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.
Eugenics isn't natural selection Ophidimancer. Eugenics is artifificial selection within your own species. Normal evolution is just normal evolution. Your instance that evolution doesn't apply to "people" is as absured and gross as you think our counter argument is. Everyone evolves, creatures speciate on their own whether or not they are sapient, everyone still evolves. However scientifically innacurate the concept of Eugenics may me, the concept of Random mutation and Natural selection is fully accepted science. OldMightyFriendlyGa... is correct. different kinds of creatures are actually different kinds of creatures, they are not just variations on one kind of creature; and it has nothing to do with eugenics; nothing to do with sapience, and it DOES have a place in THIS game.
Ok so all humans are identical right, we all have the exact same "strengths and weaknesses"?
This argument about DnD races falls down on so many levels, for one thing not all dwarfs are the same, you have hill dwarfs, duregar, mountain dwarfs. The thing they have in common are not there ASI's there are other key factors that make them distinct from the other races and all recognisable as Dwarfs. Why is it so hard to imagine that a dwarf, born to dwarf parents, might be a bit more sickly, or not have the same muscle mass, but make up for it in how charismatic they are, or how intelligent? Why is it so hard to imagine that your very argument about "genetics" might put as much variation through the dwarf race as it does our own human race, it might mean that a dwarf is born who is not as strong willed and resilient as other dwarfs. In fact this dwarf may be more likely to strike out and try and find there place in the world, or these more intelligent dwarfs that are born might find a place as artisans, story tellers, or even leaders in dwarf society.
Close enough, yeah, at least as far as attribute score abstractions are concerned. Humans (and also cheetah's I think this was true of) are one of the most closely related species on earth due to a bottleneck event experienced in the wake of the toba catastrophe, a supervolcanic eruption that occured about 70K years ago. It reduced our numbers to such a point that today, not only are all humans 1 species, we are also literally, one family. Not family like "Primates", I mean family, like we all share a single individual great ancestor. I've heard it said there is more genetic variability in t the genome between two individual chimps, then between all of humanity, and chimps - don't remember if that's true, but it's like a thing that I've heard back in my college days. So humans are indeed all VERY similar at the genetic level to one another.
Nods. Because prior to Floating ASI's, you needed a different mechanism to allow for shifting bonuses around, and subtypes were the mcGuffin to allow for it. I suspect in future versions of the game, there will be fewer subtypes going forward, and current ones will start being grouped together. Look how the Wood Elf entry right now has been made to encompass both Grugatch (wild elves) and the green/forest elves. Gurgatch were meant to accommodate the elven barbarian template while Green/Forest elves, the Druid/Ranger template, and High Elves the Wizard template, etc. Floating ASi's simply streamline this effect, specifically as Yurei stated somewhere, they want to move away from the idea of groups by type to more individual variety within a single group.
Because this kind of "what if" scenarios you are describing are better represented by where you place your [8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15] then where you place your [+2,+1]. i.e they represent your class choice; your training etc. The Steven Hawking of Dwarves would have a 15 in Int rather than in Con or STR, but his Con score will still be 10(8+2) rather than 8 because even such a Dwarf would still be slightly hardier than the Steven Hawking of most non-Dwarves. Dwarven "Stoutness" is still literally a part of being dwarven, even if any given particular Dwarf never chooses to, or finds themself otherwise incapable of, actually developing any further stoutness (putting any points into Con).
Remember also, people really want those floaters to give themselves [8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17], and are thinking they will be screwed otherwise. I'd love to see people try a game using floating [+2, +1, -2] to take an array of [10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14] across the whole party - really get back into the habit of having to EARN your superpowers. People forget that 10 is the extrapolation of "Average" ability. So for example an INT of 10 would be like a 108 I.Q. and a 13 is like Mensa status - you are one of the top 2% in all the world at the task of "thinking"; and this is what's needed for just 1st tier wizardry.
I.E. Wizardy is hard! Magic in general is hard; and so are heavy weapons, good archery skills, etc. People have been spoiled by the last 20 years of powercreep and take 13's for granted and begrudge any reason not to be able to start with a +4 modifier; and think it's more fun to start out as the superhero, then as just an above average person in the world who accrues their power as part of the rewards from taking heroic actions/doing heroic deeds. This is why you DON'T just pick the "iconic combination TM" but you DO have the static traits - because not having that 17 IS a better story.
Because games...in general...are generally escapism for something that none of us will be able to do.
I don't want to spend 3 years IRL to level up a DnD Character from "barely better than a commoner" to "barely proficient" . I want to play an archer who is has already had years of practice to get to the point they are already in the 3% best in the area they are in and become legendary though time and effort.
90% of people do not get past level 10 in the game....and 60% of characters are in T1 and are likely not to get out of that. It's just how the data falls. Not everyone can spend weeks/months progressing a campaign to get to a proficient level and instead want to play a capable character from the get go that gets fun ways to improve themselves outside of having to pick up ASI all the time over feats to simply keep up. Its just more fun to pick feats IMO...you get more character choice which is already limited so much for non-caster characters (most of the time you pick your subclass then never make a choice again).
If you like that sort of game...then go for it. Pick a crap array and enjoy!
Do not assume this is the way the common player would want the default to be.
I admit, I really enjoy the game from levels 1-10, and am a fan of that yes.. indeed the game is designed around the starting character having a +3 -Maximum- in a primary stat as has been pointed out.. Now I do emphasize maximum… because that word denotes that it isn’t necessarily the norm, it is the extreme.
For the style of game I like to run and play, that fits well to the narratives my table enjoys. Others tables will likely differ.
I also agree that many folks want to play a game where they are imagining themselves mighty heroes who overcome all odds with power and finesse. I also agree that many games never quite reach those levels of play if they start at level one. Perhaps an idea to encourage is that games can start at whatever level fits the play style the table wants? Does everyone have to start their story at first.. perhaps the tale you want to tell at your table requires starting at tenth level (?)
