How many playable races is too many?

How many playable races is too many?

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When you are unable to make them distinct you have too many.
When you are unable to give them comparable amounts of background, you have too many.
When your target audience becomes glassy eyed and shuts down, you have too many.

When you have infinity races, it loops back around to being effectively one race.

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Nine is the sweet spot between depth and diversity.

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Five. Five is too many.

Rolled 90 (1d100)

This many

I feel like nine starts to push the boundaries a bit. Like said, I think five is a closer number to the sweet spot. Especially if you're aiming to make the races have different cultures within them that grant different bonuses.

Then again I'm a no fun allowed square that thinks the 5e handbook has everything you need to make a fun, interesting character and frequently shoot down anything more interesting than a genasi.

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didn't we just have this thread like 2 days ago?

depends on the setting.

See RIFTS.

in my head, I'd say about a dozen before you get into shit that really ought to be considered monsters
but I can't list more than about 7 or 8 before it gets distasteful

I want to create my own humanoid non-beastfolk races for a setting, but I have trouble getting off the ground

If you mention a race and people have no clue what you're talking about, e.g. "There's a Vishkanya sitting at the end of the bar", then that's too many. If your audience is Veeky Forums-experienced then you can throw things like gnolls, kobolds, tieflings, hobgoblins and duergar on top of the stock elves, dwarves and halflings with no trouble at all, because they immediately know what those mean. Beyond that, you can have as many races all your own as like, but they have to be able to stick out in people's minds and not be forgotten as a part of the setting.

No such thing. More options is always better. To make life easier restrict players to races that are in the "base" or "core" game, but allow them to talk to you if they want a more exotic race.

as many as the players want to use +2

>How many races
I'd say five or six max.
>Humans
Always. The best race to play in most cases. Humans should be the default for new players. New players to my campaign are allowed to play humans for their first character. Why? Because there is no reason why you need to play another race in most instances.
>Dwarves
Also a good race. Good roleplaying even though everyone tries to be "Edgy" and "different" with dwarves to pretend they are being original.
>gnomes
Another good race, great for classic fantasy.
>half-elves
Not bad unless you're playing OSR in which case people get triggered.
>Half-orcs
Another decent race. Good RP opportunities.
>Halflings
Sure. In most cases they fit, but are usually replaceable with gnomes.
>Aasimars
Retarded edgy shit by tryhards who want to be "a literal angel lmao"
>Catfolk
Furfag race that adds nothing.
>Dhampirs
Edgy crap played by emo girls. Makes no sense.
>Drow
Edgy crap played by newfags who want to play "le ebin dark elves" due to vidya shit.
>fetchlings
Shit rip-off of Shadar-kai and suck ass. Why would you be allowed to play a magical shadow realm creature anyway?
>goblins
Played by autistic twats to want to do weird voices and piss everyone off
>hobgoblins
Low-effort samurai autism race.
>ifrits
Why?
>kobolds
Maybe in some limited instances.
>orcs
Usually faggots trying to get super-high strength. Sometimes allowable.
>oreads
Another of these faggy planetouched races that no one asked for except try-hard snowflakes
>ratfolk
I guess? Why do you need these? They are just kobolds.
>sylphs
More snowflake shit.
>tieflings
Edgelord shit race.
>undines
WTF
>changelings
Used by retards who try to abuse the ability like polymorph.
>kitsune
Furfag shit. Get fucked.
>duergar
Overpowered bullshit edgy dwarf race
>gripplis
More obnoxious snowflake shit. A pointless race.
>tengus
Played by retards who want to fly and break the game
>strix
More edgelord shit, bestial race probably would have no interaction with normal society

The number of players at your table -3.

Two.

No more than 12

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Having more than one playable race is honestly kind of stupid. Orcs, elves, dwarves,, haflings etc. would not realistically tolerate each other at all and would isolate from each other completely at best or engage in wholesale ethnic purges of each other at worst. A party having characters that are not all the same race is for similar reasons unrealistic and would never truly happen. Just pick one to be the only playable race and have everything else be the Designated Evil Shitheads.

4 players must play 1 race.
5 players must play max 2 race, of which at least 3 will be playing the same race.
6 players can play 3 races, of which at least 2 will be playing the same race.
Good way to prevent parties from being "individualistic".

tfw when earth dragon born in the hour of the dragon
tfw when miss the double metal dragon get by 1

>gillmen
Wow yet another aquatic race.
>svirfneblins
"I wanna a +4 AC bonus"... also, distrustful of outsiders. great recipe for party cohesion. Dumb-as-fuck nu-male anything-goes fun-is-all-that-matters DMs on this board would allow them alongside duergar and drow and make up some bullshit about how they aren't really enemies because he's too pussified to tell his players to fuck off.
>sulis
Looks like overpowered Avatar / Goku type shit. Fuck that.
>vishkanya
Rip off of YuanTi? Either way, complete shit. I see nothing good to play.
>wayangs
Why do you need two shadow races? Because Paizo are out of ideas like pussy faggots.
>gnolls
More fur shit
>merfolk
Wow yet another aquatic race
>warforged
Pretty cool.... as an NPC race.

What if my setting has no true humans, only demi-humans?

