Level Up (A5E) Changes to race (species?)

[The Mirrorball Man]

You don't seem to presenting an actual argument to this effect. Prima facie, it is racist, or racist-adjacent, because it's explicitly assigning physical/mental abilities to people based on their race or ethnicity. That's exactly what D&D is trying to avoid.

Plus it doesn't make any sense at all.



In the literal sense that I explained in the post? Your "Or:" paragraph expresses a viewpoint opposite to how Civ operates.



It's not on me to demonstrate that it couldn't work. That's not how logical arguments work. You have claimed that because it works in Civ, it must work in D&D. You have provided no argument to that effect, merely a claim. As you are the one claiming this, you are the one who must argue it.

That’s not how it works either. The only way to "prove" that it works is to playtest it, and if I did that, nothing would force you to believe me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Heh, defining an entire community with a specific ability does sound somewhat racist.

Anyway, it feels more accurate if Waterdhavians include strong citizens, and dextrous citizens, and intelligent citizens, and so on.

Let the job offer the ability.

It might well be that a significant percentage of the population are scholars, and on average the culture tends toward Intelligence. But it wont be every one. And it will be because of their training and experience.

In a society that focused on Intellectual pursuits, and gives the benefit of social advantage to the intellectual, even the athletes and laborers will be more knowledgeable and educated than the sort of global average, because it will have a better education system.

Now, if ASIs are moved to culture, they should also be split between culture, background, and class, but that isn’t what was being argued about.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As to your earlier point, Dungeon Masters Guild

I’ve yet to see a single person claim this product is racist, yet it places ASIs in Culture.

Again, this isn't an actual rational argument you're presenting, it's just whataboutism.

I don't know what that book does - I've never read it - have you? Maybe it defines culture in a way that is less problematic than claiming all Lantanese people have +1 INT or something. Or maybe it is problematic but people simply haven't examined that much yet.

I feel like you're playing devil's advocate here, in which case we're done, because you've already stated you don't believe using ASIs like this is a good idea.

So far, the only counter to my challenge against the notion has been to restate the notion that I’ve challenged.

In which case, there isn’t much to argue.

You didn't "challenge" the notion with any kind of actual argument, so it wouldn't really be possible to "counter" what you've said other than to point out that what was originally suggested remains true. This is to be expected, no?

That’s not how it works either. The only way to "prove" that it works is to playtest it, and if I did that, nothing would force you to believe me.

That's a patently ludicrous position, and means you aren't engaging in rational argument. Which is fine, and I can just not engage with, but you literally just demanded rational argument from others.

In a society that focused on Intellectual pursuits, and gives the benefit of social advantage to the intellectual, even the athletes and laborers will be more knowledgeable and educated than the sort of global average, because it will have a better education system.

But why would it give +1 INT, when education is at most a small part of INT? Education in D&D 5E is basically skills and languages - it's just that most of the potentially "trained in a sit-down classroom" skills are INT-based skills.

You could certainly suggest that people educated by that system get a Jack of All Trades-type bonus to INT-based skills for example. But to the actual INT stat? That seems less reasonable.

 

[Haldrik]

In a society that focused on Intellectual pursuits, and gives the benefit of social advantage to the intellectual, even the athletes and laborers will be more knowledgeable and educated than the sort of global average, because it will have a better education system.

Now, if ASIs are moved to culture, they should also be split between culture, background, and class, but that isn’t what was being argued about.

Name one reallife culture that focuses on intellectual pursuits − every single member without exception.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In a society that focused on Intellectual pursuits, and gives the benefit of social advantage to the intellectual, even the athletes and laborers will be more knowledgeable and educated than the sort of global average, because it will have a better education system.

Now, if ASIs are moved to culture, they should also be split between culture, background, and class, but that isn’t what was being argued about.

The thing is, a lot of this debate is based on the fact that some people feel like a +2 strength means they can’t play a Minotaur bookworm, which is objectively not true.

If that can’t be overcome by giving a +2 Int when you pick Wizard, or a +1 Int when you choose scholar or make your Minotaur be from pseudo-Athens, then it can’t be overcome without getting rid of ASIs entirely.

My actual preference would be to give Race, Culture, Background, and Class, all an ASI, or to associate each with an ability score, and let the player put 2 +2s into ability scores associated with their race, culture, background, and class.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Again, this isn't an actual rational argument you're presenting, it's just whataboutism.

I don't know what that book does - I've never read it - have you? Maybe it defines culture in a way that is less problematic than claiming all Lantanese people have +1 INT or something. Or maybe it is problematic but people simply haven't examined that much yet.

I feel like you're playing devil's advocate here, in which case we're done, because you've already stated you don't believe using ASIs like this is a good idea

I never play devil’s advocate.

as for “whataboutism”, how is giving a very popular and widely praised supplement that does the thing we are arguing about, as a reply to the notion that I should “never publish a game” if I think it’s okay to put ASIs in culture, “whataboutism”?

And I have read the book. There was also a post here about it when it came out, if you want to see what it does without buying it.
It’s pretty simple. It splits race and cultures and puts ASIs into culture. It also includes an option to customize your culture. It’s a pretty neat book.

Name one reallife culture that focuses on intellectual pursuits − every single member without exception.

First, give me a question that isn’t based on a strawman version of my argument.

 

[Haldrik]

First, give me a question that isn’t based on a strawman version of my argument.

There is no strawman.

Your earlier posts suggested it is ok to avoid giving an ability bonus to an entire "race", and instead give this bonus to an entire "culture".

More than one person responded that that sounds no less racist.

Your post argued that to make an entire culture more Intelligent − every member without exception − is realistic.

My response was. No reallife culture has ever resembled that.

It is unrealistic.

And racist.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Firstly, we aren’t talking a game set in the real world.

This falls apart the moment you actually build a fantasy setting and assign these bonuses to cultures therein. Parallels to real cultures are nigh impossible to avoid, and in many existing setting completely intentional parallels exist. People are already making a connection with the Orcs and the POC, and that is way weaker connection than seeing Chult to represent Africa etc.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I wouldn’t put my name on a book that organized cultures as American, European, African, and Asian, firsts of all. “Asian” isn’t a culture. “American” is barely a culture.

But if we actually narrow things down, what I would do with RL cultures is create descriptions of cultures with simple names, and give examples of countries and cross-national cultures that fit that category.

So, there would be Intelligent and Strong cultures from every continent.

edit: of course, I don’t actually like the design of putting ASIs in culture, so this is academic for me, but I don’t think that such a product would be called racist by anyone but an extremely small minority, unless the descriptions and specific representation was problematic.

In forgotten realms there are a lot of cultures that mirror real-life ones.
Not like "Karrnath is rather Teutonic. Aundair is a bit like France."
FR has at least a couple of cultures that are literally, the culture of Earth humans who came through portals to FR.

Greyhawk and Mystara have a lot of pretty badly disguised expys as well.

 

[Derren]

Ability score adjustments (including penalties, bring them back) should exclusively be tied to race. Thats simply a thing you are born with like darkvision.

Everything that is learned, tool or weapon proficiency should be tied to culture.

Making cultures though is a bit problematic. Its easy when you have a fixed campaign setting, but hard when you want to keep things generic.
So maybe instead of presenting a list of generic cultures have a toolbox for how to create them.
For example each culture consists out of a value, warrior or religion, and a way of life like nomadic or metropolitan. Each of those aspects give a different bonus. That way nomadic warriors (Mongols) will end up with slightly different skills as metropolitan warriors (Sparta).