Several options have been lofted.

If you want no more than 2 nonhumans in the group, tell the group that. Let them work out who gets to be nonhuman if they REALLY want.


In the end, either the players will get on board with what you want, or they won't. But, again, I think it's a trap to try to set up the players to choose what they want you to choose, and get sucked into rigging the situations you want. Some people like that sort of thing, I find it prone to frustrating everyone.

And I'm not being mean or anything, it's a very natural trap that I suspect just about every GM succumbs to at some point.

Quote from: Panjumanju;814168You've raised some proper criticism of my preliminary plan, but I don't see you offering any solutions here, beyond "suck it". Can you be more productive than this? How would you solve this problem?

//Panjumanju

Why do you need more humans than non-humans?

Quote from: Panjumanju;814168You've raised some proper criticism of my preliminary plan, but I don't see you offering any solutions here, beyond "suck it". Can you be more productive than this? How would you solve this problem?

//Panjumanju

What is your usual ratio of humans to non in your party 3 to 1? Do any of the non-human players ever play humans? Do any of them have a sort of "go-to" race they play usually?

If they are just taking a race for the stats and bonuses then it is hard to say how much you might want to step in.

Personally I've told players before I want them to play a character, not a cluster of tricks with pointy ears. I really dislike telling players no they cant play a race. But I have if it drifts to the min-maxing because then I have to jump through hoops to challenge this cluster of tricks.

Here is an oooold idea from I think Dragon.

The idea was that the players start with access to only the basics. Human, possibly half-elf and half-orc, and the four basic classes. Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Macic User.

Then as they advance in levels they "unlock" access to more options for characters. More races, more classes. Earn the goodies as it were.

Would that possibly work with your group?

Quote from: Omega;814188What is your usual ratio of humans to non in your party 3 to 1? Do any of the non-human players ever play humans? Do any of them have a sort of "go-to" race they play usually?

None of them have a go-to race. They just consider humans 'boring'.

Quote from: Omega;814188If they are just taking a race for the stats and bonuses then it is hard to say how much you might want to step in.

I think it's genuinely for the interest of playing some strange race, which creates a problem when everyone is trying to play the strange outsider character.

Quote from: Omega;814188The idea was that the players start with access to only the basics. Human, possibly half-elf and half-orc, and the four basic classes. Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Macic User...Then as they advance in levels they "unlock" access to more options for characters. More races, more classes. Earn the goodies as it were...Would that possibly work with your group?

I'm not sure if that would work, but it made me think of trying something similar.

Perhaps this: When a character dies, and the player is making a new character, that character has to be *local*, drawing from the races and classes likely to be in the area where they are currently adventuring, rather than just throwing open the PHB to player whim. At this point they know what's in the area, so it wouldn't be a surprise to them what is available.

Has anyone tried something like that before?

//Panjumanju

So the real problem is that the game they want to play and the game you want to run don't match up. This is a very common thing.

I highly suggest not trying to, essentially, manipulate or maneuver or trick them, but simply talk it out.

You have several options. One is to compromise and give them some more of what they want, at the expense of what you want, and make it up in other ways. Another is for them to compromise and give you some more of what you want, at the expense of what they want, and make up for it in other ways.

I mean, they might be willing to play humans if you presented it differently. But when you say 'you can play a nonhuman' while wishing hard that they wouldn't, eeenh.

You might be able to get them to buy in by saying 'just try it for 8 sessions, and if you REALLY still hate it at that point, we'll try something else.' That runs the risk of souring the game, though.

Or just shrug and decide you guys just don't want to play the same game and go your separate ways.

It is very reasonable for you to state a humans only game.
Conversely you could simply accept that all demi humans in D&D are really different types or archetypes of humans, and so it doesn't really matter if they have pointy ears.

I have found Odyssey from Gnome Stew has some very good stuff about starting a campaign, and about agreeing the shared ideas about player characters and themes.

http://v.gd/GxHlxn

Quote from: Panjumanju;814216None of them have a go-to race. They just consider humans 'boring'.

Okay, make humans non-boring.

I have Nordics (Enduring / Athletic), Egypto-Phoencians (Learned / Magical), Islanders (Agile / Maritime), and Celts (Spiritual / Woodwise). I also have some "dwarves", evolved Neanderthals (Strong / Spiritual) and "changelings", people with fey blood (Magical / Alluring). (Cultural names are not actual, but rather illustrative.)

General population is 75% "human", 25% "dwarven", with a smattering of others. The table is at a 3:1:1 ratio.

Forcing race I think is a poor choice. In the PHB there are 7 races, I think? If you have a human majority, structure things so that 5 of your racial choices are "human", different, and interesting.

Quote from: Ladybird;813959"I want to run a game about humans, with demihumans as rare outsiders. So the only races available for this campaign are humans, and... that's it, actually."

