Exotic species aren't so exotic, eh?

[Schwann145]

To quote the PHB:

The dragonborn and the rest of the races in this chapter are uncommon. They don't exist in every world of D&D, and even where they are found, they are less widespread than dwarves, elves, halfings, and humans.
In the cosmopolitan cities of the D&D multiverse, most people hardly look twice at members of even the most exotic races. But the small towns and villages that dot the countryside are different. The common folk aren't accustomed to seeing members of these races, and they react accordingly.
Dragonborn. It's easy to assume that a dragonborn is a monster, especially if his or her scales betray a chromatic heritage. Unless the dragonborn starts breathing fire and causing destruction, though, people are likely to respond with caution rather than outright fear.
Gnome. Gnomes don't look like a threat and can quickly disarm suspicion with good humor. The common folk are often curious about gnomes, likely never having seen one before, but they are rarely hostile or fearful.
Half-EIf. Although many people have never seen a half-elf, virtually everyone knows they exist. A half-elf stranger's arrival is followed by gossip behind the half-elf's back and stolen glances across the common room, rather than any confrontation or open curiosity.
Half-Orc. It's usually safe to assume that a half-orc is belligerent and quick to anger, so people watch themselves around an unfamiliar half-orc. Shopkeepers might surreptitiously hide valuable or fragile goods when a half-orc comes in, and people slowly clear out of a tavern, assuming a fight will break out soon.
Tiefling. Half-orcs are greeted with a practical caution, but tieflings are the subject of supernatural fear. The evil of their heritage is plainly visible in their features, and as far as most people are concerned, a tiefling could very well be a devil straight from the Nine Hells. People might make warding signs as a tiefling approaches, cross the street to avoid passing near, or bar shop doors before a tiefling can enter.

It seems that many (most?) tables just totally ignore the above. I imagine a lot of this has to do with the fact that Critical Role also ignores all of the above and 5e owes a lot of it's popularity to CR.
But what about worlds other than Exandria? Tiefling seems to be a very popular pick in this edition. Are we having the conversation with players that, "you look like a fiend, and fiends are... well, fiends; the epitome of walking, talking, evil. You should be prepared for a lot of side eye at the very least."? (And that's not to mention that the tiefling of old just had a weird physical feature or quirk that made them stand out. Today's tiefling are basically indistinguishable from full-blooded Cambion!)

And that's not even getting into much more exotic and/or setting-specific races. For instance, Warforged just don't exist anywhere outside of Eberron, and Eberron is supposed to be cut off from other worlds, all on it's own.
Sure, you can ignore that if your player really wants to play as a Warforged, but the creation/discovery of a fully sentient mechanical construct with self-determination and will is a massively world/society shaking event, just as it was in Eberron! Are we letting players know that they will probably struggle with not only being the only one of their kind, but also a marvel never-before-seen that will draw unwanted attention from potential friends and foes alike?

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

[Cheesegear]

It seems that many (most?) tables just totally ignore the above. I imagine a lot of this has to do with the fact that Critical Role also ignores all of the above and 5e owes a lot of it's popularity to CR.

I think most tables ignore it, because if they don't the DM is forced to engage in fictional racism, and most DMs don't want to do even that. Can't we just go back to killing monsters? But then we go down the road of "But what if some Goblins are good, actually?" and then we go down one of D&D's rabbit hole spirals of doom.

Can we just not?

Are we having the conversation with players that, "you look like a fiend, and fiends are... well, fiends; the epitome of walking, talking, evil. You should be prepared for a lot of side eye at the very least."?

I agree that you can have that conversation, and I agree that in many cases it makes total sense to have that conversation - especially with Half-Orcs and Drow, as well. Duergar? Please. Also who even knows WTF a Tabaxi even is!?

But ultimately you're talking about preventing someone from (or at the very least providing a huge disincentive to) playing the character that they want to play, and I don't think that that's constructive.

You can have a [board probably wont let me use the word] bartender, sure. But they should be individuals, and not the norm. I have a few individuals in my campaigns every now and then. Sure. But ultimately...

Almost everyone you meet is going to hate you on sight.
So are you telling me I should roll a new character or not?

