As for WotC addressing macro issue, what macro issue is it that requires removing the Half-Elf and Half-Orc as they exist? Because, and please correct me if I've got this wrong, but it seems like the order of events here is:
1. Half-Elves and Half-Orcs were offensive to at least one person.
2. It is assumed that the reason it is offensive is because of Bio-Essentialism (other people brought this up, not me).
3. It is assumed that bio-essentialism in all forms is bad, and you are bad if you disagree with that statement (as evidenced by the people who insist I am a bad person because I defend Bio-E in a game of make-believe)
4. Therefore we must remove the Half-Elf and Hlf-Orc so some subset of the population (which may only be 1) is offended.
You misunderstand.
The argument is that the Half-Elf Stat block has absolutely nothing to do with the Human stat block or the Elf stat block. It is its own third separate thing, with no relation or connection to either of its so-called "parent" species. It is not human and has no part of being human, nor a place in human society. It is not elf and has no part of being elven, nor a place in elven society. It is Other. It is a third thing, entirely unconnected to either of the other two, cut adrift and left to be its own isolated, ostracized thing. Ditto the half-orc, if to a lesser extent. These options do not feel like half-and-half multiracial mixed-ancestry characters, they feel like distinct and yet repulsive species given no place in the world. Nothing but discarded afterthoughts.
For those to whom such a concept is repugnant, treating a mixed-ancestry character as being mechanically one of its parent species and narratively a blending of the two allows them to feel like they're part of the world. Part of a kind, even if they're a member of that kind with Extras. they do not have to deal with feeling disconnected from everything, with feeling like they share no part of either of their parent kinds. They do not have to feel like discarded afterthoughts, and now that they've been given a taste of that they will not willingly go back to being forced to be discarded afterthoughts.
Bioessentialism does not enter into it, and why we're back on this old saw I do not know. But please discard the notion and argue the actual point, if you would.
Is it possible to be offended when someone takes a position of self-appointed advocacy by assuming that you should/would be offended? Is that allowed? What if the person who assumed you'd take offense is offended by the fact that you weren't offended? And what if you're subsequently offended by their offense at your lack of offense? Do we simply keep increasing the volume of our voices, doomed like twin singularities to orbit and devour each other forever? Wait- I was told that someone was offended. Yes, that's right. At least I think so. But who was it? Was it me? Was it them? I can't seem to recall now...
[time disjunction]
I am enclosed in a reflection's reflection's reflection. It folds upon itself again and again. I panic- was that a distant phantom waving back at me from within the terrible depths of this pitiless, inescapable tesseract?
I scream, but there is no sound. My mind shatters.
It grows dark. I am alone. Fear envelops me, and nothing else.
[time disjunction]
Was I asleep? Did I lose my mind? How many times has this happened? No way to tell.
A faint glow ahead. Is my mind playing another trick on me? It beckons, calling to me. Becoming stronger.
>>>It is not elf and has no part of being elven, nor a place in elven society. It is Other. It is a third thing, entirely unconnected to either of the other two, cut adrift and left to be its own isolated, ostracized thing. Ditto the half-orc, if to a lesser extent. These options do not feel like half-and-half multiracial mixed-ancestry characters, they feel like distinct and yet repulsive species given no place in the world. Nothing but discarded afterthoughts.
Yes, exactly. You've just successfully described one of the common hooks of Half-Elves, given that this is sometimes (but certainly not always) precisely how they are viewed in the worlds that they inhabit. They are, more often than not, distrusted and isolated outcasts. If you run a game in which such racism is simply not a thing, kudos.
>>>they do not have to deal with feeling disconnected from everything, with feeling like they share no part of either of their parent kinds. They do not have to feel like discarded afterthoughts, and now that they've been given a taste of that they will not willingly go back to being forced to be discarded afterthoughts.
I'm not 100% sure where we are going here, but it seems like we are now being sensitive not just to people, but to a theoretical character concept?
If so, surely you understand that whether or not a character feels self-actualized is entirely separate from the actual player's enjoyment and comfort level?
