Morrus on... Races

I don't want race to matter. Mostly because I like my stories to be about individuals, and when you start from the premise of individual it doesn't feel right to bow to outside restrictions like "a member of a race should be this".

I agree with shidaku. Provide the tools that would allow each group decide how important race should be in their game.

Two points:

1) why are we pretending that racial mechanics are only about ability modifiers? what about low-light vision? size modifiers? skill bonuses? even if there were NO ability modifiers, that does NOT MEAN THE RACES ARE IDENTICAL -- it's a straw man argument!

2) the iconic inspiration for D&D -- Lord of the Rings -- explicitly features Hobbits (nee Halflings) WHO ARE NOT STEREOTYPICAL OF THEIR RACE!!! the iconic D&D story says that treating heroes as exceptions to their "racial nature" is a GOOD THING!!!

Which is again why I advocate meaningful racial abilities and small ability modifiers that give PCs an edge when they choose to "synergize" their classes but don't significantly penalize anyone who wants to go the other way.

Again, the best case scenario is to pair a small racial bonus (e.g. Halflings get a +1 to DEX) with a small class bonus (e.g. Rogues get +1 to DEX), so that any race/class combo remains viable.

I think you can achieve healthy distinction without wandering to extremes.

Just look at the 4e races. The Eladrin's teleport, the Elf's attack reroll, or the Halfling's defense reroll. Those are all abilities that say something about that race. They're all abilities that you'll continue using, time after time, even at high levels. They're all abilities that when used, other players think to themselves, "I wish I could do that." They remind the players time after time that Eladrin are magical, that elves possess inhuman accuracy, and that halflings are evasive little guys.

Now I'm not saying that the 4e races are perfect, however I do that that this aforementioned aspect is something that 4e got right (for many of the races, at any rate). I'd like to see that sort of differentiation continue, because I do believe that it adds a certain something to the game.

The easy way: Every race gets a racial power which matches the fluff. Orcs get berzerk, elves get accuracy, drow get darkness, tieflings can enchance an attack with hellfire, and so on. There are no ability score modifers to be seen, because that leads to idiot 4e things where the developers promise "any race, any class" but gnomes clearly out-illusion anyone else.

Let racial feats die in a fire, they made 4e worse.

am181d said:

Two points:

1) why are we pretending that racial mechanics are only about ability modifiers? what about low-light vision? size modifiers? skill bonuses? even if there were NO ability modifiers, that does NOT MEAN THE RACES ARE IDENTICAL -- it's a straw man argument!

Click to expand...

I agree. I wouldn't, and didn't, claim such a thing.

2) the iconic inspiration for D&D -- Lord of the Rings -- explicitly features Hobbits (nee Halflings) WHO ARE NOT STEREOTYPICAL OF THEIR RACE!!! the iconic D&D story says that treating heroes as exceptions to their "racial nature" is a GOOD THING!!!

Click to expand...

Again, I agree. Glad I said that!

DimitriX said:

I think the big problem has always been the use of the term "race". D&D does not have races, it has species. A race, in biological terms, is a minor variation within a species. For instance, Caucasian, African American, Native American, Asian, and Hispanic are all races. Other than cosmetic, there are little differences between the races. D&D on the other hand has different species. A human is a human. But, a halfling is more like a spider monkey, an elf is like a chimpanzee, a dwarf is an orangutan, and an orc is a gorilla. There are significant differences between all of those species and stats should reflect that.

Of course, thinking along these lines, that means you can't have half species. No more half-elves or half-orcs (and please no half-dragons or half-undead either). Breeding a human and a chimp does not get you a half-chimp even though they share about 98% of DNA.

Click to expand...

I disagree. Although human races today might only exhibit minor differences, this is not always the case with other animals. Fantasy races are not analogous to human races. The differences among fantasy races are probably more akin to differences among dog breeds, which are highly significant.

