Exotic species aren't so exotic, eh?

[KorvinStarmast]

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.

Well put. In my version of the World of Greyhawk, arcane casters are viewed with caution or suspicion as a default; divine casters face the same to a lesser degree. Magic is powerful and dangerous, so unless you show that you are reliable and not an unsafe menace, you'll be held at an arm's length.

{1} this is related to the in world origin of the Rain of Colorless fire...and my take on the ripple effects of that calamity. (As mentioned before, dragon clans tend to hunt down wizards and artificers and kill them, eat them, or banish them).

The problem is that too often players play non-humans as humans-with-benefits.

Which is at least predictable because the players are human.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Which is at least predictable because the players are human.

It's also predictable because DMs treat the characters that way.

[Skrum]

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.

I lean in this direction as well, but I think in practice there's a few problems with it
1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice) over and over again gets old and time consuming and begins to distract from the game. Peppering in something like that to add a twist to an interaction, maybe. But just like mundane things like travel and buying supplies get glossed over and footnoted, pushing most interactions with random NPC's to the back is preferable. Having most NPCs be distrustful of the PCs makes that difficult
2) DnD is a game, and most people like a degree of escapism. That means not shoving things like prejudice to the forefront. Yes it's a "less realistic" way to run the game. But game is still the main word there; people gather to have fun, and again, dealing with racism or taking a social penalty because of your race choice gets old

If I was going to lean into this kind of stuff as a DM, I would want to make it clear during session 0. Possibly even restrict race choices, or at least make it clear what someone was getting in to by picking tiefling, orc, elf, etc.

[EggKookoo]

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.

In my current game, most commoners don't know that there even is a difference between gnomes and haflings, let alone possess the ability to distinguish them. Same with half-elves and (most) elves. They're just "people with the pointed ears."

Actually, most dwarves are just seen as shorter, stockier humans. You need to spend time with them to understand how much "I'm a dwarf!" is biological.

[Unoriginal]

I lean in this direction as well, but I think in practice there's a few problems with it
1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice)

Having a Human NPC recognize that the dragon-person who can breath deadly ice is different form Humans isn't racism or prejudice.

It can lead to either, sure, but that's not inherently the case.


If the same interaction happens with every NPC, then it's the DM who isn't up to snuff when it comes to create varied interactions.

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".

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I lean in this direction as well, but I think in practice there's a few problems with it
1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice) over and over again gets old and time consuming and begins to distract from the game. Peppering in something like that to add a twist to an interaction, maybe. But just like mundane things like travel and buying supplies get glossed over and footnoted, pushing most interactions with random NPC's to the back is preferable. Having most NPCs be distrustful of the PCs makes that difficult
2) DnD is a game, and most people like a degree of escapism. That means not shoving things like prejudice to the forefront. Yes it's a "less realistic" way to run the game. But game is still the main word there; people gather to have fun, and again, dealing with racism or taking a social penalty because of your race choice gets old

If I was going to lean into this kind of stuff as a DM, I would want to make it clear during session 0. Possibly even restrict race choices, or at least make it clear what someone was getting in to by picking tiefling, orc, elf, etc.

I mean I think you have to make that clear during session 0 regardless. That should be part of the setting briefing. Is the world cosmopolitan, or is it one where elves live here and dwarves live here and they haven't spoken to each other since the Dark Times? And if you have players for whom this would be troubling, adjust your game and your world. Don't trigger your players in the name of verisimilitude, because it is a game.

In terms of dealing with NPCs, if the campaign remains in the same general area, the NPCs should react differently to the players over time. Slaim the hunter (orc assassin 3/gloomstalker x) is distrusted when he arrives in Saltmarsh, but when he uncovers the smuggling ring in The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh he gains a few allies, one of whom is influential enough to assign him to handle the lizardfolk problem in Danger at Dunwater. When that's resolved successfully, and nonviolently, he and his party are the choice of a grateful population to stop the sahuagin The Final Enemy. After defeating the sahuagin, he doesn't need to buy another drink in Saltmarsh again, and those who still discriminate against him are shunned. Word spreads through the surrounding area and yadda yadda blah blah. You don't need to roleplay 'it is hard to buy bread' every single time the player wants to buy bread, but if you do it once or twice, you can then do a scene later where that same someone just gives him the bread by way of thanks and apology. Look! The world changed a little and you the players did it! For some parties, that's more rewarding than 'there was a Bad king and now there is a Good king. On to the next place!'

[Skrum]

If the same interaction happens with every NPC, then it's the DM who isn't up to snuff when it comes to create varied interactions.

Can change the words but "I don't trust you or like you because you're different than me" would get old if it gets repeated by every NPC they try to talk to. And just unnecessarily slows the game.

[Dr.Samurai]

How is it slowing the game down if it's part of the world, the player choices, and the role-playing?

This is just a session 0 thing, that's all. No reason to assume no one wants it but somehow it's being enforced. I agree it would get old having to react to a tiefling in every town; so don't allow it .

[RedMage125]

Player Race Options in my game are separated into 3 categories: Green/Yellow/Red Light. Green Light is most stuff, no restriction. But I do have some extra notes for how these races generally fit into my world.
Yellow Light is "yes, but..." and includes some sort of restriction (see Drow, below, for an example), and Red Light means "My default answer is 'no'". If a player has a concept that uses a Red Light element, and it REALLY impresses me, I may allow it, but they'll still be unique. I'm a lot less likely to relent if I banned an option for balance issues.

Spoiler: Note:

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A good chunk of my setting (Antheron) has been shaped by 2 major events in the last few centuries. 1- The War of Shadows (This was the plotline of a 3.x game I ran in college), the drow invaded the surface in a war that lasted almost 20 years. A great deal of the Sylvanwood (enormous forested region) was damaged or destroyed. The old dwarven king actually allied with the drow, until he was betrayed and assassinated by them, his son (who is still the current king) broke that alliance and joined with the surface races to fight the drow. This war ended about 500 years ago. 2- The Godswar, some time after the WoS, reality was invaded by the Primordials, titanic elemental beings of great power. They caused great planar upheaval, the Prime was altered forever, and several gods died, others surrendered their divinity to successors. One key takeaway is that many deities are now worshipped across racial lines (Moradin is the god of the forge for all races, for example). This ended around 350-400 years ago.

