LotR gets filtered from D&D more with each edition.

[RandomCasualty2]

Later, if necessary, I will add the extra Good creatures you cut from your list of Good creatures, because I noticed that yo left off "Owl, Giant" which is totally ass-hat of you:

I actually forgot those were intelligent. Honestly never used one in a game. Mostly I just started at the index of the MM and went onwards. I have no doubt I made a few mistakes.

As far as teleportation goes, they still need a description of the place they're going or have been able to seen it. Now a creature with flight and teleportation can get a good vantage point to teleport in, but ground based stuff, like most of the devils, wouldn't have that, unless your city happens to be in a valley or some shit. But classically most cities are actually built on high terrain, which would make it harder for the creatures to teleport inside and bypass the guards.

Barghest Humanoid
Bugbear Humanoid
Githyanki Humanoid
grimlock Humanoid

Being humanoid isn't enough if you're bestial. Now arguably, you can say goblins aren't beast enough. But bugbears are a fucking furry, and grimlocks are scary as shit.

Dark Naga Bypass

Bypass? How?

Drider Bypass

Again how? It can't teleport.

Ettin No Common
Troll No Common

I wouldn't figure language would be a big barrier honestly. If your town is trying to be Mos Eisley, then people are going to speak a bunch of languages. Figuring someone might have giant isn't unreasonable.

I mean I'll give you that the town probably woudln't bother learning infernal, but giant and goblin would be common enough languages that they'd learn.

I don't speak any german but they still let me enter germany.

Lamia Humanoid

Huh?

Lets read the descriptive text
This creature seems to be a cross between a stunningly attractive human and a sleek lion. It looks human from the waist up, with the body of a lion below that.

Yeah last I checked that's not humanoid.

Lich Bypass

Depends on his spells, a sorcerer or cleric lich in particular may be lacking the necessary spells.

medusa Humanoid

The head of snakes kinda makes you look a little bestial, don't ya think?

mind flayer Bypass

Um.. how? Plane shift isn't nearly accurate enough to get you anywhere within the walls of a city.

mummy Cannot talk to guards without attacking with deadly force.

It paralyzes them with fear... but honestly that's not even really an attack so long as it doesn't actually attack. They're just fucking scared of it. So yeah, it could totally talk.

Yuan-Ti Humanoid

Only some of them.

Astral Deva - Furry

Angelic looking things aren't monstrous.

Dryad - Furry

Dryads can't go more than 300 yards away from their tree. And thus won't be coming to your town in the first place.

Leonal - Furry

It casts polymorph as a spell like ability. Try again.

Pixie - Furry

It's a small elf. Certainly doesn't appear threatening.

Planetar - Large
Solar - Large

Again, angelic appearance, which is certainly not monstrous.

Not to mention if you're calling anything with invisibility/flight or teleportation a bypass, we can cross off a bunch of good creatures from the list too.

[A Man In Black]

I don't speak any german but they still let me enter germany.

what is this i dont even

What point are you guys trying to make? Once you have dragonborn, tieflings, minotaurs, wildren, githzerai, shifters, half-orcs, halflings, dwarves, and gnomes living together harmoniously, it doesn't matter a goddamn if you add ogres or goblins to the list, or how people feel about ogres or goblins or aboleths, or what the fuck ever. You've stopped playing LOTR and you're now playing some other setting. 4e drops the lingering 3e punishment for not at least paying lip service to LOTR, and just says, "Yeah, you want to play a psionic alien or a robot or a tree? Sure, why not?" That's an interesting design decision, and worth discussing.

I think it's a lot more interesting than carrying on a discussion about whether they are bestial and they are not.

[RandomCasualty2]

And I'm okay with that. Because Chewbacca is cooler than Gimli.

I don't think so.

Honestly when you get into characters that are solely defined by the fact that they're monsters, that pretty much sucks if you ask me. They're some weird ass race with no real connection to the game world, and their one defining factor is "I'm a minotaur" or "I'm a goliath"

And maybe that's interesting if the world actually cares that they're a minotaur, but pretty much you want to take that part out too and just have people look at them say "oh a minotaur" *shrug*. At that point, the character is just a pure min/max construct.

Good characters are made of interesting personalities and connections to the game world.

Now if people could make monster PCs with more interesting personalities than "RAWR! I'm a minotaur with no past who comes to kill things!" then maybe I might find them interesting, but all too often it's a poor roleplayers way of avoiding coming up with an interesting character.

