures on this planet want to exterminate other cultures. If this happens in the real world with cultures, why doesn't it make sense that it should happen in a fictional world with races?

What's boring is walking up to a group of Orcs and nobody in the party wants to attack them cause they might be NG and just be misunderstood. Gag. I don't want to waste a single second of my gaming time contemplating whether these particular Orcs are NG or not. I want to jump to the chase of whatever is going on (interrogating them, threatening them, or attacking them). Depending on situation, that might mean being polite and such, but as a general rule of thumb, those situations are probably pretty rare.


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## mkill (Mar 5, 2012)

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]: So what your pile of posts in this thread boils down to is that you want Orcs to be evil to reserve your right to shoot them on sight?  Because it's too much work as DM to give the PCs a reason to fight certain enemies?

Just wow.

I could handle if a PC has a deep-seated hatred of Race X and tries to kill them on sight, but as a setting default that has so many unfortunate implications that I'd rather not go there.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 5, 2012)

mkill said:


> [MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]: So what your pile of posts in this thread boils down to is that you want Orcs to be evil to reserve your right to shoot them on sight?  Because it's too much work as DM to give the PCs a reason to fight certain enemies?




No, it's more like I want D&D games to be plausible.

It's not plausible when monsters roam city streets as if they are normal civilians. As a player, I don't want to play D&D campaign like Star Wars where there is a plethora of hundreds of different races of humanoid aliens in the majority of cities, most of whom get along for the most part shy of the worst parts of the cities.

Instead, I prefer a D&D where most "monsters" are evil and where there are few social consequences for taking them out. Monsters should be outlaws and races that are not monstrous should be known acceptable members of a given fantasy campaign setting. There should be a reason in D&D campaigns that monsters are called monsters.

And successful monster knowledge checks should let players know of creatures that are "not generally considered evil or monstrous".

Granted, every campaign will be different, but I prefer logical settings to illogical ones. For example, even in the city of Sigil, monsters walk the street and do not molest each only because of a logical reason. The Lady of Pain will throw them in a maze if they do not. They are forced to behave. Monsters in more traditional non-Sigil like areas (like the majority of areas in many campaign settings) should typically have other racial enemies (including PC races) and should typically be malevolent, not benevolent. They shouldn't be forced to behave and laws shouldn't protect them.


Note: I have no problem with monsters being in cities if they are hidden or disguised, I just have a problem with the concept of live and let live; Trolls and Humans working side by side in a city. That to me is not D&D. It's Star Wars. It's the wrong genre.

Eberron introduced a lot of this with "laws of Sharn that protect all humanoid races" and it's just lame. IMO. Meh. Sharn is too 20th century sensibilities for my tastes. As for my posts in this thread, this thread is about races that people hate. I hate monstrous PC races.


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## Leatherhead (Mar 5, 2012)

I picked Kender.

I also picked subraces. Adding fire/water/earth/air/snow/forest/jungle/sand/shadow/ or whatever other noun you can think of in front of a race does not make it a brand new race. Those kinds of changes can be handled by templates, if they must be handled at all.


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## Derren (Mar 5, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> No, it's more like I want D&D games to be plausible.




And why is it plausible that nonhuman A is treated like an equal and nonhuman B is killed on sight?

Ok, so modern/western ranchers kill wolves on sight. But native americans for example didn't.
And if we had always killed wolves on sight dogs wouldn't exist. There are also a lot of environmental groups who fight for wolves...

So your example is more akin to "Paladins of the Bleeding Hand sect kill orcs on sight". What do other humans do? Depends.


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## Recidivism (Mar 5, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> No, it's more like I want D&D games to be plausible.
> 
> It's not plausible when monsters roam city streets as if they are normal civilians. As a player, I don't want to play D&D campaign like Star Wars where there is a plethora of hundreds of different races of humanoid aliens in the majority of cities, most of whom get along for the most part shy of the worst parts of the cities.
> 
> ...




Wish I could grant some more experience.

I don't totally agree with the idea of taking morality out of the question when dealing with monsters. I like the option of it being there ... as an exception to the rule. But it's certainly okay for most characters to have no qualms about killing monsters and for the campaign focus to not be on those moral sorts of questions about whether it's right or wrong to be killing them.

I also tend to dislike the menagerie angle of races. Human beings in real life have very different characteristics from other human beings. I feel like other races, even ones that on the surface seem similar to humans, should in fact be in general much more different from humans than humans are from each other. So for me, something that's even further removed from a human is problematic because its mind is probably not even comprehensible.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 5, 2012)

I rather enjoy 4E's gnomes, though the tendency to depict their hair as stalks of corn is off-putting.


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## mkill (Mar 5, 2012)

[MENTION=12759]Kari[/MENTION]sDad:You claim that your view is "plausible", "D&D", "typical fantasy", but I suggest that you reread your Tolkien. Would the Fellowship have succeeded if they had shot Gollum on sight?


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## Lwaxy (Mar 5, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> No you don't. Not all. You just have to have races have typical alignment propensities and have certain races treat other races according to custom. Dwarves kill Orcs on sight. That's what they do. If as a general rule, NPC Dwarves do this, then PC Dwarves should as a general rule do this as well.




That's why none of our dwarfs do it unless they have a special hated for orcs. 




> I think racial stereotyping is exactly what people do in real life though.




And this is the reason why I should have it in our worlds? Sure it may heppen here and there, but it would also happen between human tribes. Or humans and elves. Etc. Nothing to do with "monsters." I don't need real world annoyances brought into my free time. 




> What would happen in a points of lights world where knowledge is not shared?




I don't play "points of lights" settings. Well, in theory one of the campaigns is something similar but that's those types of games I can only allow grown ups in and I don't want to make that the rule. 



> In a world of multiple tool using intelligent different race creatures, that racial stereotyping would still occur.




But it would have little to do with "monsters" or not, considering everyone is way more used to a wider variety of life forms. An ooze or a gelatinous cube would probably always be considered bad, but those aren't intelligent just dangerous life forms. Same as sharks, you avoid them when possible. 



> Even in our real world, there are cultural differences so diverse that some cultures on this planet want to exterminate other cultures. If this happens in the real world with cultures, why doesn't it make sense that it should happen in a fictional world with races?




But it does not have to be a default thing. We have human cultures hating each other in some games (or any ther cultures) but to say any race is by default evil is just not going to cut it. I do not even think most parents would let their kids play with us is we tried to pull that off in the world of today. It wouldn't have gone over well in the 80s either. The only exception I can think of is the drow, because they are, by definition in Golarion anyway, fallen elves. Would they be redeemed they would probably look like elves again. 



> What's boring is walking up to a group of Orcs and nobody in the party wants to attack them cause they might be NG and just be misunderstood.




As opposed to walking up to a bunch of humans, assuming they are all good and then wondering why you get killed? No difference, really, you need to keep alert or you just might die.


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## delericho (Mar 5, 2012)

PHB races, it's got to be Eladrin.

Expanded races, I'm going for Shardminds.

In general, though, I'm not at all a fan of most "Expanded Universe" races - too often they seem just to be yet another way for players to cherry-pick the stat modifiers they want, while playing a "human with funny noses" character at best.


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## Yora (Mar 5, 2012)

mkill said:


> [MENTION=12759]Kari[/MENTION]sDad:You claim that your view is "plausible", "D&D", "typical fantasy", but I suggest that you reread your Tolkien. Would the Fellowship have succeeded if they had shot Gollum on sight?



Well, Bilbo encountered him alone in his own cave, which is very different from Golum walking into a human or hobbit town. And later on, Golum is no stranger but people know who he is and decide to keep him alive because they think they might need him. But the way they argue, it always appear that shoting him on sight would be the default reaction.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 5, 2012)

But then they knew Gollum to be evil.


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## Shemeska (Mar 5, 2012)

Lwaxy said:


> And they are still different in PF




Tieflings? Not at all.

PF tieflings are classic D&D tieflings with no default appearance, and there have been several released and some forthcoming material on tieflings that expand on more options for ancestry and abilities. They're in no way like the uniform, non-variable 4e "tieflings".

Heck, the recent PF player companion book on tieflings, "_Blood of Fiends_" was written by Colin McComb (of 2e Planescape fame).


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## KarinsDad (Mar 5, 2012)

Lwaxy said:


> But then they knew Gollum to be evil.




Ding!

In a fantasy world, evil and good can be more prevalent and known based on racial characteristics. The majority of each race had specific propensities, but there were minor exceptions.

Gollum was evil because magic twisted him that way (he also had tendencies that way to begin with).

Humans in Tolkian were human. Some good, some evil, some in between. Most motivated by self interest.

Maiar were basically good, but some were indifferent to the other races. Even Saruman was good until Sauron twisted him with the Palantir.

Balrogs were evil.

Elves were good.

Dwarves were good, but greedy.

Hobbits were good.

The Nazgûl were evil, again, twisted basically good folk.

Orcs, Goblins, and Uruks were evil. The PCs had no qualms killing them and vice versa. There was no moral ambiguity.


For simplicity sake, many players and DMs play Elves and Dwarves and every other PC race as if they were Human with Human foibles and Human thought processes (because we are Human, that's what many of us do). But, different races should have extremely different alien thought processes and because they do, just like in real life between people with extremely different thought processes, conflict should arise. The Dwarves hate the Orcs because they compete for resources and have been at war for thousands of years. The Dwarves tolerate the Elves (in certain campaign settings) because the Elves being one of the good races has helped the Dwarves fight Orcs in the past.