...Feels bad.

[Psyren]

Tiefling seems to be a very popular pick in this edition.

It is, and so is Dragonborn.

Are we having the conversation with players that, "you look like a fiend, and fiends are... well, fiends; the epitome of walking, talking, evil. You should be prepared for a lot of side eye at the very least."? (And that's not to mention that the tiefling of old just had a weird physical feature or quirk that made them stand out. Today's tiefling are basically indistinguishable from full-blooded Cambion!)

And that's not even getting into much more exotic and/or setting-specific races. For instance, Warforged just don't exist anywhere outside of Eberron, and Eberron is supposed to be cut off from other worlds, all on it's own.
Sure, you can ignore that if your player really wants to play as a Warforged, but the creation/discovery of a fully sentient mechanical construct with self-determination and will is a massively world/society shaking event, just as it was in Eberron! Are we letting players know that they will probably struggle with not only being the only one of their kind, but also a marvel never-before-seen that will draw unwanted attention from potential friends and foes alike?

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

My personal view is that anything in the PHB shouldn't be considered all that exotic in most printed worlds. There can certainly be some exceptions to this, like Dragonborn in Krynn or Dwarves in Ravnica, but for me the whole point of having a core is that it's core to the game and that there shouldn't be any narrative traps for new players/DMs to stumble into. Picking a species from the PHB only to find out that the one they picked is the "pitchfork species" that they can't take to the hamlet for fear of starting a riot or being denied entry to the tavern etc. is just going to feel bad as a newcomer.

[kingcheesepants]

Most (though far from all) tables ignore this because while it might be interesting the first one or two times, fantasy racism gets old real fast and adds little fun to the game. So sure have a scene in the first session where the questgiver is immediately hostile and distrusting because one of the players is a half orc, but if they have to do that whole song and dance every time they go into a new town or meet a new person the whole table is going to be bored.

[Schwann145]

The aversion to "fantasy racism" sounds reasonable at face value...
But if the world (worlds?) is going to be openly accepting of the PCs of exotic (potentially troublesome/evil) heritage, does that go for all species as well, even NPCs? Even the ones with alignment keywords?
Seems unreasonable, and also works towards killing a lot of potential tension in the world(s) (and tension is what drives narrative and keeps it engaging).

[Millstone85]

But if the world (worlds?) is going to be openly accepting of the PCs of exotic (potentially troublesome/evil) heritage, does that go for all species as well, even NPCs? Even the ones with alignment keywords?

There is a monster treadmill, I think. Playing elves and dwarves from the Underdark has become popular (Because who doesn't want to come from the land down under where everything is trying to kill you, eh mate?) and having to make them all the rare non-evil outcasts has become tiring, so now we have MotM where even drow and duergar NPCs were changed to "any alignment". Plenty other creatures remain in the kill-on-sight category for now, and more can always be created.

[MonochromeTiger]

The aversion to "fantasy racism" sounds reasonable at face value...
But if the world (worlds?) is going to be openly accepting of the PCs of exotic (potentially troublesome/evil) heritage, does that go for all species as well, even NPCs? Even the ones with alignment keywords?

Issue is in some cases the world does just lack a reaction. It's fine for it to be thrown into the PHB as an aside but that's really all they bothered to do with it, it ends up about the same as "Kenku only talk by mimicking noises they've heard" where actually acting on it is far more trouble than it's worth. You generally don't find official content actually making a point of it unless it's part of the specific theme of that content so why should a DM be expected to go out of their way to make everyone arbitrarily suspicious of the Dragonborn or Tiefling traveling alongside the Dwarf who can bench press a carriage and the Elf who can shoot lasers from his eyes?

And if it's an in universe concern then, again, Dwarf who can bench press a carriage and Elf who can shoot lasers from their eyes. Sure strong fighters and powerful Wizards are a known quantity but the main thing that's known about them is they're stronger or more powerful than the average person. You generally don't see people advocating for everyone in the setting to maintain a ten foot distance and throw salt over their shoulder every time they see a Wizard but just about every NPC in the setting should have heard a few stories of an evil Wizard while if everyone actually treats Dragonborn and Tieflings as rare then odds are pretty good they haven't heard anything truly bad about either; it's a bit difficult to see "they hate you because of how you look" going over well for why a player character is treated with suspicion while "yeah so they know you can throw fireballs and are literally able to melt their brains with a word and they're totally cool with that" is applied to the person next to them who is probably a far more immediate danger.

