D&D General Race Has No Mechanics. What do you play?

[Mecheon]

Centaurs as monsters or exotic creatures met in distant lands? Sure. Sign me up! Same for bird-people.

But as a common PC-playable species that then has to be bland-ified down to balance with the other PC-playables? No.

The 5e idea of making more and more monster species PC-playable is IMO foolish.

Centaur have been playable since Basic, they pre-date Complete Book of Humanoids. They weren't even the craziest thing in that book, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk had Pooka who had selective invisibility

If something has been playable for 35 years and, outside of D&D, is known in the fantasy ecospace as a common thing, it isn't a monster. Centaur aren't monsters or exotic creatures, they're just people, and this is a well running thing in fantasy. Like, it deserves being dunked on for all sorts of reasons, but when the absolute powerhouse that is Harry Potter has them around as just people, centaur are.... Just that. This is a massive, well running fantasy tradition. People will absolutely expect them to be playable, there's nothing about a centaur that makes someone go 'Yeah I see why that isn't playable'

5E's only introduction of new races are the MTG options, and two from Spelljammer, the Plasmoid and the Autognome. Everything else is a legacy race that was playable in 2E, and the two Spelljammer ones were introduced back then, just one was a mindless robot and the other had civilisations and stuff, just wasn't playable

Gith also aren't PC-playable (I hope!).

I mean, I hate to crush your hopes and dreams, but the icebreaker HMS Baldurs Gate 3 just smashed right through 'em and cemented both types of Gith as a D&D mainstay for the next few decades.

 

[Reynard]

Until someone adds it to their homebrew by giving it some cultural mechanics.

Features of places aren't the same. "In Wyrmsport, where draconian creatures from Kobold to dragonborn to true dragons, are considered nobility, dragonborn have advantage on persuasion checks with non-draconic civil servants."

 

[Scribe]

People will absolutely expect them to be playable, there's nothing about a centaur that makes someone go 'Yeah I see why that isn't playable'

I mean, whats the DC for a Centaur to climb a rope?

 

[Corinnguard]

Features of places aren't the same. "In Wyrmsport, where draconian creatures from Kobold to dragonborn to true dragons, are considered nobility, dragonborn have advantage on persuasion checks with non-draconic civil servants."

That's the fluff, I am talking about the crunch (game mechanics). Provide enough lore about Wyrmsport, and someone could have it where a person growing up there learns Draconic, gains a couple of new skill proficiencies or some cantrips from a particular spellcasting list. And these people don't even have to be kobolds or dragonborn to learn these cultural traits.

 

[Mecheon]

I mean, whats the DC for a Centaur to climb a rope?

Very carefully!

Seriously though, has never been a rule about it being more tricky for them in any of their stat blocks

 

[Vaalingrade]

Can we be certain any lore will be applicable in any given campaign? It’s highly vulnerable to all being discarded because the GM is running their own setting or even just that they don’t care about established canon.

It's still there though. Whether it applies or not, someone still wrote out the lore, put work into it, and people are ignoring it to make some sort of wild point.

And they're not doing a good job of making that point! Is it against players? Is it against WotC? I have no idea because the point is being so poorly presented in an attempt to be sly about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Or being transported to Toril from Abeir during the Spellplague, and creating the Dragonborn nation of Tymanther.

All very specific lore. Looking like a dragon is the only thing that cuts across settings with any sense of generality.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I wasnt providing an exhaustive list.

I know you weren’t. I’m just pointing out that tieflings have horns and no one seems to care that there aren’t mechanics for them. On the other hand, people are really concerned that elves should have +2 Int if they’re described as smart.

I’m curious what the difference is. What makes one description worthy of mechanics and another unworthy?

@Reynard if I were to pick one trait from a Minotaur, it would be navigating mazes before a horn attack. But that’s just me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not about being human-ish, its about if you're likely to encounter one in game. Gith are, for all intents and purposes, basically a Star Trek alien. We've had the "oh someone comes and wants to play a vulcan what do?" thread dozens of times here but Gith absolutely lean into that hard.

I absolutely think centaur should be a much simpler ask than gith in any fantasy system, because they're more likely to be a request. Centaur aren't some obscure sci-fi property creature, they're downright common in fantasy literature. A hypothetical mechanicless system should be supporting what you expect to see as a fantasy game, not Star Trek aliens.


Probably. But like.... I heard about centaurs well before I knew about fantasy elves or dwarves. Its a poor term for it and I will drag it

I see why you take issue with it, but from my perspective @Lanefan 'S opinion really isn't all that out there.

 

[Scribe]

I’m curious what the difference is. What makes one description worthy of mechanics and another unworthy?

History, tradition, and the fact Tiefling horns are not agreed upon at all as a standard.

Its much more accepted in my view, that Tiefling would have some magical hook, something associated with their heritage like the Magic that is innately expressed.