Availability of Special Appearances

[Turtleduck]

The number of characters with wings, tails, or races that should be very rare feels a little too high. The magic of it all starts to be lost for me when I run into the 5th character of the day.

This is by no means a jab at the players enjoying these races. Many of the characters have been a pleasure to interact with.

It looks like the server already collects data regarding the active number of characters by race for metric purposes. Perhaps this could be leveraged in some way to programmatically control the amount of these toons with careful consideration.

Cheers!

[Curve]

I agree with you, Turtleduck. That said it is subjective to personal taste and I don't think our opinion is in the majority.

[Definately Not A Mimic]

For what it's worth I also agree. A few characters ago I tried to rp the amazement of seeing someone with wings walk by and the reaction was immediately to ask if I'd not been around long because there are winged people everywhere along with high magic. I've not bothered to try since.

[Amateur Hour]

The problem with this problem will always be the methods to fix it.

People want to play "visually special" characters. When they finally get to play one, they'll cling to them fiercely. If there's a cap, then that means that people will cling even more fiercely to the "slots" that they have, meaning no one else will get to play them unless you put a time limit on such characters, and the idea of limited-time characters would be dramatically opposed.

[Aradin]

I'm in the "fewer special races should be around, and in fewer numbers" camp. Arelith feels like a zoo nowadays to me, and I personally think it would be better with fewer wings and tails around.

That said, it would be hard to put the genie back in the bottle without a lot of player dissatisfaction and the dev team has never expressed they want to return to a more "traditional" D&D setting in regards to races anyway. I think you just have to accept the server direction for what it is and readjust your expectations so you can make characters that fit into the setting. Arelith is nothing close to low fantasy. This is a high fantasy world where you're as likely to see a gloaming in the town guard as you are a gnome, and where the half-giants and shadovar and kenku come into town to get groceries and check the news.
So my characters might occasionally marvel at strange races, but as a player I understand that to them, all this weirdness is just what their normal is. For any given Arelithian character, seeing an avariel is no stranger than me in real life seeing someone who's seven feet tall. A little interesting, sure, but nothing to go crazy over.

[Royal Blood]

I kinda vibe with this haha. It reminds me of the Incredibles movie where the evil villains plot is to make everyone a super hero and he's like "When everyone is super, no one is" insert evil laugh.

Idk how that bodes for Arelith. I'm not certain there's a good solution. You want the rewards to be both satisfying but not overbearing.

But also id point out the imbalance of the vision. On one hand, we're supposed to treat these unique races as rare. But on the other hand you're cutting through hordes of them in dungeons, drop kicking balor's running off dragons and subduing demon lords while planar hopping with ease. Suddenly a pair of wings doesn't matter

You run into a half dragon thing at level 10 ish or less in the kobold mines so your introduction to high fantasy is immediate.

It's trying to do both at once and perhaps leaving both sides unhappy. Both being high fantasy with exposure to many races while also trying to insist on a retained relevance towards unique and special races

TLDR I agree there are a ton of so called unique races bouncing about and it sort of detracts from the coolness of them and somehow cheapens the overall experience. But I'm not sure there's a solid solution that would appease.

Edit: When you could still be a dragon, dragon one revealed itself to my elven coronal and I was genuinely taken back OOC. It was amazing. My character had known this one for awhile but had never suspected anything then blam, a dragon the size of tower was in front of her it was way bigger than polymorphs allow.

I just wanted to point out how amazing rare races can be when they have their moment to reveal themself. Whether it's in a grand way or a slower realization. I could say Raksaha have been a similar experience and shout out to Raksaha players who have managed to uphold a sense of wonder and like adventure in a high fantasy setting.

[Kythana]

While I don't think Arelith is low fantasy presently, I think there was a time that this server attempted to go for a more mundane, grounded approach.

The entire framework of the server's metagame is the settlement system, which inherently deals with very basic concepts. This includes citizenship quality of life, property ownership, trade and resource management, and occasionally conflict/wars with other settlements.

