Half-Elves & Half-Orcs as we knew them are gone?

You realize that, with the current entry, a lot of people will likely just flat-out gloss it over when reading the entries and not even realize that the option exists in the first place, right? You're not going to get, well, anything done if people don't even realize it's a choice in the book because the entry for something that should be a huge deal is so tiny and under-developed.

Why would they do that?  And if so, whose fault is it?  The words are there to read, and sidebars are always very easy to spot.  This isn't like the d20 test thing where the proposed book actively contradicts itself.  

Do I, personally, like the proposed rule?  No, not really.  But it's better for people who've lived that experience, and my 100% white-as-milk hindus can hit the homebrew sheets for my own personal games just fine.  Hell, I just did - ran out a homebrew block for Critical Role's uniya over the weekend in preparation for some folks eying them as PCs for future Exandria games.  I get my fancy mixed-traits character, and that character isn't forced down the throats of people for whom mixed-traits characters are an uncomfortable reminder of past harm.

Let the people for whom this is a splendid step forward have that step forward, hm?

Why does that only apply to mixed ancestry, and not the different races having distinct attributes based on their biology? Dwarves are being told to be not culturally, but inherently good at metalworking, but that's not an issue. Meanwhile, a kid of a dwarf and a human not being fully human or fully dwarven would be racist, then?

1.) Dwarves being genetically good at metalworking is still weird.  It's in there, I imagine, because "DWARVES ARE SMITHS!" is one of the strongest culture/species associations in all of D&D and trying to sell grognards on the idea that dwarves are no better or worse as craftsmen than anyone else is not going to work.  Personally I'd prefer if they simply had a predilection for craftsman's work and could choose which crafts they man'd, represented by a bonus floating tool proficiency, but eh.

2.) Thirteen pages of thread.  Read them, please.  The answer to your second question has been given dozens and dozens of times already.

Gonna bring up a point here, one that occured to me when working on that homebrew uniya sheet and in subsequent discussions.

Go read the half-elf block.  Really read it.  How often does the half-elf, as written, describe itself in terms of what a half-elf is as opposed to what a half-elf is not - namely, human or elf?  The answer is effectively never.  The entire species is described negatively, in terms of how it doesn't fit, what it is not, what it can't be.  The whole thing is "you're Different, and we can't possibly allow that."  Hell, the whole thing finishes its lore description with a sentence saying "both sides of the half-elf's heritage suspect it of being unfairly biased towards the other."

Looking at it through my imperfect understanding of the experiences of those who live such a dichotomy in real life?  I'm astonished anybody plays half-elves.  Their write-up is absolutely awful and whoever did it back in 2014 should be ashamed.  Frankly I'm annoyed at myself that it took me this long to notice just how bleak, exclusionary, and punishing the half-elf write-up is.  Even the half-orc write-up is stronger, though mostly because the half-orc write-up is actually describing plain old regular orcs in a way that gets by the "we can't let orcs be their own thing in D&D" Grognard Block that was in evidence in 2014.

Quote from Erior >>

Why does that only apply to mixed ancestry, and not the different races having distinct attributes based on their biology? Dwarves are being told to be not culturally, but inherently good at metalworking, but that's not an issue. Meanwhile, a kid of a dwarf and a human not being fully human or fully dwarven would be racist, then?

The issue is that, in various settings, a kingdom/culture tends to also encompass its entire race too. While I'm sure we'd all agree that no one individual dwarf is inherently good at metalwork or whatever the problem is that most settings will only have one or two dwarven kingdoms and both will be very... dwarfy... and all dwarfs will have no choice but to have come from said kingdom(s). While humans get it 'better' even then they tend to be almost exclusively feudal european with, if they're lucky, asian or a Nordic (if you consider that different enough) variations. So if you meet a dwarf you can safely assume he's from the dwarf kingdom and adhires to the dwarf culture because, well, he doesn't exactly have much in the way of choices. Sure, some GM's won't do that, but to most it's just not something they thought of or cared about.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Why would they do that?  And if so, whose fault is it?  The words are there to read, and sidebars are always very easy to spot.  This isn't like the d20 test thing where the proposed book actively contradicts itself.  

