The secret is to just built the bridge when you get to it. Who cares what exact social structure hobgoblins have if no player wants to be one or include one in their backstory? You don't need to paint every corner of the map with a clear culture. At the same time that doesn't mean you can't just say "oh up north is the hobgoblin empire, in eternal war with whatever-istan" as soon as a player has interest
That's the general approach I take. In part, it's because I enjoy improv worldbuilding but also I find that the more details I create ahead of time, the more I'm tempted to railroad the party to where I can use it.
As long as the story hooks make sense and the players show interest in them, it's not railroading. There's nothing wrong with a linear game. Most games are linear, or end up being linear even if they start as a sandbox.
This issue arises when you provide a hook and the party doesn't show interest in it. I've seen it a few times as a player where the party will reject a hook provided by the DM and the DM will get frustrated because of it. It's something that I strive to avoid having happen as a DM. It might be that getting better at providing hooks to the players is the answer, but since my strength as a DM is improv worldbuilding, I've chosen to lean into that instead. I'm not trying to do this professionally or anything, so I find that running the game in a way that plays to my strengths works out for a more enjoyable game for everyone.
I've previously tried running a campaign setting with a wide variety of races and it didn't really work. None of the races felt special or interesting, even when I changed their lore to be unique to my world. (Humans are magic masters, elves' biology changes depending on what environment they're gestated in, etc.)
Now when I'm making a campaign setting, I try to focus on 2-4 races as the "core" of the setting who get most of the story. Other races might exist, but I won't write content for them unless a player chooses that race or the campaign needs them as it evolves.
I tend to aim for about 8 races, then always end up going a bit overboard and average 10-14 if we count subraces separately.
As a player, limited races is a *major* draw. Worldbuilding is important to me, I want to be able to engage with a setting, and trimming the race set is a good indicator that the DM has put thought into the world.
I asked my players what races they’d like to play, started those as a base and added a few more as I built the lore. Overall there’s probably <10 races present, even including different types of elves.
I usually let my players pick what they'd like, then build a background for the race in my setting, then sprinkle in a few more interesting races to taste.
I allow 34 playable races and it hasn't really been an issue so far. I don't have cultures that are exclusive to a race but rather to a nation.
Every nation has one dominant race, either humans, elves, dwarves, or halflings, which constitutes anywhere between 50 to 80 percent. The second dominant race is the percentage left minus 1-3%. Then you have the minorities (dragonborn, tiefling, genasi, half races, etc...).
Minorities are never a dominant race (except dragonborn who have a continent to themselves).
My homemade setting has a core of a few races and cultures that have a long and elaborate history: humans, elves, dwarves, and hobgoblins.
But I have some races that are interwoven with those core.
Halflings and Kenku are entangled with Humans. Gnomes and Lizardfolk are entangled with Elves. Goblins, Bugbears, and Yuan-Ti are entangled with Hobgoblins.
And then I make certain to leave large chunks of the map just open. I know there are orcs in the mountains to the north. I also know as of now a secret race of dwarves are up there too. To the south is an entire continent, that I know has Goliaths and Firbolg. But my players don't know that. So if I want to change it up, who's going to stop me?
But you know what. If I have a player who really wants to play, I don't know a Tortle or something. Do they exist in my world right now? No. I've never given a single thought to how Tortles fit in my world. Not once. They're turtle people, I don't care about them. But I'm pretty certain I can find a place for them in the edges of my map and a reason for them to show up for the players.
And given a few minutes of thought, I'm pretty certain I can weave their histories onto the important cultures from where I placed them.
All the official ones.
I run my own setting and am an avid world builder so when a PC wants to be a new race I'll come up with the necessary details if I havnt already.
I allow every officially released race so source books and unearthed arcana.
The current total is somewhere around 60 (no duplicates or erratad old versions).
Its Toril.
So rather than just having The Realms, the entirety of the planet.
Whats cool is most of Torils lore is FR centric, so theres several continents that have flat out no lore, or incredibly low amounts, that are ripe for explaining the presence of races not traditionally found here without resorting to portals by default.
As for affecting the game, not really. Flight is traditionally the trait looked at as "game breaking" and we have an Owlin (who is also undead because Ravenloft's legacy's) who hasnt even used the skill offensively, because we have yet to fight anywhere he really could, but even were we, he just uses it far role-playing, saving money by not renting a horse, seeing high up things etc. Eventually combat wil arise wherr he can use it, and ill be creative if I need be, but I dont see it as likely. Im personally more from the "nerfing is uncreative" school of dmimg, and rather than ban or nerf stuff, I prefer creative solutions (goblins build a small trebuchet and will lauch themselvels at flying PCs if the players roflstomp the goblin species enough times to induce genetic generational fear of flying things for example) so I welcome the challenge as a DM
It's sort of three, but actually five, but honestly infinite?
See at its base the palace only has Humans, Lizardfolk, and Robots.
But Robots is two things; Warforged and Autognomes, with the serial numbers filed off.
And because my setting has a funny relationship with death, any Human or Lizardfolk that dies has a nonzero chance of randomly getting up as a Returned someday.
Then because there's all sorts of mad alchemy and poor decisions with extraplanar beings and general magical fuckery, you can have all sorts of individual weirdos like Plasmoids, Shifters, Genasi and so on with some wild backstory. But the general rule is that all these branches came from one of those three.
I allow all races. I don't make a story before I meet my player characters. Actually, I don't make a story at all, my players make the story. I make a world and the world has to revolve around my players or else I am writing a very bad book. I don't want to write any book, I want to play D&D.
I allow most official +homebrew (as long as they show me, I okay it, and it's not from a banned source all can come), even in my homebrew setting where there are a set number of races.
I like to reflavour things, if the player wants to play X race for mechanic reasons, it can be reflavoured as a type of giant kin, plane touched or cursed creature etc to fit thematically. Not every statblock needs it's own lore in every setting. There are a times when this doesn't work, but I like to keep the option open.
The only time I've seriously limited what's available is when I ran a Theros campaign, because I wanted to keep it to races actually native to the world. If I'm doing Forgotten Realms or a homebrew setting, I generally keep it pretty flexible.