Spoiler: Green Light

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Elves: I use longer elven lifespans. An Elf reaches Middle Age around 500, Venerable at 750, and doesn't usually die of natural causes until 900-1,000. Elves usually have a low birth rate, but that's because they naturally attune to their environment, and their population is affected by what the region can sustain. However, thousands of elves had died during the War of Shadows. On top of that, the Sylvanwood has been growing back for almost 500 years, so in that time, elves have experienced a population boom that has only recently begun to slow down. More than half the elves of the world are under 500 years old. Wood Elves typically live in forest-cities. High Elves typically live in Mountain cities. Eladrin are descended from elves who used Elven High magic to retreat to the Feywild during the Godswar, and their cities only reappeared a few decades ago, so they're relatively new to most people. Shadar-kai live in the Shadowfell (but there is no Raven Queen in my world).

Dwarves: Dwarves are also long-lived. They reach Middle Age at 300, Venerable at 500, and typically die of old age around the 700 year mark. The differences between dwarf subraces are mostly cultural. After the War of Shadows, many did not trust dwarves, and many dwarves were ashamed of what their king did. Some chose to forsake returning to dwarven lands and stayed on the surface. These are Hill Dwarves. Mountain Dwarves are the ones who returned to dwarven lands, and rarely mixed with other races. In the last century, this has started to finally relax, and some Hill dwarf families moved back to their ancestral homes, and some Mountain dwarves left the mountains to mingle with other races (so players don't have to feel OBLIGED to be one or the other).

Halflings: Stout halflings are like hobbits. They live in hilly fields and live pretty laid back lives. Lightfoot halflings are largely nomadic, travelling in communities with wagons that convert to houseboats to travel riverways.

Half-Elves: While mixing human with elf still results in a half-elf, most of them have one or more half-elf parent. No amount of breeding back into elf lines will ever result in a full-blooded elf again, and as long as they're at least 1/8th elf, they are mechanically a "half-elf".

Half-orcs: Similar to half-elves, it takes generations to breed out the orc blood to produce a full human. Most half-orcs have at least one half-orc parent.

Dragonborn: There is a southern continent that, before the Godswar, was isolated from Antheron. Here, the Drakkensari Empire (or, Empire of the Drakkensrad) rules. The culture is similar to feudal Japan, with true dragons ruling as daimyos over dragonborn. In the Drakkensrad, dragons do not always follow typical alignment conventions like in Antheron. During the Godwar, the two continents became connected by a new landmass that now bridges them. Since then, many dragonborn emigrated north, as their society offers little chance for upward mobility. Dragonborn are now very common in Antheron. Some still hold to the tenets of Bushido, but not all.

Gnomes: Not too much deviation from core. However, gnomes have not, in recorded history, ever held their own lands. They live peacefully among humans, elves, dwarves and halflings. Rock Gnomes, in particular, are viewed as "little cousins" by Mountain Dwarves. Forest Gnomes are more common among Elves. Those that live in more cosmopolitan "mixed" towns and cities are of both subraces.

Spoiler: Yellow Light

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Drow: Drow get special mention. Most drow worship Lolth and are evil. However, there is a small town of drow who, over the course of centuries, have created an isolated haven on the surface. The town is neutral ground for the followers of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun. Some of these drow actually disguised themselves and helped defend the human city of Cyran during the War of Shadows. In gratitude, Cyran opened their doors to them and their families. It took over a century for the residents of Cyran to get used to them, but now they are. Player Characters who wish to be drow MUST be from one of these two communities. No "underdark rebels".

Kobolds: Most kobolds live as described in Volo's. But there's one city where they're different. Scalyheart is built into a volcano, and these kobolds are somewhat cleaner and more civilized. They're still usually Lawful Evil, but they've learned the value of cooperation and trade with their neighbors. They feel little kinship with other kobolds, who live like animals to their standards. Players may choose to play as a Scalyheart kobold.

Planar Refugees: During the Godswar, the planes were in great upheaval, and extremely unsafe. Mortal races dwelling in the planes, not having immortal ties to the planes themselves, fled to the Material Plane. These races are all often collectively referred to as "planar refugees", even though some members may have lived on the Prime before the Godswar, the overwhelming majority of members of these races have only been on the Prime for a few centuries. Planar refugee races are: Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, Gith.

Spoiler: Red Light

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RED LIGHT RACES
Gnolls: While gnolls who worship Yeenoghu (and reproduce in the manner discussed in Volo’s Guide) exist, they make up only about 25% of all Antheron gnolls. The remaining 75% of gnolls are a true-breeding race, and refer to these demonic gnolls as “The Butcher’s Brood”. The majority of gnolls tend to follow Primal traditions, and the majority of them see themselves as the chosen of Ragashak, the Chaotic Evil deity of beasts, slaughter, and winter. Druids, Rangers and Barbarians are very common among them. A small number (less than 5%) of gnolls are non-evil. But these tribes are extremely xenophobic. The only non-gnolls they interact with are usually druids.

Goblinoids: Goblinoids in Antheron are usually evil, and most of them quite primitive. Hobgoblins are a notable exception, but even they, while civilized, live in a martial society where might makes right. Hobgoblins tend to dominate Bugbears and Goblins. It would be extremely unusual for a hobgoblin (and even more unusual for a bugbear or goblin) to leave their society and adventure among other races. Not to mention that most people would flee from or attack them on sight. Since the Godwar, there is an established goblinoid "nation" (really a collective of small city-states) to the east in Antheron, but not all goblinoids headed there, and contact with it is minimal.

Orcs and Yuan-ti: Very little deviation from core.

