"If every player is a weird and wacky monster why would they care about the human politics?" me: (imagines a party of monsters that formed to try to specifically get humans to stop hunting them, scribbles notes)
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
This is an extremely good point and a very good idea for a campaign
@Cyberfender1
2 жыл бұрын
A good backstory possibility. But ancestries take a bit of time to change. PCs who play a monstrous race got to know what their up against, if they go to a place where the PC monstrous race has done them evil. The PC's character has got their work cut out for them. Some human's kingdoms historically have good reason of their dislike against certain races. Typical alignments for certain races means just that that. Typical, but not automatic even for NPC's. Who's to say that some monstrous races can't change their typical alignment influenced by another non monstrous ancestry with good non biased fellow characters? And for the canon PC races too. Some Good ideas Supergeek. (even Drizzi't had to overcome some ancestral bigotry) He won them over with his ethics, deeds reputation and friendship. An all humanoid/Monstrous party could be done. It 's all up to the table to decide that.
@sleepyspartan1367
Жыл бұрын
*coughs* because I played a mindflayer once who accidentally created a religion which they ran openly, so human politics mattered to them*cough*
@peter-jx3uc
Жыл бұрын
So an X-Men storyline? Your party could seek to war with, or coexist with humans. Humans and the other side can both be opponents.
@ghqebvful
Жыл бұрын
@@peter-jx3uc I didn't even make that connection. No wonder it sounded so good. It's been done (and done well) before
@jonathanschaefer9848
2 жыл бұрын
My friend wanted to play a warforged in my campaign. They are not canonically in my world. So I made it an integral part of the story of the campaign itself. He is one part of an ancient army created by the bbeg by fragmenting his soul. My PC’s body survived and his connection to the whole was severed, becoming his own person.
@ireallyreallyhategoogle
2 жыл бұрын
The BBEG then knows exactly what his weaknesses are, and he should be driven to vanquish that BBEG at all cost. That places the other players in the role of helpers or users. They either want to help the Warforged or they want to use him to beat the BBEG.
@AlexLee520
2 жыл бұрын
That’s sounds similar to the plot of she ra. It’s a cool solution.
@pilkkimies
2 жыл бұрын
Delightfully devilish
@elvenatheart982
2 жыл бұрын
Sick dude, nice
@tjcross2
Жыл бұрын
I read this and my first thought was that the PC was the "Conscience" of the BBEG, knowing what the BBEG was doing and having an innate drive to stop it.
@alliebrown4790
2 жыл бұрын
I run a D&D club for my middle school students at a catholic school. The club was originally started by our priest who banned tieflings because they’re demon people. While I understand his perspective, when I took over the club I got rid of that rule because it’s fantasy. It’s not real; the kids aren’t actually becoming demons (my priest didn’t think they were or anything). So I figure it’s fine. Different strokes I suppose
@LiraeloftheClayr
Жыл бұрын
And the idea that you should be bound by the sins of your father is huge in a lot of Christianity. If you are of the liberal Christian persuasion, it's super in theme.
@ICantThinkOfAFunnyHandle
Жыл бұрын
My table banned tieflings because they don't really have a reason to exist outside of "ooh look at how edgy this is it's a demon person".
@popcrazyfishProductions
3 ай бұрын
@@ICantThinkOfAFunnyHandle Thats what the lore in the books for. to explain why they exist...
@ICantThinkOfAFunnyHandle
3 ай бұрын
@@popcrazyfishProductions you know what else is in the books? Rule 0.
@jmormaple
2 жыл бұрын
"For a lot of people....Zelda is a touchpoint for what fantasy worlds look like... In those worlds, where to the Aarakocra fit?" Rito "Am I a joke to you?"
@luketfer
2 жыл бұрын
Yeah that was KIND of an odd choice on his part. The Rito have existed for quite some time now in one form or another. Though BotW is the closest they get to being actual fully fledged Bird people like the Aaracocra.
@agsilverradio2225
Жыл бұрын
also, triton = zora. goron: biologicly they are earth elimentals, cuturally they are dwarves.
@Tiyev
Жыл бұрын
Yeah. Also, the Aarakocra should be more like the Rito, with wing-arms. Then they'd have to choose between flight, or doing anything with their hands, like wielding weapons or performing the somatic component of a spell.
@Shalakor
Жыл бұрын
@@Tiyev But, functionally, Rito are still able to manipulate items like weapons mid-flight even with the winged arms. Mid-flight archery is literally their claim to fame in Breath of the Wild. And the Wind Waker Rito had separate wings like the Aarakocra and could carry another humanoid of their own size while in flight. Actually, back to BotW, Link gets carried to high altitudes by a Rito (with air current assistance, but still needed to carry and fly at the same time, well enough to compensate for that weight). Might be worthwhile to think over the source you're citing a bit harder before coming up with an idea. While logically BotW style Rito do technically stop flapping to fire an arrow, mechanically in D&D terms it'd be no different from breaking up your movement with attacks on the ground. From the more general game balance perspective, the problem with forcing a choice between hand use or flight is that each choice mitigates the practicality of the other too far. And doesn't even meaningfully address the main concern most DMs have when banning flying races, since it kinda forces the flight to ONLY be for exploration and traversal, the thing DMs worry about. Realistically, the perception of low level flight as OP in combat is flawed from the get-go anyway, since not every fight is going to be in a wide open field, and most long range PCs don't even need the extra advantage to stay out of melee in the first place (if you're implementing cover rules strictly, a PC with Sharpshooter is better off on the ground so they can get a minimum half cover from their allies most of the time). In fact, flight is more useful for a melee focused character to help with positioning (and martial melee needs all the help it can get in the actual way the game balance plays out). The Tarrasque memes are a critique of how the monster was designed in 5E (which took away features it ALREADY HAD in previous editions that accounted for that scenario), not a critique of flight. ...Sorry for rambling.
@Tiyev
Жыл бұрын
@@Shalakor (Oh, right, I forgot to reply to your comment.) I didn't actually play Breath of the Wild, or any new games. Let's just I say I wish the Aarakocra were more like what I thought the Rito were like, based on how they look. I'm sort of curious how they shoot with their wings while flying or gliding at the same time. Like, wouldn't they need their wings to be outstretched, to give them lift?
@r3liability
2 жыл бұрын
A few things that I've done to make DM life easier. - New players can pick from PHB races only, since its the first book they'll buy. - list what races are allowed in the campaign doc so its known before the game even starts. - run an all aarakocra one shot every year to solve the desire to fly. - in more low fantasy/human centric games, require at least 1 human, and offer more human+ races(genasi, shifter, etc.) - give a context for certain races beforehand, and make sure players understand that when writing backstory(there's less than 1000 Warforged in existence, city populations, continents of origin, hard traditions)
@Anaguma79
2 жыл бұрын
I cringed every time Mike said "robot." Warforged are conscious golems. Golems are everywhere in traditional D&D. I still wouldn't expect to play one without permission, but they're very much in keeping with the "normal" D&D aesthetic.
@BlueTressym
Жыл бұрын
I did as well. I think that calling them 'robots' is actually an (unintentional, mostly) part of the problem as many settings don't feel right with 'robots' in but as you say, golems are, even if the same mechanically, vastly different from an in-world and in-game perspective. So, they get banned for being something they aren't because they're treated as 'modern'. This can be exacerbated by players (and sometimes GMs) who treat them as if they are miracles of modern technology, rather than miracles of actual in-world technology. They're often portrayed as having modern devices built into them and using scientific knowledge of the modern era.
@thodan467
3 ай бұрын
self conscious, sapient robots
@ArgentumFox
2 жыл бұрын
I recently came up with a good backstory for a warforged in a world where they don’t exist. The idea is that the warforged is a wizard or sorcerer that, in an attempt to prolong their life, decided to transfer their consciousness into a construct, and in doing so they lost their power. Where you go from there is up to you, but the possibilities are endless. A few questions to keep in consideration when using this background: -Why was this person trying to prolong their life? Where they old, infirm or something else? -What race where they before becoming a warforged? To they look like the typical one, or the look more “customized” to resemble their previous appearance? -Are they still a wizard/sorcerer, or did they decided to change their class after losing their powers? In my personal case, my character was an old sorcerer that, close to the natural end of his life, builds himself the new body. The problem was that he lost his connection with wild magic in the transfer and now he has to star from scratch and actually learn what before came instinctually. In other words, a warforged wizard.
@Drag0nSlay3r83
2 жыл бұрын
I have a similar idea for my Warforged. They were a golem created by an archmage to be their servant. Wanting the golem to produce music and food for them they trapped a soul in it so that it would more able to understand and perform these subjective tasks. When the Archmage died the magics binding the golem to his will faded with him. The pc is a wizard (they picked up some tricks by spending so much time with the archmage) with the inheritor background (with the archmage dead they inherited their freedom)
@trevorgreenough6141
2 жыл бұрын
This idea is more of what Warforged are. Not the fantasy robot.
@awkwardsilence82
2 жыл бұрын
I definitely love the suggestion that you hear your players out on why they want to play as a certain ancestry and creating a solution that both fits in your game AND helps them build the character they are excited to play. Well said!
@TiTOWORX
Жыл бұрын
I've more recently restricted the races to 12 different ones. There's like 40 or 50 now, and it's easier to make a cohesive world without the kitchen sink. Regardless, there's always a little line I include in my campaign one-pager that basically reads "If you want to do something that doesn't work within these restrictions, let me know. We'll figure something out."
@SupergeekMike
Жыл бұрын
Exactly!
@rpulfer1
2 жыл бұрын
I'm a relative newbie and I picked Aarakocra without knowing about the controversy. That said, I'm really grateful to my DM for letting me play the character. He's an amnesiac monk who hires himself out as a courier to a noble house in a city. Plus, since most of the action takes place in a dense forest, his flight can pretty limited at times. It also helps that he's a monk, intended as a close quarter combatant with little armor, instead of say a wizard, darting around the map and potshoting monsters at range 😀
@Shalakor
Жыл бұрын
I'd argue flight is far more practical for a melee combatant and that people way overvalue flying spellcasters and archery. A mage flying around is more of a flex than it is a tactical advantage, since hiding behind the front line fighters is just as practical, if not more so given how noticeable someone flying around is. ...Plus the flavor of an Aarakocra Monk darting around dispatching foes is far cooler. Bet it was a lot of fun.
@rpulfer1
Жыл бұрын
@@Shalakor He has been a lot of fun to play. And I'd be lying if I said having flight wasn't really handy in traversing the battle field to take on opponents. What wasn't so handy was when I inadvertently perched in the tree also occupied by the Fay Hunter stalking my party . . .
@zomblesallegoy
2 жыл бұрын
My player wanted to play as a Half-Dragon, since I had established their existance. Instead of saying no, because there is no official race, I gave them the stats of a Dragonborn with the flavour of a half-dragon. That was a fun character! And I loved the unique perspective the daughter of a Dragon had on things.
@MaestroMagnifico21
2 жыл бұрын
I think referring the dnd races as races is perfectly fine since they arent real world races. Also i dont tend to ban any race or classes if they are official to the game. My current party has 2 tieflings, a wood elf, a tabaxi, and a half orc. If one of them wanted to play a character of a warforged or a yunti pure blood i would let them. Also in my campaign i dont use the tasha’s rule about races stats since its a more interesting challenge for someone to make a race/class combo thats unorthodox.