Yes, exactly. You've just successfully described one of the common hooks of Half-Elves,
Not to mention a very common experience mixed-heritage people have IRL.
I think you both are confusing the topic under discussion for your convenience. If you want to play half-elves that are social outcasts at your table, play the game that you want to play. Linking their mixed race to a mechanical optimization over either parent race is the issue and has absolutely nothing at all to do with half-elf lore about being social outcasts. WotC clearly has recognized this as a problem with their game design and has taken steps to shift their position on how being of mixed race are played form a mechanical standpoint. This change also allows every mixed race PC that people would be interested in playing to be mechanically on even ground with other mixed races. As it is currently, why play other mixed race PCs when you can play half-elves and have a measurably superior performance and therefore play experience? You cannot give preferential treatment to one race simply because it has always gotten this preferential treatment in the past. As I have said before, that is an appeal to tradition and is a failure in logical thinking that is responsible for enough hurt in the world as it is.
If taking the mechanical traits form a single parent race is not appealing to you, would you instead accept taking some from both?
Give me an optional rule to mechanically combine the different D&D races, then you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
Sure. Assuming we're sticking to D&D tradition, which holds that the only two species that breed with absolutely anything are humans and dragons, and I don't need to worry about dragons, here are some half-rules for you.
Fey Ancestry (advantage on saves vs charmed) + Trance (long rest while conscious in 4 hours, and 2 hot-swappable proficiencies, one in a weapon and one in a tool)
Orc Traits
Darkvision 60' + Powerful Build
Adrenaline Rush (PB/Long Rest, Dash as a bonus action and gain PB in THP) + Relentless Endurance
Human Traits (I will make these up):
Any 1 feat for which you qualify which does not add to your ability scores, unless you sacrifice racial ability score points to this ability, which you can do: if you sacrifice 1 point (which will change your allowed spreads to +2/+0 or +1/+1), you can take a half feat. If you sacrifice 2 points, you can take a full ASI.
As above (you get a second one), bearing in mind you can only pay racial ability score points for half feats or full ASIs.
As a half-elf, pick one of the 2 elf lines and 1 of the 2 human lines. As a half-orc, pick 1 of the 2 orc lines and 1 of the 2 human lines. Note that I cheated - I didn't address things these 3 species have in common, like Size and Speed - so there's more work to do if you want to be able to make a Mul (the half-Dwarf WOTC has been too lazy to give us in 5th) or a Quarterling.
The argument is that the Half-Elf Stat block has absolutely nothing to do with the Human stat block or the Elf stat block. It is its own third separate thing, with no relation or connection to either of its so-called "parent" species. It is not human and has no part of being human, nor a place in human society. It is not elf and has no part of being elven, nor a place in elven society. It is Other. It is a third thing, entirely unconnected to either of the other two, cut adrift and left to be its own isolated, ostracized thing. Ditto the half-orc, if to a lesser extent. These options do not feel like half-and-half multiracial mixed-ancestry characters, they feel like distinct and yet repulsive species given no place in the world. Nothing but discarded afterthoughts.
This isn't true though. At least it wasn't in the 3e statblock. Half elves had no ASI like humans, not even the CHA one, both they and each parent were medium sized with a base speed of 30 feet, half-elves had immunity to sleep and similar spells from their elven parent, a +2 racial bonus to saving throughs against enchantments from their elven parent, low-light vision from their elven parent, no racial weapon proficiencies - something their human parent was also lacking (but which I allowed both for Half-elves and for Humans), a+1 racial bonus to listen, search, and spot checks, half of what their elven parent received - indicating mildly superior senses to that of their human parent, but not as acute as their elven parent; a trait called 'elven blood' which counts them as an elf regarding all special abilities and effects, their automatic languages were common and elven as their elven parent, their bonus language was Any as per their human parent, and their favored class was any as per their human parent.
The otherness, which, certain peoples 'discomfort' notwithstanding, was actually a desirable and sought after rp trait, came not from the stat block, but from certain other factors, the biggest being age issues.
