Quote from: Ghostmaker on February 11, 2021, 11:17:22 AM

I'm thinking about tossing a little of that into my current 5E game. Have someone follow one of the exotic PCs around asking for a lock of their hair. Just to see the reactions.

Don't forget to share how it turns out.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2021, 02:13:02 PM
Lots of other countries in the world of Greyhawk have more humanoids than demi-humans. Humans in Greyhawk are pragmatic, frequently allying with humanoids rather than always with demi-humans. Also, in Greyhawk, almost all humans wouldn't even know what a Drow is, let alone shoot them on sight.

Other worlds differ. You do what you want in your world -- though if I was a player, I'd probably prefer to just be told "you can't play a drow" rather than being allowed to play one and then being killed the first time I go into any settlement.

There are so many different Greyhawk versions (I count at least four that I can remember, some of them very different from each other - original, From the Ashes, late 2e and Living Greyhawk) that ultimately it comes to each DM how to run his particular vision of GH, as it happens with any published setting...

My own version of the grey box FR is quite different from "canon" in some aspects. 

Regarding drows and crossbow bolts to the chest: I do tell the players upfront why I don't allow X and Y. If they ask me why, I can give them the reason above ("drow are hated and will be killed on sight"), or I might just say I don't like them as PC races and prefer them as antagonists, and thus they're not available in my campaigns. Depends on the player.

I'd would never screw a player by deliberately killing his character like that.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 11, 2021, 02:19:17 PM

Quote from: Greywolf76 on February 11, 2021, 09:52:54 AM
I used something like this to annoy one of my players who had a gnome mage once: the party visited a far kingdom where people believed gnomes were naturally lucky and rubbing one's head would give you luck for the entire day. LOL. After two days of this, the character snapped in a tavern: "I'll kick the crap out of the next son of a whore that rubs my head"! 

See, as a player, I'd find that fun. Grist for the RP mill. My only concern is if it becomes too disruptive to the game, but occasional interactions (or clusters of them) are fine.

It was a one of a kind event, and limited to a very specific place the PCs visited once during one adventure. I use these little tidbits all the time to make people and places in my campaign unique.

See, the PC was pissed, but the gnome player had a lot of fun.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 11, 2021, 01:43:15 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 10, 2021, 03:21:50 PM

My guess is that she-who-must-not-be-named liked money more then she hated "bad" publicity because by the time 2.5e rolled around they had no problem building monster PC races directly into the core rules.

But I guess we can not talk about 2.5e because that would destroy your narrative about how it was 3e, years later, that was the font of problem monster PC races.

Your one weakness, people that can remember.

Your one weakness seems to be your inability to remember my posted reply to you back on page 6 in this thread:

"You are right "started" is the wrong word. Cultural Shifts don't come out of nowhere.

"Codified" with 3e fits the situation better.

There was always a subset of players who wanted to play some special non-core thing. And supplemental material was made to cater to them. In 1e and 2e." ...

Always good to see posters walk those goal posts back.

"I didnt mean 'started' " indeed.

Quote from: Greywolf76 on February 11, 2021, 02:38:59 PMI do tell the players upfront why I don't allow X and Y. If they ask me why, I can give them the reason above ("drow are hated and will be killed on sight"), or I might just say I don't like them as PC races and prefer them as antagonists, and thus they're not available in my campaigns. Depends on the player.

I'd would never screw a player by deliberately killing his character like that.

This is the best way to do it.

Before the campaign starts, you lay it all down. Such and such are not allowed, these and those limits exist, pick between this and that. Players can then make choices based on what will actually fit your campaign setting and world (and the style of campaign you intend to run).

QuoteI would like to note that tieflings' first big splash was in Planescape back in 2E. So I can kinda see how they'd eventually become a core race.

TBH I think prevalence of various anime/video games visual style was crucial in their fast advancement.

