Pardon: the above changes only apply to metallic dragonborn, correct? The chromatic ones are unaffected?

Quote from HylianAmnesiac >>

Quote from Verenti >>

Quote from Panda_wat >>

The argument for abandoning them (racial ASI's) is that, with them, only a few classes are optimal for each race (the change makes dragonborn wizards be reasonable! yay!), and that the races still are unique thanks to their racial traits (you can still breathe fire, so do you really need your +2 STR?), and that you can still take STR and CHA if you want.

 I despair if unoptimal play is seen as inviable. You can totally play a wizard with a 15 INT. You don't need to play a maxed out character at all. If we are going to abandon set ability score bonuses, why not abandon ability score bonuses? After all, if it isn't dependent on your race, then why do characters get it at all? After all, you already have superhumanly good ability scores. Why should you get another bonus on top of the stats you already have?

 Every table is different, it’s not that unoptimal play is universally seen as unviable, but some people just enjoy making synergistic characters and set score bonuses can diminish that. Removing set ability score bonuses gives the whole community more options, if you and your table prefer set bonuses then you can keep using them, but those who don’t aren’t forced to because of the “it’s not in a book so it isn’t legal” argument.

Ability score bonuses shouldn’t be removed because of people like you, who want to keep set bonuses, and because not all races get equal bonuses, human and half-elves would lose one of their most important traits, adaptability.

I agree with Panda_wat, most races should be unique because of their traits, not because of a number.

 This argument is actually agnostic. I can use to legitimise either position. You are ignoring the fact that the opposite is also true. If you and your table prefer to play with variable bonuses, you can do that, but those who don't aren't forced to because of the "it's not in a book so it isn't legal" argument. That doesn't reinforce your particular point. Therefore, it is not an argument for one way of doing things or another. It is an argument that people should be able to do what they want and this has never been something that is disputing. Actually, the official books and RPG books in general long predating 5e, have endorsed players customising and changing their play experience.

The argument to remove them now is that if they are by default variable, then they are not abstracting anything. They lose any rational coherence for existing. Why would you get any bonus? Because the game is balanced for people with bonuses? Not actually true, considering the base rules for character creation is roll 4d6 drop 1. Standard array is an option. Pointbuy is a variant rule.Therefore, there isn't any actual expectation for a particular set of stats built into the system. So, game balance can't be the justification for racial ASIs. And if your race doesn't determine your ASI then... what is that bonus? If it only exists so that certain players can min/max, why should it be considered? That would mean it only exists to promote problematic behaviour. I mean, if your whole purpose at the table is to get the biggest numbers, why are you playing D&D? There are easier ways to accomplish that which require much less planning. Diablo 3, for instance, lets you do millions of points of damage. However, if there isn't a rational reason for the existence of something, then it probably shouldn't exist. Why not simplify the rules that much further and lower the barrier for new players that much more?

They’ve gone kind of overboard on the dragon born. Their now more kinds of dragon borne than humanoid races. Getting 5 breath weapons a day that can be substituted for an attack is ridiculous when you consider you can’t even do that with a natural weapon attack. I don’t know who balanced this one but they did a pretty poor job.

I don’t see the kobold. I was looking forward to a kobold with draconic ancestry. 

I would say that having 2-6 (it is based on your prof mod) a day isn't going to break anything. It is 1-4d10 + nothing. This actually feels like something that is useful but in no way over powered where as the prior breath weapon was a 1/day 1-4d6 so it was ok, but too limited in use.

Quote from ThriKreenMystic567 >>

Quote from Lord_of_Aterria >>

Yeah, I agree that making race Ability Score Increases (ASI) up in the air removes a lot from the game. D&D is about a set of rules that govern and balance the system. Without those rules, the game is just a free-for-all storytelling session with less of a boardgame feel. It removes the cohesion and structure of the game. I feel like I've lost something by just telling players to choose whatever they want when they build a character. Part of the fun was trying to fit an appropriate race to their strengths/weaknesses. This takes away from the uniqueness of the races.

Wizards should have just suggested to DMs that they can modify the ASI scores as they see fit, but given us a template to follow like they have done in the past. Now races seem much flatter and less unique because you can just do whatever you want. I'm of course, continuing to use the old method in my campaigns, but it will be frustrating for new releases and rules upgrades to have to retrofit the much more distinct system.