Half Elves in Elven communities would grow up faster than their peer group entering adolescence while their friends remained children. In human communities, they would age slower than their peer group and remain a child while their friends outgrew them by entering adolescence sooner. Similarly, in human communities, they live at least twice as long and do not age as thoroughly and so have to watch their loved ones age and die. In an elven community, they live at least half as long and age more thoroughly having to see their loved ones watch themselves age and die.
Similarly in either community, they would reach sexual maturity before or after their peer group making mate selection more difficult as well unless other half-elves of a similar age are present; this also applies to differences in gestation times and to ...quantity of production. Elves do not breed often, and humans breed excessively (medieval humans in particular). Thus, actual unions between Elves and Humans are few and far between. Half Elves Breed slower than humans but faster than elves.
In terms of the perception of time, humans, a short-lived race, see the world with more urgency of action due to only having about a half-century worth of time to achieve things in. Elves having centuries worth of time to achieve things in, tend to act more slowly and wait to see things unfurl before judging how to act. Half Elves split this difference too with human communities finding them slow to take action and Elven communities finding them to rash and quick to act.
Human and Elves by the by are, yes, understood to be relatively alien beings to one another from what you would call that Bio-E perspective; not just Biologically: Anatomically & Physiologically different, but also Neurologically/Psychologically different, and even Metaphysically different with their souls on different paths in the afterlife. The way your side uses the term biracial/multiracial from a coloquial standpoint would better apply to a half high elf / half wood elf or half Flanaen human / half Suel Human: re two different cultures of one creature type. A half Elf is a hybrid of two distinct creature types. This distinction has meaning and value that is not overshadowed by their personhood.
What makes a Half Elf (and to a similar extent a Half Orc), worthy of their own racial entry was not that they can exist at all, but rather that they are not exclusively, or even more often than not, a product of the union between a Human and Elf, but rather that they could reproduce with one another to create more Half-Elves, without any further contribution from Human or Elven stock. Half-Elves can form and build communities of their own, they can possibly even claim territories of their own and form cultures and nations of their own that are indeed distinct from those of their progenitor races - hence they are a true race in their own right despite their name: like Brettons in Elder Scrolls. Indeed Half-Elves were stated somewhere, I don't remember where now, to find the most happiness and acceptance within their own communities rather than in either of their progenitor communities.
Also, yes, this sort of setup in the lore was pretty unique to half-Elves and half-Orcs - even if other hybrid pearings were present, they did not really build their own societies the way these two did. There are a couple of other exceptions to be spoken of, but as they were not PH races we can leave them for later.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Mechanically, I think something people can overlook when arguing for mix-and-match heritages is generations. Once this can of worms opens up, it seems pretty reasonable that a player could say, well, my father was a halfling/dragonborn, and my mother was an elf/ardling, so I should be able to pick from any of those four options. Oh, and my great-great-grandmother on my father's side was a gnome, and so I want to add gnomish traits into the mix; they just skipped a couple generations.
I haven't tried to run possible combinations, but it doesn't seem too hard to imagine folks coming up with insane and potentially game-breaking combinations -- or game ruining combinations because it's a new player who doesn't know what they're doing, and they make terrible choices that slow things down for everyone at the table. Not to mention that same hypothetical player could try to argue they should get access to racial feats (assuming those will still exist) from all of the above races. And yes, DMs can shut this down. But right now, DMs can allow it via homebrew, so that seems like a wash, and I'm generally a fan of anything that doesn't force a DM to be confrontational (shutting down something allowed by RAW would be confrontational, allowing something new is not).
Additionally, if you do mix-and-match, the game developers now have to compare every new race's swappable properties against every existing race's swappable properties to see if they've just allowed something bonkers powerful to exist. Keeping things with, pick one race and just change look how you look, helps future-proof the system.
And yes, DMs can shut this down. But right now, DMs can allow it via homebrew, so that seems like a wash, and I'm generally a fan of anything that doesn't force a DM to be confrontational (shutting down something allowed by RAW would be confrontational, allowing something new is not).