Playing all other races as if they were Humans with pointy ears and no other non-Human mental and emotional features (and especially with 20th century inalienable human rights for everyone thought processes) kind of defeats the purpose of rolelplaying. It becomes totally game mechanical at that point.

Playing races with a self motivated racial bend where every race has its own self interests as a race and is competing with every other intelligent race for resources results in a rich campaign world that's logical. Playing races as if many individuals of most intelligent races can be benevolent to other competing races is illogical. Sure, there might be the very rare enlightened individual, but having more than a few of those in a campaign setting doesn't make logical sense. Passive-ism should be rare for example.

In the real world, people have no qualms about killing sharks because sharks are viewed as man eaters and killers. In a fantasy world, the same thing would happen (if fantasy worlds actually existed) between races. Survival of the species. Competition for resources. Greed. All of these should be the real world equivalent default in a fantasy world, just like gravity normally is. The primal motivation forces in the real world should have fantasy world equivalents. Enlightenment and tolerance is caused by cooperation, commerce, communications and the rule of law.

Points of Lights fantasy settings shouldn't have most of these in abundance. Hence the term, points of light. Other fantasy settings could. Personally, fantasy settings like Eberron where there are cities like Sharn where every intelligent humanoid creature is protected by law is nonsensical. A Lich walking through Sharn should create panic in the streets, not just be passed on the street by the locals with "Hi Joe". But in Sharn, that Lich is protected.

Sharn is like Star Wars. A bunch of aliens living and working side by side. It makes sense in a Star Wars setting because of a (mostly) galaxy wide government which has maintained order for thousands of years. It doesn't make sense (generally) in a fantasy world (except maybe Dark Sun) because there is no overriding world wide government that wants to maintain order and civility. In a fantasy world with fiefdoms or kingdoms like Eberron, protecting of races that come from outside of ones own territory would not be law. Outsiders would be viewed with suspicion because they could be spies for other kingdoms.


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## Hassassin (Mar 5, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> When every race can be any alignment (more or less human personality where anything goes), it brings up a lot of moral conundrums that don't belong in an FRPG.




I completely disagree and believe those conundrums very much belong to fantasy role-playing, but of course not all individual games. Unfounded prejudices are also a very common theme in the literature.

Racial alignment tendencies are OK, but even "always evil" should mean something like 99%, not 100% except in very specific circumstances (Evil subtype). There's also evil and Evil, and evil characters can often be productive citizens.


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## hemera (Mar 5, 2012)

For me, it's gotta be elves. Not the elf or even the eladrin mind you...but the high elf, forest elf, star elf, winged elf, aquatic elf, dark elf, and so on.... 

I like kender in the literary sense, but they make the most annoying pc's. Always stealing from other characters, almost always chaotic neutral (also known as chaotic a..-hem)


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## Lwaxy (Mar 5, 2012)

KarinsDad said:


> Ding!
> 
> In a fantasy world, evil and good can be more prevalent and known based on racial characteristics. The majority of each race had specific propensities, but there were minor exceptions.
> 
> Gollum was evil because magic twisted him that way (he also had tendencies that way to begin with).




Exactly, he was a unique, twisted thing, not a race. If he was any race, he would be a hobbit. Thus, they knew he was evil. He had been made evil. If they had not known that, I bet they wouldn't have thought badly of him. Bilbo didn't really think of him that badly in the caves before he knew. 



> Elves were good.
> 
> Dwarves were good, but greedy.
> 
> Hobbits were good.



The way nothing can be just evil, nothing can be just good. Wouldn't go down in my worlds either. 




> For simplicity sake, many players and DMs play Elves and Dwarves and every other PC race as if they were Human with Human foibles and Human thought processes (because we are Human, that's what many of us do). But, different races should have extremely different alien thought processes and because they do, just like in real life between people with extremely different thought processes, conflict should arise.



Oh definitely. I never said I don't put a lot of conflict in. This is totally different from a race being all evil or all good.



> The Dwarves hate the Orcs because they compete for resources and have been at war for thousands of years. The Dwarves tolerate the Elves (in certain campaign settings) because the Elves being one of the good races has helped the Dwarves fight Orcs in the past.



This, exactly, is what I am going for in our games. Conflict must make sense. 



> Playing all other races as if they were Humans with pointy ears and no other non-Human mental and emotional features (and especially with 20th century inalienable human rights for everyone thought processes) kind of defeats the purpose of rolelplaying. It becomes totally game mechanical at that point.



Bad roleplaying has nothing to do with evil or non evil races. It is just bad roleplaying and can happen everywhere. But in most cases it works out quite well.

I remember a game I played in where, on the front, the PCs seemed to have little conflict despite being from all different races. But their diaries, letters or other ways to contact home, usually done at the end of a session, were always hilarious, constantly complaining about the other party members, wondering why they did what they did ("something is wrong with the elf, saw him hugging a tree today" "the human insists on doing her 'private business' in the woods alone every day. Wonder what she means by that? Maybe she's praying' are just two unforgettable examples). 



> Playing races with a self motivated racial bend where every race has its own self interests as a race and is competing with every other intelligent race for resources results in a rich campaign world that's logical. Playing races as if many individuals of most intelligent races can be benevolent to other competing races is illogical.



I don't think it's illogical at all. In some settings, all out competition is fine, especially where resources are very scarce. But given the, usually, 100s of years those races live next to each other, they should have arrived at the concept that working together is beneficial in most times. 



> In the real world, people have no qualms about killing sharks because sharks are viewed as man eaters and killers.



That's not quite true. Most people with a bit of brain just avoid them, especially as you kill one, you attract more of them 




> All of these should be the real world equivalent default in a fantasy world, just like gravity normally is. The primal motivation forces in the real world should have fantasy world equivalents. Enlightenment and tolerance is caused by cooperation, commerce, communications and the rule of law.



And experience, and there is plenty of experience in many of *my* worlds telling members of different races that cooperation is better. 



> Personally, fantasy settings like Eberron where there are cities like Sharn where every intelligent humanoid creature is protected by law is nonsensical. A Lich walking through Sharn should create panic in the streets, not just be passed on the street by the locals with "Hi Joe". But in Sharn, that Lich is protected.



That's why I love Sharn so much.  Being protected, btw, doesn't have to mean people like it. The Sharn we play in right now generally shuns the undead, so they might even try and kill the lich and pin it on someone else. In our Sharn, the protection is there to appease all nations. 



> In a fantasy world with fiefdoms or kingdoms like Eberron, protecting of races that come from outside of ones own territory would not be law. Outsiders would be viewed with suspicion because they could be spies for other kingdoms.



How well do you know Eberron? From my experience with that world, there is PLENTY of suspicion, but, aside from a weariness about the warforged and certain undead, it is not based on race but on allegiance, religion and the like. In some areas, if you are not of the majority race, you get a lot of looks and might be bullied, but that's because usually the majority, not all, of your race tend to be of a certain world view/religion.


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## GregoryOatmeal (Mar 5, 2012)

I'm in the vast minority that picked elves. My beef is that players can't really differentiate them well from humans. They tend to become humans with pointy ears. I think the subtle racial differences don't lend themselves well to roleplaying unless someone is very good at bringing the character to life.

Of course I have no problem allowing elves in my game. But I always panic a bit inside as a DM when a player picks a kender or drow.


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## Tovec (Mar 5, 2012)

Hassassin said:


> Racial alignment tendencies are OK, but even "always evil" should mean something like 99%, not 100% except in very specific circumstances (Evil subtype). There's also evil and Evil, and evil characters can often be productive citizens.




Always evil does mean 99% in every instance I've ever heard about it or read about it. Not sure if its a hard rule. It just means if you are encountering this creature and you know they're 'always evil' it means shoot first and ask questions when they're dead.

Also Evil characters can be productive too. Extremely Evil (or even extremely Chaotic Evil) has nothing to do with how productive or seamless a character can integrate into society. Think about serial killers in the real world, they somehow manage to get away with it for years before caught.


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## Pheonix0114 (Mar 5, 2012)

I picked Thri-Kreen, Mul, and Winged Folk.

Thri-Kreen because an insect race simply has no place in my world, and I don't imagine they would have thought processes that even begin to resemble our own.

Mul because I dislike the idea of a half-human/half-dwarf somehow being TALLER than the average human. I mean, wtf?

Winged Folk because of flight. If you can fly to the top of a tall tree to rain down arrows from, what hope do any melee mooks have?

Beyond that, the races that are essential to my setting, as PCs, are: Humans, Half-Elves, Elves, Half-Orcs, Dwarves, Shifters, Wilden, Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Half-Giant/Goliath. 

These races originally came from 4e, which was the original edition my group played, but as we switched to Pathfinder it came up again and again that This or That was really interesting and so I put the work in to make them all playable races. In general, I'd say having 20 bazillion different possibilities is too much, but if a person has a concept for their character that can find its place within my setting I let them go with it, as every time they flesh their character out I get free setting material. 

And yes, I excluded Halflings on purpose, I am working on a culturally significant group to throw into our next game, I was thinking Gypsy like nomads, but as of now halflings as a whole have next to no impact on the world.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 5, 2012)

Pheonix0114 said:


> Winged Folk because of flight. If you can fly to the top of a tall tree to rain down arrows from, what hope do any melee mooks have?




At the same time, what's to stop a very agile ranger from climbing said tree and doing the same?

As a good GM once told me, if you ever make a character that basically flies into the sky and rains death upon whatever's on the groun, expect the next encounter to be filled with some flock of horrible monsters that fly.  