As for Dragonborn, I think these changes are overpowered and prefer the old ruleset. There was nothing wrong with it, so I don't see why it needed to be changed. Especially with the sub-races (I have a Draconblood Bronze Dragonborn Wizard in one of my campaigns), you can get a lot of extra unique traits and flavor. Not a fan of the direction they've been going lately, I feel it's too much, too fast trying to take advantage of D&D popularity, which is just bloating the universe taking a lot of the mystique, nuance, and balance of the game I've loved for 40+ years.

 Yeah, this is a load of garbage- now there's no reason to try and make your character really good by matching features and traits, you can just say "no, he gets +2 Intelligence even though he's an orc" and just ignore simple biological concepts that always exist, even in fantasy.

I'm not aware of any ... simple biologically verifiable concept of intelligence and I follow topics on cognition very astutely ...

Which concept were you referring to? I'm really not aware of a specific hominid genetic limitation of individuals in species that has widely populated across a region where they would not produce individuals two standard  deviations above the mean general intelligence quotient.

If fact ... forming any even rudimentary model of cognition capable of mimicry in nature is something that would win you a Turing award. Much more so anything with even a "word concept".

I'm intrigued, naturally ... what could this be?

Quote from Usiia >>

Quote from ThriKreenMystic567 >>

Quote from Lord_of_Aterria >>

Yeah, I agree that making race Ability Score Increases (ASI) up in the air removes a lot from the game. D&D is about a set of rules that govern and balance the system. Without those rules, the game is just a free-for-all storytelling session with less of a boardgame feel. It removes the cohesion and structure of the game. I feel like I've lost something by just telling players to choose whatever they want when they build a character. Part of the fun was trying to fit an appropriate race to their strengths/weaknesses. This takes away from the uniqueness of the races.

Wizards should have just suggested to DMs that they can modify the ASI scores as they see fit, but given us a template to follow like they have done in the past. Now races seem much flatter and less unique because you can just do whatever you want. I'm of course, continuing to use the old method in my campaigns, but it will be frustrating for new releases and rules upgrades to have to retrofit the much more distinct system.

As for Dragonborn, I think these changes are overpowered and prefer the old ruleset. There was nothing wrong with it, so I don't see why it needed to be changed. Especially with the sub-races (I have a Draconblood Bronze Dragonborn Wizard in one of my campaigns), you can get a lot of extra unique traits and flavor. Not a fan of the direction they've been going lately, I feel it's too much, too fast trying to take advantage of D&D popularity, which is just bloating the universe taking a lot of the mystique, nuance, and balance of the game I've loved for 40+ years.

 Yeah, this is a load of garbage- now there's no reason to try and make your character really good by matching features and traits, you can just say "no, he gets +2 Intelligence even though he's an orc" and just ignore simple biological concepts that always exist, even in fantasy.

 

I'm not aware of any ... simple biologically verifiable concept of intelligence and I follow topics on cognition very astutely ...

Which concept were you referring to? I'm really not aware of a specific hominid genetic limitation of individuals in species that has widely populated across a region where they would not produce individuals two standard  deviations above the mean general intelligence quotient.

If fact ... forming any even rudimentary model of cognition capable of mimicry in nature is something that would win you a Turing award. Much more so anything with even a "word concept".

I'm intrigued, naturally ... what could this be?

 Clearly, you are much better versed on the topic than most of us, but are you suggesting that a fruit fly has the same cognitive capacity as a person or an octopus or a corvid? I think a person would be very wrong to suggest that between races there are variations (not least of all because race is not biological structure), but are you suggesting that between species that we are all equally capable in our mental faculties? Because the comparison between humans and orcs is not the comparison between person whose ancestors most recently lived in Europe vs those from Asia. An Orc is another species. Any comparison between them and humans (despite the ability to interbreed) should be like those comparing a boar to a human being. Anything else is willfully misreading the situation.

I think that is pretty insulting to Orcs. The point they were making is that any humanoid playable race can easily and entirely reasonably get a +2 to any stat and that is in no way breaking "reality". The simple fact is the disassociation of asi's from race makes the game more open, not less, you can still slot them to the suggested place, but I would argue the vast majority of the community appreciates the change.