Nods. This has been my problem with every change since the erratta around the time of Tashas. Instead of letting me grant exceptions to a rule to allow a player to do something they want, they make that thing the default so I have to be the one to say No, you can't do that. It's very irritating.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Mechanically, I think something people can overlook when arguing for mix-and-match heritages is generations. Once this can of worms opens up, it seems pretty reasonable that a player could say, well, my father was a halfling/dragonborn, and my mother was an elf/ardling, so I should be able to pick from any of those four options. Oh, and my great-great-grandmother on my father's side was a gnome, and so I want to add gnomish traits into the mix; they just skipped a couple generations.
I haven't tried to run possible combinations, but it doesn't seem too hard to imagine folks coming up with insane and potentially game-breaking combinations -- or game ruining combinations because it's a new player who doesn't know what they're doing, and they make terrible choices that slow things down for everyone at the table. Not to mention that same hypothetical player could try to argue they should get access to racial feats (assuming those will still exist) from all of the above races. And yes, DMs can shut this down. But right now, DMs can allow it via homebrew, so that seems like a wash, and I'm generally a fan of anything that doesn't force a DM to be confrontational (shutting down something allowed by RAW would be confrontational, allowing something new is not).
Additionally, if you do mix-and-match, the game developers now have to compare every new race's swappable properties against every existing race's swappable properties to see if they've just allowed something bonkers powerful to exist. Keeping things with, pick one race and just change look how you look, helps future-proof the system.
People do that already and grand parents and over have never come up before. People will always try no matter what.
Or at least it will only be a matter of time until they find something else and leave again?
Ah, there it is. The complaints aren't valid, these people are just looking for something to get upset about! But why would they do that, Snowtworf? Why would someone choose to have a bad time?
If the agreement is that any rule should be changed if even one person is hurt or offended by it, then you can never have a complete rule set. Everyone gets offended by something, sometimes we are justified, sometimes we are not.
What exactly do you mean by this, OctoberGeek?
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
We are all equally fallible when we do X, but... we don't all do X, do we? Some of us are in the original target demographic from back in the 70s. And 80s. And 90s. And 2000s. And 2010s.
Ophidimancer has been stating since the Origins document dropped that he's uncomfortable with half-things being given their own stat block, as if they're not real people but instead this weird extra thing that doesn't merit inclusion in either of their parent cultures. I distinctly recall a tale from the early days of the whole "Tasha's is ruining everything FOREVER!" of a multiracial person who quit playing D&D because the game's depiction of half-orcs was Super Heccin' Sus and it made him feel excluded and unwelcome. You act like nobody real is being hit by this stuff, and yet the examples are there. You're just not seeing as many as you think because the people for whom this is an issue stopped playing D&D and thus don't post on the forums. If the issue is fixed? Maybe they'll come back.
Someone will always be offended by something. What is the number of people offended required before a change is made?
Interesting question. What number do you need to see before you begin to care about the suffering of others?
Should we change any rule every time one person is hurt by it?
I take it by your deliberate evasion that you came to realize that the question you asked was just gross.
To answer your question, yes, if there is any harm done, a compassionate person would seek to address and end that harm. A person who prioritizes their own entertainment at the expense of others clearly would be incapable of such an act.
Nope, but I'm trying to get to the point that when we have a fundamental difference of opinion about what constitutes offense or harm, who is the final arbiter?
If something in the game offends or hurts me shall we change it for everyone? Will you do that for me and defend me in that case?
I will! You didn't ask me, but I will.
There are two possibilities, right? 1) You're being sincere with your hypothetical complaint. I would be right to support you. The last thing I want is someone getting hurt in my favorite hobby space. 2) You aren't being sincere with your hypothetical complaint. You would be rendered more villainous by your exploitation of my goodwill. Furthermore, you just aren't going to have the stamina to keep up the charade if it's not genuine. People who are trying to push for social progress because of their lived experience? They're stronger than trolls and reactionaries. Eventually, you would get bored. My support for you would cease because you would cease to post. My support for good-faith actors will persist because they will persist.
I stand by you wholeheartedly. It costs me nothing to do it. I recognize that parsing someone's tone online is a fool's errand and that anyone, including me, can misread a situation. So I aim to assume the best in everyone. Please view these forums as a safe space to air your concerns. I'm on your side.