That's not to say that adventuring and epic threats didn't exist in the past, but leveling was also significantly more time consuming. And thus, more characters were focused on the lower level aspects. (And by no means I am suggesting slower leveling.)

Right now, it feels like the server's setting is actively fighting against itself. Drow are supposed a vicious evil race that knows nothing but cruelty, and yet Eilistraeens, neutral Drow, and joke characters have never been more popular. Warlocks were always ostracized by the general neutral-good aligned surface, but now Cordor is being forced to accept them.

And the very idea of the award system as a whole is intended to keep rare races rare. After all, it's just a chance to get a higher tiered award, so you shouldn't see particularly many.

...Which might be true, if there wasn't a non-negligible portion of the long standing population hoarding awards to use on whatever new thing releases.

While it is very much a reality that characters just have to accept, I really do think this has all contributed to the degradation of the setting. There's supposed to be some semblance of normalcy, after all.

Unless we just accept that this is a quasi Planescape type setting, where weird is the new normal, then that inherent disconnect will always exist.

And when that happens, it becomes impossible to take the setting seriously in good faith.

But to solve this issue in particular.

Limit accounts to having a maximum of say, 2 Major awards, and 2 Greater awards at any given time. And cap the amount of award characters any given player can have to a maximum. For example, if you had a Kenku character, you would not be able to make an Avariel unless you deleted the Kenku.

[Paint]

I waffle back and forth on this. Sometimes I feel like asking special races to be pulled back is treading on other people's fun. Other times yeah, I agree. How am I supposed to respond to the nth tiefling I've seen today? When they're so normalized, everything about how they exist in lore doesn't matter anymore. You can't be wary of tieflings if everyone knows a tiefling who's just a normal, well-adjusted member of society. Because if you do, you're a bigot. And I mean you could argue that people are bigots if they're wary of tieflings anyways, but the -point- is, tieflings are supposed to be rare enough that it's reasonable to mistrust them for their fell blood.

And uh, that's just. Not really something you can do on Arelith.

Genasis with more expressed features are supposed to be seen as monstrous and strange as well. But there's no tension there either. Genasis are so common that running into one doesn't present any character with apprehension or even curiosity. The interest of the races is eroded.

Ghostwise Halflings outside their communities in the Chondalwood are supposed to be exceedingly rare, and have a few eccentricities, but the folk I see who even play ghostwise halflings don't play them as ghostwise halflings at all.

I could go down a list, but there's no point in it. A lot of races that people have available to them are used as neat skins, and I'm sure I've been guilty of that before. It's a shame when something with roleplay potential is discarded so casually.

[Svrtr]

While I generally agree, I'm a sucker for devil's advocate

One possibility to keep in mind that the proportion of these races hasn't increased, but that the number has increased but remained proportionally constant by virtue of just more and more players who have played long enough to get an award, and if you are in a square with ten players and one of which has wings or one hundred players and ten of which has wings, it's easier to notice the ten bewinged players than the 90 others

Granted the lack of incentive to roll award characters doesn't help either

[Subtext]

Perhaps it's time to keep special (looking) races for RPR 30+ or 40+ folks, depending on race. Might give an incentive for people to actively put in the effort for those higher ratings.
Roughly...anything with wings, tieflings, vampires...RPR 40+, others 30+

Don't get me wrong, I absolute dislike the idea of RPR. I feel something is very wrong about the notion of getting my RP graded like I'm back at school (and don't try to tell me it is anything else!)*

But that's a personal opinion and I don't really see any other way to make them more rare aside from putting them on timers. And I probably dislike timers even more. Some characters have their story finished within a few months or weeks. Some have the potential to last years. Often you don't know that until you get there and having a character forcefully rolled due to an arbitrary timer while still being in full swing...kinda sounds like a big ol' yikes.

*For reference, I am not salty because I got denied a higher rating, I simply never applied for one.

