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I guess this qualifies as embarrassing... Drow are my favorite D&D race. I've read a probably excessive amount of sourcebooks and novels about them, and I secretly feel a little bit hurt when people say things like "drow players just want to make Drizzt ripoffs".
The problem isn't that all drow players want to make Drizzt ripoffs. The problem is that too many players that do play drow want to make Drizzt ripoffs; and that too many players do not want to play the disadvantage of being a drow. The drow are for all intent and purpose the Nazis of the D&D/Pathfinder game worlds. Not just the Nazis, but the SS. Their reputation is that of murderous bastards that perform diabolical experiments on what they consider lesser races (everybody not drow). Now, if you're willing to play a character who is treated as the most evil mortal race ever; shunned, feared, and despised by everybody that hasn't gotten to know you; and hunted methodically by strike teams of elite elven arcane archers and ninjas, rock it like there's no tomorrow.
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I guess this qualifies as embarrassing... Drow are my favorite D&D race. I've read a probably excessive amount of sourcebooks and novels about them, and I secretly feel a little bit hurt when people say things like "drow players just want to make Drizzt ripoffs".The problem isn't that all drow players want to make Drizzt ripoffs. The problem is that too many players that do play drow want to make Drizzt ripoffs; and that too many players do not want to play the disadvantage of being a drow. The drow are for all intent and purpose the Nazis of the D&D/Pathfinder game worlds. Not just the Nazis, but the SS. Their reputation is that of murderous bastards that perform diabolical experiments on what they consider lesser races (everybody not drow). Now, if you're willing to play a character who is treated as the most evil mortal race ever; shunned, feared, and despised by everybody that hasn't gotten to know you; and hunted methodically by strike teams of elite elven arcane archers and ninjas, rock it like there's no tomorrowm.
I'd add that this is a phenomena which can occur whether the person playing the character has heard of Drizzt or not.
I think, Drizzt aside, that the drow are a really interesting race, but a traditional member of the drow wouldn't fit most campaigns. Hence the tendency of so many players of trying to create playable characters that end being Drizzt clones.
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I think, Drizzt aside, that the drow are a really interesting race, but a traditional member of the drow wouldn't fit most campaigns. Hence the tendency of so many players of trying to create playable characters that end being Drizzt clones.
In that regard, we really need more Viconia clones...
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I guess this qualifies as embarrassing... Drow are my favorite D&D race. I've read a probably excessive amount of sourcebooks and novels about them, and I secretly feel a little bit hurt when people say things like "drow players just want to make Drizzt ripoffs".
I played a Drow Ranger in a 1e game back in the mid 80s. Two swords, blah blah blah. I'd never heard of Drizzt. When I read the first Drizzt novel, I stopped playing him.
I think another thing that hurts the Drow in terms of people seeing it as a valid character race is that authors often stat them up with some absurdly powerful array (at first, the Drow was a 41 RP race). A race and (social) class background shouldn't make someone 4 times (by some measure) better than a human.
If you just throw Drow in there as an elf variant, with maybe +Cha instead of +Int, that's roughly as powerful as an elf people aren't going to side eye it as "powergamer, eh?" as much.
I mean, those Drizzt books came out how long ago? People are going to move on eventually.
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(Aside: the stigma still exists. A woman in my local PFS group is a middle manager sort at some big US corporation or another. She eventually decided not to be in the closet about it. Her boss said to her that she must play with a bunch of really strange and sad people.... That's the stereotype. Of course, she got to tell them that she played with a PhD physicist who'd been to the Nobel Prize ceremony, a computer technician who owns his own company, an engineer who works for RAND....)