---
All of that being said, I also stand behind everyone who's spent so much time being relentlessly beaten over the head with bad-faith rhetoric, largely from strangers just as anonymous to them as you are, that they react to what I'm choosing to interpret kindly, as if it were hostile instead. I come from significant privilege here and I recognize that not everyone does.
"Hurt people hurt people."
My request would be that anyone who finds themselves up against someone getting defensive would back the heck off. Would y'all do that for me? When you get the faintest sense that there's a fight brewing? When you've been going back and forth for multiple pages and making no progress? Or when you start noticing yourself or someone else swearing, using phrases like "you're accusing me of ___," or making a comment that methodically, line-by-line, breaks down every last word of another comment? Would you just back off? And if you see me doing it, could you tell me to back off too? You could even use a catchphrase to identify that you're inorganically breaking off from the debate, if you're afraid of looking like you conceded ground to The Enemy. Something like, "I wouldn't want ChoirOfFire's grandma to be here right now, she would really be having a bad time. She's a nice lady and doesn't deserve to be caught in the middle of this. But she doesn't really understand how to navigate the internet, and if she wandered in here, I'd just feel terrible about subjecting her to this. So I'm going to do my part and head out." Or, for a shorter version, maybe "Hi, Choir's grandma!"
My grandma always has cookies at her house. She barely eats them. They're just there for the grandkids. Her favorite video game is Tetris on the Super Nintendo.
I think you both are confusing the topic under discussion for your convenience.
TBH, at this point I'm more just flat-out confused than anything.
Ah, there it is. The complaints aren't valid, these people are just looking for something to get upset about! But why would they do that, Snowtworf? Why would someone choose to have a bad time?
Because you get to do it with friends. I hate hiking with a passion. I still go hiking because I get to do it with my friends. As much as I hate hiking I would never tell them that they couldn't go hiking simply because I dislike it. But, more to the point, what does this have to do with why half-elves can't be their own race and why we can't even flesh out the generic option beyond a sidebar blurb?
No. It almost doesn't matter what the bonuses for the half-elf are (I mean, they have to make sense). Just that they are the half-elf bonuses. If you play a tiefling, but ignore the tiefling racials entirely and replace them with, I dunno, a bugbears... Are you a tiefling or are you a bugbear that just happens to look like a tiefling?
If I'm playing a tiefling I'm playing a tiefling. That's kind of self-evident.
... But, more to the point, what does this have to do with why half-elves can't be their own race and why we can't even flesh out the generic option beyond a sidebar blurb?
A very common conservative-player argument is, roughly, as follows:
1.) If you liked the game, you wouldn't want to change anything about it 2.) You want to change the game, therefore you don't like it. 3.) You don't like the game, therefore you aren't a Fan of the game 4.) You're not a Fan of the game, therefore you won't continue playing/supporting the game. 5.) You won't continue playing/supporting the game, therefore changing things to keep you is pointless. 6.) Changing things to keep you is pointless, therefore they shouldn't change anything about the game.
At no point did I say we shouldn't change the game. New versions come out all the time. Depending on how you feel about 3.5 we're basically on version 5 or 6 now and debating 6 or 7. New content gets added. Rules get changed and re-written. I got nothing against trying to get more people to play. If the new mixed race rule convinces someone to play because they can now race mix a Yuan Ti and a tortle, then yay. More players at the table.
I don't get why that means half-elves and half-orcs need to be utterly destroyed as racial entries and reduced to not even a blurb in a side-bar that isn't getting fleshed out.
You did not. Other people do. All the time. Thus an answer for why you might be confused by Choir's point, as it's one we have to deal with all the time.
As for why half-elves and half-orcs are being bundled into the same blurb as everything else? Twelve pages in, and all the reasons are still the same. You don't like them, don't agree with them, but there's only so many ways we can restate them. You don't have to agree, of course. Just like I didn't have to agree with all the people who screamed down the Origins critical hit rules. But that doesn't change the reasons, ne?
