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

The floating ASIs, the new races, subclasses, feats, etc. have resulted in my recent characters to be more interesting and distinct. I have more room to create characters that I really enjoy, and it's not at all about power gaming. I feel the recent changes are, for the most part, opening up design space. I'm not getting boring homongeous "humans in funny hats" at all.

This argument always seems to circle around super strong halflings, but I don't think this is even happening often enough to worry about. It is letting players focus on wise elves, smart dwarves, tough tieflings, etc. and there is nothing bland or "unrealistic" about these kinds of choices.
 

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What Racial Mechanics, impact

Warforged Culture? I would say Constructed Resilience?
Yep! Not needing to sleep, eat, drink, or breathe would impact the culture a ton. For example, they would be perfect ambassadors between aquatic races (like Merfolk) and land-dwelling races, because they don't need to breathe and can just walk around on the ocean floor to travel to the homes of the aquatic races. They also would be great at most types of labor (as shown in Eberron), because they don't need to be paid for as much as other people do in order to buy the essential things they need to be alive (food, healthcare, clothing, housing, etc). Also would be great in hazardous situations, due to their resistance to poison.
Changling Culture? Shapechanger? Thats the only rule I see.
Well, yeah, but that's literally the whole point of being a Changeling. Being able to change your physical appearance is such a versatile ability that their culture would be absolutely alien to most other races. They can adopt different personalities, live completely separate lives from their different "masks", be excellent con-artists/thieves (they don't need hide their identity while committing a crime because they can just change it at will) or actors, and so on. It's just one rule, but it would have a huge impact on the culture of the race.
Kalashtar Cutlure? Mind Link?
They're telepaths, contain two separate consciousnesses, have advantage on Wisdom saving throws (so are hard to charm/frighten/use Hold Person/Monster on, etc), and don't dream. Not dreaming would certainly impact the culture of the entire race, telepathy would allow them to communicate in an entirely new (and more effective) manner than humans (and other races) can, having two minds gives them a more objective view on reality than other people would have (two heads are better than one, and all), and they're more attuned to "spiritual" aspects of the world.
I dont think I understand your usage of the phrase 'racial mechanics impact ... culture'. I dont see it at all. That isnt to say Eberron has not provided a good culture for these races, maybe they have, but you feel these are enough to derive an entire culture from?
The races of Eberron are certainly impacted by their racial mechanics. At least, quite a few of them are. Warforged culture (if you can call it a culture, given that warforged are so new to the world) is impacted by the race's mechanics and manner of existing (being a constructed race, that is, as Warforged were originally soldiers in the Last War and are now more often indentured servants than anything else). Kalashtar culture is greatly impacted by their psionics. Changelings are a clear example of their culture being impacted by their racial abilities, because of their "racial abilities" basically just being shapechange, which hugely affects who they are. Changelings can have a culture that no other race can possibly have, entirely due to their racial ability to change their physical appearance.
EDIT: Thinking on it as I walk my dog, is this even a goal people want? If there are mechanics which drive a culture, how do you transplant that baseline race, from one setting to another?
They change, based on the setting and its theme. There's more than one way to interpret how any given race's mechanics could impact their culture. Dwarven Resilience could make dwarves more likely to drink a lot of alcohol (because they can effectively drink twice as much as other races without getting drunk), or allow them to live in environments that would make them encounter an abundance of poisons (like in a jungle with poisonous snakes, frogs, and plants). Location would differentiate the same race's culture from setting to setting.

And the lore of the world can do the rest of the work. Kalashtar culture in Eberron is highly tied to the Dreaming Dark and their Inspired thralls in Sarlona oppressing the Kalashtar, causing them to flee to Khorvaire. Kalashtar in any other world would still have telepathy's cultural impacts, as well as their other abilities, but only in Eberron do they have that part of their culture. Same applies to Warforged with the Last War, the Kryn Dynasty races with the Luxon and Dwendalian Empire, and the Mul from Dark Sun.
 

