I think that at the end of the day we have two completely different opinions of what the game is supposed to be that we cannot renconcile.
Arelith is strange. It's a strange, strange island that calls weirdoes and exceptions.
Anybody that comes down that dock in Cordor can become an archmage within the span of a week - does that really make any sense by itself?
Can you ask your buddies "please don't level too fast, it's damaging the setting integrity?"
"Please go stand under the waterfall for 45 years before you achieve chim?"
"Please only learn a spell every 8 RL hours?"
(You can, by the way, take your time to properly develop your character. Slow stories of growth and learning are amongst my favorite in the setting and I love both type of character that is masterful and you can ask them literally anything about their craft, and those that have absolutely no idea what side of the sword they have to hold, but are willing to learn and make all the mistakes along the way)
Uncommon characters are a challenge.
You will have people that will blow your mind and play them superbly.
You will have people with the blandest take imaginable on what they are supposed to be.
And mind, I say uncommon character. A human mulhorandi priest is uncommon; a thayvian is uncommon, a kara-turian is uncommon. These characters on the glance promise a something unique, something different. Whether they deliver is always a matter of the narrative skill of the player.
Special races are no different. Monstruous races. Uncommon races. Doesn't matter, really.
Underdark is a bit of a zoo, most days in the hub you can spot simultaneously:
Humans, with their own 400 different regional and planar flavors, drow, duergar, goblin, kobolds (and winged kobolds), gloamings, one particular derro, shout out if you know who it is, minotaurs, half orc, orogs, along with whatever weird thing they have going. Undeads, infernalists, abyssalist, star pacted, whatever.
And I love it.
There's a richness of character in UD these days that is amazing.
Nobody is 'normal'.
Nobody is Joe Swordsman.
At worst there's always some Drow Whipsman or a kobold called Stabs which whole personality is knives. Those characters will always bore me to tears, but whatever, you know? A boring take is merely what it is, and as long as they have their fun, they may learn and try a more interesting, more developed concept later.
To me, it seems that some people want Cordor to go back to Tolkien fantasy. Human, elves, hin, dwarves, MAYBE gnomes, anything else get out. And you know what? It's not a bad idea to have a place in the server that is mega racist and hates literally anything that doesn't conform to a very limited racial group.
At the risk of cancelling myself:
Racism is good
in DnD.
In DnD obviously.
Don't send a pipebomb my way.
But you can't enforce that without both killscripts and the molding of player culture that takes years to develop.
It's always been responsibility of the players to check themselves for setting health - the DM can try to enforce it here and there (and when they do, it is generally seen with loathing; you know how some people have the weirdest beef with DMs) but that merely cures symptons, and not really the root of the issues.
That issue being that we have the utter freedom to make our own characters.
That issue being that - as it was astutely spotted by Red Giant, you old, old coot - sometimes we lash against the toys that we have at our disposal, that we can't have 'Nice Things' (TM).
In that regard, these times are no different than the old 5% dragon days.
The award system has always been a mechanical, automatic service. Hands off.
Some people are blessed by the RNG, and some people (hi) have rolled 8 normals in a row.
It doesn't mean that the people that is best fitted to play the most (racially) interesting characters will land where they need to be.
And you can't really enforce players to play better. You can only reward good roleplay, and punish the most offending trangressions.
Ultimately, I think Marsi put it the best:
Marsi wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 2:57 pm
In theory overabundant specials bother me, but in practice I find I don’t really care.
Annoying, tacky players will always find a way to be annoying and tacky, wings or no. And a strong roleplayer can make even the most socially bankrupted concept/race feel new and exciting.