I think the reason they removed half-elf and half-orc were because they invoked the real-world racism too much. "All people of mixed race are outcasts? check. You only count as 'half' if one half is whitehuman? check." The fact that racespecies mechanics still exist at all isn't an excuse to keep the worst stereotypes.
Well that was the stated reasoning, and as a "Half" IRL the way they handled it was horribly disenfranchising. And their responses to the critics have been not good. Sure the bigoty I got for being a half was real, just like the bigotry that the Democrat Presidential candidate is getting is real. But at the same time, we are here, there are a lot more "halves" in the world than people realize. And sometimes when we play games we want to see ourselves in them. The analogy of Half-elf to me worked really well for my ethnic origins, and how starkly different my moms ancestry from my dads was.
I was hoping the Hybrid rules would be in the PHB, or at least something of the like, so we could still make our mixed ancestry self inserts. Maybe it'll be in the DMG.
I was hoping the Hybrid rules would be in the PHB, or at least something of the like, so we could still make our mixed ancestry self inserts. Maybe it'll be in the DMG.
If not there then the Dungeon Master's Guild. I have an idea of how I'd do "half" people and might do a book at some point when WotC finally ships me my copy of the PHB.
I was hoping the Hybrid rules would be in the PHB, or at least something of the like, so we could still make our mixed ancestry self inserts. Maybe it'll be in the DMG.
If not there then the Dungeon Master's Guild. I have an idea of how I'd do "half" people and might do a book at some point when WotC finally ships me my copy of the PHB.
i think the bolded is probably the right approach for WotC. You have an idea. And another DM or player will have another idea and a third table will have yet another idea of how they would handle it in their world. Best that WotC keeps out of it altogether instead of doing something stupid or letting something slip through the cracks (see Hadozee). And no matter what someone will not be satisfied
Let each table decide amongst themselves how they want to handle half species.
I've now seen how different the reactions are to this change (and the previous rules, and the UA rules about it), and I can also see why they decided to just get rid of it. It may be giving them too much credit, but I feel like what happened was that they knew the "half-" races of yore were not universally loved by actual multi-ethnic players (limited to two and only with humans), they tried out a different system which some multi-ethnic people liked and others didn't, and then realized that they were never ever going to satisfy everyone with whatever rules they come up with, mechanically.
Even this iteration of "dealing" with the issue has differing viewpoints all from multi-ethnic players, as evidenced by this thread. They will never win this game. Might as well not waste the ink on it. If it appears in the DMG, I will be happy that the idea has mechanical support (I am not multi-ethnic, so I don't hold much weight to my personal opinion on the matter), but if their internal polling showed that just about as many multi-ethnic players loathed the UA rules as loved them, then that's not really a whole lot of incentive to move forward with them.
I don’t miss the half-races. Half Elves were over powered and Half-Orcs are basically the same as Orcs in most respects.
They have have some ‘half-Species’ rules coming in the DMG but here’s the thing: from a biological perspective different Species shouldn’t be able to breed. There DNA doesn’t mix and would make, at very least infertile offspring.
I also wonder if playing a Dragon blooded Sorcerer is essentially a half-species though?
i think the bolded is probably the right approach for WotC. You have an idea. And another DM or player will have another idea and a third table will have yet another idea of how they would handle it in their world. Best that WotC keeps out of it altogether instead of doing something stupid or letting something slip through the cracks (see Hadozee). And no matter what someone will not be satisfied
Let each table decide amongst themselves how they want to handle half species.
Right. Except the way to do that is to provide them as an option and let people decide to keep them or ban them. By not including them, they're not giving people the choice. That's like saying they're giving people a choice of whether or not to have demons and devils in their campaign setting by not including any fiendsi n the Monster Manual.
Letting people "decide for themselves" what content they want by adding the content only works to a limited extent. If the game isn't providing me the options I want and I have to homebrew too much, it's easier for me to just find a new system that actually gives me all the content I desire.
Right, but he won't be Tanis Half-Elven, he'll just be Tanis. If they're not including the half-_____ options because that upsets some people, then they're not going to have a character with that term in his name. He'll be Tanis Elven who has a human father for flavour.
He can call himself whatever he wants. Names are names, mechanics are mechanics; having "race mechanics" in the first place was a bad idea.
