An Opinion

What happened? Nobody wants to play humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings any more... they want to play characters straight from Deviant Art, like this:

>angelic choir singer of light, kitsune illusionist and foxfire pyromancer, dullahan gunslinger and spirit speaker, and graceful kirin doctor and swashbuckler working together to beat down the misguided fool trying to end the concept of nighttime and then make friends with the former villain over tea and cookies.

We all like classic fantasy races because they've got a strong legacy behind them, inspired by mythology... They make underdog heroes who beat impossible odds... fighting monsters and killing threats no man should reasonably be able to kill.

The classic races aren't defined by cheap gimmicks or WHAT they are... they're defined by WHO they are. They make believable, relatable characters we can all understand. We need relatable heroes we can cheer for in high fantasy... not demons. Not angels. Not spirits. Not fairies. Not kitsune...

In my experience, the ones who play things like kitsune and angels are always WORSE roleplayers than the ones who play dwarves and elves.

I've found that if you limit people to playing classic fantasy races, they'll think about their characters more and roleplay better... because restriction breeds creativity. When I DM, I restrict races to classic fantasy races, and even the bad players suddenly roleplay better.

Classic fantasy needs to be appreciated more... get back to the roots of it all, with humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings. Anyone else agree?

Humans only is best.

You have my sword.

Delicious pasta.

is this true? my group has been playing for 4 years (now partially through skype after i moved), im an elf wizard, and in our party we have, dwarf cleric, human rogue, human paladin, half elf rogue and catfolk druid.

Use the right image, you bastard!

When given the opportunity, playing one of the better monstrous races is just generally mechanically a better option than doing a core race with class levels. Anyone can be a ranger or a barbarian, getting Spell Resistance or landing a sweet +6 to an attribute is well worth trading away some class levels.

DnD can easily break if you get one of your stats to an absurdly high score, and the weirder play options are the best way to get there because you can put all of the more traditional buffs on top of your race bonus.

So not only does it entice players with the opportunity to play something a bit more exciting and unique, but it can very easily just be a matter of optimization as well.

>catfolk
Sounded good until here.

>Complain about mythology behind D&D races
>Every PC listed is literally based on folk lore.

3/10 got me to reply and is almost getting to the proper amount of stupid and blind favoritism to look legit.

Low score because you're clearly not applying yourself.

man this is some old pasta

Use the right pic!

Stale pasta, anyway.

How would one flavour Phyrexia for DnDfinder?

The old pastas were the best.

I dunno, regular druids can turn into cats anyway. How is this any worse?

>angelic choir singer of light, kitsune illusionist and foxfire pyromancer, dullahan gunslinger and spirit speaker, and graceful kirin doctor and swashbuckler working together to beat down the misguided fool trying to end the concept of nighttime and then make friends with the former villain over tea and cookies.

See I like this idea.... if it fits the setting.

But if I am rrunning a homebrew and you bring in some random catfolk shit, don't expect me to let you play.

>angelic choir singer of light, kitsune illusionist and foxfire pyromancer, dullahan gunslinger and spirit speaker, and graceful kirin doctor and swashbuckler working together to beat down the misguided fool trying to end the concept of nighttime and then make friends with the former villain over tea and cookies.
Sounds like a normal game of Changeling: the Lost to me.

>elves, dwarves, and halflings
>playing non-human characters
See faggot special snowflake millennials like you are what's ruining the whole world and we need to make this board great again!
Anything that isn't a human should only exist as a monster to battle.

Tasty pasta.

Haven't seen this one in a while.

>We need relatable heroes we can cheer for in high fantasy... Not spirits. Not fairies.
>elves
>Not spirits. Not fairies.

The problem is that youre using a blanket statement of deviantart and using persobal preference instead of actually attacking the real issue.

People seek novelty and any character can be played well no matter how off kilter the combination can be. The players themselves are what need to actually make the combination into a nuanced and interesting character. Its far to easy for bad roleplayers to use weird races to makeup for one dimentional characters just as its far too easy to shrug off the weird and assume its a special snowflake.

So long as they can fit the tone and play the character well it doesnt matter what they play. I love classic fantasy but a savage lizardfolk warrior can be just as much of an underdog as a human warrior, especially when facing things far out of the barbarians element.

Its extremely silly to think the race makes the character not the player itself.

how new are you

I know this is a pasta, but honestly, I'm tired of trying to cater for players only willing to play some kind of dragon spooge spawn. I get it, you own a dragon dildo, that doesn't mean i'll run a scaley campaign for you and your degenerate friends.

What's not relatable about fairies? They're basically six inch tall flying assholes.

Everyone knows someone that's like a fairy, it's that person that decides they hate someone for some insane female reason, sleeps with their boyfriend and then fucking tells them to their face.

Fairies fuck with people for fun and they do it because they know they can either get away with it or they think no one's going to fight back. Fairies are those assholes that you ask to keep an eye on something and then they sit there and watch it break.

...

I prefer more standardised races, I don't mind the odd 1 or 2, but usually people do go OTT with them and make magical fox people or some bullshit and it comes across and cringey and deviant art self insert.

I know that this is pasta, but how the heck is an elf supposed to be easy to relate to?

Well if you're a recluse who lives in an ivory tower and considers himself superior to everyone else...

I know, obvious pasta, but people really do hold this opinion.

What if I want to play both? Why should I be limited to only a few archetypes? There's different fun to be had, and they're both enjoyable in their own way. For me it's around a 50/50 split; current characters are 2 humans, a dwarf, and a half-elf; but also an aasimar, a minotaur, a dragonborn, and a kobold.

I almost fell for the pasta

Already had a rebuttal typed up.

This but unironically.

Too bad humans don't exist anymore in real life. All that's left are apes and cyborgs.

Dragonborn PCs are cancer. Not cancer on the level of lesbian PCs, but still cancer.

N-nani!?

You heard me. Anyone who uses a computer is a cyborg, and therefore not human. Therefore, we should all kill ourselves for being inhuman.

You first.

Oh man, I remember the threads with ellipsis user. It was like talking to a brick wall made of autism and grognardery.

Already done. See you in Hell.

I miss the old autists, the new ones are boring fedorafags and SJWs.

oh boy, it's this copypasta again

OP, you're supposed to use this picture with your pasta.

I'm curious; of all the beastman races I listed, why was it only dragonborn you objected to? Why does Veeky Forums in general seem triggered by this one race in particular?

besides, I play her as more of a yuan-ti than a dragon anywayand no, she's not a lesbian

And it has been successful. It won't stop happening.

Now see, that's okay because she's an ugly-ass cunt. You're alright.

At least use the picture.

>implying phyrexian negator isn't best character

Why user?
Not all animal-folk must be evil furry fagottry

I have 3 races I play.
Human
Warforged, because fucking magical robots
Dragonborn, If I fucking HAVE to play something else

Everything else is nice for fluff / nice to fuck in lore.

It's furfags (closeted or otherwise), people who think "weird character = unique character, unique character = good character", and the occasional memenigger who found whatever character idea funny.

If it's a furfag, it's the obvious "lets get as close to the furry line as possible" thing. Even if it isn't terribly overt whining and bitching about playing their gnolls, they are inevitably drawn to playing something non-human if the option is allowed to them.

If it's the weird = better fucker, it's because human is normal, and elves/dwarves/halfings are "too human" (aka too normal) to consider playing either.

The best suggestion for dealing with a player who wants to play a nonhuman character is to ask to give a good description of who their character is, what got them to where they are, and how they expect NPCs to react to their character, and hope to god they have more than just the statblock.