@Emohawk707
2 жыл бұрын
I ran a campaign a while back with a "humans only" rule in place, but the players were allowed to play other races and reskin them as humans. For certain choices it was as simple as just looking human, but for others we had to come up with some creative ways to reinterpret the mechanics of some racial abilities... it was a lot of fun
@kamikage9420
2 жыл бұрын
I love playing as a goblin, but I know too many DMs who treat goblins as nothing more than cannon fodder enemies and don't let me play them. There's also the worse alternative, where they let me play a goblin, and don't communicate until it's too late that they're treated like cannon fodder monsters by everyone, and then there's taverns full of people looking at the chance to lynch my character, and I have to deal with the fact that I'm a goblin who just got sent (with the party who hates goblins and relishes in slaughtering them) on a quest to clear out a camp or cave of goblins as if they're not my people.
@sicroto
4 ай бұрын
maybe communicate with your DM
@jaredeschweiler3505
2 жыл бұрын
I've DMed for over 20 years and I have banned things in previous editions, but since 5e I've pretty much allowed anything. Two veteran players I've had in my group for over a decade wanted to play a Warforged and Simic Hybrid in our campaign. Initially I was hesitant, because they didn't really fit the world, but I allowed them based on these players experience and the knowledge they were not trying to min/max but genuinely wanted to play weird outsiders. We been playing this campaign for 3 years now, and both these characters ended up becoming a deep well of inspiration for me and our campaign. The lore came later. And having them around set my world building into overdrive. The warforged was actually created by an order of monks and a crystal dragon who built them and gave them souls/life via a shard of the Dead Dragon God Sardior. They were created to guard a temple with a relic that could free Tiamat. The party ended up embroiled in the conflict between the cultists and the monks. The warforged character actually died defending the relic and prevented Tiamat's release. The character is now a literal legend in our world. The Simic Hybrid discovered they were a clone and were being used by it's creators to spy on the region. Taking a page from my love of old Becmi, Mystara, and Expedition to barrier peaks; Turns out an ancient space station containing several ancient races crashed into the region over a thousand years ago. These ancient races his themselves and their station away. However a new leader had been amassing an army to conquer the area and wanted to raise their ancient city back into the sky. The players actually infiltrated this city and were able to root out the corrupting force and defeat it. The Ancient races of this city were convinced to come out of hiding and now the city has become a fascinating civilization that is the center of the worlds research and study now. The Ancient races here allowed me to justify a bunch of wacky races for example loxodon & the Vedalken, and a player is now playing a Vedalken.
@thefollowingisatest4579
2 жыл бұрын
I'm glad you touched on the only actual balance issue in dnd: when it makes the players have less fun. DM's who complain about their players being too powerful compared to the enemies they fight? I've got no respect for that. You aren't in a competitive game with your players and you literally control the universe. Use your head. I'm also glad you pointed out how crappy it is to have a player show an interest in something and then be told no as an entry to your campaign. There were a couple things that sort of bothered me here though. First and foremost the Yuan-ti thing. Banning a playable character option because "that race is pretty much always evil", nah, I'm gonna say that's not okay. The whole "x race is evil" thing is something even WotC has started trying to escape, sluggish actors though they are. The other didn't bother me so much as made me wonder: the half-elf compromise. I question the DM who will fundamentally alter the history of their world to create two ancient warring factions to capture that feeling but won't just say "yeah there's half-elves sometimes". Seems like a long walk. If a player wants to play something that isn't typically in your world, we call that built in story. That's player investment right there, the catnip of the good DM. I've gone so far as creating custom species and cultures for a single player and inserting it into my world to not only emphasize how it is their story as well but also get them hooked.
@sagesaria
2 жыл бұрын
Agreed about balance making everyone having fun being the most important part. We had a paladin for a while who made things more interesting, but also sometimes it felt like we couldn't keep up with her and there were some encounters that basically just didn't happen, especially the time she one-shot the BBEG of a story arc that was super personal to my character and I barely got to touch them.
@fabiovarra3698
2 жыл бұрын
On the "whole race is evil", i think it most depend on how that race generate in the world setting. For esample, is quite difficult to justify a good nature Mindflyer wen they are born by eating up another humanoid brain as a tadpole. Or the Yuan-ti if every of the originate by a demonic ritual and not by normal procreation.
@thefollowingisatest4579
2 жыл бұрын
@@fabiovarra3698 I think the mindflayers aren't really a problem for the same reason zombies aren't a problem in this way. By offering the yuan ti as playable and as humanoids with culture etc it becomes much more problematic.
@Doople
2 жыл бұрын
I much prefer this method too but sometimes banning something is for the sake of the DM's fun. Only sometimes though
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
@@Doople sometimes banning things is for everyone's fun because it makes for a better story. Sometimes the DMs fun is the engine that creates everyone else's fun because they need it to put in the work. Sometimes a minor decrease in your fun will lead to more fun for everyone. Sometimes a major decrease in your fun, like banning a character you like in an increase in other people's fun because it allows the DMs ideas to actually manifest in a more satisfying way.
@clockwork_mind
2 жыл бұрын
I'm running a custom campaign setting where the players are exploring floating islands in the sky past the edge of the world. Like the Material plane drops off into basically the Elemental Plane of Air. One of my players wanted to play an Owlin, so I immediately began homebrewing limitations to keep it from ruining the tension of falling into endless void. I decided that he can fly for 1 minute per short rest, because his wings were clipped by some awful captors in the past, until he receives a Greater Restoration, at which point he can fly without limit, just as the book says. Also, his character is trying to masquerade as a human, so he's going to be keeping his flight a secret, unless it becomes necessary in a moment of desperation. There's always an option for you to allow your players to play a certain race without breaking your campaign.
@eliza4101
2 жыл бұрын
I personally allow all races from any published material, I agree with you that I’d rather try to integrate something and let people do what they think sounds cool to them. Also I like you touching on the way that in most setting Orcs and other monstrous races play on certain racist tropes, for my world I deliberately told my players before they made characters that the world is broadly multicultural and there is little to no fantasy racism toward humanoid races. I’ve had goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs all just appear in towns alongside elves and humans. There are enough cool and interesting creatures I can throw at the players that I don’t feel like I need to resort to raiding orc band or goblin camp. And for some similar flavor to that you can just have certain areas be hyper nationalistic in a way that doesn’t revolve around certain races.
@Duhad8
2 жыл бұрын
BIG AGREE!
@marcgregory3290
2 жыл бұрын
I dont outright ban any official content. However I put narrative requirements on some. For instance if player wants to play warforged the need to explain how they got here because they aren't native to the world.
@Dreadon1
2 жыл бұрын
My issue is when a player disregards the game setting and comes to the table with an idea he has made without discussing it with the DM or the party. Example. True blood yanti evil necromancer in a lord of the rings setting where the party are all good alignment.
@syd4890
2 жыл бұрын
That's perfectly fine. You always need one person to manage the food and drinks. That should keep that person busy while you guys play the game xD
@hccdgvvfccdgn993
2 жыл бұрын
Only humans, only bards.
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
Shoot I need to re-shoot my video, because this is the right answer.
@yeltneb9390
2 жыл бұрын
I don’t know if I agree that Orcs are themselves racist. They are typically savage tribes of people waring from the mountains and wearing furs and armors. That brings to mind Vikings just as much as any other race if not more so and over time it seems like they have migrated to a greenish skin tone to almost resemble an alien rather than from the lord of the rings greyish black that they originated at. Also it’s important for a game or a movie to have a “other” to combat not every fight should be morally complex and have the players grapple with the humanity of killing a possibility misunderstood species. The game is meant to be fun and an escape from such issues. Sometime you just gotta kill some monsters and orcs are a great and powerful humanoid monster with there own history and background in D&D (forgotten realms) of being made evil by there god, but great video and I’m open to discussion about it and hear any other thoughts!👍🏼
@Duhad8
2 жыл бұрын
I went over this in my own comment already, but I personally disagree, respectfully, with the idea that orcs and other 'made evil' races are purely unproblematic fantasy fodder. When your adding a species to a setting that has parallels to the real world and taps into cultural aspects and stereotypes of real people it can get rather ugly, rather fast. After all, it might seem like its no big deal to you if you have no identity or background that might link you too these races, but for allot of gamers, "Don't worry, God said its okay to hate these people because they are made wrong!" Is... Well uncomfortable, even more so when the other players around the table are all nodding along and going, "Ya I mean if the GM/Gods/society says they are all bad, then its okay to harass and hurt them!" Now obviously that's not going to be everyone and I am sure their are lots of people who do identify with the 'evil' races and go, "Hey its cool they are the baddies, its just a game" or "I like being referenced with these cool villains!" But as a GM, I have always stood by the idea that ruining the game and making it personally uncomfortable for one player isn't justifiable even if nine other players are cool with it. ESPECIALLY when their are alternatives that can give you the same sort of guilt free murder fodder, 100% guilt free! Skeletons and zombies have no real world counterparts and are even in universe, largely mindless monsters. Various non sapient monsters can also be killed guilt free (unless your a HARDCORE fantasy animal rights advocate), as can members of any race who are engaged with groups the whole table can agree on to be strictly bad. After all, killing orcs because 'they are evil and thus okay to hate' is a little iffy, but killing orcs who are following a racist, genocidal leader hellbent on subjugating the world is allot less suspect since, hey they are now ACTING badly rather then innately BEING bad. And in that way a player can still BE an orc and a hero, since all they would need to do to NOT be one of the acceptable targets is to NOT follow orc Hitler instead of having to be some sort of model minority, having overcome the 'inherent evil of their race'. Basically instead of making whole races of people 'always evil' and saying no player can play them due to just being so evil that they are unable to be heroes, make it so that the villains, even the ones who are IRREDEEMABLY EVIL in a way that allows players to kill them guilt free, are villains by choice rather then birth. Or creatures who are simply not comparable to real world peoples/cultures. IE: Undead, demons, constructs, faeries, unthinking monsters and similar fantasy beings. And if that seems like allot of unnecessary work or like I'm saying you have to put way more effort into designing these villains then just using 'all orcs are evil', I'm really not. Saying, "Many orcs have taken to worshiping Gorath - God of Blood, an evil god who demands his followers go out and murder and cause chaos." Doesn't take that much longer then saying, "The orcs where made by Gorath - God of Blood to be evil, murder people and cause chaos." And with that first version you have room to have non evil orcs be both heroes and just people in the world the party can meet and interact with. Your giving yourself and your players more options and all it costs you is a tiny hand waving reason for why MOST orcs in your setting are evil.
@octo448
2 жыл бұрын
I think the issue with Orcs is more about how we, as players from a real world with lots of real problems including racism and violence towards people who dress or act a certain way, interact with this supposed fiction. It doesn't really matter why orcs are the way they are "in canon" of the game or the DnD lore if the effect is just that you're going around killing this group that happens to have a bunch of the traits of a real world group without a second thought. That might not affect a lot of players or a lot of groups, but it's very possible you could be making your IRL player of a specific identity feel a certain way if it comes up a lot. This is also a huge issue with Goblins and Jewish Stereotypes. I had absolutely no idea about that until someone explained it to me, but after that it's been very clear to me that it upsets some people and for very good reasons even if it never even occurred to me because it wasn't relevant to my identity or experiences. It's less about everything having to be about a "misunderstood race" and moral quandaries tying up your escapist game, it's about making sure all of your players ARE getting that escapist fantasy and not constantly being reminded of the same old shit they have to deal with IRL. I feel you completely that it can be hard to please everyone, but there are plenty of humanoid choices so if it does bother a DM or one of their players, it's pretty easy to work around. (I have had this discussion multiple times with DMs who have taken and utilized Native American ideas and tropes in ways I found uncomfortable. We were always able to come to a respectful understanding and change what we called a thing or the specifics of how it was described in order to make everyone- including me and my sensitivity to the issue- happy. It's never about labeling someone as 'racist', and should always be about building a happier, safer game for everyone involved.)