Races from other settings: There are no dragonmarks in Antheron. No warforged. No Shifters, No Changelings, and No Kalashtar. None of the races from Ravnica exist, either. Centaurs exist, but not the Medium sized variety found in the Theros book. Minotaurs likewise exist, but almost all are under the sway of the demon lord Baphomet. Leonins do not exist. Satyrs are mischievous fey that prefer their lives in the Feywild.
Tabaxi: There isn’t currently a place for Tabaxi in Antheron. And until this changes, they're Red Light.
Winged Races: This is a game balance issue, and at-will flight from level 1 is something that too easily mitigates low level challenges. So no Aarakocra, Winged Tieflings, or Owlkin.
Witchlight Races: While Harengon and Faeries exist in the Feywild, they are not known for travelling to the Material Plane, and such a character would be a unique aberrant, even among their own kind.

With regard to "fantasy racism", there's some mistrust, and it's varying degrees of justified. Orcs and goblinoids are often evil, and attack other humanoids. So most humanoids are wary of them. Drow have a reputation for evil and cruelty, and they attacked the surface a few generations ago, but some people have heard that Cyran has a community of them. What's ironic about Cyran is that the city has, in recent decades, suffered an unusually high amount of fiendish cult activity that caused all sorts of problems. And the common folk, unfortunately, are inordinately suspicious of tieflings as a result. So while everywhere else, tieflings are more or less warily accepted and drow are treated with suspicion...in Cyran, drow are completely accepted, but tieflings are treated with borderline hostility. This extends to NPCs as well. A kobold PC might be accepted in the towns and cities close to Scalyheart, but further from that, they'll experience mistrust.

Bottom line is: if a hobgoblin, kobold, or drow walks into town with a group of humans and dwarves, it's going to raise eyebrows, but not "attack on sight".

[Unoriginal]

Can change the words but "I don't trust you or like you because you're different than me" would get old if it gets repeated by every NPC they try to talk to. And just unnecessarily slows the game.

Again, why would it be "I don't trust you or like you"?

It would get old because the DM is unable or unwilling to come up with a different interaction than species-based antagonism.

Why can't it be something like "I hear Dragonborn have a strong martial tradition. Wanna spar this afternoon?" or "As a Forest Gnome who lived in a magical forest, what is your opinion on the preparations this expedition to a different magical forest is taking?" or even "you're a Duergar, you know the culture better than anyone here, what are the chances the Duergar Warlord is being truthful when they say that they're willing to help against our common enemy without expecting anything in return?"

[Ionathus]

I don't find it strange at all that players would want unique character creation options.

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.

This take is either unkind or unimaginative. I think it's obvious why someone would see more potential for a unique backstory and worldview in something like Dragonborn or Tiefling, compared to the Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits Halflings that have been done to death and back again since LotR came out, got copied, became the Fantasy Gold Standard, got parodied, got adapted to film, and got the soul wrung out of it for profit half a dozen times.

Yes, obviously you can tell a unique story with a human fighter. Fantasy race isn't the only determining factor. But something about these unique D&D races draws people to them, and I think there's a lot more than your two options going on there.

I can't remember where, but somewhere in one of the The The Adventure Zone Zone episodes (that's not a typo, that's what they call their BTS recaps ), Justin McElroy talks about why he chose to play a wispy, selfish, antiauthoritarian, gay, effeminate elf wizard in The Adventure Zone. He was worried that if he created a character who was too similar to himself, he would wind up playing an idealized version of himself, and he preferred to make a clean break and explore a completely new world with a completely new personality and outlook instead.

Again, not to say that you have to be totally "out there." Just that there are numerous reasons why people would be interested in the exotic race options beyond "trying to overoptimize" and "lazy roleplaying".

[JellyPooga]

1) As was noted up thread, having the same interaction with NPCs (some variety of racism or prejudice) over and over again gets old and time consuming and begins to distract from the game. Peppering in something like that to add a twist to an interaction, maybe. But just like mundane things like travel and buying supplies get glossed over and footnoted, pushing most interactions with random NPC's to the back is preferable. Having most NPCs be distrustful of the PCs makes that difficult

The game is those interactions, though. If I'm a Wizard walking into Athkatla, where spellcasting is banned by the authority of the Cowled Wizards, I'd be pretty disappointed in my GM if my going around casting spells went A) unnoticed by the authorities and B) ignored by the locals I'm interacting with. The same should apply as much to my Dwarf finding it easier gathering rumours in a Dwarf bar as it should to a dark-cowled Tiefling with facial tattoos marking them as a devotee of Asmodeus having trouble getting services at the church of all that's pure and light. I would feel my GM is ignoring who and what my character is and part of the reason I'm playing that character. I didn't choose it for some mechanical benefit, I chose it to be exotic. If I want to play a flamboyant, outspoken and notable character, I would feel put out if none of my actions gathered any attention or fame, just as much as if I'm intentionally playing, with full disclosure to the GM, an inconspicuous character who constantly gets called out and persecuted simply because my character sheet says "Rogue" on it (often despite being more "good" than the outspoken and alleged "Lawful Good" Paladin or Cleric). My character race is a clear, outward facing and character defining aspect of my avatar in the game; I need it to mean something beyond a couple of statistics that are largely irrelevant when compared to the cultural and societal impact of that choice.

As @Unoriginal says, cultural or racial distinction by no means has to have negative connotations and though they often will, those are obstacles to overcome as readily as any trap, locked door or guard sentry and that's no less part of the game than any combat encounter.

[sithlordnergal]

The way I see it, even if those biases exist, the racist ones don't really have much of a choice but to be polite. In game, the reason is usually because the racists don't really have much choice but to accept the aid of these adventurers, along with a healthy does of fear. If your only option to stop the bandits is that Tiefling, you pay them and hope they never bother you again. If the Tiefling comes back after killing every single Bandit, you pray they don't murder the town and treat them very politely to avoid being killed. Out of game, its because I find players tend to take personal slights from NPCs very, very personally, and will go out of their way to harm that NPC. I'm no different in that regard as a player.

