Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
I'm fine with floating ASI's being the company's standard, I just also want the Variant for static to be also available to me.
On the one hand, yes, I would find a suggestion as to what the typical traits are in PHB just fine; though on the other I can see WoTC not wanting to do that as it would still imply 'hand on the scale' and possibly incline players to think they should distribute their [8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15] array in a certain order based on race rather than class, which isn't what I'm intending.
What I really want is a note somewhere in the DMG relative to the Variant: Static Attribute Adjustments: that tell me what they actually are supposed to be, so I don't have to guess based on text-based descriptions and the referencing of older literature whose math may not be congruent with the bounded accuracy system.
-
That at the very least, but it would also be nice for DDB to have permission from WoTC to give us that toggle; at the campaign level for DM's at the very least; to use the Variant: Static Attribbute Adjustments; so the array can just be distributed as desired and then auto adjusted by the system to account for the racial modifiers.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Thing is - i totally understand the general idea that player characters should have the freedom of choice as much as possible, but on the other side i like to have an indication that reflects the general population of a given race. Races that are simply physically build more sturdy and their brains are simply wired to be thougthful i.e. could be generally +2 CON, +1 WIS to indicate what a "typical" member of a given race might reflect as bonuses, but give players and specific members of that race the simple choice to ignore it and select what fits better.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Floating ASIs as the standard with fixed racial ones as an alternative option has been suggested a couple of times. I'd be fine with it.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
What Wizards needs to do is, put a bit of text somewhere in chapter 1 that says something like:
"We recognize that in the real world, race is a social construct, only very loosely scientifically supported*, and that basically every attempt at defining race has been done by with the expressed purpose of subjugating or outright eliminating so-called inferior beings, usually as defined by the ruling classes at various points in history. The idea that certain attributes such as high or low intelligence** are linked to identifiable racial groups is a fiction, and one that has been the backbone of many of humanity's most heinous crimes. However, this idea is so integral to Dungeons and Dragons that we can't remove it without collapsing the whole thing. "
Incorrect text struck out. It's objectively obvious that they can do so -- people might complain about the change, but it certainly doesn't break the system.
A common request regarding dnd races is to simply change the word race to species or an analogous term because it carries less baggage and is probably more accurate. Given none of the changes even removing asi significantly address the criticisms regarding race in dnd and that no comment has really been made to the effect of it being about race; I really doubt that addressing race as a construct is the motivation for the changes. To be clear I'd support a statement about race or changing the word to species but I think its necessary to counter the idea that changing racial ASI is some big stand on race issues. It doesn't deserve that much credit and I'm sick of the paranoid theories that come up around it.
I think the reason is simply they are making a push towards having more worlds to sell and are going for more general races to use across them. Critical rolls unique world did reasonably well, they already had eberon and faerun which were pretty different, they are starting to expand into magic the gathering and the newer books are littered with references to the multiverse. The explicit justification in tasha's is also about choice and creating more unique characters so I just don't think race comes into it. I expect a " how to make your own universe" book or additional settings to be coming out and a move towards more varied representations across the settings. DnD has had allot of growth from people being invested in personalized characters, world and stories it only makes sense they'd move in that direction.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Personally, in a vacuum? I see no issue, through my own experiences and general attitude, in doing things this way.
That said, I believe it was Heironymus who brought up the notion that "You can assign your points any way you like, but if you'd rather not then your species usually has the following allocations..." does, in fact, completely and utterly defeat the entire purpose of doing away with the fixed allocations in the first place. You're right back to square 1 - all dwarves are supposed to be stout, all elves are supposed to be nimble, all halflings are supposed to be lucky, etcetera. You've not gotten rid of those things at all, you haven't eliminated the tight interlinkage between class and species, you haven't de-emphasized the iconic characters for any given species - you have accomplished nothing. All of that shit is still right in there, in the core rulebooks, slapping people across the face and making them feel bad for 'deviating' from their species' given attributions. All you've really done is ruffle the Old Guard's feathers by suggesting that it might be possible not all [Species X] are, in fact, completely identical genetic clones of each other.
