Top ten races players want to play

[Jason]

I'd say rather than listing individual races you're better served looking at the categories of races that Players are interested in:

1) Humans. Easily relateable, conforming to most fantasy protagonists that players might want to copy and the de facto baseline of any fantasy setting for the very same reason.

2) Stereotypes. Be they elves, dwarves, orcs or anything along that line, they resemble a certain stereotype to the point where the race itself becomes a stereotype. The elves are magical and good with bows, the dwarves are alcoholic, uncouth master craftsmen, the orcs are a savage, tribal people, etc. They leave little nuance and are sufficiently "different" for players to easily get an idea of their role. They are also extremes. Extrem tribalism, extreme craftsmanship, extreme bowmanship, they have their niche where they are The Best (TM).

3) Freaks. Aasimar, Tieflings, Dragonborn, Warforged or even Drow fall under this category. They are obviously different, even alarmingly so. Often times they are also superior, powerful even. The usual reaction of the populace to them would be fear or revulsion. Especially those players trying to cope with rejection or oppression in their daily life will find these options to their liking.

That should probably cover it, with the exception of maybe some very edge cases that for some reason would not fall into the "Freak" category.

[Orca]

Halflings will definitely be in the top 10. In my last game I put in humans, elves, dwarves, half-elves and gnomes and I took some shit for including the last rather than halflings.

There's also a call for something a bit bigger than standard human, whether that means orc/half-orc, troll or people with giant blood, possibly Norse.

Elves and dwarves are pretty standard requests. Something called human is essential IME.

A species/culture with an excuse to be gross - ratfolk or goblins or something - is likely to go down well.

If catfolk are in someone will want to play one. Likewise demon blood. Angel blood is much less popular & could be left out, snake-people or dragon-people or (big bruiser animal)-people get enough attention they should probably be in.

Halflings, (at least one of orc, half-orc, troll, jotunblood), elves, dwarves, humans, (at least one of ratfolk or goblins), catfolk, demonblood, (one of snake-people or dragon-people), (big bruiser animal)-people. That's ten. Well, ten at least.

[RobbyPants]

My list would be something like:

• human
• elf
• dwarf
• gnome (or maybe halfling)
• orc
• goblin
• tiefling
• aasimar
• warforged
• vampire (or revanant?)

I could see swapping those last two with something like dragonborn and/or animal-like race (catfolk), or animal shifters.

[vagrant]

I like playing, in order of decreasing like:

1. Half-elf
2. Half-dragons
3. Elf
4. Human
5. Full dragons
6. Human variants (planetouched, etc.)
7. Elf variants (all the elf types)
8. Fae (Human-sized versions like sidhe, not tiny like faeries)
9. Shadowrun orks
10. Special snowflakes

[Voss]

10? Fuck that.

Human, Dwarf, Elf.

Why have a list of multiple races at all if you're not going to put anything interesting on it?

Definitions of 'interesting' vary wildly. Bestiality races certainly don't fit mine. Neither does anything of the bad touched variety, they're ridiculous shorthand cliches. I expect them to be accompanied by mascara, cutting and bad livejournal poetry. Or just a collection of min/maxed bonuses.

The giant pile of nigh-indistinguishable D&D races exist largely to be different stat bonuses for ideal class/race combinations. There isn't any depth to them. 'My daddy fucked fire, so now I have a dex bonus' is literally why many of them exist at all.

@Orca - was a demand for halflings or just a severe dislike of gnomes? Since they tend to be bad real world stereotype parody or a completely pointless joke race, I can see a lot of ground for the latter.

[Foxwarrior]

What definition of 'interesting' do you have that lets dwarves and elves be on it?

[Josh_Kablack]

Bah.

You're all talking fluff past each other.

At the mechanical level in D&D and the myriad of fantasy TTRPGs spawned from it: races are merely a primary customization toggle.

In the most classic paradigm, a character's capabilities are determined by Race plus Class times Level modified by secondary customization options (gear, spells, feats, proficiencies, etc). Halfling Thieves get bonuses to Stealth and with Slings, Elven Thieves get bonuses to find secret doors and access to the Longbow, Dwarven Thieves are more resistant when they fail to find the poison trap, etc.

There is literally no reason other than tradition to tie such customization options to the fluff concept of a "race"/"species". You could offer the exact same degree of customization by bundling such things into packages you called "culture" or "background" or "body type" or "subclass" or "apprenticeship" or "job skills" or "training" or "tradition" etc, etc. And going with many of those would massively change the baggage which comes with the concept.