@yeltneb9390
2 жыл бұрын
@@octo448 thanks for the response!! There’s a lot to respond to so sorry if I miss something, but I see what you mean. I’ve been in the same D&D group for 7 years now so I’ll admit I’m a bit pidgin holed. It could be a mistake for me between intent and how it’s perceived because I’ve never made a character be evil if there from a evil race and I currently have a good Yuan Ti playing in my game currently so I usually don’t make decide anything until after my players make their character. So I absolutely agree that you should talk to your players and not do what makes them uncomfortable or break there fantasy so I think we are in agreement there what I more have a problem with is the complete condemnation of the technique in dming as a unstoppable evil faction can add a lot of tension to the story and let the character be the hero’s they imagine in there head when they made that character and not have to worry about this enemy having a family or if it’s truly evil ya know. But I do understand and if a player ever comes to me about it or I find that it’s bothering them I won’t hesitate to change it because fun for everyone is the most important thing. Also on the last part just a question as I am a bit inexperienced with such things but in your opinion is it ever okay to create a people evil or not in a campaign based off of a real world people. A lot of cultures have amazing aspects of them and can help the players visualize a bit more but I worry about walking that line if they ever are the antagonist and again thank you for the response again I appreciate the perspective and for explaining it to me a bit!! I will definitely keep it more in mind in the future.
@yeltneb9390
2 жыл бұрын
@@Duhad8 Thanks for the reply!! I’m going to try to reply to most of the points but KZitem on mobile doesn’t let you reference the reply easily so I’m sorry if I miss any. So I get it I never want a player to feel uncomfortable due to racial issues ( unless that was the agreed upon campaign and everyone knew that would be an element and agreed to it) so if any player ever felt uncomfortable about anything in the setting in that way I would of course change it or not put it in. My issue I guess is that I’m worried there eventually won’t be a monster that can be used in this way. I’m sure it’s possible for people to identify with almost any being in the monster manual so it could be like walking through a minefield not knowing what might offend one of the players and I never want to do that, but I agree with you I think the best way to do it if a person would want to is to have it be a portion of the species not a blanket all of X are bad. Sometime the discourse goes from Orc can be problematic if played wrong to if you use orcs as bad guys it racist so as a fan of the monsters and how dynamic a group of goblins and orc can be when challenging a low level party I worry that we could (like the video said) throw the baby out with the bath water, but I get where your coming from and also agree that for in in 99% of cases a whole race shouldn’t be bad and have it be a section of them. (And the 1% is mindflayers because they come from who knows where and drill holes in your head and eat your brains to replace it with brain dogs and how can that be good lol😉) thanks again for the reply and I’m sorry if I missed anything or misinterpreted something in the comment.
@octo448
2 жыл бұрын
@@yeltneb9390 Of course, and thank you for being so respectful. I can only speak for myself and people at my table, but I think it can be okay to pull in aspects of the real world as long as they aren't... uncanny, let's say. For example, I won't name it because that would defeat the purpose, but the DM in the example I gave specifically called his villains something that many Native American groups have said "THIS IS NOT FOR OUTSIDERS". It isn't so much that he brought in things that relate to Native Americans (That could also be an issue if done in a disrespectful way IMO, but was not the case here), it was his choice to use something that they have basically broadly asked that non-native peoples don't talk about or appropriate for their own uses. Even saying the name out loud without being in the right situation is considered very bad. It's basically a religious thing, or what western folks might think of as religious. (I also find that fantasy and Urban fantasy authors love to use this thing too- Supernatural did it, even. It's very widespread so my goal was mostly just to spread awareness and not have to use the phrases myself.) If you take some inspiration from a minority group (and again, this is just my personal opinion and it's always mostly up to the player and the DM to decide) it's important not to pidgeon-hole or stereotype that group using the same stereotypes wielded against the actual, real life group. An example: In the United States, the public often assume Black people are violent when they are not or are violent without cause. If you then make a fantasy race who have some things in common with that minority group (in this case, Orcs) AND they happen to be randomly and needlessly violent, I think that can cause some people to feel uncomfortable. It's about making it... too close for comfort. It doesn't even have to be a "bad" thing. If you make a fantasy race that reminds people of say, Han Chinese, and then give them "positive" but still stereotypical traits (being super smart, being frugal, making them all short, similar visual cues) that could definitely still be offensive even though none of the actual features of the race are about making them antagonists or suggesting a value judgment on the fantasy race. It's just about using a set of stereotypes in a way that supports real world racism- intentionally, or most often unintentionally.) So going back to Native American example: Giving your fantasy race intricately beaded clothing? Awesome idea! THEN making them all alcoholics? Maybe not so great an idea. Making your race nomadic, communal, and conscientious of the land they inhabit? Probably not an issue. Making them all own casinos and have feathers in their headbands? Likely to upset someone. One is more factual and referential, but the other is stereotypical and likely offensive. Orcs kinda walk a line due to being SO classic, many people might not even make the connection... until it was pointed out to them. So can you make your fantasy race based off an IRL group evil? Yes! But I would either not make them ALL evil, or not make them evil in ways that remind folks of how they're stereotyped IRL. Personally, I prefer the latter. Again, this is just how I personally see it, and I think there's a lot of room to wiggle and a lot of different perspectives on this stuff.
@RiciB13
2 жыл бұрын
Great video. I totally agree with you, I don’t ever ban any race from my world and whenever new races come out, I can comfortably fit them into my world. I am the creator of it, why shouldn’t I be able to make room for these new interesting races. I never understood the restrictive approach a lot of people have but it’s probably due to them envisioning a fantasy world strictly as LOTR or Skyrim. Definitely earned a subscription with your last few videos, enjoying your content a lot
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
Thank you so much!
@ericmurotake5180
2 жыл бұрын
At most, I've seen "softbans" for certain races as a good move (basically just telling the person wanting to play that race that it'll kinda suck to play X race due to setting). Like... If the setting is predicated on a certain lore, there's a good chance that certain races will get it bad (things like Drow or Duregar in Forgotten Realms), and NPC interaction will often be VERY difficult (such as taking a noticeable penalty to charisma checks because most people are ABSOLUTELY not fond of the race), or playing a non-setting race imposing a situational Wisdom check penalty (reflecting that since the character is new to the lands, knowledge of things like customs or natural supplies is limited)
@grymhild
2 жыл бұрын
While I love elves and Drow, personally I usually prefer running and playing a more grounded human "centric" game, where non human species have very different cultures than humans. If the player is interested in playing a different species, then it's okay I also don't like the idea that the strongest gnomes and halflings as strong as the strongest humans, half-orcs and goliaths.
@Starcraftgamer97
2 жыл бұрын
Same. Ever seen a Barbarian Fairy outmuscle a strong human and nearly outmuscle a bugbear pugilist/fighter? I have and it turned my annoyance at the Fairy race's design and inclusion into disdain. My major gripe with them being small instead of tiny aside, I feel like size categories should have modifiers. Smaller creatures have a negative to particular strength and constitution checks but are usually more acrobatic and nimble. I've seen a Gnome ranger succeed at besting a minotaur Barbarian in an arm wrestling contest, even snapping his arm. I know it's a magical fantasy world but physics and anatomy are still a thing right?
@fabiovarra3698
2 жыл бұрын
@@Starcraftgamer97 then you should have race prerequisit class, because as RAW an 3 foot gnome barbarian still get d12 hp while a 7 foot halforc sorcerer get d6 hp. On the Fairy strenght, I don't think is that much of a problem of immersion break if you describe it a supernatural strenght as it is a fey we are talking about.
@ShadowLink38
2 жыл бұрын
Okay, evidently most people don't realize this for Warforged but warforged *aren't robots* and they canonically have souls in Eberron. In the description of the race, 2nd paragraph of Living Steel and Stone, they are described as, "... living humanoids." I understand the comparison to Robots, it's useful in for how other races view them(similar to droids in Star Wars), but they are explicitly alchemical and therefore magical beings much more akin to golems than robots since they do not have circuitry. Every time someone reduces Warforged to "just fantasy robots" they miss how distinct they are and how they fit into D&D. Sure, in a world without Artificers (like Forgotten Realms), Warforged would not be common or even exist, but if you allow Artificers at your table, Warforged have every reason to exist even if they are just organic robots to you.
@mdalsted
2 жыл бұрын
Very true. I will say, though, I think one could hypothetically use Warforged stats for a robot that somehow has a soul. That alone could make for an interesting character if it's not common in a certain world for robots to have souls.
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
Ooh interesting! I did know they are considered humanoids but didn’t know some of the rest of it… I still need to read that Eberron book so that’s hopefully why I didn’t know that :)
@fabiovarra3698
2 жыл бұрын
Or if you put golems and living armors in your setting.
@agradine
2 жыл бұрын
They are essentially ensouled golems
@trevorgreenough6141
2 жыл бұрын
Yeah, they're more like transformers, living beings with tissue made of metal.
@RPGtourguide
2 жыл бұрын
I think you nailed it. Communication and compromise are key to a great campaign. Shutting players down outright, while you may have your reasons, is not the best way to go.
@trdl23
2 жыл бұрын
I want to push back on this a little bit, but only a little. I think figuring out how to get a player's preferred fantasy for the character they have in mind is always a good call, and it should be a dialogue between the player and the DM during or even before a Session 0. However, one of the most important things a DM needs to know is when to tell a player, "no." Yes, you can contrive a scenario in which a loxodon exists in a world where it otherwise makes little-to-no sense, but you either have to make every NPC get startled at their existence (and likely some of them will display prejudice) or punt the verisimilitude of your world into the trash. In my experience, very few players want the spotlight on them 24/7 simply for their character's existence in social encounters, and the ones who do are often people you might not want at your table anyway. It puts not just you and the player but the entire party into awkward scenarios constantly, and the novelty wears off quickly. Obviously many DMs overdo "no" and restrict player options unreasonably. I'm not encouraging that. But as a DM, optional rules are optional for a reason. Try and get your players' desires as fulfilled as possible in the setup of the game, but remember this is your game as much as it is theirs, and if it's going to crank up the effort you need to spend or create narrative friction that isn't compelling, there's a point where you can say "no" and not feel guilty. The beauty of 5e is that it's so easily modular, so exploit that for all it's worth.