Seems unreasonable, and also works towards killing a lot of potential tension in the world(s) (and tension is what drives narrative and keeps it engaging).

Tension to drive the narrative and tension for the sake of tension are different things. World ending threat with a doomsday timer hanging over the players is tension to drive the narrative, it turns the entire thing into a race against time asking the obvious question of whether they'll make it or not. "They think you look creepy and are going to charge you more or just not let you in their shop" is, wait no that's not even tension for the sake of tension it's just punishing a player for making their character a specific race. At best you can try to hold up the idea of seeking acceptance as "driving the narrative" but frankly most players I know would either get tired of it quickly or start by wondering why they would even need to have the acceptance and approval of people who decided to hate and fear them by default. They're the hero, or at least something hero adjacent, they're out there fighting monsters and saving the world, heading into town after to find out that the locals don't care because they're not an appropriate flavor of I-can't-believe-it's-not-Human can take the wind out of their sails if they didn't specifically sign on for that and not many players I know bother to look at a side blurb about how people see different player-character races. If the only reason they object is a very nebulous "well it might be dangerous" then frankly nobody should let anyone else out of their sight for a second because they're all in a setting where any random Human can potentially be an adventurer strong enough to fight Dragons one on one and win and they have no way of knowing for sure that Human is nice and friendly; fear of potential threats without evidence just leads to fear of everything because everything can be threatening under the right circumstances.

Sure suspicion and fear add background details but those details are things that an increasing number of players are voicing objections to. Doesn't mean you need to drop it entirely, just know your audience and if your players are comfortable with that before throwing it at them and maybe have a reason behind it aside from "well it makes the world more realistic if people are biased jerks who jump to conclusions."

If your concern is instead with whether or not NPCs are still able to be seen in a negative light? Generally speaking most NPCs that you're expected to treat as bad are very clearly doing bad things. You don't really need "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they're Goblins so of course they are" when you have "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they attacked unprovoked, burned our crops, kicked our dog, and scrawled graffiti about doomsday weapons and end of the world cults all over the side of our barn." It's kind of a conceit of most storytelling that Good, or most morally accepted Neutral, are somewhat reactionary instead of proactive. They may go off to stop the cult summoning an Evil God before the ritual is complete but they typically reach that point after reacting to some inciting incident and learning that's what's being planned. That reactionary approach gives plenty of opportunity to show why people feel threatened by some outside force that isn't just fantasy racism.

[Mastikator]

In my campaign I gave the players a list of allowed races. One player often nags me about being allowed to play a flying race, not because of some roleplay reason, he wants the power of flight. Another player asked to play a drow (not on the list) and I asked her why, it turned out she wanted the Drow High Magic feat, I just told her she can play any elf with that feat, she ended up picking shadow elf and we just said that the feat is an evolution of her dragonmark.

I think there are two reasons players pick exotic races:
1) they want some special ability from that race, if you're OK with that special ability you could just transfer it to another race for that PC. Treat it like a unique thing for that one character.
2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.

-

On the question of "Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?" No. Talk to players. IMO player characters should be made in collaboration with the DM. Otherwise you are guaranteeing that the character won't really fit the setting, the campaign or even the party.

[Schwann145]

You generally don't see people advocating for everyone in the setting to maintain a ten foot distance and throw salt over their shoulder every time they see a Wizard but just about every NPC in the setting should have heard a few stories of an evil Wizard while if everyone actually treats Dragonborn and Tieflings as rare then odds are pretty good they haven't heard anything truly bad about either; it's a bit difficult to see "they hate you because of how you look" going over well for why a player character is treated with suspicion while "yeah so they know you can throw fireballs and are literally able to melt their brains with a word and they're totally cool with that" is applied to the person next to them who is probably a far more immediate danger.

