Dwarven Pimp.

Make a dwarf.

Pay 4 hookers to dress up as an orc, an elf, a dwarf(she's going to cost extra),and a warforged(get the non-toxic silver paint).

Make them bland and uninspire him.

Make Dwarven Warforged Bard. Up to your neck in bearded wemanfolks. AWWWWWWWW RIGHT

Get him to play Dwarf Fortress.

Play a Dwarven Bard.
Play a Dwarven Swashbuckler.

Make him read all of Discworld.
Hit him with a hammer?

That sounds like an interesting setting. I'm sorry your roleplaying skills begin and end with a scottish accent.

Just remember, OP, violence is not the answer.
It's just the right answer.

You don't. Dwarves are dwarves are dwarves. To change that is to pretty much make an entirely new race.

I applaud your DM for trying something new. DnD's fascination with absolutely bizarre monsters (Gricks, aboleths, etc) should extend to its playable races as well.

If he thinks Warforged and Shardmind are bland and uninspired, then I'm not sure how you can convince him that a short, squat human is somehow more than that. Because as sure as I'm sitting here, that's all he thinks of dwarfs.

He's got a bit of a point, though. There have been very few original dwarfs throughout fiction. The only interesting or different ones that come to mind are the Mountain Folk from Exalted and the dwarfs from Shadowbane (the latter being a race literally made of animated stone that can't reproduce, so every dwarf is ancient and the race is dying).

So prove to him that "beauty isn't skin deep" as they say. Find individual dwarfs who are interesting because of their character, not their race.

Though I repeat, I'm not sure you'll be able to convince him of this at all.

Warforged and Shardminds are bland and uninspired but dorfs are dorfs.

Stat up a suave dwarf rogue ladies man for shits and giggles.

Is not allowing anything humanoid in his setting?

I don't think you're going to get too much support here, OP. Your DM's setting sounds better than the generic one by a large margin anyways.

He's obviously a furry, talk to him, maybe he can be cured with doctor's help

You don't.

This obviously another DM who desperately wants to make everything in his world 'original'. See: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurMonstersAreDifferent

The problem is that this usually means they find the original fantasy races 'boring' or 'unoriginal', since all the good ideas have been implemented before, by other people, and that makes them feel uncomfortable with using said races. This is why you're getting the bullshit you mentioned, which instead of being original, just sounds like existing ideas smashed together to make something more horrible.

Tieflings and Genasi? So elemental devils? Sounds like a forced match. Holy Dragonborn? I think I would quit my campaign if something like that showed up. I hate draconic races that aren't dragons as it is, and adding a holier-than-thou attitude to them just seems hackneyed. Mind Vampires? You mean Mind Flayers?

So don't try, you're not going to change his mind anytime soon unless you slap something else onto the existing template. Like Dwarves mixed with golems or shadow elves or some shit. Good luck OP.

OP, your DM is a furry.
Run away.

Don't play with that DM.

Our group had to shun our last one because he was like this about Elves and Dwarves. Whats the point of playing a game like D&D or Gurps or what have you if your Dungeon Master restricts half the player races just because "he doesn't like them"

I always play Dwarves, I just like the idea of them, Big bearded drunk rifle wielding mother fuckers. the Dwarf Slayers from Warhammer Fantasy are my favorite, what's not to like about a Dwarf with a huge fucking mohawk, two axes in his hand, killing his honor back...

Play a short Viking.

Your DM thinks he's better than standard fantasy but doesn't have the chops to back it up. Welcome to /tg/, every idea is like that.

>>13851937
Tell him when everything is unique, like tiefling genasi, holy dragonborn, mind vampires that everything in the campaign world becomes retarded and full of shit. Everything becomes a special snowflake, and a normal dwarf who fucks shit up actually becomes ordinary and interesting.

Tell your GM he's a faggot. If you play a dwarf (take out the usual, racist mountain dwarves who mine aspect out of your character sorry to break his stereotype), and roleplay the shit out of him. If your going the whole Moradin route, make him interested in the craftmanship of something. Architecture, weapons, armour, whatever you want.

Develop a god damn good personality for him (are you going to be loyal to your allies, mistrust your enemies, boast your victories, or be secretive and cunning?), and just overall be a good player.

Would it really kill you for one game not to play a shot man with a beard who likes to drink and axe/hammer things to death?

>>13852068

>Dwarf Slayers from Warhammer Fantasy

This. Dwarves who have broke a promise and their culture frowns so much on this that they go find the biggest possible thing to fight amd hopefully die honourably fighting it. The only problem is because they're so powerful a lot of the time they survive and so, set out on a quest to find something bigger to kill them.

>>13852083
Everyone tires to do something unique and interesting. DND then drowns in the shit everyone does. I recently played a 3.5 in school where I had these rules. I must be a core class. I must be a core race. I cannot multiclass or prestige.

EVERYONE is fucking multiclassed to shit, is some retarded race and out of everyone I am the one stands out. They all try to optimize their characters, but ultimately the core classes still get's shit done. What it comes down to are items (mostly for melee classes). So honostly, fuck all you bitches that roll retarded combinations with no backstory what so ever other than "it's a cool character." Do you have a reason why you went paladin, monk, fighter?

Be a fucking man, and role core. /tg/ needs to take a step in showing that this unique bullshit is drowning DnD.

>>13852106

Pretty much the apex of awesome in the WH-Fantasy universe.

>>13852120

No, that belongs to ogres, but it's pretty close.

Applaud him for not being a /tg/-ish neckbeard dorfaboo, for one. Then man up and either play in the setting the way your DM has it set up, or find a new group.

>>13852104
Hmmm, considering almost EVERY adventurer drinks, and enjoys killing things. How is that any fucking different? If a dwarves are fascinated with the creation of objects and items- it makes sense that they take great care in the brewing of ale.

This only means that dwarves hold a high opinion of ale, much like wine.

Make your dwarf a non-alcoholic why not. Make him a connoisseur of ales.

>>13852054
OP here, I decided to play a fire genasi/tiefling thing, because that honestly sounded the most interesting. One player is the holy dragonborn, the rest are humans.

We've been collectively abusing the holy dragonborn for his (perceived) incompetence, so that's helped temper the better-than-thou somewhat, especially because he swore an oath to defend one of our number, so he can't just ditch us in a huff.

As for the Mind Vampires, we had a player play one out of curiosity, and it turned out poorly. They're refugees from another dimension, the kind of race that has the adjective "misunderstood" appended at every opportunity. Basically, they came off as Beta-As-Fuck Mindflayers that didn't have the self-esteem to go evil. The player rerolled.

To all the people who recommend I roll a dwarf, I really can't. We're playing in his homebrew setting, the best I could do is roll a short human and have him act as a dwarf, though I figure that'd do more to validate or troll him than to prove any point.

