Fantastic Races and Where to Find Them

[Vaeldria]

I generally think the quality of RP and engagement increases when people are playing a character they're enthusiastic about.

I get some people would prefer a more believable setting, but I'd hope fantasy is more flexible than reality; I'm all for the wild options.

[Kythana]

This server has an identity crisis, and that's partly why this poll is already so split.

At one point, it very much feels like Arelith was meant to be a grounded representation of a forgotten realms world, and a more low-level view of the people that lived there. -And the systems and mechanics were initially in support of that.

Fewer amounts of portals, caravans existing for movement that take longer time. A generally slower leveling speed(and thus, a lower pool of rewards overall), the hunger/water/rest system, so on and so forth.

But over time, it has shifted a lot more into pure high fantasy. Without even speaking of rare races being commonplace, think about how normal Planar travel has become, and how the Shadow Plane is almost a city hub by now. Consider the ease of communication and portals. Not only can everyone teleport all over the place at will, but you can also contact anyone at almost anytime.

Currency has inflated to comical level, and rare materials in the world are barely treated with the awe that you would expect. DM events have focused on world ending crises, and then the loading tips are saying that we're actually level 10 in reality?

It conflicts with itself.

If you want to be grounded, then these systems have to be dialed back, and made believable once again. Otherwise you will always have a disconnect with: What is being told vs what is actually presented.

"Fixing" this would be both a significant overhaul, and an extremely long and unpopular process.

---

So at this point, just let people play what they want. Embrace the high fantasy server you've become, instead of trying to deny that it's anything but.

Some races are going to be inherently problematic and I don't think players should ever play them, just because it will end up a huge mess, so hold some back.

And yes, I am extremely biased and want to play a Githzerai.

[Mythic]

For every mediocre play of an award race, you get an absolute diamond to nails it to a T. Open the floodgates, let those diamonds have a chance to shine. People will never get better if they never get the chance.

If it becomes TOO terrible, eg people meme-playing high fantasy races then applications, DM involvement, Coaching, ect. Are all preferable options to "Remove it, lock it up, nobody should EVER GET TO TRY"

I'd much rather see people fail, only for the successes to be memorable. Than never see them at all.

[Deep Fried Thinking Emoji]

I see more people complaining about people playing certain races "THE WRONG WAY" than I see people playing those races at all.

FR is a very fantastic setting. Avariels being elvenly annoying, RDDs flaunting their colorful wings, or tieflings and aasimars arguing about which outer plane is cooler is perfectly normal.

We have devil and undead infested dungeons without even leaving Cordor, the server is not trying to convey a feeling of magic and fantastic creatures being strange and exotic at all, so trying to enforce such on players is just ridiculous.

Bring in more races and embrace the zoo that is FR (but pls don't shove them all into Andunor, that's getting old).

[Coolguy McMagic]

This server has an identity crisis, and that's partly why this poll is already so split.

At one point, it very much feels like Arelith was meant to be a grounded representation of a forgotten realms world, and a more low-level view of the people that lived there. -And the systems and mechanics were initially in support of that.

Fewer amounts of portals, caravans existing for movement that take longer time. A generally slower leveling speed(and thus, a lower pool of rewards overall), the hunger/water/rest system, so on and so forth.

But over time, it has shifted a lot more into pure high fantasy. Without even speaking of rare races being commonplace, think about how normal Planar travel has become, and how the Shadow Plane is almost a city hub by now. Consider the ease of communication and portals. Not only can everyone teleport all over the place at will, but you can also contact anyone at almost anytime.

Currency has inflated to comical level, and rare materials in the world are barely treated with the awe that you would expect. DM events have focused on world ending crises, and then the loading tips are saying that we're actually level 10 in reality?

It conflicts with itself.

If you want to be grounded, then these systems have to be dialed back, and made believable once again. Otherwise you will always have a disconnect with: What is being told vs what is actually presented.

"Fixing" this would be both a significant overhaul, and an extremely long and unpopular process.

---

So at this point, just let people play what they want. Embrace the high fantasy server you've become, instead of trying to deny that it's anything but.

Some races are going to be inherently problematic and I don't think players should ever play them, just because it will end up a huge mess, so hold some back.

And yes, I am extremely biased and want to play a Githzerai.

I was going to write a more lengthy comment here but this post already sums up my opinion perfectly.

