Its not only the good and evil traits. They're also changing vices. In CoS
When you visit the vistani camp there will be no alcohol or drunk-ness. You will instead encounter 'Generic Guarded Camp A'.
Are we going to remove everything from the game that's harsher than PG-13.. actually i think Sea of Thieves is rated T+ (which means 10 years old +) for use of Alcohol. It's like we can't handle adult themes or imperfect societies. Are we really that fragile and need watered down source material because a group of people love to party?
The destination or eventual conclusion of this thought process is that you're expecting players to be immersed in a perfect world with perfect societies and every group of bad guys is the same diverse modge-podge of every race. That scene from LotR where they enter the old elven tunnel and attacked by Goblins.. no more! Can't do it! Because Goblins are 'Humanoids'. Are we going to make Dwarves stop loving ale too? There's legit real world humans who are dwarves and were made fun of for centuries as unlicensed 'natural' fools. To be mocked and laughed at. Guess its pretty rood to make dwarves have an alcohol vice. Next up is Druids, we use the term Tree-Hugger here in the real world as a derogatory term against those kinds of people. Guess we need to remove Druids from the game.
Grow. Up. And learn to handle themes that are in a fictional world. Now that I've typed this out it... it feels almost identical to the discussions had about gaming over the past decade about guns, violence, drugs, and etc in gaming. You'll hear one side yelling "Guns in games encourage real world violence!". And the answer to that is..
Do not mix fantasy and real world.
edit: Failed to add what camp I was talking about in the spoiler.
Do not create in game cultures that closely resemble stereotypes of real world cultures and then whine when people complain about you doing so. If someone did an obvious negative parody of you personally in advertisements for some commercial product, it would be those having done so that are mixing fantasy and the real world, not those complaining about it.
Societies are imperfect, and should be treated as such, we're not complaining if people don't like it (at least i'm not) If people did a negative parody of me i'd probably laugh at it. But certain societies promote different things and we need to recognize and accept that. Most people don't believe that eating other people is ok, but cannibals do, for example, im against cannibalism, but it is a societal thing and taking it out of a game really does take away from it.
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They announced that they had plans for the next book coming out later this year.
"Later this year, we will release a product (not yet announced) that offers a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases that come from being an elf, a dwarf, or one of D&D's many other playable folk. This option emphasizes that each person in the game is an individual with capabilities all their own."
That only addresses the racial ASIs, not the racial abilities.
That was what I've been referring to this whole time. Having it be only racial ASIs that are changed is enough for me, and my posts above were trying to justify it.
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Are they so similar though? The size differences alone indicate differences in muscle mass. I do understand the arguments regarding real world race analogies, but even though they are all humanoids, we are still talking about different species here, which is why the OP's suggestion has some merit. Then instead of 'subrace,' the term 'race' could be used to differentiate between subspecies. After all, the various races of human are just that, subspecies. And just like in game subspecies, there are usually not enough differences between them to insist that any is particularly inferior.
It does not help thought that 5e seems particularly stat sensitive and that in 2020, even 5% margins are treated by players as if they are 100+% margins.
Min-maxing is as bad or worse than it has ever been....
They're more similar than a Hippo is to a Horse, which is what example I was quoting was comparing the humanoid races to. I agree, they're different species, and a Goliath most of the time should be stronger than a Goblin, but we already have abilities that represent them. It's called "Powerful Build" and "disadvantage on attacks with heavy weapons while small".
5e is stat sensitive, which is kind of the point of making this change, which is happening in Xanathar's 2.0.
Min-Maxing is hardly the greater issue here. The issues are "Min Maxing" vs. "Racial Inclusion". Which one is the bigger problem, the one where a player wants a +1 higher in an ability score than their race would previously allow, or the fact that Orcs get a minus to intelligence in Volo's, and are depicted as idiotic rage monsters.
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Neanderthals and Humans existed at the same time for several thousand years and they had measurably different physiological and mental capabilities from one another. They were both humanoid and capable of interbreeding. I think they are a very fine example of the differences between Orcs, Elves, Dwarves and Humans being quiet possible.