I hate dorfs too. Main reason is Gimli and the idea that all dwarves, even girl ones, should be Gimli.

OP - In all likelihood, you'll never convince him otherwise.

Perhaps if you got him to read Jung and appreciate the value of archetypes, he might start to, but I doubt that will happen.

Play something that's not a dwarf, is it realy that hard? This thread reminds me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_javitMe8FY#t=5m30s

>>13852113
It's not just a question of "original" versus "established", though. What do dwarves represent? What do elves represent?

Dwarves are hard-working and orderly, but enjoy simple pleasures like getting drunk and fighting when the work-day is over.

Elves, on the other hand, are more about artistic beauty and aesthetics unbound by concepts of social morality (other than "be nice to other people"). On the other hand, they can be seen as arrogant and self-righteous.

I shouldn't have to explain this further, but I'm going to: the reason dwarves and elves are popular is because they tie into political viewpoints. The reason "unique races" are shitty is because they're just there to be...not human. You can give them a trait or two but there's no way you're going to make a race that ties into as many relatable concepts as an elf or dwarf or hobbit does.

Basically, it's dumb to make a new race for the sake of saying IT'S A NEW RACE LOOK HOW COOL IT LOOKS. Humans work 90% of the time, and standard fantasy races can fill out the other 10%. If you care enough to try to make a new fantasy-esque race, you need to really fucking work at it because otherwise it's going to feel cheap and shallow.

wierd, I'm really a Low-Fi girl at heart but honestly dwarves have always been my favourite, though I tend to insist on a Dwarf Fortressy version. Very very Obsessive compulsive about 'dwarfness' but completely oblivious to stuff around it.

The setting is basically 9th centurary dark ages England; the dwarves represent the Romans who fell from empire through disinterest and retreated underground. The humans are the Saxons have just completed their genocide of the native men who where technologically proficient but martially inept. The woods are filled with Elves but their definitely the crazy fey variant and almost exclusively NPC having completely non inhuman mindsets, halfelves revet to being changelings (the human babies snatched from their cribs.) Gnomes gibberlings ect are all not present.

It actually works very well and encourages people to make human pcs but actually focus on their background to obtain the correct effect.

It's funny because the popularity of warhammer dwarf slayers are precisely the reason why I'm sick of dwarves.

It seems the only thing they're not better than everyone else at doing, is dying, a trait I only find endearing Daleks. That's just my opinion though I'm not trying to shit on anyone for liking dwarfs.

>>13852169
OP here. Man, I was originally writing these responses off as trolling and ignoring them, but looks like there's enough of them that whoever's posting all of them is probably serious.

I rolled a dwarf, once, years ago. He was an atypical dwarf, a dwarf brute rogue who shunned his clan honor because it was easier to steal riches than make them. I've never rolled a dwarf since.

To be honest, Warforged or Shardmind hold the most appeal to me. I love the distinctly alien way of looking at the world, of trying to reach an understand with a race that's fundamentally different from you. But the DM didn't like those, so I offered up dwarves. Dwarves can live cloistered lives in their mountain fortresses, doing things with an order that would make even the most entrenched human bureaucrats balk. They can be a little hard to understand, and I like that. I assumed that, because they were more human-like, he'd be more likely to go for them.

The DM, needless to say, reacted pretty poorly.

The problem that I have with many homebrew races, not just his in particular, are that they come off like the aliens in Star Trek. The foreheads and sometimes color are different, and they have some odd customs, but otherwise you can just pick one up and have it on your spaceship and be able to more or less easily understand it. There's no cognitive dissonance. Everyone's friendsies.

At the end of the day I'd just like to play a character that does things differently, because it encourages conversation and roleplaying.

>>13852144
Oh cool, thanks for replying OP. Hope the fire-tiefling thing works out for you, it just doesn't sound like a particularly great pair of ideas to slap together. Is there any story behind the race's origin that you're aware of?

Yay for party abuse! Makes sense, though. My incompetent RP friend immediately went for a Dragonborn Paladin when 4th ed D&D was released, and everyone hated him for trying to act like he was better than everyone, as he tends to do with Paladins. First session ended with the rogue trying to kill him.

No big surprise on the mind vampire, people have a hard time ascribing a unique culture and traits to most 'vampire' types. There's something in the purely destructive nature of eating or draining others that doesn't seem to mix well with stability and society without throwing in caveats like 'you just don't understand us, baaaaawww'.

Hope you still have fun, despite the lack of familiar races that are easy to, you know, sympathize with. Or at least understand. If you want another campaign, though, I'm going to start a WHFB one soon. Room for a Dwarf.

>Be a fucking man, and role core. /tg/ needs to take a step in showing that this unique bullshit is drowning DnD.

Core casters and their spells are what broke 3e, not "splat creep."

Seriously though, can we NOT have Scottish, drunk dwarves, please?
Is that so much to ask?

>>13852254
WHY DO SHARDMINDS HAVE BOOBS. WHY THE FUCK DO SHARDMINDS EXIST? Stupidest race ever no offense.

If the DM doesn't like dwarves, and you've already sat down and explained to them what they are then you can't do much other than choose another race.

>>13852313
Shardminds have boobs to mimic humanoids.
Read the fluff.

>He even crafted his homebrew setting, with races like ...to specifically avoid traditional races.
Sounds good to me so far. What i'm seeing is "whaaa, I can't drink ale and shit anvils with my manlyman beard on!"

Fucking dorfaboos.

>>13852310
I once made an Irish drunk dwarf monk.

So /tg/ is divided by dwarves. What does /tg/ think of Ogres? I'm playing an ogre maneater in WFRP and I'd just like the general concensus on our tubby friends.

>>13852310
>>13852333
The shittiest, most hackneyed, most cliched "Scottish Beer Ach Mining Ground Dirt Midget" dwarf is still deeper and more developed than the average "NO ITS TOTALLY UNIQUE YOU GUYS" race.

dwarf fortress

>>13852340
He was also greedy as shit and a grave-robber. Then he became a king.

>>13852310

I once made a Dwarf paladin with a vow of temperance, who became a paladin do atone for his actions while drunk. He refused to drink alcoholic beverages, although he still struggled with the addiction calling to him.

>>13852291
It's working out pretty well, actually. I'm not playing him that much different from how I'd play a Genasi or Teifling Sorcerer (which is his class), but I'm still having a good time.

He's a lovable fop who has a soft spot for children, likes to think he's better at what he does than he is. and would rather socially waylay monsters than fight them. He's not above making himself look like a complete and total idiot if it means he gets to live through a fight.

As for the origin behind the race, they used to be creatures of four elements before some kind of hubris broke them into four varieties of creatures of one element each. At paragon and epic tiers, they acquire another element. Interesting concept, but ancient-hubris-race has been used plenty of times.

