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

[Slit518]

[FONT="]While pondering my Spelljammer setting I've been working on, I decided to ditch half-orcs entirely, to be replaced with full-blooded orcs, and I'm very, very tempted to do the same for half-elves. Granted, I'm using half-orc racial stats, because they're better than orc racial stats, but that's not the point.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#141414][FONT="]See, I don't get half-elves. Rather, I don't get the fascination with having half-elves and half-orcs be a thing, but half-dwarves or half-gnomes aren't. Or that half-anything races are necessarily half-human.[/FONT]

[FONT="]Half-elves and half-orcs are described often as anomalies or one-offs. That they're all searching for their place in society, or their parents don't accept them, or blah blah blah. Yeah, it worked for Dragonlance back in the 80s, but that was thirty years ago. Now it's not only cliche, but boring. Not to mention, half-orcs are portrayed a lot of the time as products of horrible assaults.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#141414][FONT="]I'm pondering ditching half-elves completely for my games with one exception: Eberron. And that's because Khoravar (their name for half-elves) are a true breeding race separate from humans and elves, and even have their own dragonmark that only manifests on half-elves. They were given a real place in the world and, to my mind, are more elf-blooded than half-elves.[/FONT]

[FONT="]So do we really need half-elves? I feel like a player that wants to play a half-elf could easily enough play either an elf or a human, whichever half is more dominant for their character. So aside from thirty-plus years of tradition, are they worth keeping around?[/FONT]

I say in my game that half-orcs are full blooded orcs for the same reasons you do, the stats are better than the orc stats.

As for half races in general. For a while now I always wondered why one half needed to be human. So, I have decided to allow most humanoid races to mate with each other and produce half/half children. So you can have a combination of almost any 2 creatures you want.

 

[Mercule]

I have somewhat mixed feelings, but mostly come down on the side of half-things suck. No need for half-orcs or half-elves. I'm especially baffled at the current incarnation of half-elves where they're marginalized and semi-outcast by both elven and human society but somehow have a bonus to Charisma because they're what, likable, despite being second-class citizens? Especially good at begging the jocks to stop giving them wedgies?

That aside, there really isn't much justification to say that different species can breed successfully. Unless, of course, you're running a human-centric setting where everything is defined in relationship to humanity. In that case, go for the half-humans. Also, assume that humans are the only race with which a fiend, celestial, dragon, or whatever would care to breed with (or, at least, be able to do so successfully) because, well, humans are the axis around which the world turns. Don't like that? Cool. Don't have half-things. At least not unless you're going to stat up a half-elf/half-orc or an elf-tiefling, dwarf-genasai, lizardfolk-aasimar, etc. And, at that point, you're pretty much into such a swamp of racial abilities that you practically need to go to something like Hero, Fate, or Savage Worlds where you've got some variation on trappings or hand-waving. I don't think that's a good idea with the D&D rules-by-exception structure.

Really, though, I tend to think that non-human races should exist to do something that you couldn't do (well) with humans. There should be something actually alien about them. Now, I can do the super-cosmopolitan Eberron or Forgotten Realms. From a 35+ year veteran perspective, there is a sort of "old news" factor to elves and dwarves. Dragonborn are different -- at least they were a decade ago. That's more an argument for not having elves and dwarves in a lot of settings, rather than adding more on top. Too many races become white noise. If those races don't do much besides some stat bonuses (that the variant human could get, anyway), then they're white noise even before you add anything else.

I'm not opposed to non-human races. I actually strongly support having them. I just think the GM should always ask "Why are these here?" or "What does including these add?"

 

[MarkB]

I'm just going to add this here, as the thread reminded me of it.

"DAY TWENTY
Have crossed orcs with goblin men in caverns below Isengard. V. tedious experience as orcs and goblin men most reluctant to breed, even with dinner and flowers. Next time will try something easier, such as breeding goblins and cheerleaders to create super-perky army that can travel by day and will not complain about pink uniforms."

-Saruman, The Very Secret Diaries​

 

[CrimsonCarcharodon]

So I've been thinking more on this as I read the thread, and I realize at least part of my problem with half-elves in particular is how utterly boring their stats are in 5E. The only option they're given is "pick two skills." No subraces, no big choices.

Same with half-orcs, except they don't even get a skill pick. Honestly, I find humans in 5E boring as can be, too, though the variant human is much less so.

I think it was a mistake for WotC not to make subraces for every race except maybe human. I have the exact same problem with dragonborn, though they have a nod to subraces with picking their draconic ancestry. Again with tieflings, though that was (eventually) fixed with Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. I'd have pondered making variant human the standard, if feats were an expected part of the game rather than an option.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Um, no.

YOU are the only dismissive one here. You dismissed those who have suffered assault and attempted murder when you stated that nobody plays with people who were murdered in your response to Umbran. I made no reference at all to those who were the victims of rape, because if you play with a victim of rape, you should be considerate of what happened. I agree with you.

How about before you make incorrect claims of False Equivalency, when no equivalency as made at all, false or otherwise, and before you accuse people of being harmful, you actually make an attempt to understand what you read?

 

[Maxperson]

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

He did, and that was my point.

 

[Psyzhran2357]

So I've been thinking more on this as I read the thread, and I realize at least part of my problem with half-elves in particular is how utterly boring their stats are in 5E. The only option they're given is "pick two skills." No subraces, no big choices.

Same with half-orcs, except they don't even get a skill pick. Honestly, I find humans in 5E boring as can be, too, though the variant human is much less so.

I think it was a mistake for WotC not to make subraces for every race except maybe human. I have the exact same problem with dragonborn, though they have a nod to subraces with picking their draconic ancestry. Again with tieflings, though that was (eventually) fixed with Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. I'd have pondered making variant human the standard, if feats were an expected part of the game rather than an option.

SCAG lets you swap Skill Versatility for a feature from an Elf subrace, so there's that.

 

[Charlaquin]

So I've been thinking more on this as I read the thread, and I realize at least part of my problem with half-elves in particular is how utterly boring their stats are in 5E. The only option they're given is "pick two skills." No subraces, no big choices.

Same with half-orcs, except they don't even get a skill pick. Honestly, I find humans in 5E boring as can be, too, though the variant human is much less so.

I think it was a mistake for WotC not to make subraces for every race except maybe human. I have the exact same problem with dragonborn, though they have a nod to subraces with picking their draconic ancestry. Again with tieflings, though that was (eventually) fixed with Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. I'd have pondered making variant human the standard, if feats were an expected part of the game rather than an option.

I feel like the obvious solution to this problem would be to make half-whatever into subraces for humans. Base human stats are +1 to two different ability scores, and subraces provide abilities roughly equivalent to a Feat and a Skill, with variant human as the (ugh, these words feel really gross together, but there’s nothing for it...) pure human subrace.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

We don't really *need* any one race, even humans, for D&D to be playable. Some people have already said this, but generally it just makes sense to have races that fit the given campaign world as determined by the DM. Personally I like people to play whatever they want as long as it's not intentionally disruptive.

 

[Jester David]

For your own world? Sure. Why not?
For established worlds? Less of a fan of eliminating established characters, especially ones that might be beloved favourites.