[Eyeliner]

More awards that let standard races feel special without looking special, instead of playing special races or adding tails and wings, could go a long way towards mitigating this.

[Paint]

More awards that let standard races feel special without looking special, instead of playing special races or adding tails and wings, could go a long way towards mitigating this.

I wouldn't mind seeing awards that add interesting innate abilities, honestly. Or even awards that help facilitate more bizarre origins. This isn't a bad idea.

[The GrumpyCat]

A few points.
Firstly - I think that there's general agreement in the team that we should see more awards that are none racial in aspect. I think that's a good idea. I don't know when or if more award options will happen, but I would expect them to be moving a bit away from the racial aspect. Maybe not completely , but at least mainly.

Why is Arelith showing more difference in appearence now? Well I think I can answer that easily enough.

There's two main reasons.

1) Awards are just much, much, much easier to get, nowadays. Even with the timer, I bet that within a year of contantly rolling characters, most people could probably get at least a greater award, if not a major. And that's not counting on those who had many banked before the timer came in.

2) One thing I was passionate about, in my tenure (and I make no apologies for it, to be clear!) is that I wanted awards to be appealing for all sorts of players. Back when I joined in that capacity, pretty much all the 'Normal' awards (ignoring the ECL option) was either a) Monster in the underdark b) Good monster in the underdark c) Neutral Pale Master.
Which is all well and good, but what if I don't want to play in the underdark? Or play a Pale Master? And y'know, not to speak ill of the underdark server, it's very nice and there's lots of loverly players there- but the majority of our player base are not regularly monster-character-players.
Greater and Major awards were a bit better but still really were slanted on 'You got a greater? Awsome! You must want to play an evil murderous psychopath then right?! Right?!' and you know - not to disparage those that do, and not to say that such isn't a reasonable option - but that desire doesn't cover what a fair chunk of what the player base wants.
So in short - there's more normal/greater racial award options for races that are a) Not specifically Hidden (e.g. yuan'ti, Rakshasa, Hags, Imps) and b) that can be played primarly on the surface. Previuosly these awards either just languished unused, or were played as purely underdark or hidden concepts.

So I always tried to champion the idea that there should be more varity of awards, more interesting options, for players of all sorts. I still feel that way, to be honest.

I'm not neccesarly against the idea of making some races rarer, sure. I think that's an interesting discussion to have and there's a few interesting options - though each has their own drawbacks and their own benefits. That said, I would rather not see a huge step back too, where awards - at least on the lower end of the spectrum, only really catered for a specific taste in the playergroup.

(Small addition - Gloamings were all Irongron's idea though. Not that I have any very strong feelings on the matter, but it did suprise me when they came in as Greater Awards, given their wings. Oh well.)

Edit: Edit:

And the very idea of the award system as a whole is intended to keep rare races rare. After all, it's just a chance to get a higher tiered award, so you shouldn't see particularly many.

Touching on this comment super quick.

Back In The Day When It Took 9 Months to Level to 30 On Average: - this worked? Nowadays when most can do it within a month - it doesn't.

There are ways of Fixing(tm) this, but a lot of them have some form of drawback.

A few that come to mind

1) - lower the percentiles. Which is well and good, but honestly people already hate the RNG aspect of the system, so it's not likely to be popular

2) - Make it take more time to level up. Another highly controversial idea, not least of all because this effects a lot of other things.

3) - Link what to take to RPB - Nice, but could lead to some people just never rolling characters, because why bother? Nothing they like is available. And whilst I am a big proponent of the RPB system, I can't deny it has it's failings and I feel we need to be wary how much we gate behind it. Not to say we should gate nothing behind it, or even gate 'more' things behind it, but that it's something to be wary of.

