Our current 5e game features:
· Human Cleric
· Human Ranger
· Human Fighter
· Sun Elf Fighter (arcane archer)
· Dragonborn Fighter (played by my 9 year old daughter).

If anything, humans are still the most commonly played race at our table. +1 to all stats and the option for the variant option is hard for us to pass up apparently.

As to whether or not all these races dilute the game or make people 'snowflakes' - I'd have to say no. They're just options that the DM can include or exclude as they please. Hells didn't Gygax have a friend play a Pit Fiend in a game? Its Ok for people to like things even if others don't.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1066909The 5e player that wanted to play a (fucking Variant) Human

At the risk of a 5E tangent, what idiot decided to make the standard Human from previous editions a "Variant"?

Quote from: Kiero;1066935At the risk of a 5E tangent, what idiot decided to make the standard Human from previous editions a "Variant"?

When feats became an optional variant, anything that interacted with that bit of system had to follow suit.

ETA: feel free to put scare quotes around anything in that sentence to fit your individual needs

Quote from: Kiero;1066935At the risk of a 5E tangent, what idiot decided to make the standard Human from previous editions a "Variant"?

Actually, it makes sense given that the developers decided to make feats optional for 5e (everyone I know uses them anyway, but theoretically it allows for a more old-school feel to not have them). As such, they needed to design a human who was not reliant on feats as the standard, and the one who gets a bonus feat as the variant available if feats are enabled.

Honestly, the few times I've played I did actually consider playing the 'default' human once... I'd rolled a 17, 15, 13, 13, 11, 12 so the +1 to all stats would have been AMAZING. Ultimately I chose the variant anyway as the bonus feat let me pick up the fire bolt cantrip, which along with all the overt spells (vs. ones that could be passed off as luck/encouragement) was the work of the tiny invisible pet dragon (who may, or may not, be imaginary) who accompanied my bard (who thought he was a fighter).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1066915What was he using as fuel?  That proves my point, though.  It doesn't matter what a player makes, it's how it's used.

Exactly. But some players and apparently especially not-players have gotten it in their head that "playing something different" = "ooh ohh look at me! Im special!"

Its especially pathetic looking at the various posts here from posters who bitch incessantly about how people are no longer being creative or imaginative or trying new things for fun. And then spit on people who are being creative, imaginative, and trying new things for fun.

Gotta admit, I never really got the disconnect between OSR, which is fairly well known for being associated with gonzo fantasy, and the hatred towards playing non-Tolkien races.

Players playing as odd, fantastical creatures has been a thing since the beginning of the hobby. The proliferation of the internet has just made the more visually impacting characters stand out a lot more.

Quote from: Broken Twin;1066947Gotta admit, I never really got the disconnect between OSR, which is fairly well known for being associated with gonzo fantasy, and the hatred towards playing non-Tolkien races.

Players playing as odd, fantastical creatures has been a thing since the beginning of the hobby. The proliferation of the internet has just made the more visually impacting characters stand out a lot more.

You've obviously never seen the fantasy menagerie or travelling circus that many D&D parties are in contrast to the world they inhabit. Where they are not even remotely representative of demographics, but instead contain one each of all the supposedly rare species that exist, and have none of the common ones.

Quote from: Kiero;1066956You've obviously never seen the fantasy menagerie or travelling circus that many D&D parties are in contrast to the world they inhabit. Where they are not even remotely representative of demographics, but instead contain one each of all the supposedly rare species that exist, and have none of the common ones.

Wait: are you saying that random collections of murder-hobos should be made up of the normal people, and not the weirdos and freaks?

Quote from: Aglondir;1066895But what really amazes me, to the point of non-belief, is that human fighters are the most popular choice.

The thing is, it's probably bullshit. This graph shows a count of each type of character created in D&D Beyond. Not played. Because D&D Beyond is a software service, most people that sign up will experiment with the service before building any character they want to play. I would wager that "Human" and "Fighter" are the boxes that are checked by default (or first on the list), and new users often just clicked through to see what the process was like -- inadvertently "creating" a human fighter in the process -- before starting in on their real character.

Quote from: Zalman;1066962The thing is, it's probably bullshit. This graph shows a count of each type of character created in D&D Beyond. Not played. Because D&D Beyond is a software service, most people that sign up will experiment with the service before building any character they want to play. I would wager that "Human" and "Fighter" are the boxes that are checked by default (or first on the list), and new users often just clicked through to see what the process was like -- inadvertently "creating" a human fighter in the process -- before starting in on their real character.

There are no defaults. There are drop down menu in alphabetical order. Neither Human nor Fighter is at the top.  

It is  free for limited use so you could ....try it yourself, with parental permission.

This is literally the stupidest thing to complain about in other peoples dnd games. Why do you give a shit? Not your table and not your rules, mate.

Stop gatekeeping.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1066965There are no defaults. There are drop down menu in alphabetical order. Neither Human nor Fighter is at the top.  

It is  free for limited use so you could ....try it yourself, with parental permission.

This is complete bullshit. What the hell are you doing bringing data and facts into the discussion!!

:-)

But seriously, the data might not be 100% accurate - but I think it at least disproves this thread's subject line "no one in 5e plays humans, dwarves, elves or halflings anymore".

Quote from: Kiero;1066956You've obviously never seen the fantasy menagerie or travelling circus that many D&D parties are in contrast to the world they inhabit. Where they are not even remotely representative of demographics, but instead contain one each of all the supposedly rare species that exist, and have none of the common ones.

As Spike says, there's no reason that an adventuring party should necessarily be representative of people off the street. Wizards are very rare in the population, for example.

I do think there's a common problem particularly in D&D of creating a party who have no connection to each other or reason to be companions. I prefer to start character creation by creating a group template and common cause or reason bringing them together.

Yeah, the vast majority of the "random grouping of unrelated strangers" problem exists regardless of the ancestries of the strangers in question, and is usually best solved by proper usage of a Session 0.

Quote from: Broken Twin;1066947Gotta admit, I never really got the disconnect between OSR, which is fairly well known for being associated with gonzo fantasy, and the hatred towards playing non-Tolkien races.

Players playing as odd, fantastical creatures has been a thing since the beginning of the hobby. The proliferation of the internet has just made the more visually impacting characters stand out a lot more.

Because the OSR is a gate keeping community who love to preach 'their way is the right way', and yet as another thread proves, they can't even agree on that end.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1066968This is literally the stupidest thing to complain about in other peoples dnd games. Why do you give a shit? Not your table and not your rules, mate.

Stop gatekeeping.

Welcome to the OSR.  And I've been saying that since I've heard of it.  OSR is about gatekeeping certain types of D&D players 'out of their side' of the hobby, despite it all being D&D.  It's edition warring, without actually calling it that.

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