[Whipstitch]

What definition of 'interesting' do you have that lets dwarves and elves be on it?

A definition that includes considerations like familiarity and art availability. You can faff on about your crazy homebrew race all you want and ultimately I'm probably not going to give a shit about any of it other than the stats, where they live and whether I can hit up google for an appropriate cool portrait to use when I print out my character sheet. People may get tired of the old fantasy standards but they still allow for some aesthetic variety without requiring a giant info dump to explain what they're about and that's actually a pretty decent set of advantages relative to the work you have to put in to get there.

[Mechalich]

There is literally no reason other than tradition to tie such customization options to the fluff concept of a "race"/"species". You could offer the exact same degree of customization by bundling such things into packages you called "culture" or "background" or "body type" or "subclass" or "apprenticeship" or "job skills" or "training" or "tradition" etc, etc. And going with many of those would massively change the baggage which comes with the concept.

That's true, and it's been done. Eclipse Phase, which presumes characters will switch bodies from time to time, assigns those options to the 'Morph' a character is currently wearing.

However, until such a time as the transhuman future becomes a lot more likely than it presently exists, most characters in most games will be stuck in a single body for their entire existence and if those bodies belong to different species it makes sense that there should be mechanical toggles attached - especially given how large the variations can get. Playing a four-limbed insect person represents a set of highly apparent mechanical differences from playing a human in the way that playing a slightly shorter human with pointy ears might not.

Personally I think characters ought to have both species and culture traits, because having only the one trait - as D&D does - encourages the production of mono-cultural species, which is dumb. Though of course this shouldn't be too cumbersome and in some scenarios where everyone defaults to the same culture - like in your average Star Trek game where everyone is 'Federation' - isn't necessary to divide.

[PhoneLobster]

There is literally no reason other than tradition to tie such customization options to the fluff concept of a "race"/"species". You could offer the exact same degree of customization by bundling such things into packages you called "culture" or "background" or "body type"

You realize that by cutting you off there you are describing exactly what I actually do with my system right? Almost the exact same choice of terminology even.

And, not coincidentally, what I've been advocating in "race" threads for years.

[Eikre]

There can be an implicit dichotomy between cultural packages and serious speciation packages.

Off the cuff, you can give everyone a minor resource and a major one, like the 3E Human's skillpoint and feat. Let them trade the skillpoint for chickenshit like "I, a dwarf, have +2 to masonry checks and run fast in heavy armor" or "I, an atlantean, can breath underwater" and trade the feat for nicer stuff like "I, a vampire, suck blood to strengthen myself and hypnotize people by giving them bedroom eyes" or "I, an automaton, have a stack of neato immunities and a hydraulic vibrating penis."

[Orca]

@Voss - Both, Richard wanted a halfling for the mechanics and he wasn't fond of gnomes as a concept or name. I had them in because I wanted a small magical race in the setting (& a number of races I could count on one hand), and in a long-running game back in high school (not including Richard) gnomes established a positive image in my mind.

[Voss]

What definition of 'interesting' do you have that lets dwarves and elves be on it?

It's a list entitled 'what D&D players want to play,' regardless of what you think is interesting. Elves and dwarves are always on the list. The green/blue/fire/water/demon/crow/fox people wander on and off so often they're pretty much random, or based on personal trauma- tinker gnomes broke as many people as kender.

As for the other discussion, if you don't have racial bonuses, you might as well not have races in the game at all. Packages deals just make ears and height something that may or may not show up in a character's background, which no other player has any reason to give any shits about.

And as much as people here hate on the stupid elf fetishism, lots of people actually give a shit about it- it actually engages players in a way package traits don't. And in a way the interchangeable stat bonus races don't.

[PhoneLobster]

As for the other discussion, if you don't have racial bonuses, you might as well not have races in the game at all. Packages deals just make ears and height something that may or may not show up in a character's background, which no other player has any reason to give any shits about.

And as much as people here hate on the stupid elf fetishism, lots of people actually give a shit about it- it actually engages players in a way package traits don't. And in a way the interchangeable stat bonus races don't.

When someone starts spouting pure nonsense in defense of a sacred cow it's a pretty good indicator of mindless traditionalism and an indefensible mechanic.

And it is pure nonsense. You condemn packages of traits associated with character backgrounds as something no one would care about... in defense of races, which are packages of traits associated with character backgrounds, that you think people will care about.

Which is stupid anyway because you don't seem to grasp that separating out your ears and your long bow options into separated physical and cultural options at no point prevents you from offering the traditional "elf fetishist" combined package. It is just, you know, a less shit way of doing that.

