So, keep it floating, why not, but a setting book would have something like:
Orc
xxxxxxxx (here comes the description)
Favored abilities: Str, Con - most orcs in this setting live in the wilderness and have exceptional physical attributes, favoring athleticism over mental growth.
It won't make you give those bonuses to Str or Con but will inform you of how in general orcs work in a particular setting.
It does not matter whether or not Orcs, Drow, and other fantasy were intended to represent real life peoples and cultures. They mirror the language, and thus are a sensitive topic that can make them feel uncomfortable/unsafe in our hobby.
I want to reiterate this and add that this isn't hypothetical or speculative. People in this thread and others, including me, have chimed in with actual first hand accounts of this happening to us. This isn't a debatable point.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Since we're doing the open thing, I'm going to mention the story I mentioned in the other thread.
My first encounter with D&D and how it ran me off before I even got to the table.
I was already into RPGs but hadn't ever given D&D a try, I decided to buy the players handbook, this was around 3e or 3.5e I think. Back then the player races included -stats.
I am a multiracial person, and so the idea of the 'half' races I'd heard of leapt out at me as a way to play a bit of my "of two worlds" experience.
So my choices were Half-Elves, who were the pretty people (something I definitely didn't view myself as) and really seemed to give off an everyone loves them vibe. Or Half Orcs, who gave a +2 STR, -2INT, -2CHA stat thing. So, if I wanted to be the half-race that felt closer to me, not a pretty person, not someone everyone loved, I had to play an idiot that everyone hated. "You're not fully like us, so you're less than us" a mentality that I actually encountered often in the really real world.
I'm not saying the designers intended for the book to go "Screw you in particular Samedi of Orleans" but it honestly felt that way at the time.
I never gave D&D another look, until in late 2017 the Outside Xbox channel on youtube I followed did their own DND game, and one of them actually played a half-orc bard. The idea Half-Orcs were now NOT screwed for any Charisma thing was what got me to give D&D a look again.
and now I own like 99% of the players bundle on here.
I'm sure many felt that removing those negatives from half-orcs and all were a bad thing. Probably using 90% of the same arguments those who hate this change are making today. But I can say for certain that change is what opened the game up for me, what made me want to engage with it and make characters within it.
Yeah, people may not have run into many who complained before, but at least part of that is because we left before we were ever at your table.
This huge influx of newbies isn't just people who never heard of D&D before. It's also people who felt D&D used to tell them "go away" from the core books themselves.
And while I came back with just "Okay, we're not removing from your stats" I'm sure some folks will need the "Yeah, put your stats wherever you want" to draw them back.
I don't see the "These races have definitive stats" as a big enough bonus in any way, to combat the drawbacks they can/do cause.
Like I said with during the prior post, thank you very much for this openness.
I wish you had come to my table, and I would have said: "The -2 to Cha? That's not because your not charismatic, its because the "civilized" races see a monster when they see you. You have to overcome that. In your tribe/group/society you are basically the Wayne Brady of the land." What I hear too though is that you wanted to play a half-Orc bard, and you never got to the point where you gave a DM an opportunity to modify those rules. I'm not blaming you by any measure, i'm just saying my job as a DM is to make sure you are having fun! But if you had said: "Man, it really impacts my gameplay to have that negative impact the mechanics of the game" then I would have happily (after I make you write a good backstory) had you skip the -2. I would have needed to figure out how to make it equivalent for the rest of the players as well, but we would have done it.
I will stand up on the box and say this again: I believe the decision to include the option to have floating points is great, and we can even make that the new norm (and the assigned points the "variant rules"), and much like was mentioned early I think redesigning the lineage system from the ground up with 6E would be a great idea. I just don't want WoTC to remove an option, because I do use that option in a variety of ways, and specifically involving DDB (which is what the ultimate issue is).
I think ultimately, as a greater community, we need to discuss who we play D&D with, and what our players and DMs should expect from each other. I think having that civil, open argument benefits everyone. Even if I don't get my way, i'm not going to rage quit, burn my books and utilize the covers to make a voodoos' doll of Jerermy Crawford. Of course not. But like those individuals who are unhappy about assigned skill points and want it changed, I would like the assigned skill points to stay as a variant rule.
The thing is, while it's to your credit you'd work with a player and fudge the rules to accommodate that character, it doesn't change that those rules themselves have run players off before they ever get to said table.
Honestly, I mentioned the other dude playing a half-orc bard because it stood out so much as an example that rule had to have been changed. I probably would have gone more with ranger or fighter back then,* but the - stats still galled me so much it made me not interested in playing at all.
The thing is while me and my first encounter with D&D are one anecdote, I do think it reflects the experience of many more.
