D&D General No More "Humans in Funny Hats": Racial Mechanics Should Determine Racial Cultures

[MichaelSomething]

When you think about it, non-humans would have trouble understanding human culture...

 

[Minigiant]

Races having different kinds of vision and different habitats could affect their culture.

For example, dwarf would not have a God of Darkness because they can see in the dark. They also would not have a God of Twilight because the difference between bright light and dim light is meaningless as it only matters for colors. Since darkvision would be used often in the dwarven would not stress Light, Darkness, and Twilight.

Whereas elves who don't sleep and might be awake and outside all the time, the transition of bright light, dim light, and darkness would be major parts of their culture. Their top gods is a magic and light god, a moon goddess, and a darkness and spiders goddess in FR.

But for humans, who can't see in the dark, Twilight and Darkness gods would have different meanings. Darkness gods would be super scary. And Twilight gods would be super serious due to the transition to the "I can't see what's out there" aspect of darkness.

In a setting, I'm creating, dwarves ignore the Light, Darkness, and Twilight (Moon and Star) gods. Elves worship all of them. Humans and halflings have churches for only the Light and Twilight gods and hunt the Darkness cults.

 

[Remathilis]

But those four traits could equally apply to Ogre or Saurian or Leonine or Loxodon, so whats the real beefy flavour of Minotaur that make it stand out from other big, virile, bestial creatures with mystical origins?

I dare you to ask that to a minotaur's face.

 

[Bolares]

To put it bluntly (and fairly extremely): If a race/class/whatever-part-of-D&D doesn't justify it's existence, it may as well not exist.

I know you said you were going to an extreme, but I kind of have a problem with this idea. it gets unconfortably close to badwrongfun. A lot of people (me included) prefer to have some options that "don't justify their existence", so we can make them our own more easily. Roleplaying games don't need to have every nook and crany curated and justified, and D&D is big enough to handle a lot of thing differently. One of Eberron's principles is "If it exists in D&D it can exist in Eberron". That doesn't mean it has to be justified in the setting, but that Eberron is open enough for you to put it there somehow. Keith Baker even says that he prefers not to have every race and class justify their existance and impact the world's culture. Sometimes you just want to play a tiny human with hairy foot, and that's ok. @AcererakTriple6 I really like most of your takes in this site, and I think we agree on most things, but I don't understand why sometimes you take the stand of "this shouldn't exist" and in fact it's just something you don't like.

 

[Minigiant]

I think ultimately the issue is many D&D fans make the races one note and one dimensional. And even when they give a race, like dwarves or elves, many aspects, they carve it all up with tons of subraces.

And the "Well I'm a human so can't get it" rings hollow with me. I can get not being up a nonhuman mannerism for long. But thinking them up? There are official mindsets and cultures given to these races. And I can't imagine it being that hard to ponder on how the racial attributes might affect cultures if you put your mind to it.

 

[Yora]

I'm not a knight or a wizard. Playing as a dwarf seems a much easier thing.

 

[Steampunkette]

When you think about it, non-humans would have trouble understanding human culture...

I meeeean...

Only to whatever degree they're not accustomed to it.

For example, any non-human that lives in houses rather than wandering around the world without any kind of place to take shelter from a storm would understand what a house is, and recognize the idea of trying to keep it safe, clean, and intact, so wouldn't bust down doors "Because it was in my way? Am I not supposed to do that?" or shatter windows in order to open them.

Any non-human that wears clothing to protect itself from the elements or engage in modesty is going to understand how clothing works and even if they don't know the particular way humans connect or color-coordinate their clothes for fashion, they're not going to be stunned at the idea of "Cloth?! ON BODY?!"

Unless they exist in an entirely anarcho-communist society, non-humans are still going to understand that there are laws and people who enforce them and people who are in authority over other people in a human society... just 'cause, y'know... S'how so many societies work.

The individual customs? Sure. It'd pretty much be no different than flying to Japan without learning about the social faux pas you can commit. You'll step on some toes and be a bit annoying, for sure, but that only works if your culture and the other one have so little contact that you don't know even cute trivia about the other culture involved.

 

[Yaarel]

I meeeean...

Only to whatever degree they're not accustomed to it.

For example, any non-human that lives in houses rather than wandering around the world without any kind of place to take shelter from a storm would understand what a house is, and recognize the idea of trying to keep it safe, clean, and intact, so wouldn't bust down doors "Because it was in my way? Am I not supposed to do that?" or shatter windows in order to open them.

Any non-human that wears clothing to protect itself from the elements or engage in modesty is going to understand how clothing works and even if they don't know the particular way humans connect or color-coordinate their clothes for fashion, they're not going to be stunned at the idea of "Cloth?! ON BODY?!"

Unless they exist in an entirely anarcho-communist society, non-humans are still going to understand that there are laws and people who enforce them and people who are in authority over other people in a human society... just 'cause, y'know... S'how so many societies work.

The individual customs? Sure. It'd pretty much be no different than flying to Japan without learning about the social faux pas you can commit. You'll step on some toes and be a bit annoying, for sure, but that only works if your culture and the other one have so little contact that you don't know even cute trivia about the other culture involved.

Yeah, when a nonhuman becomes part of a human culture, there might be a learning curve. But nonhumans learn how to be human, just like humans do.

 

[Yaarel]

Part of being a playable character race requires the ability to interact socially with other characters.

At this point we are talking about cultures, and therefor human enough.

 

[Bolares]

Yeah, when a nonhuman becomes part of a human culture, there might be a learning curve. But nonhumans learn how to be human, just like humans do.

That's another cool thing about Eberron. You are an elf from BRELAND, not an ELF from breland. Your nation is much more likelly to dictate your culture and identity than your lineage.