Take a look at the DnD tag on twitter and all you'll see is hipster kids showing off drawings of their totally non-human orange or red or blue or purple thing, which they'll call 'my boi' or 'this cutie' or whatever, to the point where you wonder whether the fuck they've ever had them inside a dungeon or their whole campaign is just about the characters eating cake while complaining about the patriarchy.

So what do you think about modern D&D having all these kids playing tieflings, aasimar, genasi, tabaxi, dragonborn etc.?

Is it 'special snowflakeism'? Does it let them show off their (mostly imagined) non-conformity by all doing the exact same thing?

But is it basically harmless? Does it add to the game? or make it worse?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1066672So what do you think about modern D&D having all these kids playing tieflings, aasimar, genasi, tabaxi, dragonborn etc.?

This is what happens when you pander to furries.

Whereas everyone else plays humans elves and dwarves, and the rare halfling and half orc and whathaveyou.

As for people making up their odd characters. Thats been a part of D&D since the get-go. A Balrog? A Vampire? those were some early characters. And D&D itself encourages DMs to make up races or tweak them so you can and will get campaigns with all sorts of variance.

Speaking of. While it never made it into D&D that I ever saw. Dragon Dice had some interesting takes on races. Sea Elves, Lava Elves, Dark Goblins, Dryad style tree people, Snake people, Amazons and more.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1066672Take a look at the DnD tag on twitter and all you'll see is hipster kids showing off drawings of their totally non-human orange or red or blue or purple thing, which they'll call 'my boi' or 'this cutie' or whatever, to the point where you wonder whether the fuck they've ever had them inside a dungeon or their whole campaign is just about the characters eating cake while complaining about the patriarchy.

So what do you think about modern D&D having all these kids playing tieflings, aasimar, genasi, tabaxi, dragonborn etc.?

Is it 'special snowflakeism'? Does it let them show off their (mostly imagined) non-conformity by all doing the exact same thing?

But is it basically harmless? Does it add to the game? or make it worse?

No, we are just getting old.
We were raised on READING Tolkien and such.

These kids were raised on WATCHING Pokemon, My Little Pony, Phineas and Ferb, and such. Games like Skyrim have let these kids play cat people and lizard men for years even in a setting that is fairly traditional.

Tabaxi and Dragonborn are more the norm in my open library games than the wood elf or mountain dwarf.

We either yell "Get off my lawn!" or just roll with it.

Shit like this is why I ban every non-human as a playable race by default. You're a Man. Deal with it.

Pfff first D&D characters should be a tad cringe.

Builds character.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1066678No, we are just getting old.
We were raised on READING Tolkien and such.

These kids were raised on WATCHING Pokemon, My Little Pony, Phineas and Ferb, and such. Games like Skyrim have let these kids play cat people and lizard men for years even in a setting that is fairly traditional.

Tabaxi and Dragonborn are more the norm in my open library games than the wood elf or mountain dwarf.

We either yell "Get off my lawn!" or just roll with it.

I think this is honestly the most relevant part of it. Kids growing up in the last two decades have had a ton of exposure to non-Tolkien fantasy, and their tastes reflect that. Combine that with the natural bias of wanting a visually interesting character to showcase art for, and it makes sense that the old standbys have given way to more exotic appearances.

Really?  Most people in my area play nothing but the traditional races, most who try with Dragonborn or Tieflings do it once for variety's sake, but usually just once.

Anecdote, mind you.

Greetings!

Yeah, Pundit, I know exactly what you're talking about. I agree. To a limited extent, I think some variety in races and classes can be very beneficial and fun for a campaign. Like with my "pepper" analogy though, too much of it can cause a cascade of problems for the group, and the campaign.

You're Just a Human?

I wrote about this very thing when a friend of mine and I joined our local "Adventurer's League" group at the game store. 7 players, plus a few more that always drift in and out--say, about 12 gamers. Only myself and my friend play humans. More than once, we were chided and snickered at, "You're just a Human?" Universally, all of these other players were shocked and amazed that we were playing Human characters. Of like 12 different players, us two were human. There was one dwarf. The rest were all of these crazy races, and crazy classes as well.

Defining Deviancy Down

Not many of these other players in several "Adventurer's League" groups ever seemed entirely interested in much cooperation, or team building. Not much for roleplaying either, I'm afraid. They mostly enjoy acting silly and stupid, killing everything, and laughing at how unfortunate an NPC is or how fucked up they can make the campaign. It's all about them and what they want to do, it's all about them getting the goodies, and they can plunder and slaughter and fuck with people at every opportunity, show off how uber their powers are, and lets just all giggle at each other, bro. Indeed, in my experience, yeah, back in the day, we always had a few morons like this. But they were a distinct *minority*. Now, they seem to be the majority. And even more, often times back in the day, such a douche *knew* what they were doing. They *knew* they were acting like a murdering, treacherous, selfish, immoral fucking troglodyte. NOW? No, many don't seem to be really aware of it at all. They all straight-facedly pronounce this stuff, and even the girls giggle and say, "yeah! right on...I've got this uber power I can do that will fuck them up! Woo hoo! Goodies for me!!!" They don't often have the faintest idea that there's any drawbacks to how they are presenting and playing their character, not for the rest of the group, and with no regard for what kinds of larger social and religious problems the group may suffer from because of their choices in race, class, and character presentation.