@octo448
2 жыл бұрын
I think this concept was pretty well covered by Mike though- he kinda leads with the idea that he's simply presenting some other ways of looking at it besides simply saying no. As a player and not a DM, and as someone with some pretty extensive experience with a DM who clearly should have just written a book for how important us PCs were to his game, if you say no more than you say yes, I think that's a problem. For the "loxodon problem" (bc lbr, it's ALWYAS the example because god forbid elephant people...) what if they have an amulet that disguises them to appear as another race... most of the time? That gives the DM something interesting to mess with (they could lose it, get damaged, have it seen through by various level spells and situations), avoid the conflict on a broad scale with your average shopkeeper or questgiver, and allow both the player and the DM to get what they want out of the game without being a disruption to the major plot or other players. I'm not disagreeing that "no" is sometimes the best call, but if it really is supposed to be collaborative effort rather than having something dictated to you, it should really be a last resort. If you're going to have to compromise someone else's fun (like another player) or your own, or the the fun of player requesting the wild choice, then it might be best to say no. But largely, there's always a creative solution that adds to the game rather than takes something away if you just give it a little time and air to think about. (Also- I have a great example of when they just should have said no. DM didn't want to deal with necromancy. Instead of telling a player "no", they let them play it... but stripped down and punished our group anytime the player actually did anything with the dead, period. Wasted everyone's time and ruined the player's agency when a simple 'no' would have been best. So I get you, I really do! But I still feel there are creative solutions people tend to overlook sometimes, player and DM alike.)
@ireallyreallyhategoogle
2 жыл бұрын
You tell the player his character will ALWAYS attract attention and be seen as weird, and if he still wants to play it, you ask the other players if they are okay with that.
@trdl23
2 жыл бұрын
@@octo448 That's a good analysis, I think! Funny enough, I actually love loxodons - my first game I DM'd was a Ravnica game in setting where the character race debuted, and the loxodon player at my table had the best dry wit and deadpan I've ever seen. Saying "no" should be a last resort, not an excuse to be lazy or bland. I just wanted to advocate for it because, anecdotally, I have seen far too many DMs get browbeat by a player until they cave and have a compromised game as a result.
@capriccio9294
2 жыл бұрын
People acting like it takes effort to add the monstrous races into a world where flying lizards breathe fire and other elements... I will never understand the issue with races from a narrative perspective when the game is the whole table's story guided by the dm. Your player is literally giving you world fuel. If your story broke because your player wanted to be a kobold instead of a gnome that's not the player's problem. I will admit, as a player I was spoiled and I guess in turn I spoiled my players (had a goliath, triton, and changeling as new players at my table.) I've played races from a lot of different source materiel, some homebrew, and some UA. Dhampir Artificer is my boy right now, but I've also done goliath, half elf, kobold, tiefling, half orc, murloc, ratfolk, werewolf, simic hybrid... The list goes on. The only way I'd get a no were if I was actually doing something wrong and that's mostly in character backstory or at the table issues. My point is if my DM could take awoken cat wizard (a fellow PC had played this, I was too busy being tall) and make it work in a way that made sense and offered the best playing experience for all, someone picking loxodon shouldn't be a problem. Not common to the area? Maybe they get a few weird looks. Maybe working with them they come from another continent and they're still learning the culture of the place. Maybe you just sprinkle in some loxodon npcs here or there. That blacksmith that was originally dwarf number 75? They're a loxodon now. Your player has someone to bond with over shared heritage. It's now the "standard" fantasy races and loxodon. Long live the elephant brethren. I just really don't see the effort people keep telling me it takes to add a book race to the setting... Most come with general ideas behind them so that little bit of homework is done. As a collaborative story telling game it's also a way that your player can get more invested in the world. Even just making a small settlement of whatever race it is somewhere works. I can understand homebrew getting shot down by some dms not comfortable with it or inexperienced dms wanting to stick to the base game for comfort so it's easier to learn. Hell I like to stick with the basic rules for new systems because it's easier to keep track of things and learn. But if you're comfortable with the game and it's a small detail in the grand scheme of things that makes your player happy, why is it so awful to some dms?
@ireallyreallyhategoogle
2 жыл бұрын
@@capriccio9294 TLDR I think that most players don't consider all the ramifications of playing a monstrous race. If the DM makes NPCs react realistically, they'll complain about the DM not being fair or something like that. Not to mention the PCs. If i was the DM, i would warn that player, and then say i told you so. The only time i would say no is if something really can't exist in the world i created.
@Paper_Smith
2 жыл бұрын
So excited to see your channel gain some traction! You deserve it dude 💚
@envytee9659
2 жыл бұрын
6:15 - Did you just say 'Zelda' is where some people get an idea of Fantasy worlds from, then ask 'How do the bird people fit it?' Did I miss something, or has Zelda not had a race of bird people for about 20 years now? It's all in good fun, but seriously I don't think Zelda is really a good representation of a 'typical' medieval fantasy setting. Skyrim captures that perfectly, but Zelda has alot more elements that deviate from that (from interdimensional travel, to time warping, to actual trains)
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
Haha I knew there was a risk of something like this happening, I haven’t actually played a Zelda game (I didn’t really play any video games until 2020) so I knew there was a chance that referencing Zelda or Skyrim this way might wind up with my foot in my mouth. Ah well! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@goobplayzgames8358
2 жыл бұрын
I mean, there are giant robots shooting lasers at you in Zelda now. Link has a flamethrower in botw 2. Anything is possible.
@laurelhill3505
2 жыл бұрын
I started playing in 1981 when I was 11, and we had four races...AND LIKED IT! In all seriousness, though, I get very hung up on the number of sapient species in a D&D world, and wonder why they are not constantly at war with one another until there is only one or two left. We most likely wiped/bred out all of our cousin hominids, and we are very much alike to Neanderthals. Imagine us coming across a lizard man! But recently, I have started to try to think of it like Star Wars, where 1000's of species all get together in a bar on Tatooine. I still like just humans, dwarves and elves, though. EDIT: HAH! Should have watched the whole thing! You mentioned Star Wars as well.
@Cptjackjacky
Жыл бұрын
For my homebrew world, I banned Warforged as a playable race, but only because I had a very specific idea for how they were used in the world, and I couldn't have a player be one without the twist being revealed too early.
@Malkuth-Gaming
2 жыл бұрын
When I ran my session 0 for my first long term campaign now in January, I presented my players with my PC races cheat sheet. which had 2 seperate lists. One list being the "These races are openly accepted everywhere" and a "These races may have some "bagage", basically, play these if you want some extra plot. Also, I think that any player should atleast be allowed to present their character idea before being shut down
@RottenRogerDM
Жыл бұрын
I like the baggage/ no baggage idea.
@krim7
Жыл бұрын
At 10:35 , this heavily implies that a session 0 was not held, nor was a campaign primer given to the players. Skipping one of those can lead to feels bads. Skipping both inevitably leads to feels bads. I have learned the hard way to never ever skip those two steps. They create a foundational floor of expectations for the players, so they come to the table knowing what to expect.
@tonycream2948
2 жыл бұрын
Just to touch on a point you made in the Breaking the Fantasy setting.. A previous DM of mine used to run a game for us where Races would produce multi-racial offspring because there was no limitations on 1. Who can love who & 2. How those races are able to procreate. Half-Orc, Half Tabaxi walking around the city? Why not? It's fantasy. It really unlocked a whole new idea to me that even though the races existed within the world the branches that could be explored by having those races free to do as they pleased when seeking to create their families meant feeling like nothing was out of the question and why should it be?
@lluc_riberax1038
2 жыл бұрын
As a DM I always try to add what my players suggest even if it is hard to make it fit into my world but after all as a DM it's kind of my responsibility to make the player's experience as fun as possible.
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
Not at the expense of your own fun. The DM is entitled to as much fun as the players. Also why do we assume not getting a perfect choice automatically means having less fun? Maybe the part of your world you wrote that excluded that choice makes the game more fun and intriguing for you or the other players. Maybe having to add a race you don't like diminishes your emersion because it hurts your creative ideas. Like you can't play Gandalf Mass Effect. If they added Gandalf to Mass Effect it wouldnt be Mass Effect anymore. No one's reason for not playing Mass Effect is they wanted to play a long bearded wizard with a robe and staff. If some did say that you would assume it was parody.
@hawkname1234
Жыл бұрын
In my opinion, if a GM doesn't "shape" the rules, then the game winds up being this same version of "D&D Brown," where the important elements of world-building have been decided for you and your game will thus look a LOT like all other D&D games that use the vanilla rules.
@ljskizzle
2 жыл бұрын
I like the idea of having a world where 'monsters' can be good and bad just like irl we as people can be good or bad. It depends on the culture, upbringing, ideology, etc. Put some humans and dragonborn in the orc warband. If one of my players wants be be a robot person or a cat person or a knoll person, why not? Why should the sentience of these races be exclusive for the DM. Antagonism can come from anyone I say.
@shaggymcscraggy4251
2 жыл бұрын
The first campaign that I ever ran had a player who was (and probably still is) a "furry" and wanted to play as a fox man. Although I was reluctant, I was "ok" with it because this was this player's first ever experience with DnD and I didn't want to limit what my players could do/be. I did however tell him to come up with a reason WHY he is a fox man (magic, experiment, mutant etc) but he couldn't think of a reason. So instead of just saying "NO", I said "Well because no one in this world has ever seen an anthro fox creature before, you WILL be treated VERY differently to everyone else. And who knows, maybe we'll all find out together where you come from and, why you exist and WHO made you !" This made for some interesting RP and overall, gave ME as the DM, a whole storyline to construct. SHOULD you allow "anything and everything" ? No. But it DOES make for some good, player driven story arcs, if that's the kind of campaign you want to run!
@Lycaon1765
2 жыл бұрын
I think the main issue here is the mindset of player entitlement, because telling them "this race doesn't exist here and so you can't play that" shouldn't be considered robbery. The DM is just as much a player as the others at the table, if you want them to run the game you have to respect that they make the world's rules.
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
It’s totally up to the DM, of course - that’s why, ideally, players will present options for a race long before the game, so they can connect with the DM and both can figure out what is exciting about the idea, and hopefully find a compromise to justify both having their fun without sacrificing any of their agency over the parts of their game they enjoy.
@Lycaon1765
2 жыл бұрын
@@HumanoidSlayer because why does there *need* to be a middle? If I say "humans don't exist in my setting", then you play a different race or join a different game. If I say "I don't use feats, so only the standard human is allowed, no custom lineage", you aren't getting "robbed", you're being showed the terms and conditions for the game you're gonna play and you can deny them if you wish and go somewhere else. It's just kind of BS in my eyes to see it as robbery or have DMs that ban a lot of content in their games be decried online as "bad/problem DMs". Banning content in your game is normal, you don't need a workaround if you don't want one. This just makes me think of an ad I put up for a dungeon crawling-esque game I was trying to out together. Now I have various dealbreakers for character creation and so I posted my CC rules in the ad specifically so I'd only get people that were fine with my rules (Pick race and background first, 4d6k3r1 in order, no floating ASIs, min 13 prerequisite in main stat for the classes). One guy was like "sounds like a cool campaign idea!" I got him into the discord, he rolled his stats and rolled pretty well, and then I commented about his arrangement cuz he got like a 17 con and he was like "wait, it's in order?" and then he got all upset and dropped from the game with all that "I don't wanna be forced into a class I don't like" crap and I was like "dude this was literally in the ad" and he said he just didn't read that part. So this stuff about how having custom character creation rules is robbing the players just gets under my skin. Don't mistake me tho, I'm not saying workarounds are bad. Just that they shouldn't be seen as a necessity. The notion that players should leave if they don't like the rules/game is one I agree with wholeheartedly.