If you think that a human character is boring, then stop giving your characters boring personalities. Movies and TV have lots of interesting human characters.

[TavishArtair]

Making humans ostensibly "friendly" to a minotaur doesn't mean removing the context of them being a minotaur. Unless you believe the only interesting relationship is outright violence, in which case your idea of a D&D game is even shallower than that.

[A Man In Black]

Now if people could make monster PCs with more interesting personalities than "RAWR! I'm a minotaur with no past who comes to kill things!" then maybe I might find them interesting, but all too often it's a poor roleplayers way of avoiding coming up with an interesting character.

Gimli is defined by the fact that he's a dwarf. He's the character who tags along and exemplifies and extols dwarven virtues. Everyone interacts with him as The Dwarf. His subplot is the reconciliation of the Team Good in microcosm, by way of The Dwarf finding things to like about The Elf and vice versa. He's the dude wearing the dwarf hat. How is funny-hat-that-defines-the-character somehow specific to odd-looking funny hats? How is it not an LOTR quality?

I think de-emphasizing the dwarves who come from dwarf cities full of dwarf culture etc., the sort of assumptions that Frank is championing as either unnatural or inferior (I'm kind of vague on which), causes people to think of their characters as less of The Dwarf and shift towards more of the Star Wars mindset, where everyone in the party is just a person and it just happens that some of those people have bull heads or scales.

Now, that's less interesting than a game that's more like Battletech or L5R where you have a small number of Serious Heavy Duty Cultures/Factions but I don't think that's something you can sell boxed in with the core rules in D&D. An integrated monoculture is superior to many segregated cultures because you can't seriously cram as many segregated cultures as funny hats into one world, and also because segregated cultures encourage people to let the funny hat strangle their brains. Plus, it lets you ride the natural prejudices and experiences of the audience if you're marketing your game in the US.

If you think that a human character is boring, then stop giving your characters boring personalities. Movies and TV have lots of interesting human characters.

Stop that, nobody is saying that human characters are boring. Instead, I'm saying that non-human characters are exciting, which is a common and popular belief among D&D enthusiasts.

[Itay K]

Astral Deva - Furry

Angelic looking things aren't monstrous.

Planetar - Large
Solar - Large

Again, angelic appearance, which is certainly not monstrous.

This statement is patently false. Not only is there no consensus on what "Angelic looking things" look like in D&D-land, it doesn't even matter because a giant winged green dude certainly fits the criteria of "it doesn't look very human so it can't come in". Saying that some monsters (some of whom have winged feathers, some glow, some don't) are recognizable a priori as beings of good means you've conceded that your position of shoot-on-sight is wrong as you can apply the same logic to couatls, shedus and what ever else. While you may be familiar with the well known depiction of angels in christian art as winged humans, angels are described in real-world texts as looking like anything from humans to six-eyed snakes to sphinxes to giant flaming chariot wheels.

Also, it didn't fit in my rant but a mention of Neon Genesis Evangleion is in order, so ... Neon Genesis Evangelion. There.

The fact is that by your own admission, someone at some point had enough interaction with a solar for the piece of information - "don't shoot the giant winged dude" - managed to trickle down to Steve the Village Guard, and the same procedure might happen with any other "bestial" being.

TL;DR - Angelic beings aren't automatically recognizable at all . If you can make an exception for a solar, you can make the same for a couatl. You're basically assuming your own proposition.

[RandomCasualty2]

Stop that, nobody is saying that human characters are boring. Instead, I'm saying that non-human characters are exciting, which is a common and popular belief among D&D enthusiasts.

A total misconception, created mostly by poor roleplayers who can't think of real personalities for characters.

You're right about gimli being basically just a representation of the dwarves. But at least the dwarves had some kind of defined culture for him to represent. Seriously, when some dude picks a goliath or a bugbear, we honestly don't even care about his culture. The goliath and bugbears don't even have cities. They don't do shit... in fact, the PC goliath may well be the only goliath you ever see.

I don't get excited at all with the prospect of a PC playing a minotaur. It's just another "RAWR! I'm the big monster with the axe!" bullshit. I can guarantee there won't be a background of interest and the character's personality will be dull as nails.

[A Man In Black]

I don't get excited at all with the prospect of a PC playing a minotaur. It's just another "RAWR! I'm the big monster with the axe!" bullshit. I can guarantee there won't be a background of interest and the character's personality will be dull as nails.

So someone was going to make an interesting and deep human character who wasn't at all "RAWR! I'm the big dude with the axe!", but because minotaur was an option he chose "RAWR! I'm the big monster with the axe!"