Yeah at lvl1 in a pre-built campaign I agree that this might be problematic, of course at the same time, I think that having to make a "fly" check every round in order to stay aloft while fighting, or mandatory X-distance minimum movement each round is a good way to balance out "I fly up and rain death from above".  I also house-rule in "wingspan" rules.  If there isn't realistically 10 feet of open space to each side, you can't fly, or you gotta make a darn good fly check.  Wings on a humanoid would probably be about 15-feet long each, so I'm going easy on them, they'd also make for one heck of a big(if moving) target.  

I'm not arguing in favor of the inclusion of winged races, I think they'd be a great place for some 1-3 lvl "racial classes" or racial feats to enable flight.  But I think that realistically the advantage of flight that they present is minimal given most adventuring situations(dungeon-crawling, indoors, dense forest, ect...).


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## CleverNickName (Mar 5, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> human
> 
> elf
> 
> ...



I picked the exact opposite...I kinda hope that these four are the *only* races in the 5E core handbook.  I doubt I'll get my wish, though.


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## Lwaxy (Mar 5, 2012)

Pheonix0114 said:


> I picked Thri-Kreen, Mul, and Winged Folk.
> 
> Thri-Kreen because an insect race simply has no place in my world, and I don't imagine they would have thought processes that even begin to resemble our own.




Yeah, generally true. But they are only in the Dark Sun setting. Doesn't make me like them more, they are almost as disliked as Mul, but at least I can use the "only in" rule. 

I have actually not allowed them as PCs in our DS campaign though, didn't want to open that can of ants.


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## Minigiant (Mar 5, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> I picked the exact opposite...I kinda hope that these four are the *only* races in the 5E core handbook.  I doubt I'll get my wish, though.




Ew.
Can I ask how one of the races in your 4 race world would look if you designed them?


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## CleverNickName (Mar 5, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Ew.
> Can I ask how one of the races in your 4 race world would look if you designed them?



Each of the races would look the same way they do now, in whatever game system you choose.  Humans have their cities and farmlands, hobbits have their burrows and shires, elves rule the forests, dwarves rule the mountains, that sort of thing.  Why change them?


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## SKyOdin (Mar 5, 2012)

Alright, I get the hate for kender. But nearly half of all respondents have voiced dislike for raptorians/wingfolk. Why? Is it because raptorians were a rather lousy winged-humanoid race or is there a general sentiment against races with wings?


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## nightwalker450 (Mar 5, 2012)

I can't say I have a least favorite race.  I could see myself playing any of them in some campaign. I also wouldn't have a problem with someone else playing one in a game, assuming it is setting appropriate.


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## Minigiant (Mar 5, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Each of the races would look the same way they do now, in whatever game system you choose.  Humans have their cities and farmlands, hobbits have their burrows and shires, elves rule the forests, dwarves rule the mountains, that sort of thing.  Why change them?




Because in most of the time, those 4 races are close to being the same race with different names.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 5, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Because in most of the time, those 4 races are close to being the same race with different names.



Ah.  Well, I can't speak for every DM out there, but I've never had an issue with that.  Our dwarves have always been very, very different than our elves.  The players even tease each other about it at the table.

"Of *course* you want to go down there, dwarf.  You were born in a hole."

"You can stay out here and tend your precious trees, then.  We've got goblins to hunt."

Good times, good times.

Anyway, to bring it back on topic:  wouldn't adding more races to the mix dilute them all?  I mean, with only four races, it is very easy to make them distinct.  But when you start adding in more and more races, the gap between them all gets a little more narrow and everything starts sounding alike.  I think it would be better to focus on the "core four," make them as different and distinctive as possible and putting the rest in supplement books.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Mar 5, 2012)

Yora said:


> How can anything be more disliked than kender?
> 
> If you don't know kender, imagine Rob Schneider being in every movie you ever liked, appearing in every scene and having the most dialog. That's how you're supposed to be a kender. And the other people at the table are supposed to be greatful for it.




I _almost_ chose kender, but then realized it's not really the race I dislike, but those who play it who believe the above to be true.

I chose other subraces. I dislike the plethora of subraces that receive their own treatment merely because they reside in the woods, or Frost (fill in the blank), etc. If you can make them different enough (like Drow and Duergar) I'm happy, but throwing a descriptive in front of Elf or Drawf just does not cut it.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 5, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Anyway, to bring it back on topic:  wouldn't adding more races to the mix dilute them all?  I mean, with only four races, it is very easy to make them distinct.  But when you start adding in more and more races, the gap between them all gets a little more narrow and everything starts sounding alike.




I don't think so, no.  In a world with only 4 races, each race has a lot more room to develop and differentiate.  Take real-world humanity for example, while physically we're all 99% the same, there's still TONS of variety.  This would hold true for a world with few races as well.  Each race may have their "core" ideology, ie: dwarves live underground and are good with stone, elves live in forests and love trees, halflings live in burrows and well...aren't all that unique, humans can do everything.  While that may be the core, in actuality all of these races are going to branch out in the same way humans do.  There would be elves of tropical, temperate, scrubland, there would be dwarves who live deep in the mountains, those who live nearer to the surface, and those who live above ground!  Just in the same way that humans do live everywhere, those parts of those races would adapt to those conditions over time creating unique cultures.

Fewer races inclines each one to be less specific.  Dwarves may in general be hardy and like their ale, elves may love trees, but really that's about all you'd find in common unless you are IN the homeland of a specific culture.  You couldn't expect someone to play your standard irish-parody dwarf at the table because there's no guarantee that in the world that's how all dwarves are going to be.  In fact your dwarf may have dark skin, live on an island and sail.

Of course as diversity within a few races grows, the more the line blurs.  Whats the difference between a human who loves nature and an elf?  How exaclty ARE halflings not just short humans?  How does a dwarf who lives above ground act any differently from a city-born human?  

In fact more races will inspire each one to be more specific, as there is less room in the world, each race is forced to stay within the group, to stick to what makes a dwarf a dwarf, an elf an elf, ect...  Elves love trees, dwarves love stone, tieflings are evil, dragonborn are honorable, and while all races may have all these traits, each race is almost forced to exemplify it to the greatest degree given that if they don't, they're really no more than any other race.



> I think it would be better to focus on the "core four," make them as different and distinctive as possible and putting the rest in supplement books.



Personally, I won't buy a PHB1 with 4 races, @ $40 a book, it's simply not worth it, secondly, I don't want to wait years for Wizards to get around to publishing the races I like(since I hate half the "core four" races).  

That aside, I think if you really look at the races, without making them stupid parodies of real world cultures, the "core 4" are a lot more vague than you're giving them credit.  Forcing them to be the most dwarfiest dwarves or elfiest tree-hugging elitist jerkwads to have elfed I think does them a discredit.

 And really, how ARE halflings not just short humans?  Burrows?  Not good enough.


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## prosfilaes (Mar 7, 2012)

Hassassin said:


> I don't really see the need to fill every niche like this, especially in the PHB. That's why I also don't feel there should be a large race just to compensate for the small ones.




I feel there should be a large race so I can play a large race. Rules issues be damned, I want a race that can loom over humans and use brute force to solve all problems.


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## MoxieFu (Mar 7, 2012)

I don't mind Kinder being in a game as long as it's balanced by also having the Kinderpult.


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## Aldeon (Mar 7, 2012)

Dragonborn need to not exist, and have lizardfolk come in as a monstrous race (not core, though).

Although I don't dislike the idea of half-dwarves, I dislike the term mul. I think that if half-dwarves are accepted in as a 5e core race, they should be called such and the name mul should just stick with Dark Sun.

I always forget shardmind and wilden exist, and they really shouldn't anyways. IMO they were just added to beef up the PHB3's race options.

Eladrin shouldn't exist. Now we have a clear division of arcane elves and nature elves, but I think it should just be a cultural one instead. I'm sure the whole "too many elves" thing is a common moan though, but with reason.

I really don't like aasimar because they always struck me as just humans with shiny hair. I actually like devas though; their spiritual successors was a boon in my opinion.


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## TwinBahamut (Mar 7, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Anyway, to bring it back on topic:  wouldn't adding more races to the mix dilute them all?  I mean, with only four races, it is very easy to make them distinct.  But when you start adding in more and more races, the gap between them all gets a little more narrow and everything starts sounding alike.



I don't really think so. Sure, this can get hard if every race were as humanlike as elves or dwarves, but good racial concepts are not. The gap between races only gets smaller if you create new race concepts within that gap. There are still a _ton_ of race concepts that exist outside of the narrow gap between humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings.

Still, avoiding the whole "everything starts looking the same" issue is one of the reasons I argue against having watered down racial choices like Goliaths rather than Giants, Shifters rather than Werecreatures, or Dragonborn rather than Dragons. Diluting everything by making it half-human pushes good concepts into the gap that otherwise exist outside of it, meaning they crowd against each other more. It is easier to differentiate a Dragon from an Orc than it would be to differentiate a Dragonborn from an Orc, just like it is easier to make Elves and Orcs more different from each other than Half-Elves and Half-Orcs.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Still, avoiding the whole "everything starts looking the same" issue is one of the reasons I argue against having watered down racial choices like Goliaths rather than Giants, Shifters rather than Werecreatures, or Dragonborn rather than Dragons. Diluting everything by making it half-human pushes good concepts into the gap that otherwise exist outside of it, meaning they crowd against each other more. It is easier to differentiate a Dragon from an Orc than it would be to differentiate a Dragonborn from an Orc, just like it is easier to make Elves and Orcs more different from each other than Half-Elves and Half-Orcs.