Pretty sure I've only ever had one NPC that avoided being punished for screwing with the players. And the only reason they didn't punish him is because they realized doing so would either be more trouble than he was worth for them. The NPC in question was an Ancient Copper Dragon that sold joke magic items that were cursed. His entire hoard was made up of nothing but Copper Pieces and a single Electrum, and he paid for everything in Copper Pieces cause he found it hilarious. They didn't want to try and take his hoard cause they didn't have a way to carry 55 million Copper Pieces, and they didn't want to subject some poor officer to having a huge fine paid in pennies. XD

[Telonius]

Some people love playing against type. For this kind of player, seeing the phrase, "This is rare," causes a ding and a "Challenge Accepted!" to appear in their brain. If Drizzt hadn't existed, they would have invented him.

Personally I just go with it, kitchen sink as long as it plays well with the rest of the party. Most of the adventures I make are pretty setting-agnostic. If someone wants to play a Kender in Eberron, or a Warforged in Faerun? As long as the rest of the party doesn't end up wanting to murder them, go for it. The people who wrote the settings don't play at my table, so I'm not too concerned about offending them.

[MonochromeTiger]

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.

I could get into debating the whole "absolute power corrupts absolutely" thing but it's repeated often enough I've somewhat given up on the idea my opinion would really sway anyone. More appropriately, sure, class reputations are interesting and can be useful in my opinion. Only issue being, like stereotypes about different player-character races, it's very easy for them to go from "interesting setting detail" to "players feel stifled or annoyed or it brings up bad associations" and relies heavily on players actually buying in to the idea to be anything but the DM just feeling like it and making everyone sit through it.

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)_/

Problem is there's a difference between "you lost your save in this clear game mechanic" and "your character is treated worse and has to work harder to prove themselves to a bunch of people who are doing their darnedest to make you hate them because I chose to act on a short blurb even the game's devs will acknowledge isn't actually that important." The Kenku example again, it's technically in their race's rules and description, it's technically a core detail of Kenku, but I'd be shocked if anyone actually decided to make a Kenku player stick to only speaking through mimicked sounds both because it's not worth the hassle and because it would get unbearably annoying real fast.

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

Should they? Why would they? Some people will, some people will get invested in all the little minor details about the settings they're playing in (despite WotC gradually homogenizing most of those settings and removing many of those unique details) and if they find a DM like you they'll probably do fine. Not every DM is you and not every player is the person who will look through and internalize every minor detail instead of going "oh well this looks cool, I want to play one of these" and picking a class.

Please correct me if I'm entirely off base here but the thread's original question kind of feels like a case of you wanting to see and do a specific story and wondering why it's not more common. That story, one about overcoming social bias and harmful associations to get the respect of people who see you with suspicion and fear, is a story that some people are uncomfortable with and some have already seen so many times that it's just an annoying hurdle they're forced to jump over. To repeat my earlier post, you can do those stories and you can have them work but it's very much a matter of "know your audience." You want players who will accept and engage with it then you have to find those players and get them in your game, but just springing it on people without warning because they should've read a specific sentence in a specific book has a chance of ending very poorly.

For context all of this is being said by a guy who has multiple Evil campaigns as both a player and DM and routinely gets into discussing and engaging with topics much worse than "they're wary of you because you're a Tiefling" in various games. When I say some players will react badly I'm not saying all, you absolutely can find people who will play those games without issues and actually work through a topic that others might find difficult in a mature way without resorting to comments in bad taste or turning something bad into a joke; but those people who do find these topics difficult are still there, they shouldn't be forgotten or ignored, and you should absolutely figure out if they'll have a problem with this kind of thing ahead of time and be open to the possibility that they overestimated their tolerance for it and feel the need to back out when actually presented with it.

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.

If you're playing in the former or the latter there's also another question not being asked here. How does Villager #8 out in the middle of nowhere even know what a Devil or Demon looks like to know the Tiefling looks like them? How do they know "yeah there's Dragons and those Red ones are super Evil" but not "also there's all these other Dragons that are Good all the time"? Or for that matter that any Dragon capable off taking a Humanoid form is more likely to be that one Noble with a ton of unexplained wealth who always dresses in a weirdly specific color palette instead of the Dragonborn who is way too on the nose to be a worthwhile disguise?

This entire issue is predicated on everyone knowing enough specific info to have a strong bias that has to be overcome but not enough info realize things are more complicated than just "this is evil." Somehow, across an entire setting, this tightrope is being walked where they have the exact level of knowledge needed for it to cause problems for the player characters to deal with, without fail. It honestly boggles the mind how that can work unless there's people whose entire job is going city to city, village to village, gossiping about only the worst things they can think of and giving unusually detailed descriptions of what they look like for comparison purposes.

[Dr.Samurai]

If you're playing in the former or the latter there's also another question not being asked here. How does Villager #8 out in the middle of nowhere even know what a Devil or Demon looks like to know the Tiefling looks like them? How do they know "yeah there's Dragons and those Red ones are super Evil" but not "also there's all these other Dragons that are Good all the time"? Or for that matter that any Dragon capable off taking a Humanoid form is more likely to be that one Noble with a ton of unexplained wealth who always dresses in a weirdly specific color palette instead of the Dragonborn who is way too on the nose to be a worthwhile disguise?

This entire issue is predicated on everyone knowing enough specific info to have a strong bias that has to be overcome but not enough info realize things are more complicated than just "this is evil." Somehow, across an entire setting, this tightrope is being walked where they have the exact level of knowledge needed for it to cause problems for the player characters to deal with, without fail. It honestly boggles the mind how that can work unless there's people whose entire job is going city to city, village to village, gossiping about only the worst things they can think of and giving unusually detailed descriptions of what they look like for comparison purposes.

I mean... we live in a world without these creatures actually being real and people had a fair idea of what they looked like before modern access to information. So no, I don't think it's a big leap to assume that D&D people have an idea of what devils and demons look like, and might assume the worst in someone that comes close to matching that description. The strain in belief is in the other direction actually, that they would master themselves, assume nothing, and provide the benefit of the doubt to something that looks monstrous. In a world full of real monsters.