Quote from Furujiru>>

Original Kobolds had -2 STR and +2 DEX. They dropped the -2 STR but right now they are the only race that does not follow the +2/+1 mold (Also Tritons but they have +1/+1/+1) which, from an optimizing standpoint, locks them into SAD classes.

It doesn't really though, because being one point behind isn't the crippling disability people online seem to think it is. Plus you're getting some powerful abilities in exchange for that "missing" point.

There is also to consider that many players don't like the flavour of "Grovel, Cower, and Beg"

Then those players are wrong; that ability is awesome. If you want to play a character that never grovels, cowers and/or begs, then don't play a Kobold 😉

Quote from AaronWho >>

I think that is pretty insulting to Orcs. The point they were making is that any humanoid playable race can easily and entirely reasonably get a +2 to any stat and that is in no way breaking "reality". The simple fact is the disassociation of asi's from race makes the game more open, not less, you can still slot them to the suggested place, but I would argue the vast majority of the community appreciates the change.

You think because that grouping have hands and opposable thumbs and two legs that they are roughly equivalent? Is the difference between you and a orangutan-- possibly the only other real humanoid species we have access to-- just social? Humanoids just mean they are like humans, they are not humans: neither biologically nor socially. Racial ASIs are not nurture, they are nature. Rolled/assigned Ability scores are nurture and they are much more influential on a person's life and development. Therefore, no amount of training should be able to get an orc that +2 in int. It is not and has never been about training. If your position is that that "races" in D&D are fundamentally the same, aside from the occassional ability to breath fire (why can't a human learn to breathe fire if they were raised among  Dragonborn or learn infravision if they were raised by elves? A dangerous aside.) then the logical step isn't variable ASIs but, as I have stated, no racial ASIs. Variable ASIs are just people wanting their numbers to increase. You want a higher Int? You can actually write any number you want on your character sheet. Your orc wizard can have a 15,000,000 in Intelligence. You are free to do that. But the recommended system should at least have a rational underpinning. The systems should make sense and should be intuitable by a reasonably intelligent person.

Quote from Campbell >>

'Starting with the harengon and fairy races found in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Dungeons & Dragons races no longer come with set ability score increases.'

The level of 'wokeness' that has infected this franchise is absolutely astounding. There was a certain challenge in creating half-orc wizards, or halfling fighters, or any number of characters that went against the usual paradigms of racial stat blocks; playing a half-orc or dragonborn could also create interesting roleplaying opportunities in predominantly human settlements. Now? They're just interchangeable skins with acceptance. Tasha's Cauldron was the death knell to this game, as was the amendments to Strahd, but every product now seems to be another nail in the coffin to what was once a truly interesting and thought provoking entertainment. 

Wokeness will kill anything it touches before too long. 

 How does not applying racial ASIs to future races kill roleplaying? If you want to play in a racist human settlement, you can because the +2/+1 bonuses have zero effect on any stories you want to tell. Not to mention WotC didn't get rid of racial ASIs for past races, they just stopped applying them to future ones, so if free fairies and bunnies make you feel uncomfortable and emasculated then you can just not use them. Like literally every other race. See below for other questions you can't answer and arguments you can't debate.

WotC getting rid of the baked in stat improvements just saves them resources (same way they got rid of unearthed arcana play testing). Taking it away doesn't change the game. Keeping it around would have led to same arguments later down the line (racial sameness) because the ASI weren't even that diverse to begin with. And no one here has made a compelling reason to add them to future races. So I'll ask you. Why should they be added to future races? What did they bring to the game that a flexible ASI could not? Doing something because it has always been done that way is not a good argument for keeping an unnecessary feature. If its exclusion adds nothing and takes away nothing then why bother to continue putting it in?

Did people complain this much when they stopped adding weight and height? The only real version of this argument would be for typical names for a race, so players can get a peek into the language formations for actual role-playing purposes. No actual role-playing was harmed in the elimination of racial ASI. But please do give me a real life example where someone said they couldn't play a race because of the exclusion of racial ASI, typical weight and height, most common skin tones, example male and female names or ANY other feature that WotC has not added to future races since they published the 5e player guide.

But if you would rather make a more logical argument that WotC is getting lazy/efficient with their role-playing rules (which most people homebrew anyway bc it doesn't break the game like a mechanical homebrew has the potential to do), then go right ahead. Again I'm all ears. Like a haregon.

