D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages & New Race/Culture Distinction

The latest Unearthed Arcana contains the Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood races. The Dhampir is a half-vampire; the Hexblood is a character which has made a pact with a hag; and the Reborn is somebody brought back to life.

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Perhaps the bigger news is this declaration on how race is to be handled in future D&D books as it joins other games by stating that:

"...the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage."

 

[JEB]

Actually, plainly it was. Because both places where it is presented it is presented as Customizing the statblock. The DMG chart is between making custom monsters and adding class levels to Monsters. The MM option is flat out called customizing.

The default was just to play the statblock straight. You could even make an argument that none of those statblocks represent humans either. We all assume they do, but they very easily could not.

DMG p. 282: "If you want to take an NPC stat block and adapt it for a specific monster race, apply the ability modifiers..."
DMG p. 283: "The NPC Features table summarizes the ability modifiers and features of various nonhuman races... Apply these modifiers and add these features to the NPC's stat block..."

If it "plainly" was the default for nonhuman NPCs to not have ASIs, ones that match the PCs' default ASIs, I seem to be missing the part where they state that.

Of course, you are completely able to ignore that and not customize NPCs to use the ASIs. Or really, give them whatever ability scores and features you want. But they never suggest that nonhuman NPCs would be different from nonhuman PCs.

LEt me try this again. And maybe if I do it this way, it will make sense.

• Pick Race
• Pick Class
• Use Quick Build to Pick ASI

The class tells you to put your best in Intelligence followed by Con, there you go, +2 Intelligence, +1 Con. Want to go against the grain? Do something else.

This can't trip anyone up. No one is going to suddenly flounder because they have no idea what to do with their ASIs. Heck, did they flounder at level 4 when they got ASIs? Level 8? Level 12? Were they suddenly confused because they'd never had to think about where to increase their scores before?

This argument just makes no sense. I'm sorry, I feel for your friends who want their defaults, but this is not even a minor annoyance in the level of decision making it takes. And trying to present it as though they now have this unseen obstacle they are going to stumble over makes no sense.

So your solution is to pigeonhole characters by class?

EDIT: And no, I guess you don't understand. There are folks who want to play an elf. That is a warlock. Not an "elf warlock" with a particular goal or build in mind. Not a warlock, that just happens to be an elf as an afterthought. They choose their race, and want to just be that race; they choose their class, and just want to be that class.

But I will say this - you are probably right about a likely outcome of floating ASIs, without default recommendations. Many casual players will just default to what's best for their class when required to choose their ASI. I personally consider that kind of a shame as far as character diversity, but I suppose it functions.

 

[Lord Twig]

So, you would decide "I want this character to have a strength of 16" then write down 18 on the sheet? Because to be clear, I'm not imagining someone who says "I will give them a 16 because with the +2 that's an 18" because again, most people don't consider what stat then get the end result, they just write down the end result.

I think it would be very rare from me to decide on the number first and then decide what the character is. I would probably think something like, "The blacksmith should be strong... human? No, I'll make him a mountain dwarf and make him even stronger." Then I would set the strength at 18, while if I had stuck with human I would have set it at 16. Because in my world, and in the default D&D setting, mountain dwarves are stronger than humans. And I know that humans get a +1 strength, so technically the dwarf should only go up to 17, but the exact score doesn't matter. What matters is that mountain dwarves are stronger than humans on average.

And what it tells you is the same thing for Halflings, Elves, Goblins, Tabaxi, Aarcrockra and Kenku.

But what I've noticed is that people tend to take the same information (+2 dex) and interpret it differently for each race, and I'm always left wondering how they know that +2 dex means halflings have nimble fingers while +2 dex means that Elves are lithe and graceful and +2 dex means that Tabaxi are fast with cat-like reflexes. And it is never all three, it is always that each race has one of these attributes that their shared bonus "means".

But that makes perfect sense. If you take it away the halfling, elf and tabaxi aren't any of those things. If they have a +2 dex you then need to decide what that means for that race. If you take it away then... nothing. There is just nothing there. The are not any of those things. And dwarves aren't hardy and half-orcs aren't strong. When it comes to strength or intelligence or wisdom or constitution, etc. the races are all the same. And that is not a good thing. It is boring.

1) It doesn't "remove" them, it allows them to be swapped for something of equal value.

