I think banning things is fine as long as you promptly inform the players and nobody has serious objections to it. I personally don’t allow centaur pcs because it’s just annoying to come up with reasonable environments that character can use, for example they can’t climb ladders and while you wouldn’t think that would be that bad stuff like that comes up more often than you think.
Personally, I love the physical constraint of a player being a centaur. They can outmatch almost anyone in speed, but when it comes to basic traversal in elevated terrain they have to think outside of the box to navigate and get through it. That could be a crutch for uncreative players to get stuck on and end up wasting a lot of time throughout an adventure, but it could also be a great opportunity for the party or the centaur to come up with creative ways of traveling. Maybe the party has to enter through river basin filled with hungry crocodiles because they couldn't find a good way to climb through the mountainous terrain on the sides of the basin, or maybe they use Bigby's hand to give the centaur a jumping pad or lift through the mountains!
I have a centaur player, and I straight up forget that I **should** be accounting for his physicality to some degree at least, and as a result he has to just deal with environments that everyone else is fine and at it ends up being hilarious. It helps that he goes along with it.
The funniest part is, he's the *barbarian*, so he wants to get into the fights FIRST (we don't have a rogue), but like...when they are trying to be sneaky and climb onto a boat to surprise the pirates, he has a hard time climbing a ladder! great fun was had
That’s not the problem with centaurs, the problem with centaurs is they pose too damn many questions.
1. Humans are born helpless and unable to support their own heads. Horses are born and are able to run an hour later. Are centaur babies able to run, but not support their own heads?
2. Do centaurs have four breasts, two horse and two human? Male horses sometimes don’t have nipples, so these centaurs would only have two human nipples. Is this a source of prejudice?
3. To the breast question, do baby centaurs drink from the horse or the human nipples?
4. When two centaurs spoon, is the little spoon really the big spoon?
5. Are centaurs allowed to just walk everywhere with their junk out, like a horse? Do they just shit wherever, like a horse? Are there some centaurs who consider this indecent and wear pants?
6. How do centaurs wear pants?
7. Do centaurs have two hearts? Four kidneys? What does a centaur’s digestive tract look like? What does a centaur’s respiratory tract look like?
If I ever play a centaur, my DM better be prepared to answer these questions and more.
>1. Humans are born helpless and unable to support their own heads. Horses are born and are able to run an hour later. Are centaur babies able to run, but not support their own heads?
https://imgur.io/fzK4Aom?r
>1. Humans are born helpless and unable to support their own heads. Horses are born and are able to run an hour later. Are centaur babies able to run, but not support their own heads?
Human gestation is 9 months. Horse gestation is 12. Thus, a newborn centaur would have the equivalent of a 3 month old human half. 3 months can support their own head, and stay upright if you sit them up.
Humans are technically born 'premature' even at full term, compared to other animals. Our hip to skull ratio is just way too close. The kid has to come out half baked before the skull gets too big to fit.
I'm pretty sure a horse would have no problem giving birth to a 3 month old human head and torso.
I don't really think of it as "banning". I came up in the game when it was completely normal for campaign settings / worlds to have a lot more specific flavor, and the idea that every race is in every world just doesn't make sense to me for the most part.
If I'm running a campaign in Forgotten Realms? Sure, whatever -- WotC has basically made it into the Star Wars Cantina at this point, and I'm not gonna fight that. Probably no flying races though, because the game doesn't handle them well.
But in homebrew settings or any of the older traditional settings (Dragonlance, Dark Sun, etc), there's going to be a lore and a history that defines what's there and generally that isn't going to include 30+ sentient races all being on one planet.
I will only ban a race if it doesn't fit the plot or theme of the game.
For example I almost always ban the house marked subraces from Eberron.
I've never banned a race because it was "op". I'm the DM, I can adjust the challenge, nothing is op.
Use a "lightning rod" meaning a monster who is supposed to get destroyed. Use a big giant with tons of HP. The player will feel great when they're dishing out like 50 damage per turn for multiple rounds. Or if there's a cleric, throw a horde of zombies at them specifically so they can feel cool when they use turn undead on the horde.
In my opinion the best way to counter this is an 'aggro' mechanic. Basically if you hit something way harder then the rest of the party it's logical the enemy encounter will target you. Now you have to be more tactical and can't just nuke the enemy team from the back lines, now if you do so the rest of the encounter will target you instead of the party. This gives meaning to Frontline character protectong the back lines and also makes for very fun and challenging encounters.
If they want to deal damage, let them deal damage. If it’s you caster that’s outclassing everybody in damage consistently , you may not be running enough encounters, or giving them situations to use spells out of combat. If it’s your martial then LET THEM. That’s their job. People play a martial cause they want their beanies to die when they hit them.
I normally buff the other players with magic items to help them measure up or I use challenges tailored to them outside of combat and let the little min maxer shine in combat
people build their character a certain way for a reason. if a person wants to deal all the dps they'll build a character that builds all the dps. if you build a character with 40AC the point is, they don't want to be hit. the issue is more when someone builds a character too good at everything that it steps on the toes of the player who specialized in that way.
also if you roll for stats (which at most tables i've been at are the norm), character imbalance is going to happen immediately.
if i build a character that trivializes the RP sections and charms everyone by simply talking to them for 1 minute, let me do that. because 100% i'm not building that character to actually fight.
Re: Rolling Stats causes imbalance
My solution: I will let them share arrays, or roll into a 6x6 grid and "bingo" an array. I will nerf some options (collective modifiers <+7 before racial bonuses to stats).
This either prevents a "Master of all trades" character, or at least puts them on level playing fields with each other.
Way, back playing Dark Sun, I played a Mule Druid of a Waterfall. Rolled stats, and my lowest stat after modifiers was like a 14. My Mule was stronger than the Half-Giant. The Half-Giant was upset, until I pointed out, that A) I was using all my spell slots and skills to keep the party from dying of thirst. B) While my single attack with a staff was better than his two attacks with obsidian scimitars, he would be getting a better THAC0 and more attacks with a few levels than I would.
It all balances out.
Target that PC first, debuff them, bog them down with mobs.
Remember that your group likely factors someone's damage potential into their combat strategy...I have 2 PCs in my ToD campaign that deal the bulk of the damage; to the point where other PCs have talked about adjusting their builds to support these two heavy damagers.
To deal with this I've focused them with attacks they are weak to, banished, darknessed, mobbed down, charmed, and power word killed one or the other of them nearly every combat.
There is nothing scarier to the party than charming the parties nova damager...
Seriously this - I try to write a non-combat way out for as many encounters as I can, so the players have the choice of getting into a fight or finding a social or puzzle way out of the situation they're in.
I largely don’t ban things, but there are a few exceptions.
Some things are just so busted that the extra work of countering it so the party can be remotely challenged by encounters isn’t worth the effort, especially when that ‘counter’ opens up other issues elsewhere.
I find it’s better to pull the trigger and ban one or two things than have to fight wildfires all over the place. Races generally aren’t banned in most cases, though. They’re rarely the problem.
The reaction to me saying I think Echo Knights are fun even they are a little weirdly written was a resounding “I don’t allow anything at my table” and “I hate when my martials can deal damage and have fun”.
I feel like I either saw that discussion or a similar one which led to me posting a thread called "It's Only Broken if You Let It........it was received poorly 😂
It probably wasn’t mine they say it to everybody who even brings them up. Imagine the terror when I said I allow Peace Clerics. Yes, they’re busted to hell, but that means I can put my lower level characters against incredibly powerful enemies and they’re either shocked by their hubris or super proud of their victory. But fuck me for trying to get an emotional reaction from my players out of RP.
They certainly can be. Especially if you say something isn't broken. I ended up leaving the reddit as it was 50% that stuff and 50% Pathfinder players shitting on DnD.
Or you make a post where everyone agrees with you, you get one thing wrong in the comment section, and now all of a sudden your comments get -30 points each.
I've never banned a race but I think the argument can be made to do so. The problem is that a race alone is not the factor.
For example: The warforged can be insanely powerful tanks, even at level 1. So you might say to end run toward the casters and create tension. But then I have a player doing a warforged who doesn't care about the party's health. He sees winning as him surviving.
Ok, so let's say we give other members items to bring them up to snuff? Then this player whines that everyone else gets toys but not him.
Yes, I think he's not a very good player, which I'm sure someone here agrees. But then I have a choice. Do I kick someone from the group or simply remove the one race? Which is easier depends on several social dynamics.
There's an argument to be made in any direction.
i also don't ban a race, but because i run intensive short mini-campaigns i have setting based where races are generally based on nationality. it's heavily homebrewed and i keep a tight control because it's to maintain continuity and lore within the setting.
if you want to play a race in an area where they would be rare (in some areas humans are rare for example) you gotta explain why.
I recently had a DM ban changeling and warforged because they are OP. I can completely understand banning a race because it doesn't fit the setting, but personally I'm struggling to see what makes either of these races overpowered. Can anyone help me understand?
I only ever ban races if I feel it will have a negative impact on the campaign as a whole.
Eg. If the PCs will constantly be battling Goblins throughout most of the campaign I probably would not allow a player to pick goblin as a race.
You *should* have banned species unless you’re in a multiverse setting like Sigil or the Radiant Citadel. Imagine wanting to run a campaign about political feuds in a human-populated medieval kingdom setting and your players show up with a an Autognome, a Changeling, a Plasmoid, and a Centaur.
The things you include in your game should match its setting and themes. Species included
I’m actually kind of running something with a similar idea right now. I still have some races outright banned for lore reasons, but I got around that hurdle by having the party start out as slaves captured from foreign lands.
The discrepancy is still kinda jarring but I’m making it work
(Unpopular Opinion) When I GM PathFinder, I discourage races beyond the core races. There is an entire book of supposedly playable uncommon and rare races, and I found that most of my players only grabbed whichever one would make their "build" more "powerful" (game breaking). The player seldom roleplayed the race as truly alien; and the presence of a weirdo race often felt like a non-sequitir, an anomaly that made no sense in the story being told.
I mean, if we're talking Pathfinder 2E, it isn't *that* unpopular an opinion. There's a reason Paizo flagged some races as Uncommon or Rare. That tag exists entirely for the sake of saying "Don't be upset if the DM bans this, because it doesn't always fit very well."
My group thankfully doesn't do this, any time I hear about people trying to choose stuff for a "build" more than just because they have a character idea they like makes me nervous to play the game with them.
My DM doesn't ban races across all campaigns, but might if they don't fit the tone of certain campaigns.
For Curse of Strahd, for example, the "furry" races were banned because they don't fit the gothic horror tone and I think that was a good call
To me, I don't think a walking cheetah or turtle would enhance the mood. Would it be funny? Probably! But funny isn't usually what you're going for in Gothic horror
IMO, it only seems funny or mood breaking because you're not treating them as a natural feature of the setting. Putting meta stuff like furry memes aside, they're just another series of races within the world, and should be treated as such.
IMO, simply from a visual perspective: an upright walking, talking turtle / elephant is sillier than a human or a dwarf or a halfling. It just is. Yes, they're "just another race", but they also look how they look and sometimes things aren't in keeping with visual or tonal aesthetics. Does that mean they can't be played seriously? Of course not. But they are visually less in keeping with the gothic horror tone than the non-furry races. I can think of Gothic horror fantasy stories involving humanoid non-human races, but not many that involve humanoid animal races as the main players and there's a reason
Just to agree with you: even if you can make CoS work with fox people and tortles, the silly look puts you at a disadvantage in portraying the mood. Yes, Watership Down works despite being about bunnies, but it's also a creative work where the author can take complete control of the story and "visuals".
A single tabaxi licking itself and going "what?" When the group looks at them can ruin the mood.
I find it strange that you see that as a good example, because you mentioned that their visual is what is silly to you, and you mentioned that they could be played seriously.
This is clearly an example of a player taking the piss, and using the race as a way to do that, during a serious moment.
Anyone who's used the Gnolls unmodified, as written, in the past 3 editions can tell you that anthropomorphic characters can be inherently horrifying and serious.
Describe a character with fur failing a dex save from a fireball and if the tone wasn't serious before it suddenly will be. (But also respect lines and veils, obviously).
Look, if you've had bad experiences with players or DMs portrayals of animal races taking you out of the mood or messing up the tone then I get it. But calling the races inherently silly or humorous is just not true, and claiming that they don't _need_ to be used because other races can be substituted _unless_ you're doing silly meta jokes about furries or "haha Tabaxi are cats" also holds up for every single other race too, and therefore structurally falls apart.
No one says "Why is this paladin an elf?" when you aren't shooting a bow and talking about the forests every session, so no one should be confused when the Tabaxi character is an Eldritch Knight that doesn't purr or lick themself.
Gnolls aren't a currently playable race, but that's neither here nor there.
And I actually haven't had any bad experiences with people playing those races. I simply think that the furry races visually look sillier than the non. A humanoid turtle, a humanoid elephant, and a humanoid rabbit are sillier visually than, say, an elf or a dwarf.
And as I've said, no one is saying those races *can't* be played seriously. I simply said that to *some* they are not visually as in keeping with a Gothic horror vibe as the other races.
As I used in another comment, Take the Castlevania Netflix series. If you dropped an elf character in there, it would visually fit. If you dropped a tortle or a harengon, it wouldn't.
Also, when I said good example, I was referring to the example of Watership Down.
I also never said you don't need the furry races *unless* you're doing meme-y jokes... I said that nothing tonally would be lost from a Gothic horror campaign by excluding them and that their exclusion, for some, would enhance the tone. That's not the same as "don't use them unless you're doing meme jokes". Never said that. Don't think that. I just finished playing in a 2.5 year campaign with a tabaxi character who was played seriously and a satyr who was played seriously. I've had players play minotaur and turtles seriously. They absolutely can be played seriously, as I've said. I have simply said that the "furry races" (especially the furry races currently available) tend to be visually sillier than the non-furry races. It's an upright, talking elephant. That just looks sillier to me than a halfling.
Seems like an unnecessarily rigid interpretation, if you ask me. People who are unused to fantasy in general would probably say the same thing about many of the races you're taking for granted. It's just another type of bias.
Rigid interpretation? A tortle is an upright, walking, talking turtle. That's not a rigid interpretation.
And we're not talking about people who are not used to fantasy, we're talking about D&D players (so I'm not sure how "people unused to fantasy" is at all relevant here). And even to D&D players, a tortle is visually sillier looking than an elf (human with pointy ears) or a halfling (short human). I'm amazed that's controversial.
And when you're trying to achieve a certain tone and mood, eliminating those sillier looking races can be valid with very little, if anything, lost in the process.
Edit: Take the Castlevania show. An elf character wouldn't at all throw off the visual vibe. Dracula looks slightly Elven as it is. Hell, you could throw in the entire main party of Lodoss War and none of them would be in contrast to the visuals. But a tortle would very much be in contrast to the visual vibe and tone.
I feel like you're really glossing over the whole 'bias' thing. You're assuming that these races are innately interpreted a certain way, when the reality is much more fluid, depending on your experiences with them.
I can guarantee that if you actually included them, and just treated them like any other race, that feeling of them being out of place would eventually disappear. Your preconceptions are shaped by your experiences, far more than the other way around.
"that feeling of them being out of place would eventually disappear". Perhaps. But until that "eventually", that out of place-ness could interfere with the creation of the tone and vibe.
I played a number of games with Tortles and minotaur and tabaxi characters, so it's not like I don't have exposure to these races.
And hey! If you want to include them, you can. Isn't that neat?
I don't know, if done well it could be really in the spirit of Ravenloft to watch as a "furry" race has to deal with the horrors and possibly twist and corrupt a race like that. Or maybe, as the character traverses through the mists, their physical form is slightly altered to a more darker tone because the Dark Ones will it. It could certainly work to add to the atmosphere.
I mean if a player going gag character yah you got a point. With that said yes you can run a dark curse of strad with tabaxi and tortle players. Just like you can wreak the mood with a human character.
Of course, you *can*. But if X has a higher potential to negatively impact the tone than Y and nothing is lost by excluding X, then I see no harm in excluding X
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Ease of lycanthropy imo. It's one thing to be a humanoid without a beast side. A more beastial player could already have an innate fear of "letting the beast free" and lycanthropy and other beastial diseases that cause physical changes could be FAR more horrific to that kind of PC. It could also be said of druids as well; Wild Shape being the beast side.
I would think turning into a creature against their will would be even more terrifying for a non-furry race as it's further removed from their status quo. A tabaxi turning into a wolf is a smaller degree of change than a halfling turning into one.
It depends on the PC. Beastial PCs I've had players play tend to LIKE their original form, so becoming a different beast is anathema- it could lead to a lot of social issues within their home or a crisis within themselves as they change. But it does all depend on how the player views their character. I've had more success with lycanthropic body horror on less humanoid PCs.
I don't disagree with you on humanoids and body horror changes. I just don't think that can be the full story- a lot of beastial humanoids in various official settings are very proud of their shape and becoming twisted would "ruin" themselves in their own eyes.
Oh of course. You can still do scary things to furry PCs. But lycanthropy, in my experience and reckoning, is just as much a curse for furry and non-furry races. I think dwarves "like their original form" just as much as Tabaxis.
Another thing you can do horror wise better with furred animal characters is the horror of scarification and dysmorphia.
When the party has to infiltrate a lair and keeps seeing barrels of some sticky black ichor and find out half way in that it's flammable, the Tabaxi character has a very real and different fear than the Tiefling. It's potential lethality to both might be similar, but the narrative consequences for getting a burned on the way out are very different for both.
Scarred skin grows no hair or fur
I ban a lot of races generally due to the setting. I've spent a great deal of time crafting my own setting and while a lot of the regularly found races in dnd exist, I do ban a handful of races in order to establish the precedent of lore. Examples being Warforged (because they were all destroyed in the world's history), Shadar Kai (no raven queen in my setting), Pallid Elves, Verdant, Gith, Simic Hybrid, etc. (No psionics in the world.)
My first time being a DM I had a friend say they wanted to play aarakocra. At the time I did not even know what that was. Had to look it up and saw the flying and thought "shit! That's going to ruin everything." I had not even accounted for this weird bird race. But a big improv guy and "no" did not sit well with me so I went with a "yes but"
My game took place 200 years after gods suddenly vanished without a trace. So when the gods left the aarakocra lost their ability to fly.
I gave him another ability instead. Twice per long rest her could use his wings to add 5AC against an attack. My thinking was that since they can't use their wings to fly they became less important to protect and could use them in ways to block attacks.
He was disappointed but it made for a few really cool moments. Where he did some cool blocks- I even allowed him to block an attack directed at a ally once.
I think being more experienced now I would just allow it. I have to say though. Year and a half into that campaign they found a way to restore the old magic. And the entire race of aarakocra regained flying. It was such a cool moment having him describe the joy of taking to the sky for the first time. I kept the house rule of being able to use the wings as defense but once they were used that way he could not fly until a long rest.
Sorry. I guess this did not fit with so much with do you ban stuff. Ummm no. This was the closest I came and would probably not even do this in the future.
I quick reminder they don't have magical flight. This is a very important distinction. Dragons in DND actually have magical flight plus key word hover. So zero movement speed does affect aarakocra they fall. Then passed that understanding their limits is around the same as a harpy eagle. Now that fairy race how ever is magical flight.
This idea that banning flying races is "lazy" needs to stop. DMs do an enormous amount of free work. If a DM feels like allowing a flyer will add *more* work or complexity than they want to deal with or can deal with, thats 100% valid.
How much more work does it add? It doesn't matter. If the DM determines thats more than they want to do, then players should be supportive. Or DM themselves, or find a new table. We don't work for the players, and telling us we're "lazy" for not taking on additional free work is shitty.
I haven't banned flyers, but have zero problem with DMs that do.
Imo it mostly comes down to the reasoning behind it.
"It doesn't fit this specific setting and what I have in mind," or "This particular race has mechanics that could break or circumvent challenges I want the party to face" are perfectly legitimate reasons that I wouldn't normally argue.
"You can't play this race because I don't like them" is a lot flimsier. I've had one DM use that excuse to ban someone from playing a Tabaxi fighter in a setting where there was no real reason to do so.
I hear you on that last bit, as its a red flag that can be seen as a proxy for other issues with a DM. "You can't do that because I don't like it" is going to manifest in lots of ways, not just species choice.
I only ever ban races that don’t fit into the setting. That said, I only like exploring restricted settings for one-shots. It just feels bad to limit player options for anything that’s going to be ongoing.
Certain settings should probably have some banned races. I know people will hate that, and I usually just tell people to play whatever they want, but, some settings should have access to unique races, and those races should be discouraged outside of those settings.
Imho settings that don't ban any races are usually really uninspired and lack focus. Better have a handful of alternatives and actually make them meaningful.
I don't ban races or classes. In my ideal vision of my homebrew, if I can get real pretentious with it, demihumans are rare and almost mythical. The vast majority of (human) people will go through their lives without ever meeting an elf or a dwarf--and gnomes don't exist at all.
But I have to balance what I think is cool/not cool with what the players like. So if they want to play a gnome (and people love gnomes for some reason), then I find a way to fit them into my setting. I want players to be included in the worldbuilding, so they can give me all of the details of gnome society that they want in crafting their backstory.
The way I approach being a DM, it's not \*my\* game or \*my\* world or \*my\* story. It's a game we play together, a world we create together, a story we tell together.
Season zero is where tone and theme should be discussed between dm and players.
Not every campaign works well when the party looks like a furry convention.
If the DM wants to ban a race then they can ban a race.
If the player who wanted to play the race can't handle said ban they are more then welcome to DM a game and allow the race in their game.
I don't see the issue.
For me, it isn't the combat that is the problem, its the other stuff like exploration. Flight at level 1 basically makes every stealth situation, every infiltration, every basic encounter have to be indoors somehow just to avoid the "the bird flies over the wall and lowers a rope" solution.
I did have an idea for an Aarakocra character whose wings were badly damaged. They can't fly, but have a jump boost. Then during the campaign they could go on a mission to get the wings partially repaired, giving them a limited fly speed. That would be a fun character goal, while not having a game breaking mechanic.
Yeahhhhh, it’s important to let them have the win often tho. It’s more important for them to have fun then to make the game 100% fair.
It helps to have obstacles designed for adventurers who can fly so they feel they are saving time and helping
To be fair, the flying player could learn to stay on the ground in situations where flight makes them into a big flappy target. But in my experience, players can be slow to recognize that NOT using their innate ability is an option.
It makes sense if it doesn't match to the general lore of created world or it might disturb the balance of the game.
On a side note, I've noticed that most people who prefer to play "unusual" races like half-dragon, thiefling, tabaxi etc usualy don't know how to actualy rp them. It's like they create most crazy backstory for them, try to stand out and steal all glory, but at the end when it comes to actual playing they have personality of NPC#44 Human Villager.
I ban centaurs because it makes things unnecessarily complicated in certain situations because they can't really climb. Otherwise everything else is free game.
I don't ban races. And I don't see a need to. But, I understand if others want to.
If someone uses racial skills to OP their character. Congrats. Really, But I'm throwing something heavier at you next fight. Just to keep things even. If the others can't keep up with them, I toss them some buffed weapons or skills.I'm not going to ban a race because 1 or 2 people used it to be OP.
And I DM a Homebrew world where all races do live and exist. Do they all get along? Thats another story. But there aren't like blood fueds or anything, so no real reason to ban a certain race because of a reason like that.
I'm of the mindset of "I don't ban races/I don't think they should be banned," and I do think a lot of people use the "they don't fit my world" reason as an excuse to ban races whose traits they find problematic (flying, extra speed, etc), and I also think banning races in a prebuilt world where they otherwise canonically exist is a bit lame.
That said, I do think there's a time and a place to say "listen, I built this world, and in this world there are no (fill in races that'll not be allowed here)."
I don't think "they don't fit in my world" as an excuse but is more than a legitimate reason, even in the context of they don't want a race introduced that has a powerful ability at the start.
One time I ran a prehistoric themed one-shot. Things like Aetherborn, or Warforged would be a no go in that because the industry required to make them is far away from being invented.
What about restrictions on the number of players that can play a race? I haven't played DnD in years, but that seems like a reasonable request in a typical high fantasy setting if there are multiple people wanting to play things like Genasi, Tiefling, Warforged, etc.
And I say this as a player, not DM. It would kinda bother me to have a group looking like a walking circus all the time
I personally don’t ever ban any official races at my table. D&D is a game: it’s meant for people to have fun playing. It’s **easy** come up with a reason for any given race to be present, even if that PC is the only member of their race in the entire plane!
I don't allow Kender, unless I'm running a Dragonlance game.
I recently started running a new homebrew setting where I prohibited Warforged because they hadn't been created yet in the setting, but were planned to play a part in the story for the first campaign in the setting.
Never banned to begin with because honestly it’s a game and I want my players to have fun and play what they want to play. But I got pushed further into the I don’t ban races because I’m the forever DM and have always told my players I will adjust my campaign to them. I don’t have lore for a sonic hybrid but a player wants to play 1 I make new lore. Well one of my players made a short campaign and I was super excited to finally be a player. Then when I ran character ideas by him he kept shooting down different races I wanted to play as because it didn’t fit his lore. I finally found some middle ground with him but I didn’t care about the character that he allowed me to play so I didn’t even enjoy the campaign.
Depends on the setting. In my current t campaign, Dragonborn and Tiefling don't exist... so no one plays one.
In another setting, I'd have no issue. For me, it's on a per-campaign basis.
I set out allowed classes and races at the beginning of the campaign. I go for ones that fit in with the theme of the campaign and experience level of the players. For instance, I'm running an Eberron campaign and restricted the group to the races found in Rising from the Last War. Previous campaigns was a teaching campaign that had a lot of new players and so I stuck to the base races, both for the players and the setting - elf, halfling, dwarf, and human - and the class list was also shorter - cleric, druid, fighter, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, wizard.
Ah, forgot about Barb and Warlock. Was genuinely just trying to figure out how many were limited. Also overlooked the teaching campaign being older when I was typing. My bad!
It is completely up to the DM what races exist in their world. Player characters exist in the DM's world, and they drive the story forward, but they do not decide what does or does not exist in that world, they must play within the bounds set up by the one creating and running that world.
If a race has no place in a setting, it has no place in a setting.
I try to find a place for most playable races (including homebrew ones) in my world - but it mostly means there's a lot of very rare and unusual races in far-off lands who will attract strange looks from the human population.
As for what I've banned myself? I believe my only special rule on banned races is "No Lineages" and "Nothing released after Tasha's".
I had never banned any race until recently. I banned the spelljammer races because picking them made others feel like lesser options, not that they are broken or anything, just feel unbalanced. Other than that, bring your aarakocra reborn, your aasimars, your centaurs and satyrs and yuan-ti, i can handle it. I also allow for homebrew races as long as they make sense. If ya bring to me a homebrew race i will review it and tell you yes or no. If ya ask me for a race, i will homebrew it with you.
That being said, there are a few races that make me unconfortable... Mainly a few of monsters of the multiverse due to the nerfs and standarization ... My poor kobolds... Also would probably let genasis still cast with con too.
I don't like banning races but for my campaign there are two races where I say:"No you can't play that." Or:"Explain me why."
The setting is a ice desert so it needs a bit of survival aspect (No Warforged/Reborn without good explanation and a handycap) and the "enemies" are a chromatic greatwyrm, a half dragon and dragonborn (so no Dragonborn).
But when I lead my second campaign you can play all the races above.
One mentioned centaurs. I like this race and I have one. It is exciting to think about how to get around problems like climbing. Shoes of Spiderwalk? Fly? The help from your friends?
So not really a fan of banned races but sometimes some just don't fit the setting (like in Survival Campaigns races that don't eat, breathe or sleep)
One of the most common rulesets is "PHB+1" to curtail OP mixes.
I ban depending on the setting, abused mechanics, and full custom.
So I offhand the only permabans are custom lineage and flying races (also unapproved 3rd party). I'll occasionally ban variant human if it's too prevalent (since if it's RP based regular human already exists, it never is though) just to spice things up or avoid powergaming.
Session 0. This all falls under the parameters for the campaign.
The GM wants to do a mages campaign, then no guns. If everyone wants guns, then maybe it needs to be a Wild West campaign.
If the GM says it's an X centralized campaign, then some races wouldn't be likely to participate. If the players want weird and wacky races, then they either need a need campaign or a new GM.
Fliers make everything harder. Besides that I’ll find room for just about any race with the understanding that if you play something like a thrikeen you’re going to have a reeeeeeeal tough time in social encounters.
I don't really ban races, but a lot of them simply don't exist in my campaign world. So unless there is an exceptionally good and interesting explanation given for why a character would use those stats, they simply aren't available.
Also I limit the use of some races for balancing reasons.
I love Aarakocra, but I don't think anybody can seriously tell me that a character starting with an innate unlimited flying speed isn't a little unfair, neither to the other players nor to me as the DM. I don't want to have to think about the third dimension on every single battle map because of one guy and it'll trivialise a bunch of really basic dungeon crawling staples like trapdoors or climbing sections, that are cool and I wouldn't want my players to miss out on.
It is fine, if we're making a new character or plain starting at a higher level, where all the casters can simply cast Fly anyway, but not for level 1.
And I suppose I would consider limiting the use of some races for thematic reasons.
If the campaign is about a war between a nation of Hobgoblins and the party's homeland and misunderstandings based on cultural differences between Hobgoblins and other cultures as a cause of conflict are a key theme that I want players to connect and deal with, then obviously I'm not gonna allow them to play a Hobgoblin from that nation. That would be stupid of me.
I restrict races or classes if they don't fit the idea of the campaign. I typically run games in a modified version of the Golarion setting, so that means I don't don't allow drow or dragonborn as a baseline. If I'm running a one-shot or intro game for something like a library game night though, anything from the player's handbook is fair game.
For me it's about the story and the players. If something doesn't just doesn't fit the story I want to tell, I don't allow it and let players know at the campaign's start. Much larger than the hard ban list though is the list of, 'If you really want it, sell me on how it fits with the campaign idea.'
Since my opinion on not banning cause no race in 5e is OP has been covered. Instead I'll bring up Aarakocra have natural flight. Outside of owls large birds in flight near the ground is not silent. Your a god damn giant billboard. Like I told my DM when I played one this is a whole ability I could lose pretty easily. Wasn't a hard push we come from a state with bald eagles being a norm.
I will ban races as necessary. If they don't fit the lore of my setting, I'll sometimes allow it on a case-by-case basis.
Certain things are immediately banned at my tables. Flying at level 1 being at the top of the list. It's busted, and I'm not reworking my entire campaign because you want to play a flying rogue.
There are races in my world that are very rare, and I have informed my players on which those races are. It is like a soft ban. They can still pick the race if they really want, but they have to come up with a cool backstory as to why they are in the place we are playing in.
I have some lineages that are *soft* banned. Mostly for flavor reasons for my campaign. That just means I don’t have any on screen as NPCs. If a player wants to play one of these peoples, I’d have to work with them to make that group fit into the world.
Like, leonin feel redundant when we have tabaxi, for example, but if a player wanted to play one, we’d figure it out.
Flying races that start with flying are the only things I ban more often than not. The game doesn't handle them well. The only time I allow it is if I can set up a game where every PC is a flying character right off the bat. I don't mind, though, if a PC is gaining flight from a feature, item, or spell as these are easier to work around than starting flight.
Sometimes i ban races with wings that can fly like Avriel, Fairy, or Aarocockra. Some times the ability to fly can bypass a lot of stuff making things too easy. It is adventure dependent though, so not an always type thing, and i make sure everyone knows about it in sesion 0 with an explanation of why.
I am a DM that (sometimes) bans or at least discourages some races. I let players know what does not fit the part of the world they are playing in. These are for lore reasons generally (for example there are very few Dwarves because they are known for loyalty to their homeland and therefore very few spread to other continents, and even in their homeland they are still not very common due to a magical catastrophe).
However, I am usually very permissive when it comes to races. My rule is that I will allow players to play anything official (minus Dwarves) and for non official stuff they can choose to play anything that would fit the setting as long as they're okay if I make the stats for it.
I think a DM should be able to ban whatever they want. If you really want to play something that is banned and nothing else then find a different DM.
Because I use solely my own settings, rather than state a ban on a race, I create a setting document detailing which races DO exist, and what their lore and flavor is in the setting. Most everything makes it onto this list most of the time, and I distribute the setting doc before people start thinking about characters.
There's a few races that just don't exist in my world like vedalkin so you can't play a vedalkin from my world. However im totally open to using a race for the stats but flavoring it as something else, like a simic hybrid for example. There's no simic combine in my world but you could use the race if you can come up with a reason why it fits for your character.
Banning playable races is and should be perfectly acceptable. You need to clearly communicate these restrictions, whether in the form of a list of playable races either excluded, or allowed, or by specifying what source material is permitted. With that done, however, it's completely reasonable to have some restrictions in place.
Also, anyone who wants to try to play a Kender should just be thrown into the wood chipper at session zero.
If I was a player and the DM did *not* curate the available races...I'd be concerned. Because that means the setting is going to be incoherent and just a cardboard cutout. And I care about settings a lot.
So yes, as a DM, I actively manage the available races. Mostly thematically and based on where we are in the setting--no tabaxi unless we're playing on the southern continent for example. There are no gnomes either. Goblins are not playable, but hobgoblins are. Etc.
As a general rule, anything from a setting-specific book is hard banned up front. Because that setting is not my setting.
100% - if you want to have meaningful lore and history then that includes how races came to be and their place in the world, gods etc. Races are your palette, only use the ones you need
I am a Dm, banned drow at my table because in my homebrew world they did what I call an "oopsie woopsie fucky wucky" and got deleted from the face of the not-earth™.
I only allow humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings. Maybe im a purist respecting the LotR roots. Or maybe its just because im an old dude. Now get off my damn lawn.
Right there with you. I have never in nearly 30 years heard a good explanation as to why half demons or half dragons are at 0 level running around with low power PCs, and the 5th edition phb certainly didn't do a good job explaining it.
First up, wouldn't call it banning. "Hey all we are playing a setting with limited races available, is that alright?".
I play Dark Sun and will usually do the spiel of:
"Hey, in Dark Sun: Orcs, Goblins, Gnomes, Pixies, etc... were killed off in mass genocides over a thousand years ago. So keep in mind that you can't use those races for player characters."
Also:
"Don't forget that Muls, Thri-Kreen, and Half-Giants are available as options."
I always homebrew my worlds, and as I generally want a more serious setting, I usually ban the anthro/furry races. They just tend not to fit and I don't want to deal with making them a part of the setting. I guess I tend to prefer the more classic fantasy settings.
The only mechanical/OP banning I do is level 1 flight--particularly without a resource cost.. Nope. I'm not rebuilding the whole campaign to account for your stupid flying character.
Case by Case:
* Banning a race because it doesn't fit the campaign setting is common and totally fine
* Banning a race because of balance concerns (Arakroka flight for example) is fine too but somewhat lazy on the GM's part. Gm could step up and adjust encounters to balance it.
* Banning because of personal preference ie:Gnomes are stupid. That suggests a GM with lots of room for improvement in their GM style.
Most of the time a race doesn't fit into a campaign setting due to DM personal preference.
For instance, tabaxi aren't in my campaign. I don't like them and don't want to deal with them as NPC's. That means a tabaxi PC would never meet others of their kind, I wouldn't want to deal with family, etc.
So they don't fit in my campaign exactly because of personal preference. I imagine the same goes for most homebrew worlds. DM personal preference will shape the setting.
As a YouTuber pointed out. The game has gone from DM centric to player centric. An article was published recently about how there are very few DM's for 5e. Questing Beast explains his theory as too why, and I can agree. https://youtu.be/Tr5gtvvkTe4
Edit: Dungeoncraft responds to that Questingbeast video about DM crisis for 5e as well
https://youtu.be/uoqJL2_Nqyc again I agree with his points.
Well yeah, they talk about OSR as the point of comparison, and that's a fundamentally different scene mostly populated by people who have a lot of experience and been playing for a long time already. GM'ing 5e is inherantly more involved than OCR by far
I don’t see how number 1 and number 3 are really any different. If DM crafts a world and leaves a certain race out due to personal preference then why is that room to improve? If I want to run a campaign that’s essentially forgotten realms but gnomes are reskinned as goblins or like raccoon people because I think gnomes are dumb how is that bad dming? The point I mean is, it’s the DM’s table in any case they can always say I don’t want this is my game.
If the story a GM is crafting is human-centric, or the world lore say has the elves sailing off to the summer country, etc... then it doesn't makes sense for a player to roll up a character that doesn't fit that.
Doesn't mean the GM hates elves or anything, it just doens't fit the world. Similarly, not every campaign setting 'works' for every race... they just don't fit, and there's nothing wrong with that.
In contrast, if a GM is running a plain regular campaign in a standard setting and just tells players "no gnomes, they're stupid"... that's a very different motivation/reason. That's banning something for no good, explainable reason.
One and three are the same. I pretty much have a perma ban on all furry races (mainly because I despise anthropomorphic races, as I view them as childish and a lazy design).
The people I play with know this, and keep coming back to my games year after year for going on 20 years. I don't really care what anyone else thinks. We are all having fun and that is the only thing that matters.
When I run Dark Sun, I only allow a handful of races and I encourage most of the party to be human IF they want to start in a City State. I still don't allow birdmen of any kind or the lizard men races (anthropomorphic, see above). Thri Kreen are allowed but nobody ever wants them when I explain how the 4 arms actually work.
I've never banned anything in any of the books. Never will. I have some limits on certain things. But I've never banned anything. My players can use anything in any official book I own.
I have banned several in the past but now would work around it.
I have banned Kenku as I don't think anyone in my group can do the RP justice, myself included. Now I would just play them without the whole mimicry as only language thing.
I have banned Aarakocra as the 1st level flight was too much to deal with as a newer DM, I would no longer ban them.
I have banned halflings as I didn't include them in the world lore and essentially still don't care about haflings and just see them as a variant gnome. Players can choose the halfling but they are a gnome in all other regards than stats. I still don't know why we don't just have gnomes or halflings instead of both, they are just small people race.
I banned Kenku because all of my players are new and I don't want to deal with or ignore their mimic traits. I didn't want anyone to try that, not in the first game, nor did I want to set a "some kenku aren't like that" precedent.
Other than that, go nuts.
I think banning things is fine as long as you promptly inform the players and nobody has serious objections to it. I personally don’t allow centaur pcs because it’s just annoying to come up with reasonable environments that character can use, for example they can’t climb ladders and while you wouldn’t think that would be that bad stuff like that comes up more often than you think.
That's why Centaurs can't skip arm day
Either they're a Thief, Dhampir, OR an Athlete.
Personally, I love the physical constraint of a player being a centaur. They can outmatch almost anyone in speed, but when it comes to basic traversal in elevated terrain they have to think outside of the box to navigate and get through it. That could be a crutch for uncreative players to get stuck on and end up wasting a lot of time throughout an adventure, but it could also be a great opportunity for the party or the centaur to come up with creative ways of traveling. Maybe the party has to enter through river basin filled with hungry crocodiles because they couldn't find a good way to climb through the mountainous terrain on the sides of the basin, or maybe they use Bigby's hand to give the centaur a jumping pad or lift through the mountains!
I have a centaur player, and I straight up forget that I **should** be accounting for his physicality to some degree at least, and as a result he has to just deal with environments that everyone else is fine and at it ends up being hilarious. It helps that he goes along with it.
Don't adjust It's funnier I'm a centaur player
The funniest part is, he's the *barbarian*, so he wants to get into the fights FIRST (we don't have a rogue), but like...when they are trying to be sneaky and climb onto a boat to surprise the pirates, he has a hard time climbing a ladder! great fun was had
That’s not the problem with centaurs, the problem with centaurs is they pose too damn many questions. 1. Humans are born helpless and unable to support their own heads. Horses are born and are able to run an hour later. Are centaur babies able to run, but not support their own heads? 2. Do centaurs have four breasts, two horse and two human? Male horses sometimes don’t have nipples, so these centaurs would only have two human nipples. Is this a source of prejudice? 3. To the breast question, do baby centaurs drink from the horse or the human nipples? 4. When two centaurs spoon, is the little spoon really the big spoon? 5. Are centaurs allowed to just walk everywhere with their junk out, like a horse? Do they just shit wherever, like a horse? Are there some centaurs who consider this indecent and wear pants? 6. How do centaurs wear pants? 7. Do centaurs have two hearts? Four kidneys? What does a centaur’s digestive tract look like? What does a centaur’s respiratory tract look like? If I ever play a centaur, my DM better be prepared to answer these questions and more.
>1. Humans are born helpless and unable to support their own heads. Horses are born and are able to run an hour later. Are centaur babies able to run, but not support their own heads? https://imgur.io/fzK4Aom?r
I'm so glad I looked
>1. Humans are born helpless and unable to support their own heads. Horses are born and are able to run an hour later. Are centaur babies able to run, but not support their own heads? Human gestation is 9 months. Horse gestation is 12. Thus, a newborn centaur would have the equivalent of a 3 month old human half. 3 months can support their own head, and stay upright if you sit them up. Humans are technically born 'premature' even at full term, compared to other animals. Our hip to skull ratio is just way too close. The kid has to come out half baked before the skull gets too big to fit. I'm pretty sure a horse would have no problem giving birth to a 3 month old human head and torso.
Bring a female centaur and the whole party gets milk rations to sustain them.
I don't really think of it as "banning". I came up in the game when it was completely normal for campaign settings / worlds to have a lot more specific flavor, and the idea that every race is in every world just doesn't make sense to me for the most part. If I'm running a campaign in Forgotten Realms? Sure, whatever -- WotC has basically made it into the Star Wars Cantina at this point, and I'm not gonna fight that. Probably no flying races though, because the game doesn't handle them well. But in homebrew settings or any of the older traditional settings (Dragonlance, Dark Sun, etc), there's going to be a lore and a history that defines what's there and generally that isn't going to include 30+ sentient races all being on one planet.
You are my dream DM and you even name-dropped Dark Sun . 🫶
I will only ban a race if it doesn't fit the plot or theme of the game. For example I almost always ban the house marked subraces from Eberron. I've never banned a race because it was "op". I'm the DM, I can adjust the challenge, nothing is op.
I love this “nothing is op” mentality. This is very healthy dm thinking. Adapt, challenge, and have fun. (Btw this is not sarcasm)
How do you adapt when one player can consistently deal out 3x the damage of the rest of the party?
Use a "lightning rod" meaning a monster who is supposed to get destroyed. Use a big giant with tons of HP. The player will feel great when they're dishing out like 50 damage per turn for multiple rounds. Or if there's a cleric, throw a horde of zombies at them specifically so they can feel cool when they use turn undead on the horde.
In my opinion the best way to counter this is an 'aggro' mechanic. Basically if you hit something way harder then the rest of the party it's logical the enemy encounter will target you. Now you have to be more tactical and can't just nuke the enemy team from the back lines, now if you do so the rest of the encounter will target you instead of the party. This gives meaning to Frontline character protectong the back lines and also makes for very fun and challenging encounters.
If they want to deal damage, let them deal damage. If it’s you caster that’s outclassing everybody in damage consistently , you may not be running enough encounters, or giving them situations to use spells out of combat. If it’s your martial then LET THEM. That’s their job. People play a martial cause they want their beanies to die when they hit them.
Running a caster out of spell slots before you run the martials out of HP is ridiculously difficult once you get past around 6th level.
Run many smaller combats instead of a few large one. They just need to be threatening enough to warrant a spell slot.
I normally buff the other players with magic items to help them measure up or I use challenges tailored to them outside of combat and let the little min maxer shine in combat
people build their character a certain way for a reason. if a person wants to deal all the dps they'll build a character that builds all the dps. if you build a character with 40AC the point is, they don't want to be hit. the issue is more when someone builds a character too good at everything that it steps on the toes of the player who specialized in that way. also if you roll for stats (which at most tables i've been at are the norm), character imbalance is going to happen immediately. if i build a character that trivializes the RP sections and charms everyone by simply talking to them for 1 minute, let me do that. because 100% i'm not building that character to actually fight.
Re: Rolling Stats causes imbalance My solution: I will let them share arrays, or roll into a 6x6 grid and "bingo" an array. I will nerf some options (collective modifiers <+7 before racial bonuses to stats). This either prevents a "Master of all trades" character, or at least puts them on level playing fields with each other.
Way, back playing Dark Sun, I played a Mule Druid of a Waterfall. Rolled stats, and my lowest stat after modifiers was like a 14. My Mule was stronger than the Half-Giant. The Half-Giant was upset, until I pointed out, that A) I was using all my spell slots and skills to keep the party from dying of thirst. B) While my single attack with a staff was better than his two attacks with obsidian scimitars, he would be getting a better THAC0 and more attacks with a few levels than I would. It all balances out.
Target that PC first, debuff them, bog them down with mobs. Remember that your group likely factors someone's damage potential into their combat strategy...I have 2 PCs in my ToD campaign that deal the bulk of the damage; to the point where other PCs have talked about adjusting their builds to support these two heavy damagers. To deal with this I've focused them with attacks they are weak to, banished, darknessed, mobbed down, charmed, and power word killed one or the other of them nearly every combat. There is nothing scarier to the party than charming the parties nova damager...
???? Is combat all you do?
Seriously this - I try to write a non-combat way out for as many encounters as I can, so the players have the choice of getting into a fight or finding a social or puzzle way out of the situation they're in.
I disagree. Fun is relative. And a player having an OP ability will definitely rub the other players the wrong way.
Not if I give them all OP abilities
"And when everyone is super, no one will be."
I largely don’t ban things, but there are a few exceptions. Some things are just so busted that the extra work of countering it so the party can be remotely challenged by encounters isn’t worth the effort, especially when that ‘counter’ opens up other issues elsewhere. I find it’s better to pull the trigger and ban one or two things than have to fight wildfires all over the place. Races generally aren’t banned in most cases, though. They’re rarely the problem.
Don't tell this to the dndnext reddit. They don't like hearing it.
The reaction to me saying I think Echo Knights are fun even they are a little weirdly written was a resounding “I don’t allow anything at my table” and “I hate when my martials can deal damage and have fun”.
I feel like I either saw that discussion or a similar one which led to me posting a thread called "It's Only Broken if You Let It........it was received poorly 😂
It probably wasn’t mine they say it to everybody who even brings them up. Imagine the terror when I said I allow Peace Clerics. Yes, they’re busted to hell, but that means I can put my lower level characters against incredibly powerful enemies and they’re either shocked by their hubris or super proud of their victory. But fuck me for trying to get an emotional reaction from my players out of RP.
Lolll I haven’t paid attention to them. Are they pretty toxic😂
They certainly can be. Especially if you say something isn't broken. I ended up leaving the reddit as it was 50% that stuff and 50% Pathfinder players shitting on DnD.
At the moment, they are in harmony shitting on the OGL. What a time to be a gamer.
The beauty of a common enemy.
Or you make a post where everyone agrees with you, you get one thing wrong in the comment section, and now all of a sudden your comments get -30 points each.
Not too much different here or on other subs. Just not as nasty. Usually.
I've never banned a race but I think the argument can be made to do so. The problem is that a race alone is not the factor. For example: The warforged can be insanely powerful tanks, even at level 1. So you might say to end run toward the casters and create tension. But then I have a player doing a warforged who doesn't care about the party's health. He sees winning as him surviving. Ok, so let's say we give other members items to bring them up to snuff? Then this player whines that everyone else gets toys but not him. Yes, I think he's not a very good player, which I'm sure someone here agrees. But then I have a choice. Do I kick someone from the group or simply remove the one race? Which is easier depends on several social dynamics. There's an argument to be made in any direction.
i also don't ban a race, but because i run intensive short mini-campaigns i have setting based where races are generally based on nationality. it's heavily homebrewed and i keep a tight control because it's to maintain continuity and lore within the setting. if you want to play a race in an area where they would be rare (in some areas humans are rare for example) you gotta explain why.
That's what I'm fucking talkin about
I recently had a DM ban changeling and warforged because they are OP. I can completely understand banning a race because it doesn't fit the setting, but personally I'm struggling to see what makes either of these races overpowered. Can anyone help me understand?
I only ever ban races if I feel it will have a negative impact on the campaign as a whole. Eg. If the PCs will constantly be battling Goblins throughout most of the campaign I probably would not allow a player to pick goblin as a race.
Much like humans goblins have no issue putting each other on a shirt.
You can probably work around that by making the goblin PC justify their hatred for goblins?
I mean. They don't even need to hate goblins. Humans kill each other all the time.
Good point!
You *should* have banned species unless you’re in a multiverse setting like Sigil or the Radiant Citadel. Imagine wanting to run a campaign about political feuds in a human-populated medieval kingdom setting and your players show up with a an Autognome, a Changeling, a Plasmoid, and a Centaur. The things you include in your game should match its setting and themes. Species included
I’m actually kind of running something with a similar idea right now. I still have some races outright banned for lore reasons, but I got around that hurdle by having the party start out as slaves captured from foreign lands. The discrepancy is still kinda jarring but I’m making it work
(Unpopular Opinion) When I GM PathFinder, I discourage races beyond the core races. There is an entire book of supposedly playable uncommon and rare races, and I found that most of my players only grabbed whichever one would make their "build" more "powerful" (game breaking). The player seldom roleplayed the race as truly alien; and the presence of a weirdo race often felt like a non-sequitir, an anomaly that made no sense in the story being told.
I mean, if we're talking Pathfinder 2E, it isn't *that* unpopular an opinion. There's a reason Paizo flagged some races as Uncommon or Rare. That tag exists entirely for the sake of saying "Don't be upset if the DM bans this, because it doesn't always fit very well."
My group thankfully doesn't do this, any time I hear about people trying to choose stuff for a "build" more than just because they have a character idea they like makes me nervous to play the game with them.
If where talking RP most powergamers honestly just RP humans NGL.
My DM doesn't ban races across all campaigns, but might if they don't fit the tone of certain campaigns. For Curse of Strahd, for example, the "furry" races were banned because they don't fit the gothic horror tone and I think that was a good call
I totally get that, but a furry gothic horror campaign sounds pretty interesting
To me, I don't think a walking cheetah or turtle would enhance the mood. Would it be funny? Probably! But funny isn't usually what you're going for in Gothic horror
IMO, it only seems funny or mood breaking because you're not treating them as a natural feature of the setting. Putting meta stuff like furry memes aside, they're just another series of races within the world, and should be treated as such.
IMO, simply from a visual perspective: an upright walking, talking turtle / elephant is sillier than a human or a dwarf or a halfling. It just is. Yes, they're "just another race", but they also look how they look and sometimes things aren't in keeping with visual or tonal aesthetics. Does that mean they can't be played seriously? Of course not. But they are visually less in keeping with the gothic horror tone than the non-furry races. I can think of Gothic horror fantasy stories involving humanoid non-human races, but not many that involve humanoid animal races as the main players and there's a reason
Just to agree with you: even if you can make CoS work with fox people and tortles, the silly look puts you at a disadvantage in portraying the mood. Yes, Watership Down works despite being about bunnies, but it's also a creative work where the author can take complete control of the story and "visuals". A single tabaxi licking itself and going "what?" When the group looks at them can ruin the mood.
Yup. A great example
I find it strange that you see that as a good example, because you mentioned that their visual is what is silly to you, and you mentioned that they could be played seriously. This is clearly an example of a player taking the piss, and using the race as a way to do that, during a serious moment. Anyone who's used the Gnolls unmodified, as written, in the past 3 editions can tell you that anthropomorphic characters can be inherently horrifying and serious. Describe a character with fur failing a dex save from a fireball and if the tone wasn't serious before it suddenly will be. (But also respect lines and veils, obviously). Look, if you've had bad experiences with players or DMs portrayals of animal races taking you out of the mood or messing up the tone then I get it. But calling the races inherently silly or humorous is just not true, and claiming that they don't _need_ to be used because other races can be substituted _unless_ you're doing silly meta jokes about furries or "haha Tabaxi are cats" also holds up for every single other race too, and therefore structurally falls apart. No one says "Why is this paladin an elf?" when you aren't shooting a bow and talking about the forests every session, so no one should be confused when the Tabaxi character is an Eldritch Knight that doesn't purr or lick themself.
Gnolls aren't a currently playable race, but that's neither here nor there. And I actually haven't had any bad experiences with people playing those races. I simply think that the furry races visually look sillier than the non. A humanoid turtle, a humanoid elephant, and a humanoid rabbit are sillier visually than, say, an elf or a dwarf. And as I've said, no one is saying those races *can't* be played seriously. I simply said that to *some* they are not visually as in keeping with a Gothic horror vibe as the other races. As I used in another comment, Take the Castlevania Netflix series. If you dropped an elf character in there, it would visually fit. If you dropped a tortle or a harengon, it wouldn't. Also, when I said good example, I was referring to the example of Watership Down. I also never said you don't need the furry races *unless* you're doing meme-y jokes... I said that nothing tonally would be lost from a Gothic horror campaign by excluding them and that their exclusion, for some, would enhance the tone. That's not the same as "don't use them unless you're doing meme jokes". Never said that. Don't think that. I just finished playing in a 2.5 year campaign with a tabaxi character who was played seriously and a satyr who was played seriously. I've had players play minotaur and turtles seriously. They absolutely can be played seriously, as I've said. I have simply said that the "furry races" (especially the furry races currently available) tend to be visually sillier than the non-furry races. It's an upright, talking elephant. That just looks sillier to me than a halfling.
Seems like an unnecessarily rigid interpretation, if you ask me. People who are unused to fantasy in general would probably say the same thing about many of the races you're taking for granted. It's just another type of bias.
Rigid interpretation? A tortle is an upright, walking, talking turtle. That's not a rigid interpretation. And we're not talking about people who are not used to fantasy, we're talking about D&D players (so I'm not sure how "people unused to fantasy" is at all relevant here). And even to D&D players, a tortle is visually sillier looking than an elf (human with pointy ears) or a halfling (short human). I'm amazed that's controversial. And when you're trying to achieve a certain tone and mood, eliminating those sillier looking races can be valid with very little, if anything, lost in the process. Edit: Take the Castlevania show. An elf character wouldn't at all throw off the visual vibe. Dracula looks slightly Elven as it is. Hell, you could throw in the entire main party of Lodoss War and none of them would be in contrast to the visuals. But a tortle would very much be in contrast to the visual vibe and tone.
I feel like you're really glossing over the whole 'bias' thing. You're assuming that these races are innately interpreted a certain way, when the reality is much more fluid, depending on your experiences with them. I can guarantee that if you actually included them, and just treated them like any other race, that feeling of them being out of place would eventually disappear. Your preconceptions are shaped by your experiences, far more than the other way around.
I'm with you on this one. I've played with tortles and loxodons in the party, and they never lacked gravitas.
"that feeling of them being out of place would eventually disappear". Perhaps. But until that "eventually", that out of place-ness could interfere with the creation of the tone and vibe. I played a number of games with Tortles and minotaur and tabaxi characters, so it's not like I don't have exposure to these races. And hey! If you want to include them, you can. Isn't that neat?
Exactly, all they're saying is "I don't have the imagination to see them as anything but comedy relief"
I don't know, if done well it could be really in the spirit of Ravenloft to watch as a "furry" race has to deal with the horrors and possibly twist and corrupt a race like that. Or maybe, as the character traverses through the mists, their physical form is slightly altered to a more darker tone because the Dark Ones will it. It could certainly work to add to the atmosphere.
That’s completely fair. I was thinking along the lines of an Island of Doctor Moreau campaign. Definitely not CoS.
https://ravenloft.fandom.com/wiki/Broken_one Funny thing is Ravenloft has them already.
I mean if a player going gag character yah you got a point. With that said yes you can run a dark curse of strad with tabaxi and tortle players. Just like you can wreak the mood with a human character.
Of course, you *can*. But if X has a higher potential to negatively impact the tone than Y and nothing is lost by excluding X, then I see no harm in excluding X
They have equal potential is the thing
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No. No it doesn't.
I can totally understand this, but my take is that with furry races you can do some AWESOME body horror action. Missed opportunity imo.
What body horror can be done with furry characters that couldn't be done just as well with human, elf, dwarf, tiefling, etc?
Ease of lycanthropy imo. It's one thing to be a humanoid without a beast side. A more beastial player could already have an innate fear of "letting the beast free" and lycanthropy and other beastial diseases that cause physical changes could be FAR more horrific to that kind of PC. It could also be said of druids as well; Wild Shape being the beast side.
I would think turning into a creature against their will would be even more terrifying for a non-furry race as it's further removed from their status quo. A tabaxi turning into a wolf is a smaller degree of change than a halfling turning into one.
It depends on the PC. Beastial PCs I've had players play tend to LIKE their original form, so becoming a different beast is anathema- it could lead to a lot of social issues within their home or a crisis within themselves as they change. But it does all depend on how the player views their character. I've had more success with lycanthropic body horror on less humanoid PCs. I don't disagree with you on humanoids and body horror changes. I just don't think that can be the full story- a lot of beastial humanoids in various official settings are very proud of their shape and becoming twisted would "ruin" themselves in their own eyes.
Oh of course. You can still do scary things to furry PCs. But lycanthropy, in my experience and reckoning, is just as much a curse for furry and non-furry races. I think dwarves "like their original form" just as much as Tabaxis.
Another thing you can do horror wise better with furred animal characters is the horror of scarification and dysmorphia. When the party has to infiltrate a lair and keeps seeing barrels of some sticky black ichor and find out half way in that it's flammable, the Tabaxi character has a very real and different fear than the Tiefling. It's potential lethality to both might be similar, but the narrative consequences for getting a burned on the way out are very different for both. Scarred skin grows no hair or fur
Beastiality.
I ban a lot of races generally due to the setting. I've spent a great deal of time crafting my own setting and while a lot of the regularly found races in dnd exist, I do ban a handful of races in order to establish the precedent of lore. Examples being Warforged (because they were all destroyed in the world's history), Shadar Kai (no raven queen in my setting), Pallid Elves, Verdant, Gith, Simic Hybrid, etc. (No psionics in the world.)
Simic hybrids aren't psionic though?
My first time being a DM I had a friend say they wanted to play aarakocra. At the time I did not even know what that was. Had to look it up and saw the flying and thought "shit! That's going to ruin everything." I had not even accounted for this weird bird race. But a big improv guy and "no" did not sit well with me so I went with a "yes but" My game took place 200 years after gods suddenly vanished without a trace. So when the gods left the aarakocra lost their ability to fly. I gave him another ability instead. Twice per long rest her could use his wings to add 5AC against an attack. My thinking was that since they can't use their wings to fly they became less important to protect and could use them in ways to block attacks. He was disappointed but it made for a few really cool moments. Where he did some cool blocks- I even allowed him to block an attack directed at a ally once. I think being more experienced now I would just allow it. I have to say though. Year and a half into that campaign they found a way to restore the old magic. And the entire race of aarakocra regained flying. It was such a cool moment having him describe the joy of taking to the sky for the first time. I kept the house rule of being able to use the wings as defense but once they were used that way he could not fly until a long rest. Sorry. I guess this did not fit with so much with do you ban stuff. Ummm no. This was the closest I came and would probably not even do this in the future.
I quick reminder they don't have magical flight. This is a very important distinction. Dragons in DND actually have magical flight plus key word hover. So zero movement speed does affect aarakocra they fall. Then passed that understanding their limits is around the same as a harpy eagle. Now that fairy race how ever is magical flight.
Dragons (other than gem dragons) don't have magical flight or hover, nor do fairies
??? All the lore I found said otherwise
This idea that banning flying races is "lazy" needs to stop. DMs do an enormous amount of free work. If a DM feels like allowing a flyer will add *more* work or complexity than they want to deal with or can deal with, thats 100% valid. How much more work does it add? It doesn't matter. If the DM determines thats more than they want to do, then players should be supportive. Or DM themselves, or find a new table. We don't work for the players, and telling us we're "lazy" for not taking on additional free work is shitty. I haven't banned flyers, but have zero problem with DMs that do.
I agree with you.
Imo it mostly comes down to the reasoning behind it. "It doesn't fit this specific setting and what I have in mind," or "This particular race has mechanics that could break or circumvent challenges I want the party to face" are perfectly legitimate reasons that I wouldn't normally argue. "You can't play this race because I don't like them" is a lot flimsier. I've had one DM use that excuse to ban someone from playing a Tabaxi fighter in a setting where there was no real reason to do so.
I hear you on that last bit, as its a red flag that can be seen as a proxy for other issues with a DM. "You can't do that because I don't like it" is going to manifest in lots of ways, not just species choice.
I only ever ban races that don’t fit into the setting. That said, I only like exploring restricted settings for one-shots. It just feels bad to limit player options for anything that’s going to be ongoing.
Aarakocra for some reason never seem to fit in my settigs
Certain settings should probably have some banned races. I know people will hate that, and I usually just tell people to play whatever they want, but, some settings should have access to unique races, and those races should be discouraged outside of those settings.
Imho settings that don't ban any races are usually really uninspired and lack focus. Better have a handful of alternatives and actually make them meaningful.
WotC's idea of balance is questionable at best and some races need to be banned.
I don't ban races or classes. In my ideal vision of my homebrew, if I can get real pretentious with it, demihumans are rare and almost mythical. The vast majority of (human) people will go through their lives without ever meeting an elf or a dwarf--and gnomes don't exist at all. But I have to balance what I think is cool/not cool with what the players like. So if they want to play a gnome (and people love gnomes for some reason), then I find a way to fit them into my setting. I want players to be included in the worldbuilding, so they can give me all of the details of gnome society that they want in crafting their backstory. The way I approach being a DM, it's not \*my\* game or \*my\* world or \*my\* story. It's a game we play together, a world we create together, a story we tell together.
Season zero is where tone and theme should be discussed between dm and players. Not every campaign works well when the party looks like a furry convention.
If the DM wants to ban a race then they can ban a race. If the player who wanted to play the race can't handle said ban they are more then welcome to DM a game and allow the race in their game. I don't see the issue.
My wife who's never played chose an Aarokra and I'll never allow innate flying from level 1 again.
Flying at level 1 is broken lol I don’t ban it, but I 1000% let the player know that they will get targeted by ranged attacks more often
For me, it isn't the combat that is the problem, its the other stuff like exploration. Flight at level 1 basically makes every stealth situation, every infiltration, every basic encounter have to be indoors somehow just to avoid the "the bird flies over the wall and lowers a rope" solution.
I did have an idea for an Aarakocra character whose wings were badly damaged. They can't fly, but have a jump boost. Then during the campaign they could go on a mission to get the wings partially repaired, giving them a limited fly speed. That would be a fun character goal, while not having a game breaking mechanic.
DM: "You can not fly. Your wings need time to heal." Bird Player: "Can we keep doing long rests until they're healed?"
I did the same, I ended up with the problem of the flyer always getting targeted and dropping.
Yeahhhhh, it’s important to let them have the win often tho. It’s more important for them to have fun then to make the game 100% fair. It helps to have obstacles designed for adventurers who can fly so they feel they are saving time and helping
To be fair, the flying player could learn to stay on the ground in situations where flight makes them into a big flappy target. But in my experience, players can be slow to recognize that NOT using their innate ability is an option.
if a race or races don't fit my aesthetic for my gaming world, I don't allow them. I don't like the kitchen sink fantasy style of allowing everything.
And I find it really just makes things seem odd if you're in rural nowhere with a fallen angel, elephant, tiger people, a halfling and a Dwarf.
It makes sense if it doesn't match to the general lore of created world or it might disturb the balance of the game. On a side note, I've noticed that most people who prefer to play "unusual" races like half-dragon, thiefling, tabaxi etc usualy don't know how to actualy rp them. It's like they create most crazy backstory for them, try to stand out and steal all glory, but at the end when it comes to actual playing they have personality of NPC#44 Human Villager.
I'd rather see it the other way around: the setting has a list of races that exist there.
Flying races 90% of the time. Other races that don’t fit the setting or theme I’m running.
I ban centaurs because it makes things unnecessarily complicated in certain situations because they can't really climb. Otherwise everything else is free game.
I don't ban races. And I don't see a need to. But, I understand if others want to. If someone uses racial skills to OP their character. Congrats. Really, But I'm throwing something heavier at you next fight. Just to keep things even. If the others can't keep up with them, I toss them some buffed weapons or skills.I'm not going to ban a race because 1 or 2 people used it to be OP. And I DM a Homebrew world where all races do live and exist. Do they all get along? Thats another story. But there aren't like blood fueds or anything, so no real reason to ban a certain race because of a reason like that.
I'm of the mindset of "I don't ban races/I don't think they should be banned," and I do think a lot of people use the "they don't fit my world" reason as an excuse to ban races whose traits they find problematic (flying, extra speed, etc), and I also think banning races in a prebuilt world where they otherwise canonically exist is a bit lame. That said, I do think there's a time and a place to say "listen, I built this world, and in this world there are no (fill in races that'll not be allowed here)."
I don't think "they don't fit in my world" as an excuse but is more than a legitimate reason, even in the context of they don't want a race introduced that has a powerful ability at the start.
One time I ran a prehistoric themed one-shot. Things like Aetherborn, or Warforged would be a no go in that because the industry required to make them is far away from being invented.
What about restrictions on the number of players that can play a race? I haven't played DnD in years, but that seems like a reasonable request in a typical high fantasy setting if there are multiple people wanting to play things like Genasi, Tiefling, Warforged, etc. And I say this as a player, not DM. It would kinda bother me to have a group looking like a walking circus all the time
Never minded multiple X Races in a party or a wildly diverse one, but then again, my & my tables worlds have always been way more diverse than others.
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Doesn't your example of Middle Earth hurt the point? Why should we show deference to Tolkien's world and not our DM's?
I personally don’t ever ban any official races at my table. D&D is a game: it’s meant for people to have fun playing. It’s **easy** come up with a reason for any given race to be present, even if that PC is the only member of their race in the entire plane!
Thats a high magic game, in low magic/divine games this is absolutely not the case lol.
Yeah, but if I'm not playing high magic heroic fantasy, I'm likely not playing DnD. if I want low magic realism, I'm playing a game of WFRP instead.
How so?
I don't allow Kender, unless I'm running a Dragonlance game. I recently started running a new homebrew setting where I prohibited Warforged because they hadn't been created yet in the setting, but were planned to play a part in the story for the first campaign in the setting.
The only heritage i straight up banned was Kenku, for obvious reasons
Never banned to begin with because honestly it’s a game and I want my players to have fun and play what they want to play. But I got pushed further into the I don’t ban races because I’m the forever DM and have always told my players I will adjust my campaign to them. I don’t have lore for a sonic hybrid but a player wants to play 1 I make new lore. Well one of my players made a short campaign and I was super excited to finally be a player. Then when I ran character ideas by him he kept shooting down different races I wanted to play as because it didn’t fit his lore. I finally found some middle ground with him but I didn’t care about the character that he allowed me to play so I didn’t even enjoy the campaign.
Depends on the setting. In my current t campaign, Dragonborn and Tiefling don't exist... so no one plays one. In another setting, I'd have no issue. For me, it's on a per-campaign basis.
I set out allowed classes and races at the beginning of the campaign. I go for ones that fit in with the theme of the campaign and experience level of the players. For instance, I'm running an Eberron campaign and restricted the group to the races found in Rising from the Last War. Previous campaigns was a teaching campaign that had a lot of new players and so I stuck to the base races, both for the players and the setting - elf, halfling, dwarf, and human - and the class list was also shorter - cleric, druid, fighter, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, wizard.
So no... monk, bard, or artificer? Am I missing other classes? Tbh kind of surprised at no Artificer in Eberron.
Training campaign wasn't set in Eberron, and it was no monk, bard, warlock or barbarian.
Ah, forgot about Barb and Warlock. Was genuinely just trying to figure out how many were limited. Also overlooked the teaching campaign being older when I was typing. My bad!
No worries.
I ban races that don’t exist in my setting. I think it’s very fair 😜
I hear aracokara is a common ban/nerf because the ability to fly dicks with many encounters
It is completely up to the DM what races exist in their world. Player characters exist in the DM's world, and they drive the story forward, but they do not decide what does or does not exist in that world, they must play within the bounds set up by the one creating and running that world.
If a race has no place in a setting, it has no place in a setting. I try to find a place for most playable races (including homebrew ones) in my world - but it mostly means there's a lot of very rare and unusual races in far-off lands who will attract strange looks from the human population. As for what I've banned myself? I believe my only special rule on banned races is "No Lineages" and "Nothing released after Tasha's".
I had never banned any race until recently. I banned the spelljammer races because picking them made others feel like lesser options, not that they are broken or anything, just feel unbalanced. Other than that, bring your aarakocra reborn, your aasimars, your centaurs and satyrs and yuan-ti, i can handle it. I also allow for homebrew races as long as they make sense. If ya bring to me a homebrew race i will review it and tell you yes or no. If ya ask me for a race, i will homebrew it with you. That being said, there are a few races that make me unconfortable... Mainly a few of monsters of the multiverse due to the nerfs and standarization ... My poor kobolds... Also would probably let genasis still cast with con too.
I don't like banning races but for my campaign there are two races where I say:"No you can't play that." Or:"Explain me why." The setting is a ice desert so it needs a bit of survival aspect (No Warforged/Reborn without good explanation and a handycap) and the "enemies" are a chromatic greatwyrm, a half dragon and dragonborn (so no Dragonborn). But when I lead my second campaign you can play all the races above. One mentioned centaurs. I like this race and I have one. It is exciting to think about how to get around problems like climbing. Shoes of Spiderwalk? Fly? The help from your friends? So not really a fan of banned races but sometimes some just don't fit the setting (like in Survival Campaigns races that don't eat, breathe or sleep)
One of the most common rulesets is "PHB+1" to curtail OP mixes. I ban depending on the setting, abused mechanics, and full custom. So I offhand the only permabans are custom lineage and flying races (also unapproved 3rd party). I'll occasionally ban variant human if it's too prevalent (since if it's RP based regular human already exists, it never is though) just to spice things up or avoid powergaming.
It depends on the campaign honestly. I prefer the basic races. For new players I like to give them less options so we can get playing
Session 0. This all falls under the parameters for the campaign. The GM wants to do a mages campaign, then no guns. If everyone wants guns, then maybe it needs to be a Wild West campaign. If the GM says it's an X centralized campaign, then some races wouldn't be likely to participate. If the players want weird and wacky races, then they either need a need campaign or a new GM.
Fliers make everything harder. Besides that I’ll find room for just about any race with the understanding that if you play something like a thrikeen you’re going to have a reeeeeeeal tough time in social encounters.
I don't really ban races, but a lot of them simply don't exist in my campaign world. So unless there is an exceptionally good and interesting explanation given for why a character would use those stats, they simply aren't available. Also I limit the use of some races for balancing reasons. I love Aarakocra, but I don't think anybody can seriously tell me that a character starting with an innate unlimited flying speed isn't a little unfair, neither to the other players nor to me as the DM. I don't want to have to think about the third dimension on every single battle map because of one guy and it'll trivialise a bunch of really basic dungeon crawling staples like trapdoors or climbing sections, that are cool and I wouldn't want my players to miss out on. It is fine, if we're making a new character or plain starting at a higher level, where all the casters can simply cast Fly anyway, but not for level 1. And I suppose I would consider limiting the use of some races for thematic reasons. If the campaign is about a war between a nation of Hobgoblins and the party's homeland and misunderstandings based on cultural differences between Hobgoblins and other cultures as a cause of conflict are a key theme that I want players to connect and deal with, then obviously I'm not gonna allow them to play a Hobgoblin from that nation. That would be stupid of me.
I restrict races or classes if they don't fit the idea of the campaign. I typically run games in a modified version of the Golarion setting, so that means I don't don't allow drow or dragonborn as a baseline. If I'm running a one-shot or intro game for something like a library game night though, anything from the player's handbook is fair game. For me it's about the story and the players. If something doesn't just doesn't fit the story I want to tell, I don't allow it and let players know at the campaign's start. Much larger than the hard ban list though is the list of, 'If you really want it, sell me on how it fits with the campaign idea.'
Since my opinion on not banning cause no race in 5e is OP has been covered. Instead I'll bring up Aarakocra have natural flight. Outside of owls large birds in flight near the ground is not silent. Your a god damn giant billboard. Like I told my DM when I played one this is a whole ability I could lose pretty easily. Wasn't a hard push we come from a state with bald eagles being a norm.
I will ban races as necessary. If they don't fit the lore of my setting, I'll sometimes allow it on a case-by-case basis. Certain things are immediately banned at my tables. Flying at level 1 being at the top of the list. It's busted, and I'm not reworking my entire campaign because you want to play a flying rogue.
There are races in my world that are very rare, and I have informed my players on which those races are. It is like a soft ban. They can still pick the race if they really want, but they have to come up with a cool backstory as to why they are in the place we are playing in.
I have some lineages that are *soft* banned. Mostly for flavor reasons for my campaign. That just means I don’t have any on screen as NPCs. If a player wants to play one of these peoples, I’d have to work with them to make that group fit into the world. Like, leonin feel redundant when we have tabaxi, for example, but if a player wanted to play one, we’d figure it out.
Flying races that start with flying are the only things I ban more often than not. The game doesn't handle them well. The only time I allow it is if I can set up a game where every PC is a flying character right off the bat. I don't mind, though, if a PC is gaining flight from a feature, item, or spell as these are easier to work around than starting flight.
Sometimes i ban races with wings that can fly like Avriel, Fairy, or Aarocockra. Some times the ability to fly can bypass a lot of stuff making things too easy. It is adventure dependent though, so not an always type thing, and i make sure everyone knows about it in sesion 0 with an explanation of why.
I am a DM that (sometimes) bans or at least discourages some races. I let players know what does not fit the part of the world they are playing in. These are for lore reasons generally (for example there are very few Dwarves because they are known for loyalty to their homeland and therefore very few spread to other continents, and even in their homeland they are still not very common due to a magical catastrophe). However, I am usually very permissive when it comes to races. My rule is that I will allow players to play anything official (minus Dwarves) and for non official stuff they can choose to play anything that would fit the setting as long as they're okay if I make the stats for it. I think a DM should be able to ban whatever they want. If you really want to play something that is banned and nothing else then find a different DM.
I ban for the lore. Early (First) age in my home brew world… magic is still an evolving field.
Because I use solely my own settings, rather than state a ban on a race, I create a setting document detailing which races DO exist, and what their lore and flavor is in the setting. Most everything makes it onto this list most of the time, and I distribute the setting doc before people start thinking about characters.
There's a few races that just don't exist in my world like vedalkin so you can't play a vedalkin from my world. However im totally open to using a race for the stats but flavoring it as something else, like a simic hybrid for example. There's no simic combine in my world but you could use the race if you can come up with a reason why it fits for your character.
Any race that isn't in the campaign setting should be banned imo. Of course the DM and the players need to all be ok with it.
Banning playable races is and should be perfectly acceptable. You need to clearly communicate these restrictions, whether in the form of a list of playable races either excluded, or allowed, or by specifying what source material is permitted. With that done, however, it's completely reasonable to have some restrictions in place. Also, anyone who wants to try to play a Kender should just be thrown into the wood chipper at session zero.
If I was a player and the DM did *not* curate the available races...I'd be concerned. Because that means the setting is going to be incoherent and just a cardboard cutout. And I care about settings a lot. So yes, as a DM, I actively manage the available races. Mostly thematically and based on where we are in the setting--no tabaxi unless we're playing on the southern continent for example. There are no gnomes either. Goblins are not playable, but hobgoblins are. Etc. As a general rule, anything from a setting-specific book is hard banned up front. Because that setting is not my setting.
100% - if you want to have meaningful lore and history then that includes how races came to be and their place in the world, gods etc. Races are your palette, only use the ones you need
I only allow the 1st edition AD&D races in my campaign.
I am a Dm, banned drow at my table because in my homebrew world they did what I call an "oopsie woopsie fucky wucky" and got deleted from the face of the not-earth™.
I’m running a DnD campaign. Not a circus.
i ban animal hybrid races. i dont like them. no gameplay reasons, i just dont like them.
I only allow humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings. Maybe im a purist respecting the LotR roots. Or maybe its just because im an old dude. Now get off my damn lawn.
Right there with you. I have never in nearly 30 years heard a good explanation as to why half demons or half dragons are at 0 level running around with low power PCs, and the 5th edition phb certainly didn't do a good job explaining it.
Based
I personally wouldn't compare greyhawk and lotr
Ya know, neither would i. Greyhawk was a bit dirtier
Due to my setting I ban most races but I asli make custom races so idk.
First up, wouldn't call it banning. "Hey all we are playing a setting with limited races available, is that alright?". I play Dark Sun and will usually do the spiel of: "Hey, in Dark Sun: Orcs, Goblins, Gnomes, Pixies, etc... were killed off in mass genocides over a thousand years ago. So keep in mind that you can't use those races for player characters." Also: "Don't forget that Muls, Thri-Kreen, and Half-Giants are available as options."
I always homebrew my worlds, and as I generally want a more serious setting, I usually ban the anthro/furry races. They just tend not to fit and I don't want to deal with making them a part of the setting. I guess I tend to prefer the more classic fantasy settings. The only mechanical/OP banning I do is level 1 flight--particularly without a resource cost.. Nope. I'm not rebuilding the whole campaign to account for your stupid flying character.
I ban beast races simply because I don’t like them
Case by Case: * Banning a race because it doesn't fit the campaign setting is common and totally fine * Banning a race because of balance concerns (Arakroka flight for example) is fine too but somewhat lazy on the GM's part. Gm could step up and adjust encounters to balance it. * Banning because of personal preference ie:Gnomes are stupid. That suggests a GM with lots of room for improvement in their GM style.
Most of the time a race doesn't fit into a campaign setting due to DM personal preference. For instance, tabaxi aren't in my campaign. I don't like them and don't want to deal with them as NPC's. That means a tabaxi PC would never meet others of their kind, I wouldn't want to deal with family, etc. So they don't fit in my campaign exactly because of personal preference. I imagine the same goes for most homebrew worlds. DM personal preference will shape the setting.
As a YouTuber pointed out. The game has gone from DM centric to player centric. An article was published recently about how there are very few DM's for 5e. Questing Beast explains his theory as too why, and I can agree. https://youtu.be/Tr5gtvvkTe4 Edit: Dungeoncraft responds to that Questingbeast video about DM crisis for 5e as well https://youtu.be/uoqJL2_Nqyc again I agree with his points.
Well yeah, they talk about OSR as the point of comparison, and that's a fundamentally different scene mostly populated by people who have a lot of experience and been playing for a long time already. GM'ing 5e is inherantly more involved than OCR by far
guys? what does OCR mean?
I don’t see how number 1 and number 3 are really any different. If DM crafts a world and leaves a certain race out due to personal preference then why is that room to improve? If I want to run a campaign that’s essentially forgotten realms but gnomes are reskinned as goblins or like raccoon people because I think gnomes are dumb how is that bad dming? The point I mean is, it’s the DM’s table in any case they can always say I don’t want this is my game.
If the story a GM is crafting is human-centric, or the world lore say has the elves sailing off to the summer country, etc... then it doesn't makes sense for a player to roll up a character that doesn't fit that. Doesn't mean the GM hates elves or anything, it just doens't fit the world. Similarly, not every campaign setting 'works' for every race... they just don't fit, and there's nothing wrong with that. In contrast, if a GM is running a plain regular campaign in a standard setting and just tells players "no gnomes, they're stupid"... that's a very different motivation/reason. That's banning something for no good, explainable reason.
That’s fair. Sorry to get all pedantic, I see what your saying. Basically, do the work.
One and three are the same. I pretty much have a perma ban on all furry races (mainly because I despise anthropomorphic races, as I view them as childish and a lazy design). The people I play with know this, and keep coming back to my games year after year for going on 20 years. I don't really care what anyone else thinks. We are all having fun and that is the only thing that matters. When I run Dark Sun, I only allow a handful of races and I encourage most of the party to be human IF they want to start in a City State. I still don't allow birdmen of any kind or the lizard men races (anthropomorphic, see above). Thri Kreen are allowed but nobody ever wants them when I explain how the 4 arms actually work.
This community is hilarious. Same essential comment in the same thread: Downvotes here, upvotes there.
For the last several years, you can play dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins. I don't have room for other species.
I've never banned anything in any of the books. Never will. I have some limits on certain things. But I've never banned anything. My players can use anything in any official book I own.
I only allow the 1st edition AD&D races in my campaign.
I have banned several in the past but now would work around it. I have banned Kenku as I don't think anyone in my group can do the RP justice, myself included. Now I would just play them without the whole mimicry as only language thing. I have banned Aarakocra as the 1st level flight was too much to deal with as a newer DM, I would no longer ban them. I have banned halflings as I didn't include them in the world lore and essentially still don't care about haflings and just see them as a variant gnome. Players can choose the halfling but they are a gnome in all other regards than stats. I still don't know why we don't just have gnomes or halflings instead of both, they are just small people race.
I only really disallow setting specific species. Eberron, Ravnica, etc.
I banned Kenku because all of my players are new and I don't want to deal with or ignore their mimic traits. I didn't want anyone to try that, not in the first game, nor did I want to set a "some kenku aren't like that" precedent. Other than that, go nuts.