The Rubicon has been crossed and Pandora is out of the box. At this point, embrace that Arelith is a server with a high fantasy setting. Trying to "go back" now would just make a lot of people very, very unhappy.

Hopefully the Dragon's Neck server will return soon and give the people that hate the sight of a winged character a place where they can enjoy their preferred setting more.

[Dreams]

Suggestion for making people really have a hard think about their award characters (and also lowering the amount of them overall):

1 award-race character active per player. If you want to roll a different award-race, you have to roll that character and start a new one. If you want to play a different award race, roll the old one. Ta daaaaa

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I put other because I really could care less how many races are available, I just wish more people were like me and played them because they had a cool concept for it and were willing to spend the time both on backstory and some goals that make the character relevant to the setting.

As a result, I am similar to what darkborn wrote in that I think a point buy system is the future, but I would tie apps to it while having other options to use your points for if you are truly against applications. I suppose it's no secret by now I am a big fan of the application process, but I usually try to add another reason why it's great every time i bring it up to keep it somewhat fresh. This is this post's iteration of that:

It brings the playerbase and the dm team closer in general, because it gives the dms some insight to the player applying they may never get because they don't run in the same circles or timezones.

As a add on, I also really like what dreams wrote just above me here, with players only having one active award character at a time.

[Spriggan Bride]

The biggest problem with exotic races is they still have to do all the day to day stuff Arelith characters have to do and that gets more and more absurd the further you get from standard fantasy races. I mean you want to do writs to level, you want to bank and shop and craft, you probably want to be a citizen and if you're a mind flayer or beholder or something it seems really hard to justify it.

So I don't think it works to get too exotic, and when they are the ones that can pose as humans or other common races most of the time seem to make the most sense, followed by races that can justify being part of the very specific civilizations we have as options.

I also like the idea of rotations because it's better for a bunch of oddballs to show up at once and feed off each other's RP, that gives a sense of community between them and I think is better for the lore aspect (and for making others respect their existence, it's easy to sideline one member of an exotic race but get five or six and you have a faction that has to be acknowledged)

[Memento Mori]

Suggestion for making people really have a hard think about their award characters (and also lowering the amount of them overall):

1 award-race character active per player. If you want to roll a different award-race, you have to roll that character and start a new one. If you want to play a different award race, roll the old one. Ta daaaaa

I'd expand on this by suggesting one award race character for something like a Major, and more slots as you go down the tiers (e.g. 2 Greater races, 3 Normal races, etc.) and clarify that language bonus, alignment exceptions, level skips, etc. wouldn't count toward these slots. This can give incentive to roll higher tiered reward characters, and allow for less special "roll bait" or monotony breaking alts to exist.

The biggest problem with exotic races is they still have to do all the day to day stuff Arelith characters have to do ... and if you're a mind flayer or beholder or something it seems really hard to justify it.

Once upon a time, back when Major rewards were a discussion with the dev team + application, someone once requested to play a Mind Flayer. They rolled within a few months of creation because the history of Mind Flayers vs. Andunor is apparently a sordid affair and they kept getting no-line and one-line kill bashed by other players.

So, there's that.

[Coolguy McMagic]

Suggestion for making people really have a hard think about their award characters (and also lowering the amount of them overall):

1 award-race character active per player. If you want to roll a different award-race, you have to roll that character and start a new one. If you want to play a different award race, roll the old one. Ta daaaaa

I'd expand on this by suggesting one award race character for something like a Major, and more slots as you go down the tiers (e.g. 2 Greater races, 3 Normal races, etc.) and clarify that language bonus, alignment exceptions, level skips, etc. wouldn't count toward these slots. This can give incentive to roll higher tiered reward characters, and allow for less special "roll bait" or monotony breaking alts to exist.

The biggest problem with exotic races is they still have to do all the day to day stuff Arelith characters have to do ... and if you're a mind flayer or beholder or something it seems really hard to justify it.

Once upon a time, back when Major rewards were a discussion with the dev team + application, someone once requested to play a Mind Flayer. They rolled within a few months of creation because the history of Mind Flayers vs. Andunor is apparently a sordid affair and they kept getting no-line and one-line kill bashed by other players.

So, there's that.

I've been told that's actually a misconception and the Mindflayer in question was only PVP-ed once. Apparently they left for other reasons.