4) - Make more special races require apps. - Well, that's a possiblity but potentially adds a lot more work to the DM team. Also can make more accusations of favortism ec.t

5) Limit amount of races able to be played at any one time - like Vampires at present. This would be very diffuclt to police, and might end up in some highly problematic sitautions, at least if the numbers were kept too low. I can't picture a way how this could be automated, and still be fair. Yet if done manually then I can't picture a way that this also wouldn't be extremly hard work for the DM team, and frustrating for the player base. Unless the numbers were set VERY high, I'd personally be very much against this idea.

6) Allow people to have only a certain amount of 'special races' in their account. This isn't a /bad/ idea, but again not sure that fixes the problem. You'll still get people playing the one Winged Character they have in their vault, because it's special. If you make it so they can't get any more major awards whilst playing their current Major (for example) that'll likely mean they'll just stop rolling full stop. Or if you make it so that they can still roll for more awards - that's fine, but whos' to say they won't delete their Avarial for, say, a winged Fey'ri?

7) Offer more None Racial Options - Ok so to be clear I do like this idea, it's one of my fave out of all of those on this list and is probably going to happen. But the one issue with it - esp when it comes to the 5% options- is IDK about you, but if I'm spending a 5% on something 'special' that's none racial, I want it to be BLOODY special. So there is a chance (note only a chance) of powercreep here. To an extent I feel that this can also be argued with the 5% races too, but that can also be offset by the cosmetic stuff? Your Avariel may not be as mechanically powerful as a human, but it looks unique and pretty. But- Maybe I'm thinking too much into this. More unique none racial options over all? Great idea.

8) Rehall the entire award system. Which honestly was somethng discussed and something I pushed for in my tenure, but sadly never came to pass. I really hope it will however, because I think it needs to be done.
One thing to keep in mind with this though is that there tend to be braudly two schools of thought when it comes to awards. (esp rcial ones)
"Awards should go to people who can roleplay those concepts the best. People who can give back to the community and will play these characters in accordance with lore, and not just for a gimmic."
Vs.
"Awards shouldn't be gated by DM attention or even favoritism. Anyone should potentially be able to play an Award race, if they do the Thing that gets them the award."
Both of these options have their merits. I think an award system should ideally come a little off both of these - allowing for anyone to potentially get an award, but with the option made slightly quicker/easier for those who express good roleplay. But note whichever way things go - someone is going to complain.

9) Remove awards/special races entirely from the game. I dont' like this as an idea at all personally, but there it is, in all it's terrible glory.

I'm sure there are other options too, and I look forward to reading peoples ideas. Each one has it's benefits, and it's drawbacks.

But somerthing else to keep in mind - we currently already have lots of 'unique' appearence characters about, and lots of awards floating about, banked and ready for people to do 'something' with. So short of force-deleting all of these special characters, and removing all awards from peoples banks - I don't think we'll see a change any time soon.

[Amateur Hour]

I waffle back and forth on this. Sometimes I feel like asking special races to be pulled back is treading on other people's fun. Other times yeah, I agree. How am I supposed to respond to the nth tiefling I've seen today? When they're so normalized, everything about how they exist in lore doesn't matter anymore. You can't be wary of tieflings if everyone knows a tiefling who's just a normal, well-adjusted member of society. Because if you do, you're a bigot. And I mean you could argue that people are bigots if they're wary of tieflings anyways, but the -point- is, tieflings are supposed to be rare enough that it's reasonable to mistrust them for their fell blood.

And uh, that's just. Not really something you can do on Arelith.

Genasis with more expressed features are supposed to be seen as monstrous and strange as well. But there's no tension there either. Genasis are so common that running into one doesn't present any character with apprehension or even curiosity. The interest of the races is eroded.

Ghostwise Halflings outside their communities in the Chondalwood are supposed to be exceedingly rare, and have a few eccentricities, but the folk I see who even play ghostwise halflings don't play them as ghostwise halflings at all.

I could go down a list, but there's no point in it. A lot of races that people have available to them are used as neat skins, and I'm sure I've been guilty of that before. It's a shame when something with roleplay potential is discarded so casually.