Eh, kinda depends. As an aside, I'm in favor of classes also carrying reputations, positive and negative. It only makes sense.
Take the Forgotten Realms, the default setting for 5e: depending on the author (including Greenwood) Wizards are mistrusted and viewed as problematic... because they are. When you have that much power at your fingertips, it tends to corrupt. Even the most goodly of the powerful wizards (Elminster, the Simbul, etc) are all a) at least a bit insane, and b) at least a bit (hypocritically) tyrannical. They're more infamous than famous.

...it's just punishing a player for making their character a specific race.

Maybe I'm just not well attuned with modern gamers, but I don't see bad things happening to characters as punishment (unless it is, but if your DM has it out for you, that's a whole different thing...). I see bad things as roleplaying challenges and opportunities. For instance, if your character is mind-controlled, you now have the challenge of playing your character as such. Feeling punished because you lost your save is just totally alien to me. \_(ツ)_/

...and not many players I know bother to look at a side blurb about how people see different player-character races.

That's part of the motivation for this post: shouldn't they? Why don't they?

If your concern is instead with whether or not NPCs are still able to be seen in a negative light? Generally speaking most NPCs that you're expected to treat as bad are very clearly doing bad things. You don't really need "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they're Goblins so of course they are" when you have "the Goblins are bad and must be killed because they attacked unprovoked, burned our crops, kicked our dog, and scrawled graffiti about doomsday weapons and end of the world cults all over the side of our barn."

This touches on some of my concern on the subject: aren't most goblin attacks provoked? Did that human/elven/other-pretty-race always exist there? Was there some colonialism happening? Are those goblin attacks fueled by evil or by survival? And is the killing of them actually "good" or is it just "good for the 'civilized' folk?"
IE: are we playing in a "good vs evil" world, or in a nuanced world where everything's shaky? If it's the former, then that's all the more reason for people (NPCs) to be legit scared of someone who looks like a red dragon or a demon. If we're playing in the latter, you might see more general acceptance but it also means that the PCs might be the ones doing the evil, even if unknowingly or unintentionally.

[kingcheesepants]

So a number of years ago I joined a campaign with a DM who decided to lean into the fantasy racism angle. It was a setting where there was a collision of the planes and a bunch of different races were thrown together for the first time and a bunch of nations were very reactionary and became deeply suspicious of other races. I decided to play a dwarven unity (the UA form of what later became peace) cleric who was actually saved by a genasi and his whole personal goal was to foster a culture of acceptance and understanding and bring the various races together in harmony.

So in that setting and that campaign it was highly appropriate to highlight the reaction of the various NPCs to exotic races and to have lots of roleplay about racism and such. And even with that I ended up retiring the character halfway through the game and we as a group decided to downplay the fantasy racism angle because even with a character that had a personal goal focused on combating it, the whole thing was repetitive and boring at best and brought up uncomfortable real world issues that upset the people sitting at the table at worst.

Since then when I DM a game I generally take the fantasy kitchen sink approach. If you want to play a warforged or a goblin or a centaur go right ahead. The narratives, settings, and campaigns that I like to run are agnostic about race and in my settings no player is going to be negatively singled out because of their race. Players are free to lean into it or ignore it as much as they want and if I get the sense that they want to do more RP based on their race I'll indulge them, otherwise it'll just get passing mentions and otherwise not be an issue. When I join a campaign as a player I'll be sure to bring up the issue of fantasy racism and what kind of reactions I might expect if I play an exotic race, if they tell me that I can expect a negative reaction I'll ask if we could downplay that (for the aforementioned reasons).

I think there are two reasons players pick exotic races:
1) they want some special ability from that race, if you're OK with that special ability you could just transfer it to another race for that PC. Treat it like a unique thing for that one character.
2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.

-

On the question of "Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?" No. Talk to players. IMO player characters should be made in collaboration with the DM. Otherwise you are guaranteeing that the character won't really fit the setting, the campaign or even the party.