2) You literally admitted the thing. It is fine for an individual. Because unsurprisingly not all people follow their culture, and heck it makes more sense in someways, allowing for dwarven warriors to be even more skilled craftsmen, because they are no longer "wasting" weapon profs. My dwarven fighter was already proficient in all four of those weapons, so that gave him more time to master even more tools, instead of just one. Or maybe he branched out and had other interests. This doesn't remove or destroy anything.

1) This is true. The Tasha's rule is optional, and it leaves the static racial ASIs in place. I am for this. I think that is a good solution. It answers every possible complaint. Unless there is one I am missing?

2) So it sounds like we are agreeing then. There should continue to be default ASIs, proficiencies, languages, and all the rest to model traditional depictions of fantasy races (species), but exceptional individuals (PC and individual NPC) can break that mold and be unique. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Which is information that is relatively useless, especially in your bell curve world. See, basic humans also have a +1 to wisdom (they get +1 to all stats). So Lotusden halflings are... just as perceptive as humans. Which makes them just average. Which makes them the same as everyone else... Unless we go that any race without a +1 wisdom is less perceptive.

And this is the thing that I think most people forget when they tout this "bell curve world" where the bonuses tell them what the race is good at. In 1e and other early versions of the game, humans didn't get any ASIs. Now, your basic non-V. Human gets a +1 to everything. So the entire bell curve is shifted one space for every stat, if you want to use humans as the baseline they have always been. Which drastically shifts the narrative of how this all used to work.

Actually I think it is great that Humans get a +1 to everything. Now they they are slightly worse at what other races are best at, but slightly better than what they are not good at. It makes it so that, overall, humans are just better at everything. Which, as a human, is nice to think.

Plus if you follow your logic, halflings used to be weaker than humans because they didn't get a bonus to strength. Now they are weaker because they don't get the +1. So they reduced the penalty by 1, but they didn't actually get rid of it. It doesn't quite make sense that hill dwarves have a "-1" strength (in comparison to humans), but we all know the system isn't perfect.

Gnolls don't have a racial write up as PC. So, I guess you are talking about the DMG information. Which, first of all, is deep in the customizing monsters section. It literally comes between "make your own monster" and "give monsters class levels"

It is also wildly out of date and full of inaccuracies. Just a few examples:

Dwarves on that chart get a +2 strength or a +2 Wisdom in addition to +2 Con. They also don't gain any hp buff from Hill Dwarf, or Mountain Dwarf Armor. Or the Dwarven Weapon Training.

Drow aren't given their Drow Weapon Training. Also, it is hilarious to realize that if you applied the "drow" bonuses to just about anything in the NPC section, you'd never get the drow statblock.

Elves, again no weapon training, no subrace abilities. I guess this is all what that "refer back to the PHB" asterisks must be for, because this is getting a bit embarrassing how poorly these depict the race, let's try a non-PHB one.

Goblins, -2 strength, that has never been the case for an officially printed goblin PC option. Even when Volo's had negatives for Orc Intelligence and Kobold strength, goblins never had this.

Kobolds here have -4 strength, double what they ended up with

Hobgoblins have none. Nothing. No bonuses or penalties at all. So much for them being smarter than dwarves.

Lizardfolk -2 Intelligence and +2 strength, nothing like what was printed in Volos.

Kenku had an ability called Ambusher, that vanished when switching to Volos.


So, yeah, I could look at that chart and see that Gnolls have -2 Intelligence, but considering how different, incomplete, and just flat out wrong that information is by now, I don't see why I should. Pretty much nothing in it is accurate anymore.

This doesn't make any sense. Because some things are inaccurate or contradictory or were updated, we should just throw out everything? The whole, "throw the baby out with the bathwater" thing?

But also, returning to dwarves, you seemed to have missed why I found your argument silly. Yes, Mind Flayers are super intelligent evil geniuses... that doesn't tell us anything about any other race. Mindflayers are smarter than just about anything else. So saying it makes perfect sense for Hobgoblins to be smarter than dwarves, because MindFlayers exist and are smart, makes no sense. I don't have to fundamentally change dwarves to make them as smart as humans, who get a +1 INT. Or as smart as Hobgoblins. Who originally had no bonus.