I just don't really think that is necessary to have Stat Mods be the way we differentiate fantasy races in D&D. Leave that to abilities like Dark Vision and Powerful Build.
They were different in small ways, and their mental capabilities were practically the same as Homo-Sapiens at the same time. They interbred, we're descended from them today, and so on. That argument supports my view, saying that most humanoid creatures are physically close enough to each other to warrant them not being separated by racial ASIs.
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Its not only the good and evil traits. They're also changing vices. In CoS
When you visit the vistani camp there will be no alcohol or drunk-ness. You will instead encounter 'Generic Guarded Camp A'.
Are we going to remove everything from the game that's harsher than PG-13.. actually i think Sea of Thieves is rated T+ (which means 10 years old +) for use of Alcohol. It's like we can't handle adult themes or imperfect societies. Are we really that fragile and need watered down source material because a group of people love to party?
The destination or eventual conclusion of this thought process is that you're expecting players to be immersed in a perfect world with perfect societies and every group of bad guys is the same diverse modge-podge of every race. That scene from LotR where they enter the old elven tunnel and attacked by Goblins.. no more! Can't do it! Because Goblins are 'Humanoids'. Are we going to make Dwarves stop loving ale too? There's legit real world humans who are dwarves and were made fun of for centuries as unlicensed 'natural' fools. To be mocked and laughed at. Guess its pretty rood to make dwarves have an alcohol vice. Next up is Druids, we use the term Tree-Hugger here in the real world as a derogatory term against those kinds of people. Guess we need to remove Druids from the game.
Grow. Up. And learn to handle themes that are in a fictional world. Now that I've typed this out it... it feels almost identical to the discussions had about gaming over the past decade about guns, violence, drugs, and etc in gaming. You'll hear one side yelling "Guns in games encourage real world violence!". And the answer to that is..
Do not mix fantasy and real world.
edit: Failed to add what camp I was talking about in the spoiler.
No! They’re not saying your fantasy characters can’t drink alcohol. They removed that scene cause it’s racist to show the Vistani (and only the Vistani) getting all drunk and stuff. That just encourages the stereotype that the Roma (the rl inspiration for the Vistani) are a bunch of drunks and thieves, which is totally untrue. They’re not saying remove vice, they’re saying remove racist depictions of vice.
So you just want to min/max your character better? This would only make sense, if your base values for all attributes were the same, but they are not. You choose which of your stats you assign to which attribute. You want your half-orc to be a good sorcerer? Assign the 17 you rolled to charisma. Done. Will there be better sorcerers of other races? Sure. Will he be an outstanding half-orc sorcerer and still better than the average sorcerer? Also yes.
Letting players choose which stat to boost will not lead to more diversity, just to better minmaxing.
But hey, I think a character is more than his stats. In my group we have a gnome barbarian. Odd choice, but I will surely not disencourage the player by killing the gnome because duh, why didn't you pick half-orc for race?
Okay, is it min maxing to want to play an intelligent Orc Wizard that doesn't punish you for playing an orc? Is it min maxing to want to play a specific character archetype, that is unique, imaginative, and cool, without wanting to be forced into having less than amazing ability scores at the main thing you're supposed to be good at.
It will boost diversity. It will also boost min maxing as well.
A character is more than their stats, which is the EXACT POINT OF MAKING THIS CHANGE (not angry, just emphasizing my point). A character should not be mechanically punished for wanting to play a certain character.
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Neanderthals and Humans existed at the same time for several thousand years and they had measurably different physiological and mental capabilities from one another. They were both humanoid and capable of interbreeding. I think they are a very fine example of the differences between Orcs, Elves, Dwarves and Humans being quiet possible.
I just don't really think that is necessary to have Stat Mods be the way we differentiate fantasy races in D&D. Leave that to abilities like Dark Vision and Powerful Build.
