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Mike Mearls Discusses the First Round of Public D&D Next Playtests
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<blockquote data-quote="Keldryn" data-source="post: 5928564" data-attributes="member: 11999"><p>D&D races have never been culture-neutral. The D&D races have always implied some degree of racial culture -- that's part of what makes them different from humans.</p><p></p><p>Racial traits in D&D have always been a mix of abilities which are purely biological in origin (infravision, darkvision, low-light vision, most ability score modifiers), purely a result of cultural preferences and/or training (elf bonuses to hit with sword & bow, bonus languages, defense bonuses versus particular creatures), and a few which could go either way or be a little of both (some ability score modifiers, favored classes, skill bonuses).</p><p></p><p>The "stonecunning" ability of dwarves could be entirely the result of their experience with mining and living underground while growing up. It could also be a manifestation of their connection to stone itself; some dwarven myths refer to Moradin crafting them from stone.</p><p></p><p>I just don't see the need to have racial traits only reflect purely biological differences. It's too nit-picky for my liking, and moving all of the "cultural" racial traits into character building options waters down the racial archetypes and complicates character generation.</p><p></p><p>Sure, the game should support the ability to easily swap out racial traits, so that you can have forest-dwelling dwarves who don't have stonecunning and favor swords, bows, and magic use if you really want them. The races in the basic rules should support the common racial archetypes for accessibility and ease of character generation. Culture-neutral races belong in a module for those who want more of a toolkit for world-building.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Keldryn, post: 5928564, member: 11999"] D&D races have never been culture-neutral. The D&D races have always implied some degree of racial culture -- that's part of what makes them different from humans. Racial traits in D&D have always been a mix of abilities which are purely biological in origin (infravision, darkvision, low-light vision, most ability score modifiers), purely a result of cultural preferences and/or training (elf bonuses to hit with sword & bow, bonus languages, defense bonuses versus particular creatures), and a few which could go either way or be a little of both (some ability score modifiers, favored classes, skill bonuses). The "stonecunning" ability of dwarves could be entirely the result of their experience with mining and living underground while growing up. It could also be a manifestation of their connection to stone itself; some dwarven myths refer to Moradin crafting them from stone. I just don't see the need to have racial traits only reflect purely biological differences. It's too nit-picky for my liking, and moving all of the "cultural" racial traits into character building options waters down the racial archetypes and complicates character generation. Sure, the game should support the ability to easily swap out racial traits, so that you can have forest-dwelling dwarves who don't have stonecunning and favor swords, bows, and magic use if you really want them. The races in the basic rules should support the common racial archetypes for accessibility and ease of character generation. Culture-neutral races belong in a module for those who want more of a toolkit for world-building. [/QUOTE]
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Mike Mearls Discusses the First Round of Public D&D Next Playtests
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