Ophidimancer linked this two days ago. On page 5. It is a story from Samedi of Orleans, talking about how the portrayal of half-orcs turned him off of D&D for years.
There is your example. Does it merit reconsideration of your position?
You misunderstand.
The argument is that the Half-Elf Stat block has absolutely nothing to do with the Human stat block or the Elf stat block. It is its own third separate thing, with no relation or connection to either of its so-called "parent" species. It is not human and has no part of being human, nor a place in human society. It is not elf and has no part of being elven, nor a place in elven society. It is Other. It is a third thing, entirely unconnected to either of the other two, cut adrift and left to be its own isolated, ostracized thing. Ditto the half-orc, if to a lesser extent. These options do not feel like half-and-half multiracial mixed-ancestry characters, they feel like distinct and yet repulsive species given no place in the world. Nothing but discarded afterthoughts.
For those to whom such a concept is repugnant, treating a mixed-ancestry character as being mechanically one of its parent species and narratively a blending of the two allows them to feel like they're part of the world. Part of a kind, even if they're a member of that kind with Extras. they do not have to deal with feeling disconnected from everything, with feeling like they share no part of either of their parent kinds. They do not have to feel like discarded afterthoughts, and now that they've been given a taste of that they will not willingly go back to being forced to be discarded afterthoughts.
Bioessentialism does not enter into it, and why we're back on this old saw I do not know. But please discard the notion and argue the actual point, if you would.
Please do not contact or message me.
Is it possible to be offended when someone takes a position of self-appointed advocacy by assuming that you should/would be offended? Is that allowed? What if the person who assumed you'd take offense is offended by the fact that you weren't offended? And what if you're subsequently offended by their offense at your lack of offense? Do we simply keep increasing the volume of our voices, doomed like twin singularities to orbit and devour each other forever? Wait- I was told that someone was offended. Yes, that's right. At least I think so. But who was it? Was it me? Was it them? I can't seem to recall now...
[time disjunction]
I am enclosed in a reflection's reflection's reflection. It folds upon itself again and again. I panic- was that a distant phantom waving back at me from within the terrible depths of this pitiless, inescapable tesseract?
I scream, but there is no sound. My mind shatters.
It grows dark. I am alone. Fear envelops me, and nothing else.
[time disjunction]
Was I asleep? Did I lose my mind? How many times has this happened? No way to tell.
A faint glow ahead. Is my mind playing another trick on me? It beckons, calling to me. Becoming stronger.
Wait... there's something else, now...
My god! It's full of stars!
>>>It is not elf and has no part of being elven, nor a place in elven society. It is Other. It is a third thing, entirely unconnected to either of the other two, cut adrift and left to be its own isolated, ostracized thing. Ditto the half-orc, if to a lesser extent. These options do not feel like half-and-half multiracial mixed-ancestry characters, they feel like distinct and yet repulsive species given no place in the world. Nothing but discarded afterthoughts.
Yes, exactly. You've just successfully described one of the common hooks of Half-Elves, given that this is sometimes (but certainly not always) precisely how they are viewed in the worlds that they inhabit. They are, more often than not, distrusted and isolated outcasts. If you run a game in which such racism is simply not a thing, kudos.
>>>they do not have to deal with feeling disconnected from everything, with feeling like they share no part of either of their parent kinds. They do not have to feel like discarded afterthoughts, and now that they've been given a taste of that they will not willingly go back to being forced to be discarded afterthoughts.
I'm not 100% sure where we are going here, but it seems like we are now being sensitive not just to people, but to a theoretical character concept?
If so, surely you understand that whether or not a character feels self-actualized is entirely separate from the actual player's enjoyment and comfort level?
Yes, exactly. You've just successfully described one of the common hooks of Half-Elves,
Not to mention a very common experience mixed-heritage people have IRL.
