To my mind, the available range of races should reflect the setting.  Not every setting should be reduced or expanded to contain everything in D&D.  I've got an Arcane Confabulation setting where the playable races are talking bears, fading late generation vampires, humans, werewolves, and demonspawned.  An early version appeared on the game design forum here.  I was aiming for a setting that could not be discussed on rpgnet without getting banned.  Anyhow, the point is, such a setting would not benefit from having elves and dwarves wandering around, letalone the annoying and ubiquitous Dragonborn.

The Referee just has to know when to say "No".  If it doesn't fit the setting, then just say no.

There are some settings where a menagerie of races works. Spelljammer, Star Wars, Palladium, Planescape, and many others.  Not so much in Greyhawk, Hyborian Age, Call of Cthulhu, or Boot Hill.

There sure are a lot of playable races, that I don't care to play.

It's just self-indulgence of players who want characters with special powers. They don't want to play an aarakocra, they just want their character to be able to fly, for example.

Most of these different races are just played by Americans as different types of Americans including blue collar workers (dwarves), sly kids (halflings), brutes (half-orcs), dilettantes (elves), bearded wiseacres (gnomes), and stern grown-ups (humans). These people don't even know how different humans live and yet they imagine they are playing different species.

I think we are seeing the wokesterians attempting to use different playable races as a crude stand-in for how they imagine their multicultural cosmopolitan worldview to still need emulation by the real world.

Human only. Fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief.

Nothing more is needed.

There are too many, because it encourages the wrong kind of behavior. The I want to play race x and should be allowed to because it's in the book instead of I wan to play in a specific game, what is allowed or appropriate for it. Too many options too little non stat block detail on each. Race as a class actually made sense from a other race are too alien to roll play unless you get the one oddball that wants to hangout with humans and is thus of a certain mentality and hence class. I want better developed races, not more on gimmick human cosplay options.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 08, 2022, 12:34:27 AM
Human only. Fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief.

Nothing more is needed.

Hey, I like that.  I'd roll with that.  I have a lot of experience playing as a human.

Sometimes I think about playing a Dwarf.  I'm a big guy with a beard.  I know what Ale tastes like.  It's not too hard for me to imagine playing as a Dwarf. 

Otherwise, I don't see the appeal of the other races.  They're just not for me.

 Just because it is available doesn't mean it MUST be in your game. Manage your own table to your own comfort level. I am satisfied with Basic 5e core four, but see the utility of Mordekainen, especially if I want to play 'Unda Da Sea' races.

In other games, like Talislanta, I have trouble enough describing the Mos Eisley Times Ten bucket o' races let alone running each one distinctly. It is fun to sprinkle them as background flavor, but eventually most things have to recede into the background. Otherwise both my players and I get confused processing all the alienness. Like Star Trek foreheads, eventually you have to tamp down the noise in order to receive the signal.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 07, 2022, 07:38:04 PMI love me some weird monster races, but goddamn! You gotta set some boundaries. Throwing the entire kitchen sink cheapens the idea of unusual races and turns them utterly mundane. And also turns the setting into unrecognizable mush.

I use an idea from Necropraxis. I have the main races that you can roll up when creating a character (the usual four plus goblins, pixies, and ogres). But after that any new races can only be played after the party meets and befriends a group of that particular monster. So just like unlocking them during play.

If the players go to the desert and meet some Gnolls, they can play a Gnoll from that point forward. Similarly if they are in a swamp and befriend Bullywugs, they can play a Bullywug.

This way not only will the races match the setting but they will also be a reflection of the party's previous adventures. More options as a reward for participating in the game (if you are a new player, you are rolling on the beginner chart like all the other players did at first).

Quote from: overstory on September 07, 2022, 11:57:07 PM
It's just self-indulgence of players who want characters with special powers. They don't want to play an aarakocra, they just want their character to be able to fly, for example.

Most of these different races are just played by Americans as different types of Americans including blue collar workers (dwarves), sly kids (halflings), brutes (half-orcs), dilettantes (elves), bearded wiseacres (gnomes), and stern grown-ups (humans). These people don't even know how different humans live and yet they imagine they are playing different species.

I think we are seeing the wokesterians attempting to use different playable races as a crude stand-in for how they imagine their multicultural cosmopolitan worldview to still need emulation by the real world.