@Cyberfender1
2 жыл бұрын
@@HumanoidSlayer Expectations, Understandings agreements at session 0 If it's not fun for either players or Dms, one can find like minded people to play with elsewhere. simple as that.
@DoomFlavored
Жыл бұрын
Playing a friend's homebrew campaign and decided to take a spin as a Druid. The very first thing the DM told me was "Hmm okay well Druids are canonically 'extinct' in this world..... want to help me homebrew a home-plane for your character?" Since then he and I have not only managed to launch my character into the game via sky rift (literally launch), but also expanded the home-plane lore and gave my character a unique progression hybridizing two circles (storms and forest). Now it's gotten to the point where he's helping me worldbuild the other plane into my own homebrew campaign. TL;DR Find a DM who loves to work with worldbuilding and is willing to let you get your hands dirty too.
@immutablebrew
Жыл бұрын
On the Warforged angle, it also helps that, while robot-adjacent, they're closer to Golems than Robots. Hell, the Ghulra is even a direct nod to the Golem of Prague.
@Elehk99
2 жыл бұрын
Yuanti Barbarian player here, I gotta say it’s extremely easy for DMs to work around them. Sure my DM has poison enemies once in a while, but what good is my immunity as a tank when everyone else still gets bodied by huge AOE attacks? The magic resistance is really powerful, but also they’re fully nerfing them soon. Story-wise the race also lends itself greatly to storytelling; much of my character’s story focuses on his fetishization by humans and the idea of someone just wanting to be themselves. Also I find it incredibly boring to just operate off “standard” fantasy, it’s always wild to me to hear about people banning these fantasy races. Why would I want to go play a fantasy setting as a human when I could be a minotaur? My group generally isn’t huge on Loxodons, but all it took was one player wanting to run a wooly loxodon to make us super interested in it. I super agree with your idea of being inspired by star wars rather than elder scrolls, I’d rather have a party of weirdos than 4 humans and an elf
@WolforNuva
2 жыл бұрын
Wooly Loxadon actually sounds really awesome!
@Elehk99
2 жыл бұрын
@@WolforNuva yeah we were stoked when he brought the idea! He played a wild magic barbarian and had a huge femur as his maul, it was a ton of fun
@asherael
Жыл бұрын
I love my gnoll that's a reskinned lizardfolk, raised by humans and now quite kind, and my demon that started the game as a level 3 tiefling because he's done nothing but live alone in the woods for a thousand years, causing all his early power and memory to fall off the cliff of continuous memory. There's worlds they don't work, but it's great when they do. I had a DM that rejected EVERYTHING I cooked up, maybe 7 character ideas, getting more and more mundane, it was rough
@geoffdewitt6845
2 жыл бұрын
My favorite way to deal with this is to ask the player to sell me their concept, while being upfront on how that fits into the world. "Selling it" gets them invested from jump, so they're more invested in the character.
@MySqueezingArm
2 жыл бұрын
I recently started a campaign that I advertised as 'low fantasy, lower magic, more survival focused hex crawl. Out of the 6 players that applied, I got back 3 wizards, 1 witch, 1 magus, 1 eldritch trickster rogue. I also advertised as a mostly human setting. The players were 2 elves, 1 kobold, 1 kitsune, 1 tengu, 1 human. Instead of saying no, I worked with the players, outlined the in universe challenges ahead, and went back to retool the setting. I managed to make it work by simply having the various races being portrayed as refugees caught between warring nationstates, being flushed from their more wild homes. This basically gave me a 'why' for the 'what' I already established. It's a group game, we all work together. My players all worked together on a more balanced party, so why not let them be interesting races? Now I have more roleplay hooks with various locations in game.
@daffodil6110
2 жыл бұрын
I like the approach of Players making the canon via the choices for their characters.
@jrytacct
Жыл бұрын
The most recent versions of D&D have gotten out of control with all these "super exotic" races. That's why I spell out in my House Rules document that the allowed races are: Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, or Gnomes. Anything else requires explicit GM permission, and you better have an *excellent* character concept to even have a chance.
@rhylin26
2 жыл бұрын
I love playing warforged. I hated that they didn’t make the cut for MoM. Was hoping for some legitimacy to fight against bans.
@mysticmoonlight9695
Жыл бұрын
As much as I understand the reason most ban Yuan-ti Pureblood, I kinda wish to put my perspective on Yuan-ti, as someone is who is very story oriented. Yes, Yuan-ti are typically evil. The main part of their societal hierarchy is centered around who can backstab who for power without getting backstabbed in the process. However, I see their lack of emotions playing into two camps. One: probably the reason most people ban them, is selfishness. But two... two is where things got interesting and allowed for Sulsi, my Neutral Yuan-ti to exist. Having an inherent lack of emotions played well into a logical thinker. Someone who saw the greater objective of the species- survival and gaining power, and noted how all the backstabbing led to self-sabotage, and left her home and gods for both self-preservation, as well as to experience what other civilizations had to offer. ...and also, she had a small habit of being confused by emotion, and trying to understand it from her party members. Fun times.
@glassberg5018
Жыл бұрын
5:44 great example of this was in my last campaign. My party and I were exploring an ancient ruin around level 5 or 6. There was a Nightwalker living in the temple and we had more than one session built around evading it, including a desperate fight against just its hand through a small door. Fast forward to level 19 and we kill the same nightwalker as a speedbump on the way to fighting an Elder Brain and its cadre of Mindflayers. One of the most satisfying fights I have had in any game.
@Logan_Baron
2 жыл бұрын
100% on all that. Pretty close to exactly voicing my own opinions. I TRY not to outright ban anything. If it exists in my world, you can probably play it (If it's not balanced, we can try to balance it). Now Tortles don't exist in my world. Warforged don't exist or any kind of robot (FCG). But yes if a player wanted to play one, I'd find out why and try to come up with a substitute for them. It wouldn't be a robot robot in my world, but could be some kind of animated statue brought to life through weird magic. And discussing D&D with a fellow D&D fan I worked with long ago, I mentioned the half-Dwarves in my world. He straight up said "No. Half Dwarves can not exist. They can not breed with humans. The make up just isn't right". Okay, by some lore sure. But I wasn't playing in Forgotten Realms or Middle Earth or anything. This was a world entirely of my own creation. To him it didn't matter "It doesn't work that way". This is fantasy where Dwarves and Elves exist. We have no real world examples to say it doesn't work that way. I let my players play Orcs, Goblins or any enemy race they could encounter. I do point out that the basic society structure is pretty much the standard fantasy status quo. Humans, Elves, Dwarves..... If you're an Orc, you can't just walk into most cities or towns in the "civilized" parts of the world and expect not to be attacked if you can't disguise your appearance decently. Goblins in some areas though are somewhat accepted, though seen more as a nuisance.
@andrewvanhorne4359
Жыл бұрын
"Why couldn't a cat person show up in the works of Tolkien?" Primarily because there are only two Incarnate races imbued with a rational fëa from their Creator. Such an aberration would surely be a fallen Maia, inhabiting the flesh through obscene artifice, like unto a Dragon. But most importantly because they must be a servant of Tevildo, the Prince of Cats! Alongside Miaulë, and Miaugion and Meoita!
@kurtoogle4576
2 жыл бұрын
Great points. I emphasize character options that suit the story and the theme. Sometimes I refuse a request, but always share my thoughts about why, and I encourage other options.
@nathanhopoate8184
2 жыл бұрын
I had a warforged in my tomb of annihilation game. Instead of needing constant water to stave off dehydration, I made it so his exhaustion manifested as rust and erosion, so he constantly had to stop, air out his mechanisms and keep himself dry.
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
That's a great solution!
@bdunten
2 жыл бұрын
I like the term "heritage" as an alternative to "ancestry", but I find myself still referring to them as fantasy races more than I'm comfortable with, too.
@Logan_Baron
2 жыл бұрын
It's ingrained in the genre and game. I've tried "Species" along with about all other suggestions, but it always goes back to "race". And yeah, there's always the uncomfortable side, because of the fact that it's used as a defining thing. As in Every one of that Race gets +2 to Dex, or Str. which is a little too close to "they're all naturally good at basketball (or insert math or.....)"
@ireallyreallyhategoogle
2 жыл бұрын
I always use races and i am very comfortable with it, because it is the only valid use of the word race. Humans are humans. The only "races" that exist in the real world are the one made up by racists. An Elf lives centuries, if not millennia. A Dwarf can see without any light. An Halfling is half the size of everyone else. An Elf is not a human with long pointy ears. A Dwarf is not a short human. An Halfling is not a human child.
@ireallyreallyhategoogle
2 жыл бұрын
@@Logan_Baron Every single member of a race getting the same bonuses means that the average for the race is higher. Elves are graceful, so they have a bonus to Dex. An Elf can have a Dex of 8 or even 5, but on average elves have a Dex of 12.5 while humans have an average of 10.5. Racial bonuses and penalties (when they still had those in D&D) are there to represent a shift in average. Contrary to real world humans, D&D races are actually that, different races. All Elves are more slowly and can live many many human lifetimes. All Dwarves can see without any light. All Halflings are shorter than 4 feet.
@envytee9659
2 жыл бұрын
@@ireallyreallyhategoogle Nope, in real world humans, races very much do exist. What you are describing is species and species differences, not race. It is technically* (more on this later) more correct to describe real world humans as being of different race than it is to describe an elf and a orc as being different races. Why? Because of the biological definition of race: "A group within a SPECIES that is distinguishable (as morphologically, genetically, or behaviorally) from others of the SAME SPECIES" As you can see, race as a concept exists specifically within a single species. Not just in humans by the way, but in every species. However in D&D; elves, orcs, humans and loxodon are pretty much different species. The only reason I said it is 'technically' more correct previously, as opposed to outright more correct, is because in D&D the fact that elves, orcs, humans etc. can all interbreed to produce fertile children means that they act more like a single species as opposed to different species in terms of real world science. However because of magic and fantasy D&D does not adhere to real world concepts (nor should anyone ever try to make it do so).
@ireallyreallyhategoogle
2 жыл бұрын
@@princeblackelf4265 Yep, people are overcompensating for racism. In fantasy and sci-fi, a race is exactly that, a different specie. Mammals, birds, fishes, are those ancestries or heritage?
@bleddynwolf8463
Жыл бұрын
I’d probably have people play MMOTM version of races opposed to older ones, but I’d allow any race from that book, and most races from other books as well
@sherbert1321
Жыл бұрын
My touch point is Zelda, which has races like Gorons and Zora and Rito. There’s also the Picori, Anouki, and Kikwi. My second touch point is Fire Emblem, which has the Laguz, Herons, Morphs, and Manakete. With these as a touch point, I don’t have a problem with a lot of “not traditionally fantasy” stuff in dnd. A lot of these races have similarities with dnd races! Like how the Manakete are basically a combo of Dragonborn and elves, and how the Rito are basically a slightly altered Arokokra. Herons are pretty much one to one with Aasimar. I’ve always thought these different races are cool, but yeah some things like the warforged and tortles and elephant people would be a bit hard for me to get used to. That’s only because I haven’t seen them in my touch points. The more familiar with them I become, the more comfortable with them I become.
@Dennis-vh8tz
2 жыл бұрын
Heroes and villains can be exceptions to the rules - that may be what drives them to become heroes and villains instead of unexceptional farmers living a dull and peaceful life.