(Personally, not having half species feels far, FAR more racist and insulting. Because, while you can have elven and human parents, you still have to pick one. You can't be both. You are either an elf or a human. Which feels like saying some can't be both Indian and Black, almost coming across as a dog whistle. But that's a whole other conversation...)
I think the reason they removed half-elf and half-orc were because they invoked the real-world racism too much. "All people of mixed race are outcasts? check. You only count as 'half' if one half is whitehuman? check." The fact that racespecies mechanics still exist at all isn't an excuse to keep the worst stereotypes.
... and what they had initially decided to replace that with was arguably even worse:
Telling players to pick one of the character's parents to serve as the dominant parent whose traits would dominate how the character would function mechanically. That mirrors how extremely racist people in the past would view those of us who are multiethnic. Telling us we "weren't white enough" or "weren't black enough" and that we could "only possibly" be one or the other. As if we can't identify as both. Or neither for that matter. The concept of Third Culture Kids (TKC)—whom I teach for a living—and the sensitivity with which it handles this very subject is far more greatly in line with having specific half-"species" as available options for players whose characters then are a blend of traits from both parents. I teach such kids abroad. But I myself am a "third culture" individual. I come from a country in which 100s of 1000s of individuals are ethnically black but whom you would probably perceive as white. Race and racism are complex. Trying to please and appease people with rigidly dogmatic views about what these things mean is a recipe for disaster.
Right. Except the way to do that is to provide them as an option and let people decide to keep them or ban them. By not including them, they're not giving people the choice.
There was never a choice. There are 45 possible hybrids of PHB species, listing two of them is not actually better than listing zero of them (leaving it up to the DM and player how any particular hybrid actually works).
Right. Except the way to do that is to provide them as an option and let people decide to keep them or ban them. By not including them, they're not giving people the choice.
There was never a choice. There are 45 possible hybrids of PHB species, listing two of them is not actually better than listing zero of them (leaving it up to the DM and player how any particular hybrid actually works).
So... because they can't have ALL the hybrids we should have no hybrids?
That feels like saying that because everyone can't be happy nobody should get to be happy.
(Except, in this case, the people getting to be happy are the ones rejoicing and people losing something they enjoy...🤷♂️)
So... because they can't have ALL the hybrids we should have no hybrids?
Yes? Honestly, neither is a significant loss, people played half-orcs because orcs weren't in the PHB, and they played half-elves because they were OP.
So... because they can't have ALL the hybrids we should have no hybrids?
Yes? Honestly, neither is a significant loss, people played half-orcs because orcs weren't in the PHB, and they played half-elves because they were OP.
OP is a stretch; 2 extra skill profs, charm resistance, and an extra +1 are nice, but they're all passive effects with only one having any real clout on combat. It all looks good on paper, but saying that's more OP than advantage against most of the stronger spell/magic effects or tanking a hit that would knock you to 0 doesn't seem to hold up, imo.
A significant part of the popularity of half elf is that it captures the classic trope of being caught between the mundane and the fantastic pretty well. Long life, darkvision, and charm resistance are nicely fantastic, but there's no active powers the way the really magical races have (something that's become even more pronounced in 24). There's not really a good alternative in the new PHB, which is why I think it's something they need to address in a future book, maybe as something like the ancestries or whatever the term they used for the not-race options from Ravenloft so it's a more flexible "mundane person started manifesting fantastic traits" thing instead of only being the result of a particular pairing.
So... because they can't have ALL the hybrids we should have no hybrids?
Yes? Honestly, neither is a significant loss, people played half-orcs because orcs weren't in the PHB, and they played half-elves because they were OP.
Them being OP in original flavour 5e is no reason to remove them from the game for all subsequent editons. It's a reason to balance them.
I've been playing half-elves since 2e. They've always been my favourite. Since I read about Tanis Half-Elven and fell in love with Dragonlance. As an undiagnosed Aspie teen I always felt out of place and like I didn't belong anywhere, and Tanis' struggles fitting in as someone who was neither elf no human resonated with me.
Those books not only got me through junior high sane and reignited my waning love of reading but led me to D&D.
So... because they can't have ALL the hybrids we should have no hybrids?
Yes? Honestly, neither is a significant loss, people played half-orcs because orcs weren't in the PHB, and they played half-elves because they were OP.