They were different in small ways, and their mental capabilities were practically the same as Homo-Sapiens at the same time. They interbred, we're descended from them today, and so on. That argument supports my view, saying that most humanoid creatures are physically close enough to each other to warrant them not being separated by racial ASIs.
While this is all true, that would require a massive overhaul of the game systems to accommodate. There are some races, like the Aarakocra, which are literally Flight and an ASI and that's the entire race. There's also overloaded races like the Yuan-ti that have Magic Resist and innate spellcasting and immunity to poison. All of this would need to be reconciled.
Does anyone expect any of this to occur before 6e? And we know that 6e is nowhere near coming to pass. So if that's really where everyone wants this to head, you're going to be waiting for quite some time to see it happen.
This change is coming, whether you like it or not. It won't be required, but it's coming sooner than 6e. Sure, Aarakocra and Yuan-Ti Purebloods are problems. They should be changed, but by restricting how players want to play, you're not going to solve the problem, you're merely ignoring it. I ignore Yuan-Ti Purebloods as a race in my games, they're not playable. If you have a problem with a race, you can pretty easily fix that problem as the DM.
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I don’t like minmaxing, and I don’t think every member of a species should get exactly the same ability score adjustments, but I do think a half-orc sorcerer with 17 or 18 charisma would make a great character (and so would a gnome barbarian with 17 or 18 strength, also an awesome character idea 😊).
Gnomes already have no penalty to strength and half orcs no penalty to charisma, so although it would take an allowance of the rolling option and relatively lucky rolls, both those characters are already legit...
They're legit, but not supported. Half-Orc barbarians are supported. Gnome Wizards are supported. Also, that requires you to use rolling for stats, which many tables do not do. If you're using Point Buy or Standard Array, your gnome barbarian is stuck with a 15 at most in Strength, which sucks, when you see your party's Firbolg Druid having a 17 for their main stat.
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I do think that certain fantasy races are generally meant to be villains, and thats OK, but you don't always have to go with the recommended alignments, I do evil aasimars or good warlocks, or aasimar warlocks from time to time, and so i see those as suggestions, but the traits/bonuses should not be messed with.
I don't think you should be forced or nudged to a certain character type based on race. Evil Aasimars are easy to do, as there are Fallen Aasimar. Good Orcs are not so easy to do using the Volo's orc.
I disagree with everything said in the post above, but I respect your opinion.
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The only issue I have had with races in 5th edition is that no matter what race you are your attributes can go up to 20 given enough ASI's you can have a Gnome with straight 20's or a Goliath with straight 20's. I have been thinking that what if being said race allowed you to exceed a 20 with the races racial modifier so for example a Forest Gnome could have 20's in STR, CON, WIS and CHA but a 21 DEX and a 22 INT doing this doesn't actually do much and it may be a moot point depending on what WotC is going to do in that unnamed book coming out later in the year.
Its not only the good and evil traits. They're also changing vices. In CoS
When you visit the vistani camp there will be no alcohol or drunk-ness. You will instead encounter 'Generic Guarded Camp A'.
Are we going to remove everything from the game that's harsher than PG-13.. actually i think Sea of Thieves is rated T+ (which means 10 years old +) for use of Alcohol. It's like we can't handle adult themes or imperfect societies. Are we really that fragile and need watered down source material because a group of people love to party?
The destination or eventual conclusion of this thought process is that you're expecting players to be immersed in a perfect world with perfect societies and every group of bad guys is the same diverse modge-podge of every race. That scene from LotR where they enter the old elven tunnel and attacked by Goblins.. no more! Can't do it! Because Goblins are 'Humanoids'. Are we going to make Dwarves stop loving ale too? There's legit real world humans who are dwarves and were made fun of for centuries as unlicensed 'natural' fools. To be mocked and laughed at. Guess its pretty rood to make dwarves have an alcohol vice. Next up is Druids, we use the term Tree-Hugger here in the real world as a derogatory term against those kinds of people. Guess we need to remove Druids from the game.