No amount of good DMs can overcome a core rulebook that makes people go "Nope, I'm outta here"
Hence removing things that cause that, like the minus stats definitely did, and like the fixed stats bonuses and ideas "This race is this specific stereotype" are likely doing now, the better. More folks at the table to have those discussions will always be a win.
-- * Asterisk to note since I mentioned I'd have likely been fighter or ranger, my one complaint with the current edition. FFS REVISE THE ARCANE ARCHER! The fighter subclass with ARCHER in it's name shouldn't be an inferior archer to another subclass (Battlemaster). Why the heck is a character who is dedicated to their bow less likely to be able to trip or disarm someone with it? Why can they only use their powers so rarely compared to every other subclass? Ok, not the time or place for that discussion but I don't post here much and had to vent.
I would like to point out that D&D is the only game I see, even D&D clones, that have exclusively racial-based stats. Most games seem to have gone the route of either discluding extra stat bonuses /penalties entirely, or spreading them out across several parts, including on the classes.
Imagine it. A gnomish, an elvish, a dwarven and an orcish wizard would never need to worry about their race giving them an INT bump or drop... because the Wizard class is the one granting the INT bump.
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
People like to say that D&D is doing it just because of inclusiveness (which is great), but honestly, I suspect that they're really just catching up with modern game design that doesn't really favor such weight on races.
I mean, lets be fair here - there's still very much class-based weight on races. Even the new UA ones. The hexblood are very much biased towards spellcaster types, for instance. The dhampir are the opposite, favoring classes that want to get in close and bite - its a little better using CON.
This is a great point. Like I mentioned I played other RPGs before D&D and, while I enjoy D&D, almost all of them felt much more like I was making a complete character.
My first introduction was the old VTM games, and the way I remember that was you picked what your strongest stats where and you could do that regardless of what your 'race' (Vampire species) was. You could be a smart/charming Brujah (arguably the closest to Orcs.). Then my other fave RPG before coming to give D&D another shot was Mutants and Masterminds 2e, and that was pretty wide open customization where you could build any type of superhero.
Honestly, I'd argue the entire concept of player races could be kept more to just, setting books and not the book itself. Hell, tons of people run games without certain races/species, even some setting books currently modify them (Orcs of Eberron being different from regular Orcs). I could absolutely see the 'traditional' races being just a "In the forgotten realms setting" thing, and let every setting customize it as see fit. One worlds Orcs may still be the +2 Con type, and another worlds setting gives then +2Dex or +2Int or whatever instead.
The thing is, while it's to your credit you'd work with a player and fudge the rules to accommodate that character, it doesn't change that those rules themselves have run players off before they ever get to said table.
Honestly, I mentioned the other dude playing a half-orc bard because it stood out so much as an example that rule had to have been changed. I probably would have gone more with ranger or fighter back then,* but the - stats still galled me so much it made me not interested in playing at all.
The thing is while me and my first encounter with D&D are one anecdote, I do think it reflects the experience of many more. No amount of good DMs can overcome a core rulebook that makes people go "Nope, I'm outta here"
Hence removing things that cause that, like the minus stats definitely did, and like the fixed stats bonuses and ideas "This race is this specific stereotype" are likely doing now, the better. More folks at the table to have those discussions will always be a win.
-- * Asterisk to note since I mentioned I'd have likely been fighter or ranger, my one complaint with the current edition. FFS REVISE THE ARCANE ARCHER! The fighter subclass with ARCHER in it's name shouldn't be an inferior archer to another subclass (Battlemaster). Why the heck is a character who is dedicated to their bow less likely to be able to trip or disarm someone with it? Why can they only use their powers so rarely compared to every other subclass? Ok, not the time or place for that discussion but I don't post here much and had to vent.
I think this will be my last post on this matter, because we are full steam ahead towards the conversation about racial stereotyping in a cooperative game of make believe. That is where people of viewpoints dig in their heels and say "This is the hill."
I truly feel that anytime someone feels attacked by the rules of a game, they have a choice: They can attempt to change the game (which is happening) or they can adjust their perspective towards that. This is no way says that if someone does something overtly X-ist, they shouldn't be immediately called out, but at the core of the game its a cooperative system, and everyone should play. But I don't think that we should make the game a way to change how people think in regular life. If you are around someone that is X-ist in the game, and after a call out they don't change, you should not be around that person. You should surround yourself with people that lift you up, in life and D&D, and you never ever have to play with someone that doesn't do that.
I think this is dangerously close to gatekeeping on the other side, and I am worried because I've spent my whole time with this hobby leaning against that gate and keeping it open for everyone, and if it isn't something a player likes, making sure they don't feel bad for that. I think that the response, which I think we can all agree we have seen of "well if you don't like this don't play Dungeons and Dragons" is wrong, no matter the perspective it comes from.