This is the thing that drives me nuts, you have taken a position that these bonuses are so important that their removal fundamentally changes the race, and yet the changes to lizardfolk and hobgoblins seem to not even have registered with a lot of people. You say removing the Intelligence bonus to hobgoblins would fundamentally alter them, and yet, it was added in the first place, mid-edition, to a resounding.... silence.

It does change them. I'm not saying it breaks the game, but it changes how the race functions and how it is viewed. If it didn't, why even bother removing the -2 intelligence penalty for orcs if it doesn't matter? And if something is changed and updated and you think, "Okay, they changed lizardfolk. Well I guess they just wanted to portray them differently." Then there is nothing to get upset about. I think removing the -2 intelligence penalty from orcs in Ebberon makes sense, because they are portrayed differently than in "default" D&D. But there is also nothing wrong with having a more simpleminded brutish orc in D&D either and representing that with an Int penalty.

See, you skipped right past the point. Where I bolded, that is where you proved that this debate has nothing to do with NPCs.

"Oh, this Rakshasa's default intelligence is too low for what I want. Guess he's smarter, bump"

Or, most people would play him as smart as they want, and not change his stats. Because his intelligence doesn't get used at all. This is one of the reasons a Mindflayers intelligence is so high, because they actually use their intelligence in combat, via their intelligence based abilities. It is the same reason why there is no monster meant to be fighting in melee who has a terrible str and dex, unless they are CR 0 animals.

And so, if you want your dwarves to be tough... bump their con. It is literally that simple. You seem to think that if the Racial ASIs in the Player's Handbook are changed that the Dungeon Master suddenly must change their world to reflect the new reality of the entire race of Non-Player Characters. But that is simply not the case anymore. It may have been the case decades ago in previous editions, but it isn't how 5e is designed.

Floating ASIs apply to the players, but they do not need to reflect anything about the larger population, because the DM can always change that.

And I think you are skipping past my point that default racial ASIs tells us that the dwarven species is tougher in general than other humanoid species. Any individual can be an exception, whether a PC or NPC, but in order to be an exception there has to be a standard.

 

[JEB]

LEt me try this again. And maybe if I do it this way, it will make sense.

• Pick Race
• Pick Class
• Use Quick Build to Pick ASI

The class tells you to put your best in Intelligence followed by Con, there you go, +2 Intelligence, +1 Con. Want to go against the grain? Do something else.

This can't trip anyone up. No one is going to suddenly flounder because they have no idea what to do with their ASIs. Heck, did they flounder at level 4 when they got ASIs? Level 8? Level 12? Were they suddenly confused because they'd never had to think about where to increase their scores before?

This argument just makes no sense. I'm sorry, I feel for your friends who want their defaults, but this is not even a minor annoyance in the level of decision making it takes. And trying to present it as though they now have this unseen obstacle they are going to stumble over makes no sense.

Just got out of the shower, and realized another problem with your solution: it tells you to be optimized for your class, but provides absolutely no other guidelines for where to put your ASI, if your goal is not optimization.

Which, now that I think about it, might be what my friend was trying to get across to me in the first place. He can make the best possible halfling barbarian under the core 5E rules, by applying the default halfling ASI then following the quick build advice for the class. But he wouldn't know how to deliberately make a subpar character with the class's quick build alone. Without advice on what halflings are like by default, he wouldn't be able to achieve his goal of doing the best he can with the restrictions.

So essentially, we're back to my original objection...

 

[Faolyn]

I think it would be very rare from me to decide on the number first and then decide what the character is. I would probably think something like, "The blacksmith should be strong... human? No, I'll make him a mountain dwarf and make him even stronger." Then I would set the strength at 18, while if I had stuck with human I would have set it at 16. Because in my world, and in the default D&D setting, mountain dwarves are stronger than humans. And I know that humans get a +1 strength, so technically the dwarf should only go up to 17, but the exact score doesn't matter. What matters is that mountain dwarves are stronger than humans on average.

You know NPCs can have any attribute at any level you want, even above a 20, right? NPCs don't have to be built like PCs anymore.

And I think you are skipping past my point that default racial ASIs tells us that the dwarven species is tougher in general than other humanoid species. Any individual can be an exception, whether a PC or NPC, but in order to be an exception there has to be a standard.