Grow. Up. And learn to handle themes that are in a fictional world. Now that I've typed this out it... it feels almost identical to the discussions had about gaming over the past decade about guns, violence, drugs, and etc in gaming. You'll hear one side yelling "Guns in games encourage real world violence!". And the answer to that is..
Do not mix fantasy and real world.
edit: Failed to add what camp I was talking about in the spoiler.
Alcohol is allowed in D&D still. They got rid of it from the Vistani section of Curse of Strahd because Vistani are based off of the real life Romani people, which have been discriminated against, ridiculed for centuries, and stereotyped as gypsies, fortune tellers, and drunks.
Stop complaining about something you do not understand in the slightest. It's people like you who are trying to get rid of any progressiveness to D&D, caring more about heritage than inclusion. Romani people complained about their depictions in Curse of Strahd, and so they're changing it. In CoS and ToA, they got rid of many, probably unintentional, offensive themes in it, from the character with a prosthetic limb being ashamed of it, to the Chultans being depicted as exotic.
Also, sorry to break it to you, but Fantasy and the Real World have been mixed for millennia. Orcs come from Tolkein's works, Drow, Wights, and Frost Giants from Nordish tales, and so on. Real World legends and stories based from the real world are at the core of D&D, which was based off of many other stories that are problematic today. Lovecraft, who inspired Aberrations in D&D, was racist and used his stories to attack minorities. Tolkein's works are also problematic in modern terms. Orcs are described in the same words used by White Supremacists to attack BIPOC.
D&D worlds don't have to be perfect, but D&D should be as inclusive as possible, and try to not mirror the language used by racists for hundreds of years.
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I don’t like minmaxing, and I don’t think every member of a species should get exactly the same ability score adjustments, but I do think a half-orc sorcerer with 17 or 18 charisma would make a great character (and so would a gnome barbarian with 17 or 18 strength, also an awesome character idea 😊).
Gnomes already have no penalty to strength and half orcs no penalty to charisma, so although it would take an allowance of the rolling option and relatively lucky rolls, both those characters are already legit...
They're legit, but not supported. Half-Orc barbarians are supported. Gnome Wizards are supported. Also, that requires you to use rolling for stats, which many tables do not do. If you're using Point Buy or Standard Array, your gnome barbarian is stuck with a 15 at most in Strength, which sucks, when you see your party's Firbolg Druid having a 17 for their main stat.
That is not so much a racial design issue though as an overall design problem where the margins on classes are so tight that even so much as a natural 16 stat value before racial mods is considered abnormal and not official. The entire overly conservative design magnifies racial differences to the extent that they are much greater problems.
And one of those problems is easier to fix than the other. Fixing the classes and their structure probably will require 5.5e or 6e. Fixing the races being pushed towards certain types of play just requires the small change to racial ASIs.
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The only issue I have had with races in 5th edition is that no matter what race you are your attributes can go up to 20 given enough ASI's you can have a Gnome with straight 20's or a Goliath with straight 20's. I have been thinking that what if being said race allowed you to exceed a 20 with the races racial modifier so for example a Forest Gnome could have 20's in STR, CON, WIS and CHA but a 21 DEX and a 22 INT doing this doesn't actually do much and it may be a moot point depending on what WotC is going to do in that unnamed book coming out later in the year.
I don't think this is a problem. We already have abilities and features that make goliaths be stronger than small races. The ability scores aren't a huge deal when it comes to this.
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The only issue I have had with races in 5th edition is that no matter what race you are your attributes can go up to 20 given enough ASI's you can have a Gnome with straight 20's or a Goliath with straight 20's. I have been thinking that what if being said race allowed you to exceed a 20 with the races racial modifier so for example a Forest Gnome could have 20's in STR, CON, WIS and CHA but a 21 DEX and a 22 INT doing this doesn't actually do much and it may be a moot point depending on what WotC is going to do in that unnamed book coming out later in the year.
3/3.5e was sortakinda like that. And everything stacked, and stacked, and stacked....