Quote from Campbell >>

'Starting with the harengon and fairy races found in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Dungeons & Dragons races no longer come with set ability score increases.'

The level of 'wokeness' that has infected this franchise is absolutely astounding. There was a certain challenge in creating half-orc wizards, or halfling fighters, or any number of characters that went against the usual paradigms of racial stat blocks; playing a half-orc or dragonborn could also create interesting roleplaying opportunities in predominantly human settlements. Now? They're just interchangeable skins with acceptance. Tasha's Cauldron was the death knell to this game, as was the amendments to Strahd, but every product now seems to be another nail in the coffin to what was once a truly interesting and thought provoking entertainment. 

Wokeness will kill anything it touches before too long. 

It's not so much a "challenge" per say, as it is just accepting that your ability scores will be sub-optimal. It's not like there's a puzzle you can solve that will make that not be the case. I'm totally fine with now being able to choose a race based on concept, or other racial features without having to sacrifice key ability scores.

Before Tasha's, you would be hard-pressed to find any sort of table that would allow you to change the ability score increases of your race. You couldn't just homebrew rules that you didn't like for your characters at a table that you didn't run, unless you had a very lenient DM. I've even have some disallow me from playing elf barbarians or orc warlocks. Adding the optional rule is fine, but making it so you can play what you want, how you want as the core of the game is not something anyone loses out on. If orcs in your world have an alignment tendency or gain bonuses to strength, make that rule for your table. However, saying 'every orc is strong' or 'every elf is smart', to me, needlessly limits creativity in a situation that doesn't need it.

Quote from Ranthel >>

Before Tasha's, you would be hard-pressed to find any sort of table that would allow you to change the ability score increases of your race. You couldn't just homebrew rules that you didn't like for your characters at a table that you didn't run, unless you had a very lenient DM. I've even have some disallow me from playing elf barbarians or orc warlocks. Adding the optional rule is fine, but making it so you can play what you want, how you want as the core of the game is not something anyone loses out on. If orcs in your world have an alignment tendency or gain bonuses to strength, make that rule for your table. However, saying 'every orc is strong' or 'every elf is smart', to me, needlessly limits creativity in a situation that doesn't need it.

 Every elf or orc isn't strong. Every orc is genetically more disposed to develop muscles than a human or elf or halfling. As the rules were, you could have an orc with a strength below the average human being (10). Such an orc isn't naturally strong. Likewise, you can have an elf with a 10 or lower int or dex. Their biology probably allows them to react faster. Which is totally a thing in nature, a humming bird has amazing reflexes compared to a human. If a humming bird was raised as a human, it wouldn't change its perception of time or its reflexes.

Besides, Tasha's rules are optional. A DM doesn't have to allow use of them. But they already there, so why do we need to enforce them as a mainline rule? I think the reason you'd be hard-pressed to find people who would allow that because A) it hurts verisimilitude, B) it smacks of powergaming. Not all stat increases are equally good and not all racial abilities are equally good. Humans get a great ASI, but the get, as a racial feature, an extra language. Other races can fly or re-roll 1s or get damage resistance or get proficiencies or the ability to survive being reduced to 0 HP... humans get ... a language, which everyone uses frequently at their tables, right? So, if you are getting all of these perks, why should you also get ideal ASIs? Because having a +1 to your roles more than you'd otherwise get makes or breaks a character? Is it super important that your spell save dc is 16 rather than 15?

Honestly, I don't have respect for people who insist on playing optimal characters. It just seems like the most boring choice someone could make. It's juvenile to only allow for the most powerful choices. I realise that D&D can be largely a power fantasy, but these sub-optimal characters have one step lower on the modifier ranks and will probably-- by campaigns end-- reach the highest modifier available for their primary stats. God forbid it happens four levels later than a optimal character. That would be absolutely unplayable. That's the situation put into perspective. This is what we've spent 7 pages arguing about.