OK, imagine, if you will, that you and your friends have never heard of D&D before, nor of any RPG, nor do any of you have any preconceived concept of what fantasy races are like. You've lived a life deprived of fantasy and sci-fi. Then one day a set of D&D books of the No ASI Bonus Edition fall from the sky and lands in front of you (turns out you're starring in The Dice Gods Must be Crazy). After reading the books, you and your genre-fiction-deprived friends decide to play D&D.

Do you honestly think that your ability to play the game is going to be hampered by the fact that what you know of "typical" halflings or dwarfs or orcs is based solely on flavor text and racial traits and the artwork, and not where the +2/+1 is? Would it really hinder your gameplay if you have to make up what a "standard" gnome's stats are like? Would it make the experience unfun if you decided that the "standard" elf actually has a high Wisdom and the "standard" tiefling actually has a high Strength?

 

[Chaosmancer]

At last!

You might not like the word 'earn'; fair enough.

Your choices get you what they give you, and what they give you is because that source is associated with that benefit.

Choosing wizard gets you spells not Rage because wizards are associated with casting spells and NOT associated with raging.

Choosing barbarian gets you Rage not spellcasting because barbarians are associated with raging and NOT associated with casting spells.

Choosing goliath gets you +2 Str not Dex because goliaths are associated with strength and NOT associated with dexterity.

Choosing halfling gets you +2 Dex not Str because halflings are associated with dexterity and NOT associated with strength!

And if halflings or loxodons (whatever they are!) want any ability score higher than their choices gained them, then they must earn those things through play, in the same way that D&D has worked for decades.

This proposed change is a much bigger change than it first appears. It is not changing how racial ability score bonuses are applied, it is removing racial ability score bonuses altogether, along with the concepts that go with them, in order to add elective bonuses to ability score generation.

This is, in my opinion, bad.

It means that many concepts tied to species either disappear (goliaths as a race are NOT conceptually stronger than other races on average) or no longer make sense (goliaths ARE conceptually stronger, but that is not reflected in their....Strength???).

Choosing human gets me... anything I want because they are floating.

Choosing Changeling gets me Charisma and then... anything I want because they are floating

Choosing Warforged gets me Constitution and then.... anything I want because they are floating.

Hitting Level 4 in any class gets me.... anything I want because they are floating.

So, if your purpose is to tell me that things give you things because of the rules.. well, the rules have changed. So now they give you different things. So there should be no issue.

And Goliaths are stronger than average than who? If I'm playing a V. human fighter with Heavy Armor Master I have a +2 strength, so Goliaths aren't stronger than a human, unless the human chooses to not be strong. And Goliaths are not stronger than anything with a +1 strength either, depending on where you put the scores.

And, what, being a large and strong race doesn't count if you don't have a +2? Powerful build is meaningless? The DM deciding to make Goliath NPCs stronger is meaningless? All that matters is that +2 Strength and nothing else?

 

[Catulle]

Duplicate

 

[Catulle]

I want races to have a difference between one another.

Given we now understand quite clearly what "race" is, why on earth would we want to preserve even a shred of that ideology?

 

[Chaosmancer]

DMG p. 282: "If you want to take an NPC stat block and adapt it for a specific monster race, apply the ability modifiers..."
DMG p. 283: "The NPC Features table summarizes the ability modifiers and features of various nonhuman races... Apply these modifiers and add these features to the NPC's stat block..."

If it "plainly" was the default for nonhuman NPCs to not have ASIs, ones that match the PCs' default ASIs, I seem to be missing the part where they state that.

Of course, you are completely able to ignore that and not customize NPCs to use the ASIs. Or really, give them whatever ability scores and features you want. But they never suggest that nonhuman NPCs would be different from nonhuman PCs.

"If you want to" change a statblock, then you can use these methods. That means it is entirely optional. It is not a default.

And they don't need to suggest nonhuman NPCs and nonhuman PCs are different, they clearly show it in multiple places. It is undeniable that they treat them differently. I've shown nearly a dozen examples, which considering there are 39 full races, is a huge percentage of the available data.

So your solution is to pigeonhole characters by class?

EDIT: And no, I guess you don't understand. There are folks who want to play an elf. That is a warlock. Not an "elf warlock" with a particular goal or build in mind. Not a warlock, that just happens to be an elf as an afterthought. They choose their race, and want to just be that race; they choose their class, and just want to be that class.