QuoteIronically, PF had a pretty good take on how life could be complicated for aasimar, with dimwitted commoners and peasants believing superstitions about how aasimar hair cures dysentery or something (no, seriously, there was fluff about that -- suddenly being the special snowflake seems a lot less fun, eh?).

I mean in Adventure Path 1.1. - adventure villain was aasimar woman turned towards evil because of fucked up life.

QuoteThat's one of the reasons I always frowned upon the more exotic races as PCs in my games. It would give the group all kinds of trouble, and then I'd have a player whining about how the game is unfair, and then it's one less player on the table.

But yes, a half-ogre on the party? No inn or city will allow them, because "everyone knows those monsters eat people".

A lizard-man or saurian on the party? "Well, everyone knows that according to Zaubar's ancient medical texts a lizard-man's eye / tail / little finger / penis dryed and powdered is the perfect medicine for the gout.

A drow on the party? Crossbow bolt on the chest as soon as the PC is seen. Kill it first, ask questions later.

A tiefling? "Hellspawn, you'll be hanged, quartered and drawn!!"

And so on.

OK, but that's sort of taking D&D races into the world with medieval or at least Warhammer-y logic.
There is bit problem with it - specifically objective cosmic forces of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos. Real gods that need to keep rules of those Cosmic Powers. Real priests.
In a country with LG government tendencies - killing sentient beings for their racial origin, or really even for evil alignment without specific evil deeds - that will cause reaction from important religious cults. God of Justice won't stand for wanton court murder of someone cursed with demonic great-grandfather. Killing intelligent beings for folk medicine - damn even if those would be wicked bullywugs - that would still be cannibalism. Evil.

I mean sure not all world is LG, but seriously in most D&D settings those various freaks unless they are well still evil as most of their kin could find allies among good races mostly.

Ironically adding Good/Evil axis make it much harder to just murder evil races on spot.

QuoteDevil-Swine.

OK, now I'm interested.

QuoteRegarding drows and crossbow bolts to the chest: I do tell the players upfront why I don't allow X and Y. If they ask me why, I can give them the reason above ("drow are hated and will be killed on sight"), or I might just say I don't like them as PC races and prefer them as antagonists, and thus they're not available in my campaigns. Depends on the player.

Indeed, second aspect is fine if you want to have some villains as mystery and having PC that's deserter from their ranks would be problematic. I mean this can work even on ethnic origins of various normal races - ok, guys you can play elves but no elves from Khaleder-dron, or having much to do with them in backstory.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on February 11, 2021, 05:00:08 PM

OK, but that's sort of taking D&D races into the world with medieval or at least Warhammer-y logic.
There is bit problem with it - specifically objective cosmic forces of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos. Real gods that need to keep rules of those Cosmic Powers. Real priests.
In a country with LG government tendencies - killing sentient beings for their racial origin, or really even for evil alignment without specific evil deeds - that will cause reaction from important religious cults. God of Justice won't stand for wanton court murder of someone cursed with demonic great-grandfather. Killing intelligent beings for folk medicine - damn even if those would be wicked bullywugs - that would still be cannibalism. Evil.

I mean sure not all world is LG, but seriously in most D&D settings those various freaks unless they are well still evil as most of their kin could find allies among good races mostly.

Ironically adding Good/Evil axis make it much harder to just murder evil races on spot.

Following alignment and other elements as written, I tend to agree with you.

However, I tend to take into consideration other elements, too.

For instance, are evil races metaphysically / intrinsically evil or culturally evil? In other words, can they be redeemed? Orcs and goblins are evil because its in their nature, and thus they cannot change (pretty much like fiends and fae, for instance)? If an orc or a goblin is raised by virtuous clerics of the LG God of Light in a monastery will they become LG, too? Or their evil nature will take over sooner or later?

If they are merely culturally evil, I can see your point. Otherwise, not so much.

Goblins and hobgoblins in my campaigns have a supernatural origin (they are fallen fae who became mortal after being exiled to the Prime Material Plane). They have no souls and their nature cannot be changed. Ever. Heck, they don't even reproduce like other races (there are no females, they are born from gourds "watered" with fresh human blood).