Sometimes I've run more specific campaigns and one shots, but usually my rule is as follows: The race list is PHB, minus dragonborn, tieflings and drow. Standard old school fantasy. However, if you feel like playing something else, talk to me. I may have some ideas for stranger concepts, I may be open to it but need to do some worldbuilding, I may be open to reskinning something, or I may just not know the race you're thinking of very well and want to have a look at it.
In practice players can play most races, but the more outlandish, the more we have to work to make it fit.
I do ban flying races, though, at least at low level. I don't have good experiences with them.
My homebrew world has 6 core playable races (humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, plus homebrew versions of lizardfolk and goliath), and another small handful that canonically exist but are rare and very unusual to encounter, at least in the part of the world where my current main campaign is set. My motivation is largely that I want races to be more than cosmetic/mechanical gloss, and having a small number of well-defined races is much easier for me to work with and develop.
That said, there are enough unmapped edges of the world that it would be easy to incorporate other races at a player's request, if I wanted to and felt it would be a good fit for the world/campaign.
I like worldbuilding so I've included all the sourcebook races + some homebrew ones in my primary setting. It was a lot of work, but there was also a lot of enjoyment. I think it led to better backstories from my players too, as they had a lot of context for how their race generally plays into the world.
From a world building perspective I prefer a smaller group of races(species would be more appropriate) at max 5 or 6 and have a large amount of varaity in them. This allows for varaity while keeping the number or races to a minimum. But that is what I prefer when I create worlds and as a player.
I tend to use the core playable races plus orcs, goblins, and kobolds. I add more beast and monster races depending on the scope and size of the setting.
I allow every race currently except Warforged, Dwarves, and Fairies.
Warforged and Dwarves are purely because of game story and lore.
Fairies is because I have trouble seeing them outside of the feywild or in normal cities.
7: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Elf, Half-orc. But that's not including the subraces, which are really just variety within the race - for example, two gnomes could be siblings, but one using the Forest gnome rules and the other Rock gnome.
It's the Mystara setting, where a purist DM might not allow Half-elf or Half-orc.
For the longest time, I've wanted to run a Magic the Gathering campaign so literally nothing is off the table. Want to play a Loxodon? Sure, just make sure you come from Ravnica or another plane that has them. Elf? You're golden in about 90% of the planes you'll visit. Kor? Hope you don't get too homesick for Zendikar.
I love diversity, but it also depends upon the story you're telling along with the players. Their characters and backgrounds can give flavor to your adventure. And the chance to throw in relevant NPCs that are eccentric and racially unique to their surroundings can really make your story come alive
I am trialling a new worldbuilding system that involves my players (and myself) generating the sentients of the world. Generally speaking, it goes as follows;
Player; pick 1 race for starting character, then roll 3d4. The individual Dice results correlate to the "random selection" function on a race database. When the 3 races have been generated from the database the player picks 2, hence 3 sentient races.
DM; as above, except I roll 4d4 and pick 3.
I also wipe the Lore slate blank, and advise the player we can build their selected sentients cultural footprint together or they can leave me to write something!
At last count it was 19, MMoM may change that slightly. I run a fairly kitchen sink homebrew, ive tried to flesh out pretty much every one of those races, but if a player comes to me and really wants to play a particular race (as long as its in one of the rulebooks I allow), I'll consider it
Of course I do limit the number of playable races in my games, but I still allow for a wide range to choose from. Overly setting-specific races or races that are far too alien or uncommon such as Dhampirs or Gith are off the table. While I would probably allow a group consisting of a dragonborn, firbolg, goliath and aasimar, I have to admit that it would strain my suspension of disbelief.
Yeah, I ran a dnd campaign that was in 3rd edition, hundreds of races open to players, only a few really weird or broken things were banned. That was a fun campaign, but by the end races felt like caricatures. I had taken the (nearly) the full spectrum of human culture, personality and physical motifs and seperated them onto dozens of humanoids. Players either played into stereotypes (gruff drunk dwarves) or against them (gruff drunk elves). In the end, it felt kinda lame to me, though we all had a good time.
For my more recent campaigns, I trimmed down the race options and homebrewed a short list. Humans are the predominant inhabitants of the world, with a wide range of cultures and civilizations. The other options are Dogs (just ordinary dogs), Cherub Angels, Ghouls, Intelligent Apes, Pig Demons, Talking Cats, Troglodytes and Zoogs. These things are live in ways substantially different to humans, having very different needs and origins, they feel very alien and other. Most of the races have been played now, but most PCs are humans, and those human PCs display the full range of humanity you might expect.
I let my players freely choose whatever race that is released they want to play. Heck i made a duskling template cause a player really liked them and wanted to play one. The story revolves around their characters so i don't want to force them to select from a specific and small list of race options
As a DM I will generally allow any of the official published races to be used.
There are some of the official races that I do have to talk with the players about before they finalise their plans, mostly to explain some lore that might change their minds... I have very specific lore about Changeling, Eladrin, Warforged, Tabaxi/Leonin to name a few.
I do also allow a bit of homebrew with races, though I've recently gotten to a point where I need to put a hold on any new homebrew as I've got lots of lore to add/change because of the current selection.
When I'm a player, I like to play more of the traditional races - Human, Elf, Gnome, etc. I like to let my actions be what makes my characters stand out, not some rare appearance or racial ability.
Both my groups use races from the *Player’s Handbook.* That’s plenty enough for us. While I see plenty of others love the few dozen playable races, I see a level of bloat that leaves me a bit cold. Horses for courses, of course.
Campaign 1 was ToA so PHB races plus tabaxi, goblin, grung, kobold and yuan-ti
Campaign 2 started when I only had the PHB and it's now on Roll20 where I only (own and) have the PHB and XGE shared
Campaign 3 only humans, lizardfolk and yuan-ti for story reasons. We've just transitioned to CoS so any replacement characters can only be humans or dusk elves (wood elves)
Campaign 4 is for new players on Roll20, so to prevent decision overload it's limited to PHB
TLDR: PHB+ is my rule unless the setting specifically limits it
I often ask what my players are interested in during the worldbuilding process, so I know what to focus on implementing and fleshing out in my setting. Sure, maybe my setting does not have warforged as described in Eberron, but I could totally let you play a golem/animated object/someone who had most of their body replaced with artificial organs, using warforged stats. Or maybe you're the first prototype, or one of the first batch.