You could probably reskin dwarves, elves, gnomes and half-orcs/elves/lings and maybe even tieflings as regional variants, but you're probably better off not, to prevent debate.

Stormbringer from Chaosium has always been a setting with almost no non humans, but significant differences in stats between regional humans.

The Pundit also uses the races/regions thing in Dark Albion.

Given that demihumans are really quite human, I like the regional variation idea.

Beyond Omega's clarifications, doing this by way of a random roll is bullshit: it's reducing the percentage without having to be one of those meany meanie GMs who actually says "No, this is what I want to have happen, and you need to design a character that meets the campaign's specifications."  If I want a humanocentric (or an anything-centric) campaign, I'm both going to say so and enforce the paradigm.

I don't consider this "railroading" any more than I'd consider it "railroading" to tell the guy who wanted to play a Jedi Second-Stage Lensman in my WWII War In The Pacific campaign that his choice wasn't going to fly.

I just run regional demographics. Roll % on the demographics chart and you can play from that rarity on down. I also explicitly omit plenty of races in that demography.
(Party composition is another matter entirely, sometimes game-based, sometimes mission-based. Often I don't care. If you rolled it, enjoy.)

If you just have to play one race we can talk about it as GM & Player. However it does set up big, red flags in my head. I might say yes, I might say no. Give me a good argument why you feel you can do a good job roleplaying that rare, alien experience in my game. Essentially, can and will you contribute instead of disrupt my world.

I don't need any specific someone as a player. I may be sad upon your refusal to play at my table, but I won't take it personally and wither. I am an adult who can separate my pastime zeal from my social relationships. My door is open, my rules are clear, you are free to walk in and out as you please.

This whole sturm und drang about GMs having their own boundaries is weird to me. Don't like it? Walk. Please.

I feel like I've got half the board advising me to construct a random table, and the other half telling me that would be a 'railroading' dick move.

I wasn't expection such division of opinion.

//Panjumanju

Well, what is your problem? A desire for more players to play humans? A general groan of another motley crew ambling through the backwaters and expecting egalitarian bliss? Have regional representation for your PCs?

Define the problem, what sort of ideal you want to reach, and we can get you there. Part of it will likely "step on some toes." But you have to be willing to command your own table, and sometimes that means upfront restrictions and bans.

There's one person saying it's railroading.

The random table is provided as an option, but I think the consensus is 'be straight with your players and talk it out.'

Quote from: Panjumanju;814216None of them have a go-to race. They just consider humans 'boring'.
-
I think it's genuinely for the interest of playing some strange race, which creates a problem when everyone is trying to play the strange outsider character.
-
I'm not sure if that would work, but it made me think of trying something similar.

Perhaps this: When a character dies, and the player is making a new character, that character has to be *local*, drawing from the races and classes likely to be in the area where they are currently adventuring, rather than just throwing open the PHB to player whim. At this point they know what's in the area, so it wouldn't be a surprise to them what is available.

Has anyone tried something like that before?

//Panjumanju

1: That is fairly common and why I sometimes find "humans only! No aliens!" Sci-fi shows to be often very boring. The new BSG for example. Robots arent aliens especially when the humans made them. (The original was 95 percent no-aliens. But at least still had a few in there.)

Yet I most often play a human character.

2: Then dont make them strange outsider races. Say they are common as humans and no one even bats an eye at seeing one. That can sometimes make a difference in choice.

3: The system presented worked ok. You'll allways get someone who bitches that they want to play XYZ NOW. But either they walk or they give it a try. I found that it made playing the unlocked races emphasized that they were not as common.

4: That is very much like a variant on that one DM used. Think Dragon mentioned it too. It was that you started out simple, and unlocked new races and classes via exploration and discovery. Which was his prime method for also introducing new races players might later get to choose from. IE: We did not have access to any of the Spelljammer races, or spelljamming at all till about midpoint. And Spelljammer even advises to not allow access to the jamming races till the PCs get out there.

Quote from: Panjumanju;814284I feel like I've got half the board advising me to construct a random table, and the other half telling me that would be a 'railroading' dick move.

I wasn't expection such division of opinion.

//Panjumanju

Railroading was probably too strong a word. But I am dealing with a couple of family problems and my patience keeps wearing thin.

At this point with a clearer head I have no idea what to really call it. Passive-agressive? Its one thing when the game tells you "roll on this table" and another when the DM tells you "Roll on this table" when he really means "I dont want you playing so-n-so so I weighted it heavily against it." rather than just saying out front they dont want so-n-so. And as someone else pointed out. It does feel like a dick move by the DM when someone gets a non-human by dint of a roll on his tricked table and they are stuck otherwise.

Though in my case I'd tell the DM to take his table and fuck off. I want to play a human in his humancentric campaign and am NOT rolling just to end up with an Elf.