But yeah, aside from me having no idea what he should be like, he's become the party face. Which works, I guess.

>>13852355
Nope, i'd rather see sparklepires then dwarves. You get tired of the same Uirst mcalestone clones wandering around being Gimli. Which is why my campaigns the only time dwarves are mentioned is "they died out so long ago even the ruins they left behind are gone, and no one remembers what the fuck a dwarf is."

It's better for me, and better for my players, and probably would be better for gaming as a whole to get off the dorf dick.

>>13852310

German master-race dwarves. I know I want to do it.

>>13852355
How?

>>13852144
>dm accuses dwarves of being bland and unoriginal, bans them

>the rest of the players are humans

wat

>>13852377
By yours powers divided, you are elemental elves!

>>13852415
Dwarves have a solid basis because Tolkien knew what he was fucking doing, and even a shitty copy of that still has an underlying connection to a reasonable concept.

On the other hand, we have "Genasi". Which are people who are like elements. Oh, and we have "Planetouched", who are people who are like alignments. Totally deep concepts here, bro, definitely a lot better to be DEMON VON MISUNDERSTOOD than ANGUS MCDRUNK

>>13852476
>DEMON VON MISUNDERSTOOD
I'm stealing that for my next game.

>>13852377
Well at least this shows that you're a good enough roleplayer to create a personality when none is offered up. I commend you!

'Unique' races tend to heavily lack cultural differences that would necessitate a different way of interacting with them, so that there's less problems integrating them with your campaign that way. It also tends to make the race itself more boring than, say, Dwarves, and leaves the player to make his character's ideologies and personality out of nothing.

What you're usually left with is differences in physique and origin. Like a race of elementals that randomly splits down to a single element, and then gains more of them as they get older. I'm starting to wonder if hack race creation is just a cover-up for a lack of good character and adventure ideas. Hmmm.

>>13852355
This. Being creative is fine, but when you try to be -too- original, you end up borderlining Mary Sue/overpowered/speshulsnowflake/total-bullshit territory and ruin the whole thing.

There's a reason why the triad of elf/orc/dwarf has lasted as long as it has in fantasy fiction - IT WORKS. The three mesh well together. Sure, you can fine-tune the details of things by making the dwarves ancient living statues, or the elves evil black S&M freaks, or the orcs Klingon-esque noble-savages, but by and large, you keep the bigger aspects intact, because they work so well, both with each other and by themselves.

Tell me, what sort of reasons, aside of "ZOMG NO DORFS OR ELFS" did he have for making his races? How do they interact/react with each other? That's the problem when you try to go whole-cloth with race creation, you run into roadblocks by trying to be overly creative... especially if you do so just for the sake of the futile effort of be truly original, when the truth is nothing is original anymore.

The OP's DM is right. Dwarves are generic and boring to the max. The DM's coming out of this as a really speshul snowflake type too, but maybe that's the OP projecting.

I just don't like the huge numbers of PC races that seem to be de rigeur these days. I don't see the point; they're all as Star Trek aliens, as someone said upthread - Californians with croissants glued to their faces. I'd be cool with a setting in which the only humanoids are, well, humans.

>>13852507
"I'd like a game with only humans" is a perfectly valid statement, but unfortunately for purposes of this discussion it's like totally the opposite of what the OP's DM is doing.

Your DM is right OP. Especially dwarfs are bad because they're the same in every single setting. At least there are a billion different elves. And Orcs can be done in a variety of ways. But dwarfs are always the same retarded people.

>>13852525
This.

>>13852525
"My totally original elf/orc/whatever do not steal" usually ends up just as bad as a "totally original race".

Fantasy races fulfill a role as "humans, but x". If you change the x, you might as well just use humans.

>>13852476
No.
>Vampires have a solid basis because Stoker knew what he was fucking doing, and even a shitty copy of that still has an underlying connection to a reasonable concept.

See my point? Agree with you about "hack race creation", though.

>>13852497
>This. Being creative is fine, but when you try to be -too- original, you end up borderlining Mary Sue/overpowered/speshulsnowflake/total-bullshit territory and ruin the whole thing.

That's just a strawman.

>There's a reason why the triad of elf/orc/dwarf has lasted as long as it has in fantasy fiction - IT WORKS. The three mesh well together.

This triad hasn't "lasted long"; it's only been about since "The Hobbit", and fantasy is almost the oldest fiction known. Secondly, even if they do go well together, others things work too. Refusing to step outside of late 20th century generic fantasy, and saying anything that does is "total-bullshit" or "too creative" is so ignorant it's ridiculous. If you're happy with your Tolkien clones, that's cool, but don't badmouth people because their tastes are broader than yours.

>>13852575
>See my point?
Actually, no. If we're going by the concept that "original races and variations on classic races are better", then you should think that Twilight vampires are totally great. If we're going by the concept that "variation from a model can take away the good parts" then dwarves are still safe because they're always done with basically the same traits.

Also, vampires were always awful. Vlad Tepes is literally more interesting as a human being than as a stupid undead cliche.

>How do I convince him otherwise?

Tell him to play morrowind.

Failing that, either play his game or find another GM. His setting does sound interesting, and I suggest you give it a chance. If it's shit, leave. Or, just ask to play a dwarf - the worst he can say is no. At the least he should let you play as one, but make them a dying race or something.

Honestly, I would play his game. It sounds very interesting and I do agree with 'bland', because let's face it; since Tolkien few people have made original fantasy settings. That being said, sometimes I like being a dwarf bashing the hell outta things, but it does get old. And if your GM has been doing it a while, a change of pace would be a gift to him.

>>13852575
Protip: The Hobbit was written after the trilogy.
Also, almost all of Tolkein's races are based off of Mythology, primarily Norse.

>>13852611
>Protip: The Hobbit was written after the trilogy.
This is so wrong that I'm awarding it a 6/10.

Either you do good, and get China Miéville.

Or you do bad, and get Shardminds.

Another issue with all these special snowflake Half-Demon Half-Awakened-Pencil Sharpener Holy Mushroom Mystic Planescrapers is that NO ONE except the player playing them ever really has a clue in fuck what they are. I'd rather play with Joe, knowing he's playing a Dwarf Fighter, and at least have a general concept what his character will be like, than sit around a table with 6 characters, all of which belonging to some race with a thought process so alien to human beings as to be impossible to keep track.

Dwarves and like archetypes give people a common ground rooted in the collective unconscious to draw on. Without at least some semblance to our own race and culture, the game lacks cohesion.

It doesn't mean everyone has to be pigeonholed either. Robin and Chewbacca both fall into the sidekick archetype, but I doubt anyone would confuse the two. The only thing stopping anyone from being able to play two dwarves differently is lack of imagination, and I sure wouldn't trust anyone with that great a lack of imagination to make up these special snowflake characters and pretend they're anything but superficially statistically different.