When you think about what little it took to convince people that someone was a witch or a vampire or cavorting with the devil... it seems absolutely ridiculous to think having full blown horns or fangs or a tail or wings wouldn't illicit a similar reaction.

But to each their own. I'm not fond of the "every NPC is a D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives" games.

[kingcheesepants]

Again, why would it be "I don't trust you or like you"?

It would get old because the DM is unable or unwilling to come up with a different interaction than species-based antagonism.

Why can't it be something like "I hear Dragonborn have a strong martial tradition. Wanna spar this afternoon?" or "As a Forest Gnome who lived in a magical forest, what is your opinion on the preparations this expedition to a different magical forest is taking?" or even "you're a Duergar, you know the culture better than anyone here, what are the chances the Duergar Warlord is being truthful when they say that they're willing to help against our common enemy without expecting anything in return?"

Having exotic characters is fine, having NPCs treat you a bit special because you're different is fine. People aren't making DnD horror stories posts about the DM who had an NPC ask the dragonborn player to spar thanks to his rich martial culture or about the players who asked their duergar companion for help navigating underdark politics.

However many people (myself included) have had bad experiences with games where the tiefling, half orc, etc player was routinely alienated and given the whole hate and fear treatment by just about every NPC and it gets old fast. It's a common enough problem that I always ask in session 0 about it. I've been subjected to enough racism in real life, I'm not interested in playing in a game where I'll have to deal with fantasy racism. And if you haven't been at those tables, that's great. But it is unfortunately a common trope and the way that OP was talking about tieflings looking like fiends and thus they should be feared by the townspeople and how a dragon attack would mark the dragonborn player as a threat makes me think that he is interested in utilizing those tropes and asking why more people don't do so.

I don't do so because I like to have lots of options and think it's fun to be able to play a team with a robot and an angel and a slime and a centaur and I want to have fun going on adventures and beating up badguys, not slowly working to overcome implicit biases or whatever.

[MonochromeTiger]

I mean... we live in a world without these creatures actually being real and people had a fair idea of what they looked like before modern access to information. So no, I don't think it's a big leap to assume that D&D people have an idea of what devils and demons look like, and might assume the worst in someone that comes close to matching that description. The strain in belief is in the other direction actually, that they would master themselves, assume nothing, and provide the benefit of the doubt to something that looks monstrous. In a world full of real monsters.

We live in a world where before modern communication every animal that wasn't readily visible was some fantastical and monstrous thing that had to be defined (usually badly) by comparing it to what was known. Where a Giraffe was a "Camelopard", Dragons could be everything from slightly larger than average lizards to the more modern image to things with six legs and fur, and where there still wasn't a "standard" appearance for many things until much later despite common threads encouraging a shared mythology and belief across multiple communities. The "fair idea of what they looked like" is very much a case of "you saw it, or you saw art of it from somebody else who says they saw it, or you're guessing and likely have a different image than everybody else."

Communication over distances was better than some people give credit for but sharing an actual concrete and agreed upon image of things was still terrible. And yes, we're talking about a fantasy world where actual monsters exist, and many of them are rare and obscure. You've got adventurers, the people who actually go out and fight the things for a living, who can completely fail to recognize what even some of the more common ones are and I'm supposed to expect a tiny village where maybe two people are even literate will know immediately "yep, somebody in that guy's family made a deal with a Fiend" or "that guy's a Dragon when the only account I ever heard of them was a fourth hand story about them being big as a mountain"?

When you think about what little it took to convince people that someone was a witch or a vampire or cavorting with the devil... it seems absolutely ridiculous to think having full blown horns or fangs or a tail or wings wouldn't illicit a similar reaction.

But to each their own. I'm not fond of the "every NPC is a D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives" games.

You'll have to excuse me if I find "well they have horns or fangs so everyone must think they're terrible monsters" is a bit weak when you've got settings where everything from Kobolds to Hobgoblins are a normal sight in cities. What gets accepted and what doesn't is hilariously inconsistent, both between settings and even just between editions, so I don't think people noticing that inconsistency and wondering why it's being so arbitrarily applied for forced conflict means every NPC that doesn't act on it is a "D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives." The fact that we are talking about fantasy settings only makes that worse, yes, some monsters have horns, so do some things that are generally considered friendly or good.

It's really weird to me that the average person in a setting is simultaneously supposed to be so knowledgeable they're aware of all these monsters and their appearances, even the ones that like I said actual adventurers have a decent chance of failing to recognize or that they're unlikely to even see unless they've somehow been traveling between planes or took a vacation in the Underdark, but then conveniently fail to recognize a ton of different player-character races.

[Dr.Samurai]

You are requiring that in order to have suspicion/fear/distrust, a person has to have some sort of perfect or sophisticated knowledge of the creature, and then saying it's unreasonable to expect them to have that knowledge.

In fact, it's more like the opposite is true. I'm not saying that everyone in the D&D world has a perfect idea of what a devil is, but they have some idea. So if something approximates that, then distrust or caution makes sense. I don't think this is anywhere near as unreasonable as you are trying to make the case for.

And you are right in that the setting matters. In Eberron, some creatures won't be so out of place because Eberron is a kitchen sink setting with a nation of monsters and construct mercenaries, etc.

But in a world like Greyhawk where orcs have an evil nation and a cambion demigod has another evil nation with cambion soldiers, tieflings and half-orcs might be met with suspicion or worse. In Dragonlance, where draconians are horrors unleashed on a populace that had never seen them before, dragonborn might get funny looks too. And so on and so forth.

Your standard that NPCs have to be "so knowledgeable" as to recognize obscure and rare monsters in order to justify a fear or distrust of monstrous looking creatures is not reasonable in my opinion. It's like assuming that NPCs are little fawns or baby animals that don't yet know to be wary of the predators that are out there yet, so they go up and sniff a mountain lion.

