D&D 5E I thought WotC was removing biological morals?

[Charlaquin]

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarckism is an inaccurate and outdated theory of evolution; Lamarckists thought that organisms could pass down physical characteristics acquired during their lifetime to their offspring, and this happening over and over again was how evolution happened. Contrast with our current Darwinian theory of natural selection, where traits are selected for or against by environmental conditions.

Yeah, a lot of people don’t realize that by Darwin’s time, the fact that animals evolved (changed over time) was already a broadly accepted scientific fact. His breakthrough was realizing the mechanism by which this change happed. Specifically, natural selection.

 

[Steampunkette]

Two legs, two arms, head, and beard better than my ugly uncle. Looks humanoid to me.

 

[Oofta]

It really doesn’t. There are lots of creatures that meet some or all of those criteria and aren’t classified as humanoid, and lots of creatures that are humanoid that don’t meet all of those criteria (especially “no innate magical abilities”).

The MM definition begs to differ. Humanoids are defined as roughly human shape and size with no innate magic. You can read additional things into it all you want.

Some things, like redcaps, are the exception to the rule because they originate from the feywild.

 

[Steampunkette]

The MM definition begs to differ. Humanoids are defined as roughly human shape and size with no innate magic. You can read additional things into it all you want.

Some things, like redcaps, are the exception to the rule because they originate from the feywild.

Redcaps are Small Creatures. This means they're not human size -and- originate from the Feywild as magically generated creatures.

One outta three is pretty bad...

 

[Lanefan]

Redcaps are Small Creatures. This means they're not human size -and- originate from the Feywild as magically generated creatures.

One outta three is pretty bad...

Ogres are Large Creatures and yet they fall under the "humanoid" umbrella in every version of the game I've ever seen.

I'm not sure size is that much of a determinant here until you get to Huge or Tiny (or their equivalents).

 

[Oofta]

Ogres are Large Creatures and yet they fall under the "humanoid" umbrella in every version of the game I've ever seen.

I'm not sure size is that much of a determinant here until you get to Huge or Tiny (or their equivalents).

Ogres are considered giants in 5E.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Ogres are Large Creatures and yet they fall under the "humanoid" umbrella in every version of the game I've ever seen.

I'm not sure size is that much of a determinant here until you get to Huge or Tiny (or their equivalents).

Ogres were giants in 5E and 3E, but humanoids in 4E. However, fire giants and such were also humanoids in 4E, albeit with the giant descriptor.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Any negative language we use to describe a creature will have, unfortunately, been used to describe a certain group of people, to make them non-human. Fear and dehumanization of the other has unfortunately always been with us and probably always will be.

I agree that some of the language should be fixed, but there will always be people who see correlations.

100%

name any negative human trait and you will see they are all used with out groups whether nations or “races.”

 

[Cadence]

Apart from their ability to produce offspring together such as half-elves and half-orcs. My understanding is that, as modern biology uses the term, this would make them all one species.

Tolkien makes a similar point about his elves in Letter #153 (1954): "Elves and Men are evidently in biological terms one race, or they could not breed and produce fertile offspring – even as a rare event." Here, Tolkien is using "race" as a synonym for "species".

Producing fertile offspring turns out not to be a great marker of being the same species - Carolina Chickadees and Black-Capped Chickadees have a widespread hybridization zone and quite a bit of study (there tends to be a fitness cost for it, but they seem fertile across generations). Hybrid Macaws on the other hand apparently become sterile over the generations. Some hybrids seem to work ok, although there is disagreement to how the taxonomy should be - Red Wolf vs. Grey Wolf+Coyote. Grizzly/Polar Bear crosses have been in the news lately. Mule-Deer can apparently breed back to either parent species. It's all over the place with plants. Ring species were mentioned previously.

 

[Steampunkette]

Oofta beat me to it.

Roll20 - Compendium and Rule Set Directory

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roll20.net

But also:

Ogre :: d20srd.org

www.d20srd.org

They were Giants in 3e.

4e made them "Giant-Kin" which are humanoids related to Giants. And 2e and earlier didn't have monster types in that sort of Magic the Gathering Keyword style... Wonder why...