Them being OP in original flavour 5e is no reason to remove them from the game for all subsequent editons. It's a reason to balance them.
I've been playing half-elves since 2e. They've always been my favourite. Since I read about Tanis Half-Elven and fell in love with Dragonlance. As an undiagnosed Aspie teen I always felt out of place and like I didn't belong anywhere, and Tanis' struggles fitting in as someone who was neither elf no human resonated with me.
Those books not only got me through junior high sane and reignited my waning love of reading but led me to D&D.
You can still play a half elf in the new rules, they're just not mechanically different because there's an assumption that (unless you were raised by wolves) you were raised in either elf or the human society.
Tanis was an outsider in the human world because he was raised by elves, and he was an outside in the elf world because of his different physiology and shorter life span, not because he was lacking in elf culture/upbringing. He learned elvish, he learned to hunt like an elf, he was betrothed to an elf, and *then* he went into the human world.
If you were to make Tanis in the new rules, it's entirely plausible that you would pick Elf as your species.
You can still play a half elf in the new rules, they're just not mechanically different because there's an assumption that (unless you were raised by wolves) you were raised in either elf or the human society.
Tanis was an outsider in the human world because he was raised by elves, and he was an outside in the elf world because of his different physiology and shorter life span, not because he was lacking in elf culture/upbringing. He learned elvish, he learned to hunt like an elf, he was betrothed to an elf, and *then* he went into the human world.
If you were to make Tanis in the new rules, it's entirely plausible that you would pick Elf as your species.
What about a half-elf raised by both parents in a society populated with both humans and elves in which neither's culture dominates?
Why should that character's player be forced to pick just one parent to determine anything mechanical for his or her character?
Like I said:
[It] mirrors how extremely racist people in the past would view those of us who are multiethnic. Telling us we "weren't white enough" or "weren't black enough" and that we could "only possibly" be one or the other. As if we can't identify as both. Or neither for that matter. The concept of Third Culture Kids (TKC)—whom I teach for a living—and the sensitivity with which it handles this very subject is far more greatly in line with having specific half-"species" as available options for players whose characters then are a blend of traits from both parents.
They are then something in and of themselves. Not just one or the other. Or "both"—only one is purely cosmetic. That is so deeply offensive it boggles the mind how Wizards even considered it.
I would wager a dragon's hoard the majority of those who see nothing wrong with telling a multiethnic player to just pick one parent when rolling up a half-"species" character don't "get it" because they are neither multiethnic nor do they remotely care whether really anything might distress other players just as long as it's behavior of which they personally approve.
You can still play a half elf in the new rules, they're just not mechanically different because there's an assumption that (unless you were raised by wolves) you were raised in either elf or the human society.
Tanis was an outsider in the human world because he was raised by elves, and he was an outside in the elf world because of his different physiology and shorter life span, not because he was lacking in elf culture/upbringing. He learned elvish, he learned to hunt like an elf, he was betrothed to an elf, and *then* he went into the human world.
If you were to make Tanis in the new rules, it's entirely plausible that you would pick Elf as your species.
What about a half-elf raised by both parents in a society populated with both humans and elves in which neither's culture dominates?
Why should that character's player be forced to pick just one parent to determine anything mechanical for his or her character?
Like I said:
[It] mirrors how extremely racist people in the past would view those of us who are multiethnic. Telling us we "weren't white enough" or "weren't black enough" and that we could "only possibly" be one or the other. As if we can't identify as both. Or neither for that matter. The concept of Third Culture Kids (TKC)—whom I teach for a living—and the sensitivity with which it handles this very subject is far more greatly in line with having specific half-"species" as available options for players whose characters then are a blend of traits from both parents.
They are then something in and of themselves. Not just one or the other. Or "both"—only one is purely cosmetic. That is so deeply offensive it boggles the mind how Wizards even considered it.
I would wager a dragon's hoard the majority of those who see nothing wrong with telling a multiethnic player to just pick one parent when rolling up a half-"species" character don't "get it" because they are neither multiethnic nor do they remotely care whether really anything might distress other players just as long as it's behavior of which they personally approve.
