D&D 5E What Makes an Orc an Orc?

[Bacon Bits]

Sorry for asking, as I am not entirely sure of your position. Are you advocating the elimination of any and all mechanical expressions of various D&D races? If not, why only ability scores bonuses and not, say, wood elves 5ft speed bonus?

Because your ability to move 5 extra feet is very rarely a dealbreaker in you being a Rogue or Monk. Missing a +2 to Dex and a +1 to Wis because you're playing a Half-Orc instead of a Wood Elf certainly is.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hey now! I like my savage Klingons, nefarious Romulans, and Orwellian Cardassians.

Jokes aside, these are fantasy races (species, if you will). Reducing them to humans with funny foreheads (okay, they kinda already are those! )

You jest, but it’s very true that as-written they are just humans with funny foreheads. Giving them only a limited subset of human character traits doesn’t make them any less humans with funny foreheads than giving them more varied sets of human character traits.

But barring that... why shouldn't there be a fantasy race (or, again, species, if that's more palatable) whose average member is, I don't know, prone to acting impulsively (or violently), or almost paranoid (by human standards) about its privacy, or logical in the extreme, or whatever else one might conjure up as an interesting facet of human societies and psyche to focus on, explore, or simply use as adventure bait? Not everything has to be terribly complex.

But complexity and nuance are interesting! Why on earth would anyone want their characters to have less complexity and nuance?

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, and gave nothing as a satisfactory replacement.

Umm...?

You can make them equally effective wizards that are still different. If the only change you make is to throw out ability score bonuses, you’ll have elf wizards with keener senses, trained to use a wider array of weapons, and who either know more cantrips and languages, or can run faster and hide in natural terrain more easily, and orc wizards who are more menacing, hit harder with weapons, and can get knocked down but get up again (you ain’t never gonna keep them down). You could take this even further. Give your elf wizards deeper knowledge of the arcane to reflect their longer years of study. Give them a special affinity with spells that tap into the primal magics of the natural world. Give them secret techniques that blend magic and swordplay. Give your orc wizards more powerful destructive spells. Give them resistance to the magics granted by other cultures’ gods. There are all sorts of ways to differentiate characters of different ancestries besides just making them exactly the same but with lower numbers.

 

[Helldritch]

I want more than vague assertion. Give me something tangible or numbers so we could compare.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Here's the thing. Other forms of media use tropes in their storytelling, and they don't have to detail fixed racial ability modifiers to do it. They can just say, "Wookiees favor bowcasters and are adept with mechanical repair." and "Vulcans favor logic and use strict mental discipline to build mental fortitude as a path to self-actualization." and "The Elves of Mirkwood favor long knives and the bow." You can just say it and it's so. In-game, you could give Wookiees automatic bowcaster and Repair skill proficiency. You can give Vulcans automatic Insight proficiency, and advantage on Int, Wis, and Cha saves. You can give Elves of Mirkwood proficiency with daggers, short swords, and bows. You don't need a +2 Str, +2 Int, or +2 Dex?

Both Vulcans and Wookiees are ludicrously stronger than humans and Vulcans are also much smarter. Any RPG based on these properties would be an utter failure if its mechanics wouldn't reflect that. I don't think this example helps your case.

 

[Charlaquin]

I want more than vague assertion. Give me something tangible or numbers so we could compare.

Just read the dang race write ups in 5e. Like that. Potentially add a few more such traits.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Warrior culture +1 to con, str or dex
Scholar culture +1 to int or wis
Merchant culture +1 to wis or cha
Religious culture +1 to wis or cha
Imperialistic culture +1 to st, con or int.
Nature oriented culture, +1 to dex, con or wis
Hunter gatherer culture +1 to str, con or wis
Etc....
No real culture were copied. No correlation can be made with real life culture. The list above can be extend a lot more and could even have mixes of two cultures blended in. Warrior/ merchant culture for example.

And then you try to apply this to an existing setting and have to decide which of its cultures correspond to which of these labels...

 

[Helldritch]

Just read the dang race write ups in 5e. Like that. Potentially add a few more such traits.

Just what would you do with the dwarves? Racial bonuses unrelated to stats but that has not been done already?

 

[Helldritch]

And then you try to apply this to an existing setting and have to decide which of its cultures correspond to which of these labels...

Yep. It would require a whole new rewrite of quite a few settings. I never said it would not bring a sh*to load of work....

 

[Hussar]

I think it is a reasonable conclusion.

If you take out behavioral tendencies and ability score modifiers you have gray tusk having people as likely good as evil.

sounds different than the current monster manual to me.

I suspect yes, they plan to rewrite the fiction in future releases.

But who is advocating taking out behavioral tendencies? As far as I can see, no one has a real issue with this. Ability score mods are likely not going to change too much, but, they might, I suppose. They have every other edition, so, it's not like it's much of a sacred cow.

I'd say for the most part, people are expecting that the changes are going to be far, far more far reaching than what they are actually going to be or, really need to be. WotC has proven pretty adept at threading the needle here and I see no reason to think they won't do it again. You're still going to have your stock, "Ugh, orc smash" type orcs but, without the whole racist baggage attached to them. Might lose the half orc though. Not sure if that's salvageable.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Klingons. But they’re not completely unproblematic.

Let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Let's get THESE problems sorted first and let tomorrow take care of itself. Klingons have been pretty well redeemed. You have depictions of good, bad, savage, peaceful, traditional, forward thinking, etc Klingons. I mean, when fans actually create an entire language for your fantasy race, I'd say that it's been treated with considerable respect.