I think you both are confusing the topic under discussion for your convenience. If you want to play half-elves that are social outcasts at your table, play the game that you want to play. Linking their mixed race to a mechanical optimization over either parent race is the issue and has absolutely nothing at all to do with half-elf lore about being social outcasts. WotC clearly has recognized this as a problem with their game design and has taken steps to shift their position on how being of mixed race are played form a mechanical standpoint. This change also allows every mixed race PC that people would be interested in playing to be mechanically on even ground with other mixed races. As it is currently, why play other mixed race PCs when you can play half-elves and have a measurably superior performance and therefore play experience? You cannot give preferential treatment to one race simply because it has always gotten this preferential treatment in the past. As I have said before, that is an appeal to tradition and is a failure in logical thinking that is responsible for enough hurt in the world as it is.
If taking the mechanical traits form a single parent race is not appealing to you, would you instead accept taking some from both?
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Sure. Assuming we're sticking to D&D tradition, which holds that the only two species that breed with absolutely anything are humans and dragons, and I don't need to worry about dragons, here are some half-rules for you.
As a half-elf, pick one of the 2 elf lines and 1 of the 2 human lines. As a half-orc, pick 1 of the 2 orc lines and 1 of the 2 human lines. Note that I cheated - I didn't address things these 3 species have in common, like Size and Speed - so there's more work to do if you want to be able to make a Mul (the half-Dwarf WOTC has been too lazy to give us in 5th) or a Quarterling.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I just want to note that this has been what I have been saying for pages.
That my problem with the UA rules lacks that possibility.
If they said to that it would solve the issue I have.
It would take some work to balance abilities but something could be worked out.
Mechanically, I think something people can overlook when arguing for mix-and-match heritages is generations. Once this can of worms opens up, it seems pretty reasonable that a player could say, well, my father was a halfling/dragonborn, and my mother was an elf/ardling, so I should be able to pick from any of those four options. Oh, and my great-great-grandmother on my father's side was a gnome, and so I want to add gnomish traits into the mix; they just skipped a couple generations.
I haven't tried to run possible combinations, but it doesn't seem too hard to imagine folks coming up with insane and potentially game-breaking combinations -- or game ruining combinations because it's a new player who doesn't know what they're doing, and they make terrible choices that slow things down for everyone at the table. Not to mention that same hypothetical player could try to argue they should get access to racial feats (assuming those will still exist) from all of the above races. And yes, DMs can shut this down. But right now, DMs can allow it via homebrew, so that seems like a wash, and I'm generally a fan of anything that doesn't force a DM to be confrontational (shutting down something allowed by RAW would be confrontational, allowing something new is not).
Additionally, if you do mix-and-match, the game developers now have to compare every new race's swappable properties against every existing race's swappable properties to see if they've just allowed something bonkers powerful to exist. Keeping things with, pick one race and just change look how you look, helps future-proof the system.
Nods. This has been my problem with every change since the erratta around the time of Tashas. Instead of letting me grant exceptions to a rule to allow a player to do something they want, they make that thing the default so I have to be the one to say No, you can't do that. It's very irritating.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
People do that already and grand parents and over have never come up before.
People will always try no matter what.
and is a narrative based experience that does not need to be mechanically reinforced.
Mechanically distinct, as all core DND races are and will continue to be into the next edition.
Ah, there it is. The complaints aren't valid, these people are just looking for something to get upset about! But why would they do that, Snowtworf? Why would someone choose to have a bad time?
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What exactly do you mean by this, OctoberGeek?
We are all equally fallible when we do X, but... we don't all do X, do we? Some of us are in the original target demographic from back in the 70s. And 80s. And 90s. And 2000s. And 2010s.
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I will! You didn't ask me, but I will.
There are two possibilities, right?
1) You're being sincere with your hypothetical complaint. I would be right to support you. The last thing I want is someone getting hurt in my favorite hobby space.
2) You aren't being sincere with your hypothetical complaint. You would be rendered more villainous by your exploitation of my goodwill. Furthermore, you just aren't going to have the stamina to keep up the charade if it's not genuine. People who are trying to push for social progress because of their lived experience? They're stronger than trolls and reactionaries. Eventually, you would get bored. My support for you would cease because you would cease to post. My support for good-faith actors will persist because they will persist.