I like Vanara as a playable race. I'm actually kind of surprised they were never part AD&D

Then why the fuck would I want to play it?

Pathfinder changelings don't polymorph.

Just a friendly reminder to put your autistic screeching back in its proper place.

2 all you need are humans and if you say otherwise you are a closeted furfag and need to go die

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>oreads

WTF game used these and why did they not just have stone genasi

127. Not counting subraces, like forest elfs and high elfs being separate from normal elfs.

>2 all you need are humans
What's the other one?

>t. Stormfag

The abominable Strawman.

Are the monster races in the game intelligent enough to form societies, have personalities, and perform recognizable social roles? If so, any of them should, logically, have the potential to be a playable race, because they are just as sapient as the humans and humans-with facial apparatuses that the default player races are.

How can one be so wrong?

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Any sapient race should be playable as long as it fits the setting and party alignment, however there should be a limit to leave out any overpowered race but no need to balance weaker than average ones, if the player is ok with it let him have his fun, it can even be useful for roleplaying and the making of an interesting character, hobbits were never made to be as capable as men/elves/dwarves anyways

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Samsarans don't make any sense.

honestly it depends on the setting, some work best with only a couple, others can handle lots of different races

2

People who are only able to play humans are bad at roleplaying.

The correct way to talk to xenos is to get the shit choked out of you by them?

>tengus
>Flying

I've never gotten this answer myself. I actually wound up dividing my setting into multiple continents and regions just so I had a place for different races to fit together.

>anything more interesting than a genasi.
So... every core race?

They're Pathfinder's Earth Genasi. Just like Ifrits are Fire Genasi, Sylphs are Air Genasi and Undine are Water Genasi.

I usually group the races up into ones I think should be able to either interfere or be related in some way. I try to keep the amounts of grouping at 7 max. The human-halfling group, the Goliath-Dwarf group, the Elf-Gnome group, the Dragonborn-Kobold group, the Orc-Goblinoid Group, The Lizard-Turtle-Snake (Reptilian) group, and lastly the outsiders, combining the races from foreign planes, and being the most rare.
I could honestly get rid of halflings, but I feel like the way I grouped them makes sense. (The reason for their being a short and tall species constantly linked in the setting I use is mostly down to experimentation and purpose.

These groupings allow for a lot of player choice, while also trimming ugliness like Tabaxi and Firbolg. They are almost completely unnecessary.
If I wanted to add another category to the list, I'd probably make it A 'Corrupted' category full of things such as undead, vampires, Skaven and the like. These choices give you plenty of flavor

> half-elves and half-orcs as "races"
They're not races, they are fucking mongrels.

Also they seem grouped by biomes.
Riverland, Mountainous, Forests/Feywild, Caverns/Desert, Steppes, Swampland and yeah, Outside.

You could probably also assign climate zones to most of them.

I like it, puts me in mind of those regional variant race charts.

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Xenos.

I suspect, by your wildly inaccurate descriptions, you've never read any of these other races. You should read them so you can shit on them properly.

If you're that guy who runs games and only allows humans at his table i genuinely hope you and your players are having fun. I'm very happy you have a game and group that works for you.

>>gnomes
>Another good race, great for classic fantasy.

Stopped reading here. Enjoy the (you)

6

....no
just no to that pic

if a race has a culture and a civilization? it should be playable
if they are a rare half-breed or similiarly offshoot? they should maybe be playable (depends on DM and player)
if they are a completely unique race? probably shouldnt be playable (except by experienced roleplayers with DM cooperation)

the number dont matter, just the cohesiveness of the character with the setting and the ability of the player and the DM to make the character and their people distinct and interesting

>How many playable races is too many?
The same as monsters

4

Actually in the pic it's the xeno getting choked. Granted the xeno in question isn't actually short, just the guy doing the choking is a ubermensch that has fallen to corruption and worships a dark god because it's a grimderp setting.

Anyone replying to this question with a number is certifiably retarded.

It depends on a ton of factors. What setting are you using? What kind of mechanics do you have to represent different races? Do you have racial mechanics at all or is it just a fluff thing? Are there races players definitely SHOULD be able to play (ie "protagonist races")? Are there races players definitely SHOULDN'T be able to play? And so forth. Just coming out and saying "more than 6 races is always wrong" makes zero sense in any context.

What does RIFTS do?

No, but a good number of their players seem to think they do.

You stopped reading because I am objectively right?
Why should I read about these races when they look like they have nothing to offer my game? Most of them look like supernatural shit that should not be allowed for a 1st-level character.

When they start clashing with each other and/or the setting. If it doesn't fit, it should go.

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This pic was is just ... no. Just no.

There is no such thing as "too many"

>half-

No stop. Just fucking stop. They're not a new race, they're just a mix of some other race. You can keep them around to make halfbreeds and what not, but they are not an entirely new race.

Not setting dependent at all faggot

I like to think Veeky Forums is just shitposting, most GMs are reasonable and will allow a player to play any race in the setting, provided the player provides a good reason for the character to join the party (in the case of monster races) and the group accepts possible balance issues

Best campaign I was ever in had an orc paladin, yes, an orc paladin, raised by humans

Only retard GMs like the Angry GM faggot unironically complain about this

I like either ridiculous numbers or human only with no in between.

This.