Who here actually cares what race they play? I know variant human is the undeniably best race, which is why I actively try to avoid it. Every time I participate in a new campaign, I endeavor to play something new, racials be damned. A new perspective is more important than min/maxing too me.
Picture only tangentially related.
I would play a dwarf but there are no dwarves in Twilight 2000
I do care about what race I play, but not in a "I only play X, Y, and Z races", when I make a new character I want to tell a new story, and what race they are will have an impact on the type of story that they'd create. So what race they are, along with class, background, ect, are all important to me.
Who actually gets a chance to play non human?
I have been playing 18 years and have played one elf, one doppelganger and about 20 humans. When someone else runs a game, only humans are available and even my star wars games are filled with human characters.
I generally don't play humans, but my GMs always rein in the boundaries of my non-human characters because I always stretch it.
I haven't participated in too many campaigns with strict racial restrictions. Most people DO play humans, and I have as well, but kenku are fun too.
If we're talking 5e, half-elves give variant humans a run for their money.
One of our group's dms is a nut when it comes to session 1 character creation.
All human males from this one village, all orphaned and raised by community and all martial characters. Everytime.
I get so fucking tired of his campaigns but he is the only other person who runs games on a regular basis.
Yeah, that sounds fucking awful. You need to visit a gaming store and make yourself some new friends.
Furry Detected.
Nonhumans aren't really...very interesting. Anything a dwarf has in his experiences, you can get with a human. Same with an elf, except for played out immortality things, which will make your character so alien and crazy that they probably aren't suitable for play.
Also nobody wants to do ERP in PMs between sessions with gross-ass dwarves.