>>13852611

>>13852604
>help me put dorfs into a game.
>show him a game where dorfs are all dead

Brilliant.png

>>13852525
> At least there are a billion different elves.

You say that like it's a good thing.

I recently ran a setting where dwarves were every-fucking-where deep underground, but were walled up and shut off to the world for whatever reason. Not just Dragon Age walled-up where it's "OH you're a PC! You can totally come in. GRUFF AND ANGRY" but completely shut off from anything for centuries. The only dwarves available to the PCs came from a couple of dwarven fortresses that broke surface a few years ago and were either taken over by humans with the dwarves subsequently being enslaved, or completely lost their cultural identity with the influx of people trying to take their high tech shit.

Dwarves in the setting are doing their best to blend in to outside culture, and are failing pretty magnificently. It's a great cultural outsider angle, and it makes sense for a race accustomed to being underground.

Dwarves can be different, the DM just has to TRY.

Play a dwarf, be a unique and relatable character,

>special snowflake

Can we please stop using this phrase? It's very annoying.

>>13852624
took the words right outa my mouth.

>>13852654
As soon as people stop making races that are unique for the sake of being unique rather than being well-developed, then yes, we can retire the phrase Special Snowflake.

Now quit being a fucking Mary Sue about it.

>>13852643

>>show him a game where dorfs are all dead

I know what you're thinking, but they are very cool in that setting. They are basically ancient elf Sumerian architects who make steam-punk machines that sill guard their dead fortresses. If that description alone can't get the GM to let you play as one, well, fuck. I don't know what to do.

Like I said, just play as like "THE LAST DORF ON ERF"

One of the best charaters I ever played was a Teifling Rogue/Blackguard. Lawful Evil, part of a cult, total bitch, but dependable and loyal to the party so long as the riches kept coming in. She was a glass cannon, really; her HUGE backstabs raped anything that wasn't immune as long as our fighter kept the attention away from her, which he was really, really good at.

Well, eventually our DM had to go on a little hiatus so one of his friends took over our sessions. Turns out this new guy hates Teiflings. Like, seriously fucking hates them. So much so that after realizing he wasn't going to be able to convince me to roll a new character (we argued about it for like 20 minutes in the first session) that towards the end of the second session, he pulls some seriously retarded bullshit that results in his DMPC murdering my character in cold blood with little to no imput on my part.

Since the party needed someone to disarm/unlock/etc. I sucked it up and rolled an Elf rogue. Who later added Blackguard levels. Who, without the knowledge of the DM, was a member of my previous character's cult.

Oh, but the party knew. And we together hatched a plan to kill the DMPC in glorious revenge.

>>13852676
>Now quit being a fucking Mary Sue about it.

2/10, I would have given you a serious reply if you did not say the above line. Clearly, you have no idea what that word means, or you are a decent troll. Points for making me reply.

>>13852624
See, I'm respectfully just the opposite. While I too do hate on the players who jump on races with more than one "half" in them, mostly because they invariably play them as SULLEN EMO SPARKLEPIRE or PRINCESS MAGNIFICENT HAUGHTYPANTS, I think there's something to be said for playing a Shardmind.

Granted, if you've got a tavern table with a Shardmind, a Warforged, a Kender, and a Shifter, everyone's going to have to go home because no one's going to fucking understand a thing. But in moderation and with tame, human-like characters, it can be fun to explore an entirely alien mode of thought if you give it the right considerations. Not just LOL KENDERZ STEAL.

>dislikes all the common fantasy races - dwarves, orcs, elves - but he especially hates dwarves
>Teiflings-meet-Genasi, Holy Dragonborn, Mind Vampires,

OP, you should grateful that you have a DM who wants more than to regurgitate tired old fantasy cliches...


>...and about a billion kinds of beastfolk

Scratch that. Play a dwarf and troll that faggot

>>13852676
As soon as people stop making characters that are carbon copies for the sake of being THE SAME FUCKING THING, OVER AND OVER AGAIN rather than being well-developed, then yes, we can retire the phrase "i'm so dorfy my beard punches elves, the ponces they are".

Now quit being a fucking grognard about it.

>>13852654
It's also appropriate, and easier to say than "character made so as to seem different for the sake of being different, all the while really just being a shallow creation lacking in the depth found in a race and/or class with some more foundation in existing literature or culture".

If you can come up with a better euphemism, please do.

>>13852733
Yes, you're definitely right. A standard, reasonable base can never make a good character. That's why all of our most famous literary characters - Atticus Finch, Othello, Hamlet, Yossarian - have all been multiclassed planetouched who are specced for minmaxed spellcasting.

Bravo, you princes of innovation! You kings of Faerun!

>>13852705
Yeah, there was no way that misuse was INTENTIONAL or something, comparing the phrase "Special Snowflake" to "Mary Sue" in terms of describing an easily-understood concept, either 'unique for unique's sake' or 'powerful for power-fantasy's sake'.

And it's not like people who hate the term "Mary Sue" or "Special Snowflake" are doing so because they don't want their own characters and concepts to be regarded negatively despite the fact that they overlap heavily with those hated concepts.

>>13852813
That is a strawman so big we'll have to name him Bolster. We could use him to fuel Chinas energy industry for a year.

I mean, for starters, most fiction is not fantasy, and therefore couldn't possibly include nun-human characters. Except, like, wolves (why hello there Jack London).

Secondly, that anon said nothing about "can't". Just that the majority of players DO. Which I do not think you can deny.

A good player can play a good character regardless of the base species. A bad player, as most are, can't even with a simple human.

Play Star Wars. Where everyone is bland and uninspired regardless of race.

>>13852851
Fantastic literary characters are generally used to establish some overarching societal concept - Wolves have a different society than humans, the animals in Animal Farm reflect on the actual Soviet Union, etcetera.

There are very few literary characters who are "different for the sake of being different". Yeah, I just wanted a guy who's part fire. That's fair. That's reasonable.

you haven't played until you see a really good roleplayer in your party with a dwarven defender. most epic class in the game in my opinion.

>>13852813
That's a pretty dumb comparison.
None to those characters conform to DnD stereotype tropes. I guarantee that if someone rolled up a Hamlet character some grognard would complain how he's an emo misunderstood special snowflake.

People need to face facts and realize nine tenths of he accusations of mary sue and special snowflake are rooted in " stop liking what I don't like" rather than any real merit.

>>13852907
>stop liking what I don't like

And here we find the entire reason for OP's DM's new campaing with all the WTF races.

>>13852813
I see your raise and point out that I was talking about how most people play dwarves, aka they play the dwarves like steven segal plays action heroes.