The problem with comparing the irl multi-ethnic experience to how they run the rules for mechanical features of a fictional character in a fictional setting of at least one fictional heritage is that the comparison is objectively apples to oranges. Within the irl experience, the most substantial physiological differences between ethnicities are things like pigmentation and bone structure. Within the fiction of D&D, the differences between the races start with that and then expand into lifespan, significantly stronger senses, physical features like horns or scales or wings, and a massive array of magical powers. Which then, on the mechanical side, gets into the issue of potentially creating overpowered combinations if you let people mix and match; a problem that would rapidly balloon as more races are introduced and they need to check those features against an ever-expanding list of prior ones. Yes, if you’re actively looking for a reason to be upset with WotC you can spin the “pick one block’s features” method as being meant to push the kind of specious narratives people have irl, or alternatively you can consider the practical application of the various options on the game and recognize it’s the most effective way to leave any pairing a given player and DM agree on as valid without creating a massive and unwieldy headache for design teams.
The human race and all of its ethnicities are well represented in D&D and have been since 1th edition. Certainly, the handling and writing has not always been great, there was plenty of questionable stuff that I can completetly understand someone being offended about (I'm looking at you Oriental Adventures), but the point is that the "human race" is the only thing that represents humans and human ethnicity as we know them. The OTHER races have nothing to do with being human or representing humans in either culture or ethnicity and its bizarre to me that anyone would make this association. Weirdly we only make it in fantasy, and very selectively and its never done in science-fiction for example. No one expects there to be a black Gamorrean or an Asian Klingon and no one associates either with being some select ethnicity, a Klingon is an alien.. it is its own made up ethnicity. For some reason we hand pick random races in fantasy and decide that they poorly represent some human ethnicity like Orcs. Why? and Why don't we do it for say a Dwarf. I mean they are stereotyped as Greedy Drunkards, which ethnicity do they represent and why is no one offended?
The whole half-race thing makes a bit more sense to me and I can understand the shift in Revised 5e as this is a Half Human, Half Alien combination is not really a new race, its a combination of two races and the wording and meaning between ethnicity and race start to converge, but of course this is because its completely made up, there is no real world example of two races mixing as the only race that exists on earth is the human race.
The problem with comparing the irl multi-ethnic experience to how they run the rules for mechanical features of a fictional character in a fictional setting of at least one fictional heritage is that the comparison is objectively apples to oranges. Within the irl experience, the most substantial physiological differences between ethnicities are things like pigmentation and bone structure. Within the fiction of D&D, the differences between the races start with that and then expand into lifespan, significantly stronger senses, physical features like horns or scales or wings, and a massive array of magical powers. Which then, on the mechanical side, gets into the issue of potentially creating overpowered combinations if you let people mix and match; a problem that would rapidly balloon as more races are introduced and they need to check those features against an ever-expanding list of prior ones. Yes, if you’re actively looking for a reason to be upset with WotC you can spin the “pick one block’s features” method as being meant to push the kind of specious narratives people have irl, or alternatively you can consider the practical application of the various options on the game and recognize it’s the most effective way to leave any pairing a given player and DM agree on as valid without creating a massive and unwieldy headache for design teams.
This is because we associate human ethnicity to playable races in the game. The only race that represents all of human ethnicity is the human race, all of the other races are alien races, they are, in a word, an entirely different species and its very likely if such a thing actually existed, they would in fact have wildly different genetic features. In a word, an Elf has more in common with the science-fiction creature THE Predator than it has with being human. An Elf does not represent a human ethnicity, it has nothing to do with being human at all.
If Half (Insert whatever word you like to replace race) as were written in 2014 d&d are going the way of the dodo, is this also true for monsters? Looking at you Cambion (Half fiends), the Half Dragon template and Tanarukk (Half Dmeon/Orc), there maybe others but these are the ones that pop into my head at time of writing. Apologies I was to lazy to read the whole thread so if this has already been discussed feel free to ignore.
Going forward does the Simic hybrid from Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica give use the easiest possible way of doing a Half-Anything Just have a base to start with and then have a "choose one of these abilities at level 1" option, followed by a choose another at level 3 and level 5 with a slighly expanded list of abilities as you go up level. So for instance you might have a base of start with darkvision 60ft or 2 skill proficiences and at level 1 choose from either: 2 skill proficience, a damage resistance or darkvisiom 60ft (stacks with darkvision from base abilities to become 120ft), learn a cantrip of your choice you can cast it at will and spellcasting ability for it is dictated by which list it is from. At level 3: Choose one of the abilities form teh level 1 choices or one of the following: a level 1 spell of your choice and spellcasting ability for it is dictated by which list it is from, you can cast this spell 1/LR without expending a spell slot or use spell slots if you have them, or a breath weapon as per Dragonborn ability, etc etc etc.