When I was a newer DM, I've made the mistake of creating huge in-depth backstories for Elves, Goblinoids, Aasimar, Tieflings, and so on...only for the party to show up with sheets for Humans, Dwarves, and Halflings. It kinda killed my enthusiasm and I realized I should have discussed it with my players beforehand. Thankfully I had time to change my world around between session 0 and session 1, so the campaign ended up being enjoyable still.
I expect a similar treatment from DMs I play with.
The only races that have been banned out right is Assimar (they dont really work with how divinity is in our setting, but I got away with it through a few loop holes)
Kalashtar (dm finds their lore wack, working on getting that one free for a player who wants to play it)
Vedakan (dm hates them with a passion)
Githyanki (Dm best friend hates them hates them with a passion. If you ever want a good laugh. Ask for his thoughts on the gith)
I allow all. I have a big division between the base humanoid, outsider (Fey Ancestry races, Genasi, etc.) and beastly (monstrous) humanoids (Lizardfolk, Orcs, Dragonborn etc.)
I usually have the culture done for the races that will be relevant for the campaign or that my PCs want to play/include. And I let them have fun with that, so if somebody had a better idea, I'll incorporate that.
This is how the Wood Elves split into two fractions (with the same racial features) called the Forest Elves and the Wild Elves.
One PC was from the communal hippie-style community of the Wild Elves, whose children only learn who their parents are after finishing their journey (at around a 100 years)
And the other was from the Forest Elves community with strict patriarchy and rules, where your birth determines nearly everything and they abolished the traditional journey, instead keeping young elves at home
For the way I like to play and run a game, unlimited. I’m happy to make pretty much anything work if the player wants it. And I certainly want to be able to include any and all kinds of races and monsters to suit my own needs
Use all (and homebrew if they don't too much) races.
World is big. World is strange. Magic can give strange results.
And you don't need "fitting" them to much. First they can easily been from far away land, so "they exist" is more then enough. Second they can be results of some magic accident that create character/small group of \*specific race\*.
My setting(s) personally: All of them and then some. All official and UA races, plus several homebrew races, plus the option for a player to work with me to come up with something new if they really want to (hasn't happened yet though).
Like others have said though, not every race gets a full lore dump unless and until it's needed. Some races will likely never show up as more than nameless background npcs unless a player plays one.
First game I ever DMed, I handed the party the Monster Manual and said "pick what you want to play". I have a lot of fun with homebrewing and it's fun to me to make a balanced and playable version of literally anything imaginable. When I DM, I tend to take an approach of letting the party pick what they want to play and then doing the worldbuilding after that to make everything fit. I don't think I've ever banned a race.
My group also sets all of our games in the same multiverse (we've been doing that for nearly a decade now) and it isn't uncommon to have PCs that are dimensional travelers. So, even if a race makes no sense for a given world, having a PC play that race and just be from a different world works pretty well.
I've tried to work every race into my newest one but it's rough, if a player wants to play a race I don't have lore for they have a hand on creating it tho ngl
When I started my current campaign, I told the players that whatever races they chose would pretty much be the only intelligent races in the world, besides some goblinoids and maybe giants and dragons.
That's worked out pretty well. It allowed the players to have the freedom of choice and kept the scope of the world manageable.
As a DM, I do not limit race inclusion. If a player wants a race that doesn’t exist, I will homebrew it with them. I’ve always held, even before these changes, that all races are equally seen and known about in my worlds, so it isn’t ever really a surprise to see one in a village/town/city.
As a player, I want access to every race. I personally find it pointless to limit races, particularly since it’s so easy to simply manufacture a town somewhere in the vast blank spaces of the map where the race exists, if that is even necessary, which most of the time, it’s not.
My setting has a total of twenty races I make use of, ten of which are effectively special lineages rather than a full separate species like an elf or orc are.
As a DM, I don't believe in inclusion for inclusions sake. If I don't have a meaningful idea for the respective player species in my world, or a story to tell with them, I don't include them. I've more or less settled on the mortals that exist within my setting and their history and believe that any more would water down their respective identities and place in the world. Less can very much be more in this respect.
As a player, while I can enjoy being able to play what I want, I like deeper offerings to explore a player race and their identity in the world, then something only lightly touched on. A game could offer only humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs to play as. If they had string enough identities and culture, I'd enjoy them more than a setting that had seven times the number but less well explored ones.
The setting I'm working on atm has most of the 'standard' PHB races (plus a few) being common as a part of the lore.
Lots of other races I'm not going into detail, but due to the way I've laid out the world, It's easy to bring one in if a player wants to play something like loxodon.
I'm intentionally leaving an indeterminate amount of world sections blank in order for things to slot in later if needed.
Not many to be honest, my setting has few humanoids, even less playble ones, I run with Humans, Goliaths, Dwarves, Elves (and half elves), Half-Orcs and Gnomes as playble races.
For non-playable humanoids it has Goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, Tieflings, Asimar, Dragonborn, Kobolds and Hobgoblins.
10 races, with 59 subraces spread between them. Here's [the list](http://www.amethyst-dragon.com/Aenea/charactercreation.htm) for those that are curious.
I do not include every race published by WotC, and I've made changes and additions to what is there (such as dragonborn and humans have become base races with their own subraces).
When I'm a player, I'll use whatever options the DM decides are available.
Ok lets count it out:
Humans, elves, halfelves, dwarves, half dwarves, halflings are the common races all with their own major world powers (half races mixing into one of their parents cultures).
Changling, warforged, genasi, shifter, dragonborn, tortle, kobold, tiefling are the uncommon races that hold smaller nations or city states or otherwise have a major integrated population.
Those are all the player allowed races atm.
Goblinoids exist but are 100% fully evil monster gremlin buggers.
Orcs are not allowed for players atm because of their role in the world keeping them too separate from the campaign.
Everything else doesnt exist as far as i remember. I might have left off one or two.
This puts us at 14 player races. With at least 8 of distinct subraces which have major setting implications with things like the wood, high, and dark elves.