Quote from Verenti >>

Quote from Ranthel >>

Before Tasha's, you would be hard-pressed to find any sort of table that would allow you to change the ability score increases of your race. You couldn't just homebrew rules that you didn't like for your characters at a table that you didn't run, unless you had a very lenient DM. I've even have some disallow me from playing elf barbarians or orc warlocks. Adding the optional rule is fine, but making it so you can play what you want, how you want as the core of the game is not something anyone loses out on. If orcs in your world have an alignment tendency or gain bonuses to strength, make that rule for your table. However, saying 'every orc is strong' or 'every elf is smart', to me, needlessly limits creativity in a situation that doesn't need it.

 Every elf or orc isn't strong. Every orc is genetically more disposed to develop muscles than a human or elf or halfling. As the rules were, you could have an orc with a strength below the average human being (10). Such an orc isn't naturally strong. Likewise, you can have an elf with a 10 or lower int or dex. Their biology probably allows them to react faster. Which is totally a thing in nature, a humming bird has amazing reflexes compared to a human. If a humming bird was raised as a human, it wouldn't change its perception of time or its reflexes.

Besides, Tasha's rules are optional. A DM doesn't have to allow use of them. But they already there, so why do we need to enforce them as a mainline rule? I think the reason you'd be hard-pressed to find people who would allow that because A) it hurts verisimilitude, B) it smacks of powergaming. Not all stat increases are equally good and not all racial abilities are equally good. Humans get a great ASI, but the get, as a racial feature, an extra language. Other races can fly or re-roll 1s or get damage resistance or get proficiencies or the ability to survive being reduced to 0 HP... humans get ... a language, which everyone uses frequently at their tables, right? So, if you are getting all of these perks, why should you also get ideal ASIs? Because having a +1 to your roles more than you'd otherwise get makes or breaks a character? Is it super important that your spell save dc is 16 rather than 15?

Honestly, I don't have respect for people who insist on playing optimal characters. It just seems like the most boring choice someone could make. It's juvenile to only allow for the most powerful choices. I realise that D&D can be largely a power fantasy, but these sub-optimal characters have one step lower on the modifier ranks and will probably-- by campaigns end-- reach the highest modifier available for their primary stats. God forbid it happens four levels later than a optimal character. That would be absolutely unplayable. That's the situation put into perspective. This is what we've spent 7 pages arguing about.

 That's not the argument at all actually. The argument is that racial ASI's are restrictive to gameplay and they were only included in the original D&D game based on half-baked racial theories and pseudo-biology. The argument is that racial ASI's removal from future races and the retroactive optional rules in Tasha's allow players to have more freedom to play the characters they want. If you want to play suboptimally you can bc nothing proposed or implemented says that you can't. On the contrary, before Tasha's this game was a lot more restrictive bc there were no official ways to change your racial ASI. As Ranthel stated, DMs could disallow player choice based on RAW, so even though the new options are only options, it still gives players a powerful tool to argue for a change in their individual games bc now they have official alternatives that have been balanced by the creators of the game so no one has to worry about gamebreaking homebrews.

No one on this forum has stated a good reason to not provide additional options to the game. If anyone doesn't like freedom of choice then they don't have to use them. And if they want to play a fairy, bunny, or any future race then they can just come up with their own racial ASI dogmas in their own games bc again nothing is stopping them.

Let me put to you another way: same sex marriage is racial ASI. Legalizing gay marriage (fairies/bunnies and Tasha's) doesn't take away anything away from same sex marriage. Civil unions (homebrew) is not equivalent to marriages so LGBT+ community should not be regulated to only that type of union. When was the last time anyone had a wedding and honeymoon for a civil union? Marriages are civil unions (in the US) but civil unions are not marriages (think squares and rectangles from elementary geometry). And finally, even if civil unions and marriages were exactly the same in every way shape and form, then why shouldn't LGBT+ members be able to do both? Why deny them the option?

If you have anymore questions, comments, and/or concerns please refer to the below quote before posting a reply with "shit I already know." -Sarge

WotC getting rid of the baked in stat improvements just saves them resources (same way they got rid of unearthed arcana play testing). Taking it away doesn't change the game. Keeping it around would have led to same arguments later down the line (racial sameness) because the ASI weren't even that diverse to begin with. And no one here has made a compelling reason to add them to future races. So I'll ask you. Why should they be added to future races? What did they bring to the game that a flexible ASI could not? Doing something because it has always been done that way is not a good argument for keeping an unnecessary feature. If its exclusion adds nothing and takes away nothing then why bother to continue putting it in?