My orcs, gnolls and ogres cannot be redeemed, either, because of how those races came to be in my campaign (I won't bother you with my origins for those races, don't worry).

Now, drow? Duergar? Half-ogres? Minotaurs? Absolutely! At least in theory, members of those races can be good. They are culturally evil.

(As an aside, I'd never allow drow or duergar PCs because I prefer those races as mysterious, rare and evil antagonists, even though they could be good. On the other hand, I've had good-aligned half-ogre and saurian PCs in the past. As for tieflings, I prefer them as originally presented in Planescape - as a template with a customized, unique appearance rather than an entire race of horned and tailed half-demons).

The other element to take into consideration is whether people are self-aware about their alignments (which was the standard in 1E, but something that became much more subtle in 2E). If the answer is "yes", a "medieval" mindset wouldn't be possible at all for all the reasons you stated above. But if the answer is "no" (and that's the standard in my campaigns) I believe a "burn the tiefling on sight" scenario is completely plausible, perhaps even in a LG nation. Specially if gods tend to be more subtle (instead of sending their avatars to share a drink in taverns with their priests they only communicate through visions, omens, dreams or, more rarely, supernatural messengers) and don't interfere directly in mortal affairs.

Of course, I think a good DM will use a "show, don't tell" approach to give those hints to his players, because, more often than not, most of them come to the table with their own formed experiences and conceptions, which can be different from the GM's.

That is, if the DM wants to show his players that humanoids can be good, the players will see a pious orc or half-orc monk who lives in the monastery of the good god of healing. A good wizard might have a good (or, at least, non-evil) goblin as his apprentice. A good-hearted half-ogre can own the best tavern in town known for its hospitality and good food, or a good hobgoblin can serve a noble paladin as his squire.

There are many fantasy settings with that approach (GURPS' Yrth is an example among many others) and I use it to an extent (albeit those are very rare) in my own campaigns.

In the end I guess it's all a matter of personal taste.

Anyway, sorry for the long post.

Quote from: Omega on February 11, 2021, 12:09:15 PM
Lets take a trip down memory lane for all of those here who have ever so conveniently forgotten.

OA introduces 3 new races. A new sub race of dwarf, Hengyokai subdivided into 12 different types, and the Spirit Folk who are subdivided into 3 different types.

Vikings disallows all non-human races and introduces the Trollborn, Half-troll as a new PC race.
Celts was even more restricted. You were human, but introduces 2 new sub races with a 1 in 20 chance of being a mixed blood half-Sidhe or half-Fomori.

Dark Sun introduces new sub races of elf, and halfling, as well as new sub-races of human in the Mul and Half Giant. And the Thri-Kreen as a new PC race. Later editions added Aracocra and a dragonborn varian among others to the list.

Dragonlance of course subdivided various demihuman races and replaced halflings with Kender, also added the Ildra pure trolls as a PC race. I believe later editions added a few more but do not have those to check.

Complete Humanoids opened up everything from Wemics to Gnolls to Orcs, Swanmays, Goblins, and so on.

d20 Ravenloft removed half-ors and introduced Calibans, humans twisted by curses and magic. And a half-Vistani.

But the real plethora of new PC races came from the Creature Crucible series for BX/BECMI.
Wee Folk added 13, including Trents, Sidhe, Hsao, Pixies, Brownies/Redcaps, Centaurs, Woodrakes, Dryads, Fauns, Sprites, Wood Imps, Leprechaun, and Pooka.
Top Ballista adds Faenare, a race of elven Harpies, Gnome, Gremlin, Harpy, Nagpa, Pegataur, Sphinx and Tabi.
Sea People added Tritons, Merrow, Aquatic Elves, Nixies, Kopru, Sea Giants, Kna and Shark-kin.
Night Howlers introduces PC Were-Bat, Bear, Boar, Fox, Rat, Seal, Shark, Tiger, Wolf and Devil-Swine.