Mastikator, I think you're generally correct in saying that people pick races either for the abilities or as a shortcut to making an interesting character. And certainly you're correct that it's the roleplaying that makes a character interesting and that the DM and players should discuss the characters beforehand to make sure it fits because not everything will fit at every table. However I think you are overlooking the fact that having an exotic race enables certain roleplaying elements that might otherwise be impossible. It isn't inherently more interesting to play as a centaur or a warforged or a plasmoid or whatever but those players have options to explore in their roleplaying that the elves and humans don't and that can be a lot of fun for everyone.

So of course talk to the DM and pick something that fits, if you want to be a human in the building a monster town campaign that's probably not gonna fly. But also if you're a DM try to be a little open minded and work with your players to make something fun and don't automatically shoot down everything. And definitely don't punish players for their race unless you've cleared it first. We get enough of that junk in real life, no need to foul up game night with it.

[Schwann145]

The narratives, settings, and campaigns that I like to run are agnostic about race and in my settings no player is going to be negatively singled out because of their race.

Does this extend to how NPCs treat with other NPCs? Are townsfolk just unbothered by a group of actual fiends strolling up, until they start doing the evil? If they are afraid of fiends (as they likely should be; specific plot narrative aside) then why aren't they equally bothered by the tiefling player (who, by all accounts, looks exactly like a full-blooded fiend)?
If the party is brought on to help deal with a region suffering dragon attacks and pillaging, how could the locals not be bothered by the Dragonborn PC (more so if they share a color with the villain dragon[s])?

[EggKookoo]

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

Some of my favorite D&D memories are in a friend's old 2e campaign where we could only play humans. It really sold the world as a world, rather than as a game.

In my current stuff, I let players pick whatever race they want, but I still "tribalize" NPCs to a large degree. Orcs hang out with orcs, elves hang out with elves, etc. (and of course factions within those tribes). This allows the players their freedom but I'm also frequenly reminding them that their willingness to associate outside their race is viewed as at least unusual. I also have one tiefling player and we worked out that she's not welcome in her home town, and really only survives by living most of the time in a large cosmopolitan city where people are less shocked by her novelty. Tiefling NPCs are rare.

[GloatingSwine]

Almost everyone you meet is going to hate you on sight.

Do you want murderhobos? That's how you get murderhobos.

[kingcheesepants]

Does this extend to how NPCs treat with other NPCs? Are townsfolk just unbothered by a group of actual fiends strolling up, until they start doing the evil? If they are afraid of fiends (as they likely should be; specific plot narrative aside) then why aren't they equally bothered by the tiefling player (who, by all accounts, looks exactly like a full-blooded fiend)?
If the party is brought on to help deal with a region suffering dragon attacks and pillaging, how could the locals not be bothered by the Dragonborn PC (more so if they share a color with the villain dragon[s])?

Well tieflings aren't so exotic in my games that people would assume that they're fiends. I've never run a game where a group of fiends that could pass for tieflings (cambions, and succubi I guess) tried to openly walk into a town. But I suppose that if such were to happen the folks might assume that they were tieflings and leave them alone until they did something to warrant intervention.

As for a dragonborn, there's clearly a big difference between an actual dragon and a dragonborn. I don't think that there needs to be some explanation as to how some townspeople could wrap their heads around the idea that the clearly humanoid dragon guy and the gargantuan flying creature wrecking town aren't necessarily in cahoots. But if we were doing a dragon that was the same color as one of the players I'd talk to the player and see how they felt about being a descendant of that dragon. If the player was cool with it there would definitely be some scenes about that.

[grarrrg]

First and foremost, players are "Special".
Yes Tieflings may be overrepresented -from a player standpoint- (good Drow ranger anyone?), but each game is its own world, separate from other games. You still only have a couple 'important' ones per world.




Rewinding to the top a bit. So much of this actually needs to be explained with "BACKSTORY" whether DM world-building or Player Nonsense, so I'll try to keep it as vague as possible.
You lumped Gnomes and Half-Elves into the box.
Yes, they're 'rare', but no one is likely to even notice.
Humans are common, elves are common. Half-elves will blend in too well.
Likewise, Dwarves and Halflings are common. That one over there (gnome) probably just looks like a slightly un-hairy dwarf kid, and/or a weird halfling that likes wearing shoes (ew).


