It's a question I have asked myself many times because I don't know. Ask anyone and you'll get a different answer. The human-centrist will argue one, just human. The standard-fantasy gamer will argue for 4, human, dwarf, elf, and halfling. The 5e-gamer will argue that there's no such thing as too many: more choice is always better.
Personally, I think there is a limit to the number of how many you can reasonably have. At a certain point, you have so many options that the average party becomes a glorified circus attraction and the things that are weird and unique cease to be interesting. In 5e, a party can consist of a sapient ooze, one of three seperate varieties of bird person, an interplanar warrior from space, and a turtle. That's not a party of adventurers. That's a zoo.
Neurim has 6: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, mokhan (sapient rock people), and half-orcs. I have toyed with adding more, namely in the form of curseling ancestries, such as cambion/tieflings and ghouls, with curselings not being available for a first character due to weird rules and narratives. That feels good to me, though at times I wonder if cutting one of the original ancestries for something different would be cool. I like my dwarves and my halflings, which means it would be elves, and considering elves are such an extreme rarity in Neurim, it might make sense.
You'll notice I haven't answered the question. I don't have an answer. I'm not sure there is an answer to be had.
There're two answers that I like:
ReplyDelete1. A very small number of closely-interlocked races living close together and steepled with history. A setting like Symbaroum.
2. Mos Eisley cantina.