I made a Half-Ogre Monk once. Half-Ogres got a +6 Str, +4 (I think) Con, and minuses to Int, Dex and Cha, but Wis was left alone. They also got a +4 natural Unarmored AC, which more than made up for the 2 you couldn’t have because of the penalty since it stacked with the bonus from Monk based on Wis. Back then monks still used Str for damage, but could choose either/or Str/Dex to hit. A Large or Small creature did more or less damage with their Unarmed Strikes, Large got up to 4d8+Str.
I converted the modifiers etc. to 5e equivalents once, it was something like +3 Str, +2 Con, -1 Dex, Int, and Cha, and a +2 Unarmored AC that stacks with the Monk’s bonus, and an additional 1d4 to unarmed Stokes until 10th level when it becomes a 1d6.
Stuff like that is the reason they don’t do that anymore. That’s why things moved to calculations.
Neanderthals and Humans existed at the same time for several thousand years and they had measurably different physiological and mental capabilities from one another. They were both humanoid and capable of interbreeding. I think they are a very fine example of the differences between Orcs, Elves, Dwarves and Humans being quiet possible.
I just don't really think that is necessary to have Stat Mods be the way we differentiate fantasy races in D&D. Leave that to abilities like Dark Vision and Powerful Build.
They were different in small ways, and their mental capabilities were practically the same as Homo-Sapiens at the same time. They interbred, we're descended from them today, and so on. That argument supports my view, saying that most humanoid creatures are physically close enough to each other to warrant them not being separated by racial ASIs.
That’s a very good point.
D&D races (in my opinion of course) are supposed to represent the outliers. The fringe and extreme examples - thus they are playable. A race provides a base (as does class, subclass, background) from which one can build a character. Someone or something that is supposed to be an extreme example. An outlier. A hero. A champion. A villain. The thing that stands out from the common and normal folk.
On that note, in real life (which should never be a base of accuracy/viability for a fantasy game), we need to take the outliers. The gross examples of difference. In that case, humans at the extreme edges are no where near physically close. Brian Shaw is a Half-Orc. As is the entire cast of world's strongest men. They are humans just like you and I, yet are not even remotely close in a physical sense - size, power, strength, etc.) They'd seem like a different race entirely. Not-human. Perhaps that's how the PHB races should be seen. And if so, there is exact examples of extreme physical difference in real life.
The first is races being pigeonholed into classes, reducing choices. Deciding to play a kobold barbarian should be a valid roleplaying choice, not "I'm deliberately gimping myself". Some of the problem has to do with class design, but it's still solvable with pretty simple design: the average kobold might be stronger than the average orc, but PCs are not required to be average or even anywhere close to average, and there's no need for PC chargen to be in any way related to NPC chargen. Sure, a kobold barbarian with Strength 16 might be a huge anomaly, while a orc barbarian with Strength 16 only moderately notable, but so what?
The second is confusing race and culture. While it's certainly possible for creatures with differences as pronounced as D&D races to have inherent advantages and drawbacks, there's really no coherent explanation for things like dwarves have a racial affinity for axes and hammers.
The third is proxy racism. Sure, most D&D 'races' are apparently genetically distinct enough to be considered separate species, and thus could have far more dramatic distances than are true for human races (there are very few traits that are reliably genetically linked to skin color), but when it is obviously just a collection of racial or ethnic stereotypes with a few details changed to make it "fantasy", there's a problem. The fix for this is mostly races that are less human. No-one is going to think Aaracokra having wings is a racial stereotype.
The first is races being pigeonholed into classes, reducing choices. Deciding to play a kobold barbarian should be a valid roleplaying choice, not "I'm deliberately gimping myself". Some of the problem has to do with class design, but it's still solvable with pretty simple design: the average kobold might be stronger than the average orc, but PCs are not required to be average or even anywhere close to average, and there's no need for PC chargen to be in any way related to NPC chargen. Sure, a kobold barbarian with Strength 16 might be a huge anomaly, while a orc barbarian with Strength 16 only moderately notable, but so what?
The second is confusing race and culture. While it's certainly possible for creatures with differences as pronounced as D&D races to have inherent advantages and drawbacks, there's really no coherent explanation for things like dwarves have a racial affinity for axes and hammers.