I think this sort of thinking should be more commonplace than it seems to be. That way folks like me have their framework for their “bleeding and degraded in the mud” low level games while others are encouraged to be epic shining superheroes if that is what their table enjoys.
At the risk of grognarding, this was one thing I always liked about old school modules.. they often had a set of pre rolled level appropriate characters, which even if you didn’t use.. could give one an idea of what a typical character for that module might be..
I think it would help the whole mechanics of base ASI if feats were separated from level ASI. People like feats but ASI are usually mechanically superior.
The word eugenics is getting used a fair bit, usually wrongly so here's the definition.
: the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the population's genetic composition
To me having fixed or ,probably better, suggested racial ASIs isn't as much about individual characters as it is about world building and immersion. I think we all exist somewhere along a spectrum and most distribution curves put the majority of whatever population you are measuring somewhere in the middle 60% - 80%. Which means a good 20% - 40% exist outside the majority. To the extent that is at all problematic I think it has less to do with the existence of distribution curves and more to do with idea that those outside the mean are wrong or bad in some way. Its the latter that needs correcting and not the existence of the former.
I think I'm going to take a little break here. "So you think eugenics is cool?" is a bit rich coming from a side that also argues racial ASIs are icky. That's a really ugly brush to be tarring people with, folks.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Gee. I wonder if it's because some people keep insisting that the experiences of people who find real issue with fixed ASIs is not real, valid, or important?
But fine. Fair enough. I'll go edit that last out-of-patience post of mine. But in turn, can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEAAAAAASE stop with the "fixed ASIs have never actually hurt anybody or caused any problems for anyoine ever and if you say they are you're just lying to try and drum up attention" horseshit?
Then a bunch of folks start jabbering about how this move is gonna Ruin D&D Forever, how fantasy racism is A.) not real racism, not really, and B.) also actually pretty cool if you think about it, how anyone who doesn't reject this idea wholesale is No True Fan of D&D, and all the other shit that keeps getting tossed around.
This is what I feel every time someone starts to justify fixed racial stat bumps with evolution or some other scientific sounding explanation. And then when I point out that it sounds racist they get so offended. "Racist? Me!? How DARE you!!?" The butthurt immediately obstructs any sort of ability to reflect that I didn't call them a hood wearing Klan member, I just pointed out that something they said sounds like all the same reasoning that's been used to oppress people in real life. That it's cringey and painful to bring into the hobby that I love. That it's possible that a lot of the things you think and say normally can have unintended racist overtones that you don't notice because you've never borne the brunt of them.
And it's not like I don't believe in biological differences. If we made first contact with aliens in real life and they, I dunno, could fly or something, I wouldn't think it's racist to point out that they can fly and we can't. I'm just saying that racialized ability score modifiers really gives me a Phrenology and Scientific Racism feel and it's a gross feeling. Thank you, Hieronymus, for reminding me about phrenology, by the way.
RE: Stat bumps vs unique abilities Don't get me wrong, I love me a good novel with different kinds of sentient species working together or fighting or whatnot. I love thinking about how different species abilities affect things like infrastructure, economics, combat tactics, etc. but there is a qualitative difference between abilities based on physiological anatomy and innate aptitude. Yes, yes, I know anatomy can affect aptitude but I said this was qualitative and saying High Elves are just innately smarter again brings back those essentialist, racist feels and expunging that from the gaming space is so much a higher priority than maintaining some sort of artificial sense of scientific realism in rpg's. Which brings me to ...
RE: Other media vs Roleplaying Games Like I said, I love me a novel about characters from different species and their various capabilities, but there is a crucial difference between a novel or a movie and a roleplaying game. In an RPG we are not just passively experiencing the story that the author or filmmaker has placed before us. We are collaboratively creating a story as we go. This makes it a social activity and immediately much more intimate than the relationship between an author and a reader. D&D players get in real close and comingle bits of their personas in a shared imaginary space. As in any sort of intimate activity there is a responsibility for mutual safety between participants. Which is why there are rules that establish boundaries and guidelines for play.
I do think that authors and filmmakers also bear a responsibility not to traumatize their audience, or at the very least to warn people about their content so they have the chance to avoid traumatizing themselves, but movies and books don't have quite the same potential for immersion that rpg's do. Acting in character really puts you into the mindset of your character and all the emotions they go through. Fellow gamers have a greater responsibility for each other's safety than novelists do because the intimacy gives greater potential for harm while at the same time making it more challenging because roleplay scenarios are created live and on the spot rather than being able to harmlessly delete and rewrite.
All that to say that even something vague as the uneasy feeling me and other minorities can feel from inherent racialized ability scores falls under the purview of unsafe gaming and responsible gamers should take a moment to reflect on that, despite whatever need their is for an artificial sense of scientific realism.
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.
Eugenics isn't natural selection Ophidimancer. Eugenics is artifificial selection within your own species. Normal evolution is just normal evolution. Your instance that evolution doesn't apply to "people" is as absured and gross as you think our counter argument is. Everyone evolves, creatures speciate on their own whether or not they are sapient, everyone still evolves. However scientifically innacurate the concept of Eugenics may me, the concept of Random mutation and Natural selection is fully accepted science. OldMightyFriendlyGa... is correct. different kinds of creatures are actually different kinds of creatures, they are not just variations on one kind of creature; and it has nothing to do with eugenics; nothing to do with sapience, and it DOES have a place in THIS game.
Ok so all humans are identical right, we all have the exact same "strengths and weaknesses"?