There's an argument to be made that I find oddly persuasive that "floating points as an optional rule to default fixed allocations" a'la Tasha's is not the 'best' of both worlds, but in fact the worst. Or at least the second-worst, behind "floating points default, but fixed allocation a supported and celebrated backup option." Because that pisses off the Old Guard to the max whilst still doing all the damage that fixed allocations already does.
With that being the case, I'm going to come down on the side of "no, that's not good enough". Cultures can have favored characteristics, something like "The boisterous city of Hupperdook is a center of industry, innovation, and inebriation. Constant cycles of demanding ten-hour workdays and exuberant, lavish citywide festivals stretching well into the night drive a common local saying: 'you come to Hupperdook for an early grave worth earning.' Those raised in the frenetic town often favor Dexterity, Constitution, or Intelligence as their most favored attributes when called to the path of an adventurer, though many heroes from the infamous town have famously favored different strengths."
Make the whole 'favored attributes' thing endemic to setting and not locked down to any specific kind of people, save the 'kind' of people who grew up in a certain spot and raised within a certain way of life, and make sure there's still choices even within the "iconic" builds for a given culture. I think that would be a better overall idea than "we got rid of fixed, bioessential ASI allocations for species! Except not really, they're all still there, we just shuffled some words around in the book to try and hoodwink people into thinking they were gone."
I have no idea why people should feel bad if they chose something that deviates from what has been typically genetically been given to the race. I am not talking about cultural impacts, Although of course social and economical upbringing can effect a humanoids ability distribution for sure if you want to take a deep dive into that direction. If we aren't able to offer general information about a races attributes, i feel like we should also get rid of all permanent racial features and make them all optional and interchangeable - as being forced to play an elf for certain features i would rather like my goblin to have seems trying to tie me down in a way too that might be unnecessary restrictive.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
So weird as it might seem after all the digital ink I've spilled on this topic, but I don't hate fixed racial ASI's. Or at least, I didn't.
I was ... used to them. It was just kind of the default in fantasy gaming. And then the blinders were taken off and I could see what things could be like without them and things were so much better. It's almost like I didn't realize the burden I was carrying until it was lifted. Through discussions here on the forums I got stories about how other gamers, mostly gamers of color, had had negative experiences with racialized stats and I remembered how I've run into stereotypes irl that were irritating and othering in ways that's hard to explain, like the seemingly positive stereotypes, "Oh you're Asian, you're good at math, right?" that made me feel like even my friends didn't really see me they just saw some cookie cutter movie archetype that looked like me. It kind of clicked something and thinking about playing with racialized ASI's, even the mostly all positive ones in 5E started to feel like when someone cracks a joke and you don't quite know what it means but it kinda feels like they're making fun of you but you just laugh along with them because you don't want to spoil the mood.
After that I internally just came to the conclusion that, "Nope, racial ASI's shouldn't be a thing." The thing is I honestly think the game is better and healthier without them. If I were to develop chargen suggestions for the different peoples of D&D I would probably make them very specific. Maybe some lore blurbs in the writeups that go something like: "The gnomish communities of Lantan pride themselves on producing highly skilled engineers and artificers." You get a feel of what kind of reputation the people have in a particular world without the developers telling you this is how these people are.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Forgive me for the snark, because I do appreciate your measured, peace-seeking approach to this....but this is like asking me if I'd be cool with a little chapter on Phrenology in Biology textbooks.
With regard to "change the word to species instead" -- that's just kicking the can down the road. That's saying, well, in the real world maybe bioessentialism is bunk... But what if it was real? And furthermore, what if it was cool?
With regard to "change the word to species instead" -- that's just kicking the can down the road. That's saying, well, in the real world maybe bioessentialism is bunk... But what if it was real? And furthermore, what if it was cool?
Yeah I don't like "species" either. Alternatives that I would find acceptable: ancestries, peoples, folk.
Edit: Ugh yeah, your "what if it was cool?" just made me shudder. That's insidious!
