With demi-humans, there a few major groupings like humans, elves, dwarves, etc and numerous ethnic groups under that. With humanoids, it seems like you cannot walk ten feet without running into a whole new race of them. Many of these races are fairly one-note and become boring and predictable after a while (particularly if you constantly memorize the monster books). This is a bit too extreme for my world building to account for, so I figured I would cut down the number of races by folding the similar races into subraces to keep the same XP values/CR ratings, which also makes the existing races more diverse and less predictable. Making variants of existing monsters is a tried and true method of making new monsters, even giving superior versions like the dracomera (to the point that it displaced the chimera in some editions) or regularized templates, so why equivocate? I often run into some obscure sourcebook that introduces a fascinating race that I want to keep, so making them all into subraces accomplishes my goal the most efficiently.

If you have ever encountered the same problem, what did you do in response? Any interesting stories of monster variants you wish to share?

Having lots of humanoids in sci-fi like Star Trek or space opera like Star Wars doesn't bother me. They are clearly part of the setting and the galaxy has lots of planets on which they could evolve. So that all makes sense in-universe.

For fantasy settings, I eliminate creatures who are demi-elven half bugbear hemi-aardvark mixes. Those sorts of things annoy the shit out of me. If there is an interesting mythological element (like various kinds of water spirits or godlings) or it makes sense for the species (Elves/Aldryami in Glorantha having different races with different appearances and behaviors based on different types of trees e.g. evergreen vs deciduous) than variety is fine. Otherwise I prefer a clear vision of the setting not a kitchen sink with a bunch of species and racial additions tossed in because someone, somewhere read a book or saw a movie and felt the need to add just one more humanoid species to the mix or wanted a new card to add to the possible decks one could create.

QuoteWhat do you do if there are too many humanoids or too similar monsters?

Introduce PCs into the region. That seems to eliminate the problem pretty quickly.

Remove meaningless distinctions.  Elves are elves, we don't need high elves, low elves, dark elves, light elves, forest elves, meadow elves, sea elves, lake elves, mountain elves, valley elves...

Quote from: darthfozzywig;1008113Introduce PCs into the region. That seems to eliminate the problem pretty quickly.

This.

Humans are enough of an opponent already.
We just give them funny "suits" and call them "humanoids" so we don't feel bad killing them.
=

I lean towards keeping the number of races lower but having cultural variations.  As far as I'm concerned Hobbits, Pixies, Leprechauns, and Bogies are all the same race.  So, kind of the opposite of what Old Geezer said but at the same time the same as what he said.  I tend to like monsters as unique aberrations rather than extant species as well.

I'd be happy with a smaller set of humanoids using variations. When I used to run my college friend's home brew, I mostly used goblins and trolls, actually the game ran with most encounters drawn from a small set of creatures (goblins, trolls, ghouls, skeletons, wights, spectres, wolves, dragons, and a few other critters). D&D wound up with a large number of creatures for a couple reasons. The first reason is to provide creatures as different levels of challenge (this would have been better solved by giving creatures levels in some way) and the second, to create the unknown. I wonder how much the sense of the unknown really matters. Does it really work? The only real way to sustain that is to constantly make unique creatures, but then if creatures are one-off, it actually doesn't matter how many you have, you will use it, the PCs will kill it and it will be done, or not, in which case it may need to live in your notebook for a while, no different than a human NPC. If you still want bands of humanoids that are more consistent, then stat up each band, though maybe each band is a unique humanoid, or maybe they're all orcs with variations for each band.

Frank

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008116Remove meaningless distinctions.  Elves are elves, we don't need high elves, low elves, dark elves, light elves, forest elves, meadow elves, sea elves, lake elves, mountain elves, valley elves...

Ah, you would have hated the homebrew world of my 14 year old imagination- I think I had a bazillion different types of elves.  Just thinking back on it makes me embarrassed:)  

I don't mind a ton of different humaniods, but it depends on the world being run.

Quote from: David Johansen;1008128I lean towards keeping the number of races lower but having cultural variations.  As far as I'm concerned Hobbits, Pixies, Leprechauns, and Bogies are all the same race.  So, kind of the opposite of what Old Geezer said but at the same time the same as what he said.  I tend to like monsters as unique aberrations rather than extant species as well.

There's merit to this.  There's no physical difference between New Yorker, Bostonian, Yankee, Nutmegger, Virginian, ect.  Just cultural differences, and those don't have to be mechanical.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008116Remove meaningless distinctions.  Elves are elves, we don't need high elves, low elves, dark elves, light elves, forest elves, meadow elves, sea elves, lake elves, mountain elves, valley elves...

That's when you need Talislanta... No elves! Just a ton of different humans, well maybe humans?

So an interesting question, how does Talislanta fit into this discussion? It does have a lot of essentially humans (not only does it not have elves, it doesn't really have humans either...), but the way the templates work, each type is not just a set of combat stats and special abilities, but also some degree of culture wrapped into one neat little template bundle.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1008131Ah, you would have hated the homebrew world of my 14 year old imagination- I think I had a bazillion different types of elves.  Just thinking back on it makes me embarrassed:)  

I don't mind a ton of different humaniods, but it depends on the world being run.

None of us should be held accountable for what we did when we were 14.

Don't use them all. Pick and choose. One can get a lot of mileage out of a limited roster of monsters. Conflating them (like the little people example above) is a good, robust, idea.

Quote from: saskganesh;1008137Don't use them all. Pick and choose. One can get a lot of mileage out of a limited roster of monsters. Conflating them (like the little people example above) is a good, robust, idea.

This, turned up to 11.  There isn't a "problem" with having lots of races or humanoids from which to select.  It's only a problem if you feel compelled to use more than you want, for some reason. Don't do that.

Quote from: saskganesh;1008137Don't use them all. Pick and choose. One can get a lot of mileage out of a limited roster of monsters. Conflating them (like the little people example above) is a good, robust, idea.

This. So much this. PICK & CHOOSE!

The same applies for races, subraces, classes, subclasses, backgrounds, skills, professions, etc. Just because it's in the book does not mean ALWAYS ON. Setting comes first!

It's your game, your campaign, your world -- own it! Learn to make the tough decisions early in world design so you are ready to gut up when you have to make tougher decisions (rulings) later. Cosmopolitan Stone Soup is not the default setting, and options for inspiring imagination is not publisher diktat.

Make unafraid choices already.

Quote from: David Johansen;1008128I lean towards keeping the number of races lower but having cultural variations.  As far as I'm concerned Hobbits, Pixies, Leprechauns, and Bogies are all the same race.  So, kind of the opposite of what Old Geezer said but at the same time the same as what he said.  I tend to like monsters as unique aberrations rather than extant species as well.

I did something similar with goblins, gremlins, kobolds and other small, vicious humanoids and fairies. For example, kobolds are fairly diverse outside D&D. Not only are there scaly kobolds, there are furred kobolds, bald kobolds, goblin kobolds, hobbit kobolds, furred bird-legged kobolds, doggy kobolds, rodent kobolds, and even giant kobolds!

Same for the horrible rat people. Ptolus has three subraces distinguished by size. Scarred Lands has a dozen subraces with superpowers like transparent flesh or throwing lightning.