The third is proxy racism. Sure, most D&D 'races' are apparently genetically distinct enough to be considered separate species, and thus could have far more dramatic distances than are true for human races (there are very few traits that are reliably genetically linked to skin color), but when it is obviously just a collection of racial or ethnic stereotypes with a few details changed to make it "fantasy", there's a problem. The fix for this is mostly races that are less human. No-one is going to think Aaracokra having wings is a racial stereotype.
I'm asking honestly, because I'll admit that I may be extremely mis-informed. When you and others talk about "problems", is there an actual problem? Like, to most/many? To all? Obviously, there's things about D&D that can be found problematic at every table, but what are we talking about here? All of the circles I walk in that are into this game have never brought up any issues. Are we naive? Wrong? Shortsighted? Uncaring? Stupid? Is it a non-issue for most or are we the anomaly here? I know it'd be impossible to be accurate here but if we took a vote of all D&D players (or 5e to be more specific), about "is race and portayal of such in D&D a problem?" would more than 50% of the tens (or hundreds) of millions of D&D players out there vote yes? Less than that? How many would vote "I never noticed" or "it's a non-issue at my table."
I'm not trying to fix anything or change anyone or anything because for my table, I know we are good as it all stands. If however, this is truly a big deal, I won't be so quick to overlook discussion on it.
I'm asking honestly, because I'll admit that I may be extremely mis-informed. When you and others talk about "problems", is there an actual problem? Like, to most/many? To all? Obviously, there's things about D&D that can be found problematic at every table, but what are we talking about here? All of the circles I walk in that are into this game have never brought up any issues. Are we naive? Wrong? Shortsighted? Uncaring? Stupid? Is it a non-issue for most or are we the anomaly here? I know it'd be impossible to be accurate here but if we took a vote of all D&D players (or 5e to be more specific), about "is race and portayal of such in D&D a problem?" would more than 50% of the tens (or hundreds) of millions of D&D players out there vote yes? Less than that? How many would vote "I never noticed" or "it's a non-issue at my table."
There's an actual problem for some players. How many? I don't know. There's really three sets of people: people who have had issues with it for a while, including at least some game designers (racial alignments started being softened at least back as far as third edition and maybe earlier, and there were stereotype-breaking settings like Dark Sun in 2e), people who didn't really think about it but can see a problem when they look at it, and people who don't see a problem.
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Societies are imperfect, and should be treated as such, we're not complaining if people don't like it (at least i'm not) If people did a negative parody of me i'd probably laugh at it. But certain societies promote different things and we need to recognize and accept that. Most people don't believe that eating other people is ok, but cannibals do, for example, im against cannibalism, but it is a societal thing and taking it out of a game really does take away from it.
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That was what I've been referring to this whole time. Having it be only racial ASIs that are changed is enough for me, and my posts above were trying to justify it.
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They're more similar than a Hippo is to a Horse, which is what example I was quoting was comparing the humanoid races to. I agree, they're different species, and a Goliath most of the time should be stronger than a Goblin, but we already have abilities that represent them. It's called "Powerful Build" and "disadvantage on attacks with heavy weapons while small".
5e is stat sensitive, which is kind of the point of making this change, which is happening in Xanathar's 2.0.
Min-Maxing is hardly the greater issue here. The issues are "Min Maxing" vs. "Racial Inclusion". Which one is the bigger problem, the one where a player wants a +1 higher in an ability score than their race would previously allow, or the fact that Orcs get a minus to intelligence in Volo's, and are depicted as idiotic rage monsters.
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They were different in small ways, and their mental capabilities were practically the same as Homo-Sapiens at the same time. They interbred, we're descended from them today, and so on. That argument supports my view, saying that most humanoid creatures are physically close enough to each other to warrant them not being separated by racial ASIs.