I do appreciate the civil conversation with many of you, and I really hope everyone finds their happy place in their realm.
I would like to point out that D&D is the only game I see, even D&D clones, that have exclusively racial-based stats. Most games seem to have gone the route of either discluding extra stat bonuses /penalties entirely, or spreading them out across several parts, including on the classes.
........
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
I can say with certanity that many other TTRPG games have racial-based stats. From where I'm sitting right now I see DSA, IKRPG, Shattered Moon and many more on my bookshelf. And if I wanted to search countless terabytes of online data I could find hundreds more I'm sure.
I don't think that we should make the game a way to change how people think in regular life.
This is exactly backwards as to what is happening. People's thinking is changing and we want our products to keep up with us, it's not some way to change other people's minds. You're also ignoring the responsibility that companies have to not make products that are harmful to their audience.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I would like to point out that D&D is the only game I see, even D&D clones, that have exclusively racial-based stats. Most games seem to have gone the route of either discluding extra stat bonuses /penalties entirely, or spreading them out across several parts, including on the classes.
Imagine it. A gnomish, an elvish, a dwarven and an orcish wizard would never need to worry about their race giving them an INT bump or drop... because the Wizard class is the one granting the INT bump.
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
People like to say that D&D is doing it just because of inclusiveness (which is great), but honestly, I suspect that they're really just catching up with modern game design that doesn't really favor such weight on races.
I'm curious how the latest or the WotC versions of Star Wars handled building a Wookie vs building a Jawa. I'm just starting to relearn the WEG d6 version, and I'm pretty sure a Jawa will never get the STR dice a Wookie will get. I also imagine Ewoks wouldn't have the TECH stat spacefaring races would have.
What's the latest Star Trek system? Are Klingons tougher and or inherently more martially skilled? I mean the Federation posits itself as a system of equals in terms of social rights etc, but I think there may be an acknowledgment that species do actually have some key differences.
A lot of cyberpunk, biopunk, and "post human" genres do posits a diversely different humanity (I'm thinking of Watt's books after Starfish where you had basically genetically engineered vampires that literally think quantiatively on a whole different level as a baseline human, yet would still be mixed into a baseline human starship crew). Do "edge of human evolution boosted by tech games" really keep the playing field that level. In a Star Trek game, how would you flesh out, so to speak, Data?
Basically, I'm curious whether science fiction gaming in particular does really level things out the way you claim the trend is. I'm not saying you're wrong, because I really don't know. But at the Wookie/Jawa level, I'm curious what the RAW say for the more recent editions I haven't read.
For d6 I have the REUP edition (can we talk about that here as it's bootleg?) and can get back to the thread on how difference species builds worked.
I like inclusivity too. In my game there's no socio-political-moral assumptions if you're born on the Prime Material Plane (it's actually why the Outer Planes are so interested in the Prime Materials souls, unrestricted potential).
I don't think that we should make the game a way to change how people think in regular life.
This is exactly backwards as to what is happening. People's thinking is changing and we want our products to keep up with us, it's not some way to change other people's minds. You're also ignoring the responsibility that companies have to not make products that are harmful to their audience.
Exactly.
I'm not glad the minus stats got removed from half-orcs because I think it made anyone out there less racist. The folks who want laws against "miscegenation" are just as likely to want laws against miscegenation as they were before, and they will be regardless of what any rulebook (or science book) says.
It just makes it feel more welcoming that said folks can't use said book as a fantasy analogy for their real world beliefs that race mixing is bad.
Seriously, more folks need to read "The Iron Dream" and see how easy that is to do with fantasy race stereotypes.
I would like to point out that D&D is the only game I see, even D&D clones, that have exclusively racial-based stats. Most games seem to have gone the route of either discluding extra stat bonuses /penalties entirely, or spreading them out across several parts, including on the classes.
Imagine it. A gnomish, an elvish, a dwarven and an orcish wizard would never need to worry about their race giving them an INT bump or drop... because the Wizard class is the one granting the INT bump.
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
People like to say that D&D is doing it just because of inclusiveness (which is great), but honestly, I suspect that they're really just catching up with modern game design that doesn't really favor such weight on races.
I'm curious how the latest or the WotC versions of Star Wars handled building a Wookie vs building a Jawa. I'm just starting to relearn the WEG d6 version, and I'm pretty sure a Jawa will never get the STR dice a Wookie will get. I also imagine Ewoks wouldn't have the TECH stat spacefaring races would have.
What's the latest Star Trek system? Are Klingons tougher and or inherently more martially skilled? I mean the Federation posits itself as a system of equals in terms of social rights etc, but I think there may be an acknowledgment that species do actually have some key differences.