A principaled, honest lawyer and a prince trying to avenge his father and dealing with himself ARE interesting. Dorfs, on the whole of what i've seen are generally not. There's only so many times you can see the same runty bastard in heavy armor, cleaving his way through orcs and beer the same way, while offending elves and growing the most handsome beard ever without rolling your eyes and calling it bullshit.

>>13852733
>>13852758
>>13852813
>>13852835
>>13852851
>>13851937

Stop, stop, stop. This is ridiculous, seriously. /tg/ is not supposed to be like this. Stop delving into these little arguments - anticipating eachothers' replies just so you can greentext the shit out of it. We have 2 sides of the argument;

1) Enjoys the 'classic' fantasy tropes. Elves, dwarves, orcs, all peachy-keen in their books. One or two unique elements spices up the game a bit, but no more than that or it become hard to relate. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

2) people who enjoy new characters/races/settings for their uniqueness. Jaded from Tolkien-esque fantasy and looking for change, even if for the sake of change. This doesn't make them mary-sue or a special snowflake. Even if it did, group number 1 could not know, because they don't play together.

Seriously, grow up. No one is wrong or right when they play these games and do no think because you stick to either group above you are superior in any way. You have one thing in common though, none of you have had OP's GM. You're getting butthurt about nothing at all, you're all making huge assumptions and arguing over eachothers' assumptions. Just shut the fuck up; let the thread die if this is all it will devolve into.

>>13852907
If he wrote up a Hamlet backstory beforehand, yes, it would be bad. If he developed in a similar way to Hamlet over the course of the game, then that's fucking character development. The difference is that one is "I'll just write whatever the fuck I want" and the other is moderated participation within the rules and logic of the game universe.

And it's irrelevant to the point. The point is: a race should affect one's character. "Special Snowflake" races don't think about that. They don't think about logistics and cultures and biology, they think about HEY WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF ____ and run with it. They make shallow races with a single gimmick and because it's a new race instead of an established one they don't have anything else to fall back upon.

>>13852935
What if I play a principaled, honest lawyer with "race: dwarf" of my character sheet?

>>13852936

I like you.

>>13852935
A dwarf provides a culture and background. It is up to the player to use it.

Getting mad at "generic dwarves" is like getting mad at humans because there's a guy who always plays a boring fighter with a sword. If you make him play a weirdo race he's not going to somehow be more creative, he's just going to have a different baseline and be a boring insect-headed fighter with a khopesh.

>>13852936
...I didn't argue that anyone should like what I did nor dislike what I disliked.

Look into the dwarf-races of "The Dark Eye / Das Schwarze Auge" ... if you can read german, maybe you could find an english translated version from fans of "Kinder Angroschs / Children of Angrosch" which is a themebook about these little bastards.

From what they eat, poop, fuck and make, everything.

And even then, you don't need to make a fucking stereotype which lines you can forsee everytime you try to open your mouth.

He can be an army-field-chef or cartographer, or even a simple soldier. In the end he still has his personality with hobbies and dislikes. Maybe he likes nature a lot, drinks more wine and tea or has an unusual way to percieve things, because he was brought up in a human village who live with dwarfs.

Goddamn, is your DM so stupid?

YOU COULD MAKE A HUMAN INTERESTING.

BUT WAIT, INTERESTING COMES WITH THE RACE? OH LAWD.

I think people are stuck in the Heroquest mindset where "Class" Was stuff like warrior, rogue, or elf. Being a Dwarf or an Elf should not define all aspects of the character. What abotu variaion between society? A French Knight versus and English Knight are different. Why are there never variations amongst non-human cultures? Just laziness.

People go "gruff and short and hammers and armor" for dorfs but look at elfs, they're even worse. A million color-coded candy shells around the same "bow, agile, trees" mechanic. The stupid dark elves are only unique because someone hit the "invert color" button on their photoshoop and did anti-tree and anti-bows. They basically said "Hey, what if we made... color REVERSED elves that live like dorfs?" Drizzt McDwarven reporting!

Being a Dwarf is a societal base and a way of perceiving things. I could do the same as some kind of golem, or a badgerborn from the OP's game or whatever the fuck else, but it's still the same thing as a dwarf with a different accent and maybe a different weapon.

Same horseshit wth sparkle sparkle my fetish is different bullshit. I encourage all-human or strange-creature parties. I like to play really odd things like monsters when I can just to avoid the Boo Hoo So Special garbage. But don't act like it makes someone superior to play with a different set of funny-named creatures.

>>13852952
Then i'd applaud you for doing something I have never seen before.

But it wouldn't be in my games, as there would be no dwarves. Ever.

>>13852972
This would be true, but save a few dwarven characters on /tg/ every single one i've seen hasn't be a dwarf so much as a take on Gimli. And he can only provide so much in the way of culture and background.

>>13852936
You forgot
3) People who appreciate both the classics and cool new concepts. Just so long as the player character is an actual character and not just a 2 dimensional stereotype.

I like dwarves.
I've liked them since Golden Axe 2, where I would always play using the dwarf character because I thougt he looked cool and his boulder attack was bad ass.

I'm just tired of the tradition and status of the dwarf archetype being used as an excuse to distract from poor characterization that wouldn't be accepted in other less storied races.

ANYONE who dislikes ANYTHING in an rpg does so out of a lack of imagination.

I hate all anthropomorphic races, mostly due to furfaggotry, and one of my players once challenged me to run an anthro campaign that wasnt shitty, that wouldnt be me hating everything.

I had the Yuan Ti, lizardfolk, troglodytes and kobolds all having united under the singular banner of TIAMAT. Players played various forms of Shifter, all with mild animal traits, as a rce i called beastmen. I hated every fucking second, but i wanted to prove a point: I am a good DM, and my imagination can make anything awesome. I tried to remember that Brian Jacques wasnt a furry, and eventually, i lifted my ban on lycanthropes, and folded lizardfolk into my campaigns as an orc replacement.

The same thing happened after one of my players wanted to play a paladin and i said i hated them. A player showed me this archived thread from /tg/ and suddenly, i fucking love paladins:
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Powder_Keg_of_Justice

TL;DR if you dont like it, youre not challenging your imagination enough

>>13853016
>But it wouldn't be in my games, as there would be no dwarves. Ever.
What a marvelous justification: your own personal "not canon".

It might interest some to know that rebellion against Tolkien fantasy is not new, not even remotely.

The following links to an essay written by Michael Moorcock in '78:

"Epic Pooh"
http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953

Interestingly though, while the tone with regards to Tolkien is somewhat the same, Moorcock was able to write something new and fresh without resorting to everything being completely alien to the human race.

>>13852996

YES.

THE PC HAS A PERSONALITY. WORK ON THAT.

>>13853016
>Then i'd applaud you for doing something I have never seen before.
Well there's Eberron.