But the problem then is to make those races feel flavorfully like you're playing the actual race, we're looking at a level adjustment out the wazoo.  And level adjustments classically cost FAR FAR more than they were really worth.  Go download the Paizo Advanced Race Guide playtest document for an idea of how simply cost-ineffective things can be.(it's actually looking like a really cool guide for species building).


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## Sunseeker (Mar 7, 2012)

Aldeon said:


> Dragonborn need to not exist, and have lizardfolk come in as a monstrous race (not core, though).




Thing is though, Dragonborn weren't supposed to be a monstrous race.  They're civilized, honorable, they have religion and society and all that sthick, plus the idea of being part dragon comes off a lot cooler than being part lizard.  Especially when lizardfolk are portrayed as dirty, smelly, often cruel and usually stupid humanoids.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> I don't really think so. Sure, this can get hard if every race were as humanlike as elves or dwarves, but good racial concepts are not. The gap between races only gets smaller if you create new race concepts within that gap. There are still a _ton_ of race concepts that exist outside of the narrow gap between humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings.



True, but nearly all of them can be put into two categories: Anthropomorphic Creatures and Half-Bloods.

Centaur = anthro. horse
Minotaur = anthro. bovine
Satyr = anthro. goat
Rakasta = anthro. cat
Lizardfolk = anthro. lizards

Changeling = half doppelganger
Planetouched = half elemental
Shifter = half lycanthrope
Warforged = half golem
Dragonborn = half dragon
Tiefling = half fiend
Aasimar = half celestial

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing; it can be a lot of fun playing the role of a half-blooded doppelganger or an anthropomorphic cat.  I just don't think it adds as much variety as people say it does.


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## Hassassin (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Sure, this can get hard if every race were as humanlike as elves or dwarves, but good racial concepts are not.




IMO, of the races in the poll only warforged, thri-kreen and changelings are significantly less humanlike than elves and dwarves.

(Also gith, but for "cultural" reasons - living on the astral plane has to mess with your perception of physics. You could have the same background with any race.)


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## Yora (Mar 7, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Changeling = half doppelganger
> Planetouched = half elemental
> Shifter = half lycanthrope
> Warforged = half golem
> ...



I really don't like the halfblood "solution". In 4th Edition they explicitly spelled out "Dragonborn are for players who want to play dragons" and the creation of the half-orc player race was the same thing I, I heard.
But that's really not the point. If people want to play a dragon, orc, celestial, or golem, then they want to play a dragon, orc, celestial or golem. Not just a human with body paint that looks like a dragon, orc, celestial, or golem. Just getting a defanged version is not the same thing. It's just lame.

I make an exception for tieflings, because Planescape made tieflings cool for me.


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## TwinBahamut (Mar 7, 2012)

shidaku said:


> But the problem then is to make those races feel flavorfully like you're playing the actual race, we're looking at a level adjustment out the wazoo.  And level adjustments classically cost FAR FAR more than they were really worth.  Go download the Paizo Advanced Race Guide playtest document for an idea of how simply cost-ineffective things can be.(it's actually looking like a really cool guide for species building).



This is only true if you presume a 3E or 4E style race system and use Level Adjustment (a terrible mechanic) to balance anything more powerful than the pitifully weak baseline. There are a lot of other alternatives to that which make more powerful races more of an option, and I greatly prefer those alternative to the classic mechanics. Even "race as class" is a good alternative if you want to play a Dragon.



CleverNickName said:


> True, but nearly all of them can be put into two categories: Anthropomorphic Creatures and Half-Bloods.
> 
> Centaur = anthro. horse
> Minotaur = anthro. bovine
> ...



I think you're both over-simplifying the issue and ignoring one of my key points. For one, anthropomorphic creatures can have a rather high degree of variation (it is hard to say that a Minotaur, a Centaur, and a person with bird wings are terribly similar). They all also tend to have more mythic inspiration than some of the alternatives, which always helps. You're also ignoring the fact that I just said that I dislike the halfbloods. Sure, a tiefling or aasimar don't add a lot of variety, but a full-blooded Angel or Devil as a playable race certainly would.



Hassassin said:


> IMO, of the races in the poll only warforged, thri-kreen and changelings are significantly less humanlike than elves and dwarves.
> 
> (Also gith, but for "cultural" reasons - living on the astral plane has to mess with your perception of physics. You could have the same background with any race.)



Well, this is exactly why I used that "good racial choices" phrasing. I know that many people will disagree with me for this, but I don't consider the vast majority of traditional D&D races to be good racial choices.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> This is only true if you presume a 3E or 4E style race system and use Level Adjustment (a terrible mechanic) to balance anything more powerful than the pitifully weak baseline. There are a lot of other alternatives to that which make more powerful races more of an option, and I greatly prefer those alternative to the classic mechanics. Even "race as class" is a good alternative if you want to play a Dragon.




The buy in even for "racial classes" as traditionally been pretty high for pretty low output.

And realistically the number of campaigns in which you could use a dragon PC, a lycanthrope PC, or some other sort of 70%animal/30%human hybird or just plain old monster, are pretty low.

Making near-humans and humanoids out of these creatures makes them more plausible in the vast majority of games.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> They all also tend to have more mythic inspiration than some of the alternatives, which always helps.



Aye, but there's the rub.  Some of us would like Wizards of the Coast to go easy on the "mythic inspiration" in the core of the new edition, so that we don't have to surgically extract it later.  (Even after 5 years, I still have the occasional quabble with my players about why there are no Monks in ancient Egypt.)

I would prefer to have Core Rules that are generic and universally applicable to all campaign styles, and an assortment of accessories for different settings and styles.  I'm not saying that aasimar, tieflings, minotaurs, warforged, etc., have no place in 5E.  I'm saying that their place is in accessory books, not the core.


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## Hassassin (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Well, this is exactly why I used that "good racial choices" phrasing. I know that many people will disagree with me for this, but I don't consider the vast majority of traditional D&D races to be good racial choices.




Ok, how about some examples to explain your point. What would your PHB race list look like and why would it be better than for example the union of 3e and 4e?


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## Sunseeker (Mar 7, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> I would prefer to have Core Rules that are generic and universally applicable to all campaign styles, and an assortment of accessories for different settings and styles.  I'm not saying that aasimar, tieflings, minotaurs, warforged, etc., have no place in 5E.  I'm saying that their place is in accessory books, not the core.




Problematically, D&D still needs to maintain something to it beyond the "generic" to make it feel like D&D.  Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Elves and the D20 system could be any game.  Where's the hook?  Why am I buying this severely overpriced manual from Wizards and not some other guy who's selling a downloadable PDF for a quarter the price with all the same content?

This is the ever-present problem of the OGL, the more generic Wizards makes the game, the less they can claim as "theirs", which means the less reason there is to buy their products.


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## Steely_Dan (Mar 7, 2012)

Dragonborn for me too, I'm not too keen on the name, and those phallic noses in a lot of the art, puts me off aesthetically, for a start.


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## TwinBahamut (Mar 7, 2012)

I must say, I don't usually use the multiquote option this much... Oh well, this is interesting. 



shidaku said:


> The buy in even for "racial classes" as traditionally been pretty high for pretty low output.
> 
> And realistically the number of campaigns in which you could use a dragon PC, a lycanthrope PC, or some other sort of 70%animal/30%human hybird or just plain old monster, are pretty low.
> 
> Making near-humans and humanoids out of these creatures makes them more plausible in the vast majority of games.



I'll disagree with the logic of your first point. The "it was weak before, so the concept is terrible" argument isn't a very convincing one. Simply improving the strength of the option would correct it, and that kind of balancing is an important aspect of every edition of the game. It is not like anyone thought abandoning the Fighter as a class concept was a good idea just because it was weak in 3E. I'll be the first to admit that the "race as class" idea has its flaws and is an imperfect solution, but there are better arguments against it.

I'll also disagree with your idea that race options like dragons, lycanthropes, or other non-humanoids are incompatible with the vast majority of campaigns. You present neither any evidence nor any logic to back that statement up. Without either of those, I'll simply reject the statement as you trying to over-generalize your own preferences. I, for one, would be happy to see such options.



CleverNickName said:


> Aye, but there's the rub.  Some of us would like Wizards of the Coast to go easy on the "mythic inspiration" in the core of the new edition, so that we don't have to surgically extract it later.  (Even after 5 years, I still have the occasional quabble with my players about why there are no Monks in ancient Egypt.)
> 
> I would prefer to have Core Rules that are generic and universally applicable to all campaign styles, and an assortment of accessories for different settings and styles.  I'm not saying that aasimar, tieflings, minotaurs, warforged, etc., have no place in 5E.  I'm saying that their place is in accessory books, not the core.



I don't really understand your point on several levels. I don't see the connection between mythic inspiration for the game and your issue with monks in ancient Egypt. I also don't really see the relevance of the "core vs. supplement" debate on this particular discussion (which I'm really extending to the broader game as a whole, not just some squabbling over the "core").

There is also the issue that I just don't like the argument that core must only contain a limited set of things that nobody hates. By that logic, the D&D core would only contain human fighters, and even then I'm sure someone around here would complain about how human fighters don't belong in their campaign! D&D's job is to present as many options as possible, not to exclude them in order to cater to particular tastes.



Hassassin said:


> Ok, how about some examples to explain your point. What would your PHB race list look like and why would it be better than for example the union of 3e and 4e?