Farmer, sees an aboleth in its pond: What do you think it is?
Worker: No idea, never seen it before. Must be rare and obscure.
Farmer: Let's go talk to it.
Worker: Nothing about the three eyes, and the tentacles, and the lamprey mouth, and all the slime and muck in the water, and those weird fish people standing around it with transparent skin kind of telling you that maybe we should stay away?
Farmer: No, I've never heard about this creature before so as far as I can tell, there's nothing to worry about. Heck, for all we know it could be drowning in there and need help getting out!

[GeoffWatson]

Back when I played 1st or 2nd edition, some players would often want to play exotic, non-standard races.
If they suffered distrust from NPCs, all the better. That made their character the center of attention, the game became all about them, with the other PCs just being boring sidekicks in the social scenes.
Being treated badly by NPCs was not a punishment for the player at all.

[Emberlily]

I don't find it strange at all that players would want unique character creation options.

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.

This take is either unkind or unimaginative. I think it's obvious why someone would see more potential for a unique backstory and worldview in something like Dragonborn or Tiefling, compared to the Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits Halflings that have been done to death and back again since LotR came out, got copied, became the Fantasy Gold Standard, got parodied, got adapted to film, and got the soul wrung out of it for profit half a dozen times.

even beyond this, the basic assumption that there's some ulterior motive feels extremely uncharitable. why is there an assumption it must be for some big (nefarious or no) reason someone particularly wants to play a tiefling, or a centaur, or a gnome or an orc beyond "doing so would make them happy"? it would feel only fair to assume everyone has hidden motives for playing human or elf and they really need to justify doing so. the book can say 'these are the assumptions built into most official published worlds', but I don't understand bringing in judgement for if someone wants to have their character look a certain way and (if it's not in a short list of choices) not deal with Mandatory Social Issues put in bc the book said so and not bc they are what the player wants or something that specifically aids that game's story.

even beyond desire to not be pushed into "overdone tolkien" setup, there's a very obvious reason people could (and very much do!) gravitate towards character species like that that has nothing to do with being edgy or super special (there's many of these but here's one that jumps out to me and unifies the "exotic looking" thread here): they want a chance to embody a character who looks like nothing they could ever do in real life. if I'm getting a chance to play around and create a fantasy story w my friends I have little interest in being stuck with a range as narrow as [human, human w pointy ears, stocky human, tiny human] when the game puts out all these other options. not because I want other ppl to think my character is so special bc of how she looks but bc it simply makes me happy to have the chance to embody that sort of physicality for a moment. pigeonholing anyone who picks those into very specific, universal interactions makes them less interesting to play at all. if it's something ppl agree would be cool, that works! but unless it's something everyone wants to do, pushing the group to have to include those interactions isn't just going to worsen ppls' experience, it's going to worsen the issue with these choices being felt as done for the sake of being Special and Exotic bc they are pushed into pigeonholed stereotypes instead of individual characters who have full meaning outside of their D&D species. and if yr worried about players foolishly picking a 'cheat code' to being interesting just from their D&D species, pushing all tables into making those species A Huge Deal To Encounter Most Everywhere is going to exacerbate that, isn't it?

(as for disbelief that 5e owes a lot of playerbase to Critical Role, it's definitely the case. a lot of ppl who'd never done ttrpgs before jumped onto 5th in the last several years and before BG3 came out that was p much all "actual play shows" or hearing stories of D&D games from the snowball built up from the actual play-based player rush)

[Hael]

Another anecdotal +1 for setting specific conflict, and not being afraid of having it in game.

I would say that in over 30 years of playing this game, that ”fantasy racism”, classism (fear of casters), and philosophical conflict (evils in the party) tends to be the norm in our games (even if they don’t necessarily coincide with standard tropes). For instance we often play in a setting where elves and humans are at war (loosely modeled after the French-Indian war). I actually don’t like the terms b/c there is a huge spectrum of reactions that doesn’t really fit those word. ‘in group’ vs ‘out group’ might be less loaded words.

Whenever we play Star Trek kitchen sink games, the stakes and settings automatically feel lower and it feels more like a YA novel than a mature setting. Maybe that should be the norm with online strangers, but if you have a veteran group, I don’t really think it works so well over the long term to keep interest.

[Psyren]

Player Race Options in my game are separated into 3 categories: Green/Yellow/Red Light. Green Light is most stuff, no restriction. But I do have some extra notes for how these races generally fit into my world.
Yellow Light is "yes, but..." and includes some sort of restriction (see Drow, below, for an example), and Red Light means "My default answer is 'no'". If a player has a concept that uses a Red Light element, and it REALLY impresses me, I may allow it, but they'll still be unique. I'm a lot less likely to relent if I banned an option for balance issues.

I think a system like this is fine, though I would broaden it to four categories:

• Yes
• Yes, but...
• No, unless...
• No

[KorvinStarmast]

Farmer, sees an aboleth in its pond: What do you think it is?
Worker: No idea, never seen it before. Must be rare and obscure.
Farmer: Let's go talk to it.
Worker: Nothing about the three eyes, and the tentacles, and the lamprey mouth, and all the slime and muck in the water, and those weird fish people standing around it with transparent skin kind of telling you that maybe we should stay away?
Farmer: No, I've never heard about this creature before so as far as I can tell, there's nothing to worry about. Heck, for all we know it could be drowning in there and need help getting out!

How do you think an aboleth gets snacks? IIRC, aboleth have a few mind bending abilities that might result in a farmer behaving just so!

In a world full of real monsters.

It is sometimes needful to recalibrate that world building axiom. A lot of the world is empty, because "in those woods there are monsters. People go in and don't come out. So, none of us goes there anymore."

When you think about what little it took to convince people that someone was a witch or a vampire or cavorting with the devil... it seems absolutely ridiculous to think having full blown horns or fangs or a tail or wings wouldn't illicit a similar reaction.

Which is a part of the {censored} of 5e Tiefling. Neither the horns nor the fangs nor the tail are needed for the 'trace of infernal blood' to manifest.

But to each their own. I'm not fond of the "every NPC is a D&D redditor with perfect meta knowledge and modern cultural perspectives" games.