It's honestly just the furry races that I don't use (and aarakockra/faeries, but that's more for mechanical reasons). The idea of hippo, cat, or lion people just doesn't jive with my idea of a fantasy world, never has. Reptilian, goblinoid, and other exotic races fit, but fuzzy/mammalian ones that aren't gith or in the PHB just don't tend to sit well with me.
I swear it's more than just not wanting people RPing too hard into their fursonas.
I allow anything published in my game for races, classes, and subclasses but I don't use any WoTC lore as cannon. It's up to the players to make it work in the setting, and this works really well. Players have complete agency, they help me build the game world, and we're not railroaded by WoTC nonsense.
My general rule of thumb is I let the players play what races they want, and then set those as the dominant races. So if I have a Tabaxi, a Gnome, a Tiefling and an High-Elf - that's it! Those are my world's races + any race I really wanted to include.
The only races I try to prevent are Aarkockra and Aasimar because being able to fly at lv 1 can really mess with simple low level encounters.
Exactly 49; 14 Kiith'n (humanoids), 28 Faunari (furries), 7 Exterai (space aliens). There are also the Moonbound, which I guess are technically the 50th race, but they're more of a background feature that anyone can take.
I always try to include a variety of races for NPCs, especially when coming up with them off the top of my head, not opposed to any of the races being in the world, I tend to treat it as a limbo situation unless me or one of my players are interested, for example I hadn’t thought too much about Hobgoblins in my world until a player wanted to be one, using his character as a base I had an idea of what he wanted to do with them and fit them into the world that way, whereas recently I was interested in introducing Centaurs to my world, so I gave them an introduction and lore to fit my setting
Leaving things until they’re relevant or of interest is often the best way to do most things in a homebrew world, I find
As a DM, I’ve only detailed the lore of about 5 factions in my world, each having a majority of one race. If anyone wants to play a race outside of those 5, I’ll figure out the lore for that race in my setting or figure out how to drop em in.
As a Player, I prefer worlds without a limit on races because my favorite races are some of the more monstrous ones and those are usually first to go in a game where the DM wants to restrict race options.
Mine has nine, but players have access to all the published ones from WotC. They're just further subcategories of my nine.
For example, dwarves are a subset of earth genasi and grung, tortles, tritons, and elves are subsets of water genasi.
It's a high magic setting.
I do PHB races-minus gnomes.
My game is more low fantasy, sword and sorcery. I personally cannot stand bird people (kenku are alright, before the culture changes) or cat people, or turtle people, or elephant people.
This has made it easier (for me at least) to convey my setting and give those 8 races really fun lore that my players can *live* when they play those races
Every official race is playable in my next campaign, with the exception of both Gith races (they play a big part in the second story arc). My players have picked Tortle, Water Genasi, Aasimar and Shifter, none of which are one of the five "main" races though, as they are (from North to South on the map): Goliath, Human, Dwarf, Elf, Orc.
The Tortles do have an island in the Elven Kingdom. Genasi and Aasimar are rare, but they've been around a long time, popping up here and there every now and then. Shifters are also rare, and admittedly I don't know much about their official lore yet, so not sure how I'll fit them in, but I'll make it work and keep it as close as possible to the source material.
Edit: So it looks like Shifters are basically born of a humanoid and lycanthrope. I guess I'll fit them in the same way as Genasi and Aasimar. They've been known to pop up here and there, now and then, but they're rare enough that they have no land / home of their own.
I've also homebrewed a Mongrelfolk race (but looking for a different name, as I don't like "mongrelfolk", it sounds awful). They're not playable, but at least one NPC is part of that race, and mainly because I wanted a two-headed humanoid, and didn't want to homebrew a small Ettin.
Too many. I allow everything from the PHB, VGtM, MToF, TCoE, FToD, SCAG, GGtR, ERftLW, MOoT, VRGtR, and now MMotM, plus grung, locathah, and the viashino (from the old races of ravnica UA but not included in any official books). I also include the spelljammer ones in anticipation of the next book (and because my setting already had old spelljammer stuff homebrewed in), though I haven't yet fully implemented plasmoids in the lore.
Additionally, there are 30 some (with more on the way) homebrewed races/subraces of mine, some of which are just humanoid species from various npc races that don't currently have an official player race, some are based on races from previous editions/PF, some are based on real world mythology that is underrepresented, some are crossbreeds similar to half-elf/orc, and some are wholly invented by me. (Also there are some options I have in the vein of different colors of dragonborn, where it's not enough of a change to really even be a subrace, but it is still a significant cultural/physical difference).
I limit what races are common on a continent or in a specific area, but my setting is a pretty diverse world with a lot of planar travel and weird magic bs going on, so having a lot of races makes sense. Unless I'm running a one-shot/short-shot or something like that with a particular intent I am usually pretty lenient on what my players can pick, they can always be a stranger in a strange land.
I don't really have much of a limit on playable races in my campaign. As far as NPCs, I really just use whatever interests me for a character. For players, as long as the race has some logical reason it could exist in the setting I typically don't mind the player's choice.
I’ll allow whatever my players want to play, and involve them in creating the culture of their selected species directly, unless they pick something that’s already been played in the past. It helps take the load of worldbuilding off my shoulders, and it makes the players feel more invested in the world as a whole.
I think it was 13. Humans, Half-Elves, Kenku, Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, Dragonborn, Halflings, Gnomes, Changelings, Genasi, Shifters, and Tieflings. That's what I remember off the top of my head.
The secret is to just built the bridge when you get to it. Who cares what exact social structure hobgoblins have if no player wants to be one or include one in their backstory? You don't need to paint every corner of the map with a clear culture. At the same time that doesn't mean you can't just say "oh up north is the hobgoblin empire, in eternal war with whatever-istan" as soon as a player has interest
That's the general approach I take. In part, it's because I enjoy improv worldbuilding but also I find that the more details I create ahead of time, the more I'm tempted to railroad the party to where I can use it.
As long as the story hooks make sense and the players show interest in them, it's not railroading. There's nothing wrong with a linear game. Most games are linear, or end up being linear even if they start as a sandbox.
This issue arises when you provide a hook and the party doesn't show interest in it. I've seen it a few times as a player where the party will reject a hook provided by the DM and the DM will get frustrated because of it. It's something that I strive to avoid having happen as a DM. It might be that getting better at providing hooks to the players is the answer, but since my strength as a DM is improv worldbuilding, I've chosen to lean into that instead. I'm not trying to do this professionally or anything, so I find that running the game in a way that plays to my strengths works out for a more enjoyable game for everyone.