A lot of cyberpunk, biopunk, and "post human" genres do posits a diversely different humanity (I'm thinking of Watt's books after Starfish where you had basically genetically engineered vampires that literally think quantiatively on a whole different level as a baseline human, yet would still be mixed into a baseline human starship crew). Do "edge of human evolution boosted by tech games" really keep the playing field that level. In a Star Trek game, how would you flesh out, so to speak, Data?
Basically, I'm curious whether science fiction gaming in particular does really level things out the way you claim the trend is. I'm not saying you're wrong, because I really don't know. But at the Wookie/Jawa level, I'm curious what the RAW say for the more recent editions I haven't read.
For d6 I have the REUP edition (can we talk about that here as it's bootleg?) and can get back to the thread on how difference species builds worked.
I like inclusivity too. In my game there's no socio-political-moral assumptions if you're born on the Prime Material Plane (it's actually why the Outer Planes are so interested in the Prime Materials souls, unrestricted potential).
Curse you for making me go through dozens of books MidnightPlat!! CURSE YOU!!!
edit: Found them. The Star Trek ones are particulary interesting because of what you already alluded to with the Federation. Gonna need some time to write it all out here though.
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game (about 51% of the tabletop market for D&D, another 9% for pathfinder) so that doesn't say a whole lot (the rest of the top 6 for 2020 was Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, Vampire, and Shadowrun, of which only Shadowrun has anything resembling the D&D races; last I checked race makes a big difference in SR and I recall rumblings of concern about exactly the same things that prompted D&D to change).
i think the fact that this is 14 pages. and no one has shifted their side means that it is a philosophical difference, and not one that can be easily solved.
my entire point is that WOTC needs to be tactful in how they approach this. i will say online forums skew one way or another....and if this forum, which i think skews more towards the liberal/yes change it mentality, still has 14 pages of arguments...means that in the real world...it will be even worse. the fact that it is such a divisive issue means that it really should be something put into a 5.5/6th edition and not shoe horned into 5th...in order to do it right.
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game (about 51% of the tabletop market for D&D, another 9% for pathfinder) so that doesn't say a whole lot.
40% of the tabletop market (which by your numbers is neither D&D nor Pathfinder) is still a significant amount imo. If you were to tell me that 60% of players do things one way and the other 40% do it another, then I would say that while one is more popular there is definitely a noticeable divide.
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As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game (about 51% of the tabletop market for D&D, another 9% for pathfinder) so that doesn't say a whole lot.
40% of the tabletop market (which by your numbers is neither D&D nor Pathfinder) is still a significant amount imo. If you were to tell me that 60% of players do things one way and the other 40% do it another, then I would say that while one is more popular there is definitely a noticeable divide.
If the other 40% were one system, yeah, that would be a point, but it's not. That other 40% is split over dozens of systems, a significant fraction have zero nonhuman races, and I haven't seen a particularly consistent pattern among the remainder.
.Like it or not Sposta, for many players DDB is D&D. You are extremely fortunate in that you have a physical, IRL group of people who like and prefer paper sheets on which you can write anything you like (once, anyways - once it's on paper it never comes off). Many, even most of us during the pandemic, do not. My D&D group is spread across the entire country, with a couple of spectators from around the globe. Paper sheets are not an option, and frankly even if they were I wouldn't care for wasting the paper when the contents of any given character change change a hundred times a session. The digital tool is the only reason I get to play at all. I've told you that before, more than once.
To be honest, we’re playing over teams meetings and using DDB too. Why? Because of this global pandemic. I get invited to join campaigns from all over too but I decline because I don’t want to have to play like this. I prefer IRL tabletops and theater of the mind and “please pass me the chips.” But I’m not fortunate, I have IRL friends that enjoy this hobby because I found people who enjoyed the hobby and became friends with them. And because I found out a couple friends of the woman I was dating 20 years ago played WoD and I made friends with her friends. She and I haven’t seen each other in years since the last funeral we both attended together, but those ”friends of hers” are now two of my bestest friends on life. And some of their friends got into the hobby and joined the group. Some folks I met elsewhere completely also play and they got brought into the group and then it grows and grows. (Turns out I have met a disproportionate number of people who I now play TTRPGs with in bars. More ale!!)
TL/DR: It wasn’t simply “fortune,” it was also effort. I made the effort to find people who played that I wanted to be friends with. And I made the effort to turn my friends into D&D. I worked at it.
As for "stop playing D&D and go play something else"...come on, Sposta. Really? You're going to stand at the gate and turn people away? Tell people that unless they consent to play Faerunian Standard Eurofantasy they can take their ball and go home? Just go play another game without any online support and to hell with the investment I've made here? Is that really the message you want to give folks?