This helped me stop worrying about the stigma. I took a tally of all the cool, successful, self-actualized I people I was playing with and decided that I'm not deluded or rationalizing. This game is a worthy hobby worth celebrating and sharing with others,
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(Aside: the stigma still exists. A woman in my local PFS group is a middle manager sort at some big US corporation or another. She eventually decided not to be in the closet about it. Her boss said to her that she must play with a bunch of really strange and sad people.... That's the stereotype. Of course, she got to tell them that she played with a PhD physicist who'd been to the Nobel Prize ceremony, a computer technician who owns his own company, an engineer who works for RAND....)This helped me stop worrying about the stigma. I took a tally of all the cool, successful, self-actualized I people I was playing with and decided that I'm not deluded or rationalizing. This game is a worthy hobby worth celebrating and sharing with others,
Well said, sir. I used to be a bit circumspect about revealing my hobby to others as well, until I realized that all of my gaming friends are professional, educated people who don't fit any of the stereotypes. It isn't any different than people who play poker or fantasy football on a regular basis. We just have to make other people realize that.
I also attend F&SF conventions and do cosplay, and I occasionally get odd looks when I mention that. I just ask people, how is that different than having a tailgate party at a sports stadium and painting your face in your favorite team's colors?
I guess this qualifies as embarrassing... Drow are my favorite D&D race. I've read a probably excessive amount of sourcebooks and novels about them, and I secretly feel a little bit hurt when people say things like "drow players just want to make Drizzt ripoffs".
Are you a good aligned dual wielding ranger? Then maybe. ;-)
I have made three Drow charectors 2 forgotton realms one pathfinder. The closet thing to a drizzt rip off was a fighter turned cleric of Sune who duel wielded shortswords. Long story short, he was a noble son of some house or another who was so damn pretty he was rented off as breeding stock. All good until for a major offensive campaign he learned his mother was gonna sacrifice him. So he ran away, eventually made his way to the surface, Ran across some Sunite's at a temple getaway. Was discovered just how blessed by the goddess he was... (once again so friggin pretty) ended up running around in gleaming armor with a silver likeness of his face as a mask... (once again to keep from marring his pretty) He was a lot of fun.
And the only reason I say closest thing to a drizzt ripoff was the duel wielding by the end of his play time (level 10 or 11 as i recall) he was rocking the chaotic neutral with good tendencies....
The other two have been straight evil.
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I think another thing that hurts the Drow in terms of people seeing it as a valid character race is that authors often stat them up with some absurdly powerful array (at first, the Drow was a 41 RP race). A race and (social) class background shouldn't make someone 4 times (by some measure) better than a human.
If you just throw Drow in there as an elf variant, with maybe +Cha instead of +Int, that's roughly as powerful as an elf people aren't going to side eye it as "powergamer, eh?" as much.
I mean, those Drizzt books came out how long ago? People are going to move on eventually.
1988.... thru at least Oct 2016.
It's gonna be hard stigma to get past. I suspect Drizzt = Drow will be as standardized as Bilbo=Hobbit.
If it helps, my hatred of drow has nothing to do with Drizz't. Heresy, I know. I just think they're a s@+$ty, s%##ty, s*$%tyf%+@ing g!#!%~n this race is so bad race.
But that's not a "wrongbadfun" thing. Play what you like! It's just my personal taste. I will never do anything involving drow as long as I live if I can help it, but I don't mind other people having fun with them. Drow are my The Big Bang Theory.
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(Aside: the stigma still exists. A woman in my local PFS group is a middle manager sort at some big US corporation or another. She eventually decided not to be in the closet about it. Her boss said to her that she must play with a bunch of really strange and sad people.... That's the stereotype. Of course, she got to tell them that she played with a PhD physicist who'd been to the Nobel Prize ceremony, a computer technician who owns his own company, an engineer who works for RAND....)This helped me stop worrying about the stigma. I took a tally of all the cool, successful, self-actualized I people I was playing with and decided that I'm not deluded or rationalizing. This game is a worthy hobby worth celebrating and sharing with others,Well said, sir. I used to be a bit circumspect about revealing my hobby to others as well, until I realized that all of my gaming friends are professional, educated people who don't fit any of the stereotypes. It isn't any different than people who play poker or fantasy football on a regular basis. We just have to make other people realize that.