This argument about DnD races falls down on so many levels, for one thing not all dwarfs are the same, you have hill dwarfs, duregar, mountain dwarfs. The thing they have in common are not there ASI's there are other key factors that make them distinct from the other races and all recognisable as Dwarfs. Why is it so hard to imagine that a dwarf, born to dwarf parents, might be a bit more sickly, or not have the same muscle mass, but make up for it in how charismatic they are, or how intelligent? Why is it so hard to imagine that your very argument about "genetics" might put as much variation through the dwarf race as it does our own human race, it might mean that a dwarf is born who is not as strong willed and resilient as other dwarfs. In fact this dwarf may be more likely to strike out and try and find there place in the world, or these more intelligent dwarfs that are born might find a place as artisans, story tellers, or even leaders in dwarf society.
Close enough, yeah, at least as far as attribute score abstractions are concerned. Humans (and also cheetah's I think this was true of) are one of the most closely related species on earth due to a bottleneck event experienced in the wake of the toba catastrophe, a supervolcanic eruption that occured about 70K years ago. It reduced our numbers to such a point that today, not only are all humans 1 species, we are also literally, one family. Not family like "Primates", I mean family, like we all share a single individual great ancestor. I've heard it said there is more genetic variability in t the genome between two individual chimps, then between all of humanity, and chimps - don't remember if that's true, but it's like a thing that I've heard back in my college days. So humans are indeed all VERY similar at the genetic level to one another.
Nods. Because prior to Floating ASI's, you needed a different mechanism to allow for shifting bonuses around, and subtypes were the mcGuffin to allow for it. I suspect in future versions of the game, there will be fewer subtypes going forward, and current ones will start being grouped together. Look how the Wood Elf entry right now has been made to encompass both Grugatch (wild elves) and the green/forest elves. Gurgatch were meant to accommodate the elven barbarian template while Green/Forest elves, the Druid/Ranger template, and High Elves the Wizard template, etc. Floating ASi's simply streamline this effect, specifically as Yurei stated somewhere, they want to move away from the idea of groups by type to more individual variety within a single group.
Because this kind of "what if" scenarios you are describing are better represented by where you place your [8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15] then where you place your [+2,+1]. i.e they represent your class choice; your training etc. The Steven Hawking of Dwarves would have a 15 in Int rather than in Con or STR, but his Con score will still be 10(8+2) rather than 8 because even such a Dwarf would still be slightly hardier than the Steven Hawking of most non-Dwarves. Dwarven "Stoutness" is still literally a part of being dwarven, even if any given particular Dwarf never chooses to, or finds themself otherwise incapable of, actually developing any further stoutness (putting any points into Con).
Remember also, people really want those floaters to give themselves [8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17], and are thinking they will be screwed otherwise. I'd love to see people try a game using floating [+2, +1, -2] to take an array of [10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14] across the whole party - really get back into the habit of having to EARN your superpowers. People forget that 10 is the extrapolation of "Average" ability. So for example an INT of 10 would be like a 108 I.Q. and a 13 is like Mensa status - you are one of the top 2% in all the world at the task of "thinking"; and this is what's needed for just 1st tier wizardry.
I.E. Wizardy is hard! Magic in general is hard; and so are heavy weapons, good archery skills, etc. People have been spoiled by the last 20 years of powercreep and take 13's for granted and begrudge any reason not to be able to start with a +4 modifier; and think it's more fun to start out as the superhero, then as just an above average person in the world who accrues their power as part of the rewards from taking heroic actions/doing heroic deeds. This is why you DON'T just pick the "iconic combination TM" but you DO have the static traits - because not having that 17 IS a better story.
OK so My wife is muscle bound, genetically she has more muscle mass then most Humans, her sons have benefitted from this and one of them is a body builder partly because he is naturally stronger then pretty much any other human I know of, a friend of mine is a bonafide scientific genius who, somehow just gets his chosen field to a level that is not learnt, another friend of mine is just a great natural artist, far better then any other human I know.
So yes there is vast variation amongst just the humans I know that goes beyond simple "roll your stats" difference.
When you start trying to apply Genetics and Evolution to the ideas of a fantasy setting then please understand the actual science, yes all humans are evolved from the same family but, very small genetic shifts, even between parents and children, which are not linked to race by the way, can make humans so very very different. You are creating an "ideal" in your world because you can't handle the fact that maybe, just maybe I don't need +2 str and +1 con to actually be a half orc. I have relentless endurance, I have the fact I am an outcast in most campaign settings, I have the fact that my character sheet has a green guy with tusks on it. Why can't you acknowledge that Genetics might actually make a half orc who is weaker and more sickly then ALL other half orcs be raised, that maybe he learns to use his greater intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma to forge a place for himself in the clan. Or he is Ostracised and so seeks out to prove himself in the wider world, wanting to return having been proclaimed the greatest wizard in the land, or the greatest sword fighter.
That Story as defined by a player instantly becomes weaker if I as a DM force him to still take those 2 ASI's, it makes absolutely no sense in the world either that Every Half Orc, no matter where raised and by whom, no matter who there parents are, or what there lineage is, is exactly the same.
And your argument falls down when you consider how many races already have that variation, Tieflings I can litterly pick already for my +1 stat to be placed in pretty much any other stat I want depending on the "type" of tiefling, Dwarves and Elves have multiple variants. Why is it hard to consider that maybe, just maybe, there are an infinite number of variations of each race in the worlds? Not every spell in the game is listed in the DnD book, if it was WOTC would not allow us to homebrew, and would not keep making up more with every expansion, not every magic Item has been published, so why assume that every variation of race has been published in the books?
But even ignoring that I can tell you as a white male I have known, over 8 years of playing DnD, many players that have been offended by the many of the tropes of DnD in a way that I have not seen in any of the other 30 odd TTRPG systems I have played. What really brought it home 8 years ago when I started Homebrewing floating ASI's, was a friend of mine, afro Caribbean background, brought up in a deprived area of London, told by society that he should go into sports, or do a physical job because people like him are never intelligent there "Racial ASI" is in strength (his words not mine) pointed out the issue in the game. He wanted to make a half orc who was weaker then the rest, was more sickly then the rest, and who used his intelligence to break expectations and went to wizard university. He wanted to play himself, using his story to play a Wizard and so, I decided to throw the rules out the window and let him take +2 int and +1 wisdom. He was still a half orc, his character didn't suddenly change and become something different. But he showed me that there was an inherent problem with the structure of character creation in DnD, so from that point on I stated at character creation, if it makes sense for your character to move ASI's around then feel free. The world hasn't imploded, my games have been richer and better for it and, most importantly, I have had so many players thank me for bending a really silly rule because for them it made them feel more included.