My Pepper Analogy

I enjoy good food, and cooking as well. For those of you that are also cooks, you no doubt appreciate the analogy of mine, that of "peppers." Peppers are a wonderful addition to many different meals. In just the right amount, they add flavour, diversity, and vibrancy to perhaps an otherwise "routine" kind of meal. However, that line is a fine one. Add just a bit over, too much peppers, and the whole meal is inedible, and an absolute waste of time and effort. That's kind of how I think about all these weird characters and races. One or two of them, and the campaign gains "spice", "vibrancy" and "diversity". More than that, though, and not only the group cohesion, but the integrity of the campaign as a whole can experience a growing cascade of problems and difficulties that never end. Piece by piece, race by crazy race, the illusion is presented of you gaining more "variety" and more "fun"--and while you certainly do gain such things, it also, character by character, bit by bit, comes with a cost. Before you realize it, you, as the DM are faced with "losing" all kinds of things within the milieu.

Destroying Social and Religious Cohesion

Including these crazy races seems to actually erode social and religious cohesion within a group. In previous years, having mostly humans with an occasional elf, dwarf, or Halfling was never a problem, in many ways because while the elf, dwarf, and Halfling characters all come from different cultures and have different religions--just like many of the humans--there is enough baseline familiarity, and "congruence" that they all gell together well, and minimize problems and inconsistencies. Including Tieflings, Dragonborn, Genasi, Lizardfolk, Tebaxi, and Assimars to the mix radically serves to sever lots of these more common cultural and religious bonds. No one knows much of anything about what kind of culture these characters come from, nor are any familiar with their religions. Just as importantly, the *PLAYERS* themselves have virtually no idea whatsoever. They all become this weird, bizarre mish-mash of irrelevant cultural and religious identification of being more or less, *giggling*...*stammering*..."Uhh..I don't know. *giggle*...maybe it's a little like such and such...yeah, my character believes in that religion...and..uh...my character came from a family of vagabonds. *giggles*" Alrighty...that's great for forging social and religious bonds within the group. You know, all that kind of stuff that we identify with and value, that makes us want to sacrifice each other for the team, for the mission. A campaign that has just an occasional weird character or two--much like in days of old--can be just fine, and even add dimensions of flavour and vibrancy to the campaign. Getting a whole group like that together? It doesn't really serve to support a lot of natural empathy and even comprehension for other players to ever really gell together as a team. In addition, of course, characterization and roleplaying often suffer in quality, skill and depth as well.

Gonzo Circus Campaigns

Gonzo Circus campaigns don't really have any problems with such crazy races. Almost by definition, a Gonzo Circus campaign doesn't seek to embrace any kind of historical foundation or consistency--it's just a weird grab-bag of mixing genres and technology, dungeon raiding, episodes of hack and slash, and celebrated goofiness. These kinds of campaigns certainly have their charm--but in many ways, such campaign foundations for a Gonzo campaign are entirely at odds with Sword & Sorcery, or more serious Historical and Medieval campaigns. You just can't really mix them very well. For DM's running such campaigns, having whole groups of bizarre mutants and misfits that have escaped from a circus isn't a problem.

Ancient Historical and Medieval Campaigns

For DM's seeking to build and run campaigns based on an Ancient or Medieval historic "ethic"--a milieu that embraces consistent, largely realistic historically-inspired foundations, including dozens of bizarre races as player characters can be especially jarring, problematic, and largely inappropriate. There's so much back work, prep and so on to somehow justify and explain this race of X at all, or fitting them into a more historically-based culture. Including such characters opens the door to all kinds of problems--socially, culturally, and historically that otherwise form the foundations of the campaign and make the "engine" work.