Bad roleplayers are bad roleplayers. You really can't do anything with them. However, I'm saying that dwarves who come from dwarf cities with dwarf culture etc. encourage bad roleplay from otherwise decent roleplayers. When being from X race is tied to heavily to being from X culture, otherwise perfectly capable roleplayers put on that straitjacket and pat themselves on the back for having done so.

On the other hand, if the minotaur is the only minotaur in town and this is where he grew up, once you deal with the small matter of where the fuck a minotaur came from he's just a dude with horns. There's no obligation or encouragement to turn him into an employee of the Tourist Board of Minotauria the way that Gimli is extolling the virtues of vacationing in the underground cities. Instead, he's just the D&D equivalent of Admiral Ackbar; a guy who happens to have a weird-looking head.

It also has the positive effect of blurring the line between Team Evil and Team Good, so you aren't left wondering why all [evil race] are genetically jerks. Instead, Team Evil more evil and more understandable because they choose to be jerks instead of just getting along like everyone else does. In fact, that's the sort of thing you don't even need to explain; if all races are just people, part of an integrated whole, then some of them are just assholes and that's that. But if orcs are a monoculture of assholes, that raises all sorts of weird questions that stretch credulity.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Stop that, nobody is saying that human characters are boring. Instead, I'm saying that non-human characters are exciting, which is a common and popular belief among D&D enthusiasts.

A total misconception, created mostly by poor roleplayers who can't think of real personalities for characters.

Yeah, it's just like when those damn' munchkin players start asking to play wizards and knights. What, can't create an interesting commoner? Have to replace personality with theatrics because you're a roll player and not a role player?

People like that just make me sick, and I simply refuse to let them into my game of Farmers and Turnips.

[RandomCasualty2]

On the other hand, if the minotaur is the only minotaur in town and this is where he grew up, once you deal with the small matter of where the fuck a minotaur came from he's just a dude with horns.

That's basically what makes him boring.

At the very least a poor roleplayer can kinda become a stereotype for dwarven culture or whatever. He can do that scottish pirate accent and talk a lot about ale. And in any case, the guy at least has some kind of personality. It may be a dwarven stereotype personality, but at least it's something.

You're absolutely right that bad roleplayers are bad roleplayers and make bad characters, but they actually get worse when you let them be monster races, since they feel like being a dude with horns is good enough as an interesting personality. I want them to feel like their characters are boring by default. I want them to try to breathe life into them themselves. Giving interesting quirks to a boring human character produces a better PC than just throwing on a bullhead and horns and calling it a day.

[God_of_Awesome]

I like to play rogue drow and subvert the stereotypes on rogue drow as much as possible. That's always fun.

[A Man In Black]

Giving interesting quirks to a boring human character produces a better PC than just throwing on a bullhead and horns and calling it a day.

Once you take away that idea that a bullhead is any more of a personality choice than writing wizard on your character sheet, you end up putting other races in the same place as humans. The result is a character roleplayed as well as a minotaur as it would be for a human. For this bad roleplayer you're so obsessed with, it's "Rawr, it hit people!" either way.

[mean_liar]

Definitely. I'd be delighted if the taverns looked like this:

That is my favorite DnD pic of all time. I especially like how Team Utter Evil is just tryin' to have some drinks and maybe eat a brain or two AND GEEZ COULD YOU JUST KEEP THE NOISE DOWN.

[Mask_De_H]

Gee RC, your argument is looking kinda false dilemma fallacy right now.

[Username17]

I'm lost. Is RC arguing that you can keep your city safe by kicking out all the monsters that "look evil" on the grounds that the people know what all the good and bad creatures look like? Or is he arguing that No True Scotsman is a good roleplayer who would like to play a character that is less "human-like" than an Elf is?

I understand and reject his claim that monsters who can turn invisible cannot sneak past guards, but the rest of this trainwreck I just can't even identify the original track.

-Username17

[Koumei]

I think he's simply bitching about the fact that D&D moved on from being "Lord of the Rings: the roleplayan game".

[RandomCasualty2]

I'm lost. Is RC arguing that you can keep your city safe by kicking out all the monsters that "look evil" on the grounds that the people know what all the good and bad creatures look like? Or is he arguing that No True Scotsman is a good roleplayer who would like to play a character that is less "human-like" than an Elf is?

This was a different tangent that really has nothing to do with the xenophobic argument, because this is entirely an OOC issue, where the xenophobia argument is about IC considerations.