I'll say upfront that a lot of my arguments for why certain races would be better is summed up with a few guidelines, most of which rather honestly are just preferences on my part. I won't claim that these choices are better for _everyone_, but they will certainly be better for me (and I would presume a non-trivial number of potential players).

Anyways, here's my preferences and/or assumptions:

1) Racial choice should have a significant impact on the game. More than just a few minor bonuses and stat mods, it should open the possibility of a significantly different game experience.
2) People who want to play something inhuman don't want to play a humanized version of the target concept. They instead want to play the actual target concept.
3) Intelligent creatures should not be arbitrarily divided into "playable races" and "monsters". For the most part, just because something is presented as a potential opponent shouldn't exclude it from being a player choice. Violent bigotry on the part of human peasants towards anything not very humanlike should not be a default assumption of D&D.
4) There are a lot of fantasy races out there with a lot of traction that are not usually seen or given a proper treatment in D&D.
5) Various "rubber forehead alien" style races distinct to D&D, like the Giths, are simply rather boring and tend to crowd out more flavorful and widely acceptable concepts. Some of these are just offensively bad.

As for the race list that I would propose (understanding that this is neither a suggestion for the PHB1 or an exhaustive list of what the game should contain), I'd propose the following.

Humans - Naturally.

Elves - They can be decent once in a while.

Dwarves - They can also be decent once in a while.

Halflings - Because their fans would lynch me if I omitted them.

Orcs - I see no problem with just letting them in as a main race, same as elves or dwarves.

Centaurs - I grew up reading Narnia, what can I say?

Werecreatures - I'd create a few variants, actually... I'd much rather have the interesting mechanics of transforming in a full beast form than the "be Wolverine from the X-Men!" style of the Shifters.

Minotaurs - They're a good candidate for a big and tough race that is still smaller than a proper Giant. Much better than a Half-Giant. Unlike a goliath, the name is more recognizable and their appearance is more distinctive.

Giant - Speaking of Giants, they would work quite well as a racial choice. Being big has its advantages and disadvantages, but it would be a very different experience than being a human. Sounds fun to me.

Pixie/Fairy - At the opposite end of the spectrum from Giants are these. Unlike halflings, they are small enough to make the concept fun. Just... please no more flavoring them as Tinkerbell knock-offs.

Angel - If you want a character associated with goodness and celestial cosmology, skipping past Aasimar and going straight to angels is the road I'd take. Since they are mostly humanlike anyways, I see no need to halfblood them.

Demon/Devil - A bit harder to justify than Angels, but still possible. Again, why use Tieflings if the pureblood version is mechanically viable?

Genie - To round out the planar set of races, we get the elemental version. Not too different mechanically from the Genasi, but better flavor.

Dragon - Because it just sounds like it'd be a lot of fun to play. I know this one would be popular.

Intelligent Animal - Too iconic to myth and fantasy to possibly ignore.

Nymph - Includes various varieties like Dryads and Nereids. Creatures of nature who draw strength from various forms of terrain. 4E proved that this can work, so it just needs to be generalized.

Merfolk - Iconic and makes oceanic campaigns a lot more viable.

There are a lot of other things I'd like to see, though many of those are a bit more campaign-specific. Warforged are a good race, for example. I could probably go on for a while, actually, but I'll stop here.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> I must say, I don't usually use the multiquote option this much... Oh well, this is interesting.



Isn't it?  I once got called schizophrenic for breaking up things into multi-quote parts so that I could better address the point.  Dunno how breaking things down for easier replies makes one crazy.



> I'll disagree with the logic of your first point. The "it was weak before, so the concept is terrible" argument isn't a very convincing one.



No, it's not.  It's more of my opinion on the skill or desire of Wizards to do so.  I think Pathfinder has a pretty reasonable buy-in for most of their templates and level adjustments.  I'm looking forward to see their Advanced Race Guide come out this summer.  But this is part of my point.  Where Paizo is developing a system to enhance customization further and retool LA issues, Wizards went from high-customization of 3.5 to almost no customization in 4e.

I think that's one of the lessons they've learned for 5e, or at least I hope it is.  The way Wizards wants you to play should not be the way you HAVE to play, it at least sounds like this is a core principle to 5e.  I hope.



> Simply improving the strength of the option would correct it, and that kind of balancing is an important aspect of every edition of the game.



Reducing the cost is valid as well.  I thought the layout for racial classes in Savage Species was pretty good, but I don't like the idea that once you set down the path of your race, you HAVE to finish it.  Not to mention, again, the buy-in was WAY too high for the purchase.



> I'll also disagree with your idea that race options like dragons, lycanthropes, or other non-humanoids are incompatible with the vast majority of campaigns. You present neither any evidence nor any logic to back that statement up. Without either of those, I'll simply reject the statement as you trying to over-generalize your own preferences. I, for one, would be happy to see such options.



I doubt there are many studies on what people play the most in D&D adventures, however, given that the history of the game and the majority of fantasy RPGs in general focus on human, humanoid and near-human characters, I would stand to wager that the majority of games and characters reflect this.  I understand there is certainly some room for monstrous campaigns, I've wanted to run them myself.  But out of some half a dozen campaigns I've run and the others I've played it, I've only wanted to do a monster campaign _once_.




> 2) People who want to play something inhuman don't want to play a humanized version of the target concept. They instead want to play the actual target concept.



True, but there's middle ground here as well, and people can be willing to compromise.



> 3) Intelligent creatures should not be arbitrarily divided into "playable races" and "monsters". For the most part, just because something is presented as a potential opponent shouldn't exclude it from being a player choice. Violent bigotry on the part of human peasants towards anything not very humanlike should not be a default assumption of D&D.



To this I agree, and I think the first step would be to present a "base" version of the race.  The monster found in the manual may have half a dozen attacks and 20 weapons and so on, but stripped of those things there is a BASE here.  Short of a race-as-class or large LA however, you're not going to get the full-power of a creature @ level 1.



> 4) There are a lot of fantasy races out there with a lot of traction that are not usually seen or given a proper treatment in D&D.



Yep, and that's something I'd love to see in 5e, is allowing for more production of 3PP stuff, which is where I would expect to find a lot more of the monstrous creatures as PCs.



> 5) Various "rubber forehead alien" style races distinct to D&D, like the Giths, are simply rather boring and tend to crowd out more flavorful and widely acceptable concepts. Some of these are just offensively bad.



To be fair to Giths, I don't think you're giving them the credit they're due.  




> Humans - Naturally.
> 
> Elves - They can be decent once in a while.
> 
> ...




Specifically to the ones highlighted, how would you go about balancing them to the others?  These are creatures with INCREDIBLE powers.


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## TwinBahamut (Mar 7, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Reducing the cost is valid as well.  I thought the layout for racial classes in Savage Species was pretty good, but I don't like the idea that once you set down the path of your race, you HAVE to finish it.  Not to mention, again, the buy-in was WAY too high for the purchase.



Lowering the cost of something is certainly an important way of making it more powerful, and this is indeed where too many previous bad implementations went awry. I really hope that any future version of this sort of thing completely sidesteps the Level Adjustment/Savage Species style of mechanics.



> I doubt there are many studies on what people play the most in D&D adventures, however, given that the history of the game and the majority of fantasy RPGs in general focus on human, humanoid and near-human characters, I would stand to wager that the majority of games and characters reflect this.  I understand there is certainly some room for monstrous campaigns, I've wanted to run them myself.  But out of some half a dozen campaigns I've run and the others I've played it, I've only wanted to do a monster campaign _once_.



Well, the problem with looking at D&D campaigns for this sort of data is that the historically bad mechanics for this sort of thing tended to push people away from the choice. If you look at something relevant outside of D&D campaigns alone, then other trends become apparent. For example, many MMOs have pretty crazy racial choices, and they can be rather popular. I think that once you get past the group of players who just want to play humans (which is rather large), then the remaining set seems to feel as comfortable playing orcs, trolls, or panda-men as they do elves or dwarves. That's a bit of a vague generalization, but it's my impression.

Also, I again want to express that I don't think you need to play a "monstrous campaign" in order to have races like dragons in a group of PCs. I know not everyone is okay with this flavor, but I'm rather fond of a group of PCs including 3 humans, a dwarf, and a dragon. When the humans and dwarf head to the pub, the dragon just chills outside, maybe wandering off to glean some information from the dragon who protects the king's castle. 



> To this I agree, and I think the first step would be to present a "base" version of the race.  The monster found in the manual may have half a dozen attacks and 20 weapons and so on, but stripped of those things there is a BASE here.  Short of a race-as-class or large LA however, you're not going to get the full-power of a creature @ level 1.



You would certainly need this approach. I have no interest in implementing these races simply by making players play their characters straight out of the Monster Manual. That would be a terrible approach. You need to build mechanics for them as _races_, the same as elves or dwarves. That will certainly require a somewhat different approach to race design than past editions, but it is possible. You won't get a fully powered Great Wyrm dragon at level 1, but you can certainly get a character who looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon, and has all the mechanics of not wearing armor and breathing fire needed for him to be unmistakably a dragon.



> Yep, and that's something I'd love to see in 5e, is allowing for more production of 3PP stuff, which is where I would expect to find a lot more of the monstrous creatures as PCs.



I don't want this to be left up to third party works. WotC needs to tackle this one. This kind of thing needs to be built into the central mechanics of the game if it is ever going to work. It can't just be hacked in by some third party. I'm not really a fan of third party stuff anyways... I only ever bought two third party d20 books (both for Iron Heroes, actually).