Red Steel added some new ones as well such as the Lupin, Clockwork people, Rakasta and Tortles.

And of course Dragon introduced dozens of player and staff created new races or monsters as new PCs. And a BX article to create your own PC class or race from anything.

But no no no you say! None of that really counts... because! Its all those mean ol new players fault and this is all a totally new thing we must fight to our last breath. eg: being willfully ignorant.

Seconded and forgot about many on the list.

Anything and everything that goes against the carefully constructed personal narrative does not exist. As well as to be summarily ignored.

For fuck sake yeah most tables never used or ran monster races. To think their were never any rules or worse that 3E+ because some here have an axe to grind with that edition and those players.

Quote from: BronzeDragon on February 11, 2021, 04:18:04 PM

Quote from: Greywolf76 on February 11, 2021, 02:38:59 PMI do tell the players upfront why I don't allow X and Y. If they ask me why, I can give them the reason above ("drow are hated and will be killed on sight"), or I might just say I don't like them as PC races and prefer them as antagonists, and thus they're not available in my campaigns. Depends on the player.

I'd would never screw a player by deliberately killing his character like that.

This is the best way to do it.

Before the campaign starts, you lay it all down. Such and such are not allowed, these and those limits exist, pick between this and that. Players can then make choices based on what will actually fit your campaign setting and world (and the style of campaign you intend to run).

Exactly. Unless its Eberron it is up to the DM to decide what races they want in a campaign. And sometimes the campaign itself can restrict choices sometimes quite heavily as I noted earlier.
D&D Conan is human only and class choices are very restricted. No paladins, wizards, clerics and so on as PC choices and restricted even to NPCs. The Rome campaign is another. Humans only.

Or you could go the opposite direction and add races to any of those.

Quote from: Omega on February 11, 2021, 10:59:35 PM
Exactly. Unless its Eberron it is up to the DM to decide what races they want in a campaign. And sometimes the campaign itself can restrict choices sometimes quite heavily as I noted earlier.

D&D Conan is human only and class choices are very restricted. No paladins, wizards, clerics and so on as PC choices and restricted even to NPCs. The Rome campaign is another. Humans only.

Or you could go the opposite direction and add races to any of those.

Agreed, with the caveat that when you're designing a game system for publishing (versus a specific table's campaign), and that system gives race/species a significant mechanical weight, that you're almost always better off including too many races and letting individual GMs cut what they don't want, than going too lean and leaving the work of adding what they need for their campaign to the individual GM.

Basically, it's better to have and not need than to need and not have.

And at the end of the day 5e has so far only added a handful of new races to the core mix or what had existed prior.
Drow, Tieflings and Dragonborn(kinda) had been around before 3e as either optional or setting specific PC races.

The others in expansions already existed in older editions usually and have so far mostly followed the pattern of AD&D in releasing a few new races or optionals or setting specific races in expansions. And most of those existed before as well in 2e in some form. Aasimar and Genasi come to mind right off as Planescape races.

Thinking on it. What really has 5e so far added to races that was not allready there before in some format pre 3e?
The Yuan-Ti maybe?
Tabaxi arent much different from Rakasta from Red Steel. And Warforged are setting specific to Eberron but in 2e there were the clockwork PCs also from Red Steel.
Shadar-kai? I do not recall shadow humans/elves/whatevers in older books as a PC race so maybe they are new?
Avarials seem to have so far not gotten an official entry as a race. But are the example for creating a new one in 5e. But winged elves have been around a good while and pretty sure their origins were in Dragon. For Forgotten Realms?

And lets not forget that various editions of D&D have that reincarnate spell which oft had a chance to bring a character back as a non PC race or even an animal. Golly! That mean ol AD&D ruining everyones fun with new races! What a bunch of self involved narcissists!

As a follow-up to the thought of "better to have and not need than to need and not have", that's one of the things I always appreciated about Palladium Books' design of having all the opponents with stats for running one as a PC.