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No! They’re not saying your fantasy characters can’t drink alcohol. They removed that scene cause it’s racist to show the Vistani (and only the Vistani) getting all drunk and stuff. That just encourages the stereotype that the Roma (the rl inspiration for the Vistani) are a bunch of drunks and thieves, which is totally untrue. They’re not saying remove vice, they’re saying remove racist depictions of vice.
Okay, is it min maxing to want to play an intelligent Orc Wizard that doesn't punish you for playing an orc? Is it min maxing to want to play a specific character archetype, that is unique, imaginative, and cool, without wanting to be forced into having less than amazing ability scores at the main thing you're supposed to be good at.
It will boost diversity. It will also boost min maxing as well.
A character is more than their stats, which is the EXACT POINT OF MAKING THIS CHANGE (not angry, just emphasizing my point). A character should not be mechanically punished for wanting to play a certain character.
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That’s a very good point.
This change is coming, whether you like it or not. It won't be required, but it's coming sooner than 6e. Sure, Aarakocra and Yuan-Ti Purebloods are problems. They should be changed, but by restricting how players want to play, you're not going to solve the problem, you're merely ignoring it. I ignore Yuan-Ti Purebloods as a race in my games, they're not playable. If you have a problem with a race, you can pretty easily fix that problem as the DM.
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But why should every table that wants to do this be forced to create the same exact thing?
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They're legit, but not supported. Half-Orc barbarians are supported. Gnome Wizards are supported. Also, that requires you to use rolling for stats, which many tables do not do. If you're using Point Buy or Standard Array, your gnome barbarian is stuck with a 15 at most in Strength, which sucks, when you see your party's Firbolg Druid having a 17 for their main stat.
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I don't think you should be forced or nudged to a certain character type based on race. Evil Aasimars are easy to do, as there are Fallen Aasimar. Good Orcs are not so easy to do using the Volo's orc.
I disagree with everything said in the post above, but I respect your opinion.
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The only issue I have had with races in 5th edition is that no matter what race you are your attributes can go up to 20 given enough ASI's you can have a Gnome with straight 20's or a Goliath with straight 20's. I have been thinking that what if being said race allowed you to exceed a 20 with the races racial modifier so for example a Forest Gnome could have 20's in STR, CON, WIS and CHA but a 21 DEX and a 22 INT doing this doesn't actually do much and it may be a moot point depending on what WotC is going to do in that unnamed book coming out later in the year.
Alcohol is allowed in D&D still. They got rid of it from the Vistani section of Curse of Strahd because Vistani are based off of the real life Romani people, which have been discriminated against, ridiculed for centuries, and stereotyped as gypsies, fortune tellers, and drunks.
Stop complaining about something you do not understand in the slightest. It's people like you who are trying to get rid of any progressiveness to D&D, caring more about heritage than inclusion. Romani people complained about their depictions in Curse of Strahd, and so they're changing it. In CoS and ToA, they got rid of many, probably unintentional, offensive themes in it, from the character with a prosthetic limb being ashamed of it, to the Chultans being depicted as exotic.
Also, sorry to break it to you, but Fantasy and the Real World have been mixed for millennia. Orcs come from Tolkein's works, Drow, Wights, and Frost Giants from Nordish tales, and so on. Real World legends and stories based from the real world are at the core of D&D, which was based off of many other stories that are problematic today. Lovecraft, who inspired Aberrations in D&D, was racist and used his stories to attack minorities. Tolkein's works are also problematic in modern terms. Orcs are described in the same words used by White Supremacists to attack BIPOC.
D&D worlds don't have to be perfect, but D&D should be as inclusive as possible, and try to not mirror the language used by racists for hundreds of years.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
And one of those problems is easier to fix than the other. Fixing the classes and their structure probably will require 5.5e or 6e. Fixing the races being pushed towards certain types of play just requires the small change to racial ASIs.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I don't think this is a problem. We already have abilities and features that make goliaths be stronger than small races. The ability scores aren't a huge deal when it comes to this.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
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3/3.5e was sortakinda like that. And everything stacked, and stacked, and stacked....