[Memento Mori]

Suggestion for making people really have a hard think about their award characters (and also lowering the amount of them overall):

1 award-race character active per player. If you want to roll a different award-race, you have to roll that character and start a new one. If you want to play a different award race, roll the old one. Ta daaaaa

I'd expand on this by suggesting one award race character for something like a Major, and more slots as you go down the tiers (e.g. 2 Greater races, 3 Normal races, etc.) and clarify that language bonus, alignment exceptions, level skips, etc. wouldn't count toward these slots. This can give incentive to roll higher tiered reward characters, and allow for less special "roll bait" or monotony breaking alts to exist.

The biggest problem with exotic races is they still have to do all the day to day stuff Arelith characters have to do ... and if you're a mind flayer or beholder or something it seems really hard to justify it.

Once upon a time, back when Major rewards were a discussion with the dev team + application, someone once requested to play a Mind Flayer. They rolled within a few months of creation because the history of Mind Flayers vs. Andunor is apparently a sordid affair and they kept getting no-line and one-line kill bashed by other players.

So, there's that.

I've been told that's actually a misconception and the Mindflayer in question was only PVP-ed once. Apparently they left for other reasons.

They made a forum post detailing their experiences (the multiple PvPs). They were told to report the incidents, but by that time they had already rolled and moved onto something else. They were pretty upset about the whole thing, and it stuck with me because people I knew were considering similar exotic concepts and curbed them to something less likely to get them KoS'd.

This was also a very, very long time ago and the server culture/setting is drastically different today. Something like a Mind Flayer could potentially work nowadays, but I think it's worth noting the possibility of backlash of playing certain races.

[LurkingShadow]

Could we focus on non-race awards?

There have been so many fantastic suggestions for things that could be made for Normal/Greater/Major awards that are not based on mechanical power buffs and are instead extra tools for cool roleplay. Maybe this rotation could add a few more of those instead of another race that will be poorly implemented and then immediately taken up by players who don't necessarily care to represent them in game as they are in setting.

(I voted the Keep it in the UD option btw, races are cool. Would just like to see more non-race based awards.)

This I like, more non race awards. Sometimes they look a bit like "Waste" the non race rewards. But they shouldn't.

[Iceborn]

Human fighters go home.
Bring me the strange, the alien, the unorthodox.

[Azensor]

At this point i couldnt care less, considering a good 80% of anything that gets added i'll never get the chance to even consider playing has so..meh.

[Erkor]

Mind Flayer

[Irongron]

The changing face of D&D (and the Forgotten Realms) places the game in a different place than it was when Arelith was first established, and as we move into our 3rd decade many newer players are accustomed to this, more exotic, version.

I'm less talking about the world here, than the composition of parties - the heroes on which we base our own PCs, and to what extent the personalities of those characters are determined by their creature type. Most, irrespective of whether they have horns, tails, wings or hooves may well behave like fast-quipping kooky teenagers, more remuniscent of the cosplay scene than the dour severity of early D&D. It's often presented as a comedic, irreverent cartoon, albeit still with high drama (more often based on personal character development narratives than big historic events.).

Arelith, in its city and settlement design and NPC dialog is not really reflective of modern D&D, and we have always encouraged DMs and players to take the setting somewhat seriously.

I am personally not against a shift towards the fantastic, but I do think it is unrealistic to expect a high fantasy creature to be roleplayed in accordance with our expectation of how it should be represented. A goofy acting human or halfling, I feel, is far less arresting than an illithid or mummy behaving the same way. If we do nudge open the flood gates, I think it important to first understand the likely ramifications for the server environment.

Whatever direction we decide to move in, this would be a slow, gradual process, but for me this question is mostly about whether we want Arelith to reflect the D&D of the late 90s, or that of 2024.

[silverpheonix]

I feel like there's a large gap between a Beholder / Mimic PC and a Dragon PC.

I would definitely enjoy more Fantasy in a Fantasy setting, but I am not really certain lumping "Dragon" Pc's in with Beholders, Mimics and Genie's is really appropriate.

Dragon's mingle in societies already way more than the others listed there.

I agree. The way that option is worded is ludicrous and comes across like they want it to sound unreasonable so people don't pick it.

[Erkor]

If we do nudge open the flood gates, I think it important to first understand the likely ramifications for the server environment.

I think this is entirely on the roleplayer in particular, and not the availability of the role/class/species. There is a lot of material for virtually all playable races, some more than others, which can allow an attentive roleplayer to adequately portray the (in this case) race in question. Obviously things fall through the cracks, but that's not the fault of the race being available. It's the fault of inadequate attention or care being given to the source material.