The stereotypical dwarves there are bankers rather than lawyers, but I imagine that niche is mostly theirs too.

>different ymonf
Captcha is one of those dirty disgusting special snowflakefags! Who knew?

>hating on dwarves

Dwarf Fortress made me realize all dwarven lives are special

>>13853028
that'll do pig.
That'll do

>>13853016
>This would be true, but save a few dwarven characters on /tg/ every single one i've seen hasn't be a dwarf so much as a take on Gimli. And he can only provide so much in the way of culture and background.

There's plenty of human characters who are an expy of some boring anime character or whatever. It's just the way that pre-existing notions shape our idea of concepts. The thing about Dwarves, though, is that they COULD be roleplayed well if someone bothered to look up their culture and all that. With most "unique races" there's nothing to draw upon if they wanted to roleplay well, so they end up being a human with a minuscule gimmick.

>>13853052
And how is human with miniscule gimmick bad? Dwarven culture could just as well be human culture; so are dwarves not just humans with a miniscule gimmick, too? Aren't orcs just humans who forgot to wash?

Whatever is good is good. Poor is poor. Be it dorf or a flying, burning eyeball capable of speaking with the spirits of houses.

In Guild Wars: Eye of the North, the entire dwarven race undergoes a ritual to turn themselves into Living Stone. This fascinated me, so i used it in my rpg.

The entire dwarven culture changes, since now they can no longer reproduce, have no reason to eat, or DRINK o_o. Now they are immortal, unless their bodies are destroyed. Never aging, immune to disease or poison.

Everything your DM hates about dwarves? GONE. in their place are men of stone with hearts of iron. Invincible sentinels. How do you stat them? Warforged, except made of stone.

>>13853028
finally someone gets it.

Can we archive this yet?

>>13853085
If you reduce dwarves to a single gimmick then you are actually being inaccurate, because there is basically no setting where dwarves have "a single gimmick". They're Scottish, they're drunk, they're miners, they're craftsmen, they're hardworking, they're short and bearded, they hate orcs and goblins, they-

On the other hand, genasi are humans but elemental.

>>13853105
exactly. People go WAH WAH RACE X THAT I'VE NEVER TRIED OR LEARNED ABOUT IS DULL AND BLAND, THIS IS MY NEW AWESOME RACE OF AWESOME when about 85% of the time, said awesome race is just "human in a rubber suit".

>>13853105
Well my eyeball already has like three gimmicks. How many must I accrue before it becomes as good and fantastic as a dwarf?

>>13853029
Just like nearly every GM/DM/Storyteller ever? I have my likes, dislikes and my no-gos. Dwarves are a no-go. The closest dwarves came to being in my game was the time I made them into a wizard's escaped experiment/slave/warrior race, and then 1000 years later an inbuilt killswitch caused them to die out, suddenly and very violently. Cities and townships all over the countryside suddenly empty, trade disrupted, the whole shebang. The Player Characters were for the most part old enough to remember the dwarven fall (as it had happened quite recently) but they would never encounter a living member of the race.

And after derailing myself with that, no, i'm not ashamed of it, or apologetic. Some people retcon bits of fluff all the time. I just do it with dwarves. Never run a shadowrun game, though. So who knows about that?

>>13853028

I think I came after reading that Paladin story.

...

Yep. All over the inside of my pants.

>>13853085
I think the point was that while dorfs aren't original, they have a legacy to draw upon so you can try to play them as having a rich and understood culture.

But if I throw a bunch of homebrew splat at my players and say "No Dwarfs, but you can be the Gah'jir, who are totally different but like armor similar to Dwarfs," then my players are going to go "What the fuck is that? How do I react to it? What do I know about their culture?"

They become like some dude with fancy powers who you know nothing about--not the player playing it or the rest. It isn't bad, but it does diminish the "roleplay" aspect that people were apparently striving for.

If the OP's DM wants good roleplay they'll accept some understood basis for their guys so people know how to react.Otherwise it may as well just be a hack-n-slash with a bunch of humans with funny faces and occasional powers.

Nothing wrong with that but it's certainly not "better" than being a member of a culture that has a recognized literary tradition.

>>13853028

>>13853105
But all of these traits could be had by a human. That's the point. Since you could just as well have played a human, what matters isn't whether you play a human or dwarf (they are interchangeable), it's whether you do it good.

>>13853132
YOU. YES YOU.
see
>>13853028


>>13853132 You are a bad DM, and part of the problem. Grow an imagination. Don't restrict your players just because of your own shitty biases and inabilities Try and be more like: >>13853028

this NEEDS archival.

Dorfs are banned.

You can be a Demiurg instead which is exactly the same right down to the gay Scottish accents and homosexual tendencies towards elves.

>>13853177
>HOLY SHIT AN INFALIABLE RULE OF RARPEEGEEING!

No, I've read it, and while it's a pretty good sentiment, it's not going to work for everyone. In example: my players are closet dorfaboos. If I let them roll dwarves, I will end up with the gimli clone brothers (at least two) What I do works for me, and my game, unless they bitch about it behind my back. But I doubt that it's more then just the occasional whine, as my players are at least good enough to talk with me about things.

tl;dr good advice but it's not mindblowing.

Also? Dwarves are funny. Elves can pull of smarm but they're barely ever funny the way Dwarves are. Comic relief is so incredibly vital for the long-term sanity of a group or fantasy setting. Dwarves let you point and laugh at bits, especially when they do the stupid 'un-heroic' things like get drunk, or trip over a rock, or have problems running up the stairs. They let people have a laugh and such. Take that out and you need a new Dwarf/Droid/Goofball standin.

Also, see Dwarf Fortress and Delve Deeper. Funny games starring Dwarves. Would never be as funny with a bunch of beast-douches.

>>13853028
You can dislike something for different reasons. For example, you're anthro game worked because you have good players. If you ran it with certain groups you would end up with a horrible mess.

>>13853225
>homosexual tendencies towards elves
But that's impossible! It's not gay if it's elves......no, wait, it's not RAPE if it's elves, it's not GAY if it's dwarf on dwarf. So.....would a dwarf forcing an elf to have sex with him even be gay or rape?

Tropes and stereotypes including Dwarfbeard Mcbeardyaxe stereotypes aren't inherent good or bad. Most of the "unique" and special races people come up with are either overpowered sparkletime creations (seriously we already have elves and fae) or they are real world culture x with funny make-up on top.

Using the crap-ton of existing dwarf mythology for D&D allows people to focus on creating a unique character without needing to create a whole new race and culture.

I think so many fledgling Players and DMs get so focused on doing something new and cool that they don't realize that they are doing a Star Trek "Humans in Latex" episode.