[erik]

What definition of 'interesting' do you have that lets dwarves and elves be on it?

It's a list entitled 'what D&D players want to play,' regardless of what you think is interesting.

Is it? I didn't see "D&D" I saw "fantasy".

[edit: crap, but post before done]

As for the other discussion, if you don't have racial bonuses, you might as well not have races in the game at all.

Respectfully disagree. There are other meaningful mechanical perks you can use other than vertical bonuses.

And now, allow me to let you own-goal your previous point.

And as much as people here hate on the stupid elf fetishism, lots of people actually give a shit about it- it actually engages players in a way package traits don't. And in a way the interchangeable stat bonus races don't.

My preferred races would be:
1. Short humanish with a monkey tail. Replaces halflings
2. Tree/plant people. Replaces elves
3. Rock people. Replaces dorfs
4. Fungus people whose lifecycle requires growing spores in dead tree people to spawn. Replaces orks
5. Bird people
6. Fish people
7. Large brutish people, essentially trolls
8. Insect people
9. Mechanical/golem people
10. Humans and their sub-classes (vampires/ghouls/werecreatures).

[Sir Aubergine]

1.) Sahuagin (air breathing)

2.) Drider (Tsuchigumo)

3.) Medusa (snake body or biped)
4.) Ogre Mage
5.) Troll (Forest or Ice)

6.) Devil (Kyton)
7.) Vampire (kyonshī)
8.) Warforged (any interpretation not using TMNT fingers/toes)
9.) Yuan-ti (Pureblood)
10.) Planetouched (Tiefling or Suli)

[Dogbert]

My table is an anomaly among anomalies, which makes it useless for statistical purposes... half of the players are partial to furry races.

[Username17]

Small races seem pretty critical to the growth of the hobby because they have built-in appeals to women and children. I've seen enough women gravitate to the Dwarf Berserker and the Halfling Rogue in a variety of games that it seems to be a point of genuine resonance.

Anyway, when a player describes their fantasy character, they pretty much get an adjective and a noun for initial introductions, which means that both your adjective and your noun need to convey a fair amount of information. For all peoples' talk about how they want perfect customization and the ability to do anything and whatever the fuck, actually that's bullshit and people pick adjectives like "Gnoll" and "Tiefling" when they are available precisely because they are extremely restrictive. Restrictive in this case means information-packed, which is valuable.

At the most basic level, you need races that convey information people want to convey about themselves. So you need a race that is "big and strong" like Klingon or Orc. And you need a race that is "small but strong" like Dwarf. And you need a race that is "beautiful" like Elf. And you need a race that is "underestimated" like Halfling. And of course you need a race that is "basically normal" like Human. The D&D races of Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Orc are standards of fantasy because they are a really good set of first races. They convey information about characters that people want to convey.

Other races could be good from that perspective. I mean, you want a race that is freakish and mistrusted by the populace. But that could just as easily be bug people as it could be lizard people as it could be Elves who happen to be black. But the self-statement "I'm an otherized freak who has to constantly prove myself" is a popular one amongst gamers, but is highly world dependent. If you live in a world where Gnolls are normal members of street scenes, then the gnoll race isn't going to be giving those players the self statement they are looking for.

Still other races are muddled by multiple authors pulling them in different directions. Gnomes are the classic, because they change with every edition and sub-edition. There are of course lots of little people archetypes that people gravitate towards, but the sad fact is that when you say "Gnome" I don't know which one you're going for. If the player was raised on 3.5 they are thinking of like a musical trickster Gnome like a Leprechaun-type dude and if they were raised on post-Complete Short 2nd edition AD&D they are likely thinking of an animal loving wise nature dude like David the Gnome. That lack of clarity means that the adjective needs clarification and has become bad.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Anyway, when a player describes their fantasy character, they pretty much get an adjective and a noun for initial introductions

You've said basically this repeatedly in these discussions that every player must be able to perfectly communicate their character to random people on the street with only two words.

I'm going to say what I usually say.

That seems like a batshit crazy and fucking stupid thing for you to say.

It isn't true, it isn't necessary and it isn't even happening in actual peoples actual games.

You would need a monumentally narrow class and race (and fuck all other choice) system unlike anything in the mainstream of the hobby as it exists today for it to be even possible. When some pathfinder player gives out their race class and serial number it means somewhere short of fuck all to just about anyone else and it doesn't for a second inhibit their attachment to and enjoyment of their character, whatever the fuck it is or does.

And that doesn't for a second address your complete lack of any good fucking reason for it to be desirable. Let alone MORE desirable than all the much more objectively measurable benefits of not focusing on crazy man obsessive compulsive ideas like that one to the detriment of player choice and enjoyment of the game.