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To address the first point, those are all DM tools, so that’s an entirely different dynamic.
For the second, going broadly Build-A-Bear on player race design seems highly unlikely based on their past history; they included a very bare-bones iteration of that back in TCoE and I’ve seen pretty much no discussion of it as a serious option. Most likely they’ll either put the section from the UA in the DMG since it’s ultimately more in the DM’s sphere as an option they can choose to exercise rather than one that is open to players by default, or if people have made enough noise that it’s still wrong or not good enough they’ll just quietly drop the idea from official material and it’ll just be one more unofficial homebrew way to implement the concept.
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Well that was the stated reasoning, and as a "Half" IRL the way they handled it was horribly disenfranchising. And their responses to the critics have been not good. Sure the bigoty I got for being a half was real, just like the bigotry that the Democrat Presidential candidate is getting is real. But at the same time, we are here, there are a lot more "halves" in the world than people realize. And sometimes when we play games we want to see ourselves in them. The analogy of Half-elf to me worked really well for my ethnic origins, and how starkly different my moms ancestry from my dads was.
I was hoping the Hybrid rules would be in the PHB, or at least something of the like, so we could still make our mixed ancestry self inserts. Maybe it'll be in the DMG.
I disagree. They're different species and shouldn't all have the same traits. It'd be weird if playable Aarakocra couldn't fly.
Just like Vulcans and Wookies don't have the exact same physical capabilities of humans.
If not there then the Dungeon Master's Guild. I have an idea of how I'd do "half" people and might do a book at some point when WotC finally ships me my copy of the PHB.
i think the bolded is probably the right approach for WotC. You have an idea. And another DM or player will have another idea and a third table will have yet another idea of how they would handle it in their world. Best that WotC keeps out of it altogether instead of doing something stupid or letting something slip through the cracks (see Hadozee). And no matter what someone will not be satisfied
Let each table decide amongst themselves how they want to handle half species.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I've now seen how different the reactions are to this change (and the previous rules, and the UA rules about it), and I can also see why they decided to just get rid of it. It may be giving them too much credit, but I feel like what happened was that they knew the "half-" races of yore were not universally loved by actual multi-ethnic players (limited to two and only with humans), they tried out a different system which some multi-ethnic people liked and others didn't, and then realized that they were never ever going to satisfy everyone with whatever rules they come up with, mechanically.
Even this iteration of "dealing" with the issue has differing viewpoints all from multi-ethnic players, as evidenced by this thread. They will never win this game. Might as well not waste the ink on it. If it appears in the DMG, I will be happy that the idea has mechanical support (I am not multi-ethnic, so I don't hold much weight to my personal opinion on the matter), but if their internal polling showed that just about as many multi-ethnic players loathed the UA rules as loved them, then that's not really a whole lot of incentive to move forward with them.
I don’t miss the half-races. Half Elves were over powered and Half-Orcs are basically the same as Orcs in most respects.
They have have some ‘half-Species’ rules coming in the DMG but here’s the thing: from a biological perspective different Species shouldn’t be able to breed. There DNA doesn’t mix and would make, at very least infertile offspring.
I also wonder if playing a Dragon blooded Sorcerer is essentially a half-species though?
Right. Except the way to do that is to provide them as an option and let people decide to keep them or ban them. By not including them, they're not giving people the choice.
That's like saying they're giving people a choice of whether or not to have demons and devils in their campaign setting by not including any fiendsi n the Monster Manual.
Letting people "decide for themselves" what content they want by adding the content only works to a limited extent. If the game isn't providing me the options I want and I have to homebrew too much, it's easier for me to just find a new system that actually gives me all the content I desire.