No what I am saying is that if you are so dissatisfied with D&D and so dissatisfied with DDB then why the hack did you invest so heavily into it?!? I spent money and bought the first two books for Airship Pirates and then discovered that the game sucks. (IMO, the IP is baller AF, the mechanics... not so much.) I would never want to play Cyberpunk TTRPG because I don’t like the IP nearly as much as Shadowrun and would be constantly disappointed. So, I don’t invest in those games. This isn’t Gatekeeping, it’s incredulity that people who don’t like D&D insist on playing it. Why?
I’m reminded of a joke my dad once told me:
A woman is awakened in the middle of the night by a strange noise coming from the kitchen. She goes to wake her husband only to find him not there. She steels herself and tiptoes towards the kitchen to learn what is making the noise. She creeps down the hall and the noise grows louder. *thunk* “groan” She sneaks down the steps and the noise grows even louder. *thunk* “groan,” She slinks across the living room and the noise grows louder still. *THUNK* “GROAN.” She peeks into the kitchen to find her husband standing there with his balls on the chopping block and the meat mallet in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?!?” She exclaims. “What’s it look like?” Replies her husband. “It looks like you’re smashing your balls with a mallet!?! She shouts. “I am” replies her husband.“ ”Why?!?” She demands. And her husband says “Because it feels so good when I stop....”
If someone wants to repeatedly smack themselves in the dangly bits with a game they don’t like, then all power to them. All I’ll say to them is “Make sure someone there knows your safe words, use protection, and stay hydrated.”
But if someone doesn’t want to play a game they don’t like, then why do it? Why play a game one doesn’t like, and then insist that game change to suite one’s tastes? Is that not a valid question?
Not to mention, you talk about walking away from your investment here but haven’t you ever heard the expression “throwing good money after bad.” That refers to something called the “Sunk-Cost Fallacy.” (Didja know that humans are the only animals on earth gullible enough to fall for it?)
Species being hard-coded pregens is not "the core of D&D" to me, or to most folks new to this edition.
No offense, but that’s because you’re a “Yurei come lately.” But it is to a lot of us older players of the game. And every time you shit all over it with your uniquely caustic brand of vitriol you are basically slapping every one of us in the proverbial faces and telling us that if we don’t like your changes then we can go play 2e in a corner all by ourselves.
Elves being good at Dex stuff but bad at everything else is not critical to the game feeling like D&D to me.
And now we are right back to that horse poopy again. Just because Elves are better at Dexy stuffs doesn’t mean that they are “bad at everything else.” Stop your ridiculous exaggerations because they truthfully only serve to weaken your position in these arguments in the eyes of everyone who understands that not getting a bonus is not the same as getting a penalty. Seriously, you’re better than this my friend, I know it.
Telling me to go away, leave D&D alone, and just play Savage Worlds by myself in a corner is not cool, nor is it necessary.
And nobody is telling you that. What I am doing is asking you why you haven’t joined the 23,000+ Savage Worlds player out there and join one of their games?
In short, I absolutely disagree with you that Savage Worlds is better at character creation, just different. But I don’t want D&D to be like Savage Worlds. If I did I would just play that instead. I want it to play like D&D with racial ability bonuses, alignment, etc., yes even the gorram pseudo-Vancian magic system.
So why do you want to take that away from me? Because as it stands the future of D&D is D&D INO if things go the way you want them to.
SNIP, Midnightplat is curious about how race is handled in Science Fiction properties where there are often "essential" differences between species.
Curse you for making me go through dozens of books MidnightPlat!! CURSE YOU!!!
edit: Found them. The Star Trek ones are particulary interesting because of what you already alluded to with the Federation. Gonna need some time to write it all out here though.
Cool. My "Outsourcing" feat is the boon I was hoping it to be.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I just wish they would reprint the current system, either through an updated PHB/DMG or an entirely new edition, rather than bolting a new mechanic on top of the current system. A new edition could easily still be 5e compatible so that the majority of the content printed in modules/adventures/sourcebooks is still usable/relevant.
I just wish they would reprint the current system, either through an updated PHB/DMG or an entirely new edition, rather than bolting a new mechanic on top of the current system. A new edition could easily still be 5e compatible so that the majority of the content printed in modules/adventures/sourcebooks is still usable/relevant.
Making a new edition is more likely to turn away new players though. 5e's simplicity and relatively limited number of books is part of what makes it appealing. GMs already restrict stuff like no MTG content or even no AI content, despite AI being considered inseparable from Faerun lore by Wizards. I just do not see it as a big deal to just lump everything under one edition and let GMs pick and choose what they like and do not like, since most GMs already do that anyways.
Just to fact-check, if I’m not mistaken, the original D&D had no ASIs for races whatsoever. (Granted, it also had race-as-class and minimum ability scores for races, so I’m not saying it was good, but there it is.) D&D doesn’t need ASIs of any sort (race or lineage) to be D&D.