@SunpixZephyr
2 жыл бұрын
I like that you mentioned the orc/half-orc culture dynamic. There was a scene in Critical Role that I never really thought about till you mentioned this, where Fjord talks to an orc smith and they have a short conversation about having pride in the heritage. I believe Fjord also states his reason for filing down his tusks is because he believes them to represent that "savage" element of their culture, as if he were ashamed of it. It wasn't something I had thought about, till now. Wish it was something that was touched on more often.
@smoogieboogie1694
2 жыл бұрын
Something you didn't really bring up that's always bothered me is how many DMs I've seen online and otherwise that bans Gnomes from their games. For one, that just sounds crazy to me. Gnomes have been around in D&D since the beginning. But for another, the reasons I hear given usually come down to two main factors. One, they may have previous experience with Gnome players who just decided to be as random and whacky as possible with it, therefore coloring their perspective on all other potential Gnomes. In response to that, it comes down more to the player than the race there. A player can choose to be whacky with with any race they choose. More players choose Gnomes for that simply because them being excitable and wanting to see as much as possible is often baked into their summaries in the handbook. But even then, having a more excitable and unpredictable character can be really good if played correctly. It comes down to the players themselves. And we've seen examples of Gnomes done very well in more famous D&D content (like Critical Role). Two, they may think that there's no reason to have them when they already have Halflings, basically believing them to be about the same and not having any agency as their own separate thing. This argument also seems crazy to me because the differences really come down to the first reason I said DMs like to ban Gnomes. Halflings are generally comfortable at home and don't want adventure, while Gnomes crave it. As a kind of bad example, if the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings had been Gnomes, there wouldn't really have been any question of whether or not they should leave home and go on the journey. They would've been trying to leave on an adventure long before Gandalf came along. So anyway, I guess I'm just adding to the conversation a little bit by bringing up that even one of the original D&D races is often banned.
@WolforNuva
2 жыл бұрын
imo saying that you can't be a gnome because we already have halflings is like saying you can't be an elf because we already have humans. Hell Gnomes are more distinct from halflings than elves are from humans.
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
I ban Gnome because the setting I've run for decades had them abandon their gods and devolve into goblins. While I love an open style to modules when it comes to races I have settings where the story removes a race for story reasons. Usually I replace the missing races with a fun home brew race, for example in my no Gnome setting some goblins remember the old gods and can make class choices as gnomes. But they aren't gnomes.
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
As a second reply I love gnomes. I play them alot. I removed Gnome from my setting because my love of them made me do something special with them. Eventually gnomes come back and if I had a player who really really love gnomes like I do I'd sell them on a goblin and have them have a Gnome reborn arc were they slowly became a Gnome in everyway, even having their children be born as new gnomes.
@smoogieboogie1694
2 жыл бұрын
@@Huntanor I'm all for doing unique things with the pre-existing races. And I think you have a totally cool idea. I'm more talking about the people who are just like "No Gnomes! Why? Because I said so!"
@maddym.5466
2 жыл бұрын
Finally, A sensible person! Thank you!
@EilonwyG
2 жыл бұрын
I've always been a kind of "kitchen sink" fantasy lover. Whatever fantastical ideas that come into my head, I want to tool them to work with the world in my mind. I love trying all fantasy tropes, so denying any fantasy ideas just makes me feel bad. I think almost anything can be retooled and shaped to work with a given world idea. I have a world of water, dotted with islands, so aquatic races are plentiful if desired, terran races may have only pockets of smaller areas they might live in (I have a unicorn race that only lives on this one island and has a very small population) and most avian races live on the floating isles no one seems to know about or in the mountains. But I would totally allow anything a player would want and then build where and how they exist. It's why I love Eberron - if you want it, it can exist there, it just may not look exactly how you're used to.
@lkriticos7619
2 жыл бұрын
Running alongside this discussion is the question of how much you trust your players. Because I think a DM is a lot more likely to ban things if they're playing with strangers (or players they think are gonna take the piss) vs when they're playing with people they know and trust.
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
Huh, I'm more likely to ban things when I trust the players because they know me and assume a ban is important. With a pick up group I try to use very generic assumptions and accommodate anything because I can handle most outcomes low trust causes.
@lkriticos7619
2 жыл бұрын
@@Huntanor Huh. Fair enough. Different approaches I guess. What do you mean by generic assumptions?
@WolforNuva
2 жыл бұрын
This is pretty much my opinion as well. Even when I make a campaign setting with a limited handful of races, I'm always open to discussing with a player how they might be able to play a different one they're interested in. Sometimes it doesn't work, and we can't find a reason that both of us are happy with, so the player makes a new character idea, but usually it works out just fine.
@karensprague8857
2 жыл бұрын
I am running a game in a published campaign setting which doesn't have tritons, or at least has no mention whatsoever of any underwater civilizations, and a player wanted to play a triton. So I said, sure, I'm gonna make the executive decision that the campaign setting was written by a surface dweller, and that the triton society is isolationist and doesn't interact with the surface people very much, so only people on remote islands or the occasional sailor would even know that tritons exist. The player came up with a good reason for the triton to leave the ocean and explore the land, and now he has to deal with the fact that he sticks out like a sore thumb wherever the party goes. But it's not a bad thing that he sticks out, it's become just part of the story. And he playes up the fact that he's totally unfamiliar with land cultures, and also will reference things in his underwater culture that he is then shocked no one else is aware of. It leads to wonderful character moments.
@faranior
2 жыл бұрын
I feel like I've only really had a problem with players two times in my 20-something years as a GM. Once a player came to the table with a new character without saying anything before the game. That I can work with, but it was also his new homebrew race. That part was less fun to have sprung on you as a GM. Another was in a sci-fi setting where the player wanted to invent a personal mech where there are no mechs. He wanted to play that as the same thing as repairing existing tech and got a little huffy when I said it will take more work to create something new compared to repairing something.
@Paper-Parrot
2 жыл бұрын
-I played in a campaign where I was allowed to use a homebrew Dullahan race (made by Bibliophile @ DnDBeyond!); the DM's only restriction in character creation/building was banning the Lucky feat. In retrospect, it makes me wonder how they would have handled Halflings. Too late for that now. -In a short campaign I played in, one of the players played a Warforged Paladin using Oath of the Ancients. Their character was more like stone and covered in moss and leaves, iirc. It was a really great interpretation! -In yet another campaign I played a Half-Drow who covered herself head to toe to hide her lineage. The setting was based on an existing video game (whose name I always forget), and the faction of "bad guys" consisting of bandits and assassins... also happen to have dark, purple or ashen skin similar to a Drow's. Problematic in its own right, and a little redundant for my character's issues with her lineage... -If I were to DM a campaign, the only character restrictions I would put would be on homebrew content that have no reliable writeups or testing, especially if they're meant to be some awful 1/2 dragon 1/4 archfey 1/3 demon Mary Sue monstrosity. But of course, I would not allow that kind of player at my table in the first place. ... unless it was for a joke campaign.
@Duhad8
2 жыл бұрын
I've always been a big fan of working the world around to permit any kind of player race, usually by removing some of the more... questionable elements of the game default setting. Orcs and goblins are not always 'evil uncivilized savages', they are just people who are often in conflict with the major established races, often due to the way dwarves, elves and humans like to just settle down in places and go, "This is part of our kingdom now! No other 'civilized' race has claimed this land yet, so we can do this." Which naturally leads to friction and fighting with the people who already lived their and are now expected to F off or die. Alternatively the Under Empire of the drow might be a nasty place where back stabbing and slave dealing is common place, but that doesn't make all drow evil. Some are just stuck in a brutal society trying to make it through the day while others flee to start new lives and even new cities and towns independent of their core Empire. Obviously all of this removes allot of the easy black and white morality of D&D and makes it so wholesale murdering orcs, goblins, drow or others is allot more questionable, but... I mean A. Good! Stuff like the 'orc children paladin trap' where old school DMs would try and strip paladin's of their class powers by putting them in situations where they had to make impossible moral choices like being confronted with orc children and being told, "Since they are always evil, they will grow up to cause harm, so you MUST kill them or your ignoring your duty as a paladin, but also your killing kids so that's also gonna cost you" is just awful! No game should frame a race of sentient creatures as so innately evil that NOT stabbing their children is a moral failing! And B. Undead, monstrous non sentient creatures, constructs and evil or at least morally questionable groups like bandits, pirates, fascists, slavers, est. Can all provide plenty of typical D&D enemy encounter fodder without falling back on going, "See a goblin, stab a goblin. That's all their is too it." Plus if you really want that classic D&D flavor, you can always just go, "All orcs are not evil. All goblins are not evil. No race is defined by evil and thus any race you as a player want to play is fine. HOWEVER in this world the great orc warlord Orkus Khan has gathered a number of orc and goblin tribes under his banner and is currently smashing his way through every kingdom he can! So don't be surprised if your fighting allot of orcs and goblins and if even open minded people are currently not feeling overly charitable about orc and goblin PCs."
@syvajarvi2289
2 жыл бұрын
I loved the video. And I feel kind of lucky in regards to what I allow vs what I don’t. The world that I utilize was the one that I created for my campaign that I started back in the 80s. I didn’t limit the races we used back then but looked at them as archetypes for PC characters. A few years ago, when my son discovered DnD, I pulled out my notes from my AD&D campaign from back then and dusted it off to take a look. I bought a lot of the 5e source books and revisited the lore from my world, which only covered a small part of the world where I ran the campaign. That area was already rich in history so I started working on the rest of the continent. In doing so I added every race from every source book because I could and there was a place for them. My campaign world was similar to Ebberon wilh a Chluluesque vibe because I loved the steam punk aesthetic with an eldritch horror feel to it. The world was a way point for a starjammer campaign that he was running as well so he could just play instead of DM. When it came to magic and the population of the world it was a high/low magic place so artificers and gun slingers also fit. In short, come one, come all….. including Kender from Krynn. They have a place in my world….. the lore as to how they got there might be different that the original, but between myself and my players we can make anything fit. It just takes a rich imagination and some patience to work out the details. It’s like good vs Evil in my world. The struggle exists but what cause the species wars was not that anyone was inherently evil, but the culture clash between ideologies. That concept has existed in my campaign world from its creation and will remain there until I close the doors on it or pass it on to someone who appreciates the story telling that has been chronicled there.
@AdvFox
2 жыл бұрын
New D&D DM here, longterm 'everything-else DM'. I just want to say I adore your videos! I personally don't like restricting people based on race, I run fantasy games; and if I wanted to keep things as low fantasy as possible; I might as well go and play SIMS or "Boring Office Workers Only R US."
@riculfriculfson7243
Жыл бұрын
In our long term campaign, Goliaths didn't exist until we plane-travelled to a place where they were. We played S3 (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks) where we met a 'warforged' automaton that could then be adopted as a character. Other than that, the world is the world. We play in it.
@wheelooze4655
2 жыл бұрын
Hey thanks for this video, I think it opened my eyes to an idea that I had previously though of as an overreaction. I run human centric games, and my aversion to letting players (especially new players) run exotic humanoids is I like them to have tangibly different cultures and mannerisms. I've found I can't really trust people without roleplaying experience to properly portray the species' uniqueness. It absolutely breaks my heart to see a newbie just run a tortal or whatever as a human but with a shell. My current ruling, is new players should pick a species from the PHB, and can't be evil aligned. Players who have proven themselves to me and want to play with more exotic and challenging characters can be just about whatever on approval. And also I don't allow some races because they simply don't make sense for my setting, I'll make exceptions though if a player I trust has a good idea.