I also attend F&SF conventions and do cosplay, and I occasionally get odd looks when I mention that. I just ask people, how is that different than having a tailgate party at a sports stadium and painting your face in your favorite team's colors?
This said, merging these two conversations, painting your face like the Gygaxian drow is seriously weird and creepy and white nerds need to stop doing it ten years ago. :P
I recently saw a pic of a friend of a friend dressed as a Drow. I couldn't help but think she was painted in blackface and that if she left the con she'd get arrested or beaten up.
While I don't share your hatred of Drow, it's the furry races I can't stand.
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My current list of character races:
Pseudodragon
Werewolf
Kitsune
Catfolk
Catfolk
Half-Orc (going animal-themed Psychic Warrior--3.5 campaign)
Kitsune
Wyvaran
Bronze Dragon
Sylph
Kitsune
Nagaji
Kitsune
I think the only logical conclusion given this data is that I hate humans. =P
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If it helps, my hatred of drow has nothing to do with Drizz't. Heresy, I know. I just think they're a s#*$ty, s+%$ty,
s$!~tyf#$*ing g!*$*~n this race is so badrace.But that's not a "wrongbadfun" thing. Play what you like! It's just my personal taste. I will never do anything involving drow as long as I live if I can help it, but I don't mind other people having fun with them. Drow are my The Big Bang Theory.
Do you have a strong reaction to like the 13 Age Drow, who are mostly just mopey Elves who are prone to being petty who are pretty disgruntled that the Elf Queen decides to hold court in the woods instead of some nice damp cave in a place where it's always raining or at least overcast.
I felt like "Kinda Pathetic Mean Girl Goth Elves" entirely redeemed the Drow for me.
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What about Gnolls? Or Murder Bunnies?I recently saw a pic of a friend of a friend dressed as a Drow. I couldn't help but think she was painted in blackface and that if she left the con she'd get arrested or beaten up.
While I don't share your hatred of Drow, it's the furry races I can't stand.
I generally don't use them in my settings. My homebrew is very anthropocentric. Mankind is the greatest monster of all, unless you count murder bunnies, and those were wiped out in a genocidal bunny hunt.
I think the only logical conclusion given this data is that I hate humans. =P
Given my druthers, I'd run a Humans only world, with only relics from past, extinct races to be found as traces of their existence. I've created a couple of homebrew races, modified a couple, but they are really just variant types of humans. Much like what existed for hundreds of thousands of years on "real" Earth, with multiple species of the genus Homo overlapping in time.
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-I one-rounded a villain my regional coordinator had been waiting to kill in PFS for the entire life of a character in a seeker-level game. I've never done that much damage in one round in my life. I didn't consider how much I was doing, or that I could even have done that mechanically. I thought I was going to just soften it up.
-I like very expensive D20s. Artisan Dice is my favorite, and I regularly get something from them every year at Gencon.
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I'd LOVE to have some mammoth ivory dice from them. But there's no way I could ever afford it. I can't even afford to GenCon, so there's that.
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I generally don't use them in my settings. My homebrew is very anthropocentric. Mankind is the greatest monster of all, unless you count murder bunnies, and those were wiped out in a genocidal bunny hunt.What about Gnolls? Or Murder Bunnies?I recently saw a pic of a friend of a friend dressed as a Drow. I couldn't help but think she was painted in blackface and that if she left the con she'd get arrested or beaten up.
While I don't share your hatred of Drow, it's the furry races I can't stand.
Aww, poor Murder Bunnies.
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Just like in DS9 when Worf tells how the Klingons went to the Tribble homeworld to hunt them to extinction, but some survived having been taken off planet and that's how they ended up on the station.
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I'd LOVE to have some mammoth ivory dice from them. But there's no way I could ever afford it. I can't even afford to GenCon, so there's that.
Those are neat, but I'd never want to roll them because A) they'd be lopsided as hell due to density variance, and B) holy bajesus those are expensive what if I lost it or it hit cement and shattered no thank you!
