Oh, right. Ansbach's post reminded me of the race I never, ever, ever played or wanted to play. Humans. The most boring race ever. No matter what I want to do, some other race can do it better. No matter what character concept I have, some other race fits it better. And Ansbach's setting would be truly horrific to me - basically forcing everyone to play humans, just because everything else is either "rare and mysterious" or "for kids".
Yep, good thing there is room for all of us. You would have really hated my last campaign - I'm a bit of a military historian and the campaign was based around a re-themed ancient Greek mercenary company. One of the players did have a half-elf, but his parents were killed when he was young and he was raised by humans.
My current group wants to start a Dragonborn campaign... oh, the Humanity!
Do any of you just have encouragable D&D racial prejudices? I know I do.
Lets see:
Deva - Immortal God people that when they die, just reform somewhere else. At least thats how a friend described them. I dislike any race options that are tied to a power source. Which includes... Wilden - Wood Elf+, reading their bio in PH3 makes me think Wood Elf. Gith - I don't understand them, but then again I don't use Planar storylines. Elf - My entire party is elves right now, so I have to throw in the racist NPC, its rubbing off on me. Gensai - A race with 4 sub races. Not really a problem until all my players play as Wind Gensai to get Fly. Which I'm not even sure is in the refrence material because I don't own the book. Monster Manual - I don't like Monster PCs. I don't understand the appeal sometimes, though Orcs are okay in my book.
There are probably more but these are the ones I dislike. I wish people branched out more in my party, especially since we're in Dark Sun. All of them are Elves or Half Elves.
Just happened across this thread title & wanted to share my 4E racial prejudice...
Tiefling - the name sounds too cutesy to be a half-devil/half-human, and when I do think of a half-devil/half-human I think of STR/CON like Hellboy. The name & stat bonuses ruin it for me.
There are other races I feel shouldn't be selectable (I'm old school, I just can't see Orcs & Goblins & Minotaurs & such as PCs), but Tiefling just irritates me to no end.
There is only 1 race, in every fantasy game i've ever played, that I personally truly hate. Humans. I play fantasy games for the fantasy. I play a human every day of my life, its called reality. Boringgg.
Pretty much this, though there is that new theme in the Feywild book that makes them more interesting---though mechanically it might be redundant with Hengeyokai, the way it was written sounded good. I've always wanted natural feathers in my hair and things like that.
For me, I absolutely cannot stand Shardminds, Vyrloka, Shades, and Pixies. From both a flavor and mechanical standpoint they're all just HORRIBLY concepted. Shardminds have the stupidest name ever and the entire idea of them is just embarrassingly ridiculous. Vyrloka are basically Vampires: the Race, but without any of the things that would make that idea interesting. Shades could have been cool, but their so incredibly bad mechanically and their origins aren't explained well enough that I'm just very disappointed. And pixies just never should have been a race to begin with. They're annoying, and also unbelievably broken. I just have no idea how the designers ever thought they were balanced, unless they've just stopped caring.
But I also have a lot of races I love! I'm a big fan of monster races, especially Gnolls and Orcs. I do wish they were more fleshed out beyond just being violent marauders for no reason, but oh well. I also really like Warforged, which I just think is a perfectly executed way of integrating artificial intelligence and robots into a fantasy setting.
I haven't read up on the races from Heroes of Feywild or Dark Sun so I can't comment on them.
Vryloka & Minotaurs: Both vampires and minotaurs are amongst my favourite monsters, but they are monsters, vampires are iredeemably evil, undead overlords that have cursed themselves by selling in to the darkest of fiends, they're murderous sociopaths and so I really dislike them as a PC race, minotaurs are just unsuitable for a PC race, they're too large and too strong, I shudder at the thought of these tauren-like medium-sized minotaurs, a minotaur should be able to pick an ogre up by the scruff of his neck, shake him up and discard him like a ragdoll.
Kalashtar: You want to play a psychic human? well pick human race and psychic class? I still haven't figured out what makes Kalashtar different from humans.
Shardmind & Dragonborn: I find both ridiculus, it might just be my conservative side that can't align with these two races but I just have a deep-seated disgust of them.
Deva: They're basically angels, I find them fluffwise to be too powerful for PC play, it's the same problem I have with the invoker class: "Alright, you want to play the direct voice and fist of your god, directly channeling his power to destroy the unbelievers, sounds cool, I'm sure you can find an epic destiny to do just that... wait you want to do that at level 1???"
Hobgoblins, Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, Bullywugs, Kobolds & Bugbears: Individually I have no problem with these races as PC races, but they are monsters, classic foes of D&D heroes, so to make them work I think you have to change one or two of them specifically for the campaign setting, make them non-monsters, don't keep them as the classic monsters and allow all at once in the same campaign.
