Hating on *snowflake races*

>Uncommon races are just a roleplaying crutch

Maybe the players are just sick of the core d&d races.

I can get behind that.

I'd rather play as hobgoblin, Githyanki, or non-op half-dragons, or more monstrous things like minotaurs, centaurs, and fauns, then yet another goddamn core race, because for the most part, I've just gotten sick of them myself.

I don't need to be a race that's super rare in a setting. I'm just sick of the stock races. When I gm, I often drop most of the stock races and dont allow them at all (as in this setting has no Elves /dwarves /half Elves /half orcs /halflings /gnomes) instead picking a different set of less commonly used fantasy races that havent been so done to death and over-troped.

Tl;dr: change which races are common and then your players can play a "common" race without it being the humdrum same old shit they've seen a thousand times.

>Tiefling?
The Hells and abyss have established major *countries* on the continent, and the true demons/devils tend to be at the top, whereas demihuman blooded fiends tend to be the average citizens.
Done.

>Hobgoblins?
Hobgoblin warmongering expansionistic empire, perhaps with a propensity for selective breeding based on desired traits, with a highly rigid social structure.
Romans+china+andromeda nietzcheans.
Done.

>Orcs
MongolHunVikings, or maybe VikingNativeAmericans.
Done.

>Want more variety than existing d&d races, but don't want to make something up?
Lift something from another setting/game.

Include a medieval version of a mass effect/starwars race. Or lift something from a different fantasy setting, like vedalkans, or phyrexians, or gorons, or worens, or whatever the fuck. Etc.
Done. Problem solved.

Suddenly it's not all the same tolkien goodguy races again and again, but something different. Variety is a good thing.

I can see how a player who has to go for "rare exotic races" to get variety is likely to do so.

I would play the shit out of a game with Phyrexians

When i run a game without the standard array of races?

Very rarely are the players coming to me asking me to play something weird/super rare. They just pick one of the races I passed them in the list and we play.

I have never seen but two people play a core race that wasn't some special snowflake mix of classes or some shit

Yeah?

I've played a shit ton of core races, but I've been playing some form of d&d since '98.

Weird class mixes tend to be entirely for an attempt at an effective at of character options, and any weird fluff that results tends to be trying to accomodate a gm who makes you jump through ridiculous hoops to multiclass.

I'm a group where a class is treated as nothing but a random package of character abilities, you tend not to get the weird fluff.

Removing humans can be good too. Stirs up expectations. Typically the closest thing to humans ends up still pretty different.

"My mercenary character was raised as a warrior, but he started learning some basics about arcane along the way magic because it would suit his line of work, hunting rogue mages is a common mission for him in the guild"

or

"One time, when he was a young man, he saw a performer doing incredible feats of dexterity with a long chain. Since that moment, he knew he wanted to learn how to do the same. Life had different plans for him, thought. Forced to fend for himself as a street urchin, it wasn't until later in life that he managed to find a teacher to teach him how to effectively use combat chains and afford also his services"

Are those good enough or do you need more fluff?

Both of those would be plenty reason for me.

If your build was shit I'd try to push you toward something more effective and suggest you cover your backstory needs in ways that don't cripple you.

But most people i know tend to design a character mechanically based on what they want to spend their time doing in game, and then pick backstory to fit the Mechanics, rather than the other way around.

For instance, fighter 1/cleric x could be:
>A paladin or antipaladin.
>A warrior priest of a god.
>A heroic warrior with divine blood.
>A soldier who joined the church.

I just barely started but 2 years ago but there is a gaming group at my college and they always play changelings and custom races, average wish fulfillment stuff.

its was mostly trying to be a special snowflake

> drow paladins
> half-orc half monk-half barbarians
> pixies...

I think lizardmen are underrepresented in fantasy nowadays. That is all.

Likewise a monk could be built using:
Monk, ninja, paladin, barbarian, brawler fighter, mystic, ranger, warpriest, magus, slayer etc, depending on the specific abilities you want to go for.

And a swashbuckler type could be:
Swashbuckler, cavalier, fighter, rogue, Slayer, magus, ranger, paladin, gunslinger, alchemist (again, depending on the specific mechanics you want).

A witcher type is more specific, trickier and needs homebrew.
Some kind of alchemist/slayer hybrid with a small number of custom ki powers.

