How many races is too many?

Depends on genre, your model of race implementation and your audience.

You can choose on of the infinite race premises for example:
>everyone is some kind of different mutant
>space opera everyone is a different alien
>everyone is animalpeople
Here you have unlimited race choices but all function as in a one race setting.

In general a good rule is you can add races as long as you can make them distinct.

If you choose the infinity model you effectively translate race either to special ability or ethnicity. You have a lessened thematic impact of race but the perks of a very colorful setting.

Would planescape count as a viable setting for an infinite number of playable races?

Sure, it's the whole multiverse. But D&D as a system doesn't play too nice with that race philosophy because it has many valid choices for that setting stated very unequally.
Although you have a little pocket version in form of Tieflings and Aasimar with their varied look and ancestry.

depends on how invested you are on maximizing divergent evolution or convergent evolution.

I like the races in OP's img except for
>Half-elf
>Half-orc
Half-elves/orcs should be homebrewed. Replace half-orc with orc and get rid of half-elf, and that's solid. Maybe combine halfling and gnome into one race.

>Everyman
Human
>Crafter
Formids (ant-folk)
>Magical/Longlived
Mervolk
>Big/dumb
Varl (ox-men)
>Sneaky
Garuda (bird-people)

Unironically depends on the setting. For space opera or high-magic (with interplanar portals and sheeit), go nuts. Otherwise, one.

yiffe!

Which one?
Dwarves only
Dwarfs only
Elves only
Humans only
etc

One race with a few subraces?

No more than five is a good start. Others may be added but they damn well better have a good reason to exist.
The five are
The Stout
The Fairy
The High Man
The Everyman
The Cute
This is why most games & tv shows have five races. & why most follow the layout above.

I think you mean species you shitlord

dnd uses "race" in place of species ignorant casual

I prefer games with many races. But with stats not tied to them. Why can't I have an intelligent orc? A charismatic Dwarf? A dexterous Tiefling?

Have "a lot", but have them be the ONLY sentient things in the setting. Pick a random number, like 20.
You don't need 500 fucking races that each exist for only one adventure and then are never seen again.
Have enough of them, have them varied, and have them fleshed the fuck out. More than one fucking community per race for god's sake.

t. user who does not understand how races work

>The Cute
ugh

honestly it doesn't matter
It's not the number of races that matter, it's what you do with it

It's only too many if the number is so great that each additional race isn't well defined enough to warrant mentioning.

You can be any of those things, there's literally nothing stopping you from playing character like that and putting your highest roll in those places.

It's by no means alone in that regard, nor the first. Tolkien used "race" to refer to the various creatures in his world, for example. The TV show Babylon 5 also referred to different aliens as "races" rather than species.

Also, isn't it generally implied that in fantasy series that use 'race' rather than 'species', usually allows for a larger than logical degree of cross breeding? Half orcs and half elves make less sense when orcs, elves, and humans evolved from completely different precursor species. So to use a layperson's understanding, there are only 4/5 races in Skyrim- Humans, Elves, Khajiit, Argonians, and the Orcs might be considered as separate from the other Mer.

As for optimal number of races, usually it's around half a dozen. The Five Man Band usually fits this- you need a Leader/Mundane race, a Big guy/Stout, a Lancer/High man, a Smart guy/Cute, and a Heart/Fairy race.

From a world building perspective what matters in keeping the setting coherent and internally consistent. Each race would need some back story and some stereotype for it's relationships with the other races, which makes the setting more complex.

You only need enough races for each player to play a different one. So 5 is enough. If you have more than 5 players you fucked up and you know it.

Related to your elder scrolls comment, there are three races in the elder scrolls (playable, and on Tamriel anyway), they are Man, Mer, and Argonian. Khajiit are mer and so are the "Orcs" or Orsimer.

Hey it's not my decision, this is what the trope is. Look at Tolkien as an archtypical example
Stout = Dwarf
Fairy = Elf
High Man = Dunidan/Half Elf
Everyman = Man
Cute = Hobbit

Or Stargate
Stout Asgardians
Fairy = Nox
High Man = Ancients
Everyman = Man
Cute = Furlings

Or Final Fantasy
Stout = Banga
Fairy = Viera
High Man = Nu Mou
Everyman = Man
Cute = Moogle

...huh. I have ten races in my setting, and none of them line up cleanly to any of those.

>The wild, clever race
>The small, nimble race
>The social, community-minded race
>The sturdy, wise race
>The careful, rational race
>The ruthless, hierarchical race
>The diplomatic, individualistic race
>The ambitious, utilitarian race
>The large, patient race
>The passionate, impulsive race

Maximum difference in life expectancy is something like fifty years between the shortest and longest.