I really like their flame treated titanium series, and I have one of the d20s. I'd -really- like the flame treated trimascus that has yellow and purple hues, but those are a cool $300 for a single d20.
...at least I wouldn't be afraid of breaking it. >____>
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If it helps, my hatred of drow has nothing to do with Drizz't. Heresy, I know. I just think they're a s#*$ty, s+%$ty,
s$!~tyf#$*ing g!*$*~n this race is so badrace.But that's not a "wrongbadfun" thing. Play what you like! It's just my personal taste. I will never do anything involving drow as long as I live if I can help it, but I don't mind other people having fun with them. Drow are my The Big Bang Theory.
Do you have a strong reaction to like the 13 Age Drow, who are mostly just mopey Elves who are prone to being petty who are pretty disgruntled that the Elf Queen decides to hold court in the woods instead of some nice damp cave in a place where it's always raining or at least overcast.
I felt like "Kinda Pathetic Mean Girl Goth Elves" entirely redeemed the Drow for me.
No, that sounds fine. Eberron drow are okay, too.
...
Okay, I have to be honest (since that's what this thread is all about), I'm probably going to include "dark elves" in this fairy tale setting my sister and I are working on. But they won't be dark-skinned bondage misandrist othernerdfantasyhere elves. They'll just be elves who cheated the Devil and are terrified that the Devil will find them if they exit the shadows, or something like that. But not even my works are truly drow-free.
I'd LOVE to have some mammoth ivory dice from them. But there's no way I could ever afford it. I can't even afford to GenCon, so there's that.Those are neat, but I'd never want to roll them because A) they'd be lopsided as hell due to density variance, and B) holy bajesus those are expensive what if I lost it or it hit cement and shattered no thank you!
Oh, I'd not use them for playing. I just want some mammoth ivory.. lol
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Most of my D6 come from old parcheesi games and the numbers on one of my D4 are almost gonre... I could give some use to a new set of fancy dice. I've recently ordered some to Paizo and I'm excited to get them.
At least I have a good collection of D10 after so many years playing WoD.
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I finished 3rd in the Kobold Press "Show Us Your Dice" contest, something I'm pretty proud of. I have nearly 700 (at last count) individual dice, and probably close to 40 complete sets. I keep these separate from the incomplete or just oddball dice I've collected or have had given to me from ex-players in a large leather bound chest.
Speaking of dice, I need a giant d6 for secret reasons. Does anybody know where I can get one or how I could go about making one? It doesn't need to actually be rolled, it just needs to be a giant cube with numbers.
So I intend for "I own a d6 that is 2 feet on a side" to be a embarrassing gaming confession I can make in the not so distant future.
If it was me, I'd just get a big posterboard or the like.
I recently saw a pic of a friend of a friend dressed as a Drow. I couldn't help but think she was painted in blackface and that if she left the con she'd get arrested or beaten up.
While I don't share your hatred of Drow, it's the furry races I can't stand.
Funny story, in high school I went to a Halloween party at one of my friend's house, and her dad had dressed up as a Drow (they were a big D&D playing family. I wouldn't get into Pathfinder until a couple of years later). It was a good costume, but the problem was...he used the wrong facepaint.
He had to go to work for the next week dressed in what was essentially a business suit and blackface because it didn't wash off properly (though from what I hear it faded to a more gray tone after the first day and more multiple scrubs). Wish I could have been in that office.
As for my confession, I have made some cringy characters in hindsight. So many that seemed like a good idea at the time, or funny in that moment. One stands out as a sorcerer (Rakshasa Tiefling, this is important) who I played up as quirky and kind of "insane" in a horrible Deadpool cosplayer kind of way. The cringiest part is when we came across an actual Rakshasa and I called him "Daddy" the whole session which got even worse when it was Suggested I smoke pesh for the duration of the fight so "Hurr durr I'm high weed lmao" ensued.