Cultural Shifts, Education and the Culture Wars

As my friend and I got into playing a weekly game at my local game store, hosting "Adventurer's League" Campaigns, my friend and I have numerous discussions about this. I've been playing D&D and DMing Campaigns for a very long time. My friend, he too, has been playing D&D forever. He lamented that our gaming group at the Adventurer's League Campaign was so diverse and weird to him. Where were the Halfling scouts? Where were the Elven Wizards, or Elven Hunters? Where were the strong, Dwarf Clerics and Fighters? Of course, where were all the Humans in their great diversity? Fighters, Paladins, Barbarians, Rogues, Rangers, Clerics, Bards and Wizards? Beyond such, where were the gritty mercenary sergeants? The chivalrous knights and paladins? No icons such as Lancelot, Galahad, Roland, Gandalf, Merlin, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, Spartacus, or even characters of John Wayne, Yul Brynner, the Lone Ranger, Texas Rangers, nor any Conan, Solomon Kane, Aragorn, Legolas, and such. None of these character types, or any recognizably inspired by them, are readily present in our Adventurer's League group. There is a distinct dissonance created by this dynamic--or the absence of these foundations, in preference for some other dynamic. Many of our players have never seen an American Western. While ostensibly "educated"--many of their literary and cultural touchstones are entirely different from ours. Their "heroes" are taken from movies, cartoons, dramas, and video-games of the last 12 years, or so--basically anything after 2005. They typically have zero identification with any kind of traditional Christian philosophy or Biblical knowledge; they typically have only the faintest knowledge of anything from ancient or medieval history; their familiarity with American Westerns--and related icons and philosophies--is virtually non-existent. Likewise, their knowledge of culture, living, arts, literature, or philosophy of much of anything before 1900 is dismal. These are not for the most part high-school kids, either. They are all currently in college, or have graduated college already. Most of them are adults, between their early and mid-twenties, to the mid-thirties.

The very different kinds of education that they have received--both formal education and general cultural education--is vastly different from our own. Such also informs who their heroes are, what kinds of things inspire them, and their entire philosophical framework, if you will, from which they "plug into" and experience the game. I lamented in an earlier thread about the seeming "death" of heroism, self-sacrifice, and a focused attitude of cooperation and building the team. All of those kinds of virtues, attributes and inspirations are for the most part, absent from most current gamers, from the latest generation.

My friend insists that a lot of this "historical and cultural vacuum" is a direct product of our schools and universities being dominated by liberals that love post-modernism, feminism, and hate Western Civilization. Regrettably, these kinds of political, cultural, and educational "currents" flow into our hobby of gaming as well.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I don't have enough experience with this to really tell, but I don't see any problem with it. In the extended 5e campaigns I've been in, we had a gnome-dominant party, and we briefly had a tiefling - but most characters were a mix of human/elf/half-elf/dwarf/halfling. I've had a few others in one-shots, but not much.

Offhand, I think there is a bit of a hurdle because those races are less common in the source fiction (along with gnomes incidentally), so it's up to the GM a little more to show how they fit into the setting. Still, even in D&D, PCs aren't supposed to be dead average people off the street. They might be rare wizards, say, or other oddities. Having done a lot of superhero gaming (as well as some related genres), I think there's plenty of fun to be had even if every character really is unique. So while "special snowflake" has negative connotations, having rare character types is mostly fine.

For those who have run with more of these races - I'd ask, what approaches have made play with them better?

It takes all kinds, but for the campaigns I run, we can handle one or two odd races--maybe three or four if the campaign runs a long time, and some are added later.  Consequently, I've always seen the odd races as much like the monster manual:  It's full of crazy stuff not so that you use all of it, but rather so that you can pick the handful of crazy things that you want for that campaign.  Heck, half the time the third option we open up is some monster that clicked with the events in the campaign, probably as some NPCs that ended up being important.  The "odd" thing isn't merely odd for odd sake, but fits in then.

Race options in the campaign is usually something we work out as a group.  Set the standards (Human?  Human and elf?  Whatever), then pick the exceptions.  Really had your eyes set on crazy thing #3 on the list, that didn't make the cut?  We'll make it a strong possibility next time.

This hasn't been my experience, everyone I know only plays humans. The most I got was a guy playing a half-elf in pathfinder...and his character was an druid/monk he made to play Aquaman in a campaign that took place on an island chain.

So many people these days enjoy being their own special kind of flower.

I'd roll with a Human, Dwarf, Elf, or Half Elf myself.  

Maybe a Dragonborn for the right Campaign idea?

Tieflings can go suck it.

Quote from: Razor 007;1066694Tieflings can go suck it.

What's wrong with tieflings...besides the fact no one ever seems to react to them and try to execute the fiend spawn like the lore says they do.

But isn't this literally old school? OD&D/White Box, the purest, most noblest form of D&D (apparently) encouraged people to play other characters

QuoteOther Character Types: There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as
virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e., a
player wishing to be a Dragon would have to begin as let us say, a "young" one and
progress upwards in the usual manner, steps being predetermined by the campaign
referee

And then B/X you literally had 4 supplements with monster character classes. Plus the ones from the Gazetteers.

Beyond that, most of them originate as races in AD&D in some form or the other. Mostly 2e, but there were precursors in 1e - cambions and alu-fiends,