With regard to "change the word to species instead" -- that's just kicking the can down the road. That's saying, well, in the real world maybe bioessentialism is bunk... But what if it was real? And furthermore, what if it was cool?
Yeah I don't like "species" either. Alternatives that I would find acceptable: ancestries, peoples, folk.
I don't love any of those, either. I think if the game is gonna have it -- and it is -- there's no sense putting a mustache on it and pretending it's something else.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Forgive me for the snark, because I do appreciate your measured, peace-seeking approach to this....but this is like asking me if I'd be cool with a little chapter on Phrenology in Biology textbooks.
No thanks.
Some things don't deserve to see print.
Have you played Pathfinder? I'm pretty sure they did something like that in one of their books (it was a part of the whole controversy last year when a long-time member of the staff left and published a "95 Theses of why Pathfinder [the company, not the game] sucks"-Twitter thread).
So I can totally understand that. I don't think those things are exactly equivalent, but it is a good metaphor that makes me see your point of view.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
You don't think that a species physical and mental ability, flexibility and capacity is based on its evolution and genetics? I agree that there is no difference between humans when it comes to it across our own species, but i don't see every humanoid adhering to the same evolutionary standard in its development. Sometimes i feel like people wish racial choices just to represent appearance to a limited degree. And if thats your approach - thats fine. I personally just feel that while giving players an equal opportunity playing field is nice and good, that portraying races with their physical and mental differences don't have to be based on culture only, but also on their individual development as a species.
If we would put a Homo Habilis next to a Homo Sapiens we would see clear differences in mental capabilities and the way their brain works. Pretty sure there will be physical differences as well that are pretty significant. I'm not trying to say that races are different stages in human evolution, but considering we simply lack a real life example on our planet as the only dominant sentient species.... its the best i could come up with.
I just think that races/species/ancestries in games don't have to be "human base body + human base brain + fantasy skin 1" = elf or dwarf etc.... I always thought of them as different not only in shape and form - but also whats beneath the skin. Brains are different - bones are different. Genetics are different. Evolutionary development is at different stages. Races are different in age... some young. some ancient. Thinking that all these are equally and 100 procent identical in their capability is imho so unrealistic, that the only reason i accept it is for the sake of game balance and avoiding drama.
You don't think that a species physical and mental ability, flexibility and capacity is based on its evolution and genetics? I agree that there is no difference between humans when it comes to it across our own species, but i don't see every humanoid adhering to the same evolutionary standard in its development. Sometimes i feel like people wish racial choices just to represent appearance to a limited degree. And if thats your approach - thats fine. I personally just feel that while giving players an equal opportunity playing field is nice and good, that portraying races with their physical and mental differences don't have to be based on culture only, but also on their individual development as a species.
If we would put a Homo Habilis next to a Homo Sapiens we would see clear differences in mental capabilities and the way their brain works. Pretty sure there will be physical differences as well that are pretty significant. I'm not trying to say that races are different stages in human evolution, but considering we simply lack a real life example on our planet as the only dominant sentient species.... its the best i could come up with.
I just think that races/species/ancestries in games don't have to be "human base body + human base brain + fantasy skin 1" = elf or dwarf etc.... I always thought of them as different not only in shape and form - but also whats beneath the skin. Brains are different - bones are different. Genetics are different. Evolutionary development is at different stages. Races are different in age... some young. some ancient. Thinking that all these are equally and 100 procent identical in their capability is imho so unrealistic, that the only reason i accept it is for the sake of game balance and avoiding drama.
hm....
In other words, what if eugenics was true and cool? Again, I don't care about fictional biological realism, this kind of eugenic thought applied to people is gross.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I personally don't think it has anything to do with it and its not even implied in any shape or form by my comment. That you are trying to make it sound like it does is a bit hilarious and gross at the same time.
I personally don't think it has anything to do with it and its not even implied in any shape or form by my comment. That you are trying to make it sound like it does is a bit hilarious and gross at the same time.