By all means announce to the world you will not be running floating ASI's at your table, I imagine the people you play with think the same as you, or don't care enough to bring it up, but trying to justify fixed ASI's through talk of genetics, or evolution is just stupid. This is a made up fantasy game about made up things, I am sorry that you feel aggrieved that "a core aspect of the game has been taken away" although I would argue is it really that core, character creation has changed so much since DnD began as far as I am aware. If you require fixed ASI's in order to know what race people are playing at your table then I really think you have bigger issues then floating ASI's to worry about in your game.
Drow should be pale skinned, I mean like whitest of white, and ginger or blonde because, thousands of years with no sunlight.
Elves should all be bronzed and tanned because - They laze about in the hot tub all day catching rays of the sun in there climate controlled hab's
The argument just does not wash on so many levels it is almost an embarrassment when people try using it as a defence for why racial ASI's are realistic.
You can't build the world around whose feelings are hurt first are the ones that are in the right and only a solution that fixes this is the reasonable way to go forward or the only acceptable viewpoint. Its a whole sperm whale more complicated and i'm sure you are aware of it, although it doesn't help you in your narrative and as such sure is better to be ignored.
By that definition class choices and restrictions, as well as available backgrounds in D&D are an easy trigger to be feeling hurt. So maybe we can use our energy and get rid of a couple of backgrounds from the start. Those that are able to remind me of socia economic realities that could trigger a negative reaction maybe first. The build in struggle of the urchin, the knight with his free "retainers" who do his bidding.... a reminder of the aristrocratic superioty .... roleplaying games offer so much potential for easy triggers of hurt that its generally a game of landmines the easier it is to trigger a negative emotional reaction from its consumer.
"We should be compassionate to people." "Oh, but it's so hard and so complicated, there are so many things that hurt so many people how are we supposed to live and have any fun if we have to worry about people and their feelings?"
Honestly, it's true. It's complicated. It's hard. And yet that still doesn't change that when we can and where we can, we should strive to be compassionate to people. And we should teach others to strive for that, too so that when we inevitably run out of energy that we can spare because we all have our own lives and must take care of ourselves, too, those others can continue in our stead.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is constant improvement.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
And we're right back to "everything is going to piss off somebody, so I've decided not to care about pissing off anybody and ignore any harm I do no matter what. Since it's impossible to upset nobody, I'm going to upset everybody instead and anybody who's hurt by that stance is in the wrong, not me."
People wonder why this topic gets so contentious and why it keeps burning up into forum fires. The whole stupid "well what about this, huh?! Is this next?!" argument is ridiculous. "WHEN DOES IT STOP?!" Old Guard types bellow.
Answer: right now? It stops with fixed bioessential ASIs. Get rid of those, play for a couple of years, see what happens. Maybe that'll be enough. Who knows? We won't find out if everybody keeps insisting D&D will Explode And Die Forever if people are allowed to play something other than iconic characters. I mean shit - are y'all gonna tell me I have to go into the sheets for all my female characters and apply a -4STR, -2CON, +1CHA, +1WIS stat adjustment for daring to be female? No? Are we okay with female characters having the same potential and the same abilities as male ones even though "well I'm not being sexist but women are just obviously weaker and frailer and just not as good at Adventuring I'm not saying they're lesser people I'm just saying it's a scientific fact that women are weak but they could totally be, like, better at being people-person gossips and such to make up for it!"?
If it's okay for us to discard the idea that the female gender is inferior despite dubious pseudoscientific meanderings otherwise for the sake of a better game experience, why is it such a scorching fight to discard the idea that specific individuals within another species could encompass different attributions than is considered 'typical' for their kind for the same reason?
I'd love to see people try a game using floating [+2, +1, -2]
Now this, I wouldn't mind at all. The idea that I get to define for myself what my character is bad at is great!
I use floating +2, +1, -1 in my campaign world
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
At this point... As long the Racial Features (ugh... That really is a problematic descriptor) are distinct enough to make the character more than a human in bad sfx makeup the floating +2/+1 is not going to impact my tables significantly enough to warrant getting bent out of shape over.
IMHO, your point about all race X or race Y and trait is a bit overblown if a race has +2 to ST and they put their lowest stat roll in ST (below the average roll of 10) they are obviously different then if you have someone who puts a roll above average into their ST. Saying gnomes are shorter then humans is generally true (based on most standard height charts I have seen in a lot of games) but in some games you can also take traits that modify the base races height to be more in the range of a gnome for a human or a human for a gnome.
I often use the following quote to explain how I look at PC building and it is a bit of a para-phrase as I heard it a long time ago "Jonny Cash was talking to Keith Richards of the Stones and was saying, the notes I do not play in a song has a melody of its own." IMHO I was saying the silence between the music to him is also music. To me choosing what my PC can do well, ok and average is just as important as choosing what my PC is poor, dismal and very low chance to no chance of success. As I see it picking races, classes and other options are ways to help define what my PC can do and has trouble doing vs an over all statistical game norm.
I agree that everyone may not see PC gen that way or in that way. and I find fun in doing that things my PC can do well and trying to overcome the areas where my PC has trouble.
At this point... As long the Racial Features (ugh... That really is a problematic descriptor) are distinct enough to make the character more than a human in bad sfx makeup the floating +2/+1 is not going to impact my tables significantly enough to warrant getting bent out of shape over.