Most pirates and sailors in my WoG world consider it bad luck for a woman to be on a ship. (That is an old superstition among some sailors in various epochs on Earth). In my WoG, Sarah Fortune/Miss Fortune (ported in from LoL) is a significant NPC who has sailed and raided the Azure Seas for some years. (And the dread pirate Gangplank finally met his demise at the hands of the party, and the executioner in Salt Marsh). She is also the most famous, and infamous, bounty hunter in the western coasts from wolly bay down to the south edge of the map. The players have learned that she has a team consisting of herself, a warlock, a trickery priest (now a captive of the local earl), a monk (died at the hands of the party) and a cute/handsome swashbuckler named Julio.

Another anecdotal +1 for setting specific conflict, and not being afraid of having it in game.

Yes, but it is helpful to provide the players with some background/lore.

Whenever we play Star Trek kitchen sink games, the stakes and settings automatically feel lower and it feels more like a YA novel than a mature setting. Maybe that should be the norm with online strangers, but if you have a veteran group, I don’t really think it works so well over the long term to keep interest.

It is one of the aspects of Star Trek RPG that I don't care for. Too many ruber masks.

[Ionathus]

However many people (myself included) have had bad experiences with games where the tiefling, half orc, etc player was routinely alienated and given the whole hate and fear treatment by just about every NPC and it gets old fast. It's a common enough problem that I always ask in session 0 about it. I've been subjected to enough racism in real life, I'm not interested in playing in a game where I'll have to deal with fantasy racism. And if you haven't been at those tables, that's great. But it is unfortunately a common trope and the way that OP was talking about tieflings looking like fiends and thus they should be feared by the townspeople and how a dragon attack would mark the dragonborn player as a threat makes me think that he is interested in utilizing those tropes and asking why more people don't do so.

I don't do so because I like to have lots of options and think it's fun to be able to play a team with a robot and an angel and a slime and a centaur and I want to have fun going on adventures and beating up badguys, not slowly working to overcome implicit biases or whatever.

Heck, two players at my first table as DM chose to base their PCs around fantasy racism. One was a tiefling who had been ostracized her whole life. Another was a human who had been raised by fantasy racists who were so intolerant they even tried to abuse/kill halflings -- that PC had run away in protest and now defended people against fantasy racism at every opportunity.

We got about three sessions into the campaign before both players independently said "you know, this isn't working for me anymore." And I was happy to hear it, because it was really weird and gross-feeling for me to have to constantly be the racist NPCs. Even knowing that the players wanted it to happen. We all just collectively realized that kind of world wasn't the style of game we wanted to play, and we quietly retconned it to a much more accepting Fantasy Kitchen Sink, with isolated pockets of racist jerks to shake it up every so often.

even beyond this, the basic assumption that there's some ulterior motive feels extremely uncharitable. why is there an assumption it must be for some big (nefarious or no) reason someone particularly wants to play a tiefling, or a centaur, or a gnome or an orc beyond "doing so would make them happy"? it would feel only fair to assume everyone has hidden motives for playing human or elf and they really need to justify doing so. the book can say 'these are the assumptions built into most official published worlds', but I don't understand bringing in judgement for if someone wants to have their character look a certain way and (if it's not in a short list of choices) not deal with Mandatory Social Issues put in bc the book said so and not bc they are what the player wants or something that specifically aids that game's story.

I don't want to speak for anyone else but my guess is that it comes from a place of frustration with players who DID rely on it as a crutch, or got weird and mean to other players, or were doing it for optimization reasons with no interest in the lore or story implications.

And that's totally fine and understandable to be frustrated with those things, which absolutely all do happen to DMs and are quite discouraging when you're trying to build a coherent world. The mistake is just in assuming those are the only motivations, just because they were your problem players' motivations. (Not talking to you, obviously, the "you" is for sake of example)

[Darth Credence]

In my current game, exotic species are exotic. We have what we feel is the right amount of fantasy racism.

Spoiler: Races in my world

Show

Every PHB race exists, although not every one has been encountered. Dragonborn all came form an island chain that also has a lot of dragons. Most remain there. A not insignificant number have become pirates, having grown up around the seas and the way that dragons take what they want. A fairly insignificant number have left the place behind and tried to fit into society. Those from the kingdom closest to the islands associate dragonborn with pirates. Those from farther away mostly have no idea who they are.

Humans, Orcans, Nelwyn, and Daikini (the last three are the in-world names of half-orcs, halflings, and half-elves, respectively - calling someone half-something is a slur) are the primary peoples of the continent we adventure in. They are all treated effectively the same, as people. Players take those races for the traits because they will not get any real difference in how they are treated.

Dwarves live in some fairly specific areas, and enjoy good trade relations with other kingdoms, but they have their own. They allow others to immigrate, and a lot more have spread out than the dragonborn, but they are enough separate that they would still be noted as someone different. Many of the coastal city dwellers would have never seen a dwarf, but would know some basic things, true and untrue. If a PC plays one, they will not experience much different because of it, although they may get the occasional stereotypical challenge, like being asked to advise on mining or challenged to a drinking game.

Gnomes don't live in the human kingdoms, so as far as the players know, there are no gnomes. Dwarves would know about them.

Tieflings are scattered throughout the world, and in most places are rarely remarked on. In a kingdom the players have visited but don't spend time in, the largest criminal enterprise is run by tieflings, so there specifically there is suspicion associated with them.

Elves are present in the world, but are not a PC race. Because elves are crazy. They have lived so much longer than everyone else, they are effectively alien. The players went to the only city run by elves outside of their magic valleys, and quickly decided they wanted nothing more to do with those people - they looked down on everyone else as fleeting creatures who were little more than children and couldn't be expected to care for themselves.