You haven't been following the conversation, I see. What you're doing above is applying the same kind of thinking to people as we would apply to dog breeds. This kind of talk is something that some of us have had applied to us in real life and it's highly uncomfortable and upsetting. Which is why it has no place in gaming.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm not. You are treating humanoids as different breeds. That is not my view and i don't think its the general view in games in general. They aren't the same species. dragonborn aren't related to yuan-ti and elves aren't related to dwarves. And no one is talking about breeds or a desired outcome of creating different breeds or how to keep them "pure" or other bullshit that falls under that point. The entire point of eugenics is misleading and creating a narrative that was not given by me or implied. You are approaching it from the angle "all humanoids are the same" and that is fine if thats your standpoint. I simply don't see them that way. For game balance, giving players equal opportunity is fine and i think its the right way to handle things. But trying to convince me that the only difference between i.e. a dragonborn and a kalashtar is their looks and culture doesn't sit right with me. But thats me. You can enjoy the most fantastical approach ever and i don't mind. But trying to put eugenics as a descriptor on my comment is stretching my comfy calm mood and is upsetting.
The entire point of eugenics is misleading and creating a narrative that was not given by me or implied.
I believe that you don't mean it intentionally. That doesn't mean that you haven't unintentionally put forth hurtful rhetoric. Just because it's unintentional doesn't mean you're exempt form having it called or pointed out.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
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I, an avid supporter of floating ASIs being the standard in the official books, would personally be fine with this. I can't speak for the others, though, but I do feel that this sort of compromise would work fairly well.
Yurei, Ophid, Pang, Shepherd, and everyone else still posting in this thread: what are your feelings on this suggestion?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I'm fine with floating ASI's being the company's standard, I just also want the Variant for static to be also available to me.
On the one hand, yes, I would find a suggestion as to what the typical traits are in PHB just fine; though on the other I can see WoTC not wanting to do that as it would still imply 'hand on the scale' and possibly incline players to think they should distribute their [8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15] array in a certain order based on race rather than class, which isn't what I'm intending.
What I really want is a note somewhere in the DMG relative to the Variant: Static Attribute Adjustments: that tell me what they actually are supposed to be, so I don't have to guess based on text-based descriptions and the referencing of older literature whose math may not be congruent with the bounded accuracy system.
-
That at the very least, but it would also be nice for DDB to have permission from WoTC to give us that toggle; at the campaign level for DM's at the very least; to use the Variant: Static Attribbute Adjustments; so the array can just be distributed as desired and then auto adjusted by the system to account for the racial modifiers.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Thing is - i totally understand the general idea that player characters should have the freedom of choice as much as possible, but on the other side i like to have an indication that reflects the general population of a given race. Races that are simply physically build more sturdy and their brains are simply wired to be thougthful i.e. could be generally +2 CON, +1 WIS to indicate what a "typical" member of a given race might reflect as bonuses, but give players and specific members of that race the simple choice to ignore it and select what fits better.
Floating ASIs as the standard with fixed racial ones as an alternative option has been suggested a couple of times. I'd be fine with it.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
A common request regarding dnd races is to simply change the word race to species or an analogous term because it carries less baggage and is probably more accurate. Given none of the changes even removing asi significantly address the criticisms regarding race in dnd and that no comment has really been made to the effect of it being about race; I really doubt that addressing race as a construct is the motivation for the changes. To be clear I'd support a statement about race or changing the word to species but I think its necessary to counter the idea that changing racial ASI is some big stand on race issues. It doesn't deserve that much credit and I'm sick of the paranoid theories that come up around it.
I think the reason is simply they are making a push towards having more worlds to sell and are going for more general races to use across them. Critical rolls unique world did reasonably well, they already had eberon and faerun which were pretty different, they are starting to expand into magic the gathering and the newer books are littered with references to the multiverse. The explicit justification in tasha's is also about choice and creating more unique characters so I just don't think race comes into it. I expect a " how to make your own universe" book or additional settings to be coming out and a move towards more varied representations across the settings. DnD has had allot of growth from people being invested in personalized characters, world and stories it only makes sense they'd move in that direction.