If reusing existing fantasy races allows you to get a believable gameworld up to speed faster then I'm all for it. Otherwise it just seems like a bit too much world-building wankery and if you really want to do that why not write a book instead of subjecting your fellow gamers to your fnatasy heartbreaker.

>>13853265
Neither.

Elves and Dwarfs are the same species. The reason there seem to be no female Dwarves is because a female Dwarf is an Elf. And that's why there are no male Elves in fiction ever.

>>13853280
So it's definitely straight.....but is it rape?

>>13853304

Not unless they say the safeword.

"Speak, Friend, and enter."

>>13853280

That... is actually a good idea. Elves and dwarfs are interchangeable in Norse mythology (which is what ostensibly inspired most fantasy genres), and sexual dimorphism is a good way to explain the two different depictions. Elf men and dwarf women always look out-of-place anyway.

>>13853314
I loled a little bit.

Your DM is right, dwarves suck.

>>13853280
In The Beginning, God made Slavs.

He took the slutty ones, pronounced them female and re-made them as Elves thus the Elves have always been sluts and hunger for manly cock.

Then He took the ugly ones, directed them to breed with each other and lo, the race of Orcs were born, and thus the race of Orcs have ever been inbred.

Dwarves can be done well but more often are not.

Man up and learn not to play a dwarf in every dame game and/or setting.

It's seeming like a lot of the posts in this thread are boiling down to "never make new races ever because your players will be too lazy to learn about a new race rather than relying on a pile of rehashed tropes." God I hope I never play in a game run by a fa/tg/uy.

Dwarves are awesome. They have both a high level of technology and a high tolerance for alcohol. When the two are combined, the effectiveness of dorf inventions increases proportionally by how many dorfs are drunk, and how drunk they are. Thus, a cannon manned (dorfed?) by six incredibly intoxicated dorfs is roughly equivalent in power to a modern artillery piece, and as fast as a horse.

Dorfs are also team players. As insults are considered to be constructive criticism or playful banter, any obscenities hurled at a dorf will make him both productive and a highly loyal friend. Several months of verbal abuse can produce some of the finest metal, stone and woodwork known to mortal races.

>>13853304
uh... should I be concerned if my room mate's girlfriend owns this shirt?

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/13851937/

ARCHIVED.

So why is this thread deemed worthy of being archived?

>>13853411
Does she wear it outside the house/when you're not around? If not, then no, you have nothing to fear.

dwarf in EVERY FUCKING FANTASY STORY, EVER: short, stout, bearded, drinks a lot, good with forges, lives underground/ in mountains, etc.

I agree with the GM. boring as shit. He should have reinvented the dwarf. In my world, dwarves live aboveground in a titanic Tower of Babel sort of building, enslave elves to do all of the manual labor, and are upper Renaissance elitist snobs that discuss the philosophical aspects of architecture while sipping brandy.

Also, fuck elves.

>>13853437
Suptg seems to deem anything worthy of being archived my dear anon.

>>13853369
No, I think it's boiling down to "If you want to make entirely new species don't do it to the exception of existing theme. The lizardman poster was smart in that he let it exist within a theme that people understood.

But erasing ALL the other societies, cultures, and literature and replacing it with basically nothing except for a bunch of, like, mish-mashes? That's not really helpful.

I prefer non-normal character types too, but I can't really expect everyone in my group to read 30 pages of theme I've written up on my Chickenmen species.

>>13853411
Yes, she may be having sex with her brother.

>>13853467
>elf slaves
>manual labor
THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU USE ELF SLAVES FOR!

>>13853487
Obviously you use them to philosophise for you. Real dwarves have no time for thinking. Best to force someone to do it for them.

Ban all non-humans.
Create human subtypes based on class and background instead.

Low fantasy. Mostly human vs human.
Dwarfs are exotic, Elves near mythical.
Orcs hordes are the horrific creeping evil that cannot be stopped.

Magic requires related knowledge checks (ie Fireball require alchemy)

>>13853511
Wel,l that was not what I was thinking, but hey, that could work too.

>>13853511
Indeed, dorfs are too thick to think properly. (real reason to post: that asshole has been the only guy going ELF RAPE ISN'T RAPE, HNNNGGGHHH this entire time, disregard him)

>>13853028
>ANYONE who dislikes ANYTHING in an rpg does so out of a lack of imagination.

Yes

YES

You are officially my favorite person for today

Elves: ageless immortals as a PC race? srly? One for idealized self inserts
Dorfs: surly +2con who use their race card as an excuse to "hit-it-with-my-axe" all the time, everytime?
Kenders: lolrandom steal from evybody. fuck no.

halflings/gnomes: don't know anyone who has actually played them.

Does anyone remember when fantasy used to be about the fantastic rather than just rehashing what Tolkien wrote over and over and over and over and over and over again? If this thread is to be believed, it would seem that anything that isn't tolkien based fantasy is met with actual hostility from the RPG community.

>>13853028
>swayed by one emotional speech

Please never vote.

>>13853028
That's fucking retarded.

Wut? Halflings (especially as rogues) are a staple in just about every group I have ever played in.

>>13853593
Don't be stupid. An RPG isn't a novel-writing class. If you want to run around a fictional realm as some kind of magical fantasy creature, there needs to be some good way for me to read up on what it does and what it's about.

Real games include this in the setting that I can read through.

Homebrew, if it's even included at all, is often a total jumble. Especially when, like the OP, they throw a grab-bag of theme with "half a billion beastmen" of sorts so nobody has a distinct culture.

You wanna play a game where there's 10 types of creatures, none with human aspects? Sign me up. Just make sure it has a solid theme file for me to read.

>>13853600
Remove halfling. Insert young street urchin.

>>13853620
I go the other way and restrict races and try to make them more mysterious.
Heck even humans from distant lands ought to be mysterious to other humans.

>>13853620

Exactly, most DM attempts to make a really cool world just end up resembling a grab bag of poorly conceived ideas. Very few writers or DMs actually have the world building chops to make these "unique" creations seem like anything other than reskinned 2D humans or reskinned "elves, orcs, dwarves, halflings".

Instead of spending time trying to be the next Mieville or Erikson maybe people should use the prepackaged stuff and do something cool with it rather than try and fail to reinvent the fucking wheel.

>>13853663

That's not a bad method either. I'm never going to tell people they can only be Dwarfs, Elfs or Humans or whatnot. I think it's fun to be weird stuff IF it's a weird stuff campaign setting.

I just think it's silly to throw the theme out with the races. If you want to provide people similar things they can have fun with (some people like the brash brawler type) then just make sure we have more than a forehead-alien backstory of "noble warriors who can get enraged."

Really what saves dwarves and elves from LIKE A HUMAN BUT X is that they've been in public culture for a while. Why they can get off the hook while something like gensai or OP's DM's races get shafted because they are newer. Take an air gensai. They could be a race of planar travelers, tireless, hard to keep in one place due to an innate need for change and motion, love of birds and the sky, have trouble imagining travel without three dimensions. Of course boiling down to "humans with elemental blood" will make them seem bland. Fuck, humans are just "naked monkey with better tools".