But most character concepts can be built half a dozen ways, mechanically.

>Always custom races
Fair enough. I did a lot of bog standard d&d, and eventually wanted more variety in character race/culture.

>always super unlikely class /race combos, or weird race wish fulfillment.
I don't like the former, but I'm fine with the latter.

I've allowed pc succubi/erinyes without difficulty (custom writeups), miniatures, pixies, etc. And one of my favorite characters was a Githyanki Astral Pirate. That was fun. It does downs on the campaign though. A planescape game in sigil is more "anything goes" than a faerunian game set during the crown wars (then it's going to be like, 4 kinds of Elves, humans, and crossbreeds of one of those kinds. Maybe daemonfey/fiendish/half fiends if the time period is right.)

On the one hand, if you're looking to run something specific, try to get the pcs on board. In the other, if you're not looking to run something very specific, why not ask your players what they want to play as/about and accommodate that?

Solution: Stop playing D&D tier trash games.

This post applies just as well in any other game.

I'm going to want variety, and won't want to always play the same races/cultures.

So unless you're suggesting a game where "players make up their faces" is a core expectation, or where "core races are one of these 200 prebuilt races", the same shit is going to come up in other games too.

>V:tm.
>people bitching about "snowflake bloodlines" or homebrew bloodlines.

>shadowrun
>people bitching about players playing weird nonmetahuman races, etc.

Repetition and similarity gets old.

I mean, unless you only play each game setting like, one campaign a decade, than you don't need so much variety in character options.

So. Short of only playing gurps, with a completely different custom campaign every time, what exactly is your suggestion?

>Is that your suggestion?
>were you just meme shitposting?

Back in D&D 2nd Edition, my friends and I role-played a monstrous group: 1x Wemic; 1x Bullywug, and 1x Minotaur. They had to HIDE as a traveling menagerie and run around behind cloaks to hide identities.

We HATED those xeno "demihumans" all day. Had in-game backstories of elf incursions into our tribe's lands and they killed our families.

You want full on monsters or still somewhat human? Cause minotaurs, illithiads, ogres, trolls, and all sorts of werebeast are perfect for humanoid.

Hobgoblins are a top race.

My problem with non-standard races (and some of the standard ones) is that 9/10 times their entire "character" just becomes "Hey guys, I'm X race, this is what X race is like!" or "Hey guys, I'm X race, but I'm so cool and different from the rest of X race!"

Essentially players play a race and not a character, and it gets tired and cliche really quick. At least with the players who are choosing human every game, I'm getting characters that are a bit more than the standard "fantasy race represents a really stereotyped IRL culture" characters. You;re not being as clever as you think you are, guys, seriously.

People plan on steroids all the time, but sure.

If you want the most individual character differences, have all characters be the same race. Then they will naturally differentiate from eachother rather than all just following the stereotype.

>gorons
Dude I would play the fuck out of a goron shaman.

I have encountered following problem with every game I've been playing in: Regardless of what you play, GM doesn't actually care for it. It seems just to be a handy bundle of abilities and stat bonuses with some fun skin. That is it.

There is not even a slightest of focus storywise on what you are playing. Adventures are designed so that there are no problems or there would be no problems. This is usually either because of the laziness of not wanting to think how player choise would impact the game OR people around the table don't want to be pointed a finger at for being racist or chauvinistic. From this follows my next point.

I would like to explore the social impacts of actually playing something different. What it means to be an Aasimar traveling through rural community, what if you were a lizardman? Or lone Tengu? How would the in game rural community react to you? Is it automatic reaction based on your race or culture? Or is the "we are nice towards everybody" mindset so widespread that it doesn't mean anything what you are on the outside. Only what you have inside. This is what I'd like to explore with the choise of race in the game I'm playing BUT this doesn't have to be total focus in the game! No! I'd like it to be something that gives flavor to the game.

For some that flavors automatically seems to be salty as fuck. Actually now that I think about it. People who whine most about this "snowflake" shit are the ones who usually don't want to even know what the character's personality is like when someone first states their race choise. They tend to whine about not having personality and if there is such they don't want to see it over the race. Gee... Talk about double morals.

This is what I would enjoy. I want to explore social aspects in the game and not just be a statblock. I want to roleplay.

That's rough, buddy.

Those things come up in our games, unless were playing in sigil