Personally, in a vacuum? I see no issue, through my own experiences and general attitude, in doing things this way.
That said, I believe it was Heironymus who brought up the notion that "You can assign your points any way you like, but if you'd rather not then your species usually has the following allocations..." does, in fact, completely and utterly defeat the entire purpose of doing away with the fixed allocations in the first place. You're right back to square 1 - all dwarves are supposed to be stout, all elves are supposed to be nimble, all halflings are supposed to be lucky, etcetera. You've not gotten rid of those things at all, you haven't eliminated the tight interlinkage between class and species, you haven't de-emphasized the iconic characters for any given species - you have accomplished nothing. All of that shit is still right in there, in the core rulebooks, slapping people across the face and making them feel bad for 'deviating' from their species' given attributions. All you've really done is ruffle the Old Guard's feathers by suggesting that it might be possible not all [Species X] are, in fact, completely identical genetic clones of each other.
There's an argument to be made that I find oddly persuasive that "floating points as an optional rule to default fixed allocations" a'la Tasha's is not the 'best' of both worlds, but in fact the worst. Or at least the second-worst, behind "floating points default, but fixed allocation a supported and celebrated backup option." Because that pisses off the Old Guard to the max whilst still doing all the damage that fixed allocations already does.
With that being the case, I'm going to come down on the side of "no, that's not good enough". Cultures can have favored characteristics, something like "The boisterous city of Hupperdook is a center of industry, innovation, and inebriation. Constant cycles of demanding ten-hour workdays and exuberant, lavish citywide festivals stretching well into the night drive a common local saying: 'you come to Hupperdook for an early grave worth earning.' Those raised in the frenetic town often favor Dexterity, Constitution, or Intelligence as their most favored attributes when called to the path of an adventurer, though many heroes from the infamous town have famously favored different strengths."
Make the whole 'favored attributes' thing endemic to setting and not locked down to any specific kind of people, save the 'kind' of people who grew up in a certain spot and raised within a certain way of life, and make sure there's still choices even within the "iconic" builds for a given culture. I think that would be a better overall idea than "we got rid of fixed, bioessential ASI allocations for species! Except not really, they're all still there, we just shuffled some words around in the book to try and hoodwink people into thinking they were gone."
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I have no idea why people should feel bad if they chose something that deviates from what has been typically genetically been given to the race. I am not talking about cultural impacts, Although of course social and economical upbringing can effect a humanoids ability distribution for sure if you want to take a deep dive into that direction. If we aren't able to offer general information about a races attributes, i feel like we should also get rid of all permanent racial features and make them all optional and interchangeable - as being forced to play an elf for certain features i would rather like my goblin to have seems trying to tie me down in a way too that might be unnecessary restrictive.
So weird as it might seem after all the digital ink I've spilled on this topic, but I don't hate fixed racial ASI's. Or at least, I didn't.
I was ... used to them. It was just kind of the default in fantasy gaming. And then the blinders were taken off and I could see what things could be like without them and things were so much better. It's almost like I didn't realize the burden I was carrying until it was lifted. Through discussions here on the forums I got stories about how other gamers, mostly gamers of color, had had negative experiences with racialized stats and I remembered how I've run into stereotypes irl that were irritating and othering in ways that's hard to explain, like the seemingly positive stereotypes, "Oh you're Asian, you're good at math, right?" that made me feel like even my friends didn't really see me they just saw some cookie cutter movie archetype that looked like me. It kind of clicked something and thinking about playing with racialized ASI's, even the mostly all positive ones in 5E started to feel like when someone cracks a joke and you don't quite know what it means but it kinda feels like they're making fun of you but you just laugh along with them because you don't want to spoil the mood.
After that I internally just came to the conclusion that, "Nope, racial ASI's shouldn't be a thing." The thing is I honestly think the game is better and healthier without them. If I were to develop chargen suggestions for the different peoples of D&D I would probably make them very specific. Maybe some lore blurbs in the writeups that go something like: "The gnomish communities of Lantan pride themselves on producing highly skilled engineers and artificers." You get a feel of what kind of reputation the people have in a particular world without the developers telling you this is how these people are.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Forgive me for the snark, because I do appreciate your measured, peace-seeking approach to this....but this is like asking me if I'd be cool with a little chapter on Phrenology in Biology textbooks.