But I will say this - you are probably right about a likely outcome of floating ASIs, without default recommendations. Many casual players will just default to what's best for their class when required to choose their ASI. I personally consider that kind of a shame as far as character diversity, but I suppose it functions.

See, it isn't my "solution".

You are creating a problem. You are deciding that these players are going to be tripped up and confused by this sudden ability to decide between six ability scores. How could they possibly make this decision?

Well, if it is truly so difficult, well, they could use the class recommendation. Or not. I personally don't think this decision is really as difficult as you keep trying to present it. And, yes, many casual players will default to what is best for their class. And while you are saying this is bad for diversity, what I think is worse for diversity is the fact that many casually players only picked races that were good for their desired class.

My real solution is that... players are going to figure this out on their own.

 

[JEB]

"If you want to" change a statblock, then you can use these methods. That means it is entirely optional. It is not a default.

Can you show me where, in core 5E, it recommends another way to represent nonhuman versions of generic NPCs? You can ignore their recommendation, obviously, and I doubt they would offer such advice now. But when 5E was created, that was how it worked. The idea that they always intended PC and NPC ASIs to be different isn't borne out by the evidence.

And they don't need to suggest nonhuman NPCs and nonhuman PCs are different, they clearly show it in multiple places. It is undeniable that they treat them differently. I've shown nearly a dozen examples, which considering there are 39 full races, is a huge percentage of the available data.

There's a difference between a NPC created from the ground up to represent a specialist from a nonhuman race, and a generic NPC statblock that's expected to have nonhuman ASIs (and other traits) additionally applied.

EDIT: Also, how do you know they didn't quietly incorporate the default ASIs for that nonhuman race when they were designing the nonhuman specialist NPCs?

See, it isn't my "solution".

You are creating a problem. You are deciding that these players are going to be tripped up and confused by this sudden ability to decide between six ability scores. How could they possibly make this decision?

Well, if it is truly so difficult, well, they could use the class recommendation. Or not. I personally don't think this decision is really as difficult as you keep trying to present it. And, yes, many casual players will default to what is best for their class.

This whole line of discussion started when I mentioned how my friend told me that he would find it difficult to intentionally design a sub-optimal character, like his halfling barbarian. And you're seriously going to suggest I'm making this problem up?

Have you considered the possibility that your experiences and preferences in character design are not universal?

And while you are saying this is bad for diversity, what I think is worse for diversity is the fact that many casually players only picked races that were good for their desired class.

I'm glad that players who were preventing themselves from choosing sub-optimal race-class combinations no longer feel prevented from doing so. I don't think it has to be a choice between giving them freedom or keeping things simple for others. We can, and should, see both approaches supported.

My real solution is that... players are going to figure this out on their own.

My real solution is that... Wizards should continue to provide defaults so they don't have to.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think it would be very rare from me to decide on the number first and then decide what the character is. I would probably think something like, "The blacksmith should be strong... human? No, I'll make him a mountain dwarf and make him even stronger." Then I would set the strength at 18, while if I had stuck with human I would have set it at 16. Because in my world, and in the default D&D setting, mountain dwarves are stronger than humans. And I know that humans get a +1 strength, so technically the dwarf should only go up to 17, but the exact score doesn't matter. What matters is that mountain dwarves are stronger than humans on average.

But that makes perfect sense. If you take it away the halfling, elf and tabaxi aren't any of those things. If they have a +2 dex you then need to decide what that means for that race. If you take it away then... nothing. There is just nothing there. The are not any of those things. And dwarves aren't hardy and half-orcs aren't strong. When it comes to strength or intelligence or wisdom or constitution, etc. the races are all the same. And that is not a good thing. It is boring.

See, you are just working under a completely different set of circumstances. You decided he was a dwarf just to make him stronger, but if I wanted him stronger... I'd just make him stronger. I wouldn't just make him a dwarf to make him stronger.

And you've said those races are nothing without those +2 Dex scores, but you are missing the point. +2 Dex is meaningless. It means speed, it means grace, it means clever fingers, it means skill at archery, it means whatever we need it to mean, but it can't mean the same things.

No one, absolutely no one would say that Goblins are as Graceful as Elves. Elves get +2 Dex, and that means they are Graceful. Goblins also have +2 Dex. But they are absolutely not graceful. So... +2 Dex doesn't mean you are graceful. It can't, because everyone else with that +2 Dex isn't graceful. Only Elves are.

