#DnD DMs of the #Fediverse: Have you ever made a PC race illegal?
I am feeling inspired by #mcdm_productions worldbuilding where all Dragonborn have a bounty on their heads, which was set by the current king. I would like to do something similar in mine with Orcs, but I’m not sure how to handle that lore-wise.
By “illegal,” do you mean the player is not allowed to choose the race for their character? Or do you mean the race is outlawed within the setting, i.e. Orcs would have no legal protections and are persecuted by the law?
Oh that’s cool af and would instantly make me want to be dragonborn
On the flip side I was able to convince my DM to let me play as a goblin since his back story was that he didn’t like goblin society and wanted to be a bard. However, due to the perception of goblins in the bard scene, he would be disguising himself as a halfling.
So we kept it a secret from the other players for a long time while I dropped clues and was eventually called out. It was like a year of sessions before someone was like, “ok what’s with the weird rage fits you keep having?”
In some regions in my world there’s a distinct amount of racism so some places have outlawed different people to different degrees.
For example one city outlawed Goblinoids within their city limits. Another nearby city had a curfew for Goblinoids vs outright banning their presence within their city limits.
There’s quite a a bit that can be said about quite a bit by what restrictions exist in your world and the hardships people can face.
@Shkshkshk @dnd I’m currently running a campaign that I’ve restricted to just the PHB, or do you mean a setting where a race is in the world, but simply existing is punishable by some means?
Same, I actually think for new players, it is best to limit the race options to not overwhelm them with joice
He’s talking about in-world legal bans on races. In other threads he has used examples of how in Matt Colville’s lore, Dragonborn are banned by the evil Lord Ajax the Invincible since they are a symbol of the previous regime, and he has enforced that via a hefty bounty.
I ran a short campaign where Warforged were heavily legally restricted. If you played one, you did not legally count as a person, and could not conduct activities without your owner. If you were by yourself, you needed to be unarmed and unclothed except for an amulet from the noble house of your owner. The plot ended up being basically Django Unchained.
Depends on the context of the setting and the story. I mostly tend to allow all official PC races without any objection. I see an adventurer as an outlier of society and not the norm.
In the games I tend to run I either swing between everything is allowed or just one is allowed.
If I want to do an mini adventure about a goblin clan fighting a kobold incursion, then everyone is playing goblins.
He’s asking about in-game legal restrictions. For example, Matt Colville has had players that play dragonborn, mainly because of the bounty and the fact that they are defying Lord Ajax by simply existing.
I would talk to the player(s). Playing the outlaw, making disguises, sounds fun.
But also it could introduce racial discrimination into the mix. Y’all would need to be OK with handling that theme.
You should probably clarify that what you’re talking about here is races being “illegal” within the setting (that’s what MCDM does with dragonborn). Players are still allowed to pick the race, but they are signing up for extra hardship, kinda like the Nosferatu in V:TM.
As for my answer: I don’t make any races outright illegal in the setting, but I do ban certain ones from being chosen by the players if that race doesn’t exist in my setting. I do have NPCs treat PCs differently based on their race, but typically only using obvious fantasy tropes, so that people know what they’re signing up for.
I am tinkering with something similar right now, with the elf-equivalents being virtually illegal outside the borders of their own empire.
So, here’s what I would suggest you consider:
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First, discuss it with your players and make sure you’re not going to piss any of them off by doing this. If any of them were planning on playing said race, make sure they’re okay with the impact on their play style.
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Consider the storytelling conflicts you want to explore with this. What encounters do you want to put your players through, and why? What themes are you looking to explore?
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Consider the larger impact on other parts of your world. Try to make this more than a point that exists in isolation and a vacuum.
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No but I would consider requiring a reflavor if it was incompatible with the setting. Not sure that’s ever come up but it could.
Or are you asking about in-world legality?
@LibertyLizard
I’m talking about in-world legality. #MCDM has lore about how dragonborn are created being that were crafted during the reign of Good King Omin, so they are a symbol of that better age. As such, the despotic Lord Ajax has placed a bounty for dragonborn heads.I don’t really have anything comparable in my world, though? There is a bad guy evilling in a holding pattern over the western horizon, but I have other lore about his machinations.
I see. You definitely would need to consider how that fits into the desired campaign narratives. If the whole campaign is about freedom fighters opposing Lord Ajax, it makes little difference if one character starts out as more of an outlaw than another. But if the campaign is meant to be knights of the round table doing quests for the one true king, it might be more of a problem if a player has to have a secret identity or sit out most social encounters. I wouldn’t want to impose that situation on a player unless they are specifically interested in playing that role.
My DMs have always banned flying characters.
Is that common?
I allow flying races but I insist they have in their background story a reason why they can’t fly right now, and I’ll bring it into the story and play later on so the character can do something to regain their flight when they get to the level I’ve decided they can have flight in this campaign (usually 8-11)
@Toes
Not what I’m asking. I’m asking for lore ideas, like why would the King have outlawed Orcs and put a Bounty on their heads.But is is common for flying characters to be banned. Not sure why. Everybody can get a bow or crossbow, and there’s no cover up there.
For me it’s more about trivializing certain puzzles. Pretty much everything with a chasm gets reduced to “I pick up a rope and fly over there.”. Sometimes, that’s ok, but sometimes I don’t want it to be that simple.
Well, life has gotten a whole lot simpler, since I stopped DMing DnD altogether.
No, but I’m also an extremely permissive DM.
@Shkshkshk @dnd I play a Salubri in VTM, which covers a lot of the same narrative ground! It immediately makes a fairly rote part of the character creation process into a really interesting narrative hook
Yes. Well, no. Well, sorta.
Rather than making races illegal, I defined what races were available in my last campaign because it was supposed to take place in a part of the world that had very specific limitations.
Primarily, there are no reptilian races in the area. This is because I want them to form their own empire elsewhere in the world, and I want that to be the second area of the campaign we play in with everyone playing a reptilian character.
In terms of lore, have it be something like the king is forced to do it because of perceived attacks or threats and the populous demanded some sort of action. Then you can either play it where the party finds the real source of the attacks or it’s some weird splinter group or cult of the outlawed race and any orcs in the party have to fight against them or with them.
Totally depends on the vibe of the party but I’d lean towards the first option. Maybe a rival to the king is stirring up trouble as an excuse to stage a coup. For comedic points, have it be an area where they aren’t familiar with orcs and they’ve been getting fooled by night raids of hired thugs dressed up in bad orc costumes.
The second option might be especially good if a party member or an NPC they meet is a half-orc who has to deal with conflicting loyalties.
I had one 5e campaign set in L5R where all PCs were technically human, but I let the PCs pick whatever race statblock they liked and reskinned their racial abilities as supernatural techniques passed down within their individual clan or family line.
I did not have the L5R splatbook at the time so I was just manually reskinning the PHB and the monster manual to the L5R setting. Worked great.
I’ve made a similar offer to players at my table. Unless I have some grievance with the mechanics (primarily flying races), anything officially published is on the table. However, if the race doesn’t exist in my setting, they have to reskin another race to achieve the desired statblock. The example I give is that catfolk aren’t a thing in my setting, but if you really wanted that speed boost effect, you could just be a really fast elf.