This, 100%.

They boil the races down to their special abilities and play them as quirky humans (or awful stereotypes... which is wonderfully ironic to behold). This is not an exaggeration; I've personally witnessed it. And I'm sure I'm not the only one, even including WotC themself. Why else would the erase racial stat bonuses/penalties but leave other special abilities intact? It's so they'd just become "Human+".

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 08, 2022, 12:34:27 AM
Human only. Fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief.

Nothing more is needed.

True. As I said earlier, the tone of the game is what should dictate race availability. In a setting about exploring the human condition in a fantasy setting, every other race (elf, dwarf, lizardman, etc) is off the table. Efforts should be made to show just how alien other races are to humans. That's a fascinating concept that can have a lot of depth and produce some absolutely amazing roleplay opportunities... but I'm sure some wokey somewhere will try telling me how it's my internalized white supremecy attempting to "otherize" minorities, or some shit like that.

Yeah. This is partly why my fantasy settings have increasingly tended towards depicting just humans. They might have ancestries like planetouched, dragonblooded, dhampir, or whatever, but they're all human.

I don't care about all the races they keep adding because without a specific setting - none of it matters.

What I don't like is that players assume because these races exist then *all* of it in on the table for play in any and all settings.

And yet... that's how DnD has become. This is why I say - people play the rules *as* the game. Which for me is only half-of the equation. Setting matters. Otherwise Black Lesbian Viking half-dragon tieflings are legit in my Roman-era England game.

Context. Context. Context.

Quote from: tenbones on September 08, 2022, 12:45:23 PM
I don't care about all the races they keep adding because without a specific setting - none of it matters.

What I don't like is that players assume because these races exist then *all* of it in on the table for play in any and all settings.

And yet... that's how DnD has become. This is why I say - people play the rules *as* the game. Which for me is only half-of the equation. Setting matters. Otherwise Black Lesbian Viking half-dragon tieflings are legit in my Roman-era England game.

Context. Context. Context.

Yes.
The Forgotten Realms has become... forgettable.

Quote from: Avus on September 07, 2022, 12:52:04 PM
Seeing the other post about too many classes brought this question to me. I personally think there is entirely too many playable races in TTRPGs now. I witnessed this when the owner of a group I DMed for about 3 years ago, allowed them to select from every 5e race. I realized this was a horrible idea as soon as he said this.

I never got why Gary Gygax had a special page in the AD&D 1e DMG (I never played AD&D, although I enjoy referencing Gygaxian wisdom) on page 21 talking about player characters as monsters (or I guess in my case, monster races) up until that point. What was supposed to be a eastern style setting the owner came up with, quickly became a mess of edgy monster race characters that didn't fit into the setting at all and all the players wanted the special treatment for being "unique". I get banning races is a semi-common practice, I do it myself quite a bit even with the core 5e races (fuck Dragonborn and Tieflings), but when is it time for there to just be enough races period in a game?

Fuck, yes!

Most of these weeabo races are taken just for the benefits without bothering to try and be interesting to role-play.

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on September 07, 2022, 09:35:51 PM
The Referee just has to know when to say "No".  If it doesn't fit the setting, then just say no.

There are some settings where a menagerie of races works. Spelljammer, Star Wars, Palladium, Planescape, and many others.  Not so much in Greyhawk, Hyborian Age, Call of Cthulhu, or Boot Hill.

A menagerie of races doesn't really work in Star Wars. Depending in the size of the group, no more than 1-2 PC's should be non-human.

The menagerie of races in Star Wars was window dressing to express how the protagonists were in a large galaxy where interstellar travel was common. The actual Lore is just too thin to make all but a handful of their Iconic alien races playable as PC's .

There's just too many:

Quote from: Opaopajr on September 08, 2022, 07:28:36 AM
...
In other games, like Talislanta, I have trouble enough describing the Mos Eisley Times Ten bucket o' races let alone running each one distinctly. It is fun to sprinkle them as background flavor, but eventually most things have to recede into the background. Otherwise both my players and I get confused processing all the alienness. Like Star Trek foreheads, eventually you have to tamp down the noise in order to receive the signal.

Especially true in Star Wars if you follow the setting conceits.

Imperials don't like Aliens, and Humans are the most prolific spacefaring race. A menagerie PC party just isn't Star Wars anymore...