Do I, personally, like the proposed rule?  No, not really.  But it's better for people who've lived that experience, and my 100% white-as-milk hindus can hit the homebrew sheets for my own personal games just fine.  Hell, I just did - ran out a homebrew block for Critical Role's uniya over the weekend in preparation for some folks eying them as PCs for future Exandria games.  I get my fancy mixed-traits character, and that character isn't forced down the throats of people for whom mixed-traits characters are an uncomfortable reminder of past harm.

Let the people for whom this is a splendid step forward have that step forward, hm?

 
People misread their own spells, honestly, all the time and GM's will flat-out get rules wrong when the DM's guide outright says the exact opposite or something. As much as we'd like to think they pour over the PHB like some tome of arcane knowledge and dedicate as much time to it as if they were studying for a bachlors degree, most people will probably look at the index, see a class, see a race, and go 'yea. That sounds cool.' and that will be it. I wonder how many casual players even read all the stat-blocks, not even the full entries, the stat blocks, for all the races in the base game. I assure you it's less than 100% and I wouldn't be shocked if it was closer to 50 or even 25%. Regulating ANYTHING to a side bar, no matter how important or whatever it is, practically ensures half of casual players will just... gloss it over.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Gonna bring up a point here, one that occured to me when working on that homebrew uniya sheet and in subsequent discussions.

Go read the half-elf block.  Really read it.  How often does the half-elf, as written, describe itself in terms of what a half-elf is as opposed to what a half-elf is not - namely, human or elf?  The answer is effectively never.  The entire species is described negatively, in terms of how it doesn't fit, what it is not, what it can't be.  The whole thing is "you're Different, and we can't possibly allow that."  Hell, the whole thing finishes its lore description with a sentence saying "both sides of the half-elf's heritage suspect it of being unfairly biased towards the other."

Looking at it through my imperfect understanding of the experiences of those who live such a dichotomy in real life?  I'm astonished anybody plays half-elves.  Their write-up is absolutely awful and whoever did it back in 2014 should be ashamed.  Frankly I'm annoyed at myself that it took me this long to notice just how bleak, exclusionary, and punishing the half-elf write-up is.  Even the half-orc write-up is stronger, though mostly because the half-orc write-up is actually describing plain old regular orcs in a way that gets by the "we can't let orcs be their own thing in D&D" Grognard Block that was in evidence in 2014.

I think we can both agree that what the PHB describes and how people actually PLAY the race/class aren't exactly 'entirely aligned'. The vast majority of half-orcs I've played with have been lovable hug-bugs that no one hates even if they're stupid and tend to rage. I can only speculate but I think the 2014 entry was based off of how they wanted people to play the race and how it had been presented in their other media, not off of how people were, ya know, actually playing half-elves.

Quote from Snowtworf >>

 

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Gonna bring up a point here, one that occured to me when working on that homebrew uniya sheet and in subsequent discussions.

Go read the half-elf block.  Really read it.  How often does the half-elf, as written, describe itself in terms of what a half-elf is as opposed to what a half-elf is not - namely, human or elf?  The answer is effectively never.  The entire species is described negatively, in terms of how it doesn't fit, what it is not, what it can't be.  The whole thing is "you're Different, and we can't possibly allow that."  Hell, the whole thing finishes its lore description with a sentence saying "both sides of the half-elf's heritage suspect it of being unfairly biased towards the other."

Looking at it through my imperfect understanding of the experiences of those who live such a dichotomy in real life?  I'm astonished anybody plays half-elves.  Their write-up is absolutely awful and whoever did it back in 2014 should be ashamed.  Frankly I'm annoyed at myself that it took me this long to notice just how bleak, exclusionary, and punishing the half-elf write-up is.  Even the half-orc write-up is stronger, though mostly because the half-orc write-up is actually describing plain old regular orcs in a way that gets by the "we can't let orcs be their own thing in D&D" Grognard Block that was in evidence in 2014.

