Do We Really Need Half-Elves and Half-Orcs?

[Blue]

Absolutely tailor what's available in your setting to the feel you want. Always edit - adding, subtracting, modifying.

For "general" D&D, none of the half races are listed as common. The half-elf goes back to Tolkien, with many of them, including the well known Elrond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-elven.

There have been various D&D attempts to codify playing traditionally evil races, with Drow and Half-Orcs providing two different types of archetypes that are close enough in power to the traditional PC races. This is a popular trope, notice how Tiefling was popular enough to include in the PHB but it's mirror of the Aasimar was not.

 

[Arilyn]

Also, if players are tired of the cliches, they can shake things up. Someday, you might get an awesome idea for a half-orc or half-elf that is fresh. I don't like barbarians, until that one day the class was just what I needed.
More options give players greater design space, so to speak, especially in F20 games where you are choosing from lists.

 

[Satyrn]

It brings me to a problem with these newer races. They all have magical/special abilities and I am certain that is why my players picked them over the more common "boring" races. It is a pity IMO.

They may have just picked them because they were new, though, and would have done so even if the features weren't magical/special. New stuff is intriguing.



On topic, if you're dropping the half-elf and half-orc, but want to keep their story of "society's outsider" as an option, an Outsider background would make for an excellent solution.

 

[Parmandur]

Half-Orcs are specifically not limited to half-human (Dwarves get mentioned in the MM or the PHB, I forget which), and the blood runs strong so a given Half-Orc can be generations removed from an actual Orc ancestor.

Canonically, in the Forgotten Realms at least, half-Dwarves are simply Dwarves, and can have Gnomish, Halfling or Human ancestry.

 

[Dioltach]

Half-elves, half-orcs ... I'd settle for a party with no half-wits.

 

[bedir than]

You will also possibly play the game with someone who has been the victim of an assault ranging from minor, up to someone attempting to murder them.

This is completely dismissive of the psychological trauma of rape. The false equivalency presented here is harmful.

While your table may be accepting of rape as a commonality in your world it was a wonderful thing for the game to move away from a race that only existed due to rape.

 

[Charlaquin]

You definitely don’t need half-human races. In my world, the role of half-elves is filled by a City Elf “subrace” (although I call them cultures instead of subraces). Similarly, Orcs in my world have +2 Str, +1 Con, Darkvision, and Menacing as a baseline, with the choice between a Redeemed Tribe culture, which adds Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks, and is on generally peaceful terms with the other PC races, or a Raider Tribe culture, which adds Aggressive, Powerful Build, and -2 Int, and are antagonistic by default.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is completely dismissive of the psychological trauma of rape. The false equivalency presented here is harmful.

While your table may be accepting of rape as a commonality in your world it was a wonderful thing for the game to move away from a race that only existed due to rape.

Sounds like you are completely dismissing the psychological trauma of attempted murder.

 

[MarkB]

If you're uncomfortable with the standard assumptions for half-race origins, or tired of them, you can always change them up. In Eberron half-elves have bred true for long enough that they're a separate race by now, and there are barbarian tribes consisting of a mix of humans, orcs and half-orcs.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't see much point in them, personally, but along the same lines of thinking I find Tieflings and Dragonborn also pointless. I tried explaining to my current players that such races would likely NOT be accepted in human-dominated kingdoms, or at best eyed with mistrust and suspicion. But with two Tieflings and a Dragonborn in the party, the others followed selecting outcasts (Half-Orc, Drow Elf, and Duergar Dwarf) as well. So they are staying away from most settlements and such, making some adventures more difficult to manage.

I would have been happier as a DM with four humans (replacing the tieflings, dragonborn, and half-orc), an non-drow elf, and a hill or mountain dwarf. Maybe even a halfling or gnome to replace the half-orc.

It brings me to a problem with these newer races. They all have magical/special abilities and I am certain that is why my players picked them over the more common "boring" races. It is a pity IMO.

They’d be no more distrusted than foreign humans, unless the races of your world are more isolationist than the modern dnd norm. You are free to run your game however works for your table, obviously, but it also seems like your players aren’t exactly stoked about how you want to run it.

Either way, the bog standard dnd world sees Dragonborn as a noble race that is more a potential ally against the dangers of the world than a threat, and while teiflings are viewed with suspicion, history has enough good teiflings that only the crappy people genuinely assume evil when they see one.