> To be fair to Giths, I don't think you're giving them the credit they're due.



What can I say? I just can't see the appeal...



> Specifically to the ones highlighted, how would you go about balancing them to the others?  These are creatures with INCREDIBLE powers.



I suppose I would start by not assuming that every creature of those types has that kind of power. For the most part, any given member of one of those types has a few fairly iconic abilities. Angels are holy and have wings. Demons/devils are unholy. Genies are elemental. Dragons breath fire. You don't need to replicate the full stat block of a Solar, Pit Fiend, or Djinni Prince in order to get the flavor across or get to the heart of their mechanics. Some could also have severe drawbacks that limit them compared to Humans (this is clearest with a Dragon's inability to wear armor or carry a sword, but similar drawbacks may apply to the others). Generally speaking, a very low level Angel, Demon, or Genie might very well closely resemble an Aasimar, Tielfing, or Genasi. It is only at high levels that the major differences would begin to shine through.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Lowering the cost of something is certainly an important way of making it more powerful, and this is indeed where too many previous bad implementations went awry. I really hope that any future version of this sort of thing completely sidesteps the Level Adjustment/Savage Species style of mechanics.



I don't MIND LA/CR/racial classes for races that simply can't be boiled down to a base level, but I would like to see everything that can be made playable function similar to the full-race at start, and keep any buy in to a +3LA/CR/Racial Class maximum.  



> Well, the problem with looking at D&D campaigns for this sort of data is that the historically bad mechanics for this sort of thing tended to push people away from the choice. If you look at something relevant outside of D&D campaigns alone, then other trends become apparent. For example, many MMOs have pretty crazy racial choices, and they can be rather popular. I think that once you get past the group of players who just want to play humans (which is rather large), then the remaining set seems to feel as comfortable playing orcs, trolls, or panda-men as they do elves or dwarves. That's a bit of a vague generalization, but it's my impression.



Sure, these MMO's do what we're talking about, reduce an otherwise powerful creature to a base version to keep it in-line with other races.  If that could be accomplished for a wide variety of creatures, that'd be great!



> Also, I again want to express that I don't think you need to play a "monstrous campaign" in order to have races like dragons in a group of PCs. I know not everyone is okay with this flavor, but I'm rather fond of a group of PCs including 3 humans, a dwarf, and a dragon. When the humans and dwarf head to the pub, the dragon just chills outside, maybe wandering off to glean some information from the dragon who protects the king's castle.



I suppose it has to do with how I conceptualize worlds, dragons literally don't fit in most places, such as dungeons, inside buildings, ect... w/o some sort of "change shape power".  Which IMO, any magical, monstrous race should have.  Driders could shift into drow, dragons to some form of medium human, ect...  Without this being any significant cost to that race.



> You would certainly need this approach. I have no interest in implementing these races simply by making players play their characters straight out of the Monster Manual. That would be a terrible approach. You need to build mechanics for them as _races_, the same as elves or dwarves. That will certainly require a somewhat different approach to race design than past editions, but it is possible. You won't get a fully powered Great Wyrm dragon at level 1, but you can certainly get a character who looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon, and has all the mechanics of not wearing armor and breathing fire needed for him to be unmistakably a dragon.



Sure, we'd probably have to start them out as a younger dragon too, which already knocks off a great deal of the power associated with the creature.



> I don't want this to be left up to third party works. WotC needs to tackle this one. This kind of thing needs to be built into the central mechanics of the game if it is ever going to work. It can't just be hacked in by some third party. I'm not really a fan of third party stuff anyways... I only ever bought two third party d20 books (both for Iron Heroes, actually).



While I'd like to see Wizards tackle it, as I've said before, I don't have much faith in Wizards being able to actually execute the concept.  I realize I'm back to the "this is how it was done in the past" argument, but we're looking at a specific history of actions by WOTC.  As a realist by nature, I can only honestly expect them to do more than what they've done.



> What can I say? I just can't see the appeal...



Well, they're not bananas so that's understandable...
But I meant as being flavorfully defined by what they are.  Primitive orcs captured long ago by mind-flayers to serve as slaves and artifically evolved to be better servants who then rebelled and now serve dark gods.  I may not LIKE them, but their background was certainly flavorful enough for me to successfully role-play one of them in a campaign.  I successfully pissed off most of the group with _how_ I played my character, but few could argue that I wasn't being true to the race.  Once people got that I was just being an elitist ass in-character, people laid off.  It was fun, but not something I want to do often.



> I suppose I would start by not assuming that every creature of those types has that kind of power. For the most part, any given member of one of those types has a few fairly iconic abilities. Angels are holy and have wings. Demons/devils are unholy. Genies are elemental. Dragons breath fire. You don't need to replicate the full stat block of a Solar, Pit Fiend, or Djinni Prince in order to get the flavor across or get to the heart of their mechanics. Some could also have severe drawbacks that limit them compared to Humans (this is clearest with a Dragon's inability to wear armor or carry a sword, but similar drawbacks may apply to the others). Generally speaking, a very low level Angel, Demon, or Genie might very well closely resemble an Aasimar, Tielfing, or Genasi. It is only at high levels that the major differences would begin to shine through.



Sure, and that's why I've always liked the idea of providing racial feats to allow players to enhance their racial traits in addition to advancing their class as well.

Personally I'd like to see an advancement triad where class, race, and theme could all be advanced simultaneously but each in different ways.  Perhaps a character would at every other level be able to choose three tiers of feats, and each pillar of their character would present 3 tiers of options.  
1: high-power option
2: mid-power option
3: lower power option.

IE: You could take a high-power class ability, a mid-power racial ability, and a low-power theme ability.  Or any combination thereof.  Any pillar of your character could be exactly as weak, as flavorful, or as powerful as you chose to make it.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 8, 2012)

Here's an idea: instead of trying to fit dozens of different races into the core rulebook, why not give us rules for creating our own custom races instead?  I would much rather have instructions on how to create my own races and a small handful of examples, than a chapter full of crazy hybrids.

And also IMO: level adjustments need to be banished forever.


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## TwinBahamut (Mar 8, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Here's an idea: instead of trying to fit dozens of different races into the core rulebook, why not give us rules for creating our own custom races instead?  I would much rather have instructions on how to create my own races and a small handful of examples, than a chapter full of crazy hybrids.



My issue with that is "create your own X" rules tend to be pretty poor in games like this. They lack flavor and tend to push towards certain assumptions and options. They also tend to lack balance. How do you even build a good system for creating both elf subraces and dragons? It is unlikely to work, and I think it is even less likely that WotC would go that route.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 8, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Here's an idea: instead of trying to fit dozens of different races into the core rulebook, why not give us rules for creating our own custom races instead?  I would much rather have instructions on how to create my own races and a small handful of examples, than a chapter full of crazy hybrids.
> 
> And also IMO: level adjustments need to be banished forever.




That's a great idea, but balancing those costs is a VERY difficult feat, go check out the beta-test document for the Paizo book coming out this june on the very subject.  It doesn't take a genius to see how unbalanced a lot of the costs for racial traits are.  Supposedly they're fixing that, but who knows.

I think a chapter with 10 or so races in Core is good regardless of if we get a splatbook to make our own races later in the game.  The Paizo book is going to be a full-on book of features to build races with, I don't think it'd help anyone to try and cram all that into a chapter of the PHB/DMG/MM.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 8, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> My issue with that is "create your own X" rules tend to be pretty poor in games like this. They lack flavor and tend to push towards certain assumptions and options. They also tend to lack balance. How do you even build a good system for creating both elf subraces and dragons? It is unlikely to work, and I think it is even less likely that WotC would go that route.



Oh I dunno, my custom races seem to be playing just fine...when they get played at all.  I created two custom races and two variants for my Egyptian-flavored game, and it wasn't terribly difficult.  (It was kind of fun, actually.)  Still, the players almost always go for humans, dwarves, or elves.

But I agree: WotC is unlikely to go this route.  Giving us the tools to create our own races (and classes, monsters, spells, etc.) would make it harder for them to sell subsequent books.  But still...it would be nice to have.

Maybe a handful of us could collaborate on an ENWorld project once the 5E rules are out?  Something like a downloadable public-domain PDF, with how-to instructions and advice for creating balanced custom races and variants.


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## KesselZero (Mar 8, 2012)

Two unrelated thoughts.

1. I like [MENTION=50987]CleverNickName[/MENTION]'s idea about a set of race-creation rules. My dream for 5e is a module that lets you build your own half-races. It's always bugged me that every "half-X" race is "other half human." I want a half-elf-half-dwarf, or a half-tiefling-half-halfling (he would be called a "lingling" and would be a little man with horns). I'm not sure why I want this so much but I do. Any rules support for making weird new races would get three thumbs up from me.

2. Can somebody please explain to me how Level Adjustment rules for non-standard races are supposed to work if you're making a brand-new, level 1 character? This always baffled me in 3e. If I wanted to use a PC race with LA +3, could I only do that in a campaign that started at level 4 or higher? Did I miss a section of the rules?


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## TwinBahamut (Mar 8, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Oh I dunno, my custom races seem to be playing just fine...when they get played at all.  I created two custom races and two variants for my Egyptian-flavored game, and it wasn't terribly difficult.  (It was kind of fun, actually.)  Still, the players almost always go for humans, dwarves, or elves.