I think we can both agree that what the PHB describes and how people actually PLAY the race/class aren't exactly 'entirely aligned'. The vast majority of half-orcs I've played with have been lovable hug-bugs that no one hates even if they're stupid and tend to rage. I can only speculate but I think the 2014 entry was based off of how they wanted people to play the race and how it had been presented in their other media, not off of how people were, ya know, actually playing half-elves.

Okay? But that says nothing about Yurei's very valid critique of the writing and the material itself.

A cool 1st level feat would be one that let you get a feature from your other half-race. You could only take this at first level and only once and you must choose a race that isn’t your main race. So if you choose Elf as your main race then take this Half Race feat you could get pick Human and gain Resourceful and Skillful, or Pick Orc and gain Powerful Build and Relentless Endurance, or pick Etc and gain some of the Racial features to make you feel like truly a have race. This could be an option for those who want more than just the look like, and are willing to pay the feat price to gain more racial features.

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

A cool 1st level feat would be one that let you get a feature from your other half-race. You could only take this at first level and only once and you must choose a race that isn’t your main race. So if you choose Elf as your main race then take this Half Race feat you could get pick Human and gain Resourceful and Skillful, or Pick Orc and gain Powerful Build and Relentless Endurance, or pick Etc and gain some of the Racial features to make you feel like truly a have race. This could be an option for those who want more than just the look like, and are willing to pay the feat price to gain more racial features.

Lucky and Skilled, both level 1 Feats, work pretty well to mimic the Human racial abilities. Tough seems a decent way to reflect Orc heritage. The system allows for this already.

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

A cool 1st level feat would be one that let you get a feature from your other half-race. You could only take this at first level and only once and you must choose a race that isn’t your main race. So if you choose Elf as your main race then take this Half Race feat you could get pick Human and gain Resourceful and Skillful, or Pick Orc and gain Powerful Build and Relentless Endurance, or pick Etc and gain some of the Racial features to make you feel like truly a have race. This could be an option for those who want more than just the look like, and are willing to pay the feat price to gain more racial features.

Lucky and Skilled, both level 1 Feats, work pretty well to mimic the Human racial abilities. Tough seems a decent way to reflect Orc heritage. The system allows for this already.

 Nah, that’s a good way to play it for some races, but clearly not the same as a true “half race” feat. Lucky is a good supplement for Resourceful and skilled does cover the extra skill humans get. Tough is nothing like Orc features. You could say tough for half dwarf. Some of the other races are nigh impossible to replicant with this method. One of them gives limited flight. There is no feat for that. Also a half dragonborn would be a really tricky one to replicate with current feats.

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Quote from Snowtworf >>

 

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Gonna bring up a point here, one that occured to me when working on that homebrew uniya sheet and in subsequent discussions.

Go read the half-elf block.  Really read it.  How often does the half-elf, as written, describe itself in terms of what a half-elf is as opposed to what a half-elf is not - namely, human or elf?  The answer is effectively never.  The entire species is described negatively, in terms of how it doesn't fit, what it is not, what it can't be.  The whole thing is "you're Different, and we can't possibly allow that."  Hell, the whole thing finishes its lore description with a sentence saying "both sides of the half-elf's heritage suspect it of being unfairly biased towards the other."

Looking at it through my imperfect understanding of the experiences of those who live such a dichotomy in real life?  I'm astonished anybody plays half-elves.  Their write-up is absolutely awful and whoever did it back in 2014 should be ashamed.  Frankly I'm annoyed at myself that it took me this long to notice just how bleak, exclusionary, and punishing the half-elf write-up is.  Even the half-orc write-up is stronger, though mostly because the half-orc write-up is actually describing plain old regular orcs in a way that gets by the "we can't let orcs be their own thing in D&D" Grognard Block that was in evidence in 2014.

I think we can both agree that what the PHB describes and how people actually PLAY the race/class aren't exactly 'entirely aligned'. The vast majority of half-orcs I've played with have been lovable hug-bugs that no one hates even if they're stupid and tend to rage. I can only speculate but I think the 2014 entry was based off of how they wanted people to play the race and how it had been presented in their other media, not off of how people were, ya know, actually playing half-elves.

