D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Remathilis]

I don't think Half has anywhere near the power or taboo as the N word. And I think we do want to be cautious about how expansive with are with language taboos.

Maybe not as infamous, but intent is there. How about a different example.

The word gypsy falls into a similar area. To the Roma, it's a slur. It invokes a lot of negative connotations and misunderstandings about their culture. 30 years ago, the term was used as both bard kit and as a freaking class name in Ravenloft. There is no way you could do that now. You could not have a class named after a slur, no matter the history or context in game.

 

[Knight_Marshal]

I don’t think the term “half whatever” is the problem. It’s that half-human-half-elves and half-human-half-orcs were somehow special as the only hybrid combinations the rules acknowledged. They want players to have the option to have any mixed heritage they want, and I don’t think that’s negotiable for them.

If they want players to have the option to have any mixed heritage we want, then they need to gives us mechanical rules to mix two races together instead of copping out and just saying pretend you are mixed.

We do not need WotC to tell us that we can use our imagination.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

But, that's a different issue. The issue that was brought up was that half-elves are being erased. They aren't. They are nearly identical to what they were in 2014, which, apparently, wasn't a problem.

That they might be boring wasn't what was being talked about. I was responding to the idea that there is a "dramatic change" between the two versions. There isn't.

I think everyone here has a different issue which is part of the problem. As everyone has a different talking point, there is no actual solution.

My first issue is that two playable species which have always had their own entries, and are both very popular, are no longer getting their own entries. Instead players are being told to reflavour one of their parent species. The result being:

DM: So what are you playing?
Player: Half-Elf
DM: Ok so what race are you really playing?

My second issue is Humans and Half Elves being mechanically dull and lacking any identity on the tabletop. 5e humans are literally a bundle of nothingness, and the tabletop would lose nothing if they got deleted. 1DnD humans have fixed that and given them a mechanical identity with their ability to gain inspiration. To me, half-elves should be reworked to actually gain a mechanical identity, rather than a minor feature which basically never comes up and some skills.

And my last issue is the names. Half-elf and half-orc as names has ensured that both species have never gone and developed their own identity beyond 'what they're not'. The book entries literally spend ages saying about what the half-elf isn't, and with barely a mention of what the half-elf is. Even irl hybrids aren't called 'half-something', as they're given their own unique names. Eberron fixed this by calling half-elves 'Khoravar', and has given them their own cultures and history.

So basically what I'd like to see is:

Half-Elves and Half-Orcs given their own unique names and cultures lorewise, and given their own mechanics on the tabletop. But rework those mechanics to be actually unique and interesting like has been done with the 1DnD human.

And then people wanting to play the child of a human and an elf/orc can either use the guidance given in the playtest (pick one of the parent species and reflavour), or they can use the mechanics for these two species.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Maybe not as infamous, but intent is there. How about a different example.

The word gypsy falls into a similar area. To the Roma, it's a slur. It invokes a lot of negative connotations and misunderstandings about their culture. 30 years ago, the term was used as both bard kit and as a freaking class name in Ravenloft. There is no way you could do that now. You could not have a class named after a slur, no matter the history or context in game.

Half and gypsy are two very different words though. We could have a discussion about the complexities of that term but I think it’s a whole different thing from ‘half’. I do think speaking generally the topic of expanding taboos is one worth considering. No one here objects to politeness and empathy I think but I’m a society that is increasingly interacting on a global scale with different cultures, I think it is unrealistic to expect everyone to share everyone else’s taboos about words (abd I think we are getting to a point where the expansiveness of what terms abd language us okay to use, is actually making communication extremely difficult)

With Ravenloft you can just call them Vistani (that became the more common descriptor in the 2E line over time (just to reflect the world flavor).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Maybe not as infamous, but intent is there. How about a different example.

I am sorry but no. The N word has a particular charge to it that half doesn’t. It isn’t a question of infamy. Everyone in American society understands the taboo around the n word. Very few people care if a person uses half as a racial descriptor said in a neutral way to describe a person’s background. There is no neutral way to describe a human being using the N word.

 

[Alzrius]

Worse it equates words to actual physical pain, they aren’t the same.

This is something which needs to be reiterated, because people keep putting forward the idea that you can compare physical injury to emotional upset, overlooking the salient ways in which they're different. The big one being that things which cause physical injury are discrete, where things which upset people very rarely are.

The example I like to use here is a friend of mine who likes to play a lot of first-person shooter games online, typically against other players. There's a lot of trash-talk that goes on in such matches, most of which wouldn't be at all appropriate in polite company, but he and most of the other players (from what I've heard) let it roll off of each other's back.

One time, however, my friend completely lost it. From what I heard from his wife later, the insult wasn't one he hadn't heard before, but this time he started screaming at the other guy and almost threw his controller across the room. To hear that on its own, you'd think that it was that the use of foul language had finally set him off, that it was always a problem, etc.

What it actually was (again, according to what his wife said later) was that he was under a great deal of stress at work, because there was a round of layoffs that were approaching and he was afraid that he was going to lose his job, and with it the health insurance that his son, who has special needs, relied on. That had absolutely nothing to do with what happened in his FPS game, but that's where his anxiety, stress, and resultant anger were released.

So no, someone saying something that you find upsetting is in no way equivalent to them stepping on your foot, accidentally or otherwise. To put forward that it is makes for a bad analogy that misrepresents how people operate in the real world.

 

[Remathilis]

Half and gypsy are two very different words though. We could have a discussion about the complexities of that term but I think it’s a whole different thing from ‘half’. I do think speaking generally the topic of expanding taboos is one worth considering. No one here objects to politeness and empathy I think but I’m a society that is increasingly interacting on a global scale with different cultures, I think it is unrealistic to expect everyone to share everyone else’s taboos about words (abd I think we are getting to a point where the expansiveness of what terms abd language us okay to use, is actually making communication extremely difficult)

With Ravenloft you can just call them Vistani (that became the more common descriptor in the 2E line over time (just to reflect the world flavor).

If you won't accept that for some, half-elf is reminiscent of half-breed, and that is the same as having a gypsy class or the n-word, then this conversation is pointless.

Don't bother responding back to me any further.

 

[SteveC]

I am sorry but no. The N word has a particular charge to it that half doesn’t. It isn’t a question of infamy. Everyone in American society understands the taboo around the n word. Very few people care if a person uses half as a racial descriptor said in a neutral way to describe a person’s background. There is no neutral way to describe a human being using the N word.

I agree. Conflating a half heritage with that word is a mega-strawman.

I have a friend who has adopted three mixed-race boys after fostering them. I recently had a conversation about this issue since he's also a gamer, and he told me the "half" status is important to all of them and something they're proud of. One of them is the kid who schooled me about Tanis half-elven since I didn't really know that much about the character.

I think that most of the attempts to talk about "half" as a description are well intended, but we are going pretty far from the experiences of people who are living with it.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

If you won't accept that for some, half-elf is reminiscent of half-breed, and that is the same as having a gypsy class or the n-word, then this conversation is pointless.

Don't bother responding back to me any further.

What name would you like to use for offspring of humans and elves? Or humans and orcs?

I honestly think that an explanation that multiverse travellers introduced the name 'khoravar' to other realms might be the best explanation for elves and humans.

 

[Irlo]

analogy​

noun​

anal·o·gy ə-ˈna-lə-jē

: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

Those who suggest that two situations should align perfectly in all respects for an analogy to be useful are missing the point of making an analogy in the first place.

On the other hand, analogies offered up on RPoL intended to lead to clarification of a position don't often clarify anything.