[Rei_Jin]

The changing face of D&D (and the Forgotten Realms) places the game in a different place than it was when Arelith was first established, and as we move into our 3rd decade many newer players are accustomed to this, more exotic, version.

I'm less talking about the world here, than the composition of parties - the heroes on which we base our own PCs, and to what extent the personalities of those characters are determined by their creature type. Most, irrespective of whether they have horns, tails, wings or hooves may well behave like fast-quipping kooky teenagers, more remuniscent of the cosplay scene than the dour severity of early D&D. It's often presented as a comedic, irreverent cartoon, albeit still with high drama (more often based on personal character development narratives than big historic events.).

Arelith, in its city and settlement design and NPC dialog is not really reflective of modern D&D, and we have always encouraged DMs and players to take the setting somewhat seriously.

I am personally not against a shift towards the fantastic, but I do think it is unrealistic to expect a high fantasy creature to be roleplayed in accordance with our expectation of how it should be represented. A goofy acting human or halfling, I feel, is far less arresting than an illithid or mummy behaving the same way. If we do nudge open the flood gates, I think it important to first understand the likely ramifications for the server environment.

Whatever direction we decide to move in, this would be a slow, gradual process, but for me this question is mostly about whether we want Arelith to reflect the D&D of the late 90s, or that of 2024.

As much as I love the idea of playing a sentient gelatinous cube adventurer, I have to agree with this.

Part of it, no doubt, is my age.

My introduction to D&D was 2nd edition back in the 90s, and I really learnt my craft as a player and DM with 3.x edition. Yes, you could play lighthearted and silly (and of course we did at times!), but fantasy was still very much a niche thing and roleplaying even more so. We read works like Robert E Howard, and JRR Tolkien, we were drawn in by the serious and the gritty aspects of the campaign settings, where death was serious and every decision mattered. Hells, once upon a time casting Haste cost you years off your life!

With the explosion of the internet and social media over the last 20 years all niches have been able to grow as folk learn more about the world around them, the interests of others, and they are then able to connect with others who share their interests. With that growth, things got lighter as the markets developed and there became space for more than just the dark and gritty.

The more serious tone of PW servers back in the first decade of NWN is a reflection of what the culture around fantasy and roleplaying was, as opposed to what it is now.

Yes, things have changed, and the server has changed.

Yes, it would be fun for individuals to be able to play new and fantastic races.

But would it be a healthy direction for the server to go? It would further change the setting and the feel of the server. Many things in the status quo would be challenged, and some would need to change.

Example: gnolls are not actually an Underdark race, but they've been pushed into Andunor by the setting. And yet, in the Forgotten Realms, they serve in some locations as soldiers in militaries and even as police. Why are they in Andunor now? Because they're a monstrous race. If more monstrous races are added and permitted to be on the surface, why must gnolls continue to be based in the UD? And don't give me the "evil" argument, because Thayans and Banites are evil, and they seem to live just fine on the surface.

[Definately Not A Mimic]

I'll echo something said, I think it's my age, the more 'silly' we get the less I want to play. But that isn't always about races though I'll agree that having every 5th person to pass you having wings makes them a major eye roll.
All I could ask is for limits. Limit it to one major award character in your vault at a time, one greater at a time or at most two, but keeping those seperate means you'd still have 2-3 unique ones. Limit how many of each exotic is on the server at a time though that means figuring out which should be considered exotic; if everyone is something rare then no one is unique in that way. With limited numbers it would be easier to do spot checks on if the races are being played as just another character or if they are actually being played lore accurate. I think that would help a long way toward hating seeing them all over the place.
There won't be a perfect answer and there will not be a perfect blend of 3.5 and the 5e that new people coming in have been playing. I for one miss the slower leveling and not every single person having access to 9th circle magic. Portals being useful and helpful to shorten some travel or to get back to town as opposed to an access point within 3-5 maps of each area so you can just blink your way anywhere. I try to be open minded to change but no secret that I'm not a fan of change. The closer we get to this high fantasy high magic the less I have been enjoying things. Please bring in things other than race for the awards to be spent on.