My idea is to refluff the five race of tvtropes that you mentioned to connect them to the five chinese elements. Ideally, it should both be pretty logical (for the connection with that element and ) and correct some of the worst probem of dwarves and elves as I see them... also, I tend to think that while I like as the next guy some "alien" races like formians or even centaurs, they probably can't work that much if they're so much inhuman as a "basic" race.
Aesthetically it's not very determined, but that's by design - I like to work with my players to determine "how otherworldy do you want them?".

1) The woods race. You'll think "oh, great, elves" but actually they're the everyman one, not magic. Wood in chinese elements is connected to youth and brashness, even anger, sot they're not really wood elves either. Lithe, no tall, probably with something like leaves growing in their hair.They might be if not the savages the rural race of sorts, the revolutionary but in general I associate them with permaculture and a relative population density: a city might not be particulary large but still can be decently big. And on the trees, mostly (at least in some seasons: dual dwellings on the same trees).
2) The fire race. They fly (maybe with . Eyup. They're the high men here, associate with sky, mountains (and potentially deserts). Passionate dudes with a fucking lot of history, generally. Perhaps too passionate for their own good. Great architecture, magic, and most of all cultured, can be proud, vain and cruel. Lotsa ruins. The most stereotipycally beautiful, tall.

If you think that any more 42 races is okay, you are a tardoid faggotaur with dickvision to 60 ft. Roll initiative to fight me!

They can all have fertile babies.

I would recommend
Wood = Stout, big swole wood warriors, strong & nimble
Metal = Everyman, steel makes them equal
Earth = Highman, in Shintoism, Earth is the core of everything. That's why Chinese Emperors wore yellow, because it's the color of Earth
Fire = Fairy, the fairy race is the "weird" one who usually have interesting & powerful powers, which sounds closer to what you are aiming at
Air = Cute only because it's the leftover, & butterfly/fairy (fairy isn't the same as the other fairy, think archfae/fairy godmother, not tinkerbell) sprites could really work

This is just a suggestion, so do what you want

[cont.]

3) The cute race. Down to earth... in the sense they live in it, as they're a mix of hobbits with their hobbitholes and more fairytale-like "talking animals": small and with some animal characteristics (may even be shapeshifters, but I'd say they have some half-animal appearance by default). Of course, the unlikely hero. Notice that earth in chinese elements is the more equilibrated elements - at the same time, I picture them as the "without a fatherland" people, considered mostly harmless (sometimes something more harsh) and living in other countries of other races. (actually, ther might or might have been an ancestral hill-country for them, or some concentrations, but you get the idea).
[cont.]
4) If 3 is some kinda of basement dwellers (often pretty literally) these guys live in what you'd call the underdark. Metal -their elements-let them be associated with hard work (tough not necessarily just physical), a kind of melancholic view of life, a perhaps more "scientific" or "modern" way of thinking, love for luxury. Average height, more muscular than others (their women are perfectly fine, in contrast to dwarves), not necessarily fatter. Probably have some claws. Not any more xenofobic or isolations - probably a little less. Actually I picture them as not really "just inna dungeon" people, but when they have a surface dwelling is a more utilitarian one, like a village for collecting wood, hunting and breeding cattle.
5) Finally, water people are the magical race: not only the can swim well and breath underwater, but they have a natural affinity to magic and most of all they're born telepaths. Chubbier and perhaps a tiny bit smaller (still on human range) than most others, probably with something like fins (but no, definetly not mermaids). Might or might not be connected to the higher seas, or even just to fresh and brakish water. Calm, wise, artistic, but can be more fearful.

[cont. and final]

For names, I'm not that sure. Aside from 3 as pukas, I tend to stick with Paracelsus (sylphs etc.) but they don't sound right as we attached other meanings to them (gnomes!)

The terrain connection makes me have some interesting idea (like a kinda of underterrain empire with some sparse exits for 4, that cohesist with surface dwellers political boundaries), or even to which cultures take inspiration from, but the big difference is that I think it would be cool to have people of that element be Also, this was first tought for DW for which having things like flying is not much of a problem.born of that area, not just hereditary traits (a process that might take some generations). Would allow for less "one race, on nation" boring stereotypes.

Humans as the "center race" are optional. If anything, connected to plains. Personally I tend to think a lost semi-reptialian race, aesthetically similar to yuan-ti, and connected to deserts, is interesting, but 7 may be pretty much already too many.

Also, the races of men and mer can breed, usually producing offspring almost entirely the race of the mother. The lore also points out that crossbreeding with khajiit and argonians is basically unheard of and that experts aren't certain whether it's reliable, safe, etc, which is honestly pretty unlikely.

>yeah, this is good, but does it really need the hobbits, or the dwarves, or the elves

In my Lord of the Rings-based homebrew the only playable race is Saurons. They're the most important race, they're in the title.