Did people complain this much when they stopped adding weight and height? The only real version of this argument would be for typical names for a race, so players can get a peek into the language formations for actual role-playing purposes. No actual role-playing was harmed in the elimination of racial ASI. But please do give me a real life example where someone said they couldn't play a race because of the exclusion of racial ASI, typical weight and height, most common skin tones, example male and female names or ANY other feature that WotC has not added to future races since they published the 5e player guide.

But if you would rather make a more logical argument that WotC is getting lazy/efficient with their role-playing rules (which most people homebrew anyway bc it doesn't break the game like a mechanical homebrew has the potential to do), then go right ahead. Again I'm all ears. Like a haregon.

I'm curious if the fact that this has mostly maintained from the UA but with some buffs means that the Chromatics got some buffs as well. I've always felt like their damage immunity ability was a lot more situational than the equivalent that Metallics get, so they could use a bit more to play with imo. 

Dragons are cool.

Quote from WeTheAwesome >>

Quote from Verenti >>

Quote from Ranthel >>

Before Tasha's, you would be hard-pressed to find any sort of table that would allow you to change the ability score increases of your race. You couldn't just homebrew rules that you didn't like for your characters at a table that you didn't run, unless you had a very lenient DM. I've even have some disallow me from playing elf barbarians or orc warlocks. Adding the optional rule is fine, but making it so you can play what you want, how you want as the core of the game is not something anyone loses out on. If orcs in your world have an alignment tendency or gain bonuses to strength, make that rule for your table. However, saying 'every orc is strong' or 'every elf is smart', to me, needlessly limits creativity in a situation that doesn't need it.

 Every elf or orc isn't strong. Every orc is genetically more disposed to develop muscles than a human or elf or halfling. As the rules were, you could have an orc with a strength below the average human being (10). Such an orc isn't naturally strong. Likewise, you can have an elf with a 10 or lower int or dex. Their biology probably allows them to react faster. Which is totally a thing in nature, a humming bird has amazing reflexes compared to a human. If a humming bird was raised as a human, it wouldn't change its perception of time or its reflexes.

Besides, Tasha's rules are optional. A DM doesn't have to allow use of them. But they already there, so why do we need to enforce them as a mainline rule? I think the reason you'd be hard-pressed to find people who would allow that because A) it hurts verisimilitude, B) it smacks of powergaming. Not all stat increases are equally good and not all racial abilities are equally good. Humans get a great ASI, but the get, as a racial feature, an extra language. Other races can fly or re-roll 1s or get damage resistance or get proficiencies or the ability to survive being reduced to 0 HP... humans get ... a language, which everyone uses frequently at their tables, right? So, if you are getting all of these perks, why should you also get ideal ASIs? Because having a +1 to your roles more than you'd otherwise get makes or breaks a character? Is it super important that your spell save dc is 16 rather than 15?

Honestly, I don't have respect for people who insist on playing optimal characters. It just seems like the most boring choice someone could make. It's juvenile to only allow for the most powerful choices. I realise that D&D can be largely a power fantasy, but these sub-optimal characters have one step lower on the modifier ranks and will probably-- by campaigns end-- reach the highest modifier available for their primary stats. God forbid it happens four levels later than a optimal character. That would be absolutely unplayable. That's the situation put into perspective. This is what we've spent 7 pages arguing about.

 That's not the argument at all actually. The argument is that racial ASI's are restrictive to gameplay and they were only included in the original D&D game based on half-baked racial theories and pseudo-biology. The argument is that racial ASI's removal from future races and the retroactive optional rules in Tasha's allow players to have more freedom to play the characters they want. If you want to play suboptimally you can bc nothing proposed or implemented says that you can't. On the contrary, before Tasha's this game was a lot more restrictive bc there were no official ways to change your racial ASI. As Ranthel stated, DMs could disallow player choice based on RAW, so even though the new options are only options, it still gives players a powerful tool to argue for a change in their individual games bc now they have official alternatives that have been balanced by the creators of the game so no one has to worry about gamebreaking homebrews.

No one on this forum has stated a good reason to not provide additional options to the game. If anyone doesn't like freedom of choice then they don't have to use them. And if they want to play a fairy, bunny, or any future race then they can just come up with their own racial ASI dogmas in their own games bc again nothing is stopping them.