[silverpheonix]

I largely agree with rei_jin. I've often joked that if I could do a 5% app, it'd be for a goat. I'd just hang about the farmlands, doing goat things, and headbutting people in the rear. And there's obviously a huge difference between a playable beholder, and a playable dragon, of which there are plenty of examples and a dragon in society is a fabled but not unreasonable in lore thing. Dragon would be neat to see return. Don't want to be heavily policing them all the time? Population lock them. It works for vampires, right?

The other semi-related issues - are we too High Magic, is levelling too fast and easy, is the fantastic too common, are an entire discussion aside about the direction and type of server we are. Do we artificially limit levelling and XP gain? Do we want to worry less about how to level faster than others and gain an edge, or just get to the point and RP already and be able to meet people in armed conflict on a roughly equal term? I've played on Thay & The Underdark where artificial controls on rate of XP gain means you level very slowly and it takes years to reach epics. It's not that fun, IMO.

[Aaron Sherwood]

Whatever the decision, removing the RNG from the award equation would be much appreciated. I would be much more comfortable moving on from old characters if I was guaranteed to get some progress towards playing that Kenku Rogue I've always wanted.

Personally, bring on the weirdness! Constantly improving my roleplay of oddballs and weirdos is one of my favorite activities.

[Coolguy McMagic]

The changing face of D&D (and the Forgotten Realms) places the game in a different place than it was when Arelith was first established, and as we move into our 3rd decade many newer players are accustomed to this, more exotic, version.

I'm less talking about the world here, than the composition of parties - the heroes on which we base our own PCs, and to what extent the personalities of those characters are determined by their creature type. Most, irrespective of whether they have horns, tails, wings or hooves may well behave like fast-quipping kooky teenagers, more remuniscent of the cosplay scene than the dour severity of early D&D. It's often presented as a comedic, irreverent cartoon, albeit still with high drama (more often based on personal character development narratives than big historic events.).

Arelith, in its city and settlement design and NPC dialog is not really reflective of modern D&D, and we have always encouraged DMs and players to take the setting somewhat seriously.

I am personally not against a shift towards the fantastic, but I do think it is unrealistic to expect a high fantasy creature to be roleplayed in accordance with our expectation of how it should be represented. A goofy acting human or halfling, I feel, is far less arresting than an illithid or mummy behaving the same way. If we do nudge open the flood gates, I think it important to first understand the likely ramifications for the server environment.

Whatever direction we decide to move in, this would be a slow, gradual process, but for me this question is mostly about whether we want Arelith to reflect the D&D of the late 90s, or that of 2024.

You said it yourself here ("irrespective of whether they have horns, tails wings or hooves"): I don't think this is necessarily tied to the fantastical aspect of the setting. High fantasy is not the same as comedy. Not to mention that not all comedy is setting-breaking, it is actually perfectly possibly (and usually preferable) to be comedic in-setting.

I'm not quite convinced that a goofy alien race isnecessarily more off-putting than a base race. I could see this being true in some cases but not in others. I think it's easier to dismiss goofy behavior of, say, a Kenku, Fey or even a Fiendish PC as "Oh this is a culture completely alien to me" than it would be for a Human or Elf.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I think there's too much, but, I don't want to vote for "I miss when Arelith had fewer planetouched and other colorful races around" because that has never been the case. It used to be worse when dragons were around. Kenku and genasi and half giants are all fine.

I don't want more main character syndrome races, or exotic girlfriend races. Nothing dragon related, no wings or tails. No half-dragons, half-celestials, half-fiends, half-drow.

I'd be down for stuff like adding more water breathing races and having an under water town. Stuff like that is cool, if air breathers want to visit they need to use a water breathing scroll. More non-dynamic model races on the surface would be way better than more wings or tail races. I've enjoyed all of the kenku I've RPed with and would love to see more things like this added.

[VerdeVerde]

In my opinion, don't /remove/ races, don't rotate them in and out, but add them carefully and with thought, especially as you move up the ladder. By and large, I feel like the problem sorts itself out if you just let it be, yeah you might see a larger swell of exotic types now and again, or in lower leveled areas, but looking at it over time the numbers to me balance out well. Making it so that people get that FOMO and have to spend that reward on a character immediately only results in people feeling like they wasted their award.

Personally, I would say make the reward system predictable, shift exotic award races up and down the cost as appropriate like you've been doing, and just let it be.

(Besides if you're not going to hard police things like clerics and paladins for what they do, I think it'd be real silly to apply that to award races as well.)