You kind of touch on an issue here that I think is separate from the availability issue: the fact that there's a lot of people who play their special races without sensitivity to their special-race lore. I don't mind seeing ten Ghostwise Halflings if they're hiding out in the forests hesitant to chat with my shield dwarf or my sun elf or my human. I don't mind seeing five avariel if they're all hesitant about this big wider world they've suddenly found themselves in outside the Aerie. But a single Ghostwise Halfling that's Chatty Cathy or Amy Avariel talking about how she was abandoned as a baby in Waterdeep so she knows nothing about the avariel or about elves in general is going to throw me significantly farther out of the setting.

I have absolutely no idea how this could be implemented, but I'd love it if there were some way that most award races (and honestly, some classes - lookin' at you, Bladesinger and RDD) didn't require an application but rather a passing score on a five- or ten-question multiple-choice basic lore test. I'm talking about "Where do all Ghostwise Halflings come from?" or "True or false: only elves and half-elves can become bladesingers" kind of questions (stuff that would be relevant to roleplay), not "in what year did the avariel successfully defend the Dracorage mythal?" or "Select all of the canonical dragon disciples from the below list" kind of questions (whose answers would have no impact on roleplay).

[JustMonika]

This would just result in someone sharing a list of answers to those questions somewhere. The reason servers have application processes is because the alternative forms of gatekeeping tend to be so easy to game you might as well not have them.

Hence the PoTM approach (Massively unpopular gatekeeping) or the Arelith approach (Insert Toystory meme about 'Specials, everywhere!')

[Shadowy Reality]

We are going a bit full circle. In the past all Prestige classes were behind an application, some behind RPR requirements. Same for subraces. This ensured that only certain players got to depict these.

We have entirely moved away from that, I think the only RPR requirement we have on the server is to make a kobold RDD, which requires 40. As far as I know nothing else has an RPR requirement. We do have some races with applications, which serve to filter out concepts that wouldn't work or player that have not done their homework.

I think it's really hard to find a balance in this and I suspect our current approach might be better than the days of old were only a select chosen few could touch these classes and races.

I will also add, that I believe much of this is on other player's hands. Is that a Tiefling you are seeing? Mistrust them, treat them like the quasi-monsters they look to be, be unfair to them. Forgotten Realms is not modern days, you can and should discriminate.

[Royal Blood]

We are going a bit full circle. In the past all Prestige classes were behind an application, some behind RPR requirements. Same for subraces. This ensured that only certain players got to depict these.

We have entirely moved away from that, I think the only RPR requirement we have on the server is to make a kobold RDD, which requires 40. As far as I know nothing else has an RPR requirement. We do have some races with applications, which serve to filter out concepts that wouldn't work or player that have not done their homework.

I think it's really hard to find a balance in this and I suspect our current approach might be better than the days of old were only a select chosen few could touch these classes and races.

I will also add, that I believe much of this is on other player's hands. Is that a Tiefling you are seeing? Mistrust them, treat them like the quasi-monsters they look to be, be unfair to them. Forgotten Realms is not modern days, you can and should discriminate.

It may be odd to discriminate against a tiefling when those who might also shop at Dis. That's sort of what I mentioned before, the server both wants special races to be regarded as unique but creates no like atmosphere that would suggest they should've.

[Diegovog]

Everyone likes exceptions. It's pretty cool interacting with that different kobold merchant NPC in town. But what makes it cool is it being unique and different. If there are suddenly a kobold, a goblin, a tiefling, a dragon disciple and a gloaming doing the same, it immediately loses the appeal, the uniqueness. If everyone wants to be different, then there's no majority to ground the normal from the weird.

This is what is happening to the server. Like someone mentioned, it's becoming more like Planescape, which is not a problem, if that's the direction it's meant to be going. It's less gritty and grounded, but it's much more magical and exotic.