I mean really, does anybody think much about how they got to a 16 STR after the character is created and out adventuring? Much less care about how other people got a 16 STR?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
IMHO, your point about all race X or race Y and trait is a bit overblown if a race has +2 to ST and they put their lowest stat roll in ST (below the average roll of 10) they are obviously different then if you have someone who puts a roll above average into their ST. Saying gnomes are shorter then humans is generally true (based on most standard height charts I have seen in a lot of games) but in some games you can also take traits that modify the base races height to be more in the range of a gnome for a human or a human for a gnome.
I often use the following quote to explain how I look at PC building and it is a bit of a para-phrase as I heard it a long time ago "Jonny Cash was talking to Keith Richards of the Stones and was saying, the notes I do not play in a song has a melody of its own." IMHO I was saying the silence between the music to him is also music. To me choosing what my PC can do well, ok and average is just as important as choosing what my PC is poor, dismal and very low chance to no chance of success. As I see it picking races, classes and other options are ways to help define what my PC can do and has trouble doing vs an over all statistical game norm.
I agree that everyone may not see PC gen that way or in that way. and I find fun in doing that things my PC can do well and trying to overcome the areas where my PC has trouble.
MDC
I don't think anyone has an issue with having characters with weaknesses, at least I don't. It's just that I don't want my pick of ancestry to innately define those. Like I said, a floating penalty that I had to assign for my character would be perfectly fine with me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
You're again trying to put me in a category and portray me as if i am not able to be compassionate with that fictional discussion you put in. Its a funny way of carrying on the narrative, but not really strong or valid.
I am fine with changes and generally find the idea of an equal opportunity playing field for characters just fine. D&D isn't the first fiction trpg to give general bonuses that aren't depended on species. And it sure won't be the last. I don't think that the impact of free choice with your ASI has any large impact on game balance at all and its a welcome change to the offical ruleset. We already eliminated maximum scores for PC races in 5e and set everyone on equal values when it comes to min and max. While this is a good change for game balance, it also makes choices a bit more blant anyway, as the impact gets less and less over the course of 20 levels. What i perceive as blant - others might call freedom and both answers are fine.
I think i'm just annoyed by people using trebuchets and ballistas to defend their narrative and point of view instead of having a simple discussion about it and not build a front like its WW2. :D
You're again trying to put me in a category and portray me as if i am not able to be compassionate with that fictional discussion you put in. Its a funny way of carrying on the narrative, but not really strong or valid.
What is compassion if not caring about not hurting people? So when you say
You can't build the world around whose feelings are hurt first are the ones that are in the right and only a solution that fixes this is the reasonable way to go forward or the only acceptable viewpoint. Its a whole sperm whale more complicated
It really sounds like you're saying, "It's difficult and complicated to try and care about people's feelings, it just can't be done" At least it does to me.
I think i'm just annoyed by people using trebuchets and ballistas to defend their narrative and point of view instead of having a simple discussion about it and not build a front like its WW2. :D
When you start saying stuff that is exactly the kind of stuff that racists say to justify being racist against me I'm going to call it out. If that sounds harsh to you, maybe you should take a moment to think about how painful a memory it is for me, despite you not intending to do that, and realize that maybe you put your foot in it instead of reacting defensively.
But fine. Fair enough. I'll go edit that last out-of-patience post of mine. But in turn, can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEAAAAAASE stop with the "fixed ASIs have never actually hurt anybody or caused any problems for anyoine ever and if you say they are you're just lying to try and drum up attention" horseshit?
You can't build the world around whose feelings are hurt first are the ones that are in the right and only a solution that fixes this is the reasonable way to go forward or the only acceptable viewpoint. Its a whole sperm whale more complicated and i'm sure you are aware of it, although it doesn't help you in your narrative and as such sure is better to be ignored.
By that definition class choices and restrictions, as well as available backgrounds in D&D are an easy trigger to be feeling hurt. So maybe we can use our energy and get rid of a couple of backgrounds from the start. Those that are able to remind me of socia economic realities that could trigger a negative reaction maybe first. The build in struggle of the urchin, the knight with his free "retainers" who do his bidding.... a reminder of the aristrocratic superioty .... roleplaying games offer so much potential for easy triggers of hurt that its generally a game of landmines the easier it is to trigger a negative emotional reaction from its consumer.
Hey, Friendly? This attitude you've got? The one that makes you respond to "I'm having a bad time, please stop ignoring my problems" with "everybody has problems, you can't expect me to care about all of them"? Let's examine it a little. Let's do it in the form of a ridiculous fable, because I woke up to this crap and I'm already exhausted.
I, a mean nasty wolf, have an omnidirectional laser gun. It shoots everyone! Perfect for my goals to destroy all life on this planet and rule over the ashes. I activate it a few times, and a lot of animals get shot, animals from every walk of life. I start to get messages from various groups saying, "hey, stop shooting us, or we'll be forced to declare war against you." Dang. Well, I have to respect the big ones -- I can't go to war with any armies, certainly, and I don't think I can take on the mammals either, they're just too big. But other groups? Owls, perhaps? Large lizards? They're small enough in number, I could probably keep shooting my laser gun at them and the survivors wouldn't have enough numbers to assault my secret lair and kill me. Brilliant! I recalibrate my laser gun: now it's not omnidirectional, but multidirectional. It shoots all the groups that can't adequately fight back. But what's this? The smaller groups are calling out to the larger groups, saying "if we band together, Choir won't be able to shoot us all with his laser gun!" Oh no. Bad news for me. What can I do?
I panic for a few minutes. But it turns out, I didn't need to worry, because the larger groups start responding to the smaller groups: "You can't build the world around who get shot by the laser first are the ones that are in the right and only a solution that fixes this is the reasonable way to go forward or the only acceptable viewpoint."