Okay? But that says nothing about Yurei's very valid critique of the writing and the material itself.

Cause I agree with her?

A while back I had another topic in which I complained about how they were presenting tieflings in 1DD cause every tiefling I knew LOVED the 'societal outcast' aspect of their character and I felt that, by changing that, the designers were engaging in a fundimental misunderstanding of what drew people to the race in the first place. When it became clear that my experiences weren't an accurate representation I accepted that; but I do maintain that it's extremely important for the devs, and by extension the PHB, to present a version of the races that is at least semi-reflective of how people actually play them since that's usually what draws people to want to play the race in the first place. If the 5e PHB is not giving an accurate representation of how people actually play half-elves then, IMO, it should be changed to reflect how they're actually played.

In my recent campaign, I was sitting down at 'session zero' to help the players make characters.  Speaking with one who hadn't played since 3rd edition, I was explaining what some of the newer race options were like, and how they were generally played according to the books.  She stopped me and asked very earnestly:

'Do we really have to have racism in my fantasy escapism?'

'No. No we don't.'

I'm don't have anything to add here that would contribute more than the voices of the people who this directly affects the most. I just wanted you to know that you have support from people that hear you. If you ever write that game Dhauna, let me know.  I would really like to see it. 

Much love. 

The problem here is that I don't think this is one of the things that should be let go of or, well... I'm not sure quite how to say it.

Let's assume the people in favor of the generic option are right. Half elves and half orcs will be just as popular and common without having their own entries. Then you're not 'giving up' anything. Conversely, if I'm right, we're not giving up the generic option (I was never and am not against it), just giving one/two of the possible combinations within it additional attention and... player visibility? Either way we're not 'giving up' anything. 

Snowtworf.  Read the species entry for half-elves.  Really read it.  Soak it in.  Ask yourself how often it describes half-elves positively, i.e. "half-elves are [X]" as opposed to negatively, i.e. "half-elves are not [X]".  Think, for a minute, about their very name.  "Half-elf".  Half an elf.  Only half of a person.  Their very name describes them negatively, in terms of what they are not - an elf or a human.  That is frankly yet another way Eberron is vastly and categorically superior to Faerun and the Forgotten Realms; there, half-elves have their own specific name - 'Khoravar' - and are considered a people unto themselves rather than the mongrel by-blows of actuial for-real peoples.

Stegodorkus' player asked "Do we really have to have racism in my fantasy escapism?"  If you insist on a 'half-elf' stat block which posits that half-elves are the alien, unwanted by-blows of taboo minglings of elven and human bloods (to say nothing of the endless sea of Bad Implications that are half-orcs)?  Then yes.  At your table the answer is "Yes, we have to have racism in our fantasy escapism."  Does that make people who like half-elves, or half-orcs, racist?  No.  But it means that sometimes you're going to have to tell somebody else that they can't play what they want to play without the in-game world ostracizing, denigrating, and 'Other'ing them for it, and we've had foruteen pages now - and over a hundred pages in long-locked dead threads, by now - explaining why that is not okay for a great many people.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Snowtworf.  Read the species entry for half-elves.  Really read it.  Soak it in.  Ask yourself how often it describes half-elves positively, i.e. "half-elves are [X]" as opposed to negatively, i.e. "half-elves are not [X]".  Think, for a minute, about their very name.  "Half-elf".  Half an elf.  Only half of a person.  Their very name describes them negatively, in terms of what they are not - an elf or a human.  That is frankly yet another way Eberron is vastly and categorically superior to Faerun and the Forgotten Realms; there, half-elves have their own specific name - 'Khoravar' - and are considered a people unto themselves rather than the mongrel by-blows of actuial for-real peoples.