Outside of the PHB races, hobgoblins and bugbears exist, but not in the hemisphere the party is in. We have one player who really wanted to play one, so we came up with a reason he had traveled from the other side of the world. People often try to figure out where he is from and what his race is, because he is for all intents and purposes unique. Some particularly learned people recognize the race and what his presence entails. Aasimar and changelings are very rare, and the players have interacted with some but don't know it, as well as a couple they do. Goblins, goliaths, kobolds, kenku, and orcs all exist and have their own societies, ranging from tribal villages to kingdoms the equal of others. Goliaths are looked on with a touch of fear due to their size, while goblins and kobolds are looked on with scorn for theirs (a PC is a kobold, and they will often get overlooked or put down because of this, but they also tend to have much better interactions with dragons, so it all works out and is fun for the group). Kenku that leave the nests are generally out working, exploiting their mimicry trait for money. Yuan-ti, Tabaxi, and centaurs all exist, although no one has gone where they are so they don't know it. Other races would exist if someone wanted them, and when we did a brief Spelljammer excursion WWE got into a bunch of them.

We have a lot of available races, and for some we get a lot of interaction, and for some almost none. I could not imagine the PC race not affecting how the world around them reacts. Some will have almost no reaction because they are "default". But if they ended up in the clutches of a race that is not the default, they may have to deal with how that affects interactions. Now, they aren't just walking down the street having people call them 'knife-ears' or anything, but if they enter into a conversation with someone, their race will definitely impact the conversation. I wouldn't want to run a game where it didn't, and my players don't want to play in such a game, either.

As to the idea that someone might want to pick something else simply for the looks of it, well, in my world they are going to get comments. Even if they say, "I want to be a human, but I want to be 7' tall, 95 pounds, with vermillion skin and indigo hair that sticks straight out from my head. I will wear nothing but a tiara and extensive tattoos." That is going to be commented on by others in-world as much, or probably more, than a bird person. But the bird person will get comments, too, even if the player says they are just a standard owlin, nothing unusual about them.

I started to type that if a player absolutely wanted to do that - to be an 'exotic' race that had no impact on the world around them - I'd let them. But that made me think about it and decide, no, I wouldn't. I'd tell them that in this world, it matters. If they can't deal with that, then they should go with one of the races where it doesn't, or this is not the campaign for them.

[Luccan]

As a player, I'm personally of the opinion that if no one mistakes my tiefling for a fiend at least once then there isn't much point in specifically playing a tiefling. There are other ways to get a charisma bonus and resistance to fire.

As a DM, I won't force players to experience anything they aren't up for, but it's definitely something you should discuss with players either way. I'm fine playing the bad guy in a situation as long as it doesn't ruin the game for anyone.

[Psyren]

As a player, I'm personally of the opinion that if no one mistakes my tiefling for a fiend at least once then there isn't much point in specifically playing a tiefling. There are other ways to get a charisma bonus and resistance to fire.

As a DM, I won't force players to experience anything they aren't up for, but it's definitely something you should discuss with players either way. I'm fine playing the bad guy in a situation as long as it doesn't ruin the game for anyone.

I'm fine with this happening a time or two also, but there's a line that needs to be drawn here. The occasional yokels mistakenly thinking you're a demon is one thing, whereas being unable to even accompany your party into the tavern without pitchforks and torches springing up like weeds is another.

[RSP]

This all just comes down to what tables want to play, and managing expectations with a session 0.

Some tables love murder hobo, and don’t want to deal with RP ramifications.

Others love to RP their characters and prefer an in-game social scene of how NPCs react to their character way more than combat. Neither preference, nor anything in between, is “wrong” or “right”.

Wanting to play a race without having to RP that race is fine, so long as it’s good with the table. Likewise, playing a PC that loves RP interactions with NPCs (positive attitudes towards the PC or negative) is fine too, so long as it’s good with the table.

I’ve played in a game where a guy who loves RPing was mid conversation with a non-hostile NPC when the “I only enjoy combat” player decided there had been too much talking already (an opinion they voiced) and just attacked the NPC to start combat.

Those two players didn’t have the same idea of what it is they were looking for in a 5e session.

Same with this: it’s not wrong to play your game as race selection having implications with NPC interactions. Just be aware of what the table finds fun and roll with that. If something comes up that is troublesome, deal with it like mature adults and adjust the game, if needed, so that it stays fun for everyone investing the time to sit in for the sessions.

[JellyPooga]

I'm fine with this happening a time or two also, but there's a line that needs to be drawn here. The occasional yokels mistakenly thinking you're a demon is one thing, whereas being unable to even accompany your party into the tavern without pitchforks and torches springing up like weeds is another.

I actually lean in the other direction and I should preface that my attitude is entirely my own preference for how I perceive my own characters. That said, if I'm playing something visibly monstrous, anything from a minotaur or orc to anything that could be mistaken for or is undead or fiendish, I expect nothing less than for it to be a royal pain in the proverbial to have even basic, civilised interactions outside of specific, forgiving circumstances (such as communities that are particularly multicultural or accepting of my specific race). I'm literally playing something that is not accepted by most of civilisation and should expect to be treated as such. If I'm not prepared for that, or my GM is going to handwave that difficulty, I will not and should not be playing as that race. The "time or two" is by definition the exception rather than the norm and the norm is that I'm an outcast. Yes, adventurers as a whole are an outcast subsect of the population and should also be treated as such, but as a monster or monstrous creature I am even further removed from that accepted norm.

I will hide features with a hood or disguise, invest in magic and magic items to blend in, slink in the shadows, avoid public locations and otherwise actively navigate the challenges of being perceived in the negative light I expect NPCs to have of my character. If I expect people to treat me as a Human, Elf or Dwarf, with all the expectations, stereotypes and accolades associated with them, then I should also expect people to treat me as a Tiefling, Orc or what-have-you too, whether it's socially positive or negative. If I'm looking to garner support with the local half-orc rebels, then I expect my being a half-orc, tiefling or other ill-perceived race to work in my favour. If I'm playing a martially inclined Dragonborn, I expect schmoozing with the local chapter of the dragon-fan DracoKnights will be a cinch. If I have a hard time in human lands as a tielfing, I expect my human companions are going to have a harder time fitting in than I when the adventure takes us to hell. It works both ways.