Oh! Look at this! Not only have they managed to cement the narrative that We Can't Satisfy Everyone, So Let's Just Ignore Minorities, but they've also managed to sneak in Asking Us To Listen To You Is A Little Bit Like Thought Control. You know what, from a homicidal laser gun wolf's perspective, I don't think I could've asked for a better outcome. Unless maybe they could also frame getting shot by my laser as some kind of personal weakness? Oh, and everyone's an animal, because this is a fable, remember. It's very whimsical. Ha ha.
Because games...in general...are generally escapism for something that none of us will be able to do.
I don't want to spend 3 years IRL to level up a DnD Character from "barely better than a commoner" to "barely proficient" . I want to play an archer who is has already had years of practice to get to the point they are already in the 3% best in the area they are in and become legendary though time and effort.
90% of people do not get past level 10 in the game....and 60% of characters are in T1 and are likely not to get out of that. It's just how the data falls. Not everyone can spend weeks/months progressing a campaign to get to a proficient level and instead want to play a capable character from the get go that gets fun ways to improve themselves outside of having to pick up ASI all the time over feats to simply keep up. Its just more fun to pick feats IMO...you get more character choice which is already limited so much for non-caster characters (most of the time you pick your subclass then never make a choice again).
If you like that sort of game...then go for it. Pick a crap array and enjoy!
Do not assume this is the way the common player would want the default to be.
I admit, I really enjoy the game from levels 1-10, and am a fan of that yes.. indeed the game is designed around the starting character having a +3 -Maximum- in a primary stat as has been pointed out.. Now I do emphasize maximum… because that word denotes that it isn’t necessarily the norm, it is the extreme.
For the style of game I like to run and play, that fits well to the narratives my table enjoys. Others tables will likely differ.
I also agree that many folks want to play a game where they are imagining themselves mighty heroes who overcome all odds with power and finesse. I also agree that many games never quite reach those levels of play if they start at level one. Perhaps an idea to encourage is that games can start at whatever level fits the play style the table wants? Does everyone have to start their story at first.. perhaps the tale you want to tell at your table requires starting at tenth level (?)
I think this sort of thinking should be more commonplace than it seems to be. That way folks like me have their framework for their “bleeding and degraded in the mud” low level games while others are encouraged to be epic shining superheroes if that is what their table enjoys.
At the risk of grognarding, this was one thing I always liked about old school modules.. they often had a set of pre rolled level appropriate characters, which even if you didn’t use.. could give one an idea of what a typical character for that module might be..
I think it would help the whole mechanics of base ASI if feats were separated from level ASI. People like feats but ASI are usually mechanically superior.
The word eugenics is getting used a fair bit, usually wrongly so here's the definition.
To me having fixed or ,probably better, suggested racial ASIs isn't as much about individual characters as it is about world building and immersion. I think we all exist somewhere along a spectrum and most distribution curves put the majority of whatever population you are measuring somewhere in the middle 60% - 80%. Which means a good 20% - 40% exist outside the majority. To the extent that is at all problematic I think it has less to do with the existence of distribution curves and more to do with idea that those outside the mean are wrong or bad in some way. Its the latter that needs correcting and not the existence of the former.
I think I'm going to take a little break here. "So you think eugenics is cool?" is a bit rich coming from a side that also argues racial ASIs are icky. That's a really ugly brush to be tarring people with, folks.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Gee. I wonder if it's because some people keep insisting that the experiences of people who find real issue with fixed ASIs is not real, valid, or important?
But fine. Fair enough. I'll go edit that last out-of-patience post of mine. But in turn, can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEAAAAAASE stop with the "fixed ASIs have never actually hurt anybody or caused any problems for anyoine ever and if you say they are you're just lying to try and drum up attention" horseshit?
Please do not contact or message me.
This is what I feel every time someone starts to justify fixed racial stat bumps with evolution or some other scientific sounding explanation. And then when I point out that it sounds racist they get so offended. "Racist? Me!? How DARE you!!?" The butthurt immediately obstructs any sort of ability to reflect that I didn't call them a hood wearing Klan member, I just pointed out that something they said sounds like all the same reasoning that's been used to oppress people in real life. That it's cringey and painful to bring into the hobby that I love. That it's possible that a lot of the things you think and say normally can have unintended racist overtones that you don't notice because you've never borne the brunt of them.
And it's not like I don't believe in biological differences. If we made first contact with aliens in real life and they, I dunno, could fly or something, I wouldn't think it's racist to point out that they can fly and we can't. I'm just saying that racialized ability score modifiers really gives me a Phrenology and Scientific Racism feel and it's a gross feeling. Thank you, Hieronymus, for reminding me about phrenology, by the way.
RE: Stat bumps vs unique abilities
Don't get me wrong, I love me a good novel with different kinds of sentient species working together or fighting or whatnot. I love thinking about how different species abilities affect things like infrastructure, economics, combat tactics, etc. but there is a qualitative difference between abilities based on physiological anatomy and innate aptitude. Yes, yes, I know anatomy can affect aptitude but I said this was qualitative and saying High Elves are just innately smarter again brings back those essentialist, racist feels and expunging that from the gaming space is so much a higher priority than maintaining some sort of artificial sense of scientific realism in rpg's. Which brings me to ...
RE: Other media vs Roleplaying Games
Like I said, I love me a novel about characters from different species and their various capabilities, but there is a crucial difference between a novel or a movie and a roleplaying game. In an RPG we are not just passively experiencing the story that the author or filmmaker has placed before us. We are collaboratively creating a story as we go. This makes it a social activity and immediately much more intimate than the relationship between an author and a reader. D&D players get in real close and comingle bits of their personas in a shared imaginary space. As in any sort of intimate activity there is a responsibility for mutual safety between participants. Which is why there are rules that establish boundaries and guidelines for play.
I do think that authors and filmmakers also bear a responsibility not to traumatize their audience, or at the very least to warn people about their content so they have the chance to avoid traumatizing themselves, but movies and books don't have quite the same potential for immersion that rpg's do. Acting in character really puts you into the mindset of your character and all the emotions they go through. Fellow gamers have a greater responsibility for each other's safety than novelists do because the intimacy gives greater potential for harm while at the same time making it more challenging because roleplay scenarios are created live and on the spot rather than being able to harmlessly delete and rewrite.