Besides, humans in prehistoric times were more varied than today. The Neanderthals, for example, were pretty different from humans today, yet they were still the same species as we are - they were just a different subspecies (or race, if you prefer). So there is no scientific reason (and besides, this is fantasy we are talking about...) why there cannot be fantasy races that differ greatly among one another yet can still interbreed, regardless of how small differences are between human races today.

Morrus said:

But bear in mind that's just one point of view you've selected there. I also supported the opposite - that racial mechanics could mean nothing. You generate your character and say "Well, he's got a low strength and a high dex; he's focused on a dex-based fighting style; and I've given him this ability to outline his enemies in cold fire - I'm going to say he's a drow. Because the mechanics I've freely chosen for my character match the description of a drow pretty well."

In this latter approach, race is fluff. It's up to the player to match his fluff with his mechanics rather than have the fluff predefine aspects of his mechanics.

It's almost like flavouring your class, something many players already do - I've given my fighter a sword, shield, and plate armor. He's pretty strong. I'm gonna say he's a knight. It's a reverse generation approach - you make your character and then describe what you've made. That also makes it very open-ended; you can make any race at all right from the start.

Click to expand...

I actually am not really a fan of that approach. Narrativist game systems have their virtues, but ultimately they are a little too wishy-washy I think.

There is a school of game design which thinks you can treat mechanics and fluff as distinct and unrelated entities. 4e was a stong (although by no means the most extreme) example of this. And I disagree with the premise. There is always going to be some abstraction in the model of a game world, but strong, consistent representations of some event or trend at the rules level has to mean something in the world, or what conection is there between the story we are imagining and the one the dice are telling?

For example, take that classical game world, Glorantha. Glorantha is a mythic world where multiple contradictory things can nonetheless be true. Heros can alter the deeds of the Gods themselves and rewrite history or change the very laws of reality.

The first RPG set in Glorantha was written early in the days of RPGing and reflects it. The RuneQuest rules were precise, detailed, simulationist. Hit locations, critical hits and fumble charts. Experience in a skill was gained by practice at the table. It was it many ways a great system, but it was not ideal for a reality as fluid as Glorantha. Except for the magic system. Glorantha has 3 (main) competing magic systems. Animism, Divine Magic, and Mysticism. The Animist spirit magic was quick, convenient, easy to use and consistent. But it was also limited and required the aid of a Shaman to aquire. Divine Magic was costly, singular, but fail proof and very powerful. It was a magic used by communities as well as individuals and required either great devotion or a priests aid to gain. Mysticism was wizardy. Skill based, intricate, arcane and tricky. A Wizard was limited by his skill and imagination and little else, if he was ruthless enough, or had the backing of an order or church.

The second RPG for Glorantha was HeroQuest/HeroWars. This is a narrativist system developed by Robin Laws amoung others. It is fluid, evocative, flavorful and does a wonderful job of depicting the semi-mythic nature of day-to-day life in Glorantha. Except that now, with a simple and universal rules mechanic all three magic systems work in exactly the same manner. The differences are mere fluff.

My point is that there is always a tradeoff between mechanics that illustrate the world and reinforce it's flavor, and looser, less restrictive rules that allow more freedom, but end up grey and flavorless without a direction of their own.

As long as hitting is a big deal, and your ability score somehow interacts with your chance to hit... a preponderance of D&D players will pick a race that matches their class's ability scores (or at least, doesn't anti-match).

So, I'm opposed to huge ability score swings unless hitting is taken off of ability scores. Which is something I'm totally fine with. That is to say, if a halfling gets -4 str and a goliath gets +4 str (8 Str difference), then a halfling who is -4 damage compared to the goliath is a big deal (though exasperated a bit because he probably also does less damage from his weapon), but a surmountable one, but one who is _also_ -4 hit compared to the goliath is too big a swing in effectiveness.