Changelings: I find the racial ability of changelings way too powerful, in social-play focused campaigns their ability to turn into someone else at-will makes it too hard for me as a DM to challenge them in any way.
I don't dislike any race. That would imply that I do not intend to come up with a way to make the race enjoyable to me, whether it be just a small adjustment for my character, or a major change for a campaign setting.
What I DO dislike, however, is the way some races are presented in a game's setting, be it a mechanical reason, or a flavor reason.
Take Wilden for instance. Mechanically, they're fine, if not a little odd, but flavor wise, I think they suck. They have a boring history and a horrible appearance design. I pine for the old Killoren race that inspired them when I regard Wilden as they are presented.
I could go into ways to change races to make them more interesting, but that derails the thread from its primary purpose, so I'll leave that for another time and another thread.
Races that I dislike the standard fluff of are as follows: Elf, Halfling, Gnomes, Shardmind, Wilden, and Shades. Also Bladelings, but I think they kinda screwed the pooch on them as a whole. If they would at least TRY to do something with them, maybe they could be a decent race...
Would you mind sharing about the old killoren? I never knew them. Well, I heard they had the changing aspects like wilden do, so they're probably good in my book.
On topic: I'm not much of a hater. I'm not happy with 4e changing the changling to make it synonymous with doppelganger. As I recall, in 3.5, changelings were hybrids of human(oid) and doppelganger heritage while doppelgangers were considerably more monstrous. In short, a doppelganger is fairly likely to use its disguise to try to eat you, while a changeling would use that disguise for more mundane evils. It added a level to the world: like the half-elf, changelings were caught in between two worlds, but one is far less easy for us mortals to understand. Plus the implication of new changeling bloodlines being founded if a doppelganger pulls a nasty trick.
Hm, what else?.... I'm not sure about halflings. A Tolkien throw-back that I don't think was necessary. At least 4e tried to give them their own purpose. Practically made them anti-hobbits. Really, I feel like halflings and gnomes could just be combined.
Would you mind sharing about the old killoren? I never knew them. Well, I heard they had the changing aspects like wilden do, so they're probably good in my book.
Long story short, they were Fey that found themselves as comfortable in the wilds of nature as in the walls of civilizations. Sort of like an extension of nature growing back into the world of men. They gave off an air of "I'm not gonna take your crap", which is pretty cool for a tree hugger race in my book XD
Would you mind sharing about the old killoren? I never knew them. Well, I heard they had the changing aspects like wilden do, so they're probably good in my book.
Long story short, they were Fey that found themselves as comfortable in the wilds of nature as in the walls of civilizations. Sort of like an extension of nature growing back into the world of men. They gave off an air of "I'm not gonna take your crap", which is pretty cool for a tree hugger race in my book XD
Thanks. Sounds like it could be interesting, but I don't entirely get it. Then again, what quick summary could compare to reading the whole section from... Races of the Wild, was it?
Kalashtar: You want to play a psychic human? well pick human race and psychic class? I still haven't figured out what makes Kalashtar different from humans.
Here's the deal. Kalashtar are psychic because their ancestors helped refugee entities from the Plane of Dreams. I think of kalashtar as having more than one mind, but short of two minds, if that makes sense. Imagine the quori spirit as a jigsaw puzzle. Each kalashtar is one piece of that puzzle and a complete individual on his or her own. The Quori exists as its own entity, but it perceives and interacts with the world only through its myriad carriers, lacking a body of its own, and each individual kalashtar being far smaller and more limited than its nearly Lovecraftian experience before persecution for its religious beliefs. An individual kalashtar knows that the Quori connects him or her to his/her relatives and seeks to use them to its own ends. When a kalashtar does something, is it really his own desire, or is it the subtle influence of this barely-felt overmind? When is luck and happenstance really the machinations of some being your ancestor offered sanctuary? And here's the other side of kalashtar that's fun: the quori that sought refuge were renegades, and they're still being hunted. The Dreaming Dark is the mother of all conspiracies, and you know they're out to get you. Basically, the appeal of kalashtar is the cultural attachments, and not the psychic humanoid bit. It's the paranoia. It's the fact that you are marked for death just because of who your parents are, and who their parents were. It's the life on the run. It's the fact that you never had a chance to have a normal life, and you grew up in a culture where no one did. It's the fact that you're sharing your life with a Lovecraftian-entity-gone-Drizzt-clone, and that same entity knew your ancestor from 1000 years ago, and sometimes when you dream, you catch flashes of memories of him. Or your cousin. Or your mother. Or some long-lost distant relative who doesn't even know he's not human and has only escaped assassin's daggers because the overmind had his back.