There is a pretty big difference between having success with your own custom races (which is always cool) and trying to create a _system_ for making custom races. Basically, trying to systematize that sort of thing is where things go awry. Kind of like the monster creation rules in 3E that were very complicated and ultimately failed to actually be balanced or interesting in any meaningful way. Ultimately, the only way to make a good, custom race or monster or anything else is build it from complete scratch and playtest it like crazy, which makes it rather hard to create a few simple rules to make it work.



> But I agree: WotC is unlikely to go this route.  Giving us the tools to create our own races (and classes, monsters, spells, etc.) would make it harder for them to sell subsequent books.  But still...it would be nice to have.



I don't think it is the need to sell supplements stopping them... I think it is more the issue that there simply is no way to effectively make a comprehensive race creation mechanic. I don't even know where they would start.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 8, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> I don't think it is the need to sell supplements stopping them... I think it is more the issue that there simply is no way to effectively make a comprehensive race creation mechanic. I don't even know where they would start.




By reverse engineering current races and monsters and assigning point values to the pieces.

Check out what Pathfinder did: http://paizo.com/store/downloads/v5748btpy8osf

The document there is pretty old, the full-book will be coming out in June.  But it's a good look at how Paizo did what you're saying Wizards should do.


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## airwalkrr (Mar 8, 2012)

The dragonborn has always been a horrible idea. If you want to have PCs as dragons, let them be dragons, not some half-baked mesh of the two. Dragons are POWERFUL and DEADLY creatures. They are not an entire race of breath-spewing paladin-types.


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## SensoryThought (Mar 9, 2012)

airwalkrr said:


> The dragonborn has always been a horrible idea. If you want to have PCs as dragons, let them be dragons, not some half-baked mesh of the two. Dragons are POWERFUL and DEADLY creatures. They are not an entire race of breath-spewing paladin-types.




Can I get an amen?


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Mar 9, 2012)

SensoryThought said:


> Can I get an amen?



Amen.

Look, people should be able to play ALL _KINDS_ of wierd and questionable races as PC's.  I don't have a problem with that and neither should anyone else.  There are two caveats:

1) As the DM do I really want them in my campaign?
2) Does it REALLY belong as a race in the CORE rules?

Publish a PH2 with 100 pages of wierd, powerful, and wacky races for people to choke on.  Enjoy.  I might even buy such a thing myself.  But which races _belong_ as a core race over the others?  Which PLAYER character races define a DEFAULT D&D setting?  It sure as hell ain't Dragonborn, Eladrin and Tieflings but I think a good argument can be made for Orcs.


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## Mercule (Mar 10, 2012)

I don't mind expanded races in expanded books. No creature cantina, though. If I wanted Talislanta, I'd play Talislanta.


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## Hassassin (Mar 10, 2012)

I think something like the LA system is the only way to make many races play well. If I want to play a giant, I don't want to play a poor excuse of a giant in a party of exceptional humans, elves and dwarves. Giants are supposed to be tough and strong, not equal to 1st level humans.

For some other races, like drow, you can just say that they aren't inherently more powerful. All drow you are likely to meet outside their cities have just been hardened by their societal competition, and are in effect level 3+ characters. No LA needed - if you play a 1st level one you are either very young or have been brought up outside their society.

Basically, no race that is a tough challenge due to something inherent like strength, size, natural or supernatural abilities etc. should IMO be reduced to the power level of humans and other core races.


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## prosfilaes (Mar 11, 2012)

Mercule said:


> If I wanted Talislanta, I'd play Talislanta.




On the other hand, if I wanted to play Talislanta I'd play ... D&D. Because that's what my group plays. I think I could maybe pull out Trail of Cthulhu or In Nomine and convince them to play, but I don't think I could pull out a new fantasy game and convince them to play.

D&D got where it is and stayed where it was by taking over a huge area of fantasy territory, by not limiting itself. We can have long discussions about core and not-core and even third-party and magazines, but somewhere in there there should be room for all sorts of weird races.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Mar 11, 2012)

Hassassin said:


> Basically, no race that is a tough challenge due to something inherent like strength, size, natural or supernatural abilities etc. should IMO be reduced to the power level of humans and other core races.



Definitely agree.  In the 1E DMG Gary Gygax devoted a notable amount of space to this general idea. There's a whole section titled, "The Monster as a Player Character". It is actually in that section where he talks about the game being "humanocentric".

Right up front he suggests that it's a questionable idea because the motivation that players have in wanting to play "monsters" as their PC is simply to dominate the campaign. He then notes that the game orients around humans for good reasons and suggests that there's nothing particularly wrong with some experimentation along these lines but that in the long run it should be humans and demi-humans that REMAIN the focus of the game. His conclusion however comes down to: if you want to allow monsters as player characters that's YOUR problem.


Now when he's talking about "monsters" he's talking about them in a far more general, 1st Edition style (since this is FROM 1E). He mentions demons, devils, demi-gods, undead, and dragons as being common requests from players but I'm pretty sure that he'd heartily lump creatures like Drow, faerie races, giants/half-giants, and the like into that broad category of "monsters".


I have to agree with his sentiments. Always have. Now it's been my fortune that my players have rarely, if ever, asked to step any distance outside the bounds of what the PH or a particular campaign settings' sourcebook lists as a PC race. I've come to see that as both good and bad. Good, because it means that I have been spared a lot of headaches stepping on the necks of players who are trying only to disrupt my game to satisfy their own lust for lording it over the other PC's and myself as DM. Bad, because I think there's a lot of _fun_ to be had in playing as or alongside a character who is highly unique simply due to being a wildly outrageous and nonstandard race. But a request to play an UNusual race can't exist if there isn't a roster of USUAL races to refer to.


We should all step outside the box a few times and exercise our own imaginations and challenge that of our DM's by playing a PC of an non-standard even downright exotic race. But, approval for that should still rest with the DM and it should not be a matter of OVERRULING the PH to say, "That race is too wierd, too powerful, too newly invented to be included in my game by default and so it is forbidden except by special request." It should be a matter of acceeding to SPECIAL requests to play races as PC's which are NOT "traditional", even generic and staid fantasy stereotypes.


Unusual, powerful, and newly invented races belong in supplements or as campaign setting design choices left STRICTLY up to the DM to allow as he sees fit. Words like "standard", "generic", and, "default" when applied to choice of races that are appropriate for inclusion in a Players Handbook simply do NOT allow for dragonborn, drow, eladrin, tiefilings, half-giants, undead, lycanthropes, aasimar, githyanki, warforged and many others.  Let the game designers field their SETTING design ideas forward in some other, more appropriate place.  Even the DMG would be an appropriate place for including some alternative PC race possibilities that just don't belong in the PH - if accompanied by firm assertions that their use by players is subject to DM approval for all the above reasons, and thus well-considered by the DM for those reasons before being allowed, and NEVER to be assumed as a _right_ by players.

But that's probably just me.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 11, 2012)

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> Now when he's talking about "monsters" he's talking about them in a far more general, 1st Edition style (since this is FROM 1E). He mentions demons, devils, demi-gods, undead, and dragons as being common requests from players but I'm pretty sure that he'd heartily lump creatures like Drow, faerie races, giants/half-giants, and the like into that broad category of "monsters".




Does not follow.

"You should not orient the campaign around almighty monsters capable of vast destruction from day 1" does not mean "you should not orient the campaign around things different from but equal to humans and demi-humans."


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## Sunseeker (Mar 11, 2012)

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> but I'm pretty sure that he'd heartily lump creatures like Drow, faerie races, giants/half-giants, and the like into that broad category of "monsters".




_*I*_  on the other hand am pretty sure Gygax is dead.  So we have no idea what he would or would not lump into "monsters".

I really don't understand the fascination with making D&D have one of the most mundane racial selections ever.


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## Doug McCrae (Mar 11, 2012)

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> He mentions demons, devils, demi-gods, undead, and dragons as being common requests from players but I'm pretty sure that he'd heartily lump creatures like Drow, faerie races, giants/half-giants, and the like into that broad category of "monsters".



Drow are a PC race in Gary's Unearthed Arcana, though.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 11, 2012)

The further away from Human we drift, the more blurred the line becomes between PCs and Monsters.  So maybe 5E desn't need a ton of races.  Maybe 5E just needs the four iconic races and an updated _Savage Species_?


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## Doug McCrae (Mar 11, 2012)

Imho, D&D has always been wahoo. It's always been a 'Mos Eisley cantina' sort of world, one where Conan, Galahad, Cugel the Clever and Caine from Kung Fu team up to fight Dracula, some monsters from Tolkien, and something out of an episode of Space: 1999.

So it's a bit odd that some editions - 1e and, especially, 2e - haven't allowed that weirdness that's out there in the default D&D world, that world that's replete with monsters and magic, to seep into the PC race selection very much.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> The further away from Human we drift, the more blurred the line becomes between PCs and Monsters.  So maybe 5E desn't need a ton of races.  Maybe 5E just needs the four iconic races and an updated _Savage Species_?




Assuming we consider those four to be "iconic".  Personally I find halflings to be little more than short humans.  Their cultural differences are even minimal than compared to the Hippy Human and the Fat Human.

That, and I'm not paying for a PHB with only 4 races.  That's a fine number for a Starter Box, but that's entirely unacceptable in a $30-$40 book w/300ish pages.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> The further away from Human we drift, the more blurred the line becomes between PCs and Monsters.  So maybe 5E desn't need a ton of races.  Maybe 5E just needs the four iconic races and an updated _Savage Species_?




Clerics exist because someone was playing a vampire. Lacking monstrous PC options is not D&D. Heck, sorcerers are usually descended from monsters as part of their class assumptions.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 11, 2012)

shidaku said:


> That, and I'm not paying for a PHB with only 4 races.  That's a fine number for a Starter Box, but that's entirely unacceptable in a $30-$40 book w/300ish pages.



