 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy, and one thing that I found from running D&D is that players don't often really take into account the world representation of the races that they choose to play as, to the point where they oftentimes don't really see them as that much more than a stat block with a baked in suggestion of how to play their personality. If they're an elf, they're mystical or egotistical, if they're a tiefling, they're either charismatic or not so secretly evil, if they're a dwarf, they have a gruff voice, all that normal stuff that you'd come to expect from people trying to fit in with a race that they've picked. But what players often don't think about and what comes as a surprise for people when they join some of my games is that the world itself treats you differently depending on the race that you are. So for this video I'm going to talk about how I have most NPCs and the general world at large respond to certain playable races interacting with them. Now please keep in mind, and due to the nature of the video I'm going to stress this super hard, that since this topic is just at its core inherently racist, it might make some people uncomfortable if the analogs hit too close to real life for you, so please keep in mind that this treatment of others is meant to be kept completely in the realm of fantasy, and that even if you do decide to adopt any of the things that I talk about in this video, you should always make sure that your group is comfortable with it before you decide to bring it to the table. But with that out of the way, let's begin. So in the general world of D&D, or at least the way that I've come to interpret the general world of D&D, the amount of different species of adventurer that exist makes for so many different walks of life to coexist in the same place, and given that normal people living in, like, Faerun don't have the Google to help them learn about their world's history, the normal common folk tend to rely on the word of mouth and common stereotypes to get their impression of what a group of people are like, which can lead to some great things, and some not-so-great things. To start with the great things, the race that I find coming packaged with its own story the most is the ASMR, who in my games has a huge double-edged sword following them. In my games, the ASMR has to remain hidden, or at least hide the traits that reveal them as an ASMR, or else pretty much everybody will immediately assume that they're an angel sent from the heavens to aid them. This would normally not be so bad, but by merit of being an ASMR, their soul is already pledged to the side of good whether they like it or not, so any demons or devils that suddenly hear about an angel person helping out the common folk will go to investigate, which, if the ASMR isn't careful, could lead to them being attacked suddenly by the forces of evil at an inopportune time, or worse, the evil creature will find only evidence of the ASMR's existence and decide to level the entire town until it gets what it wants. It's in this never-ending game of cat and mouse that players who pick an ASMR as their race always feel the importance but also the danger of being who they are, and they always have to worry about how the world views them, which helps them feel more like the angel that they want to be. Moving onto races that are treated completely normally, humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and even gnomes are often completely ignored in most places on account of their common presence and understood nature in the world, so while a town may not see that many gnomes in its life, everybody who does would just think, oh, hey, a gnome, neat, I guess, and then move on with their day, where things start to get weird as when you choose to play something like a dragonborn. Dragons are very enigmatic creatures, told in fables and legends of being capable of acts of great destruction and evil, but also moments of benevolence and guidance, which puts your normal farm boy in a weird position where they don't exactly know what to think about a dragon until said dragon starts to do something. The only real indicator of a dragon's nature are their scales, with chromatic dragons naturally being inclined to evil due to Tima controlling them, and metallic dragons being good guys due to Bahamut's control. Where it gets muddy is that while dragons are ancient beings of wisdom and longevity, dragonborn are mortals. The presence of the gods isn't very strong in them, so they can be whatever they want. From a commoner's perspective though, that commoner might not know that, so the idea of first impressions matters much more to dragonborn, since the nature of dragons will cause a commoner to rely on that first impression way more. Now, moving on to the more rare and exotic races in D&D, it's sort of a hodgepodge of expectations. For creatures like Tritons, Goliaths, and Furbolgs, a lot of the time people won't really know what the heck they are, but they don't look inherently frightening enough to be hostile, except for Goliaths, who, to be fair, just sort of look like big bald humans, so they're fine. Lizard-foken Kenku are treated with a little bit of wariness on account of their neutrality and willingness to serve under bad guys, but they aren't out and out shunned. Tabaxian totals are super rare, and as a result, people tend to think that they're just humans or something that have been cursed by a wizard, or perhaps an animal that was given the gift of sentience somehow. The same goes for Genasi, who are often mistaken for genie, constructs, summoned elementals, nature spirits, living statues, or anything other than a being of pure element coming from the elemental plane of elements. Even Aladdin are mistaken for fairies, Shadarkai are mistaken for evil fairies, and Sea elves are mistaken for mermaids, so really, the point is that commoners will often attribute something that they don't understand to the closest thing that they do understand when they don't have enough knowledge to know better. I mean, no one usually feels threatened by any of these races outright, just confused as to the nature of their existence and how, out of all the end joints in the world, they happen to walk into theirs. But to shift focus to those races who don't just get weird glances, but also the scorn and hatred of those bigoted enough to take them at face value, the races with such a large disadvantage are the tieflings and the half orcs. See, a commoner has a lot of natural enemies, goblins, kobolds, orcs, owlbears, the occasional demon. All of these are things that a normal villager knows to watch out for because if they ever decide to set their sights on that villager's homes, that villager's entire life could be over soon after as the bad things raid their town and ransack the place. This learned fear and hatred translates to tieflings and half orcs based purely on how they look. A tiefling reminds people of the unknowing danger of a devil or a demon, and so NPCs tend to treat them with much more suspicion and are always waiting to find the devil in the details whenever they're talking. A half orc, on the other hand, is just treated downright poorly, since any villager that has first-hand knowledge of the ferocity of orcs is likely to take it out on someone that they perceive as weaker but still representative, normally by just not giving them the time of day, insulting them offhandedly, or if the NPC is especially cruel, raising the prices in their shop for both the half orc and any of the half orcs known associates. In both of these cases, it doesn't matter what the individual person is like. Some people just want to have something to hate, and it takes a lot of work to change that heart, more so than some people would think is worth it. But while the tieflings and the half orcs are begrudgingly accepted into normal society with gritted teeth, it is the monstrous races found in Volo's guide that have perhaps the worst of it all. While a person may look at a half orc and see a hideous, disgusting creature, they still recognize that the laws of the land protect them to a certain degree. But for the creatures who originally spawned them, for the orcs, the goblins, the kobolds, the aunties, there is no parley given, unless a city or town has made some sort of unique deal with a certain race, such as hiring kobolds to make their sewer systems or trading with a nearby hobgoblin encampment. Any monster that finds its way into a civilized settlement without express permission and direct protection from a higher authority is to be slain immediately. Even the title given to them, monstrous races, gives an indication of how they are to be treated. These are creatures that burn, pillage, and destroy the normal person's way of life, and even if that isn't the case for all of them, not many people are willing to see the individual person, they only recognize the green skin and that it must be killed before it can kill anyone else. Players who choose monstrous races in my campaigns are warned at length about how it will impact their gameplay. They'll be the outcast, pushed to the fringes of society, and they will have to hope that no one ever finds out about their true nature or else the gavel will fall as swiftly as the guillotine. So to wrap this all up, whenever you're playing as a new race or whenever you're DMing and your players are choosing their races, think about how the world will react, not just to you as a person, but to you as a visual medium of something that they might treat differently just because of their own life experiences. And remember, no matter what race you or your players end up assembling as, remember that at the end of the day it is all for the fun of the game, so just be sure that no matter what happens, everybody's having a good time, even if it means scrapping some of the realism to keep people entertained. This video is just food for thought, but then I'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video, like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell, join the book club, shave that beard, support my Patreon to crush the peasants, and remember, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, if you are a racist, I will attack you with the north. But yeah, Davie out.