Two is one too many. Races in fantasy RPGs are mostly to serve two purposes: lazy stereotyping and min-maxing. Neither of those uses are particularly admirable.

Well, most are good ideas. To an extent the warrior race is the wooden one, and I admit the earth one is tempting.

On the subject of Fire, in general I like high magic settings, so even if they have more gadgets and almost surely pretty powerful*, they're not that magical - in contrast imagine Water ones being basically a people that went through some courses in Hogwarths, so to speak (tough it's mostly not formal education)

*=in DW terms, a fighter that happens to be a Fire one might have a magical heirloom item from the start, for example.

4 or 5 is the optimal number of races

>Tol
>Smol
>Thicc
>Sticc
>Extra

My favorite combination is

>Tol: Humans
>Smol: Goblins
>Thicc: Oni/Trolls
>Sticc: Elves
>Extra: Constructs/Robots/Androids

Do the "half" races count as their own species? I would argue that they do not.

The Fairy archetype isn't always a magical one. It is the otherworldly & powerful one. Usually the elder race & enigmatic, but your races seem fine. I like your use of shintoism in design

on a planet that actually harbors life, how many species do you think are competing for the ecological niche to evolve into a species capable of both a brain with the capacity for cognitive thought and a form capable of manipulating resources from its environment into tools to aid in its development?

add on to that the dominant position said lifeforms have to be in order to thrive over region, yet remain isolated enough to retain unique genetics that separate them from other species that evolve in a similar pattern? its massively complicated and highly unlikely that you have more than a handful of animals that evolve with true sentience during one time period.

but if you're talking about the social construct of race that ultimately is used as justification for discrimination based on superficial differences, that's pseudo-science and universally not applicable.

...

No species would produce salient life through natural evolution. God(s) do that.

hello troll, how are you today?

In most fantasy, this is not the origin of demihuman races and does not apply. In sci-fi, interplanetary travel is often possible meaning this does not apply. Now if somebody was playing an adventure on an Earth-like planet without or with little magic or divine influence, you've got a point.

fantasy is something you believe to be highly improbable series of events. as such, magic is just highly advanced science and gods are social constructs to provide a method of control.

how do these not apply?

>fantasy is something you believe to be highly improbable series of events. as such, magic is just highly advanced science
No, magic isn't real. Gods aren't real. But this is a game of make-believe, user, and if you could control your autism for a single second, you'd realize that pretend worlds can have these things.

I'm saying they can.

how do you not understand that?

Well if is meaning it for a fantasy game then he makes sense, gods made elves, humans, orcs, etc. If he means it for real life too... it's up to what you personally believe

That means that in those settings, magic isn't necessarily "highly advanced science", and gods aren't necessarily "social constructs". In many fantasy settings, magic is its own thing, and gods are real and affect the world.

Hence,
>In most fantasy, this is not the origin of demihuman races and does not apply.
This is the statement you attempted to refute with , and it still stands.

just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean there isn't a science behind it.

You need at least one race for each niche fetish you can think of.

I have small race, a medium race, and a large race associated with each of the pokemon elements.

You should never have less then 54 races.

Utterly irrelevant.
If the author says it isn't science, then it isn't.
Regardless, still stands. The initial statement that demihumans in fantastic worlds are subject to our natural laws is fundamentally stupid, because the fantasy genre is characterized by not being subject to our natural laws. There are nearly endless examples of humanoid species being made by divine beings in fiction.

Depends entirely on taste, and if it's for the sake of a tabletop, that amount should be decided by both GM and player.

Whenever I work with settings I usually use the generic smorgasbord of average fantasy settings, maybe with a bit more love to personal favorites like having some nomadic centaurs off in the surrounding plains or something. But I never specifically state what races are, or aren't in so I can always decide to toss something in as a bit more 'abstract' or a rarity in the world if it strikes my fancy.

I also will let a player play as any race (Within non-autistic reason) and work them into my setting if they play one, hell I enjoy when people come to me asking to play weird races, it adds all sorts of great flavor. I'm all about that baskin robins 300 flavors of races shit because I love variety, if I let a single setting go on long enough it would probably just end up with dozens and dozens of sentient races, even if many of them you'd never see in your life.

7

The way I do it is that all the races are in, but only a few are common. If you're a dwarf most people won't raise an eyebrow in town, if you're an elf people are going to wonder why you came all the way over here, and good luck finding another warforged ever. Changing the proportions lets me change the assumptions of each game.

For player races? Anything more than human is too many.

Other races? 3-4 max , everything else should be human.

3 specieses, multiple races within each.

Everybody is racist nazi, but people generally get along with beings of different species.

True dat. Still, I wanted some "born with magic" dudes, so...

5 is all you need
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveRaces