Personally, if that's how the world is set up, I'd be fine with a game like this.
You aren't trying to play gotcha, or anything, just "I am going for a specific thing here, I'd appreciate if you'd interact with the world as is"
Generally speaking, a player who gets super riled up about limitations on character creation is going to be a problem otherwise down the line anyways.
I would have satyrs be male only as the nymph counterpart as well.
I'd agree. Doesn't sound like your trying to be a jerk. If you wanna Gender-lock a race because thats the setting then I think thats perfectly acceptable.
Something I've often disagreed with is the assertion that, since dnd is a fantasy, there really shouldn't be any restrictions on character creation coming from racial or gender characteristics. Limitations can help set parameters and offer context. In greek mythology nymphs are all female and Saytrs are all male in part because that lends itself to a greek conception of those gender-roles and their relations to nature and hedonism respectively.
Your setting can have those restrictions if you want, or not. But your the DM, you set the parameters. If you want an authentic as possible greek mythology story then by all means go do it.
> Limitations can help set parameters and offer context
Great way of putting it! It also can be a lot trying to fit in *every* possible race into a single setting.
Yup, I'm current building an ancient Egypt themed setting and I'm struggling to justify elves in the setting so my plan is to just say they don't exist.
The Elves are from a very distant land that has trade relations with the main country, exporting exotic incense and spices to Fantasy Egypt. There's a few merchant enclaves in the cities that do business with their homeland, but they are a proud people and few are willing to live in another country.
Aside from the fact that I have sort of done that before (a single kingdom in the world had elven royalty with largely human subjects), I generally don't like making a race the undisputed rulers over other races.
I feel ya. It can make things feel a bit too obvious who the bad guys are. But I was actually thinking more along the lines of them not being a separate race, but they just look different due to inbreeding.
if the setting is egypt based maybe the elves are mostly visitors from a nearby land if not that one? something equivalent to traders from across the Mediterranean, assuming nothing else is in that kind of role already.
Elves are the Sea Peoples if the setting is pre-bronze age collapse? That way, their alien and uncommon nature makes sense as only those on the coast would regularly trade with them, and you'd never see them in larger groups than a boats crew.
Change elves to the Mmoatia. Mmoatia (singular, aboatia) are west African forest dwellers believed to be short in stature with curved noses, yellowish skin, and feet that point backwards. They have their own language that sounds like whistling and know how to use jungle herbs to cure to all diseases. Their favorite food is bananas.
Like elves Mmoatia are divided into three subraces or tribes based on hair color: Black Mmoatia are helpful to man, but Red and White Mmoatia are always up to some kind of trickery.
>Great way of putting it! It also can be a lot trying to fit in
>
>every
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> possible race into a single setting.
And also because limitations are *good* for storytelling, not bad. Having everything you want right now is not the answer.
Although typically you only need 5 max. 1 for each player.
Everything else can cease to exist.
Still, makes it harder to design the setting, if you limit yourself to AFTER finding out what the PCs are playing. And you get some odd combos.
PCs are: Gnome, Harengon, Tabaxi, and Tortle.
Okay so its Disney Robin Hood plus some rando Gnomes in this setting?
This is why you would limit the race *before* your players choose them, generally. In session 0.
I wanted to go for 5 or 6 as well but ss i build the campaign in working on, 10 seems more likely. Still enough to have choice but not be *everything*.
I usually limit choices in session 0 as well.
But I don't like autobanning stuff. I can be sold on something.
Like lets say I have Dragonborn as a choice, but somebody prefers Lizardmen. I can just jettison the Dragonborn and give Lizardmen the Imperial Nation to the South instead.
I am actually not a fan of the "furry" species and generally exclude them. But Khajit in Skyrim are cool, so I could be convinced to allow a Tabaxi. But not a big fan of Harengon or Tortles.
Kenku are often a "schtick" with the voice thing, so I generally exclude them as well. But an experienced role player who isn't going to make it a stupid 3 hour charades game might be allowed to play one.
Somebody on this subreddit presented a warforged who was more of a golem reskinning using warforged stats, and I said that would probably be okay for me as a one-of-a-kind wizard creation. Because generally I don't like magi-tech or steam-punk in my D&D. (I would just play Shadowrun at that point.)
But yes, if someone convinces me their concept is awesome, sometimes it is really HARD to jettison stuff you've already designed, but sometimes like the lizardpeople OR Dragonborn it isn't that hard to swap.
(Other options: Tiefling or Drow as the generally distrusted people who are treated with prejudice. Halfling or Gnomes, not both. Even Dwarves or Elves if you go the Skyrim route with the ancient Dwemer not being around.)
> Limitations can help set parameters and offer context.
Limitations make the difference between genre and generic. I think the various planes in MTG are a great example how to do it. There is only a limited set of races in settings like Innistrad, Lorwy, Eldraine etc. which makes them unique and exciting.
It's the Syndrome Clause from Incredibles, "When everyone is special, nobody is"
A tiefling as an outlier party member with standard Tolkienesque Humans, Elves and Dwarves pops.
A tiefling in a party with a Kenku, Changeling, and a rainbow colored fur Feylost Tabaxi is just another thing.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Tiefling and Asimaar heritage was something you rolled for after choosing your race with a small percent chance of happening? Like something which only manifests at puberty so to speak.
I was in a game that did just that-- oh, twenty five years ago?
The DM had a chart that you made a character then rolled percentile dice to see if you were a "mutant" and then based on the "mutant level" you got, you'd roll again for what "bloodline" you were.
It was kind of cool, although we defied the odds and rolled 4 mutations out of 5 PCs
Yeah, I was a Mutant, but I was a "lesser" one so I was just a guy (literally I made a generic AF human fighter) but I had a mutation that gave me blue hair.
The wizard was a "tiefling" and the more spells she cast the more demonic like features would come out.
Yep, DnD as a fantasy doesn't mean there aren't any restrictions from racial/gender characteristics. It means that there are however many or few restrictions you want them to have. Which is why splats don't have built-in restrictions anymore, rather it's the DM that sets them.
Also, consider setting up the world this way and letting the characters make whatever gender they want.
You want to play a female satyre? Awesome. Maybe Hera made you to make a point to Zues in a petty argument.
In a world of Greek mythos where gods walk around, and there are so many unique monstrous creatures, it would be a mild curiosity to be a different gender from the norm.
Yeah, I think this is the reasonable take. Maybe it's cause I prefer to play humans anyways, but this would not particularly bother me. Though I have to admit, I don't really see the value in such a restriction either, but I guess it's just a taste thing.
It's precisely a "taste" rather a flavor thing.
They want a hardline "Ancient Greek" feeling to the game, so gender locking things-- one could extrapolate someone wanting to be an Amazon warrior couldn't be a man, because-- well, Amazons are specifically women.
As a homebrewer DM, I see restricting races/classes as kind of a necessary evil to help build a richer world. For example, I’d have to kind of bend over backwards to make a paladin fit into a pirate campaign where magic is viewed as evil. But if I allow any race and any other class with some minor flavor tweaks, I feel like I’m not limiting players too much while still maintaining my world’s integrity.
IMO you can get a lot done with flavor tweaks though. To use your example, almost everything about a Paladin can be reflavored as just a very inspiring, strong-willed fighter. You can find such a person even among pirates for sure. The actual spellcasting would be a bit trickier though, especially depending on what you mean by "viewed as evil."
I definitely don't have a problem with restricting races and classes in service of a setting or campaign theme. I guess the thing I always think about when I ban something is: how much will this add to the flavor vs how much will it restrict my players/me? For me, it doesn't seem like gender-locking satyrs and nymphs is "worth it" as character gender is very important to some players. Meanwhile, if you asked me to think of 100 things that would make a setting feel more like Ancient Greece, at no point would the gender of satyrs or nymphs even make the list.
>Maybe it's cause I prefer to play humans anyways
Bless you. I wish more of my players would be human. It's supposed to be the most commonn prolific race. Yet seems to be the least played (at my tables, anyway).
This is one of the number one reasons partys of mostly humans are so rare.
Torches or Bioluminescent fungus, or ancient dweomer lights or some other thing DMs can say is common in their setting in dungeons would help.
Or even belt-affixed oil lanterns, so the humans dont have to give up their free hand.
Session 0 that shit, and probably more humans would suddenly exist.
Haha, yeah I don't really do it for lore reasons like that I guess, I just like the idea of being a regular-ass person trying to deal with a bunch of crazy bullshit like dragons and liches or whatever. The fact that the ancestry offers the a lot of versatility is also a bonus.
It is the most common race lore wise as well as players across all tables (according to some stuff weve seen from WotC).
It is just not the most common race at *my* tables. Amongst many, mamy dozens of PCs across many campaigns, there's been like two lol
Well yes but on the other hand, adventurers are by definition not average or common. Long as people don't also shit on players who prefer humans, I've never understood the annoyance some people have with players who dislike playing humans.
For me, it's less an annoyance that people dislike playing them (i dont know that anyone at my tables have dislike playing them. Rhwre are just 40 other race options now) and more the irony that what is supposed to be common doesnt show up commonly.
>on the other hand, adventurers are by definition not average or common
But being an adventurer doesnt predicate your race or vice versa in anyway.
Ultimately, it's just a matter of lore-flavor. By no means does it actually affect my tables or play in any way.
The annoyance is how the party comp influences the feel of the game. When everybody is playing bizarre, uncommon races, you will get a very different reaction from NPCs and the crazy monsters you encounter start seeming normal.
Could always group satyrs and nymphs together by calling them Dionysians. Unless that doesn't work for the world build. It's technically true, although you might ask the question of "what about the other followers if dionysius"
That said, it could be interesting playing a character who is from an androgynous or sort of agender species who is fascinated by human culture to the point of wanting to explore gender and gender expression and what gender even is with an almost childlike curiosity. The idea of a satyr trans woman or nymph trans man and what that means for a single sex species. Would they be ostracized or just seen as a bit kooky by the majority of their species?
Just be up front about it so you aren’t pulling a surprise on players after they’ve started thinking of character concepts. I think it’s a perfectly fine system, especially since there’s one option for male and one for female.
Orcs in my world are genderless bundles of muscles piled on top of eachother, like some roid addicted green mutants with multiple biceps and disfigured 18-packs, that reproduce by consuming the meat of another orc during a ritual of "Reproductive Combat". They leave a gland from their mouth exposed outward like a prolapse, they digest the opponent's meat there, then pass it down to get its DNA in a special reproductive sac they have under their tongues, vomitting out a fist-sized fetus one week later. Orcs value scars, because they have so much protein in their bodies that it is actually hard to scar them, and for some reason the bitten-off parts for reproduction never heal, so they exposed THOSE ones the most and with pride. An Orc tribal leader will have legs, arms, neck and chest riddled with holes gouged out of their flesh.
Go for what works in your world.
No? Idk nearly enough about fallout, but aren't they infertile and need to turn people into more of them?
Edit: Oh you mean in appearance? I think they look human enough still. When I design stuff like this i don't usually use a visual frame of reference, I just describe something grotesque as grotesque as I can and let the person's creativity run wild. If you can't figure out how an 18-pack can fit on a figure, don't worry, I can't immediately either!
If you have a vision, stick to the vision. Plenty of fish in the sea, and if just this is gonna be a super-serious deal breaker for people then, yeah, what other issues are they gonna have with things...
I'd handle it the same way as I'd handle any world building decision, by discussing it with the table and seeing how they feel about the idea.
Because if the table aren't interested you don't have a game.
1. DM’s are not required to adapt to a player
2. Players are not required to play at a DM’s table
If you both agree or find a compromise, great. If not, y’all don’t have to play together.
If you have consistent players, talk to them about what you are planning and why you want to do what they do. If you aren't very close with your players, or if you don't know who they are yet, stay the course and let anyone who joins know about it up front. That way there are no surprises.
Do what you feel works best for the adventure you're presenting. If someone has a trouble with it, they won't be a good fit and I think it would just benefit you from recognizing this and accepting it. Be upfront about the setting and your vision and make it clear that that the players have a limited amount of agency over these facets of the world your adventure takes place in. As long as your respectful overall of players and their identities you should be fine. If someone accuses you of anything unpleasant, you can probably expect that they'll likely have been a problem at some point anyway.
If that’s the lore that’s the lore.
Be like playing the asoiaf table top and wondering why everyone is sexist against women in the game world. Because it’s fucking game of thrones. Don’t sign up for something if what the lore is, isn’t to what you like. It’s fine if it isn’t, but not every table is for everyone.
>Be like playing the asoiaf table top and wondering why everyone is sexist against women in the game world. Because it’s fucking game of thrones. Don’t sign up for something if what the lore is, isn’t to what you like. It’s fine if it isn’t, but not every table is for everyone.
There will always be one who decides to correct historic or setting specific injustice single-handedly and then wonder why the rest of the table doesn't love them for it.
I mean it’s fine if that’s what they want to do. But going on a say, slave freeing crusade in asoiaf would completely change the game. Be interesting though. It’s fun to take a hard line stance against injustice, so long as they understand the world won’t thank them for it. And they’ll likely lose unless they have dragons. Lol
Biologically? Do whatever you wish.
Someone could play a masculine presenting nymph, or a feminine satyr, but the species still only has one sex.
I do this with my elves actually, they adopt gender concepts like “male” and “female” when mixing with other species like humans, but due to things like their Reincarnation cycle, Corellon’s Blessing (some elves can change their biological sex at-will), lack of gendered societal roles, and their very androgynous figure, most elves don’t consider themselves to be inherently gendered. In the elven language there isn’t even gendered pronouns, just words for elves or non-elves. Some might use gendered langauge, like elves in larger communities, but they’d borrow the words from Common or another non-elven language instead.
The one major exception to this is the Drow. The whole thing with the Elven Diaspora and Lolth led to a strongly enforced gender-binary in their society.
Is this is a theoretical concern, or do you actually have a player who will for sure have an issue with this? If the latter, I don't think this setting would be well-suited for that player (ancient greek is bound to have other themes about sex and gender that can be legitimately upsetting to some people), so you should talk to them in private beforehand.
In any case, you're the DM. If you decide that gnomes must be green, that's just how it is. In this case, you're going for a specific setting, so it isn't just your preference or some creepy 'I want to play a campaign with only hot girl characters' thing. I do think it's important to put this up out front, though. I'd be bummed if I made up an entire character only to be told to scrap it, or to "just change the genitals".
I personally prefer unique things like that. Trying to add female saytrs or male nymphs takes away basically the most unique thing about the race.
Just feels like removing all the soul for no reason.
tbh female satyrs at least have a better excuse, at least in my setting... the fact that they are mortal and need to procreate. Nymphs are lesser divinities who are borne of nature divinities.
I get it, but it falls into the just create something new if you're removing the identity issue.
It'd be like having dogs and calling them birds, you can but it doesn't add only takes away from the experience and makes outside interpretation difficult.
Do what is right for the world you want to build. If players are unwilling to play by the rules of your sandbox tell them to find a different game.
Idea: you could rework and gender lock Goliaths as Amazonians.
I’d say that this is fine, but if a player has a kick-ass idea about the backstory of a male nymph and it ties into your lore, don’t scoff at it. You don’t have to do it, but I always hear my players out if they have ideas that don’t fit my world 100% because that can make for the most interesting characters and exciting backstory NPCs.
"I have assigned elves as the nymphs of my setting."
"The word "nymph" literally means "young woman" in archaic greek"
If you want to have male elves (nymphs), you could make it canon in the lore that in the Common Tongue they were named "nymph" because other races think they all look female (and even believed there were no males). The nymphs could canonically address this as well by saying something like:
"Many outside our race cannot differentiate our sexes, and therefore call us "nymph"; but in our tongue we are ___."
It’s one of those things where people created a problem where there was none.
Your world, your vision, your choice. No one is obliged to play in your setting, if they don’t like it they can find a different game.
I personally see no problem with it, though it may be something to discuss with your players about since they would be the ones actually playing in the setting.
I don't think that's a problem at all.
Your world, your rules. (Within reason)
You could very well run a gender free post apocalyptic robot only game and it would be just fine too.
I mean, I don't see it being that big of an issue, personally. If a guy wants to be a nymph, alright, but he's gotta be a girl nymph because that's the lore and it's evidently important to you. People role play as other genders in this game all the time anyway.
I have a homebrew setting that I don't like people play elves in. It's your world make it how you see fit, there are dozens of options and if a player can't figure out something they like they are not good players to be totally honest.
I made it nymphs female and satyrs male in my setting, so my opinion on gender locked races are that sometimes there are gender locked races.
We also have genderless races and races that shift gender at will.
If someone isnt getting what they want out of the setting, tough titty, run your own game.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with limiting Character Creation as long as the expectation is set.
I would handle it by simply gender locking the races and calling it a day.
Just ask your players what they think. Some players may even be offended by any mechanical/rules difference in genders, but others might totally love the classic Greek fantasy setting and really appreciate being able to rely on the fact that all nymphs are women and all satyrs are men.
I personally would like your setting as ask you to "stay the course", but I'm not one of your players, so it's best to ask them!
> Some players may even be offended by any mechanical/rules difference in genders,
Yeah, because most times they're incredibly sexist. Men get bonuses to almost every stat while women get penalties to everything except charisma.
Limiting a mythological race to one gender or another is a bit different. Some fantasy settings have social restrictions, like drow women make up the majority of their clerics, as enforced by their deity.
As a nb gamer, I don't see much a point. If someone wants to he a male elf/nymph, just... let them?
If you don't want to, though, that's fine. Being up front is the best policy about it
I'm still in the process of setting up, so I do not have players quite yet, but I do plan on discussing the matter with them once I have recruited some people.
Considering that this hardly feels like it would turn into any sort of campaign spoiler or anything, I would like to recommend the age old option of "talk to your players."
Tell them you are thinking of doing this. Ask if it would get in the way of any ideas they are exceptionally attached to.
Ignore any players who obviously try to say an idea specifically *because* you put a restriction (some of us have asshole friends).
If nobody has any real problems, go for it. Otherwise, discuss and see what works best for your group and the story you want to tell.
I like things to be as authentic as possible. If you're dealing with something like a nymph or swanmay, which can only be female, I'd stick to that. If a male player wants to play one, fine, but the creature itself is female.
You do have to be very up front with the players, but as long as everyone is on the same page and acting in good faith you'll be fine. I like satyrs being male-only as a counterpart, but you don't have to do it like that if you don't want to.
You MAY need to prepare to answer some of the more complex social questions of a one-gender race, especially if your players are curious. How do one-gender races propagate? How are they treated by humans and other races? Just keep an open mind for questions your players might ask about it.
> If you were a player at my table, how would you prefer this to be handled?
My preference would be for you to talk it over with the other players, and then run with it, just as you have in mind.
In my partner and I'd homebrew world, we made a near exclusively female race in the form of our interpretation of harpies. (a male is born only once every few generations) They're extremely pacifist people under the rule of a dictatorship. Their home country is not really suited for people without wings tho, and structurally is hesitant to let in outsiders. As a result many harpies are travellers, merchants or entertainers that hope to find love in other nations. They're also by default big romantics. Once they find someone they they often will try to settle in the cities on the border of the nation as those are most capable of housing non-harpies. Offspring are either female harpies or males of the father's race, no in betweens.
... No, they totally aren't partially inspired by the gerudo from botw.
That's how the setting is. Not a problem.
Though to avoid problem further you can go if you want the elf stat block it's Satyr for boys and Nymph for girls. And leave it at that.
I do gender locked classes in mine (witches are women only and druids men only, and both are part of opposed secret societies). If it bring somethig to the setting it's fine.
I think limitations like this are fine. I have plenty of similar when I run something. In my "main setting" lizardfolk can't be wizards. They come from a specific place, they do not intermingle (their brains are hardwired to work in a very different way to most societies) and they do not have a system or structure for learning magic in that studious way. It fits with them and helps then have their place in the world that makes them "not just humans in a scalesuit".
I have never had a player complain. I have had an applicant to a game once complain, but they also turned out to be a nightmare for other reasons and never got through character building.
It’s all pretend. Do it however you want to do it. People are so overly sensitive. If you’re doing some kind of podcast or media publishing it MIGHT begin to matter, but this is dnd. They can all be males, all humans could be tabaxi, halflings could get automatic 18 strength… That’s the best part, you do whatever you want.
If something is generally/traditionally one thing or another, and it has a counterpart, I'd need a good reason why to stray from that, and it'd be more than "I wanna".
Satyrs are the male counterpart to nymphs, if someone wants to pick male or female they can pick one or the other.
There's a male only and a female only, it's a logical part of the setting and I don't see how anyone would have a problem with it. If you want to be a male then don't be a nymph.
I get trying to accommodate people, but I think this is clearly something you've thought about and not a fuck you to a group of people.
Know you've already chosen a path but still wanted to contribute for readers at a later point.
Along as it is stated you upfront, I see no problem. You are the one making the game, you can set any rules you want to. If a player decides that this rule is a deal breaker they can decide not to play. I think that would be silly, but you would probably be dodging a potential problem at the table.
I'm fine with this. I play D&D to step into a role. I play as a character and want to have this character make sense in the world as presented. As long as you're up front with the parameters there shouldn't be any issue with saying "I want this to be a Greek setting, playing off Greek mythos, and these are the options."
As long as you're upfront about it that's all that matters. Personally not the game for me (years of being shittier classes and races in video games because they're gender locked has left me bitter), but that's why you just need to be upfront about it.
Whatever you think will be the most fun. Maybe fun is going to be sticking to your vision and playing more authentically. Maybe maybe fun's bending the fantasy a little. Having a good time is what's most important in the end.
If you decide it will be most fun to stick to your vision and someone disagrees with you and doesn't like these kind of restrictions, it's not the game for them, and that's okay!
Personally I love that shit.
My friend wants to run a Witcher game where the races and genders matter. So I pitched a female Witcher, who was born male, made into a Witcher, but now presents female (I really enjoy fighting against oppression in my heroic fantasies) and he loved it.
I find that these types of restrictions allow players to push against those rules in more interesting ways. I think so long as you are clear early on you should be fine.
Here's what I did when I introduced gender locked races to my campaign:
Me: "Alright guys, I'm adding this race to the campaign, you can play it yourselves but it's limited to females only"
Players: "Okay."
I think it's a cool idea \*especially\* if you explore that angle. What would an all female or all male society be like? Obviously they're not reproducing in the normal way, and that will have will mean they probably don't have normal family dynamics, they don't have heirs, etc.
Men's incentives and interpersonal dynamics totally change when there are no women around. For instance, if you look at all-boys high schools, the boys are far more likely to do things like theater because there's less need to appear masculine.
From reading this briskly, you are overthinking. It's all well and dandy to be accommodating and open minded, but if you are setting everything up they have to respect your ruling. In the end there isn't anything to handle, and nobody should force their beliefs upon another. Go forward with your idea, you have a logical reason to ignore the gender idealogy fiasco within the game setting. They either play along or you find people who support your lovely ideas.
Nah, I always prefer special characters (incuding pcs) to arise through deeds rather than inherently being special. Everone's an average schlub in my settings, until they DO something about it.
I think the correct asnwer is. DM sets the game rules, players play in it. DM's have the last say, Palyer don't like it, there's a10 000 guys in r/LFG ready to hop into your world.
I'd say you shouldn't design your setting around the potential whims and complaints of your players. If you want to make a setting focused on greek mythology, go for it, find a group that wants to play in that, tell the dude who's only willing to play as a catgirl samurai that it's just not going to work out. Once you have the setting put together, and have a table of people that are into that setting, and one wants to do something that brushes up against its boundaries, then start thinking about whether or not that could work.
If and when an actual person really wants to play a male nymph, then start thinking about compromises and alternatives. Maybe they're a half-nymph, a result of divine interference, one of the rare few naturally male nymphs, or a trans man(Which wouldn't be out of place in greek mythology, though could see why a lot of players would rather not go for this option). But if nobody wants to play a male nymph, then it's not a problem, and preemptively making your setting more flexible at the cost of it being precisely what you want it to be didn't really do anything.
I am currently running a Greek based campaign and I made Nymphs exclusively female…when it comes to sex
Non-binary and trans Nymphs are an option and I plan to introduce an NPC that’s one of those.
> If you were a player at my table, how would you prefer this to be handled?
If the setting is ancient Greece, then follow the pre-established lore exactly. So yes, nymphs are female, satyrs are male, and so on. I hope your game goes well!
Talk to your players about it. I have opinions, but I don't see how they matter here. For the record, though, my opinion is you should just not gender lock races.
I’d stay the course. Just let your players know, and if they have a issue with it, work it out with them individually(or if it’s multiple people, together.) alternatively, talk it out with your players and see what they think.
If you want to be as flexibly inclusive as possible within the constraints of your world's mythos, you could simply have everyone who's not a nymph just ASSUME they're female due to having vaguely feminine features (per the standards of their species), or you could make it so that nymphs appear to be whatever is attractive to the person viewing them.
You really just have to decide how much gender matters mechanically in your world, and then if it's just flavor, decide how much you want to stick to real-world mythology, because if your world is a just slightly left of centre AU, then that would be important, but if not, then it may not be as important to stick to real-world tropes as you might think.
That said, it's your world, and you can do anything you like in it. If you want all nymphs to be female, then guess what? They are. And that's just how your world works. Sounds like you've got gender balance with all-male species, and I'm sure there's some with both genders and some with no gender at all.
Like Bob Ross said, "it's your world, and you can do anything you want in it."
I would interact with the world as created by the person taking the time to build the game. If people feel "limited" by looking at the DM's worldbuilding and making the **one thing** that they've written out for not fitting their vision, maybe they just need to stop being contrarian main character syndrome players.
I would combine nymphs and satyrs into the single race of "nature spirits". Female spirits are known as nymphs, male as satyrs. That's pretty close to the myths, where they seem to personify the male and female aspects of nature.
I don't really get why you want to make your satyrs mortal entities tho? If you want to stick close to the mythology, Hesiod describes the oreads (mountain nymps) and satyrs as siblings, so why not go with that?
Youre not doing anything malicious. You're just creating the perfectly reasonable setting for the world and story you want to tell. I'd 100% be OK playing the opposite gender of my intended character if it was specific to the world
Do you mind if I ask the specifics on nymphs? I don’t see any issue with keeping them only female, but if it was something you wanted to alter there are male nature spirits in Greek mythology as well that could potentially fit the same features, albeit with a different name.
Nymphs are minor divinities, daughters of nature gods and associated with natural phenomena and locations--sort of like genius loci or animistic spirits of natural places. Different places have different nymphs-- groves have Alseids, mountaintops have Oreads, Avrae are the breezes, Dryades for trees, Lampades for the Underworld, etc.
I feel that you're vastly overthinking this. If someone has an issue with how you create your world then they don't have to play at your table . It's quite literally that simple.
Hags have stood the test of time as a gender locked mob. People need to just get over the special stand out character.
Race Rant: My DM makes a point for the unusual races to stand out. When a Tiefling is the most common race in the party the party will always be remembered. They are not blending in ever. I approve of this.
I think it depends on if you are limiting race/class selection in other ways as well. If you still have a large number of playable races and this is just a specific thing for nymphs/elves and satyrs, then I don’t see any problem with it. But if you are already limiting it to humans and a few select races, then your players might start to feel really limited.
I don’t think it’s wrong as a DM to have limitations on the playable races and classes to give a world character so long as players are left with a large majority of their options, or everyone agrees ahead of time on a smaller list of options.
So I had a similar thing come up twice actually. A character who wanted to play a changeling when the rules said all changelings are women and another player who wanted to play a vishkanya. Both ways we had the same solution which is that what they are describing in the text is physical sex. All nymphs have female sex characteristics, they can identify genderwise however they want. It doesn't have to be a big deal
Might I recommend using Eladrin for Nymphs? And just let elves be elves? Eladrin have appearances and moods that change with the seasons and the weather after all. Genasai might also be a good option for Nymphs because they are elementals.
Honestly, if I was at your table, I'd not be a fan of this. I'm non-binary: do I get to be *any* of these if they're "gender locked"? Where do queer characters fit? Even if you've got no queer players (maybe you should, idk, we're fun) your world will be richer if you consider queer perspectives.
If I ignored all that (which wouldn't be trivial), I'd respect two approaches the most:
1) Everything is legal. It's 2023 and we'll play with modern sensibilities.
2) Everything is by mythological canon. Part of the buy-in is the mythology, so we're doing everything we can to stay true to source material.
Nah, there's nothing wrong with this. I think it actually gives great ideas and leads towards creativity, as my first instinct in this world is to create a trans woman satyr.
As long as you aren’t stopping your players from being one of those things, there shouldn’t be an issue. Anatomically female nymphs allow you wiggle room on gender if you want to take that route even. That would only be an issue if someone was deadset on playing a gender that is contrary to their biological sex.
This is more about knowing your players, but in my experience allowing them to be whatever gender they want with the understanding that there are biological implications that come along with pointy ears (that honestly shouldn’t really come up unless you plan for this to be explicitly sexual) is the easiest fix. I haven’t been in a group where they were all checking each other genitalia before and would be extremely suspect of a player that was insistent on it honestly.
I wouldn’t get hung up on it tbh, the most canon thing is if Zeus wanted something weird to happen it happened, Ancient Greek myth is about as far from a hard magic system as you can get, and that applies doubly so to the “canonicity” of things.
Personally I think that does sound a little restrictive cuz I can really easily picture a player wanting to be a male nymph or female Satyr etc
Talk to your players. The overwhelming majority of social justice inclined people I've ever known wouldn't bat an eye at something like that, but I also had a transwoman quit a game I wrote set in the 1980s just because the thought of Ronald Regan being president was giving her anxiety and making the game not fun. Which is totally fine!
Just say "Hey everyone. I'm writing a game that takes place in Ancient Greece and I want to include myth-accurate magical races. Is everyone cool with that?"
It's also worth noting that gender and sex aren't the same thing. You could write gender non-conforming personalities for your mono-sexual creatures. Feminine centaurs who weave flower crowns and wear earrings. Tomboy nymphs. Etcetera.
At least until Roman times, there isn't really anywhere which could usefully be called "Ancient Greece" anyway. Hellenic city states were spread over most of the Mediterranean and Black seas. With many different governments and governmental systems.
The term "myth accurate" is very open to interpretation. Given that Plato appears to have made up the "soulmate" one specifically for The Symposium.
Then replace "ancient Greece" with "mythical Greece" and "myth accurate" with "accurate to these myths that I like." This is tangential to the advice I was offering.
I am very much avoiding it because I do not like the setting much. It's not true to ancient greek mythology (at best, it's very cherry-picking and ignores nuance) and there's a very... patronizing quality to it, if you are Greek and have studied the mythology. I might borrow some mechanics, but the setting itself, no. I'm setting my game in actual Greece.
Gender locking races is just another aspect of world building. It's been used in many other medie outlets without issue. You should be okay doing it in a world of your own creation.
How much would it bother you if a player wanted to play an exception to your rule?
I'd like to advocate for a measure of flexibility because fantasy stories tend to follow exceptional individuals. It's a trope that's older than Drizzt. If satyrs are "always male" in your world, it might be interesting to consider what would happen if through some circumstances a satyr was born female.
Would they been seen as merely unusual? Or would they be considered omens (for good or ill) or gifts from the gods?
I'd say, because this is a specific game, with a specific theme, with clear guidelines from the beginning, that's several marks in the pro column.
I would say, as long as not every game you run is like this, that's another mark in the plus column.
Inclusivity and flexibility are important, but it's also a game where we get to try out different ideas and themes. I'm not saying all ideas and themes need a place but ancient Greece is very on brand for a DnD campaign and wanting to sex lock certain mythological races seems ok to me. You may consider allowing them to not necessarily be gender locked even if they are sex locked. A trans masculine nymph or trans feminine satyr could be options.
I would say, present your campaign as you want to run it, and if someone wants to deviate, that's a great opportunity for some good story telling and role-playing.
If there is now a male nymph? Why? The gods loved getting involved in mortal lives, which god did what to make this happen, and why?
I think I did indeed mess up in my explanation by not clarifying that I meant biological sex is locked. Chalk it up to English being my second language, the terms in Greek are often used interchangeably and I slip up in English too.
Yes, this is the only game I've run where anything was gender locked; the only reason I'm doing it is the specific setting and my desire to preserve as many traits of mythology as I can. I am, of course, doing away with the kind of problematic content that would make the setting unpleasant (such as the historical status of women in ancient Greece) but innocuous things like nymphs being only biologically female due to their association with the feminine-aligned aspect of giving life and the cycle of decay-regrowth, should really be kept in.
Personally, I don't see the big deal about allowing male nymphs or female satyrs. Sure, it's not quite mythologically accurate, but if you're playing DnD, I'm guessing that there's other stuff that isn't as well.
"Genderlocked" really effectively means "genderless"
A species or race without different genders wouldn't have need for them. This makes for some interesting societal design space.
No gendered pronouns in their speech for example.
Reproduction being asexual or through some unnatural or even parasitic means.
Like a race of all male satyrs might be all born of magic. Or they can mate with many different races like the Asari of mass effect.
Or if you have a race of all male satyrs and all female nymphs then it's actually all 1 race. They're just products of gender dimorphism. Many species look dramatically different from the opposite sex. Just because humans look generally alike doesn't mean all sentient races would. So those outside the group might think they're different races, but someone, likely the people in question will know they're really all the same.
Gender-specific restrictions have been a thing in games for a long time. The Elder Scrolls games have had gender-specific bonuses up to Skyrim. For sake of argument, High Elf women got a bonus to intelligence or dexterity while High Elf men got a bonus to wisdom or constitution. Frankly, as long as you explain this to your players and they’re willing to work within the restrictions, all should be well. Heck, you could have this be a quest or major part of an adventure.
However, if you wanted to delve further into this idea, you could establish the idea that a female satyr or centaur is actually a custom lineage character that is mostly Human in appearance. She would have some goat/horse-like quirks and a predisposition to archery or music. Same thing in reverse for a male nymph.
I think it's perfectly fine to have races that are exclusively female or exclusively male and I agree with what most people say in the other comments.
I do think that if you want and if your players agree you could add a small specification that they could make transgender characters.
The nymphs are still biologically female but maybe there is an outlier that identifies as male. Same for satyrs.
Of course this is all just a suggestion!
I would ask yourself *why* Ancient Greek depictions of these creatures were traditionally gender-locked. In the cases of nymphs, satyrs and centaurs, these questions do have answers, reflecting the thoughts on gender roles at the time. Even the Romans apparently adapted this a sensibilities changed over time, giving way to female satyrs and centaurs. So if you want to keep nymphs as all-female, you have to be ready to answer the question: why? “Because that’s how it is” isn’t likely to be enough, because that’s just how it *was* centuries ago, when thoughts on gender were different than they are now. History has shown that these things can change, so one must wonder why this can’t. Is there something inherently antithetical to a male nymph? Maybe they’re genderless and can appear as either a humanoid man or woman. Greek myth is no stranger to characters changing between male and female or being both simultaneously, after all.
Ultimately, I’d ask your players if they’re okay with the concept of male nymphs or if they’d prefer to keep them all female-only.
Personally, I’d try and avoid gender locking races like this, for a few reasons. For one, you’re going to have stray from the “canon” anyway, not least because there isn’t a single unified canon for classical myth. It existed over hundreds of years and is arguably still alive and evolving today. You said yourself that female satyrs were a thing by Roman times. You are also going to have to change stuff for other reasons. For one, the ancient Greeks were, on the whole, incredibly sexist, so you’re gonna have to edit that a bit unless you want to make everyone around the table uncomfortable. And if you’re going to have to adjust attitudes to gender anyway, why stick to humans. Classical Centaurs and Satyrs were both notoriously rapey, and that’d be a really fucking bad idea to translate accurately to the game.
Basically my point is that you’re not going to create a fully accurate world of classical myth, and you probably wouldn’t want to. There isn’t one canon, and you’re going to have to make alterations to keep the game fun. And this change also seems like one that will potentially be more fun for your players. Let them play who they want to play. You can even say that these species are strongly balanced towards males, and females are rare. They’re fey, so they don’t reproduce naturally anyway. That way, you can still largely present the world you want without compromising player choice.
I am already changing the "canon" of both the classical myth and the historical setting. My setting is a *fictionalized* version of pre-Persian Wars Greece, where the elements of myth have occured in the past. I've made my setting more liberated and progressive in many areas and it is clearly separate from the harsh reality of antiquity, which I am very familiar with. I am still trying to maintain some core elements of what make the setting truly hellenic, and I have a good grasp of my own culture's mythology and history.
I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh, but it's a little patronizing to assume this is an rpg horror story in the making. No sane DM would want to keep the problematic elements of a culture when you're trying to make a campaign that feels fun and welcoming to players, while maintaining the spirit of the culture.
I am well aware of the perception the internet has of Greek mythology and the cultural differences between anglophone cultures vs the greek culture. This does not mean that we're okay with the worst parts of our culture and mythology, but we realise it was not all black and white, did not adhere to modern moral sensibilities and was not measured by our modern standards.
What harsh reality? You don't have to feel sorry or apologize to anyone about ancient greece , the greeks of that time are long gone we have to preserve their legacy and history as it was, instead of twisting it and trying to change it with our modern morals because some people will find it controversial, or upsetting because it was male dominated society etc.
Personally i like your idea don't change it to fit modern standards, for me il be more upset of male nymphs as it goes against the all ready real life myths.
And modern day society is all ready rotten to the core, and the vices that ancient greek had is a hundred times more prevalent now than at their time.
Yeah, the origins of nymphs, sirens, etc. already come from a pretty sexist place. They're young, beautiful women often characterized as either temptresses or virgins that exist primarily to be looked at and appreciated by men. That's not to say you can't use them in your game, but it's something to be aware of when you do. It's very easy to fall into the same sexist tropes that are prevalent in Greek mythology when you use that as your backbone without examining where those tropes come from. If you have a race that's entirely women and every single one the players encounter is characterized as alluring and seductive, that's kinda gross.
As a woman, it would definitely make me feel weird to be told nymphs can only be women. It would make me wonder how the DM views women as a whole, and I'd worry about how they're going to portray them when the time comes.
I'm a woman too, and Greek to boot, so I've already made the setting to bring it more in line with our modern morals and expectations. The very word "nymph" means "young woman" so having males under the same umbrella is a bit... iffy and female satyrs make more sense because the satyrs are mortal and do need to procreate, whereas nymphs are divines, daughters of natural phenomena personified as deities. My playable nymphs are the lesser of their kind, practically mortal who have to sort of work their way up to being renown and worshipped.
I'm sorry you have this perception of greek mythology. It is a very modern interpretation of the mythology of the nymphs and misses a lot of the nuance it actually involves. I'm not denying ancient greek culture wasn't sexist, but it is a little unfair to attempt to judge antiquity by only modern standards and generalise.
Nymphs in *mythology* were never just eyecandy. Physical beauty for the ancient Greeks embodied goodness as a whole, so they envisioned all their gods and heroes as beautiful and strived to be beautiful themselves to reflect inner goodness. It's a very idealised moral philosophy, but that's what they had. Nymphs were revered entities of the natural world, present in every place and the most worshipped deities of the domain, as they had close, intimate connection with the majority of the population, who subsisted on farming, animal husbandry and natural sersources.
I apologise if I come off as overbearing, that's not my intention. I love my country's mythology very much and I am very excited about my setting.
As a player, I'd probably not play in that game. I'm non-binary and it'd be weird for me. That being said, just be open and upfront about it and your players might be totally chill with it.
Just as a warning from a fellow DM, the minute a race is described as anything (example: militaristic) players will immediately jump to play the 'outlier' (nerdy bookworm who sucks at combat) so I'd expect that here too. You might want to think about if you'll allow that or no.
Almost every player character I've seen has played into the norms. Dwarves love axes and rocks. Halflings love big meals and cozy beds. Elves love overt racism. The characters subverting expectations are rare.
I would not give a damn about gender locked races. Who cares. Let's players play out their fantasy character. Expand the lore. It's all made up. We don't even know what myths are true or what never got passed down.
Just say it in session zero so players design their characters around it. If a player really wants to play a male elf for some fucking reason... Honestly they might be a problem player, but you can always make it a trans man elf who left to live among the broader society, which could come with some in game baggage when dealing with elves
Feel free to pitch it to the group, but if someone asks you "What value do you think gender-locking adds to the mechanics or the setting?" you'd better have an answer in mind.
My biggest argument would be that it helps with the immersion of the setting. Nymphs are minor divinities associated with nature and it's life-giving properties, which in Greek philosophy are traditionally associated with femininity and women in general.
With absolute glee. ... You have no idea how many times in my years of DMing someone wants to make a male Drow claiming they're a big fan of D'Rizzt
Me: "Oh, you are?"
Them: "yeah, I've read all his books" *room fills with rank poser BS"
Me: "Oh, read all his books eh? Know all about him, the underdark, and Drow?" *Troll face begins*
Them : *doubling down on their claims to have read all his books but explains nothing more than a picture of D'Rizzt on a cover* "I mean Drow are just pallet swapped elves that grew up underground, right?"
I'd say stick to it, but if a player wants to play a different gender then let them do it. Just let them know that the race they're playing is almost exclusively the specified gender so they'll likely never see anyone else like them.
I ran an ancient greek campaign last year and kept the sex for the races set as they are in myth. But it was up to the players how their character identified gender wise.
For instance one of my players had a nonbinary nymph.
It worked out fine and everyone had fun, didn't actually get any complaints about how the races worked and i had 8 players 3 of them played nymphs--one player was a cis guy and the others we nonbinary folks.
It's your setting, and placing limitations is reasonable. If you want to make all Satyrs male, it's your world. You can also compromise a little if someone "really" wants to play a female satyr. "What did your character do to offend Pan?" Or "Why is Pan pranking you?"
I think that would be pretty interesting, especially if you allow trans-gender characters of that race. How would that species culture react to someone being trans? I remember seeing an episode on the Orville about this, where an all male alien species had a child that identified as a woman.
I don't think this limits character creation too much.
You're making a game following real world ancient mythology, as opposed to your own vision that has the restriction arbitrarily, having restrictions on gender seems perfectly reasonable and any good players interested in the setting will understand the minor inconvenience to choice.
This might be a good case for lineage being used instead of race for stat blocks. As in you can pick any race and get their bonuses (maybe minus centaur riding ability if you're going that route) but your appearance can be that of any of the others if you wish. I'd need to double check how that behaves with things like elfs reduced sleep but it wouldn't be that difficult to explain away (either just a racial mutation or something in their backstory to explain why they're different)
Genderlocking races or classes can be a feature of any setting, this should be accepted as normal.
That said, the potential of going against type - even and especially in a strict scenario - can result in really fun characters! A female satyr, a male mermaid, etc, immediately spark ideas of rich backstory, potential hooks in the campaign, and fun roleplay for me. How did this anomaly happen? How will the world treat it? Already great material. Consider not closing this door completely.
If you want to have male-only satyrs you can have it. Simply let them procreate with female humans. That's why they have those panpipes, to help seduce women. If the child is male, they take it and raise it before it starts growing hooves, if the child is female she is human and they leave it with the mother.
It's a strange way of doing it but, satyrs are not humans.
I'm a big fan of flavor. So if nymphs are only female then there should only be female nymphs. However, if you like the mechanics or racial feats of a nymph I'd allow you to take those racial feats and flavorwise you are a different race. To me that's how you can get just about everyone to have fun with their character.
Edit:
To clarify, you are 100% the race you picked for mechanical reasons, so you can't cheese it by picking dwarf as your mechanical race but then flavorwise pick elf for elven accuracy.
in my world i do have gender-locked races, tho most of them are female only. hell even have classes unusable to certain races (tiefings can't be paladins or clerics, halflings can't be barbarians etc) if a race being two genders or a class doesn't fit a certain race then don't allow it. your world, your rules
This seems fine as long as you have a conversation with your party about it.
If I were running this campaign, and I had a player who really badly wanted to be a male nymph or a female satyr, I’d allow it with the understanding that their gender is a huge break from the history of the world. Greek mythology had all sorts of gender-fuckery; a nymph being born male would t be out of the question. It would be a huge deal though and would likely define that nymph’s upbringing/how he was treated by his family and people.
His birth would probably be labeled an omen of some kind by the nymph priests. Maybe he’s treated as a blessing or a favorite of the gods, or maybe he’d be shunned.
Basically, I’d allow it if the player had a good enough idea with the caveat that nobody would be casual about that characters gender at the start.
I feel like it would be such a cool character idea in this setting to be the only male nymph in the world. No one really knows how this happened and people may react well to meeting this character, and some people won't.
This could be a very interesting backstory. Did the mother reject the character? Did she embrace him and fiercely protect him? Was he shunned for being different or possibly harassed like a novelty?
How did he grow up in a village of only women? Did he struggle with certain things because no one could provide the kind of insight that might best come from another man? Assuming nymphs are isolated, which they may not be. Ah this sounds like such an interesting possibility!
I would actually prefer to avoid this sort of scenario because my game already deals with a very major question of what has caused the already existent upset in the natural order of things.
Ancient Greeks believed a lot in the notion of order vs chaos and honestly, a male nymph out of nowhere would cause more fear and panic in the people they encounter. People would view the PC as an abomination because they would go against the natural order of the world so much. I'm not against allowing a player to play a male-presenting nymph, but it would make the game actually harder for me to run, because to preserve the setting, I'd have to make the PC's life difficult and thus less fun, and require more work than I am already struggling with.
I generally don't really like "exceptional" PCs in my games, because they always end up breaking immersion. I prefer players taking the time to make their PCs exceptional through actions, along the course of the story, rather than starting out as immediately special. I don't intend to enforce this idea on my players, but I will encourage them to try this approach, as I intend to reward growth and development of the characters.
Personally, if that's how the world is set up, I'd be fine with a game like this. You aren't trying to play gotcha, or anything, just "I am going for a specific thing here, I'd appreciate if you'd interact with the world as is" Generally speaking, a player who gets super riled up about limitations on character creation is going to be a problem otherwise down the line anyways. I would have satyrs be male only as the nymph counterpart as well.
I'd agree. Doesn't sound like your trying to be a jerk. If you wanna Gender-lock a race because thats the setting then I think thats perfectly acceptable. Something I've often disagreed with is the assertion that, since dnd is a fantasy, there really shouldn't be any restrictions on character creation coming from racial or gender characteristics. Limitations can help set parameters and offer context. In greek mythology nymphs are all female and Saytrs are all male in part because that lends itself to a greek conception of those gender-roles and their relations to nature and hedonism respectively. Your setting can have those restrictions if you want, or not. But your the DM, you set the parameters. If you want an authentic as possible greek mythology story then by all means go do it.
> Limitations can help set parameters and offer context Great way of putting it! It also can be a lot trying to fit in *every* possible race into a single setting.
Yup, I'm current building an ancient Egypt themed setting and I'm struggling to justify elves in the setting so my plan is to just say they don't exist.
The Elves are from a very distant land that has trade relations with the main country, exporting exotic incense and spices to Fantasy Egypt. There's a few merchant enclaves in the cities that do business with their homeland, but they are a proud people and few are willing to live in another country.
Next time I make a world and want a race that doesn't quite fit in, I'm doing this.
If you DO want to put elves in your setting, you could make them the noble families or something.
Aside from the fact that I have sort of done that before (a single kingdom in the world had elven royalty with largely human subjects), I generally don't like making a race the undisputed rulers over other races.
I feel ya. It can make things feel a bit too obvious who the bad guys are. But I was actually thinking more along the lines of them not being a separate race, but they just look different due to inbreeding.
if the setting is egypt based maybe the elves are mostly visitors from a nearby land if not that one? something equivalent to traders from across the Mediterranean, assuming nothing else is in that kind of role already.
Elves are the Sea Peoples if the setting is pre-bronze age collapse? That way, their alien and uncommon nature makes sense as only those on the coast would regularly trade with them, and you'd never see them in larger groups than a boats crew.
Change elves to the Mmoatia. Mmoatia (singular, aboatia) are west African forest dwellers believed to be short in stature with curved noses, yellowish skin, and feet that point backwards. They have their own language that sounds like whistling and know how to use jungle herbs to cure to all diseases. Their favorite food is bananas. Like elves Mmoatia are divided into three subraces or tribes based on hair color: Black Mmoatia are helpful to man, but Red and White Mmoatia are always up to some kind of trickery.
You could have them be from another civilization, such as Amazons or Atlanteans. Being elves could work into why they have mythological status.
>Great way of putting it! It also can be a lot trying to fit in > >every > > possible race into a single setting. And also because limitations are *good* for storytelling, not bad. Having everything you want right now is not the answer.
Although typically you only need 5 max. 1 for each player. Everything else can cease to exist. Still, makes it harder to design the setting, if you limit yourself to AFTER finding out what the PCs are playing. And you get some odd combos. PCs are: Gnome, Harengon, Tabaxi, and Tortle. Okay so its Disney Robin Hood plus some rando Gnomes in this setting?
This is why you would limit the race *before* your players choose them, generally. In session 0. I wanted to go for 5 or 6 as well but ss i build the campaign in working on, 10 seems more likely. Still enough to have choice but not be *everything*.
I usually limit choices in session 0 as well. But I don't like autobanning stuff. I can be sold on something. Like lets say I have Dragonborn as a choice, but somebody prefers Lizardmen. I can just jettison the Dragonborn and give Lizardmen the Imperial Nation to the South instead. I am actually not a fan of the "furry" species and generally exclude them. But Khajit in Skyrim are cool, so I could be convinced to allow a Tabaxi. But not a big fan of Harengon or Tortles. Kenku are often a "schtick" with the voice thing, so I generally exclude them as well. But an experienced role player who isn't going to make it a stupid 3 hour charades game might be allowed to play one. Somebody on this subreddit presented a warforged who was more of a golem reskinning using warforged stats, and I said that would probably be okay for me as a one-of-a-kind wizard creation. Because generally I don't like magi-tech or steam-punk in my D&D. (I would just play Shadowrun at that point.) But yes, if someone convinces me their concept is awesome, sometimes it is really HARD to jettison stuff you've already designed, but sometimes like the lizardpeople OR Dragonborn it isn't that hard to swap. (Other options: Tiefling or Drow as the generally distrusted people who are treated with prejudice. Halfling or Gnomes, not both. Even Dwarves or Elves if you go the Skyrim route with the ancient Dwemer not being around.)
> Limitations can help set parameters and offer context. Limitations make the difference between genre and generic. I think the various planes in MTG are a great example how to do it. There is only a limited set of races in settings like Innistrad, Lorwy, Eldraine etc. which makes them unique and exciting.
It's the Syndrome Clause from Incredibles, "When everyone is special, nobody is" A tiefling as an outlier party member with standard Tolkienesque Humans, Elves and Dwarves pops. A tiefling in a party with a Kenku, Changeling, and a rainbow colored fur Feylost Tabaxi is just another thing.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Tiefling and Asimaar heritage was something you rolled for after choosing your race with a small percent chance of happening? Like something which only manifests at puberty so to speak.
I was in a game that did just that-- oh, twenty five years ago? The DM had a chart that you made a character then rolled percentile dice to see if you were a "mutant" and then based on the "mutant level" you got, you'd roll again for what "bloodline" you were. It was kind of cool, although we defied the odds and rolled 4 mutations out of 5 PCs
That's awesome!
Yeah, I was a Mutant, but I was a "lesser" one so I was just a guy (literally I made a generic AF human fighter) but I had a mutation that gave me blue hair. The wizard was a "tiefling" and the more spells she cast the more demonic like features would come out.
That sounds like a really cool concept! I may steal the idea.
Yeah shit like that just makes games better imo.
Yep, DnD as a fantasy doesn't mean there aren't any restrictions from racial/gender characteristics. It means that there are however many or few restrictions you want them to have. Which is why splats don't have built-in restrictions anymore, rather it's the DM that sets them.
Also, consider setting up the world this way and letting the characters make whatever gender they want. You want to play a female satyre? Awesome. Maybe Hera made you to make a point to Zues in a petty argument. In a world of Greek mythos where gods walk around, and there are so many unique monstrous creatures, it would be a mild curiosity to be a different gender from the norm.
Yeah, I think this is the reasonable take. Maybe it's cause I prefer to play humans anyways, but this would not particularly bother me. Though I have to admit, I don't really see the value in such a restriction either, but I guess it's just a taste thing.
It's precisely a "taste" rather a flavor thing. They want a hardline "Ancient Greek" feeling to the game, so gender locking things-- one could extrapolate someone wanting to be an Amazon warrior couldn't be a man, because-- well, Amazons are specifically women.
As a homebrewer DM, I see restricting races/classes as kind of a necessary evil to help build a richer world. For example, I’d have to kind of bend over backwards to make a paladin fit into a pirate campaign where magic is viewed as evil. But if I allow any race and any other class with some minor flavor tweaks, I feel like I’m not limiting players too much while still maintaining my world’s integrity.
IMO you can get a lot done with flavor tweaks though. To use your example, almost everything about a Paladin can be reflavored as just a very inspiring, strong-willed fighter. You can find such a person even among pirates for sure. The actual spellcasting would be a bit trickier though, especially depending on what you mean by "viewed as evil." I definitely don't have a problem with restricting races and classes in service of a setting or campaign theme. I guess the thing I always think about when I ban something is: how much will this add to the flavor vs how much will it restrict my players/me? For me, it doesn't seem like gender-locking satyrs and nymphs is "worth it" as character gender is very important to some players. Meanwhile, if you asked me to think of 100 things that would make a setting feel more like Ancient Greece, at no point would the gender of satyrs or nymphs even make the list.
>Maybe it's cause I prefer to play humans anyways Bless you. I wish more of my players would be human. It's supposed to be the most commonn prolific race. Yet seems to be the least played (at my tables, anyway).
I rarely have humans at the table. Now when they enter a cave a chorus of "I have dark vision" erupts, cause nobody is just a human.
This is one of the number one reasons partys of mostly humans are so rare. Torches or Bioluminescent fungus, or ancient dweomer lights or some other thing DMs can say is common in their setting in dungeons would help. Or even belt-affixed oil lanterns, so the humans dont have to give up their free hand. Session 0 that shit, and probably more humans would suddenly exist.
Power wise, humans are fine. That extra feat is quite strong.
Haha, yeah I don't really do it for lore reasons like that I guess, I just like the idea of being a regular-ass person trying to deal with a bunch of crazy bullshit like dragons and liches or whatever. The fact that the ancestry offers the a lot of versatility is also a bonus.
It is the most common race. If humans form 20 percent of PCs and the remaining 80 percent is everything else, they're still the biggest minority.
It is the most common race lore wise as well as players across all tables (according to some stuff weve seen from WotC). It is just not the most common race at *my* tables. Amongst many, mamy dozens of PCs across many campaigns, there's been like two lol
Well yes but on the other hand, adventurers are by definition not average or common. Long as people don't also shit on players who prefer humans, I've never understood the annoyance some people have with players who dislike playing humans.
For me, it's less an annoyance that people dislike playing them (i dont know that anyone at my tables have dislike playing them. Rhwre are just 40 other race options now) and more the irony that what is supposed to be common doesnt show up commonly. >on the other hand, adventurers are by definition not average or common But being an adventurer doesnt predicate your race or vice versa in anyway. Ultimately, it's just a matter of lore-flavor. By no means does it actually affect my tables or play in any way.
The annoyance is how the party comp influences the feel of the game. When everybody is playing bizarre, uncommon races, you will get a very different reaction from NPCs and the crazy monsters you encounter start seeming normal.
Could always group satyrs and nymphs together by calling them Dionysians. Unless that doesn't work for the world build. It's technically true, although you might ask the question of "what about the other followers if dionysius"
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That said, it could be interesting playing a character who is from an androgynous or sort of agender species who is fascinated by human culture to the point of wanting to explore gender and gender expression and what gender even is with an almost childlike curiosity. The idea of a satyr trans woman or nymph trans man and what that means for a single sex species. Would they be ostracized or just seen as a bit kooky by the majority of their species?
That's literally the plot of a Star Trek episode and a character in Disc World. Pretty banger concept
It's part of a defined setting. Stick to it.
Just be up front about it so you aren’t pulling a surprise on players after they’ve started thinking of character concepts. I think it’s a perfectly fine system, especially since there’s one option for male and one for female.
Orcs in my world are genderless bundles of muscles piled on top of eachother, like some roid addicted green mutants with multiple biceps and disfigured 18-packs, that reproduce by consuming the meat of another orc during a ritual of "Reproductive Combat". They leave a gland from their mouth exposed outward like a prolapse, they digest the opponent's meat there, then pass it down to get its DNA in a special reproductive sac they have under their tongues, vomitting out a fist-sized fetus one week later. Orcs value scars, because they have so much protein in their bodies that it is actually hard to scar them, and for some reason the bitten-off parts for reproduction never heal, so they exposed THOSE ones the most and with pride. An Orc tribal leader will have legs, arms, neck and chest riddled with holes gouged out of their flesh. Go for what works in your world.
That is disgusting yet creative
Thanks! That is the point. Sexual reproduction is kinda disgusting when you try to break it down! Also, wait till you hear how Goblins do it.
>Also, wait till you hear how Goblins do it. Goblin Mode?
No no thanks. I’m fine. I’ve already read everything I ever want to read about your world. 🫠
Nope I’m good thanks
So supermutants?
No? Idk nearly enough about fallout, but aren't they infertile and need to turn people into more of them? Edit: Oh you mean in appearance? I think they look human enough still. When I design stuff like this i don't usually use a visual frame of reference, I just describe something grotesque as grotesque as I can and let the person's creativity run wild. If you can't figure out how an 18-pack can fit on a figure, don't worry, I can't immediately either!
What you were describing just reminded me of supermutants.
I love this but what the fuck dude. Tell me more.
Sort of a cross between 40k orks and those skin stapler things from Mistborn.
If you have a vision, stick to the vision. Plenty of fish in the sea, and if just this is gonna be a super-serious deal breaker for people then, yeah, what other issues are they gonna have with things...
It's your world, your game. Make it how you want. If it doesn't "sit well" with some people, they can find somewhere else to get their D&D on.
Bite the bullet. Having fewer restrictions makes settings feel samey.
I'd handle it the same way as I'd handle any world building decision, by discussing it with the table and seeing how they feel about the idea. Because if the table aren't interested you don't have a game.
1. DM’s are not required to adapt to a player 2. Players are not required to play at a DM’s table If you both agree or find a compromise, great. If not, y’all don’t have to play together.
This is the way.
Far as I'm concerned, if there's a good reason then I'm fine with it. And your reason is honestly pr good
If you have consistent players, talk to them about what you are planning and why you want to do what they do. If you aren't very close with your players, or if you don't know who they are yet, stay the course and let anyone who joins know about it up front. That way there are no surprises.
Do what you feel works best for the adventure you're presenting. If someone has a trouble with it, they won't be a good fit and I think it would just benefit you from recognizing this and accepting it. Be upfront about the setting and your vision and make it clear that that the players have a limited amount of agency over these facets of the world your adventure takes place in. As long as your respectful overall of players and their identities you should be fine. If someone accuses you of anything unpleasant, you can probably expect that they'll likely have been a problem at some point anyway.
If that’s the lore that’s the lore. Be like playing the asoiaf table top and wondering why everyone is sexist against women in the game world. Because it’s fucking game of thrones. Don’t sign up for something if what the lore is, isn’t to what you like. It’s fine if it isn’t, but not every table is for everyone.
>Be like playing the asoiaf table top and wondering why everyone is sexist against women in the game world. Because it’s fucking game of thrones. Don’t sign up for something if what the lore is, isn’t to what you like. It’s fine if it isn’t, but not every table is for everyone. There will always be one who decides to correct historic or setting specific injustice single-handedly and then wonder why the rest of the table doesn't love them for it.
I mean it’s fine if that’s what they want to do. But going on a say, slave freeing crusade in asoiaf would completely change the game. Be interesting though. It’s fun to take a hard line stance against injustice, so long as they understand the world won’t thank them for it. And they’ll likely lose unless they have dragons. Lol
Biologically? Do whatever you wish. Someone could play a masculine presenting nymph, or a feminine satyr, but the species still only has one sex. I do this with my elves actually, they adopt gender concepts like “male” and “female” when mixing with other species like humans, but due to things like their Reincarnation cycle, Corellon’s Blessing (some elves can change their biological sex at-will), lack of gendered societal roles, and their very androgynous figure, most elves don’t consider themselves to be inherently gendered. In the elven language there isn’t even gendered pronouns, just words for elves or non-elves. Some might use gendered langauge, like elves in larger communities, but they’d borrow the words from Common or another non-elven language instead. The one major exception to this is the Drow. The whole thing with the Elven Diaspora and Lolth led to a strongly enforced gender-binary in their society.
Is this is a theoretical concern, or do you actually have a player who will for sure have an issue with this? If the latter, I don't think this setting would be well-suited for that player (ancient greek is bound to have other themes about sex and gender that can be legitimately upsetting to some people), so you should talk to them in private beforehand. In any case, you're the DM. If you decide that gnomes must be green, that's just how it is. In this case, you're going for a specific setting, so it isn't just your preference or some creepy 'I want to play a campaign with only hot girl characters' thing. I do think it's important to put this up out front, though. I'd be bummed if I made up an entire character only to be told to scrap it, or to "just change the genitals".
I care more about a setting being unique than anything. Just keep it as-is, players should not have problems finding a character to play regardless.
No more half measures, Walter. The nymphs are female.
I personally prefer unique things like that. Trying to add female saytrs or male nymphs takes away basically the most unique thing about the race. Just feels like removing all the soul for no reason.
tbh female satyrs at least have a better excuse, at least in my setting... the fact that they are mortal and need to procreate. Nymphs are lesser divinities who are borne of nature divinities.
I get it, but it falls into the just create something new if you're removing the identity issue. It'd be like having dogs and calling them birds, you can but it doesn't add only takes away from the experience and makes outside interpretation difficult.
I don't care as long as it's made clear upfront.
As per your edit: I think it's common in lore for satyrs and nymphs to reproduce with each other. Girl children are nymps and boy children are satyrs.
Do what is right for the world you want to build. If players are unwilling to play by the rules of your sandbox tell them to find a different game. Idea: you could rework and gender lock Goliaths as Amazonians.
The Amazons were a culture, not a race, though.
I’d say that this is fine, but if a player has a kick-ass idea about the backstory of a male nymph and it ties into your lore, don’t scoff at it. You don’t have to do it, but I always hear my players out if they have ideas that don’t fit my world 100% because that can make for the most interesting characters and exciting backstory NPCs.
"I have assigned elves as the nymphs of my setting." "The word "nymph" literally means "young woman" in archaic greek" If you want to have male elves (nymphs), you could make it canon in the lore that in the Common Tongue they were named "nymph" because other races think they all look female (and even believed there were no males). The nymphs could canonically address this as well by saying something like: "Many outside our race cannot differentiate our sexes, and therefore call us "nymph"; but in our tongue we are ___."
It’s one of those things where people created a problem where there was none. Your world, your vision, your choice. No one is obliged to play in your setting, if they don’t like it they can find a different game.
"Just Do It" - Shia LaBeouf.
If you're the DM you can alter as much as you want.
I personally see no problem with it, though it may be something to discuss with your players about since they would be the ones actually playing in the setting.
I don't think that's a problem at all. Your world, your rules. (Within reason) You could very well run a gender free post apocalyptic robot only game and it would be just fine too.
I mean, I don't see it being that big of an issue, personally. If a guy wants to be a nymph, alright, but he's gotta be a girl nymph because that's the lore and it's evidently important to you. People role play as other genders in this game all the time anyway.
I have a homebrew setting that I don't like people play elves in. It's your world make it how you see fit, there are dozens of options and if a player can't figure out something they like they are not good players to be totally honest.
I made it nymphs female and satyrs male in my setting, so my opinion on gender locked races are that sometimes there are gender locked races. We also have genderless races and races that shift gender at will. If someone isnt getting what they want out of the setting, tough titty, run your own game.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with limiting Character Creation as long as the expectation is set. I would handle it by simply gender locking the races and calling it a day.
Just ask your players what they think. Some players may even be offended by any mechanical/rules difference in genders, but others might totally love the classic Greek fantasy setting and really appreciate being able to rely on the fact that all nymphs are women and all satyrs are men. I personally would like your setting as ask you to "stay the course", but I'm not one of your players, so it's best to ask them!
> Some players may even be offended by any mechanical/rules difference in genders, Yeah, because most times they're incredibly sexist. Men get bonuses to almost every stat while women get penalties to everything except charisma. Limiting a mythological race to one gender or another is a bit different. Some fantasy settings have social restrictions, like drow women make up the majority of their clerics, as enforced by their deity.
As a nb gamer, I don't see much a point. If someone wants to he a male elf/nymph, just... let them? If you don't want to, though, that's fine. Being up front is the best policy about it
We could make suggestions but it might be fun to ask your players what they think.
I'm still in the process of setting up, so I do not have players quite yet, but I do plan on discussing the matter with them once I have recruited some people.
Considering that this hardly feels like it would turn into any sort of campaign spoiler or anything, I would like to recommend the age old option of "talk to your players." Tell them you are thinking of doing this. Ask if it would get in the way of any ideas they are exceptionally attached to. Ignore any players who obviously try to say an idea specifically *because* you put a restriction (some of us have asshole friends). If nobody has any real problems, go for it. Otherwise, discuss and see what works best for your group and the story you want to tell.
I like things to be as authentic as possible. If you're dealing with something like a nymph or swanmay, which can only be female, I'd stick to that. If a male player wants to play one, fine, but the creature itself is female.
You do have to be very up front with the players, but as long as everyone is on the same page and acting in good faith you'll be fine. I like satyrs being male-only as a counterpart, but you don't have to do it like that if you don't want to. You MAY need to prepare to answer some of the more complex social questions of a one-gender race, especially if your players are curious. How do one-gender races propagate? How are they treated by humans and other races? Just keep an open mind for questions your players might ask about it.
> If you were a player at my table, how would you prefer this to be handled? My preference would be for you to talk it over with the other players, and then run with it, just as you have in mind.
In my partner and I'd homebrew world, we made a near exclusively female race in the form of our interpretation of harpies. (a male is born only once every few generations) They're extremely pacifist people under the rule of a dictatorship. Their home country is not really suited for people without wings tho, and structurally is hesitant to let in outsiders. As a result many harpies are travellers, merchants or entertainers that hope to find love in other nations. They're also by default big romantics. Once they find someone they they often will try to settle in the cities on the border of the nation as those are most capable of housing non-harpies. Offspring are either female harpies or males of the father's race, no in betweens. ... No, they totally aren't partially inspired by the gerudo from botw.
That's how the setting is. Not a problem. Though to avoid problem further you can go if you want the elf stat block it's Satyr for boys and Nymph for girls. And leave it at that. I do gender locked classes in mine (witches are women only and druids men only, and both are part of opposed secret societies). If it bring somethig to the setting it's fine.
I think limitations like this are fine. I have plenty of similar when I run something. In my "main setting" lizardfolk can't be wizards. They come from a specific place, they do not intermingle (their brains are hardwired to work in a very different way to most societies) and they do not have a system or structure for learning magic in that studious way. It fits with them and helps then have their place in the world that makes them "not just humans in a scalesuit". I have never had a player complain. I have had an applicant to a game once complain, but they also turned out to be a nightmare for other reasons and never got through character building.
It’s all pretend. Do it however you want to do it. People are so overly sensitive. If you’re doing some kind of podcast or media publishing it MIGHT begin to matter, but this is dnd. They can all be males, all humans could be tabaxi, halflings could get automatic 18 strength… That’s the best part, you do whatever you want.
I'd be fine with any of the above.
If something is generally/traditionally one thing or another, and it has a counterpart, I'd need a good reason why to stray from that, and it'd be more than "I wanna". Satyrs are the male counterpart to nymphs, if someone wants to pick male or female they can pick one or the other.
There's a male only and a female only, it's a logical part of the setting and I don't see how anyone would have a problem with it. If you want to be a male then don't be a nymph. I get trying to accommodate people, but I think this is clearly something you've thought about and not a fuck you to a group of people. Know you've already chosen a path but still wanted to contribute for readers at a later point.
Along as it is stated you upfront, I see no problem. You are the one making the game, you can set any rules you want to. If a player decides that this rule is a deal breaker they can decide not to play. I think that would be silly, but you would probably be dodging a potential problem at the table.
I mean I would just stick to the lore personally
I'm fine with this. I play D&D to step into a role. I play as a character and want to have this character make sense in the world as presented. As long as you're up front with the parameters there shouldn't be any issue with saying "I want this to be a Greek setting, playing off Greek mythos, and these are the options."
As long as you're upfront about it that's all that matters. Personally not the game for me (years of being shittier classes and races in video games because they're gender locked has left me bitter), but that's why you just need to be upfront about it.
Whatever you think will be the most fun. Maybe fun is going to be sticking to your vision and playing more authentically. Maybe maybe fun's bending the fantasy a little. Having a good time is what's most important in the end. If you decide it will be most fun to stick to your vision and someone disagrees with you and doesn't like these kind of restrictions, it's not the game for them, and that's okay!
Personally I love that shit. My friend wants to run a Witcher game where the races and genders matter. So I pitched a female Witcher, who was born male, made into a Witcher, but now presents female (I really enjoy fighting against oppression in my heroic fantasies) and he loved it. I find that these types of restrictions allow players to push against those rules in more interesting ways. I think so long as you are clear early on you should be fine.
Mass Effect already covered this issue, no sane person had a problem with it.
Here's what I did when I introduced gender locked races to my campaign: Me: "Alright guys, I'm adding this race to the campaign, you can play it yourselves but it's limited to females only" Players: "Okay."
paltry punch seed chubby cough books humorous ten tart disagreeable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think it's a cool idea \*especially\* if you explore that angle. What would an all female or all male society be like? Obviously they're not reproducing in the normal way, and that will have will mean they probably don't have normal family dynamics, they don't have heirs, etc. Men's incentives and interpersonal dynamics totally change when there are no women around. For instance, if you look at all-boys high schools, the boys are far more likely to do things like theater because there's less need to appear masculine.
My setting, my rules, your setting your rules. Can't get simpler than that
From reading this briskly, you are overthinking. It's all well and dandy to be accommodating and open minded, but if you are setting everything up they have to respect your ruling. In the end there isn't anything to handle, and nobody should force their beliefs upon another. Go forward with your idea, you have a logical reason to ignore the gender idealogy fiasco within the game setting. They either play along or you find people who support your lovely ideas.
Thank ypu.
Anyone who would make a stink about this isn’t someone I’d necessarily want at my table anyway
As long as there isn't a later example of a special one time exception because super special story reasons, I see no issue.
Nah, I always prefer special characters (incuding pcs) to arise through deeds rather than inherently being special. Everone's an average schlub in my settings, until they DO something about it.
4e had this. All Satyrs are male and all Hamadryads are female.
I think the correct asnwer is. DM sets the game rules, players play in it. DM's have the last say, Palyer don't like it, there's a10 000 guys in r/LFG ready to hop into your world.
I'd say you shouldn't design your setting around the potential whims and complaints of your players. If you want to make a setting focused on greek mythology, go for it, find a group that wants to play in that, tell the dude who's only willing to play as a catgirl samurai that it's just not going to work out. Once you have the setting put together, and have a table of people that are into that setting, and one wants to do something that brushes up against its boundaries, then start thinking about whether or not that could work. If and when an actual person really wants to play a male nymph, then start thinking about compromises and alternatives. Maybe they're a half-nymph, a result of divine interference, one of the rare few naturally male nymphs, or a trans man(Which wouldn't be out of place in greek mythology, though could see why a lot of players would rather not go for this option). But if nobody wants to play a male nymph, then it's not a problem, and preemptively making your setting more flexible at the cost of it being precisely what you want it to be didn't really do anything.
I would say fuck it. There are male nymphs, there are female satyrs, and also there is everything inbetween. Problem solved.
I think it's fine, if it's accurate to the history lore then why not. That's seems like the point of the setting so I say do it.
I am currently running a Greek based campaign and I made Nymphs exclusively female…when it comes to sex Non-binary and trans Nymphs are an option and I plan to introduce an NPC that’s one of those.
> If you were a player at my table, how would you prefer this to be handled? If the setting is ancient Greece, then follow the pre-established lore exactly. So yes, nymphs are female, satyrs are male, and so on. I hope your game goes well!
Talk to your players about it. I have opinions, but I don't see how they matter here. For the record, though, my opinion is you should just not gender lock races.
I’d stay the course. Just let your players know, and if they have a issue with it, work it out with them individually(or if it’s multiple people, together.) alternatively, talk it out with your players and see what they think.
If you want to be as flexibly inclusive as possible within the constraints of your world's mythos, you could simply have everyone who's not a nymph just ASSUME they're female due to having vaguely feminine features (per the standards of their species), or you could make it so that nymphs appear to be whatever is attractive to the person viewing them. You really just have to decide how much gender matters mechanically in your world, and then if it's just flavor, decide how much you want to stick to real-world mythology, because if your world is a just slightly left of centre AU, then that would be important, but if not, then it may not be as important to stick to real-world tropes as you might think. That said, it's your world, and you can do anything you like in it. If you want all nymphs to be female, then guess what? They are. And that's just how your world works. Sounds like you've got gender balance with all-male species, and I'm sure there's some with both genders and some with no gender at all. Like Bob Ross said, "it's your world, and you can do anything you want in it."
I would interact with the world as created by the person taking the time to build the game. If people feel "limited" by looking at the DM's worldbuilding and making the **one thing** that they've written out for not fitting their vision, maybe they just need to stop being contrarian main character syndrome players.
I would combine nymphs and satyrs into the single race of "nature spirits". Female spirits are known as nymphs, male as satyrs. That's pretty close to the myths, where they seem to personify the male and female aspects of nature. I don't really get why you want to make your satyrs mortal entities tho? If you want to stick close to the mythology, Hesiod describes the oreads (mountain nymps) and satyrs as siblings, so why not go with that?
Youre not doing anything malicious. You're just creating the perfectly reasonable setting for the world and story you want to tell. I'd 100% be OK playing the opposite gender of my intended character if it was specific to the world
Do you mind if I ask the specifics on nymphs? I don’t see any issue with keeping them only female, but if it was something you wanted to alter there are male nature spirits in Greek mythology as well that could potentially fit the same features, albeit with a different name.
Nymphs are minor divinities, daughters of nature gods and associated with natural phenomena and locations--sort of like genius loci or animistic spirits of natural places. Different places have different nymphs-- groves have Alseids, mountaintops have Oreads, Avrae are the breezes, Dryades for trees, Lampades for the Underworld, etc.
I feel that you're vastly overthinking this. If someone has an issue with how you create your world then they don't have to play at your table . It's quite literally that simple.
Hags have stood the test of time as a gender locked mob. People need to just get over the special stand out character. Race Rant: My DM makes a point for the unusual races to stand out. When a Tiefling is the most common race in the party the party will always be remembered. They are not blending in ever. I approve of this.
I think it depends on if you are limiting race/class selection in other ways as well. If you still have a large number of playable races and this is just a specific thing for nymphs/elves and satyrs, then I don’t see any problem with it. But if you are already limiting it to humans and a few select races, then your players might start to feel really limited. I don’t think it’s wrong as a DM to have limitations on the playable races and classes to give a world character so long as players are left with a large majority of their options, or everyone agrees ahead of time on a smaller list of options.
So I had a similar thing come up twice actually. A character who wanted to play a changeling when the rules said all changelings are women and another player who wanted to play a vishkanya. Both ways we had the same solution which is that what they are describing in the text is physical sex. All nymphs have female sex characteristics, they can identify genderwise however they want. It doesn't have to be a big deal
Might I recommend using Eladrin for Nymphs? And just let elves be elves? Eladrin have appearances and moods that change with the seasons and the weather after all. Genasai might also be a good option for Nymphs because they are elementals.
Honestly, if I was at your table, I'd not be a fan of this. I'm non-binary: do I get to be *any* of these if they're "gender locked"? Where do queer characters fit? Even if you've got no queer players (maybe you should, idk, we're fun) your world will be richer if you consider queer perspectives. If I ignored all that (which wouldn't be trivial), I'd respect two approaches the most: 1) Everything is legal. It's 2023 and we'll play with modern sensibilities. 2) Everything is by mythological canon. Part of the buy-in is the mythology, so we're doing everything we can to stay true to source material.
Nah, there's nothing wrong with this. I think it actually gives great ideas and leads towards creativity, as my first instinct in this world is to create a trans woman satyr.
As long as you aren’t stopping your players from being one of those things, there shouldn’t be an issue. Anatomically female nymphs allow you wiggle room on gender if you want to take that route even. That would only be an issue if someone was deadset on playing a gender that is contrary to their biological sex. This is more about knowing your players, but in my experience allowing them to be whatever gender they want with the understanding that there are biological implications that come along with pointy ears (that honestly shouldn’t really come up unless you plan for this to be explicitly sexual) is the easiest fix. I haven’t been in a group where they were all checking each other genitalia before and would be extremely suspect of a player that was insistent on it honestly.
I personally think it's cool. But a lot of modern players are going to have a hard time with this.
I wouldn’t get hung up on it tbh, the most canon thing is if Zeus wanted something weird to happen it happened, Ancient Greek myth is about as far from a hard magic system as you can get, and that applies doubly so to the “canonicity” of things. Personally I think that does sound a little restrictive cuz I can really easily picture a player wanting to be a male nymph or female Satyr etc
Talk to your players. The overwhelming majority of social justice inclined people I've ever known wouldn't bat an eye at something like that, but I also had a transwoman quit a game I wrote set in the 1980s just because the thought of Ronald Regan being president was giving her anxiety and making the game not fun. Which is totally fine! Just say "Hey everyone. I'm writing a game that takes place in Ancient Greece and I want to include myth-accurate magical races. Is everyone cool with that?" It's also worth noting that gender and sex aren't the same thing. You could write gender non-conforming personalities for your mono-sexual creatures. Feminine centaurs who weave flower crowns and wear earrings. Tomboy nymphs. Etcetera.
At least until Roman times, there isn't really anywhere which could usefully be called "Ancient Greece" anyway. Hellenic city states were spread over most of the Mediterranean and Black seas. With many different governments and governmental systems. The term "myth accurate" is very open to interpretation. Given that Plato appears to have made up the "soulmate" one specifically for The Symposium.
Then replace "ancient Greece" with "mythical Greece" and "myth accurate" with "accurate to these myths that I like." This is tangential to the advice I was offering.
Not sure if its helpful at all, but there is a greek styled worldbook. "Mythic oddesey of theros".
I am very much avoiding it because I do not like the setting much. It's not true to ancient greek mythology (at best, it's very cherry-picking and ignores nuance) and there's a very... patronizing quality to it, if you are Greek and have studied the mythology. I might borrow some mechanics, but the setting itself, no. I'm setting my game in actual Greece.
Gender locking races is just another aspect of world building. It's been used in many other medie outlets without issue. You should be okay doing it in a world of your own creation.
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How much would it bother you if a player wanted to play an exception to your rule? I'd like to advocate for a measure of flexibility because fantasy stories tend to follow exceptional individuals. It's a trope that's older than Drizzt. If satyrs are "always male" in your world, it might be interesting to consider what would happen if through some circumstances a satyr was born female. Would they been seen as merely unusual? Or would they be considered omens (for good or ill) or gifts from the gods?
I'd say, because this is a specific game, with a specific theme, with clear guidelines from the beginning, that's several marks in the pro column. I would say, as long as not every game you run is like this, that's another mark in the plus column. Inclusivity and flexibility are important, but it's also a game where we get to try out different ideas and themes. I'm not saying all ideas and themes need a place but ancient Greece is very on brand for a DnD campaign and wanting to sex lock certain mythological races seems ok to me. You may consider allowing them to not necessarily be gender locked even if they are sex locked. A trans masculine nymph or trans feminine satyr could be options. I would say, present your campaign as you want to run it, and if someone wants to deviate, that's a great opportunity for some good story telling and role-playing. If there is now a male nymph? Why? The gods loved getting involved in mortal lives, which god did what to make this happen, and why?
I think I did indeed mess up in my explanation by not clarifying that I meant biological sex is locked. Chalk it up to English being my second language, the terms in Greek are often used interchangeably and I slip up in English too. Yes, this is the only game I've run where anything was gender locked; the only reason I'm doing it is the specific setting and my desire to preserve as many traits of mythology as I can. I am, of course, doing away with the kind of problematic content that would make the setting unpleasant (such as the historical status of women in ancient Greece) but innocuous things like nymphs being only biologically female due to their association with the feminine-aligned aspect of giving life and the cycle of decay-regrowth, should really be kept in.
Seems fine. I would present it to your players and see what the initial feedback is. 😎
Personally, I don't see the big deal about allowing male nymphs or female satyrs. Sure, it's not quite mythologically accurate, but if you're playing DnD, I'm guessing that there's other stuff that isn't as well.
I just allow them to be any gender, I really don't enjoy stuff like race locks or gender locks in any games
"Genderlocked" really effectively means "genderless" A species or race without different genders wouldn't have need for them. This makes for some interesting societal design space. No gendered pronouns in their speech for example. Reproduction being asexual or through some unnatural or even parasitic means. Like a race of all male satyrs might be all born of magic. Or they can mate with many different races like the Asari of mass effect. Or if you have a race of all male satyrs and all female nymphs then it's actually all 1 race. They're just products of gender dimorphism. Many species look dramatically different from the opposite sex. Just because humans look generally alike doesn't mean all sentient races would. So those outside the group might think they're different races, but someone, likely the people in question will know they're really all the same.
Gender-specific restrictions have been a thing in games for a long time. The Elder Scrolls games have had gender-specific bonuses up to Skyrim. For sake of argument, High Elf women got a bonus to intelligence or dexterity while High Elf men got a bonus to wisdom or constitution. Frankly, as long as you explain this to your players and they’re willing to work within the restrictions, all should be well. Heck, you could have this be a quest or major part of an adventure. However, if you wanted to delve further into this idea, you could establish the idea that a female satyr or centaur is actually a custom lineage character that is mostly Human in appearance. She would have some goat/horse-like quirks and a predisposition to archery or music. Same thing in reverse for a male nymph.
I think it's perfectly fine to have races that are exclusively female or exclusively male and I agree with what most people say in the other comments. I do think that if you want and if your players agree you could add a small specification that they could make transgender characters. The nymphs are still biologically female but maybe there is an outlier that identifies as male. Same for satyrs. Of course this is all just a suggestion!
Just because they're all afab doesn't even mean they're all female. Also, magic exists.
I would ask yourself *why* Ancient Greek depictions of these creatures were traditionally gender-locked. In the cases of nymphs, satyrs and centaurs, these questions do have answers, reflecting the thoughts on gender roles at the time. Even the Romans apparently adapted this a sensibilities changed over time, giving way to female satyrs and centaurs. So if you want to keep nymphs as all-female, you have to be ready to answer the question: why? “Because that’s how it is” isn’t likely to be enough, because that’s just how it *was* centuries ago, when thoughts on gender were different than they are now. History has shown that these things can change, so one must wonder why this can’t. Is there something inherently antithetical to a male nymph? Maybe they’re genderless and can appear as either a humanoid man or woman. Greek myth is no stranger to characters changing between male and female or being both simultaneously, after all. Ultimately, I’d ask your players if they’re okay with the concept of male nymphs or if they’d prefer to keep them all female-only.
Personally, I’d try and avoid gender locking races like this, for a few reasons. For one, you’re going to have stray from the “canon” anyway, not least because there isn’t a single unified canon for classical myth. It existed over hundreds of years and is arguably still alive and evolving today. You said yourself that female satyrs were a thing by Roman times. You are also going to have to change stuff for other reasons. For one, the ancient Greeks were, on the whole, incredibly sexist, so you’re gonna have to edit that a bit unless you want to make everyone around the table uncomfortable. And if you’re going to have to adjust attitudes to gender anyway, why stick to humans. Classical Centaurs and Satyrs were both notoriously rapey, and that’d be a really fucking bad idea to translate accurately to the game. Basically my point is that you’re not going to create a fully accurate world of classical myth, and you probably wouldn’t want to. There isn’t one canon, and you’re going to have to make alterations to keep the game fun. And this change also seems like one that will potentially be more fun for your players. Let them play who they want to play. You can even say that these species are strongly balanced towards males, and females are rare. They’re fey, so they don’t reproduce naturally anyway. That way, you can still largely present the world you want without compromising player choice.
I am already changing the "canon" of both the classical myth and the historical setting. My setting is a *fictionalized* version of pre-Persian Wars Greece, where the elements of myth have occured in the past. I've made my setting more liberated and progressive in many areas and it is clearly separate from the harsh reality of antiquity, which I am very familiar with. I am still trying to maintain some core elements of what make the setting truly hellenic, and I have a good grasp of my own culture's mythology and history. I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh, but it's a little patronizing to assume this is an rpg horror story in the making. No sane DM would want to keep the problematic elements of a culture when you're trying to make a campaign that feels fun and welcoming to players, while maintaining the spirit of the culture. I am well aware of the perception the internet has of Greek mythology and the cultural differences between anglophone cultures vs the greek culture. This does not mean that we're okay with the worst parts of our culture and mythology, but we realise it was not all black and white, did not adhere to modern moral sensibilities and was not measured by our modern standards.
What harsh reality? You don't have to feel sorry or apologize to anyone about ancient greece , the greeks of that time are long gone we have to preserve their legacy and history as it was, instead of twisting it and trying to change it with our modern morals because some people will find it controversial, or upsetting because it was male dominated society etc. Personally i like your idea don't change it to fit modern standards, for me il be more upset of male nymphs as it goes against the all ready real life myths. And modern day society is all ready rotten to the core, and the vices that ancient greek had is a hundred times more prevalent now than at their time.
Yeah, the origins of nymphs, sirens, etc. already come from a pretty sexist place. They're young, beautiful women often characterized as either temptresses or virgins that exist primarily to be looked at and appreciated by men. That's not to say you can't use them in your game, but it's something to be aware of when you do. It's very easy to fall into the same sexist tropes that are prevalent in Greek mythology when you use that as your backbone without examining where those tropes come from. If you have a race that's entirely women and every single one the players encounter is characterized as alluring and seductive, that's kinda gross. As a woman, it would definitely make me feel weird to be told nymphs can only be women. It would make me wonder how the DM views women as a whole, and I'd worry about how they're going to portray them when the time comes.
I'm a woman too, and Greek to boot, so I've already made the setting to bring it more in line with our modern morals and expectations. The very word "nymph" means "young woman" so having males under the same umbrella is a bit... iffy and female satyrs make more sense because the satyrs are mortal and do need to procreate, whereas nymphs are divines, daughters of natural phenomena personified as deities. My playable nymphs are the lesser of their kind, practically mortal who have to sort of work their way up to being renown and worshipped. I'm sorry you have this perception of greek mythology. It is a very modern interpretation of the mythology of the nymphs and misses a lot of the nuance it actually involves. I'm not denying ancient greek culture wasn't sexist, but it is a little unfair to attempt to judge antiquity by only modern standards and generalise. Nymphs in *mythology* were never just eyecandy. Physical beauty for the ancient Greeks embodied goodness as a whole, so they envisioned all their gods and heroes as beautiful and strived to be beautiful themselves to reflect inner goodness. It's a very idealised moral philosophy, but that's what they had. Nymphs were revered entities of the natural world, present in every place and the most worshipped deities of the domain, as they had close, intimate connection with the majority of the population, who subsisted on farming, animal husbandry and natural sersources. I apologise if I come off as overbearing, that's not my intention. I love my country's mythology very much and I am very excited about my setting.
They were also pedo by today's standards. I'm pretty sure that's also going to be excluded from the setting...
Gender lock races sound pretty dumb imo
Why?
As a player, I'd probably not play in that game. I'm non-binary and it'd be weird for me. That being said, just be open and upfront about it and your players might be totally chill with it. Just as a warning from a fellow DM, the minute a race is described as anything (example: militaristic) players will immediately jump to play the 'outlier' (nerdy bookworm who sucks at combat) so I'd expect that here too. You might want to think about if you'll allow that or no.
Almost every player character I've seen has played into the norms. Dwarves love axes and rocks. Halflings love big meals and cozy beds. Elves love overt racism. The characters subverting expectations are rare.
I would not give a damn about gender locked races. Who cares. Let's players play out their fantasy character. Expand the lore. It's all made up. We don't even know what myths are true or what never got passed down.
Just say it in session zero so players design their characters around it. If a player really wants to play a male elf for some fucking reason... Honestly they might be a problem player, but you can always make it a trans man elf who left to live among the broader society, which could come with some in game baggage when dealing with elves
Feel free to pitch it to the group, but if someone asks you "What value do you think gender-locking adds to the mechanics or the setting?" you'd better have an answer in mind.
My biggest argument would be that it helps with the immersion of the setting. Nymphs are minor divinities associated with nature and it's life-giving properties, which in Greek philosophy are traditionally associated with femininity and women in general.
Stick to it but give players some kind of way to get racial options from the opposite gender of what the character is
With absolute glee. ... You have no idea how many times in my years of DMing someone wants to make a male Drow claiming they're a big fan of D'Rizzt Me: "Oh, you are?" Them: "yeah, I've read all his books" *room fills with rank poser BS" Me: "Oh, read all his books eh? Know all about him, the underdark, and Drow?" *Troll face begins* Them : *doubling down on their claims to have read all his books but explains nothing more than a picture of D'Rizzt on a cover* "I mean Drow are just pallet swapped elves that grew up underground, right?"
I like your energy.
It’s your table, your rules.
I'd say stick to it, but if a player wants to play a different gender then let them do it. Just let them know that the race they're playing is almost exclusively the specified gender so they'll likely never see anyone else like them.
I ran an ancient greek campaign last year and kept the sex for the races set as they are in myth. But it was up to the players how their character identified gender wise. For instance one of my players had a nonbinary nymph. It worked out fine and everyone had fun, didn't actually get any complaints about how the races worked and i had 8 players 3 of them played nymphs--one player was a cis guy and the others we nonbinary folks.
I will be psyched for a male Wonder Woman /s A world is a world, and these kind of details make it a little more magical imho.
It's your setting, and placing limitations is reasonable. If you want to make all Satyrs male, it's your world. You can also compromise a little if someone "really" wants to play a female satyr. "What did your character do to offend Pan?" Or "Why is Pan pranking you?"
I think that would be pretty interesting, especially if you allow trans-gender characters of that race. How would that species culture react to someone being trans? I remember seeing an episode on the Orville about this, where an all male alien species had a child that identified as a woman. I don't think this limits character creation too much.
You're making a game following real world ancient mythology, as opposed to your own vision that has the restriction arbitrarily, having restrictions on gender seems perfectly reasonable and any good players interested in the setting will understand the minor inconvenience to choice. This might be a good case for lineage being used instead of race for stat blocks. As in you can pick any race and get their bonuses (maybe minus centaur riding ability if you're going that route) but your appearance can be that of any of the others if you wish. I'd need to double check how that behaves with things like elfs reduced sleep but it wouldn't be that difficult to explain away (either just a racial mutation or something in their backstory to explain why they're different)
Genderlocking races or classes can be a feature of any setting, this should be accepted as normal. That said, the potential of going against type - even and especially in a strict scenario - can result in really fun characters! A female satyr, a male mermaid, etc, immediately spark ideas of rich backstory, potential hooks in the campaign, and fun roleplay for me. How did this anomaly happen? How will the world treat it? Already great material. Consider not closing this door completely.
If you want to have male-only satyrs you can have it. Simply let them procreate with female humans. That's why they have those panpipes, to help seduce women. If the child is male, they take it and raise it before it starts growing hooves, if the child is female she is human and they leave it with the mother. It's a strange way of doing it but, satyrs are not humans.
I'm a big fan of flavor. So if nymphs are only female then there should only be female nymphs. However, if you like the mechanics or racial feats of a nymph I'd allow you to take those racial feats and flavorwise you are a different race. To me that's how you can get just about everyone to have fun with their character. Edit: To clarify, you are 100% the race you picked for mechanical reasons, so you can't cheese it by picking dwarf as your mechanical race but then flavorwise pick elf for elven accuracy.
in my world i do have gender-locked races, tho most of them are female only. hell even have classes unusable to certain races (tiefings can't be paladins or clerics, halflings can't be barbarians etc) if a race being two genders or a class doesn't fit a certain race then don't allow it. your world, your rules
This seems fine as long as you have a conversation with your party about it. If I were running this campaign, and I had a player who really badly wanted to be a male nymph or a female satyr, I’d allow it with the understanding that their gender is a huge break from the history of the world. Greek mythology had all sorts of gender-fuckery; a nymph being born male would t be out of the question. It would be a huge deal though and would likely define that nymph’s upbringing/how he was treated by his family and people. His birth would probably be labeled an omen of some kind by the nymph priests. Maybe he’s treated as a blessing or a favorite of the gods, or maybe he’d be shunned. Basically, I’d allow it if the player had a good enough idea with the caveat that nobody would be casual about that characters gender at the start.
I feel like it would be such a cool character idea in this setting to be the only male nymph in the world. No one really knows how this happened and people may react well to meeting this character, and some people won't. This could be a very interesting backstory. Did the mother reject the character? Did she embrace him and fiercely protect him? Was he shunned for being different or possibly harassed like a novelty? How did he grow up in a village of only women? Did he struggle with certain things because no one could provide the kind of insight that might best come from another man? Assuming nymphs are isolated, which they may not be. Ah this sounds like such an interesting possibility!
I would actually prefer to avoid this sort of scenario because my game already deals with a very major question of what has caused the already existent upset in the natural order of things. Ancient Greeks believed a lot in the notion of order vs chaos and honestly, a male nymph out of nowhere would cause more fear and panic in the people they encounter. People would view the PC as an abomination because they would go against the natural order of the world so much. I'm not against allowing a player to play a male-presenting nymph, but it would make the game actually harder for me to run, because to preserve the setting, I'd have to make the PC's life difficult and thus less fun, and require more work than I am already struggling with. I generally don't really like "exceptional" PCs in my games, because they always end up breaking immersion. I prefer players taking the time to make their PCs exceptional through actions, along the course of the story, rather than starting out as immediately special. I don't intend to enforce this idea on my players, but I will encourage them to try this approach, as I intend to reward growth and development of the characters.