I think this would be very interesting.
You can see/discuss more about how they handled races in Heroes of Neverwinter on this thread:http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/315585-heroes-neverwinter-5e-preview.html
Personally, from a design standpoint, I'm excited by games that give you the chance to mix/match attributes from racial, cultural, professional, and hobbies in a balanced way.
In 4e (and mostly HoN), they give you a regional feat, an encounter power (at 1st), a skill bump, and a stat bump. This seems to be a good way to differentiate. I think what I'm hearing you say is you'd like that played up even more. Perhaps abilities you can as you level could be tied to racial, or cultural, or hobbies. So, for example, every character at 1st, 11th, and 21st could get a racial "utility" power. At 5th, 15th, and 25th, you could get a daily based upon your hobby (which could be a full-fledged multi-class, or just a dabbling). In this way, everyone could PLAN to how their racial/cultural/class/and hobby benefits would blend together to build unique and interesting versions of elven fighter/mages, or halfling rogue/warriors, or dwarven fighter/clerics. If you wanted, you could still take powers (we need a better name for these) that would allow you to build like a more traditional dwarven fighter.
You can see/discuss more about how they handled races in Heroes of Neverwinter on this thread:http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/315585-heroes-neverwinter-5e-preview.html
Personally, from a design standpoint, I'm excited by games that give you the chance to mix/match attributes from racial, cultural, professional, and hobbies in a balanced way.
In 4e (and mostly HoN), they give you a regional feat, an encounter power (at 1st), a skill bump, and a stat bump. This seems to be a good way to differentiate. I think what I'm hearing you say is you'd like that played up even more. Perhaps abilities you can as you level could be tied to racial, or cultural, or hobbies. So, for example, every character at 1st, 11th, and 21st could get a racial "utility" power. At 5th, 15th, and 25th, you could get a daily based upon your hobby (which could be a full-fledged multi-class, or just a dabbling). In this way, everyone could PLAN to how their racial/cultural/class/and hobby benefits would blend together to build unique and interesting versions of elven fighter/mages, or halfling rogue/warriors, or dwarven fighter/clerics. If you wanted, you could still take powers (we need a better name for these) that would allow you to build like a more traditional dwarven fighter.