The character was short lived (a session and a half) because he was just a stand-in for my actual character going through some character development/retraining (he was an LE Drunken Master worshiper of Irori and Achaekek. His alcoholism was a shame to him, and after contracting a disease he went into the jungle alone for days to purge his body of alcohol, the thing that had made him both physically and mentally weak, and lost the archetype in the process) but I still regret it.
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I think, Drizzt aside, that the drow are a really interesting race, but a traditional member of the drow wouldn't fit most campaigns. Hence the tendency of so many players of trying to create playable characters that end being Drizzt clones.
Oh yeah, your average drow definitely isn't a good fit for a typical party. I guess my beef is that I think people's definition of "Drizzt clone" is "any non-evil drow character" and I feel like that's not really fair, there's lots of interesting possible characters you could come up with who would fit that but also be totally different from Drizzt in many other ways.
(Unrelated but something that occurred to me while thinking about the idea of Drizzt ripoffs, I wonder if anyone's ever played a character who was deliberately trying to be like Drizzt, IC, since the guy is famous in-universe as well??)
I think another thing that hurts the Drow in terms of people seeing it as a valid character race is that authors often stat them up with some absurdly powerful array (at first, the Drow was a 41 RP race). A race and (social) class background shouldn't make someone 4 times (by some measure) better than a human.
If you just throw Drow in there as an elf variant, with maybe +Cha instead of +Int, that's roughly as powerful as an elf people aren't going to side eye it as "powergamer, eh?" as much.
I mean, those Drizzt books came out how long ago? People are going to move on eventually.
Very good point, I tend to forget about that aspect because I mostly have played 5E (where drow are an elf subrace, pretty much exactly as you described, with a little sidebar in the PHB about how they're almost always evil and you should double check with your DM about whether you can play one).
Unfortunately, I doubt people will ever move on from Drizzt being the most famous drow, considering the books were still being published up until a few months ago, only ending because the whole Forgotten Realms novel line was shut down :P
This said, merging these two conversations, painting your face like the Gygaxian drow is seriously weird and creepy and white nerds need to stop doing it ten years ago. :P
*cringe* That's the worst. Please, people, just paint yourself sort of grayish-purple like so many drow illustrations are anyways and stay away from the unfortunate implications. :S
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*cringe* That's the worst. Please, people, just paint yourself sort of grayish-purple like so many drow illustrations are anyways and stay away from the unfortunate implications. :S
I honestly rule that in all of my settings, the Drow, since they live underground and avoid the sun, are pale like cave salamanders or like the makeup goths wear sometimes (just not makeup). "Dark Elves" can just as easily mean their mien, temperament, or the conditions in which they live.
On the other side of the coin, I run "Sun Elves" who live on the equatorial plains and have dark skin since they're out in the sun all the time. They're much friendlier than the Drow.
I figure this is a better way to do it.
Oh yeah, your average drow definitely isn't a good fit for a typical party. I guess my beef is that I think people's definition of "Drizzt clone" is "any non-evil drow character" and I feel like that's not really fair, there's lots of interesting possible characters you could come up with who would fit that but also be totally different from Drizzt in many other ways.
I have never played with an actual drow, even if I've always seen them as an interesting race.
But when me and Dalindra were homebrewing a setting based on MtG's Ravnica with 3.5 then upgraded to Pathfinder rules, we had to fill many holes from what we got from the cards, novels and other info. So we had this Devkarin who were dark elves who lived in the underground, we took a lot of stuff from the drow. They ended being like pale as clay drows who revered the cycle of life an death with a heavy focus on necromancy and kinda voodoo aesthetics.So when I finally went from GMing to playing I knew I had to play one of those. I wanted to be evil, so I talked with my GM the motivations that could keep my character on the surface and tied to the other non evil PCs.
I'm aware that it's a bit more difficult with real drow as they are more mistrusted, but with a good planning from the player and the GM I think there are a lot of drow concepts that can fit into the game, even evil drow who still share bonds with drow society.
