D&D General How many Races it too much?

[The Green Hermit]

All races are allowed, but I usually limit player choice, especially at the beginning of the campaign and if they are inexperienced players.

 

[The Green Hermit]

That's kind of the big reveal you can pull.

No you can't be an elf, no I'm not explaining why.

Then later in game they find Elven ruins, tombs, writing, artifacts etc. Perhaps angry undead.

That's one reason why I wouldn't let anybody choose Dragonborn in my current campaign. They are the enemy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

None of the above.

There is no right answer, it depends on the tone of the campaign.

 

[Horwath]

Humans,
Elves,
Dwarves,
Orcs.

and half-breeds between them

 

[Cobalt Meridian]

Typically, I allow my players to pick from a choice of 6 races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Tiefling and Goliath). This list was chosen with the player input so I know that there was demand for these.

There's also about half a dozen non-PC races that they might interact with (Orc, Goblin, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Minotaur, Yuan-Ti). Beyond that - in continent the approximate size of Europe - I would have trouble carving out enough space for a race to be viable.

I have no objection to the other races, it's just that if they appeared they would be unique rather than from part of a settled civilisation.

My next campaign will allow the players to choose from a selection of Yuan-ti, Dragonborn, Tortle, Aarakocra, Hobgoblin and Tabaxi only (no Humans).

Basically I've found that giving players a choice of one race from about 6 works well. I can justify the existence of civilisations of this many races and it gives players enough choices without overwhelming new players.

 

[delericho]

5-9 playable races is probably about the right number. It doesn't need to be the same set each time.

Overall races would depend on the setting and the campaign overall, ranging from including only the ones the players chose for their PCs (or, potentially, even fewer) through to an infinite number (Planescape, Spelljammer, etc).

 

[Oofta]

Enough to have variety and for each race to have an identity, not so many that they all blur together and race becomes meaningless. For me that's around half a dozen, but I could see any number in the single digits.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Because I am a DM that enjoys working with character backgrounds and having occasional adventures that deal with and impact the PCs by who they are and where they come from... for me it's not the number of races in the game so much as the number of difference areas that the PCs all come from. If there are three PCs that are all different races but all grew up together in the same village, that's great. Because I can create adventures dealing with that village that import and will impact all three characters together. But if I have 7 PCs, all of whom come from varied places, then the odds of getting to everyone's backstories is greatly lessened. Now granted, some of my players couldn't care less about their backstories so I don't need to go out of my way for them... but I still like it when I can at least give them the occasional story spotlight.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I feel like you can easily explain why by just saying "story purposes".

That's what we agreed to when I ran Curse of Strahd. To fit a more gothic theme, we opted for Human and no more than one of elf, dwarf, or half-elf. It felt more immersive for us, especially given Barovia was almost exclusively human (with a smattering of dying elves), than throwing in a dragonborn or tiefling or even jolly gnomes. Those would fit better in another story.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I'm realizing in this thread and others that I just consider race / lineage differently in my campaigns. I think I use different races for storytelling purposes, not world-building purposes.

So the characters might find a family of Loxodons living in town, because I want some elephant people for this story. I used to care about how they maintained a population of Loxodons, where they came from, etc, but these days I just don't. If I want there to be some elephant people because it fits the image or theme of the story, I'll plop them in.