>>13853712
However, let me add that even though I think the standard races are fine and the theme adds a lot, I really hate the standard class/race combos over and over.

If I see another Dwarf Berserker or Cleric in my games I'll scream, and I like Dwarfs enough to do an all-dwarf game. How about we do Dwarf air-pirates? No berserkers, come on. Be swashbucklers and rogues and tinkers and chefs and powdermonkies. Let's be done with the standard combos.

On an unrelated note, I think your DM is going it wrong.

You make the interesting, inspiring culture, THEN you make the creature, not the other way around.

>>13853770

As much as I don't care for dwarves, I think dwarf wizard is greatly underused.

>>13853784
You can. Or you can make the creature and then think of how it would act. How would humans act if they were immortal? What would a civilisation be like if males were 8 foot tall and weighed in at 600 pounds of muscle but females are 4 foot tall and fired poison from their eyes?

>>13853800

It was a sad day for reality when dorf sages realized that spellmaking was a type of crafting. By the time the other races had realized what had happened, the dorfs were enchanting their fists so they could punch trees into splinters, and creating diamond pickaxes that could cut through a cubic meter of rock in half a second.

>>13853770

Racial Bonuses and Penalties end up driving a ton of the favored class combos as much as lazy players.

Both 3.x and 4e tend to place the races into relatively tight roles because bonuses and penalties (3.x) tend to make certain combinations more desirable.

The reason why you get dwarven fighters and clerics is because dwarves have bonuses that help those roles. Dwarven arcane casters typically have the bonuses in bad locations. So automatically you are at a disadvantage against anyone generating a twinked out character.

Gamers tend to gravitate to the races that provide the best mechanical benefit. In 1e-2e that generally meant Humans and Elves, in 3.x it meant Humans, and 4e it means that you go with a race/class combo.

So really it's lazy developers as much as the decisions of lazy players that is driving the sameness you are experiencing.

>Dwarf air-pirates

OH YES YES YES

I've got an idea. See if your DM will let you play as an undead dwarf.

A Dwarf Vampire strikes me as both somehow hilarious and awesome. A race of Dwarf Vampires is also awesome.

Just mix the two traits - a race of tough, no-nonsense builders and architects who drink blood and build preposterously ornate gothic fortresses. They're prone to opulence and love money, gold especially, and complex mechanical devices. They are extremely strong, tough, and prefer to live underground away from the blinding light of the sun. They can be potent mages and warriors, proficient with the axe and charm spell both. Their massive blood channels, running forever red with the blood of slaves, are a marvel and terror to behold. A miracle of technological prowess and incredible skill both.

>Urist McVampire cancels Drink Blood; interrupted by vampire slayer

>>13854307
Sup buddy, you just got robbed.

>>13851937
You don't. This DM is a faggot, you will not win here. The best idea is to save yourself a lot of bullshit and to not game with this person.

>>13853824
>punch trees into splinters
>diamond pickaxes

Dwarves invented Minecraft.

This does not surprise me.

>>13854330
I like this idea of mine enough that I think I'm going to add it to my Maj'Nuun setting, next to the race of Lich elves and Sorcerer Kobolds.

There aren't any humans in this setting. Its a dying world created as a result of massive war between humans and elves, with a world spanning necromantic spell cast by the elves killing everything. As a result, humans changed into the Maj'Nuun, a magic resistant arab/german race similar to the Ashen of Stargate, but with more pointy spears, and an Ironclad alliance with the Sweech, the aforementioned Sorcerous Kobolds, who build vast underground cities.

Yep. Tell your DM about that. No typical fantasy races there - Necromancer Lich Elves, Vampire Dwarf Lords, Sorcerer Kobolds and arab/german Ashen.

I really need to get to writing a book about it someday.

He's right though, Dwarves ARE samey.

So are most typical fantasy races, but Dwarves especially so. They're always gruff, they always have beards, they always fight with axes, they always mine, they're almost always greedy, they're almost never spellcasters, etc.

>>13853824
Don't forget the diamond pants.

MC Hammer doesn't.

>>13854432
Oooh! New idea.

Holy Pirate-Zombie Hawkmen.

The remnants of a religious race of hawkmen living in the mountains, the great world destroying spell would eventually annihilate their people.

Effort after effort failing, prayers to their gods offering no support, they resorted to the only method of "survival" available - undeath.

Now, the exist as scattered remnants of their once great race, raiding the others for revenge and plunder. The power of their gods still flows through them, and they dive from the mountains full of righteous might and the hunger for the flesh of those who drove their race to extinction.

I'm tooting my own horn here, but this is going to be the most awesome setting ever.

>>13854432
Sounds like any mash-up we've ever seen.
"Alright, we need some ideas for our next cartoon-show. Ideas?"
"Ninjas are in now."
"Heard about this new tech, called genetics? They have these bizarre mutations."
"Teenagers eat lotsa junk food!"
"And they like pets, like turtles!"

...and hence from simpleton mixing we got teenage ninja mutant turtles.

>>13854742
So... you're saying that my Holy-Pirate-Zombie-Hawkmen need to like Pizza.

Alright.

>>13854767
Ooh, there's an idea! I'll base their culture on historical Italian Pirates and Catholics!

Thanks, snarky /tg/ guy!

>but he especially hates dwarves. He claims they're incredibly bland, samey, and individual dwarves lack distinction apart from their race as a whole.

>his homebrew setting, with races like ... about a billion kinds of beastfolk


Your DM is a dumb fuck. "Traditional fantasy races can't be interesting or unique, but hey guys. DOG + PEOPLE! That's interesting! CAT + PEOPLE! That's unique!"

OP you must kick this man in the dick.

Alright, I think this thread has gone about as far as it can debating whether or not dorfs are any good (pretty much comes down to personal opinion), and whether or not homebrew races should be subbed in for the classic fantasy ones. I think on the one hand, taking a break from the same old thing is nice, but making the races bland humans in funny hats ruins the experience.

That being said, I have a setting now in which I did just what the DM in OP's post did. Took out dorfs and elves, put in some revamped races of my own, though mostly ones that had their backgrounds reworked and switched around. Sometimes in name only. Some of them I fleshed out more than others, and thus grew more attached to than the others, though all my players ended up playing humans anyways. Shall I post examples here, or in a different thread? Or just not at all?

Does anyone have a Dungeon Tile Mapper for D&D. The WoTC one doesn't let me save, so that's out.

>>13854742
TMNT was originally a parody comic mocking the trends of the early 80s. Anyone who has never read the first twelve issues of TMNT is a douche.