Saying that, a drow character doesn't fit all the campaigns and can be disruptive even if the player is not, so I'm not against banning them in most stories. If the GM cannot or doesn't want to make the character fit then better don't play it rather than having a bad roleplaying experience.
Speaking of dice again, I've just got my 2 new sets of dice and I'm so happy! I hadn't got new dice since about 10 years ago!
Now let's see if these work better for my S&S campaign, because I hadn't seen so many natural 1 rolls in all my life! (Both from PCs and enemies)
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My favorite Die type is an 8 sided 4 sider. Drives my GM crazy.
also I'm typing this at work...
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My favorite Die type is an 8 sided 4 sider. Drives my GM crazy.
My favorite are the 12-sided d4s. They're marked in Roman numerals so they're easy to identify. Plus, if they fall on the floor, no caltrops to stumble over later (making no promises about scattered Legos, though).
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I'm running some Mutants and Masterminds for friends. I've adapted some Villains and Vigilantes supervillains into M&M3 and I have to confess that I'm a little disappointed that the Mercury Mercenary couldn't make a single, freakin' toughness save last night.
At least Shrew was doing much better. She punched one hero down an elevator shaft as he tried to force open the door. I do take a bit of pleasure at that sort of thing...
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Speaking of dice, I need a giant d6 for secret reasons. Does anybody know where I can get one or how I could go about making one? It doesn't need to actually be rolled, it just needs to be a giant cube with numbers.
So I intend for "I own a d6 that is 2 feet on a side" to be a embarrassing gaming confession I can make in the not so distant future.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Giant-Inflatable-Blow-up-Dot-Dice-16-Children-Par ty-Favour-Kids-Pool-Toy-/181700548918?hash=item2a4e325936:g:p~kAAOSwBahVE35 g
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Giant-Inflatable-Blow-up-Dot-Dice-16-Childr en-Party-Favour-Kids-Pool-Toy-/181700548918?hash=item2a4e325936:g:p~kAAOSwB ahVE35g
That will work great, and will be easy to transport.
It will at least give me time to figure out how hard it would be to build a 5' tall d6 that could be broken down and assembled quickly.
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What about Gnolls? Or Murder Bunnies?
Rysky, if Murder Bunnies were a player character option in Pathfinder, I would play the hell outta that! I'm envisioning a foul mouthed, insecure, violent, hard drinking bunny mercenary. Joe Pesci's character from Goodfellas, in anthropomorphic bunny form lol.
Gnolls are monsters. Not PC races... lol
Gnolls are monsters. Not PC races... lol
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I think the only things that should prevent a race existing in the game world from being a playable race are if they are either not balancable with other races, or if they create unique problems due to size, shape or certain ability, that make them more disruptive than anything.
I think having races that are by default good or evil is stupid. And even when there is a race that due to its backstory is predominantly evil, I don't see why there shouldn't be individuals that have transcended this.
Indeed, be like the Eberron Hippie Orcs. :-)
One of my favorite aspects of Eberron.
Due to thread derailing I no longer know where I am posting... This looked like the Special Snowflake thread but it's actually the Confessions one and I am posting here as it was «Air your grievances»
I think I'm going to nickname the poster above as Captain Alias and quit. I'm so confused with all this derailing that I feel like dealing 1D8+Str damage to self.
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But, what do I do when the party wakes Baba Yaga in my (heavily) customized Runelords game!
They're only 3rd level for Pete's sake!
Is this not the GM reference thread...
Gnolls are monsters. Not PC races... lolNope.
Maybe the book sez so, but my homebrew sez different.
I think the only things that should prevent a race existing in the game world from being a playable race are if they are either not balancable with other races, or if they create unique problems due to size, shape or certain ability, that make them more disruptive than anything.
I think having races that are by default good or evil is stupid. And even when there is a race that due to its backstory is predominantly evil, I don't see why there shouldn't be individuals that have transcended this.
It's a personal preference. I prefer Humans above all the other races, and begrudging allow the Core races along with a few homebrew Human variants.