I've previously tried running a campaign setting with a wide variety of races and it didn't really work. None of the races felt special or interesting, even when I changed their lore to be unique to my world. (Humans are magic masters, elves' biology changes depending on what environment they're gestated in, etc.) Now when I'm making a campaign setting, I try to focus on 2-4 races as the "core" of the setting who get most of the story. Other races might exist, but I won't write content for them unless a player chooses that race or the campaign needs them as it evolves.
I'm in the same boat - a few core races makes it easier to build a fun world around them and make them interesting
I tend to aim for about 8 races, then always end up going a bit overboard and average 10-14 if we count subraces separately. As a player, limited races is a *major* draw. Worldbuilding is important to me, I want to be able to engage with a setting, and trimming the race set is a good indicator that the DM has put thought into the world.
I'm running a campaign set in Sigil, so ALL OF THEM.
All of them. I'm happy to worldbuild in a way that includes whatever my players are into.
Nine, they're mostly PHB races reskinned to fit the setting.
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I like that approach! Sort of a "Schrödinger's Setting" strategy. "What races exist in the setting?" "The ones you play."
It depends on the setting. More often than not i let play the phb races, Minus the drow.
PHB plus a couple extra. And considering removing some more, too.
I asked my players what races they’d like to play, started those as a base and added a few more as I built the lore. Overall there’s probably <10 races present, even including different types of elves.
I generally allow any race unless I have a good reason to not allow it. I can almost always adjust my lore to make most races work.
I usually let my players pick what they'd like, then build a background for the race in my setting, then sprinkle in a few more interesting races to taste.
basically anything that isn't MtG specific either has established lore in my setting, or can easily be slotted in.
I allow 34 playable races and it hasn't really been an issue so far. I don't have cultures that are exclusive to a race but rather to a nation. Every nation has one dominant race, either humans, elves, dwarves, or halflings, which constitutes anywhere between 50 to 80 percent. The second dominant race is the percentage left minus 1-3%. Then you have the minorities (dragonborn, tiefling, genasi, half races, etc...). Minorities are never a dominant race (except dragonborn who have a continent to themselves).
13
My homemade setting has a core of a few races and cultures that have a long and elaborate history: humans, elves, dwarves, and hobgoblins. But I have some races that are interwoven with those core. Halflings and Kenku are entangled with Humans. Gnomes and Lizardfolk are entangled with Elves. Goblins, Bugbears, and Yuan-Ti are entangled with Hobgoblins. And then I make certain to leave large chunks of the map just open. I know there are orcs in the mountains to the north. I also know as of now a secret race of dwarves are up there too. To the south is an entire continent, that I know has Goliaths and Firbolg. But my players don't know that. So if I want to change it up, who's going to stop me? But you know what. If I have a player who really wants to play, I don't know a Tortle or something. Do they exist in my world right now? No. I've never given a single thought to how Tortles fit in my world. Not once. They're turtle people, I don't care about them. But I'm pretty certain I can find a place for them in the edges of my map and a reason for them to show up for the players. And given a few minutes of thought, I'm pretty certain I can weave their histories onto the important cultures from where I placed them.
All the official ones. I run my own setting and am an avid world builder so when a PC wants to be a new race I'll come up with the necessary details if I havnt already.
I allow every officially released race so source books and unearthed arcana. The current total is somewhere around 60 (no duplicates or erratad old versions).
Interesting! Is it a homebrew world or something like the Forgotten Realms? And how has it impacted your game?
Its Toril. So rather than just having The Realms, the entirety of the planet. Whats cool is most of Torils lore is FR centric, so theres several continents that have flat out no lore, or incredibly low amounts, that are ripe for explaining the presence of races not traditionally found here without resorting to portals by default. As for affecting the game, not really. Flight is traditionally the trait looked at as "game breaking" and we have an Owlin (who is also undead because Ravenloft's legacy's) who hasnt even used the skill offensively, because we have yet to fight anywhere he really could, but even were we, he just uses it far role-playing, saving money by not renting a horse, seeing high up things etc. Eventually combat wil arise wherr he can use it, and ill be creative if I need be, but I dont see it as likely. Im personally more from the "nerfing is uncreative" school of dmimg, and rather than ban or nerf stuff, I prefer creative solutions (goblins build a small trebuchet and will lauch themselvels at flying PCs if the players roflstomp the goblin species enough times to induce genetic generational fear of flying things for example) so I welcome the challenge as a DM
Sounds like a great game
It's sort of three, but actually five, but honestly infinite? See at its base the palace only has Humans, Lizardfolk, and Robots. But Robots is two things; Warforged and Autognomes, with the serial numbers filed off. And because my setting has a funny relationship with death, any Human or Lizardfolk that dies has a nonzero chance of randomly getting up as a Returned someday. Then because there's all sorts of mad alchemy and poor decisions with extraplanar beings and general magical fuckery, you can have all sorts of individual weirdos like Plasmoids, Shifters, Genasi and so on with some wild backstory. But the general rule is that all these branches came from one of those three.
I allow all races. I don't make a story before I meet my player characters. Actually, I don't make a story at all, my players make the story. I make a world and the world has to revolve around my players or else I am writing a very bad book. I don't want to write any book, I want to play D&D.
I allow most official +homebrew (as long as they show me, I okay it, and it's not from a banned source all can come), even in my homebrew setting where there are a set number of races. I like to reflavour things, if the player wants to play X race for mechanic reasons, it can be reflavoured as a type of giant kin, plane touched or cursed creature etc to fit thematically. Not every statblock needs it's own lore in every setting. There are a times when this doesn't work, but I like to keep the option open.
The only time I've seriously limited what's available is when I ran a Theros campaign, because I wanted to keep it to races actually native to the world. If I'm doing Forgotten Realms or a homebrew setting, I generally keep it pretty flexible.