Extending that logic to the others a bit...
What does the common folk know about Orcs?
Big, green, loincloth-wooden-club-grunts-caveman-vibe, probably eats people.
So then this big lump of man/thing (half-orc) walks into town, wearing perfectly normal clothes, speaking perfectly acceptable common.
Well, he kinda looks Orc-ish, but he can't really be an Orc now can he? He acts like a People! Still gonna be wary of him, but no need to call the guards on him just because.

Then extend that logic to Dragonborns, who don't have the whole 'eats people' thing.

Tieflings are the trickiest. Probably why they have the worst overall reputation write-up in the book.
Worth pointing out that the book says they have "normal human skin tones, and maybe red", so we're more concerned about the "large horns" thing.


And throwing a Warforged into Greyhawk is definitely a "the DM allowed it, so the DM must fix it" problem.

[Millstone85]

If they are afraid of fiends (as they likely should be; specific plot narrative aside) then why aren't they equally bothered by the tiefling player (who, by all accounts, looks exactly like a full-blooded fiend)?

I've never run a game where a group of fiends that could pass for tieflings (cambions, and succubi I guess) tried to openly walk into a town.

It is funny, isn't it? To us, the modern design of the tiefling looks like a classic devil or demon. But to D&D characters, the closest thing to a tiefling would be a cambion, another creature of mixed mortal/fiendish heritage.

[KorvinStarmast]

To quote the PHB:

It seems that many (most?) tables just totally ignore the above.

Not sure how many hundreds of tables you play at ...
Well, let's see.
Dragonborn.
Not a fan but I have two PCs who play brother golden dragons. 1 Sorcerer (draconic) and one Paladin, Devotion.
Gnome. When I DM, that is not a selectable race. I have played alongside a few gnomes.
Half-EIf. We have them, but I don't see them picked a lot.
Half-Orc. If you can justify why a half orc is in the party, based on the adventure world, it's fine. I play one, still, in World of Greyhawk (began with the Giant's campaign) and we have one in the Saltmarsh campaign I run.
Tiefling. Not allowed as PCs in any game I DM. The 5e tiefling has a lot of things wrong with it, as does the Kenku.

I have had to adventure with two so far as a fellow player; one was all edge lordy. The other was a bard who was a blast to play with. (The player just got it right, that's all I'm saying).

I imagine a lot of this has to do with the fact that Critical Role also ignores all of the above and 5e owes a lot of it's popularity to CR.

I am not sure that's true, but maybe it is partly true?

Or do we just ignore the PHB and kitchen sink everything?

Who is this we? Each world goes through its own world building process.

"But what if some Goblins are good, actually?" and then we go down one of D&D's rabbit hole spirals of doom.
Can we just not?

Thank you. It fits fine in a web comic.

Also who even knows WTF a Tabaxi even is!?

An annoying trope that I got tired of in the 80's based on the SF I was reading. (CJ Cherryh).

But ultimately you're talking about preventing someone from (or at the very least providing a huge disincentive to) playing the character that they want to play, and I don't think that that's constructive.

Need to play something/someone that fits into the game world. (Though for one shots I can see that not needing to be a concern).

Almost everyone you meet is going to hate you on sight.
So are you telling me I should roll a new character or not?

If you followed my one page campaign summary before you created a character, you'd not havev to ask that question. I always have a pitch, and guidelines.
Always.

In my campaign I gave the players a list of allowed races.

This is the way.

... turned out she wanted the Drow High Magic feat, I just told her she can play any elf with that feat, she ended up picking shadow elf and we just said that the feat is an evolution of her dragonmark.

Well DM'd!
I personally detest gating feats behind race / origin, and wish they would have never done that. The above example is another reason why.

I think there are two reasons players pick exotic races:
1) they want some special ability from that race, if you're OK with that special ability you could just transfer it to another race for that PC. Treat it like a unique thing for that one character.

2) they want to make an interesting character, and using exotic races is a cheat code for that. I think those players are in for a bit of disappointment, it's the roleplaying that is (or isn't) interesting, a funny hat is not.

Well said.

IMO player characters should be made in collaboration with the DM. Otherwise you are guaranteeing that the character won't really fit the setting, the campaign or even the party.