Honestly at this point, I’m thinking of homebrewing my own version of D&D with the goal of simplifying everything for new players (D&D is still too complex, but that’s a different topic). Racial bonuses can totally get cut.
I would like to point out that D&D is the only game I see, even D&D clones, that have exclusively racial-based stats. Most games seem to have gone the route of either discluding extra stat bonuses /penalties entirely, or spreading them out across several parts, including on the classes.
Imagine it. A gnomish, an elvish, a dwarven and an orcish wizard would never need to worry about their race giving them an INT bump or drop... because the Wizard class is the one granting the INT bump.
As far as I'm aware, D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game with race having such a huge impact on your stats. Pretty much everyone else has been moving away from that format.
People like to say that D&D is doing it just because of inclusiveness (which is great), but honestly, I suspect that they're really just catching up with modern game design that doesn't really favor such weight on races.
I'm curious how the latest or the WotC versions of Star Wars handled building a Wookie vs building a Jawa. I'm just starting to relearn the WEG d6 version, and I'm pretty sure a Jawa will never get the STR dice a Wookie will get. I also imagine Ewoks wouldn't have the TECH stat spacefaring races would have.
AFAIK they did not release anything in Star Wars after Saga Edition and that one has ability modifier for species (yeah, it's called Species there, not races).
Wookiee has +4 Str +2 Con and -2 Dex, -2 Wis, -2 Cha.
In fact, most species have a mix of bonuses and penalties.
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I'm down with this! Again, that middle ground.
I want to reiterate this and add that this isn't hypothetical or speculative. People in this thread and others, including me, have chimed in with actual first hand accounts of this happening to us. This isn't a debatable point.
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!
The thing is, while it's to your credit you'd work with a player and fudge the rules to accommodate that character, it doesn't change that those rules themselves have run players off before they ever get to said table.
Honestly, I mentioned the other dude playing a half-orc bard because it stood out so much as an example that rule had to have been changed. I probably would have gone more with ranger or fighter back then,* but the - stats still galled me so much it made me not interested in playing at all.
The thing is while me and my first encounter with D&D are one anecdote, I do think it reflects the experience of many more.
No amount of good DMs can overcome a core rulebook that makes people go "Nope, I'm outta here"
Hence removing things that cause that, like the minus stats definitely did, and like the fixed stats bonuses and ideas "This race is this specific stereotype" are likely doing now, the better.
More folks at the table to have those discussions will always be a win.
--
* Asterisk to note since I mentioned I'd have likely been fighter or ranger, my one complaint with the current edition. FFS REVISE THE ARCANE ARCHER! The fighter subclass with ARCHER in it's name shouldn't be an inferior archer to another subclass (Battlemaster). Why the heck is a character who is dedicated to their bow less likely to be able to trip or disarm someone with it? Why can they only use their powers so rarely compared to every other subclass?
Ok, not the time or place for that discussion but I don't post here much and had to vent.
This is a great point.
Like I mentioned I played other RPGs before D&D and, while I enjoy D&D, almost all of them felt much more like I was making a complete character.
My first introduction was the old VTM games, and the way I remember that was you picked what your strongest stats where and you could do that regardless of what your 'race' (Vampire species) was. You could be a smart/charming Brujah (arguably the closest to Orcs.).
Then my other fave RPG before coming to give D&D another shot was Mutants and Masterminds 2e, and that was pretty wide open customization where you could build any type of superhero.
Honestly, I'd argue the entire concept of player races could be kept more to just, setting books and not the book itself.
Hell, tons of people run games without certain races/species, even some setting books currently modify them (Orcs of Eberron being different from regular Orcs).
I could absolutely see the 'traditional' races being just a "In the forgotten realms setting" thing, and let every setting customize it as see fit.
One worlds Orcs may still be the +2 Con type, and another worlds setting gives then +2Dex or +2Int or whatever instead.
What measure is an orc?
I think this will be my last post on this matter, because we are full steam ahead towards the conversation about racial stereotyping in a cooperative game of make believe. That is where people of viewpoints dig in their heels and say "This is the hill."
I truly feel that anytime someone feels attacked by the rules of a game, they have a choice: They can attempt to change the game (which is happening) or they can adjust their perspective towards that. This is no way says that if someone does something overtly X-ist, they shouldn't be immediately called out, but at the core of the game its a cooperative system, and everyone should play. But I don't think that we should make the game a way to change how people think in regular life. If you are around someone that is X-ist in the game, and after a call out they don't change, you should not be around that person. You should surround yourself with people that lift you up, in life and D&D, and you never ever have to play with someone that doesn't do that.
