What Happened to Half-Elves? A Brazilian Player's Perspective on Mixed Ancestry, Representation, and D&D 2024

Quote from gothicshark >>

Quote from Davyd >>

Quote from gothicshark >>

Quote from Davyd >>

Quote from gothicshark >>

...They implied the existence of them was Racism, which means my existence is somehow offensive....

 No, they didn't

What was said was that the mechanical construction of the half- approach to [at the time termed] races was inherently racist. They were saying how they handled the notion of being mixed ancestry as a mechanically distinct race within the context of the rules was racist, not the existence of mixed heritage peoples

This is a lie (or at best misinformation) that people need to stop spreading.

 watch the video and listen to the words said. It was "inherently" offensive to anyone of mixed ancestry. His intent may not have been that, but his words were terribly offensive, to people of mixed ancestry like myself. 

The "inherently racist" comment pertains to the mechanical execution of the concept, not the concept itself. Here's the quote in question:

“Frankly, we are not comfortable, and haven’t been for years with any of the options that start with ‘half’…The half construction is inherently racist so we simply aren’t going to include it in the new Player’s Handbook. If someone wants to play those character options, they’ll still be in D&D Beyond. They’ll still be in the 2014 Player’s Handbook”

I can't seem to find an actual video of the panel, so if you have a link it'd really help clear up any ambiguity. What I can find is multiple repetitions of the above quote, which is very clearly not saying "it was "inherently" offensive to anyone of mixed ancestry".

As someone of a mono-heritage, I'm neither going to speak to the problematic nature of "half-...." in the matter of heritage, nor of any attempts to reclaim the term. But I will speak to active misrepresentation of what was said, which was that mechanically constructing races/species with the notion of being "half-" baked in is problematic and they've addressed that.

 

It was in the video, and I couldn't find it either. It was in how he said it, and the pause. Which put enfisis on Half being racist. He also said the same in other interviews, and his key words were Half is inherently racist. As someone who is a half, I found it infuriating how he said that. I own my half white half middle east ancestry. 

 I'm not going to engage with someone who insists on spreading misinformation

Quote from gothicshark>>

 I have to agree, the feat and stats tied to background become a non-option for some classes. I can role-play a more interesting background but my barbarian had to have Farmer, otherwise I was nerfing her. 

 Reminder that Background is quote "your most formative occupation." You don't have to be a Farmer in order to have farmed at some point in your pre-adventuring life. 

Moreover, (a) you don't need a +Con background as a Barbarian as 14 is plenty, and (b) even if you feel like you do for some reason, there are considerably more official Str/Con backgrounds out there than there were when the PHB released. 

People care more about optimization than story

As I often say:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Quote from gothicshark >>

It was in the video, and I couldn't find it either. It was in how he said it, and the pause. Which put enfisis on Half being racist. He also said the same in other interviews, and his key words were Half is inherently racist. As someone who is a half, I found it infuriating how he said that. I own my half white half middle east ancestry. 

 It reads like you added offense to the video and then got mad about those things you added. 

At the end of the day this whole topic is moot because you can play half-elves and half-orcs in official and third party books available on this site.

It implies that the human half is 'normal'

I am going to eat this topic, because it is a dead horse that is well beaten, and I am a Gnoll.

Quote from morallyambiguousfae >>

It implies that the human half is 'normal'

I mean... that's not really something you can get away from when it comes to a typical playgroup. Note that they're still using "humanoid" as an official creature type, and that yet again selecting human comes with the fewest overtly super-powery/fantastic features. In order to have "fantastic" elements in fantasy, there needs to be a baseline to compare them against, and oddly enough that baseline tends to be the human experience.

I think it has more to do with simply setting a consistent standard that they're not going to go down the rabbit hole of all the pairings that have cropped up across prior editions, at least not in a way that indicates a universal "X+Y=Z" paradigm. And probably a bit of virtue signaling, because unfortunately the last few years have shown that some people just love filling silence with their own spins on anything D&D/WotC/Hasbro does or does not do.