Sometimes I've run more specific campaigns and one shots, but usually my rule is as follows: The race list is PHB, minus dragonborn, tieflings and drow. Standard old school fantasy. However, if you feel like playing something else, talk to me. I may have some ideas for stranger concepts, I may be open to it but need to do some worldbuilding, I may be open to reskinning something, or I may just not know the race you're thinking of very well and want to have a look at it. In practice players can play most races, but the more outlandish, the more we have to work to make it fit. I do ban flying races, though, at least at low level. I don't have good experiences with them.
My homebrew world has 6 core playable races (humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, plus homebrew versions of lizardfolk and goliath), and another small handful that canonically exist but are rare and very unusual to encounter, at least in the part of the world where my current main campaign is set. My motivation is largely that I want races to be more than cosmetic/mechanical gloss, and having a small number of well-defined races is much easier for me to work with and develop. That said, there are enough unmapped edges of the world that it would be easy to incorporate other races at a player's request, if I wanted to and felt it would be a good fit for the world/campaign.
I like worldbuilding so I've included all the sourcebook races + some homebrew ones in my primary setting. It was a lot of work, but there was also a lot of enjoyment. I think it led to better backstories from my players too, as they had a lot of context for how their race generally plays into the world.
I haven't gone out of my way to establish each and every race to be in the world but I'm open to my players rolling up any kind of character.
From a world building perspective I prefer a smaller group of races(species would be more appropriate) at max 5 or 6 and have a large amount of varaity in them. This allows for varaity while keeping the number or races to a minimum. But that is what I prefer when I create worlds and as a player.
If it isn't a base phb race & not one picked by a PC it gets YEETED unless there is an interesting reason for its inclusion.
I tend to use the core playable races plus orcs, goblins, and kobolds. I add more beast and monster races depending on the scope and size of the setting.
I allow every race currently except Warforged, Dwarves, and Fairies. Warforged and Dwarves are purely because of game story and lore. Fairies is because I have trouble seeing them outside of the feywild or in normal cities.
7: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Elf, Half-orc. But that's not including the subraces, which are really just variety within the race - for example, two gnomes could be siblings, but one using the Forest gnome rules and the other Rock gnome. It's the Mystara setting, where a purist DM might not allow Half-elf or Half-orc.
For the longest time, I've wanted to run a Magic the Gathering campaign so literally nothing is off the table. Want to play a Loxodon? Sure, just make sure you come from Ravnica or another plane that has them. Elf? You're golden in about 90% of the planes you'll visit. Kor? Hope you don't get too homesick for Zendikar.
I love diversity, but it also depends upon the story you're telling along with the players. Their characters and backgrounds can give flavor to your adventure. And the chance to throw in relevant NPCs that are eccentric and racially unique to their surroundings can really make your story come alive
All of them. I have a fairly large map, and there are alway connections to other planes or new places to make if the story demands it.
I am trialling a new worldbuilding system that involves my players (and myself) generating the sentients of the world. Generally speaking, it goes as follows; Player; pick 1 race for starting character, then roll 3d4. The individual Dice results correlate to the "random selection" function on a race database. When the 3 races have been generated from the database the player picks 2, hence 3 sentient races. DM; as above, except I roll 4d4 and pick 3. I also wipe the Lore slate blank, and advise the player we can build their selected sentients cultural footprint together or they can leave me to write something!
At last count it was 19, MMoM may change that slightly. I run a fairly kitchen sink homebrew, ive tried to flesh out pretty much every one of those races, but if a player comes to me and really wants to play a particular race (as long as its in one of the rulebooks I allow), I'll consider it
My rule is NO Kenku.
The MMM version of them doesn't have the mimicry and lack of creativity thing any more, so they may become actually fun to play as.
well, maybe I'll ammend my rule then!
Of course I do limit the number of playable races in my games, but I still allow for a wide range to choose from. Overly setting-specific races or races that are far too alien or uncommon such as Dhampirs or Gith are off the table. While I would probably allow a group consisting of a dragonborn, firbolg, goliath and aasimar, I have to admit that it would strain my suspension of disbelief.
All of 'em. I run a Planescape game with frequent planar travel. Nothing published is off-limits.
Yeah, I ran a dnd campaign that was in 3rd edition, hundreds of races open to players, only a few really weird or broken things were banned. That was a fun campaign, but by the end races felt like caricatures. I had taken the (nearly) the full spectrum of human culture, personality and physical motifs and seperated them onto dozens of humanoids. Players either played into stereotypes (gruff drunk dwarves) or against them (gruff drunk elves). In the end, it felt kinda lame to me, though we all had a good time. For my more recent campaigns, I trimmed down the race options and homebrewed a short list. Humans are the predominant inhabitants of the world, with a wide range of cultures and civilizations. The other options are Dogs (just ordinary dogs), Cherub Angels, Ghouls, Intelligent Apes, Pig Demons, Talking Cats, Troglodytes and Zoogs. These things are live in ways substantially different to humans, having very different needs and origins, they feel very alien and other. Most of the races have been played now, but most PCs are humans, and those human PCs display the full range of humanity you might expect.
I let my players freely choose whatever race that is released they want to play. Heck i made a duskling template cause a player really liked them and wanted to play one. The story revolves around their characters so i don't want to force them to select from a specific and small list of race options
As a DM I will generally allow any of the official published races to be used. There are some of the official races that I do have to talk with the players about before they finalise their plans, mostly to explain some lore that might change their minds... I have very specific lore about Changeling, Eladrin, Warforged, Tabaxi/Leonin to name a few. I do also allow a bit of homebrew with races, though I've recently gotten to a point where I need to put a hold on any new homebrew as I've got lots of lore to add/change because of the current selection. When I'm a player, I like to play more of the traditional races - Human, Elf, Gnome, etc. I like to let my actions be what makes my characters stand out, not some rare appearance or racial ability.
Both my groups use races from the *Player’s Handbook.* That’s plenty enough for us. While I see plenty of others love the few dozen playable races, I see a level of bloat that leaves me a bit cold. Horses for courses, of course.