Character creation, especially in Fantasy 1e, was not so complex as to be burdensome and Palladium has never had much concern over balance, but whether the stats properly represent what they're supposed to and leaving it to the GM to decide if it's allowed or not.

I think there's definitely merit to at least presenting the option to create any free-willed and sapient species in the setting as a potential PC so the GM has easy access to the mechanics for developing any sort of campaign they desire.

And just because they're presented in a PC format doesn't mean opponents have to be designed or built the same way PC's are any more than the dwarf, elf, human, etc. opponents in the non-3e Monster Manuals were built using the PC rules.

Leave the culling of options to the GM using the system; don't give them extra work just because their campaign idea doesn't conform with yours.*

* Bear in mind that, even as I argue for allowing all manner of species/races to be playable, my own preferences for PCs are for humans and the occasional near-human (mostly half-elves if not humans in fantasy, dhampirs in VtM, human exclusive in sci-fi). I just recognize that my preferences are personal and others look for different things in their choice of races (including being able to play a character that IS decidedly one-note instead of the full range of human complexity; if you're playing as an escape you may not want to have to make deep calls on their character's motivations and probably one of the appeals of the Dragonborn is that their culture is basically a textbook "proud warrior race" where "What Would Worf Do?" is all the deeper you have to go in deciding motives and actions).

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 12, 2021, 01:55:43 AM

Quote from: Omega on February 11, 2021, 10:59:35 PM
Exactly. Unless its Eberron it is up to the DM to decide what races they want in a campaign. And sometimes the campaign itself can restrict choices sometimes quite heavily as I noted earlier.

D&D Conan is human only and class choices are very restricted. No paladins, wizards, clerics and so on as PC choices and restricted even to NPCs. The Rome campaign is another. Humans only.

Or you could go the opposite direction and add races to any of those.

Agreed, with the caveat that when you're designing a game system for publishing (versus a specific table's campaign), and that system gives race/species a significant mechanical weight, that you're almost always better off including too many races and letting individual GMs cut what they don't want, than going too lean and leaving the work of adding what they need for their campaign to the individual GM.

Basically, it's better to have and not need than to need and not have.

Well, up to the point where you start considering page count and development opportunity costs.  If we assume that we are talking about competent designers and developers that really know the system well, then past some point in an edition of D&D, I'd rather prioritize, say, a domain management system or alternate magic system or whatever over "yet another set of races and classes."  If we reverse that assumption, however, I'd rather have more races and classes.  It's a lot easier to ignore incompetent work there.

Quote from: Omega on February 12, 2021, 10:41:54 AM
And at the end of the day 5e has so far only added a handful of new races to the core mix or what had existed prior.
Drow, Tieflings and Dragonborn(kinda) had been around before 3e as either optional or setting specific PC races.

WotC didd add the races from the 'Magic' supplement a few years ago.

QuoteAnd lets not forget that various editions of D&D have that reincarnate spell which oft had a chance to bring a character back as a non PC race or even an animal. Golly! That mean ol AD&D ruining everyones fun with new races! What a bunch of self involved narcissists!

The funny thing is, even if you did get Reincarnated, in some campaigns the first town you walked into you would get a crossbow bolt to the head from the local racists.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 12, 2021, 02:12:58 PM
Well, up to the point where you start considering page count and development opportunity costs.  If we assume that we are talking about competent designers and developers that really know the system well, then past some point in an edition of D&D, I'd rather prioritize, say, a domain management system or alternate magic system or whatever over "yet another set of races and classes."  If we reverse that assumption, however, I'd rather have more races and classes.  It's a lot easier to ignore incompetent work there.

For the record, I've looked at just about every Domain Management ruleset out there because its second only to age-of-sail naval combat for parts of a campaign outside of core adventuring that I'm interested in... and I've come to the conclusion that the absolute best system is just a DM having events happens as they deem appropriate and allowing the PCs to react to them just as they normally would.