All that to say that even something vague as the uneasy feeling me and other minorities can feel from inherent racialized ability scores falls under the purview of unsafe gaming and responsible gamers should take a moment to reflect on that, despite whatever need their is for an artificial sense of scientific realism.
Now this, I wouldn't mind at all. The idea that I get to define for myself what my character is bad at is great!
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!
OK so
My wife is muscle bound, genetically she has more muscle mass then most Humans, her sons have benefitted from this and one of them is a body builder partly because he is naturally stronger then pretty much any other human I know of, a friend of mine is a bonafide scientific genius who, somehow just gets his chosen field to a level that is not learnt, another friend of mine is just a great natural artist, far better then any other human I know.
So yes there is vast variation amongst just the humans I know that goes beyond simple "roll your stats" difference.
When you start trying to apply Genetics and Evolution to the ideas of a fantasy setting then please understand the actual science, yes all humans are evolved from the same family but, very small genetic shifts, even between parents and children, which are not linked to race by the way, can make humans so very very different. You are creating an "ideal" in your world because you can't handle the fact that maybe, just maybe I don't need +2 str and +1 con to actually be a half orc. I have relentless endurance, I have the fact I am an outcast in most campaign settings, I have the fact that my character sheet has a green guy with tusks on it. Why can't you acknowledge that Genetics might actually make a half orc who is weaker and more sickly then ALL other half orcs be raised, that maybe he learns to use his greater intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma to forge a place for himself in the clan. Or he is Ostracised and so seeks out to prove himself in the wider world, wanting to return having been proclaimed the greatest wizard in the land, or the greatest sword fighter.
That Story as defined by a player instantly becomes weaker if I as a DM force him to still take those 2 ASI's, it makes absolutely no sense in the world either that Every Half Orc, no matter where raised and by whom, no matter who there parents are, or what there lineage is, is exactly the same.
And your argument falls down when you consider how many races already have that variation, Tieflings I can litterly pick already for my +1 stat to be placed in pretty much any other stat I want depending on the "type" of tiefling, Dwarves and Elves have multiple variants. Why is it hard to consider that maybe, just maybe, there are an infinite number of variations of each race in the worlds? Not every spell in the game is listed in the DnD book, if it was WOTC would not allow us to homebrew, and would not keep making up more with every expansion, not every magic Item has been published, so why assume that every variation of race has been published in the books?
But even ignoring that I can tell you as a white male I have known, over 8 years of playing DnD, many players that have been offended by the many of the tropes of DnD in a way that I have not seen in any of the other 30 odd TTRPG systems I have played. What really brought it home 8 years ago when I started Homebrewing floating ASI's, was a friend of mine, afro Caribbean background, brought up in a deprived area of London, told by society that he should go into sports, or do a physical job because people like him are never intelligent there "Racial ASI" is in strength (his words not mine) pointed out the issue in the game. He wanted to make a half orc who was weaker then the rest, was more sickly then the rest, and who used his intelligence to break expectations and went to wizard university. He wanted to play himself, using his story to play a Wizard and so, I decided to throw the rules out the window and let him take +2 int and +1 wisdom. He was still a half orc, his character didn't suddenly change and become something different. But he showed me that there was an inherent problem with the structure of character creation in DnD, so from that point on I stated at character creation, if it makes sense for your character to move ASI's around then feel free. The world hasn't imploded, my games have been richer and better for it and, most importantly, I have had so many players thank me for bending a really silly rule because for them it made them feel more included.
By all means announce to the world you will not be running floating ASI's at your table, I imagine the people you play with think the same as you, or don't care enough to bring it up, but trying to justify fixed ASI's through talk of genetics, or evolution is just stupid. This is a made up fantasy game about made up things, I am sorry that you feel aggrieved that "a core aspect of the game has been taken away" although I would argue is it really that core, character creation has changed so much since DnD began as far as I am aware. If you require fixed ASI's in order to know what race people are playing at your table then I really think you have bigger issues then floating ASI's to worry about in your game.
I mean if your going to get into Genetics
Drow should be pale skinned, I mean like whitest of white, and ginger or blonde because, thousands of years with no sunlight.
Elves should all be bronzed and tanned because - They laze about in the hot tub all day catching rays of the sun in there climate controlled hab's
The argument just does not wash on so many levels it is almost an embarrassment when people try using it as a defence for why racial ASI's are realistic.
"We should be compassionate to people."
"Oh, but it's so hard and so complicated, there are so many things that hurt so many people how are we supposed to live and have any fun if we have to worry about people and their feelings?"
Honestly, it's true. It's complicated. It's hard. And yet that still doesn't change that when we can and where we can, we should strive to be compassionate to people. And we should teach others to strive for that, too so that when we inevitably run out of energy that we can spare because we all have our own lives and must take care of ourselves, too, those others can continue in our stead.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is constant improvement.
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!
Starloc clearly has expertise, advantage and reliable talent on persuasion checks because that was exceedingly well put. Bravo
And we're right back to "everything is going to piss off somebody, so I've decided not to care about pissing off anybody and ignore any harm I do no matter what. Since it's impossible to upset nobody, I'm going to upset everybody instead and anybody who's hurt by that stance is in the wrong, not me."
People wonder why this topic gets so contentious and why it keeps burning up into forum fires. The whole stupid "well what about this, huh?! Is this next?!" argument is ridiculous. "WHEN DOES IT STOP?!" Old Guard types bellow.