I stand by you wholeheartedly. It costs me nothing to do it. I recognize that parsing someone's tone online is a fool's errand and that anyone, including me, can misread a situation. So I aim to assume the best in everyone. Please view these forums as a safe space to air your concerns. I'm on your side.
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All of that being said, I also stand behind everyone who's spent so much time being relentlessly beaten over the head with bad-faith rhetoric, largely from strangers just as anonymous to them as you are, that they react to what I'm choosing to interpret kindly, as if it were hostile instead. I come from significant privilege here and I recognize that not everyone does.
My request would be that anyone who finds themselves up against someone getting defensive would back the heck off. Would y'all do that for me? When you get the faintest sense that there's a fight brewing? When you've been going back and forth for multiple pages and making no progress? Or when you start noticing yourself or someone else swearing, using phrases like "you're accusing me of ___," or making a comment that methodically, line-by-line, breaks down every last word of another comment? Would you just back off? And if you see me doing it, could you tell me to back off too? You could even use a catchphrase to identify that you're inorganically breaking off from the debate, if you're afraid of looking like you conceded ground to The Enemy. Something like, "I wouldn't want ChoirOfFire's grandma to be here right now, she would really be having a bad time. She's a nice lady and doesn't deserve to be caught in the middle of this. But she doesn't really understand how to navigate the internet, and if she wandered in here, I'd just feel terrible about subjecting her to this. So I'm going to do my part and head out." Or, for a shorter version, maybe "Hi, Choir's grandma!"
My grandma always has cookies at her house. She barely eats them. They're just there for the grandkids. Her favorite video game is Tetris on the Super Nintendo.
I think you both are confusing the topic under discussion for your convenience.
TBH, at this point I'm more just flat-out confused than anything.
Ah, there it is. The complaints aren't valid, these people are just looking for something to get upset about! But why would they do that, Snowtworf? Why would someone choose to have a bad time?
Because you get to do it with friends. I hate hiking with a passion. I still go hiking because I get to do it with my friends. As much as I hate hiking I would never tell them that they couldn't go hiking simply because I dislike it. But, more to the point, what does this have to do with why half-elves can't be their own race and why we can't even flesh out the generic option beyond a sidebar blurb?
If I'm playing a tiefling I'm playing a tiefling. That's kind of self-evident.
A very common conservative-player argument is, roughly, as follows:
1.) If you liked the game, you wouldn't want to change anything about it
2.) You want to change the game, therefore you don't like it.
3.) You don't like the game, therefore you aren't a Fan of the game
4.) You're not a Fan of the game, therefore you won't continue playing/supporting the game.
5.) You won't continue playing/supporting the game, therefore changing things to keep you is pointless.
6.) Changing things to keep you is pointless, therefore they shouldn't change anything about the game.
Please do not contact or message me.
Okay. And?
At no point did I say we shouldn't change the game. New versions come out all the time. Depending on how you feel about 3.5 we're basically on version 5 or 6 now and debating 6 or 7. New content gets added. Rules get changed and re-written. I got nothing against trying to get more people to play. If the new mixed race rule convinces someone to play because they can now race mix a Yuan Ti and a tortle, then yay. More players at the table.
I don't get why that means half-elves and half-orcs need to be utterly destroyed as racial entries and reduced to not even a blurb in a side-bar that isn't getting fleshed out.
You did not. Other people do. All the time. Thus an answer for why you might be confused by Choir's point, as it's one we have to deal with all the time.
As for why half-elves and half-orcs are being bundled into the same blurb as everything else? Twelve pages in, and all the reasons are still the same. You don't like them, don't agree with them, but there's only so many ways we can restate them. You don't have to agree, of course. Just like I didn't have to agree with all the people who screamed down the Origins critical hit rules. But that doesn't change the reasons, ne?
Please do not contact or message me.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/95854-design-direction-changes-for-race-in-d-d-5e?page=19#c398
Ophidimancer linked this two days ago. On page 5. It is a story from Samedi of Orleans, talking about how the portrayal of half-orcs turned him off of D&D for years.
There is your example. Does it merit reconsideration of your position?
Please do not contact or message me.