Let's consider in a 3e sense for a moment. Let's say the halfling has a 4 higher Dex and Cha than the Goliath who has an 8 higher Str. So the halfling has the same AC (cause Dex doesn't add to AC past a certain point), doesn't move any faster, does have +2 Ref & Init, and to a few skills... and the goliath does, say (halfling 1d6+2 vs goliath 1d10+10, and 4 higher to hit so let's say the halfling has a 70% chance to hit and the goliath has a 90% chance to hit), so the goliath is almost 4x as effective as the halfling. That's not flavorful racial difference. That's "race is an easy way to screw up your character" and "most fighters will be one of these couple races and almost never these". Meh.

Now, toss in some real differences so that the halfling fighter is as effective, with a different style? Sure. They did learn a bunch of options from Bo9S and 4E on ways to do that, so hopefully they'll carry those lessons along with them.

...

Anyhow, my personal preference for D&D races is to finally acknowledge that species have variance within a campaign world, nevermind between many campaign worlds, and give you more freedom. Not all dwarves need a minor bonus with axes or the ability to drink alcohol better. Or at least, if they do, humans should be able to choose those same bonuses if they grew up with dwarves.

Pick some appropriate bonuses of varying types. Put them in character choice buckets. Pre-pick some races as examples to show people, noting you can fiddle things around. Let DMs pick things for the races on their worlds or work with their players to do the right thing.

For example (using a mix of 3e and 4e terms):
Bucket A:
Swift: +10 ft speed
Sturdy: Save against forced movement and being knocked prone
Lucky: +1 to saves

Bucket B:
Forestwalk: Ignore difficult terrain caused by wilderness growth and gain a bonus to Nature.
Steady: Ignore any speed penalties due to armor or encumbrance and gain a bonus to Endurance.
Versatile: Gain a bonus feat.

Bucket C:
Observant: You gain a bonus to Perception and roll twice to detect surprise or search for anything hidden.
Hardy: You gain resist 5 poison and a bonus to saves against poison.
Skillful: Gain an extra class skill and skill training.

Automatic:
Choose two appropriate languages.

So maybe your default wild elf is a swift and observant forestwalker while a dwarf is sturdy, steady, and hardy and a human is lucky, versatile, and skillful, but the more civilized green elves are swift, observant, and versatile, and the barbarian human tribes of Landar are swift, forestwalking, and hardy.

I'd like more choices like that, and more choices like the Halfling Second Chance, Human Heroic Effort, Dwarven Resilience, etc. I'd even go so far as to throw
+2 to a stat, -2 to a stat (they can be the same stat, cancelling out) on automatic

I'd be happy to kick to the curb having a dozen or more piddly bonuses to a race (like dwarf or elf, never human) for "better with axes, and against goblins, and when drinking in the full moon next to a carven wall, oh and to appraise metal stuff especially if your mother made it, whether or not she had a beard"

Mouseferatu said:

< . . . snip . . . >
Ability bonuses have the unfortunate tendency of working in both directions. For instance, if dwarves are blatantly the best fighters in terms of ability score, than not only do most dwarves become fighters, but most fighters become dwarves. I want the races to be blatantly and obviously distinct from one another, without making any given race a no-brain mechanical choice for anyone playing a certain class.

Click to expand...

Two things, and a riff:
(1) Racial ability bonuses have been part of the game for a long time. To truly unite editions, they'll probably remain -- though perhaps pared back.
(2) A flatter, slower boost-rate to ability scores throughout the levels would make racial ability differences more important throughout a larger range of character levels; so even a small initial difference would remain more important longer; so the initial differences wouldn't have to be big to matter.

Riff: Give the races social traits at first level. In no particular order, let:
= Elvensong achieve a Charm effect once per encounter;
= Hobbitfeet achieve a Stealth effect once per encounter;
= Dwarfbeard achieve a Dungeoneering effect once per encounter;
= Gnomeface achieve an Illusion effect once per encounter;
= Humanhand achieve a History effect once per encounter;
= Drowflowers achieve a Poison effect once per encounter;
= Tieflonging achieve a Bluff effect once per encounter;
= Eladreign achieve an Enchantment effect once per encounter.
= Dragonbrowbeat achieve an Intimidate effect once per encounter.
(Or whatever.)