Minor correction, it's not the classes that certain races should take, but it's the ones that WotC wanted to build the system having them be more effective at playing that class (Aasimar being good clerics and paladins because they're the "holy" classes, and WotC wanted to emphasize the holy race being good at the holy class).

This also isn't really the point of the thread. The point of the thread is to discuss racial cultures and how racial mechanics can (and IMO, should) influence them. Sure, recommended classes could be a part of that culture, but it isn't all of that, and leads the way to yet another racial ASI debate.

This is addressed to everyone. Can we please steer this thread back to discussing the main topic before it inevitably gets closed for being the 10,000th Racial ASI debate?
Mechanics influencing racial culture? I'm sure that'll turn out as well as alignment based mechanics!!
 




Orcs are biologically green-geey tall, strong humanoids who can see in the dark.

There is little reason they automatically get proficiency in Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, or Survival.

Orcs could have a culture of construction. Or demolition. Or being mercenary armies. Or law enforcement. Depends on the world builders or players image of their character.

Why do elves get longsword? Biologically they should per rapiers. If anything a militia based army culture would train their people in spears over swords.

Etc etc.

Without tagging by specific settings, many of the cultural aspects of D&D racial aspect make little sense. Many D&D racial and class tropes don't work, are boring, or are unnecessarily restrictive without a setting's backbone.
 

Orcs are biologically green-geey tall, strong humanoids who can see in the dark.

There is little reason they automatically get proficiency in Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, or Survival.

Orcs could have a culture of construction. Or demolition. Or being mercenary armies. Or law enforcement. Depends on the world builders or players image of their character.

Why do elves get longsword? Biologically they should per rapiers. If anything a militia based army culture would train their people in spears over swords.

Etc etc.

Without tagging by specific settings, many of the cultural aspects of D&D racial aspect make little sense. Many D&D racial and class tropes don't work, are boring, or are unnecessarily restrictive without a setting's backbone.
Honestly? I do agree with you on this. I think that there should be a reassessment and separation of what biologically (mechanically) makes races distinct, and what is better served as interchangeable cultural fodder. It's just that I also think that if you're taking away stuff that isn't biological, then you need to add stuff in that is.
 

Honestly? I do agree with you on this. I think that there should be a reassessment and separation of what biologically (mechanically) makes races distinct, and what is better served as interchangeable cultural fodder. It's just that I also think that if you're taking away stuff that isn't biological, then you need to add stuff in that is.

Or you could just codify some aspect of the cultural system to make it customizable. TCOE started this but didn't do enough.

TCOE put proficiencies in tiers.

  1. Skills
  2. Martial weapon or armor
  3. Simple Weapon or tool
So Elves being ancient get 1 Tier 1, 2 Tier 2s, and 2 Tier 3s.

Dwarves being old get 2 Tier 2s and 4 Tier 3.

Orcs being young get 2 Tier 1s and that's it.

Then you can add more aspects in the Tiers. A Cantrip is tier 1. A superiority die is Tier 2. A maneuver is Tier 3. A spell is Tier 1. A language is tier 3.

  1. Skill proficiency, cantrip, or spell known
  2. Martial weapon or armor proficiency or a superiority die
  3. Simple Weapon or tool proficiency or a language
Once you codify the generic cultural aspects you can figure out where more biological and psychological racial aspects fit as well as other cultural aspects like Tinker.
 

Lynxen said I was "ranting" when I suggested make a list of 2-5 cultural and biological quirks for each race and giving it to the players, so they could RP the races differently.

Not at all, this was the part that I actually agreed with, I just pointed out that if all you are giving are "quirks", you will just be having humans in funny hats, and that it's very different from what I see as the right way, to give much more than that and in particular unique powers and abilities to the races and derive the race's usual cultures from this, as has been done in probably every good fantasy book and movie of the genre ever since it was created. Because it makes the worlds really fantasy worlds, rich and vibrant, with differences and surprises, not a bland mix of quirks that everyone ignores.
 

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