... and what they had initially decided to replace that with was arguably even worse:
Telling players to pick one of the character's parents to serve as the dominant parent whose traits would dominate how the character would function mechanically. That mirrors how extremely racist people in the past would view those of us who are multiethnic. Telling us we "weren't white enough" or "weren't black enough" and that we could "only possibly" be one or the other. As if we can't identify as both. Or neither for that matter. The concept of Third Culture Kids (TKC)—whom I teach for a living—and the sensitivity with which it handles this very subject is far more greatly in line with having specific half-"species" as available options for players whose characters then are a blend of traits from both parents. I teach such kids abroad. But I myself am a "third culture" individual. I come from a country in which 100s of 1000s of individuals are ethnically black but whom you would probably perceive as white. Race and racism are complex. Trying to please and appease people with rigidly dogmatic views about what these things mean is a recipe for disaster.
There was never a choice. There are 45 possible hybrids of PHB species, listing two of them is not actually better than listing zero of them (leaving it up to the DM and player how any particular hybrid actually works).
So... because they can't have ALL the hybrids we should have no hybrids?
That feels like saying that because everyone can't be happy nobody should get to be happy.
(Except, in this case, the people getting to be happy are the ones rejoicing and people losing something they enjoy...🤷♂️)
Yes? Honestly, neither is a significant loss, people played half-orcs because orcs weren't in the PHB, and they played half-elves because they were OP.
OP is a stretch; 2 extra skill profs, charm resistance, and an extra +1 are nice, but they're all passive effects with only one having any real clout on combat. It all looks good on paper, but saying that's more OP than advantage against most of the stronger spell/magic effects or tanking a hit that would knock you to 0 doesn't seem to hold up, imo.
A significant part of the popularity of half elf is that it captures the classic trope of being caught between the mundane and the fantastic pretty well. Long life, darkvision, and charm resistance are nicely fantastic, but there's no active powers the way the really magical races have (something that's become even more pronounced in 24). There's not really a good alternative in the new PHB, which is why I think it's something they need to address in a future book, maybe as something like the ancestries or whatever the term they used for the not-race options from Ravenloft so it's a more flexible "mundane person started manifesting fantastic traits" thing instead of only being the result of a particular pairing.
Them being OP in original flavour 5e is no reason to remove them from the game for all subsequent editons. It's a reason to balance them.
I've been playing half-elves since 2e. They've always been my favourite.
Since I read about Tanis Half-Elven and fell in love with Dragonlance. As an undiagnosed Aspie teen I always felt out of place and like I didn't belong anywhere, and Tanis' struggles fitting in as someone who was neither elf no human resonated with me.
Those books not only got me through junior high sane and reignited my waning love of reading but led me to D&D.
You can still play a half elf in the new rules, they're just not mechanically different because there's an assumption that (unless you were raised by wolves) you were raised in either elf or the human society.
Tanis was an outsider in the human world because he was raised by elves, and he was an outside in the elf world because of his different physiology and shorter life span, not because he was lacking in elf culture/upbringing. He learned elvish, he learned to hunt like an elf, he was betrothed to an elf, and *then* he went into the human world.
If you were to make Tanis in the new rules, it's entirely plausible that you would pick Elf as your species.
What about a half-elf raised by both parents in a society populated with both humans and elves in which neither's culture dominates?
Why should that character's player be forced to pick just one parent to determine anything mechanical for his or her character?
Like I said:
[It] mirrors how extremely racist people in the past would view those of us who are multiethnic. Telling us we "weren't white enough" or "weren't black enough" and that we could "only possibly" be one or the other. As if we can't identify as both. Or neither for that matter. The concept of Third Culture Kids (TKC)—whom I teach for a living—and the sensitivity with which it handles this very subject is far more greatly in line with having specific half-"species" as available options for players whose characters then are a blend of traits from both parents.
They are then something in and of themselves. Not just one or the other. Or "both"—only one is purely cosmetic. That is so deeply offensive it boggles the mind how Wizards even considered it.
I would wager a dragon's hoard the majority of those who see nothing wrong with telling a multiethnic player to just pick one parent when rolling up a half-"species" character don't "get it" because they are neither multiethnic nor do they remotely care whether really anything might distress other players just as long as it's behavior of which they personally approve.