One of the best D&D rule books ever written was $30/300ish pages, and had only 4 races in it.  Okay, the races were also classes, but still...

The hobby has yet to produce a better, more comprehensive and more cohesive rulebook than the Rules Cyclopedia.  I hope 5E at least comes close.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> One of the best D&D rule books ever written was $30/300ish pages, and had only 4 races in it.  Okay, the races were also classes, but still...
> 
> The hobby has yet to produce a better, more comprehensive and more cohesive rulebook than the Rules Cyclopedia.  I hope 5E at least comes close.




In your opinion.  And there's nothing wrong with your opinion, and that's the point: there's a wide berth of opinion on this subject.  

Also: it's original MSRP was $24.99 USD, and it is only 210 pages.


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## Incenjucar (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> One of the *best* D&D rule books ever written was $30/300ish pages, and had *only 4 races* in it.  Okay, the *races were also classes*, but still...




I could never agree that the above bolded leads to the latter bolded. My fantasy is bigger than that. It has been bigger than that since before I even heard of D&D.



> The hobby has yet to produce a *better*, *more comprehensive* and more cohesive rulebook than the Rules Cyclopedia.  I hope 5E at least comes close.




Your version of the game, while totally worthy and perfectly adequate for your needs, would make people think I had narcolepsy - and this is no exaggeration, I pass out when bored. I very likely would be physically incapable of playing that game that you feel is "more comprehensive" because of how SMALL it is.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 11, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Also: it's original MSRP was $24.99 USD, and it is only 210 pages.



Even more efficient.  

I think there should be a large number of possibilities in 5E, and not just for PC races.  There should be an infinite amount, actually.  But there has to be a happy balance between "everything but the kitchen sink" and "only the four iconics."  And this is how I would like to see that balance:

They should only put 2d4+2 races in the Core Rules, put the rest of them into supplemental books, and (most importantly) give us balanced rules for creating our own playable races for any campaign.  Everybody wins.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 11, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> Your version of the game, while totally worthy and perfectly adequate for your needs, would make people think I had narcolepsy - and this is no exaggeration, I pass out when bored. I very likely would be physically incapable of playing that game that you feel is "more comprehensive" because of how SMALL it is.



Woah...wait.  It's not "my version of the game," it is a published set of rules from TS&R.  It is one of the most popular and successful versions of the game.  I would love to take credit for it, but it is by no means "mine."

I've never gotten any complaints about any of my games being boring, regardless of the edition I happen to be running.  Even if I did, I'm pretty sure that the "boring" statement would come from my story and narrative, not from the number of racial options available to players in the game...which is what this thread is about.

I maintain that 5E does not "need" more than a handful of races _in the core rules,_ and that any other races that DMs desire could be sold in supplemental books and/or created by the DMs themselves.  This is merely my opinion, true, but I doubt that it is a unique one.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Even more efficient.



I'm more a flavor over efficiency kinda guy.



> I think there should be a large number of possibilities in 5E, and not just for PC races.  There should be an infinite amount, actually.  But there has to be a happy balance between "everything but the kitchen sink" and "only the four iconics."  And this is how I would like to see that balance:
> 
> They should only put 2d4+2 races in the Core Rules, put the rest of them into supplemental books, and (most importantly) give us balanced rules for creating our own playable races for any campaign.  Everybody wins.




In the MOST idea world, I'd like to see the ability to custom-build or at least customize races to the point where you wouldn't need a unique entry for your half-dwarf-half-sun-elf as the core element regarding races.  You'd just mix and match a few racial abilities, adjust the bonuses and penalties and add your own flavor.

I think a bare minimum of 5 is the absolute least I can stomach in a single book, though I'd prefer 6, if I can wish for the moon, 10.  I think they oughta cut down a lot of the world-specific fluff that was present in 4e books regarding race and that'd free up a lot of page-room.

Of course if Wizards wants to put less in....they can always lower the price!


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## Incenjucar (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> Woah...wait.  It's not "my version of the game," it is a published set of rules from TS&R.  It is one of the most popular and successful versions of the game.  I would love to take credit for it, but it is by no means "mine."




It's yours in the sense that it's the game you prefer.

It was popular and successful at the same time bellbottoms were popular and successful. That doesn't indicate its ability to succeed outside of that time period. That doesn't mean that some people can't still rock bellbottoms, of course.



> I've never gotten any complaints about any of my games being boring, regardless of the edition I happen to be running.  Even if I did, I'm pretty sure that the "boring" statement would come from my story and narrative, not from the number of racial options available to players in the game...which is what this thread is about.




If the system doesn't influence whether or not a game is fun, this thread has no purpose. Options are a big deal for the people who want those options, and they're often meaningless to people who do not want those options. Options allow for more people to find the option of their choice.



> I maintain that 5E does not "need" more than a handful of races _in the core rules,_ and that any other races that DMs desire could be sold in supplemental books and/or created by the DMs themselves.  This is merely my opinion, true, but I doubt that it is a unique one.




5E needs to make money. The people who want certain options have money. If it fails to provide those options, they will fail to provide that money.


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## Minigiant (Mar 11, 2012)

CleverNickName said:


> The further away from Human we drift, the more blurred the line becomes between PCs and Monsters.  So maybe 5E desn't need a ton of races.  Maybe 5E just needs the four iconic races and an updated _Savage Species_?




The closer we move races to humans, the less reason we need races at all.

And the ways the 4 races were before 4E, they lacked a reason to be races and were more cultures. Elf vs dwarf. Blond human vs Brunette human. Skinny human vs fat human.

And how long will I have to wait for the Savage Species book?


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## prosfilaes (Mar 12, 2012)

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> Unusual, powerful, and newly invented races belong in supplements or as campaign setting design choices left STRICTLY up to the DM to allow as he sees fit. Words like "standard", "generic", and, "default" when applied to choice of races that are appropriate for inclusion in a Players Handbook simply do NOT allow for dragonborn, drow, eladrin, tiefilings, half-giants, undead, lycanthropes, aasimar, githyanki, warforged and many others.




Neither golems nor angel- or demon-touched are rare themes in fantasy; in fact, they may be more common then some form of hobbit. One commentary on "fantasy heartbreakers" noted that earlier versions all had catfolk, and newer versions had "dragonfolk". Eladrin is just another name for elves that have showed up in not only fiction but most older versions of D&D.

Undead and lycanthropes are not really appropriate for D&D, IMO, at least not as basic races, but I'll note that vampires and werewolves have been among the most popular races in books, movies and on TV, and I'd bet if you added up all the races people have played in all RPGs, they'd beat gnomes for popularity. (For some reason I don't understand, zombies' popularity in media hasn't translated to people wanting to play them in game.)


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## Incenjucar (Mar 12, 2012)

A variant of werecreatures would really work fine in D&D, the fiction just doesn't play with the idea much. It's not like players shapeshifting into an animal or taking on bestial characteristics is even unusual in D&D, unless DMs are banning Wild Shape and nobody told me.


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## Lanefan (Mar 12, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> If the system doesn't influence whether or not a game is fun, this thread has no purpose. Options are a big deal for the people who want those options, and they're often meaningless to people who do not want those options. Options allow for more people to find the option of their choice.
> 
> 5E needs to make money. The people who want certain options have money. If it fails to provide those options, they will fail to provide that money.



Flip side: if the system provides a whole pile of options people don't want yet are still expected to pay for in order to get the bits they do want, that might not work out so well either.

Lan-"I've spent most of my adult life learning how best to kill these things and now you expect me to run with one in the party?"-efan


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## Incenjucar (Mar 12, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Flip side: if the system provides a whole pile of options people don't want yet are still expected to pay for in order to get the bits they do want, that might not work out so well either.




Even those options you don't personally use can be inspiring.

I certainly have no use for elves, dwarves, or halflings, nor wizards, paladin, or clerics. I don't care for any of those, and haven't since I started playing the game in 93, but they still give me plenty of ideas.


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## Doug McCrae (Mar 12, 2012)

prosfilaes said:


> For some reason I don't understand, zombies' popularity in media hasn't translated to people wanting to play them in game.



They're not pretty.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 12, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Flip side: if the system provides a whole pile of options people don't want yet are still expected to pay for in order to get the bits they do want, that might not work out so well either.




Well, that depends on how we define "people".  If 20 people don't like dragons, but 200000000000000000000000000000000000000 do like them, which group do we listen to?  The answer is obvious, the 20 who complain the most.

But in issues that are closer, 20 people like tieflings, 25 people don't like them.  Is the margin close enough to warrant putting them in or leaving them out?  I don't think there's a good answer.


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## Minigiant (Mar 12, 2012)

prosfilaes said:


> (For some reason I don't understand, zombies' popularity in media hasn't translated to people wanting to play them in game.)




Well most of them in the media are brainless or full of so much rage/hunger they can't function in social settings. People ony like playing talking animals.


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## Leatherhead (Mar 12, 2012)

prosfilaes said:


> (For some reason I don't understand, zombies' popularity in media hasn't translated to people wanting to play them in game.)




I thought about this for a moment, then I remembered the Forsaken from World of Warcraft. There are tons of people out there who play as "zombies." Heck, back before the Blood Elves came to the Horde faction, they were the most popular "bad" race.

But then again, I believe the more recent media fascination with zombies is due to the fact you can shoot them in the head without any moral backlash.


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