It's not the no true scotsman, it's more just an observation that bad roleplayers use random monster races as a crutch to not bother to flesh out a personality. This is pretty evident whenever a PC creates a random monster character with no real basis in the storyline or attachment to the game world. It's one thing if your world has an active storyline involving dragons and someone makes a dragon PC. That's cool. It's quite another story when nobody has even heard of a goliath and a PC airdrops one into your game with the bullshit "I'm a planar traveller" excuse.

Now I've had one PC out of everyone I've gamed with be able to pull off the random character in a way that was memorable and entertaining. Everyone else who has tried it failed miserably and ended up creating a boring and stupid character.

In an RPG, I really like my character to have some kind of interesting background. It was one of my favorite aspects of Dragon Age: Origins how you got to play out your character's backstory at the start of it. You really got a sense of where you fit into the world. And I like to have that in tabletop RPGs I play too. Having someone be from some race nobody has ever heard of with no active place in the world just really kills the story for me.

And my complaint has less to do with the PCs being monstrous and more to do with picking shit that doesn't really exist in that area. It's the same reaction if someone wanted to be an elf in a world with no elves.

[Username17]

It's not the no true scotsman, it's more just an observation that bad roleplayers use random monster races as a crutch to not bother to flesh out a personality.

Bad Roleplayers create every kind of available character. Good roleplayers do too.

This "observation" is equivalent to saying "You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!" While technically true, it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with actual statistical probability and shows no correlation, implication, or directional effect.

Basically this is exactly like your argument that monsters that "look weird" were indicators of monsters you should not let in. You had no actual numbers to back up your claim, and when we brought out the numbers you went all No True Scotsman on us. And yes, yes you really did.

You said that Frost Giants "looked weird" because they were large sized and had blue skin. But Solars (who are large sized and have blue skin) were totally OK because people somehow "knew what a solar looked like" (despite the fact that it is a CR 20+ monster that comes to this particular village once in never). So when it gets down to it, your definition of "looks weird" is "looks like any of the evil creatures" since you are assuming that random villagers know what all th good and evil creatures look like. A set of assumptions which, I must hasten to add, completely undermines your original complaint which was that Dragonborn look like something that random villagers would not allow in town.

And you're doing exactly the same thing with "good roleplayers" argument. You personally get sand in your vagina when people play characters that wouldn't fit in Lord of the Rings, so you have decided that all the players who play stuff that gives you a sandgina are bad roleplayers. And f we show you any characters that are awesome and definitively not LotR stock, you'll hate them too and claim that they are bad role players too. No True Scotsman for the win (lose).

-Username17

[Koumei]

This "observation" is equivalent to saying "You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!" While technically true,

This has nothing to do with the argument, but it's simply worth knowing: he actually wasn't, it's a myth. So it can't be argued that vegetarianism, as an extreme, leads to genocide.

As I said though, this doesn't actually prevent the rest of your post from being correct there.

And RC, I've generally found that playing weird races helps people get creative - because it's different, they feel it's important to sit down and think "What would my culture be like?" rather than saying "I am the dwarf. Dwarfydwarfdwarf." or "I am an elf. I come from the elfland and I do elfy things." or indeed "I am a human. Yeah, human! I come from a standard human town. Yeah." But that's only personal experience too, and like your argument isn't actually supported by anything. Mine, however, doesn't involve telling people "No, you can't play that, you're a bad roleplayer!"

[Thymos]

Wasn't it gygax who said that anyone who wants to play a non human/elf/dwarf character is actually a powergaming munchkin whose characters need to be killed by the DM until they learn better?

[TOZ]

Them oldtimers said a lot of things. Some were even worth remembering.

[Dominicius]

What was the original argument about? This all went into the 'very confusing' territory for me.

[Koumei]

What was the original argument about? This all went into the 'very confusing' territory for me.

"D&D is becoming less and less like LotR, and that is a good thing."

[God_of_Awesome]

One of my favorite campaigns I've ran, with little success mind you, was playing multi-ethnic SWAT team in a fantasy city, multi-ethnic translating to any number of monstrous races being in it.

It was colorful.

LotR, on the other hand, always felt like severals shades of green, gray and brown.

[Dominicius]

What was the original argument about? This all went into the 'very confusing' territory for me.

"D&D is becoming less and less like LotR, and that is a good thing."

No I get that. I got confused when this turned into a discussion of fantasy racism and what race would get kicked out of a human village.

How to these two relate? Can't you be racist to someone without kicking them out of your village?