Let me put to you another way: same sex marriage is racial ASI. Legalizing gay marriage (fairies/bunnies and Tasha's) doesn't take away anything away from same sex marriage. Civil unions (homebrew) is not equivalent to marriages so LGBT+ community should not be regulated to only that type of union. When was the last time anyone had a wedding and honeymoon for a civil union? Marriages are civil unions (in the US) but civil unions are not marriages (think squares and rectangles from elementary geometry). And finally, even if civil unions and marriages were exactly the same in every way shape and form, then why shouldn't LGBT+ members be able to do both? Why deny them the option?

If you have anymore questions, comments, and/or concerns please refer to the below quote before posting a reply with "shit I already know." -Sarge

WotC getting rid of the baked in stat improvements just saves them resources (same way they got rid of unearthed arcana play testing). Taking it away doesn't change the game. Keeping it around would have led to same arguments later down the line (racial sameness) because the ASI weren't even that diverse to begin with. And no one here has made a compelling reason to add them to future races. So I'll ask you. Why should they be added to future races? What did they bring to the game that a flexible ASI could not? Doing something because it has always been done that way is not a good argument for keeping an unnecessary feature. If its exclusion adds nothing and takes away nothing then why bother to continue putting it in?

Did people complain this much when they stopped adding weight and height? The only real version of this argument would be for typical names for a race, so players can get a peek into the language formations for actual role-playing purposes. No actual role-playing was harmed in the elimination of racial ASI. But please do give me a real life example where someone said they couldn't play a race because of the exclusion of racial ASI, typical weight and height, most common skin tones, example male and female names or ANY other feature that WotC has not added to future races since they published the 5e player guide.

But if you would rather make a more logical argument that WotC is getting lazy/efficient with their role-playing rules (which most people homebrew anyway bc it doesn't break the game like a mechanical homebrew has the potential to do), then go right ahead. Again I'm all ears. Like a haregon.

 That comparison is trite at best, inaccurate in general and emotionally manipulative at worst. It's nothing like the LGBT community and using that metaphor as a shield is a despicable tactic to win an argument.

Furthermore, your post does nothing to legitimise any specific proscription of Racial ASIs and if anything only delegitimises Racial ASIs as a concept. Yet, your clining to variable Racial ASIs is therefore rendered hypocritical because you are endorsing the very structure that you earlier denounced as "half-baked racial theories and pseudo-biology." So, your willingness to endorse Racial ASIs at at, be they variable or no, is about you wanting to get a bonus to your character rather than any pronouncement of moral principle. You might not want to acknowledge that this is what the argument is about, but if we look clearly at the facts of the case, that seems to be the most likely motivator for people tacticly endorsing, again, half-baked racial theories and pseudo-biology.

Furthermore, the argument that options that have been explicitly granted for a year and implicitly granted for decades are already possessed. So, the idea that people need to argue against giving people options, when they were always in possession of those option, is an absurdity.

Simply put, a cake, once eaten, cannot simutaneously be possessed.

Such an emotionally charged subject to use as an analogy probably isn’t the best idea, but the analogy is still apt.

Having a choice to distribute your racial ASI’s elsewhere has no effect on those who choose who choose not to. Just as having a choice to marry the same sex has no effect on those who choose not to. 

A) Calm down bro (Verenti), it's just an analogy. Not everyone wants to use hummingbirds as an example.

2) I never said variable racial ASI, I said (in a previous reply to another commenter) variable ASI. So that means the ability score improvements can come from anywhere: individual physical/mental traits, family traits, or personal training and upbringing. Most campaigns do not have their PCs start at the moment of birth so the variable increases could even theoretically be linked to your chosen background. But the point is that the variable ASI is just an official way for players to better fine tune their characters. So if your characters stats are suboptimal bc that's how you like it then go right ahead. The problem is when DMs deny options based on RAW (as I and Ranthel have both previously stated). DMs can still deny the options but players can make better arguments for including them because they are now official options. Before Tasha's, they were not. Official options are better than unofficial options.

△) Please thoroughly read my comments before responding bc at this point I'm just repeating myself. And if you do, attempt to actually add to the conversation. Try answering one of my aforementioned questions, I literally spoonfed you possible counter-arguments and responses.