I made a Half-Ogre Monk once. Half-Ogres got a +6 Str, +4 (I think) Con, and minuses to Int, Dex and Cha, but Wis was left alone. They also got a +4 natural Unarmored AC, which more than made up for the 2 you couldn’t have because of the penalty since it stacked with the bonus from Monk based on Wis. Back then monks still used Str for damage, but could choose either/or Str/Dex to hit. A Large or Small creature did more or less damage with their Unarmed Strikes, Large got up to 4d8+Str.
I converted the modifiers etc. to 5e equivalents once, it was something like +3 Str, +2 Con, -1 Dex, Int, and Cha, and a +2 Unarmored AC that stacks with the Monk’s bonus, and an additional 1d4 to unarmed Stokes until 10th level when it becomes a 1d6.
Stuff like that is the reason they don’t do that anymore. That’s why things moved to calculations.
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D&D races (in my opinion of course) are supposed to represent the outliers. The fringe and extreme examples - thus they are playable. A race provides a base (as does class, subclass, background) from which one can build a character. Someone or something that is supposed to be an extreme example. An outlier. A hero. A champion. A villain. The thing that stands out from the common and normal folk.
On that note, in real life (which should never be a base of accuracy/viability for a fantasy game), we need to take the outliers. The gross examples of difference. In that case, humans at the extreme edges are no where near physically close. Brian Shaw is a Half-Orc. As is the entire cast of world's strongest men. They are humans just like you and I, yet are not even remotely close in a physical sense - size, power, strength, etc.) They'd seem like a different race entirely. Not-human. Perhaps that's how the PHB races should be seen. And if so, there is exact examples of extreme physical difference in real life.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
There are actually several separate problems.
The first is races being pigeonholed into classes, reducing choices. Deciding to play a kobold barbarian should be a valid roleplaying choice, not "I'm deliberately gimping myself". Some of the problem has to do with class design, but it's still solvable with pretty simple design: the average kobold might be stronger than the average orc, but PCs are not required to be average or even anywhere close to average, and there's no need for PC chargen to be in any way related to NPC chargen. Sure, a kobold barbarian with Strength 16 might be a huge anomaly, while a orc barbarian with Strength 16 only moderately notable, but so what?
The second is confusing race and culture. While it's certainly possible for creatures with differences as pronounced as D&D races to have inherent advantages and drawbacks, there's really no coherent explanation for things like dwarves have a racial affinity for axes and hammers.
The third is proxy racism. Sure, most D&D 'races' are apparently genetically distinct enough to be considered separate species, and thus could have far more dramatic distances than are true for human races (there are very few traits that are reliably genetically linked to skin color), but when it is obviously just a collection of racial or ethnic stereotypes with a few details changed to make it "fantasy", there's a problem. The fix for this is mostly races that are less human. No-one is going to think Aaracokra having wings is a racial stereotype.
I'm asking honestly, because I'll admit that I may be extremely mis-informed. When you and others talk about "problems", is there an actual problem? Like, to most/many? To all? Obviously, there's things about D&D that can be found problematic at every table, but what are we talking about here? All of the circles I walk in that are into this game have never brought up any issues. Are we naive? Wrong? Shortsighted? Uncaring? Stupid? Is it a non-issue for most or are we the anomaly here? I know it'd be impossible to be accurate here but if we took a vote of all D&D players (or 5e to be more specific), about "is race and portayal of such in D&D a problem?" would more than 50% of the tens (or hundreds) of millions of D&D players out there vote yes? Less than that? How many would vote "I never noticed" or "it's a non-issue at my table."
I'm not trying to fix anything or change anyone or anything because for my table, I know we are good as it all stands. If however, this is truly a big deal, I won't be so quick to overlook discussion on it.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
There's an actual problem for some players. How many? I don't know. There's really three sets of people: people who have had issues with it for a while, including at least some game designers (racial alignments started being softened at least back as far as third edition and maybe earlier, and there were stereotype-breaking settings like Dark Sun in 2e), people who didn't really think about it but can see a problem when they look at it, and people who don't see a problem.