The problem with comparing the irl multi-ethnic experience to how they run the rules for mechanical features of a fictional character in a fictional setting of at least one fictional heritage is that the comparison is objectively apples to oranges. Within the irl experience, the most substantial physiological differences between ethnicities are things like pigmentation and bone structure. Within the fiction of D&D, the differences between the races start with that and then expand into lifespan, significantly stronger senses, physical features like horns or scales or wings, and a massive array of magical powers. Which then, on the mechanical side, gets into the issue of potentially creating overpowered combinations if you let people mix and match; a problem that would rapidly balloon as more races are introduced and they need to check those features against an ever-expanding list of prior ones. Yes, if you’re actively looking for a reason to be upset with WotC you can spin the “pick one block’s features” method as being meant to push the kind of specious narratives people have irl, or alternatively you can consider the practical application of the various options on the game and recognize it’s the most effective way to leave any pairing a given player and DM agree on as valid without creating a massive and unwieldy headache for design teams.
The human race and all of its ethnicities are well represented in D&D and have been since 1th edition. Certainly, the handling and writing has not always been great, there was plenty of questionable stuff that I can completetly understand someone being offended about (I'm looking at you Oriental Adventures), but the point is that the "human race" is the only thing that represents humans and human ethnicity as we know them. The OTHER races have nothing to do with being human or representing humans in either culture or ethnicity and its bizarre to me that anyone would make this association. Weirdly we only make it in fantasy, and very selectively and its never done in science-fiction for example. No one expects there to be a black Gamorrean or an Asian Klingon and no one associates either with being some select ethnicity, a Klingon is an alien.. it is its own made up ethnicity. For some reason we hand pick random races in fantasy and decide that they poorly represent some human ethnicity like Orcs. Why? and Why don't we do it for say a Dwarf. I mean they are stereotyped as Greedy Drunkards, which ethnicity do they represent and why is no one offended?
The whole half-race thing makes a bit more sense to me and I can understand the shift in Revised 5e as this is a Half Human, Half Alien combination is not really a new race, its a combination of two races and the wording and meaning between ethnicity and race start to converge, but of course this is because its completely made up, there is no real world example of two races mixing as the only race that exists on earth is the human race.
This is because we associate human ethnicity to playable races in the game. The only race that represents all of human ethnicity is the human race, all of the other races are alien races, they are, in a word, an entirely different species and its very likely if such a thing actually existed, they would in fact have wildly different genetic features. In a word, an Elf has more in common with the science-fiction creature THE Predator than it has with being human. An Elf does not represent a human ethnicity, it has nothing to do with being human at all.
Random thoughs/brief ranble:
If Half (Insert whatever word you like to replace race) as were written in 2014 d&d are going the way of the dodo, is this also true for monsters? Looking at you Cambion (Half fiends), the Half Dragon template and Tanarukk (Half Dmeon/Orc), there maybe others but these are the ones that pop into my head at time of writing. Apologies I was to lazy to read the whole thread so if this has already been discussed feel free to ignore.
Going forward does the Simic hybrid from Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica give use the easiest possible way of doing a Half-Anything Just have a base to start with and then have a "choose one of these abilities at level 1" option, followed by a choose another at level 3 and level 5 with a slighly expanded list of abilities as you go up level. So for instance you might have a base of start with darkvision 60ft or 2 skill proficiences and at level 1 choose from either: 2 skill proficience, a damage resistance or darkvisiom 60ft (stacks with darkvision from base abilities to become 120ft), learn a cantrip of your choice you can cast it at will and spellcasting ability for it is dictated by which list it is from. At level 3: Choose one of the abilities form teh level 1 choices or one of the following: a level 1 spell of your choice and spellcasting ability for it is dictated by which list it is from, you can cast this spell 1/LR without expending a spell slot or use spell slots if you have them, or a breath weapon as per Dragonborn ability, etc etc etc.
To address the first point, those are all DM tools, so that’s an entirely different dynamic.
For the second, going broadly Build-A-Bear on player race design seems highly unlikely based on their past history; they included a very bare-bones iteration of that back in TCoE and I’ve seen pretty much no discussion of it as a serious option. Most likely they’ll either put the section from the UA in the DMG since it’s ultimately more in the DM’s sphere as an option they can choose to exercise rather than one that is open to players by default, or if people have made enough noise that it’s still wrong or not good enough they’ll just quietly drop the idea from official material and it’ll just be one more unofficial homebrew way to implement the concept.