1) This is true. The Tasha's rule is optional, and it leaves the static racial ASIs in place. I am for this. I think that is a good solution. It answers every possible complaint. Unless there is one I am missing?

2) So it sounds like we are agreeing then. There should continue to be default ASIs, proficiencies, languages, and all the rest to model traditional depictions of fantasy races (species), but exceptional individuals (PC and individual NPC) can break that mold and be unique. Sounds like a win-win to me.

1) Then why did you say Tasha's was removing proficiencies if you don't think Tasha's removes anything? You seem to have not realized your own statement.

2) So, this has a few levels. Firstly, everything for Dwarves and Elves and Halflings ect ect ect, is completely written. Nothing done in 5e is going to erase those defaults. So if you are worried Dwarves will no longer have defaults, just open your PHB, because they are right there. Secondly, you seem to agree that changing a PC doesn't change the Race, so there is no problem. But thirdly, I don't think we need to continue to have default languages or ASIs for every single lineage going forward. We have floating ASIs and Floating Languages already. High Elves get +1 Language. +1 Language is fine. So, if a new lineage is designed with a floating ASI and a Floating Language? Then it is fine. Because this new lineage has been designed this way. Their default is this design. Say we need a default ignores the fact that this is also a default.

Actually I think it is great that Humans get a +1 to everything. Now they they are slightly worse at what other races are best at, but slightly better than what they are not good at. It makes it so that, overall, humans are just better at everything. Which, as a human, is nice to think.

Plus if you follow your logic, halflings used to be weaker than humans because they didn't get a bonus to strength. Now they are weaker because they don't get the +1. So they reduced the penalty by 1, but they didn't actually get rid of it. It doesn't quite make sense that hill dwarves have a "-1" strength (in comparison to humans), but we all know the system isn't perfect.

Right, this system isn't perfect. It is already a mess of contradictions. So acting like changing things is suddenly creating contradictions that never existed is just false.

Humans are worse than the best, as good as their second best, and better than their average. But, we think of humans as the average. The 3d6 Bell Curve model was based off humans getting no bonus, so changing that situation as changed every assumption.

This doesn't make any sense. Because some things are inaccurate or contradictory or were updated, we should just throw out everything? The whole, "throw the baby out with the bathwater" thing?

Some things? Just about every single monstrous NPC is wrong. Multiple PCs are only partial. You are accusing me of throwing out a baby, but the very existence of a baby within this bathwater is questionable.

Saying "this must be true because it is on this chart" is very weak when you can easily point out that the majority of the chart is wrong.

It does change them. I'm not saying it breaks the game, but it changes how the race functions and how it is viewed. If it didn't, why even bother removing the -2 intelligence penalty for orcs if it doesn't matter? And if something is changed and updated and you think, "Okay, they changed lizardfolk. Well I guess they just wanted to portray them differently." Then there is nothing to get upset about. I think removing the -2 intelligence penalty from orcs in Ebberon makes sense, because they are portrayed differently than in "default" D&D. But there is also nothing wrong with having a more simpleminded brutish orc in D&D either and representing that with an Int penalty.

I'm not rehashing that debate. There is a very clear difference between having a penalty and being able to float your bonus.

And the point I was made in there was hiding in your post. If they changed every single monstrous NPC in the chart when they made it a PC, then why would I assume that the Monstrous NPC on the chart is accurate? None of them were accurate.

And I think you are skipping past my point that default racial ASIs tells us that the dwarven species is tougher in general than other humanoid species. Any individual can be an exception, whether a PC or NPC, but in order to be an exception there has to be a standard.

What is the default for a Human commoner? 10 Con. Dwarves are tougher in general with 12 Con?

I've got a DnD beyond game pulled up, let me just post this real fast

Human -> Con 12
Human -> Con 14
Kalashatar-> Con 12
Kenku -> Con 14
Aasimar-> Con 15

And I'm actually shocked to see those two 12's. The average I see on players is 14. So... if Dwarves are exceptional for having a 12, and most PCs have between a 12 and 16... are dwarves really exceptional from the player's perspective? They have the average lowest values that I normally see.

So, what defaults are we comparing too? 10? 12? 16? Is the default the human commoner? The 12 that is the lowest score most players have for their "average". The 16 that is the default for their prime stat?