Player Races

So, in picking up 5e again after the short break for Call of Cthulhu, and reading Volo’s Guide to Monsters, I’m struck at how 5e handles character races. I get that there are many problematic pieces to level limits (ala 1e), or even experience point penalties (ala 3.5e), the latter especially given that I’ve moved to story-based advancement rather than tracking XP. But for the life of me I have no reason to vote “for” playing a human in 5e and many more for playing another race – save for strictly flavor-text RP preference, unless the GM mandates some sort of ratio.

Now, I had pretty much banned folk from playing elves in my campaign world (with a couple of very notable exceptions) because I didn’t think anyone could play the mindset very well. I dropped that, at the same time I have a world where I want things to feel very “human -centric” – quite unlike the far more cosmopolitan Forgotten Realms for example. For me this makes the actually cosmopolitan areas stand out more.

But I’ll be damned about how to incentivize people to play humans over other races – and racial bonuses to stats make this even worse. Honestly, I think I’m going to switch statistic modifiers back to something more in-line with my 1e rules, perhaps even penalizing my non-humans more stringently. That was always a thing about playing a non-human yes, you got the stat bonus but there was always an associated penalty…

Now, this is probably at least partly a shared problem with my players. As one example, Ilda the Dwarf Bard might as well be Ilda the Elven Bard or Ilda the Human Bard, there is nothing especially “dwarvish” in the way that KT plays Ilda and while this is certainly something I’ve allowed, it’s also a failure on the part of the player to fully embrace the character’s race. MS always plays humans because he has said that he’s not interested in making things harder for himself, so I think that has stood out in his play of Lord Devin. That wasn’t always the case because I can remember when Ilda took some very strong stands against looting tombs.

When people have played nonhumans before, I’ve been used to them embracing the race and running with it. Sometimes playing a large part in creating that races culture – two of my previous characters did that with gnome. There is a reason why they are Celtic-ish, kilt-wearing, Druidic, hard-drinking folks rather than the version portrayed in other settings.

I also noticed that in the last couple of sessions I’ve dropped almost all of my descriptive detail – and that’s not good for the game. If I’m not setting the mood and the tone well, my players will follow suit and pretty soon were not role-playing, we’re roll-playing and essentially miniatures wargaming using the 5e rules. Not exactly a bad thing, but not what people came to do.

But getting back to character races, taking a page from Character Backgrounds, I think each nonhuman character race needs a real hook that serves as a foil. For my high elves and wood elves it is their lack of understanding of money, KR has done a good job of using that to build flavor into Gwynneth, but I don’t quite have anything like that for the other races. I should probably review each race and build something in on that level as I review statistic bonuses and penalties.

TTFN!

D.

Volo’s Guide to Monsters (Review)

Ok, so this came in last Friday and I have to say that I’m pretty favorably inclined to it. I’m not even sure that I care about the extra monsters stat blocks, at this point I seem to be more inclined to grab my 1e books and adapt things on the fly, or I’m using modules and doing the same thing. But, the monster lore and character races are really nicely done – even the bits I will never use.

Beholders – don’t have them in my world, so not a thing for me, but still a nicely done section. I don’t have standard giants or an Ordning in my world so this is probably the least useful section for me. Yaun-Ti are the basis for my Ithians, and it was nicely done.

I don’t have Mind Flayers, so this is less useful to me but like beholders I things it’s well done section. My Ichneumon Vorre are essentially my version of Illithids, so over the years I have ganked some bits and pieces for them. The Goblinoid and Orc sections are similarly iffy, but mostly because my goblins are more Harn-esque than Tolkien in many ways, but I plenty of stuff there than I can use.

Kobolds and Hags are kind of interesting. I have kobolds, but as jungle-dwelling or desert-dwelling creatures (two differently adapted relations, the same with lizard men) but I liked the write-up. Hags as an organized group really gives me some food for thought – not sure if I’ll use it, but it’s well done.

The PC races would all need to be tweaked in the same way that I’ve tweaked the “standard races” but I like them. The new Aaismar is much more evocative than the version from the DMG, and the rest have their interesting aspects that are worth looking at.

Worth it as a GM (though perhaps not if you are a player), especially if you playing in a standard 5e setting.

D.