Answer: right now? It stops with fixed bioessential ASIs. Get rid of those, play for a couple of years, see what happens. Maybe that'll be enough. Who knows? We won't find out if everybody keeps insisting D&D will Explode And Die Forever if people are allowed to play something other than iconic characters. I mean shit - are y'all gonna tell me I have to go into the sheets for all my female characters and apply a -4STR, -2CON, +1CHA, +1WIS stat adjustment for daring to be female? No? Are we okay with female characters having the same potential and the same abilities as male ones even though "well I'm not being sexist but women are just obviously weaker and frailer and just not as good at Adventuring I'm not saying they're lesser people I'm just saying it's a scientific fact that women are weak but they could totally be, like, better at being people-person gossips and such to make up for it!"?
If it's okay for us to discard the idea that the female gender is inferior despite dubious pseudoscientific meanderings otherwise for the sake of a better game experience, why is it such a scorching fight to discard the idea that specific individuals within another species could encompass different attributions than is considered 'typical' for their kind for the same reason?
Please do not contact or message me.
I use floating +2, +1, -1 in my campaign world
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
At this point... As long the Racial Features (ugh... That really is a problematic descriptor) are distinct enough to make the character more than a human in bad sfx makeup the floating +2/+1 is not going to impact my tables significantly enough to warrant getting bent out of shape over.
IMHO, your point about all race X or race Y and trait is a bit overblown if a race has +2 to ST and they put their lowest stat roll in ST (below the average roll of 10) they are obviously different then if you have someone who puts a roll above average into their ST. Saying gnomes are shorter then humans is generally true (based on most standard height charts I have seen in a lot of games) but in some games you can also take traits that modify the base races height to be more in the range of a gnome for a human or a human for a gnome.
I often use the following quote to explain how I look at PC building and it is a bit of a para-phrase as I heard it a long time ago "Jonny Cash was talking to Keith Richards of the Stones and was saying, the notes I do not play in a song has a melody of its own." IMHO I was saying the silence between the music to him is also music. To me choosing what my PC can do well, ok and average is just as important as choosing what my PC is poor, dismal and very low chance to no chance of success. As I see it picking races, classes and other options are ways to help define what my PC can do and has trouble doing vs an over all statistical game norm.
I agree that everyone may not see PC gen that way or in that way. and I find fun in doing that things my PC can do well and trying to overcome the areas where my PC has trouble.
MDC
I mean really, does anybody think much about how they got to a 16 STR after the character is created and out adventuring? Much less care about how other people got a 16 STR?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I don't think anyone has an issue with having characters with weaknesses, at least I don't. It's just that I don't want my pick of ancestry to innately define those. Like I said, a floating penalty that I had to assign for my character would be perfectly fine with me.
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!
You're again trying to put me in a category and portray me as if i am not able to be compassionate with that fictional discussion you put in. Its a funny way of carrying on the narrative, but not really strong or valid.
I am fine with changes and generally find the idea of an equal opportunity playing field for characters just fine. D&D isn't the first fiction trpg to give general bonuses that aren't depended on species. And it sure won't be the last. I don't think that the impact of free choice with your ASI has any large impact on game balance at all and its a welcome change to the offical ruleset. We already eliminated maximum scores for PC races in 5e and set everyone on equal values when it comes to min and max. While this is a good change for game balance, it also makes choices a bit more blant anyway, as the impact gets less and less over the course of 20 levels. What i perceive as blant - others might call freedom and both answers are fine.
I think i'm just annoyed by people using trebuchets and ballistas to defend their narrative and point of view instead of having a simple discussion about it and not build a front like its WW2. :D
What is compassion if not caring about not hurting people? So when you say
It really sounds like you're saying, "It's difficult and complicated to try and care about people's feelings, it just can't be done" At least it does to me.
When you start saying stuff that is exactly the kind of stuff that racists say to justify being racist against me I'm going to call it out. If that sounds harsh to you, maybe you should take a moment to think about how painful a memory it is for me, despite you not intending to do that, and realize that maybe you put your foot in it instead of reacting defensively.
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!
Hey, Friendly? This attitude you've got? The one that makes you respond to "I'm having a bad time, please stop ignoring my problems" with "everybody has problems, you can't expect me to care about all of them"? Let's examine it a little. Let's do it in the form of a ridiculous fable, because I woke up to this crap and I'm already exhausted.
I, a mean nasty wolf, have an omnidirectional laser gun. It shoots everyone! Perfect for my goals to destroy all life on this planet and rule over the ashes. I activate it a few times, and a lot of animals get shot, animals from every walk of life. I start to get messages from various groups saying, "hey, stop shooting us, or we'll be forced to declare war against you." Dang. Well, I have to respect the big ones -- I can't go to war with any armies, certainly, and I don't think I can take on the mammals either, they're just too big. But other groups? Owls, perhaps? Large lizards? They're small enough in number, I could probably keep shooting my laser gun at them and the survivors wouldn't have enough numbers to assault my secret lair and kill me. Brilliant! I recalibrate my laser gun: now it's not omnidirectional, but multidirectional. It shoots all the groups that can't adequately fight back. But what's this? The smaller groups are calling out to the larger groups, saying "if we band together, Choir won't be able to shoot us all with his laser gun!" Oh no. Bad news for me. What can I do?
I panic for a few minutes. But it turns out, I didn't need to worry, because the larger groups start responding to the smaller groups: "You can't build the world around who get shot by the laser first are the ones that are in the right and only a solution that fixes this is the reasonable way to go forward or the only acceptable viewpoint."
Oh! Look at this! Not only have they managed to cement the narrative that We Can't Satisfy Everyone, So Let's Just Ignore Minorities, but they've also managed to sneak in Asking Us To Listen To You Is A Little Bit Like Thought Control. You know what, from a homicidal laser gun wolf's perspective, I don't think I could've asked for a better outcome. Unless maybe they could also frame getting shot by my laser as some kind of personal weakness? Oh, and everyone's an animal, because this is a fable, remember. It's very whimsical. Ha ha.
What, precisely, isn't going on?
I mean, I'll buy that you aren't racist. I'll also point out that no-one called you racist in this thread.