@lasersexpanther6631
2 жыл бұрын
for a campaign i was in our DM made the warforge not start off with super great armour and had to upgrade, as a means for food and rest he had to make repairs that took him the time we'd spend sleeping. and if he didn't repair his version of exhaustion was called 'malfunctions' and 'errors' would happen to many and he'd shut down.
@davidnymann5423
2 жыл бұрын
4:24 this is why I hate power gamers in dnd, they're making a conscious decision that every other PC has to either know how to min max a broken character or resign themselves to be a supporting actor to this one guys power fantasy while simultaneously forcing the DM to turn every combat into a meatgrinder for everyone else just to challenge the hexblade warlock conquest paladin multiclass who's hitting for 50 damage a round at level 5.
@Dlnqntt
2 жыл бұрын
Warforged are sentient constructs, not robots. They are not operating on circuitry and AI, and instead are magically animated stone, wood, and metal that has their own thinking mind. I know that they sound similar, but they are drastically different. It was clearly written that they have sentience in the 3.5 Eberron book, and I never understood how it came to be that people keep missing that and would call them robots.
@maxs-lz4pn
Жыл бұрын
I grew up playing skyrim and it has Khajit. I'm very open minded because just that species alone can vary from a sentient house cat to a cat man hybrid to a giant sabertooth tiger all based on what moon they were born under. Starwars is a great example of how so many super different species can exist in the same place
@Keovar
Жыл бұрын
4:40 - Which is why I run games and play in games that use point-buy or array (which is just a pre-spent 27 points anyway). It makes no sense to have characters randomly blessed or cursed because of a player's roll of a few dice. Would you ignore a character's charisma and instead use the playet's ability to be charming? What about intelligence? Solving puzzles is fun for some, but none of us are functioning at a super genius level. Why not replace strength checks with literal weight lifting? If you can understand why those are differences between player and character abilities, there's should be no reason to do that at the very biginning of play, affecting the entire play life of the character. Rather than banning something, you could just ask what it is about the species they like, and let them use the stats of that with the looks and social position of the one that fits the world. If they specifically want to be something weirder than average, maybe they're a one-off experiment of Mordain the Fleshweaver. Warforged are not robots, they're sapient golems.
@ernesthakey3396
2 жыл бұрын
I run 3.5 games for a group of friends, most of whom have been gaming together for decades, some of since the mid/late 70s when D&D first began. I create each campaign setting in part by defining subsets of existing material that I want to have available at the start of the campaign. So - I specify a list of available races and classes, and I provide character generation documents that detail any tweaks or adjustments to those races and classes, as well as any campaign-specific information on the societies the PCs are a part of. For example, in a game I am currently running, when building characters, there are three levels of society a PC can choose between for their upbringing - upper, middle, or lower class. Middle class has no special rules, it is the default, but the upper and lower class options each have both advantages and disadvantages that apply to various aspects of the game. The location is a small, isolated barony with only 4 races initially available - humans, dwarves, elves, and shifters. I have notes on all 40-something communities of this small barony, and players have some leeway in determining what sort of community they are from, getting some individual background info personalized to their place of origin within the setting. However - I allow players the agency to retire characters for both in-game or out-of-game reasons, and of course sometimes characters get killed. And once the players have had some experience of the setting, they have a lot more leeway with their replacement characters. They want to play a race and/or class that was not available at the start? They can do that with a replacement character, no problem! I will work with them to figure out how the replacement fits into the setting. One advantage of doing this at a point where the party is higher level (I start the initial characters at 2nd level but replacements are generally at the party's level or just a little behind) is the races which are inherently more powerful can be allowed, just with fewer class levels so they match the power level of the other PCs. I am lucky in that my players don't tend to be the "I really want to play X whether X exists or not" type but rather the "let's look at the options and find a way to use them to do something fun and different from the last time" types. They see the initial options less as limiting their creativity than as providing a framework within which to challenge themselves. And they often surprise me! But the mere fact that replacement characters are allowed more leeway means that, if their character dies permanently or wants to retire from adventuring, they can do something unique, and acts like either a consolation prize or incentive. One example: no warforged? Well, a meteor crashing to the ground turns out to be a small troop lander from some extra-planar war being fought by warforged armies, and a habdful of warforged survived - let's build that warforged!
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
That’s a really cool approach! It also helps solve the issue of players making characters without context of the world - once they’ve played for a while, it’s automatically easier to create a new character that has some synergy with the setting! Also, that’s a DOPE way to introduce a warforged 😁
@ernesthakey3396
2 жыл бұрын
@@SupergeekMike thanks! Yeah, I am lucky in having great players, and in them being willing to immerse themselves in the setting before perhaps trying something unusual - and it avoids the whole "party of 5 totally weird PCs, all from outside the setting, somehow finding each other and deciding to adventure together." If your PC is from a race that may exist in the world but on a different continent, that makes a lot more sense if they have been adventuring a while and done a lot of traveling in the process. Having one "unique" character from someplace else at 2nd level, maybe is believable, but it would be unfair to allow one player but not the rest. And I have found that most of the time the players get attached to their initial characters and enthusiastic about playing them. But sometimes a character concept isn't working out, or the character suffers in-game trauma, or the party goes in a direction that the player isn't interested in - so being able to retire a PC that isn't as much fun as hoped and bring in something new is a good option for them. I worked with the would-be warforged player who was retiring their character to have their party, including the retiring PC, investigate the flaming object that fell from the sky, so the PCs were active in rescuing these "smart golems" from the wreckage, not realizing that the guy's next PC was on board. :) It made for a good introduction and in-game reason for the group to accept one of the warforged as a party member; the group actually went above and beyond to find the other warforged places and ways to fit in to the PCs' home town. The language question was a little problematic, we decided that the war they had been made for was between one side which spoke Draconic as their main language and the other side which spoke Elvish, and the warforged had been "programmed" with both languages, but would need to learn Common on their own in this new "peaceful" place. :) The PC warforged was...wait for it...a warmage, of course! Programmed with the entire warmage spell list but still a long way from being able to implement the higher level boom-booms. As the least well equipped to adapt to civilian life, he had the most desire to find a productive use for his destructive potential... :) It was a long time ago but still one of my favorite "yeah, we can find a way to make this work" replacement characters.
@falionna3587
2 жыл бұрын
Should note that warforged are not robots. They are golem people, made of animated wood and metal and has a soul (how they got souls is a plot mystery of eberron). They could be ported over to other settings as variants of golems.
@trevorgreenough6141
2 жыл бұрын
As an Engineer, my favourite race to play is the Warforged. I love the idea that a robot has the personality and characteristics of a person, and has an Identity. I flavour it as the AI running the body is so advanced it just as understood as the human brain. Or another race who made themselves that way.
@TheJessewithag
2 жыл бұрын
new favorite dnd channel that isnt gameplay. man i love this game
@CromTuise
2 жыл бұрын
I’m currently playing a warforged cleric in a more kitchen-sink world, and my justification and backstory is that he used to be a bronze statue, before his god brought him to life. I figure that is a pretty good way to implement the race where they otherwise don’t exist, as well as my race/class combo.
@marianpetera8436
2 жыл бұрын
This was quite an awesome and elaborate essay that stems from and boils down to "talk to your DM" :)
@scottishrob13
2 жыл бұрын
Edit tl;dr: I think player fantasy is important, but it's our responsibility as DMs to help contextualize and rationalize those choices in a way that we aren't going to find problematic in the real world. I definitely have a lot of thoughts about parts of this topic. I constantly struggle to remove the fantasy from the real world. Is it gross to say that all of these cultures, as part of the same species, have fixed alignment and penalties to certain stats? Certainly. Is it less problematic if we're talking about a species created, and influenced by, a literal god into doing its bidding? I think so. One of the things I make very clear is that alignment in games I run isn't about a creature's nature - it's about which cosmic forces they have pledged themselves to. As part of this, I open up an "unaligned" option on both axes (good/evil, law/chaos) if a PC hasn't pledged loyalty to any cosmic force. Not all people pledged to fight for a god on the "evil" side have done so by choice, and some of them are morally good people. My first counterpoint is always the "lawful good" paladin that cruelly punishes all acts that violate their code - we can see them as morally evil, regardless of their cosmic alignment. Once that's out of the way, I quash the idea of "race". Even if I should make an exception for elves and humans as historic members of the same species, I refuse to consider the notion that these are "races". They're different species that may share some common ancestry. As such the only half-X half-Y people have been brought about through some means other than simple birds-and-bees scenarios. However, cross-species relationships are common, and there has been some effort to allow these people to have biological children, so the magical processes aren't exceedingly rare or anything. For me, this is less about limiting player fantasy to maintain the integrity of *my* fantasy, and more about recontextualizing these fantasies in a way that makes them less problematic with my real-world morality. Some players haven't even thought about the racist undertones present in playing an Orc, especially an Orc that's "one of the good ones" as the video mentioned. I think that's something that comes up as you immerse yourself deeply in RPG culture and think about these things more, or are exposed to more conversations about it. In that way, I feel a certain sense of responsibility to head that off at the pass without putting the kaibosh on their fantasy, or smoothing everything over. There should be room for a set of common consequences and advantages to being raised in the Underdark, or to the god-given gifts granted to a species. Isn't it sensible that the average Gnome isn't as strong as the average Orc? In these legacy settings, it makes sense that an Orc would tend toward evil alignment because they've been pressed into the service of the evil god that created them. It doesn't mean that Orcs are bad (in the context I try to impress upon my players) - they can still be loving and care for their own just the same as everyone else. They can have complex civilizations and lore without being masters of inventing cutting-edge technology - though there exists the mechanical possibility for Orcs to have the same intelligence as everyone else anyway, it's really only a problem for min-maxers who want to create a glass-cannon wizard rather than a well-rounded character. The problem, for me at least, is less in the mechanics and more in the way that those mechanics are contextualized. I guess that's where I run into a bit of a problem with the new WotC stance - they've provided a solution for these problems via turning every "race" into a costume. I don't think I like that. It feels like a bandaid solution, one that essentially assimilates all unique cultures and species into one mega-culture/species as the default. For this approach to truly make sense, those major physical characteristics (height and lifespan) also need to be brought in-line between all "races" (it's strange for small races to be the same strength as medium races, and for short-lived races to accumulate the same knowledge as long-lived ones, everything else aside). It thrusts the problem of rationalizing civilizational/physical differences on the DM, which can put them in a really uncomfortable place regardless of which setting they're using. Rather than solving this with a rules-patch, I would have liked to see WotC create a new setting that recontextualizes the rules without all of the baggage that these legacy settings have.
@AutumnWoodham
Жыл бұрын
"Could you imagine an elephant man in the world of Game of Thrones" no, but neither could I imagine elves, gnomes, tieflings, and dragonborn. This analogy falls flat when the only thing Game of Thrones has remotely similar to D&D is that it has dragons in it.
