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

[MGibster]

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

In all seriousness, we're playing a game not writing a novel or producing an amateur theatrical production of King Lear. And to be perfectly frank, most of my players simply aren't coming to D&D for complexity or nuance. I don't believe the game lends itself to that kind of thing though I realize my perspective is not my own and other people may have different opinions.

 

[Guest 6801328]

In all seriousness, we're playing a game not writing a novel or producing an amateur theatrical production of King Lear. And to be perfectly frank, most of my players simply aren't coming to D&D for complexity or nuance. I don't believe the game lends itself to that kind of thing though I realize my perspective is not my own and other people may have different opinions.

Yeah, I get that. I suspect the impact will be close to zero. At this point we all have an impression of orcs, and if WotC tweaks the fluff and gets rid of ability bonuses (for PCs) that's not going to change that.

Maybe in the future new gamers will say, "Wait...you're saying I'm just supposed to slaughter these things? Isn't that murder? I don't get it."

And, if that starts happening, that will pretty much settle the point (for me, anyway) that using the language and tropes of colonialism, genocide, and slavery in a game in order to convey the impression that certain creatures are "the bad guys" was a terrible idea all along.

In fact, I would find that even more persuasive (that we did the right thing) than if nothing changes at all.

 

[Charlaquin]

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

They already have quite a bit. Stonecunning, resistance to poison damage and advantage on saves vs. poison, proficiency with artisan’s tools and a set of weapons, etc. To replace the +2 Con you could make the hill dwarf’s +1 HP/level a thing for the base race. Give hill dwarves a toughness-related bonus to compensate, maybe proficiency with con saves and perception to replace the wisdom bonus. Give mountain dwarves an increased damage die with the Dwarven weapons instead of the +2 Strength. Just off-the-op-of-my-head spitballing. With more development I’m sure something more appropriate and balanced could be settled upon. Point is, ability score adjustments aren’t necessary to make races play differently from one another.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

Well said, and I’ll gladly concede that point. In my defense, I’m not a huge Trekkie. Watched a lot of TNG growing up and have a lot of nostalgia for that series specifically, but otherwise I’m not really in the Trek sphere.

 

[MGibster]

Maybe in the future new gamers will say, "Wait...you're saying I'm just supposed to slaughter these things? Isn't that murder? I don't get it."

Even most of my friends who started with old school D&D have moved away from the "slaughter them because they're orcs/lizardfolk/drow. Just this past week, I ran an Acquisitions Incorporated game involving lizardfolk attacking them because they were cursed by an outsider's influence. The PCs actually did their best not to hurt any lizardmen, helped them, and made peace with them. I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea of orcs sometimes being people you want to peacefully coexist with.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Any rpg based on these properties does exactly that, in one way or another. I haven't heard complaints about any rpg other than D&D. Is it just a matter of time?

 

[ccs]

This may be pushing the conversation a bit, but since it has wandered so much already...

What if, instead of floating bonuses or eliminating stat bonuses/penalties 6e built roles instead of classes and left bonuses in place? For example a dwarven "tank" might be con based, but an elven "tank" could be dex based, and a tortle "tank" could be wis based. Actually, you could remove the ability scores from the game entirely and just say "fighters hit AC x on a roll of y or higher. If you remove the must-key-off-of-stat-x from class features then racial abilities are no longer a feature of game balance. Whether they remain for flavor would be a different matter.

Do that while wrapping it in the D&D logo & you'd very soon be moving on to 7e.

For an examination of how radical system change went the last time they tried it, refer back to 4e.

 

[squibbles]

Regarding @Charlaquin @Helldritch @Crimson Longinus and @Bacon Bits (and others) next level Ability scores tangent:

The problem is that common sense and verisimilitude are at odds with gameplay.

10 foot minotaurs stomp 3 foot halflings for sport.

But, if that's the case, a game where minotaurs and halflings are both featured as frontline fighter types isn't going to be fun for most people. (Yes, yes, half-giants in Darksun, you say. I know. But please acknowledge the general principle, even if you are immune to it.)

This thread's arguments about Ability scores are a proxy for said disconnect. If a minotaur is clearly stronger than a halfling, shouldn't that be represented in some significant way by the minotaur's Strength score. Well... no. With bounded accuracy, Strength ability score is a heavily abstracted game concept that makes only the barest effort to conceptually simulate strength. Trying to get Strength Ability scores to represent "reality" would break the game.

And that's fine. At bottom, the game needs to work well as a game, not as a simulation.

The degree of abstraction just needs to be better communicated by the PHB. (See also every argument about Hit Points ever.)

So... to contribute on this tangent rather than just guttersnipe:
Maybe it would be better if physical differences between species were represented with a minimum bonus rather than a maximum bonus. If we're trying to capture that half-orc PCs are strong relative to human-elf-halfling-etc. ones, give them a minimum Strength value of 12 or a +1 to Strength, whichever is higher, and a floating +2 that can be flavored as anything from cultural background to personal proclivity. Thus, half-orcs are always meaningfully stronger than average, even 17 Int half-orc wizards. Gnomish barbarians can be just as strong as half-orc ones even from level 1, gnomish wizards... not so much. (Standard array and point buy would need to be fiddled with somewhat for it to work, of course)

 

[AliasBot]

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

Ooh, can I play? Dwarves are the species I've got the most ideas on for adjusting to a "no species-based ability mods, almost all proficiencies and languages moved to culture/background" paradigm. (Other than the dropping of ability mods, this isn't something I expect to come into play in 5E, but it's where I'd like the line to be between species and culture, so that's the line I draw for my own speculation/homebrewing.)

• Age, Size, and Speed remain the same. Maybe drop the "armor doesn't reduce speed" bit, as there's a decent argument that that's more cultural, but it works well enough as a way to show that Dwarves are strong for their size, regardless of their actual STR score.
• Dwarven Resilience can stay, because why not.
• Dwarven Toughness probably moves to a "core" species trait? Mountain as a separate subspecies feels vaguely unnecessary without both stat boosts and armor proficiencies, so push the Hill trait to the main species and call it a day there.
• Replace Darkvision with Tremorsense (still 60 feet).
• Innate burrowing speed of...10 feet? 15 feet? Less than your walking speed, but still a thing you can do.
• As long as you're underground, you gain the benefit of the UA Tunnel Fighter fighting style, and you have advantage on Perception and Investigation checks. (Dwarves are really effective underground.)
• Dwarves deal double damage to objects and structures.

(I've got a bunch of other, mostly ribbon-y ideas, ranging from "can't be knocked prone as long as you're touching natural earth" to a Xorn's Treasure Sense - or, more reasonably, its Stone Camouflage - but this should do as a starting point. Might be a bit overstuffed already, depending on how expansive one wants species traits to be.)

When you don't have to devote species-specific trait space to ability scores and proficiencies that don't do a particularly good job of differentiating them in the first place, you open up a lot more room to play with ways to actually make different species feel unique!

 

[ccs]

The issue is not that different characters have different ability scores. The issue is that racial ability score adjustments shoehorn certain races into certain classes, which is limiting for roleplay and echoes racist tropes like the concept of the “warrior race.”

Wrong. This is the fault of many of the PLAYERS.
They don't have to make these choices. They don't have to limit their own RP. They CHOOSE to.