Yep. All three of those have to be addressed.

You lumped Gnomes and Half-Elves into the box.

I think the PHB did that.

And throwing a Warforged into Greyhawk is definitely a "the DM allowed it, so the DM must fix it" problem.

Correct.
One of my PCs (the character is now retired, RL scheduling issues) was a Fire Genasi artificer. I don't generally allow artificers, but he started while it was still UA and I like the player. He is now working with the city council in a city and working on perfecting the formula for whale curd cheese (which is a delicacy/high end item like caviar) as an NPC. (He's level 11).

[Imbalance]

Having read those same blurbs when I started, I found in practice that fantasy racism is both dull and difficult to reconcile in a weird world full of weirdos. At most, I played around with some expectation subversion in the stigma about rural intolerance vs. metropolitan acceptance where a major city, having dealt more with fiendish evil, for example, was far less sympathetic than the podunk village where the very unsophisticated community was far more welcoming of outsiders.

[KorvinStarmast]

... rural intolerance vs. metropolitan acceptance where a major city, having dealt more with fiendish evil, for example, was far less sympathetic than the podunk village where the very unsophisticated community was far more welcoming of outsiders.

I play that almost the opposite, but I like what you did there.

[Unoriginal]

I've never run a game where a group of fiends that could pass for tieflings (cambions, and succubi I guess) tried to openly walk into a town. But I suppose that if such were to happen the folks might assume that they were tieflings and leave them alone until they did something to warrant intervention.

In the campaign I'm going to start soon, one of the NPCs is not only a Cambion, but also an emissary of Tiamat, and aside from hiding her wings with magic she doesn't disguise herself while walking into town at all.

It works because people aren't expecting a Cambion to just walk into town, so they just rationalize her as being "a Tiefling, and probably one of those Sorcerers with dragon bits here and there."

It is funny, isn't it? To us, the modern design of the tiefling looks like a classic devil or demon. But to D&D characters, the closest thing to a tiefling would be a cambion, another creature of mixed mortal/fiendish heritage.

And the only full-fledged Devils who look even somewhat close are Imps and a few of the Archdevils.

It's because the current pop culture of the Devil as just a guy with horns and red skin (or even just red clothes) is a very diluted and sugar-free remain of how people conceptualized that in the past, and D&D's Devils are full of call-back to those past depictions (plus D&D's own mythology).

[RSP]

I think it just all depends on what the table wants to play.

If, in making a PC, role playing that they’re a being that might not be readily accepted is part of what the Player is looking forward to, and the DM is on board with it, have fun!

If the DM or Player don’t want to put up with it, hand waive it and move on.

Certainly we shouldn’t feel beholden to such things that it impedes the fun of playing.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I think it's entirely possible to have exotic races without jumping straight to "fantasy racism", a term which poisons the conversation. Exoticism doesn't have to be negative -- it's mostly thought of that way because of the stupid chaotic-good-rebel-evil-kin thing. And if you want to be the chaotic good outcast yearning to throw off the shackles of your evil kin, there need to be some shackles to throw off! If that's the story the player wants his drow character to tell, then treating him like just a regular guy makes that impossible.

[Unoriginal]

Also, in most small communities, adventurers are going to be weirdos regardless of their species.

"Tell me where the Hydra who's terrorizing your sailors is, and we'll kill it. Me and my group need one of its head for a magic ritual that is required to free all the ghosts in a cursed bloodline from the influence of a powerful Yugoloth, so we'll fight that Hydra for free" is gonna be weird as heck for a village leader to hear. Next to that, that one of the party members looks like an humanoid toad isn't that odd.

Especially when the village leader probably heard of toad people from people who met them, or maybe they even met some themselves, but people working for free? That's unheard of, outside of legends.

[J-H]

It varies from campaign to campaign and table to table.
I usually do "Mostly PHB races" and I think I've only had one tiefling and no Aasimar (why the discrimination against Good?). Plenty of elves, humans, half-elves, and some dwarves, half-orcs, and halflings. The only dragonborn is one played by my son (wizard), and no gnomes at all.
I've had Warforged as an option a few times, but nobody's taken it.