@MKnowS
9 ай бұрын
My favorite race is half-orc and our group is actually a lot of biology nerds. I've worked with my DM to structure it that human's are like domestic dogs and orcs are like wolves. In any place where they come in contact, interbreeding is common. An even better analogy is in human history. Homosapiens interbred with neanderthals enough that every human today has some neanderthal DNA still in them. In our world orcs are close relatives to humans but went down a different evolutionary path. Orcs are like many native peoples today, they like being more connected to nature and practicing tribal culture, but they also integrate modern conveniences. Orcs marry out, humans marry in, and it's not a big deal. We all know it's really humans that are the horn dogs of the world, but that's why I love them. They are the warm, sticky, glue that ties all the other races together and makes diverse background storytelling possible!
@MaskofFayt
2 жыл бұрын
The only time I'd 'ban' a race is if we're playing in a specific and pre-defined setting as part of the deal of the group, which means they won't even consider picking those races anyway because they're invested in the setting of something like a tv show or movie and that's the whole reason they're playing. Like you wouldn't see a harry potter fan trying to play a 10 year old lizardfolk in early 2000's london because they are invested in the setting already. Meanwhile, me who doesn't like harry potter but somehow got roped into playing in that setting, will absolutely be annoying my DM about my lizardfolk wizard who is absolutely just one long winded Demon Headmaster joke about turning children into lizard people and arguably have a valid reasoning because of it. Though, you could get away with yuan ti real easily in harry potter (adventure idea right there). So in other words, I'd probably not really ban anything, its the players who decide based on the setting you discuss with them. Though, many players make a character before they even know what the setting or game will be and no matter what they are we can make it work. I even had a party with all the banned races in it once and only two humans out of the total 12 players that rotated in and out. A party of monsters who stuck out made it easy for them to make a name for themselves and then no matter what the majority races of the places they visited where they could become involved and invested because of the attention they got from either being weird, well known or having a personal connection. The 'how will monster races get involved in human politics' argument doesn't work when you consider in real life people genuinely believe lizard people are involved with human politics, so if one shows up (as a player) there'll be people reacting to it in a multitude of ways that gives the player agency towards their involvement in that scenario.
@willbethard2390
2 жыл бұрын
I was a big fan of Friday Night Quests back in the day. When the algorithm showed me this channel I was so glad to hear your voice again! Big fan Mike, and I am glad to see you're still creating excellent content.
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
Thank you so much!! I remember your name from the FNQ days :)
@luketfer
2 жыл бұрын
It's quite interesting seeing your take on this and Matt Colevilles take on this. You're very much on the side of 'include everything' whereas Matt is on the side of 'it has to keep within the verismilitude of the world". I gotta say...I kind of prefer Matts approach. There's no harm in just saying "No" to players. Sometimes DMs just gotta have a spine...yes players are 'skittish creatures' but if they can't accept the simple response of "no, that doesn't exist in this world" and storm off in a huff...I actually kind of don't want them at my table...and there are a LOT more players than there are DMs...
@SupergeekMike
2 жыл бұрын
I should say, I say “yes” to things whenever I can, but there are some situations or even campaigns when I draw more hard lines in the sand. This is just my general approach to the subject, and a way to get people thinking about what they might prefer at their own tables :)
@kakkakarrotcake1288
Ай бұрын
So I have actually built an entire system for 30 races, where you pick a race and then choose a number of ancestral traits within that race. You have 16 points to spend, and each ancestral trait has been given a value (Some even have negatives such as sunlight sensitivity). Honestly, my players love it! They can also mix and match with one other race to built their own half race or even just pick any from all of them to make a completely custom race. The balance could be argued to be all over the place, but I've never ran into a problem with it. I like my players feeling powerful, or have more options at lower levels.
@elfbait3774
Жыл бұрын
I am not ashamed to say I have often "banned" races from campaigns or settings. I feel player races speak a lot for the setting you are using. However, I don't think I have ever hard banned anything and have always found ways to accommodate player requests. In once instance, the player's exception actually shaped part of the campaign world that was previously undefined. I also have no problem re-skinning races to fit settings. I've had half-orcs become giantkin, troll bloods, or even orcs who have integrated into a humancentric society. I've reskinned forest gnomes and halflings as hedgehog people and mouselings. Half-elves have been reskinned as fey changelings. In some campaigns I have altered the commonality of races and informed the players of what it means to their character. My youngest once wanted to play a tiefling in a world where they were not a thing, so I fell back on the original version of the race as a rarity in the Prime Material, ruling that it carried with it some prejudice and suspicion due to the resemblance to fiends. In my current game, one of my players is playing Felix, the "son" of the local gnome clock maker. We ended up working together to create a character that used warforged stats and was a clockwork soul sorcerer with the story that his gnomish father had built him and raised him as his son. One of the mysteries of that character is why his father didn't build him to look like a gnome.
@SupergeekMike
Жыл бұрын
Exactly!! I love these examples
@jameswhitehead9697
2 жыл бұрын
As someone who started with Basic D&D with Elf & Dwarf being a race & class, I enjoy the many options I have for character races in 5e - and I like playing races other than human. the benefits (skills, resistances, ability scores) of specific races play heavily into my character creation; especially if I am in a game where stats are determined through Point Buy or Standard Array. I am also lucky enough to have DMs that are pretty open to most anything within the published resources - one of my DMs has allowed me to play an Ursine Bear (Polar), from D&D Beyond, barbarian for the Rhyme of the Frost Maiden & I am having a blast. I do find, however, in & out of party racial conflict (e.g., Gimli vs. Legolas, the human barkeep reacting to my Eladrin Rogue, etc...) tiresome after a point & like it when it descends into the background noise. Elves being called 'knife ears' or dwarves 'smelly drunks' gets old after awhile & smacks me of just in game ways for players to be unpleasant. I have always enjoyed a 'multiverse' approach to the D&D campaigns I am in. That said, I will always abide by the DMs call on what is and isn't allowed in their world. I do, however, expect and appreciate a reply more detailed that "Nope. Not in my world." We're both adults so treat me like one by telling me why & maybe, as the video suggested, give me options to allow me my character concept while still fitting in your world. Helps solve any issues that might arise from a less nuanced discussion - "Because I said so!" - and will help me feel to be more of an active participant in your world and less of a passenger.
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
It's part of a DMs job to sell you o house rules. But the consiquence of not being sold is sadly often needing to find another game which sucks. Alot of the tension in this topic seems to come from people feeling like they have limited options. Nope is a disrespectful way to treat someone in a social game. It would piss me off. If a player gives me a character outline (I tell all players to outline after session 0 or during it so they know any setting rules before falling in love with an idea) I send them a no with reasons and suggestions on how it could be changed. It's not alot of work to treat people with respect.
@bencarter1646
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks Mike for another thought-provoking video. It's nice to watch a channel come into being :D. I've tended to use Species rather than Race when talking my players through their options. And the Adventures in Middle-Earth 5e system uses Cultures (although mainly because most of them are Human!), which can be a useful way of differentiating for example High Elves and Wood Elves.
@Deadlyspark
2 жыл бұрын
I'm a baby DM, but I've created my own setting recently and started running a campaign. In my setting, monstrous races are most commonly savage and evil, but there is a section in my world of those who are not necessarily evil, and have broken away from the influence that drive them to evil acts. However, the empire of the continent does not trust those races, and is even sceptical about other 'regular' races, but reluctantly allows them. That is a flaw of the empire When I told my players this, most were fine, but one refused to play the monster race he wanted to cause 'it wouldn't be fun if I'm going to be attacked all the time' without considering how to manage being a monterous race. Then another player wanted to be a vampire, but that's another story of frustration, being a brand new DM and all My one shots u run is where I break the mould, and change the setting or origins of the players start to switch up there choices and allow them to play other characters more freely so they still get there dose of monsters and such.
@HantaleMedia
2 жыл бұрын
It's an unfortunate case of "too little too late" but worth noting that the long 4 paragraph spiel about yuan-ti being mostly evil was removed, along with the alignment suggestions when WotC did their big alignment errata.
@Huntanor
2 жыл бұрын
I only ever ban races for setting reasons. Power level is a cop out. I consider it my job to sell my game to players new or old alike. I don't allow any characters that aren't made to fit my setting and I go to long ends to bend concepts to fit. Both sides need to bend though, they will have to give some up and I may need to write some things in. But if I can't sell a player on why the gnomes are gone, or why elves are a human subrace in my setting then they won't fit. I will try to help them find a fit because play is when my sales pitch shines the most but if they just must play a Gnome I am sorry to say they need to find another dm.
@youngsponge92
Жыл бұрын
Adventurers League is less strict about sourcebook restrictions now compared to how it was in the previous years. DMs permitting the normlly banned races to players could also mean they themselves could use them for enemy monster statblocks, which opens up a lot of possibilities.
@ilmari1452
Жыл бұрын
For me, the question of player races is bound by my dedication to hard world building. When I created my own setting, I tried to make the best balance I could between realistic biology and societies and broadening player options. What I most am bothered by in maximalist fantasy worldbuilding is that often most non-human races just feel like humans with rubber masks. Ultimately I redesigned 6 of the D&D races into biologically, psychologically and societally unique peoples (with 1 being endemic, 1 being alien, and 4 being artificially magically created). Since I established that magic can alter life dramatically, I have from the get-go made it clear that any "race" could be possible. So I've added a very similar caveat to what you have suggested - if people want to try something else, they can be a one- off (or maybe rare but recurring) magical oddity, and I only ask them to work with me to determine how their character gets by in a society where they are more or less alien.
@whirlingnerdish2734
2 жыл бұрын
I use the same approach to ancestry/race in my homebrew game! I wanted my setting to feel like a mixed world where all of these creatures could co-exist and intermingle, and I hate the concept of innately evil creatures, so I made goblins more like hillbillies and invented several new good goblin deities. I also decided hobgoblins come from human/goblin relationships and bugbears come from orc/goblin relationships. As for the weirder options like Warforged, I had a player that wanted to play one, which I hadn't factored into my worldbuilding, but I *had* already established a paranoid king who was convinced he was being targeted for assassination. We decided this Warforged was part of a line of prototype Terminator-esque constructs the king intended to use to pre-emptively attack his enemies. This character was basically re-programmed to protect one of his former targets a la Terminator 2. Loving your videos so far. Can't wait for more of them!
@darthvaderreviews6926
2 жыл бұрын
As with a lot of other things it's about getting everyone on the table on the same page. D&D official material is designed to cater to a specific broad kaleidoscope fantasy when taken in full. If you want to play outside that kaleidoscope that should be communicated with players ASAP. If you need to be outright banning stuff after that conversation, instead of negotiating the player's fantasy vs yours and trusting them to cooperate on whatever you all agree on, then there's a problem at the table. (and it might even be you!)
@StonedHunter
2 жыл бұрын
Recently I had a buddy DM for me and he let me homebrew an entire race just because I had an idea I really wanted to try and run with. I made sure to check in with him regularly so he could look over everything and ensure it wouldn't be too OP or break any of the rules of his campaign. Now, that race is an integral part of the DnD world my fiance is making XD I've found the most fun games have been the ones where DMs are really open to their players trying things out just because they sound cool and will actively encourage it.
@fabiovarra3698
2 жыл бұрын
what race is?
@StonedHunter
2 жыл бұрын
It's honestly a bit silly, but that's what I like about it. I basically made a race of werewolves but not that required a lot of stat mixing between humans and werewolves and making sure their wolf forms were 'canonically' defined as clearly distinct from werewolves but can still get mixed up at a glance/by someone who isn't familiar. I even gave the forms different versions based on what season the character was born in. I'm pretty pleased with it honestly.
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