[Voss]

As for the other discussion, if you don't have racial bonuses, you might as well not have races in the game at all. Packages deals just make ears and height something that may or may not show up in a character's background, which no other player has any reason to give any shits about.

And as much as people here hate on the stupid elf fetishism, lots of people actually give a shit about it- it actually engages players in a way package traits don't. And in a way the interchangeable stat bonus races don't.

When someone starts spouting pure nonsense in defense of a sacred cow it's a pretty good indicator of mindless traditionalism and an indefensible mechanic.

Yes, yes, giving people things they actually want is terrible and indefensible

And it is pure nonsense. You condemn packages of traits associated with character backgrounds as something no one would care about... in defense of races, which are packages of traits associated with character backgrounds, that you think people will care about.

No, I condemned packages as present as bland and boring shit with no appeal or anything interesting about them... Exactly the same as bland and boring races that are just stat bonuses. If you want interesting backgrounds, regardless of how, you have to do the work. The secret of elves and dwarves is that someone did the work, and it was appropriated into d&d and the fantasy genre.

Which is stupid anyway because you don't seem to grasp that separating out your ears and your long bow options into separated physical and cultural options at no point prevents you from offering the traditional "elf fetishist" combined package. It is just, you know, a less shit way of doing that.

Except, the point is people want the ears and the bow. They don't just want to be generically good with longbows. On the other hand, if you're saying that you can just use packages to make elves ( or dwarves or whatever) than your super special package system has accomplished nothing. You've just rewritten the wheel, well done.

As for the other discussion, if you don't have racial bonuses, you might as well not have races in the game at all.

Respectfully disagree. There are other meaningful mechanical perks you can use other than vertical bonuses.

Gosh. No shit?
It's almost like people haven't been designing and redesigning races and background packages for thirty plus fucking years. Yes, you can totally have races without stat bonuses and you can totally have background packages with stat bonuses.

That you might want to move (or remove) stat bonuses is entirely a thing. It isn't particularly relevant, other than it's a good way for culling the shit races.

[Username17]

Concrete example: this week I was sitting at a gaming table near the Scottish border and people were putting together a D&D game. One of the prospective players said "I want to play a Dragonborn Paladin." Which then prompted the question of what edition of D&D inspired their desire to play a Dragonborn (considering how wildly different the Dragonborn have been in the 3 editions in which they appear). But the point is and was that the player thought he was conveying real information with the statement "I want to play a [Adjective] [Noun]" and that the problem with that particular adjective is that it has been used to mean different things, not that it is pigeonholing.

-Username17

[K]

Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and then.....

Literally, some other thing. The person who wants to play some non-standard race is almost certainly not going to want to play the thing that was included in the PHB.

This means that you need to include a racial generation system so that forehead aliens, half-breeds, characters cursed with strange transformations, and other non-standard races can be included as needed. Otherwise, you are wasting time statting up a race in your book so that six people in all of the gaming community have a chance to play a race they wanted (of course, half of them will be unhappy because it's not quite like they imagined).

[nockermensch]

1. human
2. elf
3. dwarf
4. little people (halfling and/or gnome)
5. big strong people (usually noble savages and/or proud warrior culture)
6. bad touched people
7. good touched people (some crossover with elves here)
8. vampiric/shadowy/undead people
9. furry
10. robot

There. These are the 10 most popular niches for fantasy races. 2-4 are carried by 40 years of tolkienesque bad fantasy's inertia. 5-10 are stuff you keep seeing on other RPGs and MMOs, seemingly reflecting the most popular picks for "some other thing".

[...You Lost Me]

• Race with teeth and fur
• Basically-human race with anger issues
• Human
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Elf, but dark & brooding
• Short tinker race
• Short stabby race
• Golem race
• Race with super heritage (angel / demon / dragon all in the same bucket)

[PhoneLobster]

Concrete example

So your concrete example for the need to make this two word thing possible is... one guy out of a whole group (and trust you this is real) even tried it. It failed. Because of course it fucking did because the nature of the modern game ensures that. And all in all it was totally fine that it failed because it didn't actually need to work like that at all now did it?

Color me unimpressed. You neither provided an example of your two word pigeonholing obsession working and benefiting the game nor did you provide an example of it failing and hurting the game. In fact an example of it barely being attempted, then failing and resulting in pretty much nothing of consequence is pretty much a nail in the coffin of your argument that all else has to be sacrificed on this altar.

It's pretty clearly not that big a deal.