So my system's version of Domain Management is a section helping the GM come up with campaign events that would draw the interests of PC rulers and easy to use rules for mass combat if a ruler decides to have their troops handle things instead of dealing with a threat themselves.

But yes, I am making the presumption that the bases are already covered... though, as mentioned, I am generally a fan of Palladium's approach of listing out a version of every sapient species as if it could be a PC because I don't think it actually takes much extra room to present those options than just presenting them as monsters.

Heck, if you throw out the fluff-text, I managed to present the PC mechanics for every free-willed sapient species in my system (including what in standard D&D would be monsters; beastmen, dragons, giants, unicorns, trolls, etc.) using just 16 pages (6"x9" single column book format).

Quote from: Shasarak on February 12, 2021, 03:26:45 PM

Quote from: Omega on February 12, 2021, 10:41:54 AM
And at the end of the day 5e has so far only added a handful of new races to the core mix or what had existed prior.
Drow, Tieflings and Dragonborn(kinda) had been around before 3e as either optional or setting specific PC races.

WotC didd add the races from the 'Magic' supplement a few years ago.

QuoteAnd lets not forget that various editions of D&D have that reincarnate spell which oft had a chance to bring a character back as a non PC race or even an animal. Golly! That mean ol AD&D ruining everyones fun with new races! What a bunch of self involved narcissists!

The funny thing is, even if you did get Reincarnated, in some campaigns the first town you walked into you would get a crossbow bolt to the head from the local racists.

1: What book? So far all have seen are the PDF series that is not official as it were since it is setting specific like Eberrons races? Though its really not to hard to map several of the MTG races to some existing D&D one if one really wanted to.

I think together the PDFs added 9 new races. At least two are reskins of D&D ones. Quick check then.
Innstrahd had oddly no new races.
Zendikar has Kor, Merfolk (not mermaid fishtaurs) Goblins, Vampires and generic 5e Elves renamed.
Kaladesh had Aetherborn, generic Dwarf and Elf renamed, and Vedalkin.
Amonket had Aven in 2 sub types (pretty much aaracocra), Khenra, Ram re-themed Minotaurs, and Naga
Ixalan had Merfolk again, this time in 2  colour coded varieties, Vampires again, Orcs, Goblins again, and Sirens (Harpies)
Dominaria is a mess but looks like Aven again, and Keldons (human giants that do not look very human. Goliath reskin?)
So 10 new races of which at least half are more or less just reskins of existing races from the various 5e books.

As of last Adventurers League none of these were allowable PC races.

2: Everyone just assumed I was the dead magic-users familliar...

QuoteFor instance, are evil races metaphysically / intrinsically evil or culturally evil? In other words, can they be redeemed? Orcs and goblins are evil because its in their nature, and thus they cannot change (pretty much like fiends and fae, for instance)? If an orc or a goblin is raised by virtuous clerics of the LG God of Light in a monastery will they become LG, too? Or their evil nature will take over sooner or later?

Well considering by most D&D settings literal outsiders which are made from cosmic stuff can reform themselves (not very Catholic notion but then Outer Planes of Great Wheel are not exactly like Catholic vision of spiritual dominion) - and we have now and then another story of fallen angel or archont, reformed demons and devils, and so on. Therefore I'd say - as much as specific intelligent beings have genuine individual intellect and will - they should have at least theoretical option to reform. I mean Planescape setting is sort of full of outsider outsiders who left usual planes to join weird philosophical sects.

I thing to certain degree my Catholic sentiments came here in play - just like with professor Tolkien who realised he sort of wrote himself into big nasty corner with his orcs (invented in times where Arda was pagan myth and Melkor was one of many gods, so he could create own beings - which of course become utterly impossible with later bringing Ainur's power closer in line with angelic beings). And then beings like Sauron or Saruman was not corrupted from the get go - like real angels - but in time, as they sort of lived and thought in semi-mortal way, within boundaries of world. (That's why Tolkien writes that Sauron could repent and redeem himself after War of Wrath, and his fate was yet not decided then). Now of course for all Christian themes there is overall lack of proper redemption themes I think in Arda - not even talking about Maiar redemptions as that would be problematic on it's own way - but I cannot even remember one Elf or Man who went really really bad - and returned and repented - not slightly flawed like Boromir or Thorin.