I think this is dangerously close to gatekeeping on the other side, and I am worried because I've spent my whole time with this hobby leaning against that gate and keeping it open for everyone, and if it isn't something a player likes, making sure they don't feel bad for that. I think that the response, which I think we can all agree we have seen of "well if you don't like this don't play Dungeons and Dragons" is wrong, no matter the perspective it comes from.
I do appreciate the civil conversation with many of you, and I really hope everyone finds their happy place in their realm.
I can say with certanity that many other TTRPG games have racial-based stats. From where I'm sitting right now I see DSA, IKRPG, Shattered Moon and many more on my bookshelf. And if I wanted to search countless terabytes of online data I could find hundreds more I'm sure.
#OpenDnD
This is exactly backwards as to what is happening. People's thinking is changing and we want our products to keep up with us, it's not some way to change other people's minds. You're also ignoring the responsibility that companies have to not make products that are harmful to their audience.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm curious how the latest or the WotC versions of Star Wars handled building a Wookie vs building a Jawa. I'm just starting to relearn the WEG d6 version, and I'm pretty sure a Jawa will never get the STR dice a Wookie will get. I also imagine Ewoks wouldn't have the TECH stat spacefaring races would have.
What's the latest Star Trek system? Are Klingons tougher and or inherently more martially skilled? I mean the Federation posits itself as a system of equals in terms of social rights etc, but I think there may be an acknowledgment that species do actually have some key differences.
A lot of cyberpunk, biopunk, and "post human" genres do posits a diversely different humanity (I'm thinking of Watt's books after Starfish where you had basically genetically engineered vampires that literally think quantiatively on a whole different level as a baseline human, yet would still be mixed into a baseline human starship crew). Do "edge of human evolution boosted by tech games" really keep the playing field that level. In a Star Trek game, how would you flesh out, so to speak, Data?
Basically, I'm curious whether science fiction gaming in particular does really level things out the way you claim the trend is. I'm not saying you're wrong, because I really don't know. But at the Wookie/Jawa level, I'm curious what the RAW say for the more recent editions I haven't read.
For d6 I have the REUP edition (can we talk about that here as it's bootleg?) and can get back to the thread on how difference species builds worked.
I like inclusivity too. In my game there's no socio-political-moral assumptions if you're born on the Prime Material Plane (it's actually why the Outer Planes are so interested in the Prime Materials souls, unrestricted potential).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Exactly.
I'm not glad the minus stats got removed from half-orcs because I think it made anyone out there less racist.
The folks who want laws against "miscegenation" are just as likely to want laws against miscegenation as they were before, and they will be regardless of what any rulebook (or science book) says.
It just makes it feel more welcoming that said folks can't use said book as a fantasy analogy for their real world beliefs that race mixing is bad.
Seriously, more folks need to read "The Iron Dream" and see how easy that is to do with fantasy race stereotypes.
Curse you for making me go through dozens of books MidnightPlat!! CURSE YOU!!!
edit: Found them. The Star Trek ones are particulary interesting because of what you already alluded to with the Federation. Gonna need some time to write it all out here though.
#OpenDnD
D&D is pretty much the only major fantasy game (about 51% of the tabletop market for D&D, another 9% for pathfinder) so that doesn't say a whole lot (the rest of the top 6 for 2020 was Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, Vampire, and Shadowrun, of which only Shadowrun has anything resembling the D&D races; last I checked race makes a big difference in SR and I recall rumblings of concern about exactly the same things that prompted D&D to change).
i think the fact that this is 14 pages. and no one has shifted their side means that it is a philosophical difference, and not one that can be easily solved.
my entire point is that WOTC needs to be tactful in how they approach this. i will say online forums skew one way or another....and if this forum, which i think skews more towards the liberal/yes change it mentality, still has 14 pages of arguments...means that in the real world...it will be even worse. the fact that it is such a divisive issue means that it really should be something put into a 5.5/6th edition and not shoe horned into 5th...in order to do it right.
40% of the tabletop market (which by your numbers is neither D&D nor Pathfinder) is still a significant amount imo. If you were to tell me that 60% of players do things one way and the other 40% do it another, then I would say that while one is more popular there is definitely a noticeable divide.
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If the other 40% were one system, yeah, that would be a point, but it's not. That other 40% is split over dozens of systems, a significant fraction have zero nonhuman races, and I haven't seen a particularly consistent pattern among the remainder.
To be honest, we’re playing over teams meetings and using DDB too. Why? Because of this global pandemic. I get invited to join campaigns from all over too but I decline because I don’t want to have to play like this. I prefer IRL tabletops and theater of the mind and “please pass me the chips.” But I’m not fortunate, I have IRL friends that enjoy this hobby because I found people who enjoyed the hobby and became friends with them. And because I found out a couple friends of the woman I was dating 20 years ago played WoD and I made friends with her friends. She and I haven’t seen each other in years since the last funeral we both attended together, but those ”friends of hers” are now two of my bestest friends on life. And some of their friends got into the hobby and joined the group. Some folks I met elsewhere completely also play and they got brought into the group and then it grows and grows. (Turns out I have met a disproportionate number of people who I now play TTRPGs with in bars. More ale!!)
