Hello again everyone, and welcome back to our third installment of “D&D: Race Review!” When we last left off, we looked through a bit of history on why dungeons and dragons promotes some races as evil, and we got a look at what the different types of interactions within dungeons and dragons could consist of. Today we’ll take a look at what our last interviewee has to say on the topic of different races in the game.

A centralized idea that we found through this interview was that, interestingly enough, a lot of the races in the game actually come off as stereotypical, almost as a caricature of what the race is. For our interviewee, there’s always the stereotype of humans being incredibly basic, dwarfs being grumpy and rude, elves being high-strung etc. These sorts of character ideas are something that a lot of D&D players think about when they look at those races. For some, it’s easier to play into those stereotypes and worry about the actual substance of the character later. But, as my interviewee agrees: “Yeah, I mean, it’s really often fun to break that caricature…” It can certainly be fun to play something out of the ordinary when it comes to what race you play. Breaking through those stereotypes can lead to a lot more enjoyment when it comes to the game. Though, this is hard when it comes to actively creating a character.

In dungeons and dragons, different races have more proficiency (they’re better) at different things. As an example, a human increases the ability score of every stat by 1 at the start of the game (these stats being Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma). By comparison, dwarves only increase their constitution, but they get to raise it by 2 points instead of 1. Elves only increase dexterity by 2 in comparison to the others. Each race get racial bonuses like this in the game, which makes it hard to implement customization that doesn’t involve the class of the character. Though, in some ways, this is a failsafe: “So it’s more based on stereotype, and to add diversity in your gameplay. So not everybody chooses to be the same race…” Having these different stat bonuses, although they’re set in stone, help there to be variety in the game, rather than having everyone play the exact same thing. It helps people specialize what they want to do in the game, and helps them excel at that. 

All of this, of course, goes back to the idea of how both you and the DM plan on running the game. In fact, the interviewee makes note of how, when it comes to ideas that can lead to introspection (like in the 2nd interview), the responsibility of it being in the game rests entirely on the DM’s shoulders. It’s determined by them if they want to implement any ideas or anything that could break up those caricatures of the races described above. If the DM thinks so, a player could choose to increase different stats than what their racial bonuses give them. Or maybe the DM decides that the bonuses should be set in stone and not touched. It all depends entirely on the kind of game they plan on running, and how their players feel about it.

From here we see how the player-races are in the world of dungeons and dragons, and some of the mechanical differences between them. When it comes to all this, though, how does it all wrap up? How do all of these different interviews tie together with one another? You’ll have to find that out in “D&D: Race Review Finale!”