Stegodorkus' player asked "Do we really have to have racism in my fantasy escapism?"  If you insist on a 'half-elf' stat block which posits that half-elves are the alien, unwanted by-blows of taboo minglings of elven and human bloods (to say nothing of the endless sea of Bad Implications that are half-orcs)?  Then yes.  At your table the answer is "Yes, we have to have racism in our fantasy escapism."  Does that make people who like half-elves, or half-orcs, racist?  No.  But it means that sometimes you're going to have to tell somebody else that they can't play what they want to play without the in-game world ostracizing, denigrating, and 'Other'ing them for it, and we've had foruteen pages now - and over a hundred pages in long-locked dead threads, by now - explaining why that is not okay for a great many people.

Hookay. A lot to unpack here.

First off. I'm not against the content of the entry itself being changed. I fully expected some changes going in and, so long as it at least makes sense, I'm willing to accept it. The problem isn't that they are making changes to the half-elf or half-orc entry, it's that they're getting rid of it entirely.

Secondly, you are engaging in an extreme, unfair, and frankly rediculous projection with that whole 'half a person' thing. At no point did I posit, suggest, or anything that a half-elf was worth less than a person. I have no clue where you're getting that from. I suspect that 99.99% of the people who have ever played a half-elf in any setting, not just D&D, have ever considered them to be worth 'less' as a person becaused of their heritage. Instead it sounds like you heard ONE person (if even that. More likely a story about one person) use the term in a negative manner and are now expanding that to include EVERYONE as WELL as taking a stance that opposition to you equates to support for that extreme position. That's not only wrong, that's not an argument, and not even relevant to what's going on in the slightest.

Thirdly, what term are we even supposed to USE then? I get that a 'half elf' may no longer be sufficient given it being opened up and a 'half-elf' being as valid a term for a half elf half human as it is for a half elf half orc, but given the vast amount of variety I don't think it's unfair to refer to a very specific, storied, and frankly BROAD set-up by the name commonly used. What? When I boot up Tales of Symphonia am I suddenly not allowed to refer to Raine/Genis as half-elves because it might offend someone in D&D?

FOURTHLY... As much as I hate to say it... MAYBE WE DO! If one of my friends was uncomfortable with a minor aspect of my character and approached me to ask nicely I change it, then I'd probably listen. But if I'm playing a half-elf character whose entire plot and a massive chunk of their story is that they were, say, blocked from progressing in their magic academy due to their mixed heritage, and the plot I had already hashed out with the GM involved them trying to start their own academy as a result, and someone comes up to me and tells me I need to change that... because the insensitive, judgemental, racist, jerkbags in my backstory and serving as a huge chunk of my character motivation are being insensitive, judgemental, racist, jerkbags... and the whole point is that they were WRONG and BAD for that... Then I'm sorry but the answer is 'no'.

Do we HAVE to have stuff like that in every game? No. Of course not. But to act like it doesn't hold merit as a story device (Just look at games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Tales of Symphonia, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Divinity: OS2 for ones I played recently off the top of my head) especially when part of the whole point of the inclusion is that it's a negative, wrong, and bad thing to do and the goal is to defy and oppose it. Like, seriously, how many games out there have 'the races need to oppose the BBEG but they all dislike/hate each other and don't really get along and it's up to the main hero to unite them, undo years of racial hate, and possibly form a party made up of representatives of each race to defeat the BBEG' as their main plot?

If someone isn't interested in that and wants to play at a different table, then fine. Don't like horror movies then don't watch them. Don't want racism in your fantasy game don't join one with it in them (even when the point is that it's wrong and needs to be opposed). But then don't go out and demand it get removed or imply that anyone who has it is also approving of it. It's LITERALLY the same thought process as the satanic panic! 'This game has demons in it! IT IS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL AND SEDUCING YOU TO EVIL! BURN IT!' 'But they're the bad guys and the goal is to oppose and defeat them!' 'DEVIL WORSHIP!'

I'm sorry that this 'great many people' will never be able to enjoy games like Tales of Symphonia or Dragon Age, but that's their choice, and I don't think that giving half-elves and half-orcs their own, separate and distinct racial entires instead of being rolled into a generic option, supports that regardless.