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think it's entirely possible to have exotic races without jumping straight to "fantasy racism", a term which poisons the conversation.

But it happens with tiresome frequency.

Especially when the village leader probably heard of toad people from people who met them, or maybe they even met some themselves, but people working for free? That's unheard of, outside of legends.

Toad people? That's Mr. Bullywug to you!

It varies from campaign to campaign and table to table.
I usually do "Mostly PHB races" and I think I've only had one tiefling and no Aasimar (why the discrimination against Good?).
The PHB team couldn't be bothered to put an Aasimar in just after Tiefling.

Lazy, or, catering to edglords, or perhpas liking the Tiefling from 4e? Some of the 5e team were also on the 4e team.

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

Yes.

[JonBeowulf]

<snip>

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

Preach it! We got enough problems here and we're the only sentients present (for now). Having 4-8 should be enough to eliminate the cry of fantasy racism.

But it's very difficult to rescue some players from the inescapable pull of a certain drow elf who went on interesting adventures in the northern wastes of Faerun. "He was special, why can't I be?" Because you're not R. A. Salvatore!

[Dr.Samurai]

For my part, it seems silly to me that D&D people would live in a world full of very real and dangerous and magical and deceptive monsters, and then extend a massive benefit of the doubt to monstrous looking creatures.

It requires, to my mind, an elevated awareness of the world, lots of information moving freely between cities/nations/etc. and a confidence that allows for suppressing fear/defense responses when confronted with something that looks like other dangerous somethings.

Which is all to say, feels much more modern and much less medieval fantasy.

It also takes some of the wonder out of the world for me. I can imagine the DM describing something wondrous and fantastical, meanwhile we've been adventuring with a walking and talking ooze, a robot, and an angel.

And I agree with the sentiment that this might apply to casters as well. If you think that wizards would have such an awesome reputation to justify the "ignore the frontline, blitz the caster" galaxy brain strategy, then stands to reason that NPCs WOULD be rather cautious and distrustful around casters, given their awesome power.

When magic and monsters are ubiquitous and trivial, then it all loses its luster.

[Unoriginal]

Generally, a setting only needs 4-8 sentient humanoid PC species. After that, it's just bloat that's hard to fit into the worldbuilding.

I for one am very happy that D&D has a ton of sapient species and subspecies.

So long as half of them aren't elves.

Toad people? That's Mr. Bullywug to you!

I had a lot of fun making the Bullywugs my PCs met react to the Grung PC with the equivalent of "oh my god, a talking frog".

[stoutstien]

Preach it! We got enough problems here and we're the only sentients present (for now). Having 4-8 should be enough to eliminate the cry of fantasy racism.

But it's very difficult to rescue some players from the inescapable pull of a certain drow elf who went on interesting adventures in the northern wastes of Faerun. "He was special, why can't I be?" Because you're not R. A. Salvatore!

It's not so much that fantasy racism is the default option it's that that usually systems are really bad at integrating conflicts.

Good vs evil isn't something that you build off of because it's not interesting nor is there any give to it thanks rather than just objective moral views. Almost all the complaints about fantasy racism boils down to this one problem. If the conflict is about social safety versus freedom you have a lot more to work with.

**There's also nothing wrong with playing against type it just needs to be rare enough so it's actually still playing against type. Yes this means that sometimes you got to allow one player to do something and not allow the rest of the table but that might be difficult for some groups.**

[JellyPooga]

When magic and monsters are ubiquitous and trivial, then it all loses its luster.

Absolutely this. If I'm playing a non-human, I want it to be recognised for how unusual it is in human lands. I want my dwarf to be persecuted in the elven forest just as much as they'd be lauded in human lands for their fortitude and craftsmanship. I want my half-orc not to be trusted in the village plagued by orc raiders or the elf nation at war with the neighbouring orcs. Likewise, I want my half-orc to be accepted better than the human or elf when we're taking the diplomatic route with the orcs.

The problem is that too often players play non-humans as humans-with-benefits. At least in rubber-forehead Star Trek, the Klingons and Romulans have a distinct and recognisable culture that the vast majority of PCs and NPCs live up to.