I personally prefer less traits that stand out too much like wings and tails, simply because there's not a culture of ostracizing the (what is supposed to be) weird. I would go even as far as suggesting removing avariel, gloaming and maybe a couple of others for a few months.

[Amateur Hour]

This would just result in someone sharing a list of answers to those questions somewhere. The reason servers have application processes is because the alternative forms of gatekeeping tend to be so easy to game you might as well not have them.

Hence the PoTM approach (Massively unpopular gatekeeping) or the Arelith approach (Insert Toystory meme about 'Specials, everywhere!')

I honestly don't care if someone shared the list, because it would mean they saw the answers.

[Shadowy Reality]

It may be odd to discriminate against a tiefling when those who might also shop at Dis. That's sort of what I mentioned before, the server both wants special races to be regarded as unique but creates no like atmosphere that would suggest they should've.

100%. But this is again a server culture thing. In the past DMs were a lot stricter with these things, RPRs were dropped simply for being in the surface during daylight for UD races. You would lose RPR for not roleplaying your alignment to a certain degree. These days you have characters that should probably should not shopping in Baator and no one baators an eye.

[Kythana]

6) Allow people to have only a certain amount of 'special races' in their account. This isn't a /bad/ idea, but again not sure that fixes the problem. You'll still get people playing the one Winged Character they have in their vault, because it's special.

There are always going to be players who play the same character forever. But I also think there's a significant portion of the playerbase that enjoys variety. Part of the problem, in my opinion, in the attrition build up, especially for the application and population locked ones.

A player could theoretically jump from their vampire, to their fey'ri, to their kenku, and then their half giant over the course of the year, and it would effectively be the same amount of 'special race' characters. There's no incentive to delete.

If capped however, one would be more inclined to play a basic race or lower tiered award if they still wanted to keep their special race character, but currently weren't interested in playing them.

This is also for future proofing. Players would be less inclined to roll up the new flavor of the month major being released if they still had an active major award character they were playing.

If you make it so they can't get any more major awards whilst playing their current Major (for example) that'll likely mean they'll just stop rolling full stop. Or if you make it so that they can still roll for more awards - that's fine, but whos' to say they won't delete their Avarial for, say, a winged Fey'ri?

The second part of this solution is to cap the total amount of awards you can have banked. So, using this scenario.

Let's say you have an Avariel. You currently also have one major award in your vault. Because you have one award banked, you would be unable to get another major.

So you decide to roll your Avariel, and now play a Fey'ri. The Avariel is rolled, you use your 1 banked major, and are back to 0. You would now have to successfully roll again in order to play a new major award. Unless a player is exceedingly lucky, I really doubt they will have back to back awards on every roll cooldown.

And if all this still wasn't working, and there was still was too many major award characters?

Then introduce a cooldown period after rolling the major character, where you can't use the same tier award for 6 months or so, on top of everything else.

[Eyeliner]

You kind of touch on an issue here that I think is separate from the availability issue: the fact that there's a lot of people who play their special races without sensitivity to their special-race lore. I don't mind seeing ten Ghostwise Halflings if they're hiding out in the forests hesitant to chat with my shield dwarf or my sun elf or my human. I don't mind seeing five avariel if they're all hesitant about this big wider world they've suddenly found themselves in outside the Aerie. But a single Ghostwise Halfling that's Chatty Cathy or Amy Avariel talking about how she was abandoned as a baby in Waterdeep so she knows nothing about the avariel or about elves in general is going to throw me significantly farther out of the setting.

I have absolutely no idea how this could be implemented, but I'd love it if there were some way that most award races (and honestly, some classes - lookin' at you, Bladesinger and RDD) didn't require an application but rather a passing score on a five- or ten-question multiple-choice basic lore test. I'm talking about "Where do all Ghostwise Halflings come from?" or "True or false: only elves and half-elves can become bladesingers" kind of questions (stuff that would be relevant to roleplay), not "in what year did the avariel successfully defend the Dracorage mythal?" or "Select all of the canonical dragon disciples from the below list" kind of questions (whose answers would have no impact on roleplay).