No thanks.
Some things don't deserve to see print.
With regard to "change the word to species instead" -- that's just kicking the can down the road. That's saying, well, in the real world maybe bioessentialism is bunk... But what if it was real? And furthermore, what if it was cool?
Yeah I don't like "species" either. Alternatives that I would find acceptable: ancestries, peoples, folk.
Edit: Ugh yeah, your "what if it was cool?" just made me shudder. That's insidious!
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I don't love any of those, either. I think if the game is gonna have it -- and it is -- there's no sense putting a mustache on it and pretending it's something else.
Have you played Pathfinder? I'm pretty sure they did something like that in one of their books (it was a part of the whole controversy last year when a long-time member of the staff left and published a "95 Theses of why Pathfinder [the company, not the game] sucks"-Twitter thread).
So I can totally understand that. I don't think those things are exactly equivalent, but it is a good metaphor that makes me see your point of view.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
You don't think that a species physical and mental ability, flexibility and capacity is based on its evolution and genetics?
I agree that there is no difference between humans when it comes to it across our own species, but i don't see every humanoid adhering to the same evolutionary standard in its development. Sometimes i feel like people wish racial choices just to represent appearance to a limited degree. And if thats your approach - thats fine. I personally just feel that while giving players an equal opportunity playing field is nice and good, that portraying races with their physical and mental differences don't have to be based on culture only, but also on their individual development as a species.
If we would put a Homo Habilis next to a Homo Sapiens we would see clear differences in mental capabilities and the way their brain works. Pretty sure there will be physical differences as well that are pretty significant. I'm not trying to say that races are different stages in human evolution, but considering we simply lack a real life example on our planet as the only dominant sentient species.... its the best i could come up with.
I just think that races/species/ancestries in games don't have to be "human base body + human base brain + fantasy skin 1" = elf or dwarf etc.... I always thought of them as different not only in shape and form - but also whats beneath the skin. Brains are different - bones are different. Genetics are different. Evolutionary development is at different stages. Races are different in age... some young. some ancient. Thinking that all these are equally and 100 procent identical in their capability is imho so unrealistic, that the only reason i accept it is for the sake of game balance and avoiding drama.
hm....
In other words, what if eugenics was true and cool? Again, I don't care about fictional biological realism, this kind of eugenic thought applied to people is gross.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I personally don't think it has anything to do with it and its not even implied in any shape or form by my comment. That you are trying to make it sound like it does is a bit hilarious and gross at the same time.
You haven't been following the conversation, I see. What you're doing above is applying the same kind of thinking to people as we would apply to dog breeds. This kind of talk is something that some of us have had applied to us in real life and it's highly uncomfortable and upsetting. Which is why it has no place in gaming.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm not. You are treating humanoids as different breeds. That is not my view and i don't think its the general view in games in general. They aren't the same species. dragonborn aren't related to yuan-ti and elves aren't related to dwarves. And no one is talking about breeds or a desired outcome of creating different breeds or how to keep them "pure" or other bullshit that falls under that point. The entire point of eugenics is misleading and creating a narrative that was not given by me or implied. You are approaching it from the angle "all humanoids are the same" and that is fine if thats your standpoint. I simply don't see them that way. For game balance, giving players equal opportunity is fine and i think its the right way to handle things. But trying to convince me that the only difference between i.e. a dragonborn and a kalashtar is their looks and culture doesn't sit right with me. But thats me. You can enjoy the most fantastical approach ever and i don't mind. But trying to put eugenics as a descriptor on my comment is stretching my comfy calm mood and is upsetting.
Think how upsetting it is to have it's principles applied to you in real life.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I believe that you don't mean it intentionally. That doesn't mean that you haven't unintentionally put forth hurtful rhetoric. Just because it's unintentional doesn't mean you're exempt form having it called or pointed out.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!