Having only just received my complementary Monster Manual (due to mailing mixups), I have only barely had time to look through it (particularly as this weekend I was running two games).  I have to say it looks awesome so far.

Strangely (particularly for me, since I almost never do this in my games) my thoughts ran to considering which of the MM creatures I might want to allow as a PC race in some theoretical campaign.

Any thoughts on this?  If you could pick one monster, from the 5e MM and based on the description therein (not just some old favorite or whatever, or naming a monster you like if you haven't even read the new MM), which one would you pick to allow as a PC race in your campaign?

Flumphs.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;803071Flumphs.

JG

LOL, no.

I'm not a fan of parties full of monsters. If I had my own grumpy way then everyone would be human except maybe one party member. But the average D&D party seems to be a cadre of completely miss-matched demi-humans who should have nothing to do with each other.

All that being said, the one monster I would want to play as a PC race would be kenku.

//Panjumanju

Mindflayer because some times I just want to play Cthulhu in reverse.  Just saying why not be the monster that scares the sanity out of people?

gnoll or lizard man

Flumphs.

Great for psionics games.

Also Myconids.

Non fucked up demon spawn Gnolls.
Non xenophobe Lizardfolk.
Non totally fucked up demon spawn Minotaurs.
Skeletons.
Spectres.
Kobolds.

Thri-Kreen

Modrons. I'm serious.

Also, while I can (and have) just hack the existing player races, it would still be cool to have official versions of some of the Greek races: Minotaur, Satyr, Harpy, Centaur etc...

Skeletons

I used to run Gnolls using loose "native American" archetypes (lodge dwellers and horse warriors, for example). With that, of course, came player requests to play them. One particularly memorable character was "Rok-Tan of the Four Bloods,' a gnoll born of two half-breeds, each parent carrying the blood of two of the four major Gnoll peoples. His epic destiny was never discovered, because I was transferred from Fort Hood to Japan.

Anyway, it would be difficult to go with Gnolls as they are described in 5E, due to their bloodthirsty nature. There would have to be some sort of "Drizz't" among them. Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind trying it.

Gith - all varieties. I know we'll get those in the Psionics book. But yeah.

Thrikreen - Loved them since before Dark Sun. Loved them more after.

Hobgoblins - As written now they clearly should be a player-capable race. They're goddamn Klingons now.

Gnolls - They get a bum rap. There's a lot of potential in making these guys "better". More specifically I'd allow Flind's to be PC's.

Lots of them....

I'm not sure how many people used to do this but the spell reincarnation led to lots of "monster"  characters in our campaigns.

What's that you were just re-incarnated as a bear?

We now have a bear PC in the campaign and usually the player proceeded to roll up a druid or ranger to go with them.

As far as monsters gaining class levels, we likewise have ended up with a few undead monsters used as characters in our campaigns and I liked how 4th edition handled some of those options. Have not gotten there with 5th yet.

I can see the lycanthropes ending up as "PC races" in our games and I can see some aquatic adventures using mer folk as PC races.

That said, I'm not fond of the goblin, orc, kobold player races and generally I'm not thrilled about half-orcs as a PC race either. Usually when we end up with monster pc races it is driven by an ongoing story started with the standard races (the reincarnations) and/ or something totally bizarre as a one shot (the mer folks).

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;804102Thri-Kreen

Oh yes! Thri-Kreen. More PC buggums is good.