This is almost a case for more special races. In a way, that can be a good thing, because when you have multiples of a race you get a community that can feed on each others' lore and RP. I think the large number of half-giants for example was a pretty good thing because the players did a lot with it (having a property dedicated to them certainly helped). But one lone member of a race who's trying to fit in is usually going to be played like a weirdo curiosity who might mention their backstory but most of the time will have to try to fit in to existing factions.

One way to encourage special races to group up with their own kind and feed off each other could be to greatly limit award races available but make them rotate in availability so you'd get them arriving in waves, then not at all for a while until available again.

[The GrumpyCat]

One sentiment I see coming up a few times, is the idea that people arn't roleplaying these races correctly, and a lot of the suggestions spinning around (understandably) call for some more stringent measures to enforce that.

And this isn't a bad idea. I see where it comes from. I even agree with it to an extent. I do have a thought experiment though, which I'm kinda curious to see peoples response to.

If we want to be more stringent about roleplay (roleplay in general, this includes class, as well as race, but is more potent for race) then that polcing doesn't stop at character creation. After all it's possible to fill out an app with lies, and then play the concept entirely differently.

What that means, is punative measures post creation including - perhaps- deletion.

With most character classes and the like*, forced relevels or even remakes can be done (though nowadays we could probably just force an early setclass and the like). But with races... that becomes a lot murkier. Someone who's deemed not to be roleplaying a persons race correctly... well the only 'cure' for that is forced deltion - at a certain point anyway.

Forced deletion of characters is extremely rare, but if we want to more firmly enforcing roleplay standards for certain races - then I... think it's likely to happen more often.

How do we feel about that?

*The exception being Harpers/Zhents.

[Iceborn]

Perhaps it's time to keep special (looking) races for RPR 30+ or 40+ folks, depending on race. Might give an incentive for people to actively put in the effort for those higher ratings.
Roughly...anything with wings, tieflings, vampires...RPR 40+, others 30+

Don't get me wrong, I absolute dislike the idea of RPR. I feel something is very wrong about the notion of getting my RP graded like I'm back at school (and don't try to tell me it is anything else!)*

But that's a personal opinion and I don't really see any other way to make them more rare aside from putting them on timers. And I probably dislike timers even more. Some characters have their story finished within a few months or weeks. Some have the potential to last years. Often you don't know that until you get there and having a character forcefully rolled due to an arbitrary timer while still being in full swing...kinda sounds like a big ol' yikes.

*For reference, I am not salty because I got denied a higher rating, I simply never applied for one.

I have mixed feelings about this.
In one hand, yes. I think that plenty of special races are not treated with the due reverence they deserve - look at dragons when they were 5%; we had a dragon infestation issue and, frankly speaking, a lot of people that played dragons had absolutely no idea how to play one.

In the other, there are a lot of people that can play some killer characters - exotic or otherwise - that are probably stuck and have been stuck for years in RPR 20, for reasons that have been discussed to the ground at the length of the aeons of Arelith.

[Waldo52]

From my own experiences and those of my friends, old school D&D involved lots of humans with some elves, gnomes, etc. thrown in.

D&D 4th and 5th edition brought in a lot of aspects of the furry fandom and put robots/exotic races from splat books closer to the core. When I talk to friends about their 5E campaigns, probably 75% of players are doing some kind of exotic race.

In my humble opinion D&D is more compelling when you stick to the basic racial options. I will always feel that the proper place for things like tieflings and elemental-touched beings is a dungeon as killable mobs, or maybe a rare NPC. The proper place for things like Rakshasa is probably nowhere.

Please do not take offense if you disagree, after all it's just a video game, but I have never once met a single character with wings, horns, etc. that I liked. They never clique together the way drow or earthkin do because there aren't enough of them and something like a winged elf or a guy whose dad was an earth elemental does not lend itself to relatable storytelling.