In short, stop whining about the lack of online support for other games. If it’s that important either go develop the online support for the games you do enjoy (or, lucky for you Savage Worlds already has online support), or go make IRL friends with IRL nerds and stop being so dependent on games with online support. Maybe if you weren’t so hella dead set on your whole “Ghost *****™️©️®️“ persona you might find out you’re less dependent on the digiverse than you think. (The world is an amazing place, you should ghost on it less and live in it more.)
TL/DR: It wasn’t simply “fortune,” it was also effort. I made the effort to find people who played that I wanted to be friends with. And I made the effort to turn my friends into D&D. I worked at it.
No what I am saying is that if you are so dissatisfied with D&D and so dissatisfied with DDB then why the hack did you invest so heavily into it?!? I spent money and bought the first two books for Airship Pirates and then discovered that the game sucks. (IMO, the IP is baller AF, the mechanics... not so much.) I would never want to play Cyberpunk TTRPG because I don’t like the IP nearly as much as Shadowrun and would be constantly disappointed. So, I don’t invest in those games. This isn’t Gatekeeping, it’s incredulity that people who don’t like D&D insist on playing it. Why?
I’m reminded of a joke my dad once told me:
If someone wants to repeatedly smack themselves in the dangly bits with a game they don’t like, then all power to them. All I’ll say to them is “Make sure someone there knows your safe words, use protection, and stay hydrated.”
But if someone doesn’t want to play a game they don’t like, then why do it? Why play a game one doesn’t like, and then insist that game change to suite one’s tastes? Is that not a valid question?
Not to mention, you talk about walking away from your investment here but haven’t you ever heard the expression “throwing good money after bad.” That refers to something called the “Sunk-Cost Fallacy.” (Didja know that humans are the only animals on earth gullible enough to fall for it?)
No offense, but that’s because you’re a “Yurei come lately.” But it is to a lot of us older players of the game. And every time you shit all over it with your uniquely caustic brand of vitriol you are basically slapping every one of us in the proverbial faces and telling us that if we don’t like your changes then we can go play 2e in a corner all by ourselves.
And now we are right back to that horse poopy again. Just because Elves are better at Dexy stuffs doesn’t mean that they are “bad at everything else.” Stop your ridiculous exaggerations because they truthfully only serve to weaken your position in these arguments in the eyes of everyone who understands that not getting a bonus is not the same as getting a penalty. Seriously, you’re better than this my friend, I know it.
And nobody is telling you that. What I am doing is asking you why you haven’t joined the 23,000+ Savage Worlds player out there and join one of their games?
In short, I absolutely disagree with you that Savage Worlds is better at character creation, just different. But I don’t want D&D to be like Savage Worlds. If I did I would just play that instead. I want it to play like D&D with racial ability bonuses, alignment, etc., yes even the gorram pseudo-Vancian magic system.
So why do you want to take that away from me? Because as it stands the future of D&D is D&D INO if things go the way you want them to.
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Cool. My "Outsourcing" feat is the boon I was hoping it to be.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I just wish they would reprint the current system, either through an updated PHB/DMG or an entirely new edition, rather than bolting a new mechanic on top of the current system. A new edition could easily still be 5e compatible so that the majority of the content printed in modules/adventures/sourcebooks is still usable/relevant.
Making a new edition is more likely to turn away new players though. 5e's simplicity and relatively limited number of books is part of what makes it appealing. GMs already restrict stuff like no MTG content or even no AI content, despite AI being considered inseparable from Faerun lore by Wizards. I just do not see it as a big deal to just lump everything under one edition and let GMs pick and choose what they like and do not like, since most GMs already do that anyways.
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Just to fact-check, if I’m not mistaken, the original D&D had no ASIs for races whatsoever. (Granted, it also had race-as-class and minimum ability scores for races, so I’m not saying it was good, but there it is.) D&D doesn’t need ASIs of any sort (race or lineage) to be D&D.
Honestly at this point, I’m thinking of homebrewing my own version of D&D with the goal of simplifying everything for new players (D&D is still too complex, but that’s a different topic). Racial bonuses can totally get cut.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
AFAIK they did not release anything in Star Wars after Saga Edition and that one has ability modifier for species (yeah, it's called Species there, not races).
Wookiee has +4 Str +2 Con and -2 Dex, -2 Wis, -2 Cha.
In fact, most species have a mix of bonuses and penalties.