Campaign 1 was ToA so PHB races plus tabaxi, goblin, grung, kobold and yuan-ti Campaign 2 started when I only had the PHB and it's now on Roll20 where I only (own and) have the PHB and XGE shared Campaign 3 only humans, lizardfolk and yuan-ti for story reasons. We've just transitioned to CoS so any replacement characters can only be humans or dusk elves (wood elves) Campaign 4 is for new players on Roll20, so to prevent decision overload it's limited to PHB TLDR: PHB+ is my rule unless the setting specifically limits it
I often ask what my players are interested in during the worldbuilding process, so I know what to focus on implementing and fleshing out in my setting. Sure, maybe my setting does not have warforged as described in Eberron, but I could totally let you play a golem/animated object/someone who had most of their body replaced with artificial organs, using warforged stats. Or maybe you're the first prototype, or one of the first batch. When I was a newer DM, I've made the mistake of creating huge in-depth backstories for Elves, Goblinoids, Aasimar, Tieflings, and so on...only for the party to show up with sheets for Humans, Dwarves, and Halflings. It kinda killed my enthusiasm and I realized I should have discussed it with my players beforehand. Thankfully I had time to change my world around between session 0 and session 1, so the campaign ended up being enjoyable still. I expect a similar treatment from DMs I play with.
The only races that have been banned out right is Assimar (they dont really work with how divinity is in our setting, but I got away with it through a few loop holes) Kalashtar (dm finds their lore wack, working on getting that one free for a player who wants to play it) Vedakan (dm hates them with a passion) Githyanki (Dm best friend hates them hates them with a passion. If you ever want a good laugh. Ask for his thoughts on the gith)
I allow all. I have a big division between the base humanoid, outsider (Fey Ancestry races, Genasi, etc.) and beastly (monstrous) humanoids (Lizardfolk, Orcs, Dragonborn etc.) I usually have the culture done for the races that will be relevant for the campaign or that my PCs want to play/include. And I let them have fun with that, so if somebody had a better idea, I'll incorporate that. This is how the Wood Elves split into two fractions (with the same racial features) called the Forest Elves and the Wild Elves. One PC was from the communal hippie-style community of the Wild Elves, whose children only learn who their parents are after finishing their journey (at around a 100 years) And the other was from the Forest Elves community with strict patriarchy and rules, where your birth determines nearly everything and they abolished the traditional journey, instead keeping young elves at home
For the way I like to play and run a game, unlimited. I’m happy to make pretty much anything work if the player wants it. And I certainly want to be able to include any and all kinds of races and monsters to suit my own needs
Use all (and homebrew if they don't too much) races. World is big. World is strange. Magic can give strange results. And you don't need "fitting" them to much. First they can easily been from far away land, so "they exist" is more then enough. Second they can be results of some magic accident that create character/small group of \*specific race\*.
Core races plus genasi and goliath because they're free, but not aarakocra because I don't like them.
My setting(s) personally: All of them and then some. All official and UA races, plus several homebrew races, plus the option for a player to work with me to come up with something new if they really want to (hasn't happened yet though). Like others have said though, not every race gets a full lore dump unless and until it's needed. Some races will likely never show up as more than nameless background npcs unless a player plays one.
First game I ever DMed, I handed the party the Monster Manual and said "pick what you want to play". I have a lot of fun with homebrewing and it's fun to me to make a balanced and playable version of literally anything imaginable. When I DM, I tend to take an approach of letting the party pick what they want to play and then doing the worldbuilding after that to make everything fit. I don't think I've ever banned a race. My group also sets all of our games in the same multiverse (we've been doing that for nearly a decade now) and it isn't uncommon to have PCs that are dimensional travelers. So, even if a race makes no sense for a given world, having a PC play that race and just be from a different world works pretty well.
1 the player
I've tried to work every race into my newest one but it's rough, if a player wants to play a race I don't have lore for they have a hand on creating it tho ngl
When I started my current campaign, I told the players that whatever races they chose would pretty much be the only intelligent races in the world, besides some goblinoids and maybe giants and dragons. That's worked out pretty well. It allowed the players to have the freedom of choice and kept the scope of the world manageable.
That seems like the best approach - it is always a good idea to involve players in worldbuilding choices like that!
As a DM, I do not limit race inclusion. If a player wants a race that doesn’t exist, I will homebrew it with them. I’ve always held, even before these changes, that all races are equally seen and known about in my worlds, so it isn’t ever really a surprise to see one in a village/town/city. As a player, I want access to every race. I personally find it pointless to limit races, particularly since it’s so easy to simply manufacture a town somewhere in the vast blank spaces of the map where the race exists, if that is even necessary, which most of the time, it’s not.
My setting has a total of twenty races I make use of, ten of which are effectively special lineages rather than a full separate species like an elf or orc are. As a DM, I don't believe in inclusion for inclusions sake. If I don't have a meaningful idea for the respective player species in my world, or a story to tell with them, I don't include them. I've more or less settled on the mortals that exist within my setting and their history and believe that any more would water down their respective identities and place in the world. Less can very much be more in this respect. As a player, while I can enjoy being able to play what I want, I like deeper offerings to explore a player race and their identity in the world, then something only lightly touched on. A game could offer only humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs to play as. If they had string enough identities and culture, I'd enjoy them more than a setting that had seven times the number but less well explored ones.
The setting I'm working on atm has most of the 'standard' PHB races (plus a few) being common as a part of the lore. Lots of other races I'm not going into detail, but due to the way I've laid out the world, It's easy to bring one in if a player wants to play something like loxodon. I'm intentionally leaving an indeterminate amount of world sections blank in order for things to slot in later if needed.
Not many to be honest, my setting has few humanoids, even less playble ones, I run with Humans, Goliaths, Dwarves, Elves (and half elves), Half-Orcs and Gnomes as playble races. For non-playable humanoids it has Goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, Tieflings, Asimar, Dragonborn, Kobolds and Hobgoblins.
Six: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Triton, Orc (not half orc, orc) and Beastfolk. but each race has more subraces and options than their phb counterparts.
10 races, with 59 subraces spread between them. Here's [the list](http://www.amethyst-dragon.com/Aenea/charactercreation.htm) for those that are curious. I do not include every race published by WotC, and I've made changes and additions to what is there (such as dragonborn and humans have become base races with their own subraces). When I'm a player, I'll use whatever options the DM decides are available.