QuoteGoblins and hobgoblins in my campaigns have a supernatural origin (they are fallen fae who became mortal after being exiled to the Prime Material Plane). They have no souls and their nature cannot be changed. Ever. Heck, they don't even reproduce like other races (there are no females, they are born from gourds "watered" with fresh human blood).

But... clearly their nature can be changed - as you wrote themselves they were FALLEN (ergo they were fine once upon a time) and EXILED (ergo they were not here in the beginnings).
I mean sure you make your beings as you make them - but it seems nature of Fae can be corrupted by Cosmic Evil, so what is Cosmic Good doing all the time

Quote(As an aside, I'd never allow drow or duergar PCs because I prefer those races as mysterious, rare and evil antagonists, even though they could be good. On the other hand, I've had good-aligned half-ogre and saurian PCs in the past. As for tieflings, I prefer them as originally presented in Planescape - as a template with a customized, unique appearance rather than an entire race of horned and tailed half-demons).

I totally agree about tieflings, indeed. In fact I was trying to go even further and make absolute random planetouched templates - idea was - if you want planetouched - first you take some mortal race, then you pick overall ancestry (divided by planes not specific species) then you roll a dice to see how many heirlooms you'd get from your lineage (I was thinking about 2D6 roll) - then you roll on big table of random elements - which included both visual quirks, supernatural abilities, attributes enchancements or more rarely penalties, and so on. So in theory you could end with genasi who's efreeti ancestry only results in having +4 Str and +2Con without any fire elements, or tiefling who have literally zero demonic boons aside looking like a looney freakshow.

QuoteThe other element to take into consideration is whether people are self-aware about their alignments (which was the standard in 1E, but something that became much more subtle in 2E). If the answer is "yes", a "medieval" mindset wouldn't be possible at all for all the reasons you stated above. But if the answer is "no" (and that's the standard in my campaigns) I believe a "burn the tiefling on sight" scenario is completely plausible, perhaps even in a LG nation. Specially if gods tend to be more subtle (instead of sending their avatars to share a drink in taverns with their priests they only communicate through visions, omens, dreams or, more rarely, supernatural messengers) and don't interfere directly in mortal affairs.

True, but at least you have priest and paladins detecting alignments, this is low level ability tbh, and then you have losing powers if given priest would let people just murder shit of strangers because of weird horns. You'd have to limit divine powers even more.

QuoteOf course, I think a good DM will use a "show, don't tell" approach to give those hints to his players, because, more often than not, most of them come to the table with their own formed experiences and conceptions, which can be different from the GM's.

That is, if the DM wants to show his players that humanoids can be good, the players will see a pious orc or half-orc monk who lives in the monastery of the good god of healing. A good wizard might have a good (or, at least, non-evil) goblin as his apprentice. A good-hearted half-ogre can own the best tavern in town known for its hospitality and good food, or a good hobgoblin can serve a noble paladin as his squire.

Funny enough I'd also notice - that considering cosmic balance of four options - we all discuss here vividly about whether certain humanoid species can be redeemed, but no one is ever talking about infallibly good species that no matter what cannot turn evil...

QuoteExactly. Unless its Eberron it is up to the DM to decide what races they want in a campaign. And sometimes the campaign itself can restrict choices sometimes quite heavily as I noted earlier.
D&D Conan is human only and class choices are very restricted. No paladins, wizards, clerics and so on as PC choices and restricted even to NPCs. The Rome campaign is another. Humans only.

TBh I do not know why Eberron specifically needs to be excluded. It's no different then any other setting (also did they put goblinoids and orcs as playable Eberron races specifically - because really they should)