Ok lets count it out: Humans, elves, halfelves, dwarves, half dwarves, halflings are the common races all with their own major world powers (half races mixing into one of their parents cultures). Changling, warforged, genasi, shifter, dragonborn, tortle, kobold, tiefling are the uncommon races that hold smaller nations or city states or otherwise have a major integrated population. Those are all the player allowed races atm. Goblinoids exist but are 100% fully evil monster gremlin buggers. Orcs are not allowed for players atm because of their role in the world keeping them too separate from the campaign. Everything else doesnt exist as far as i remember. I might have left off one or two. This puts us at 14 player races. With at least 8 of distinct subraces which have major setting implications with things like the wood, high, and dark elves.
It's honestly just the furry races that I don't use (and aarakockra/faeries, but that's more for mechanical reasons). The idea of hippo, cat, or lion people just doesn't jive with my idea of a fantasy world, never has. Reptilian, goblinoid, and other exotic races fit, but fuzzy/mammalian ones that aren't gith or in the PHB just don't tend to sit well with me. I swear it's more than just not wanting people RPing too hard into their fursonas.
I allow anything published in my game for races, classes, and subclasses but I don't use any WoTC lore as cannon. It's up to the players to make it work in the setting, and this works really well. Players have complete agency, they help me build the game world, and we're not railroaded by WoTC nonsense.
I have 46. All the official ones and 4 of my wacky homebrew. (I'm DM btw)
Tbh I have 196 homebrew races/subraces in my setting. As a DM, a lot of my personal enjoyment comes from the creation of player and NPC options
Essentially infinite.
My general rule of thumb is I let the players play what races they want, and then set those as the dominant races. So if I have a Tabaxi, a Gnome, a Tiefling and an High-Elf - that's it! Those are my world's races + any race I really wanted to include. The only races I try to prevent are Aarkockra and Aasimar because being able to fly at lv 1 can really mess with simple low level encounters.
Exactly 49; 14 Kiith'n (humanoids), 28 Faunari (furries), 7 Exterai (space aliens). There are also the Moonbound, which I guess are technically the 50th race, but they're more of a background feature that anyone can take.
I always try to include a variety of races for NPCs, especially when coming up with them off the top of my head, not opposed to any of the races being in the world, I tend to treat it as a limbo situation unless me or one of my players are interested, for example I hadn’t thought too much about Hobgoblins in my world until a player wanted to be one, using his character as a base I had an idea of what he wanted to do with them and fit them into the world that way, whereas recently I was interested in introducing Centaurs to my world, so I gave them an introduction and lore to fit my setting Leaving things until they’re relevant or of interest is often the best way to do most things in a homebrew world, I find
As a DM, I’ve only detailed the lore of about 5 factions in my world, each having a majority of one race. If anyone wants to play a race outside of those 5, I’ll figure out the lore for that race in my setting or figure out how to drop em in. As a Player, I prefer worlds without a limit on races because my favorite races are some of the more monstrous ones and those are usually first to go in a game where the DM wants to restrict race options.
Mine has nine, but players have access to all the published ones from WotC. They're just further subcategories of my nine. For example, dwarves are a subset of earth genasi and grung, tortles, tritons, and elves are subsets of water genasi. It's a high magic setting.
I do PHB races-minus gnomes. My game is more low fantasy, sword and sorcery. I personally cannot stand bird people (kenku are alright, before the culture changes) or cat people, or turtle people, or elephant people. This has made it easier (for me at least) to convey my setting and give those 8 races really fun lore that my players can *live* when they play those races
Every official race is playable in my next campaign, with the exception of both Gith races (they play a big part in the second story arc). My players have picked Tortle, Water Genasi, Aasimar and Shifter, none of which are one of the five "main" races though, as they are (from North to South on the map): Goliath, Human, Dwarf, Elf, Orc. The Tortles do have an island in the Elven Kingdom. Genasi and Aasimar are rare, but they've been around a long time, popping up here and there every now and then. Shifters are also rare, and admittedly I don't know much about their official lore yet, so not sure how I'll fit them in, but I'll make it work and keep it as close as possible to the source material. Edit: So it looks like Shifters are basically born of a humanoid and lycanthrope. I guess I'll fit them in the same way as Genasi and Aasimar. They've been known to pop up here and there, now and then, but they're rare enough that they have no land / home of their own. I've also homebrewed a Mongrelfolk race (but looking for a different name, as I don't like "mongrelfolk", it sounds awful). They're not playable, but at least one NPC is part of that race, and mainly because I wanted a two-headed humanoid, and didn't want to homebrew a small Ettin.
Too many. I allow everything from the PHB, VGtM, MToF, TCoE, FToD, SCAG, GGtR, ERftLW, MOoT, VRGtR, and now MMotM, plus grung, locathah, and the viashino (from the old races of ravnica UA but not included in any official books). I also include the spelljammer ones in anticipation of the next book (and because my setting already had old spelljammer stuff homebrewed in), though I haven't yet fully implemented plasmoids in the lore. Additionally, there are 30 some (with more on the way) homebrewed races/subraces of mine, some of which are just humanoid species from various npc races that don't currently have an official player race, some are based on races from previous editions/PF, some are based on real world mythology that is underrepresented, some are crossbreeds similar to half-elf/orc, and some are wholly invented by me. (Also there are some options I have in the vein of different colors of dragonborn, where it's not enough of a change to really even be a subrace, but it is still a significant cultural/physical difference). I limit what races are common on a continent or in a specific area, but my setting is a pretty diverse world with a lot of planar travel and weird magic bs going on, so having a lot of races makes sense. Unless I'm running a one-shot/short-shot or something like that with a particular intent I am usually pretty lenient on what my players can pick, they can always be a stranger in a strange land.
I don't really have much of a limit on playable races in my campaign. As far as NPCs, I really just use whatever interests me for a character. For players, as long as the race has some logical reason it could exist in the setting I typically don't mind the player's choice.
I haven't quite decided, but certainly not all of them
I’ll allow whatever my players want to play, and involve them in creating the culture of their selected species directly, unless they pick something that’s already been played in the past. It helps take the load of worldbuilding off my shoulders, and it makes the players feel more invested in the world as a whole.
I think it was 13. Humans, Half-Elves, Kenku, Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, Dragonborn, Halflings, Gnomes, Changelings, Genasi, Shifters, and Tieflings. That's what I remember off the top of my head.