D&D General What is the purpose of race/heritage?

[Reynard]

Embrace the power of "and". It isn't just one reason.

I mean, you could have just kept reading.

 

[Redwizard007]

It's certainly an overwhelming number of choices for new players, but gives the variety that veterans are looking for. Limiting options in the PHB and expanding with additional books seems like a perfect system.

In my groups we have a variety of playstyles that approach race/culture/lineage entirely differently. For some, it's humans in funny hats. For others, a set of stats and abilities for optimization. Still others prefer to take a deep dive into role-playing something that is as far from human as possible. It all depends on how the table's preference intersects with that particular player.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Anyway, here's my purpose for enjoying a bunch of different races with genuinely different abilities, characteristics, and moral outlooks: I think one of the great achievements in Tolkien's fiction was to make humans secondary, where the elves occupy center stage right up until the hobbits accidentally make everything much stranger than the wise had dreamt. Why? Well, because it makes the world I as a reader enter much bigger than me. It is much bigger than my specific hominid race: humans aren't quite an afterthought, but we are, in the consensus of Middle Earth, generally less impressive than elves or even dwarves. Because of this, when I read it I read about a world that doesn't need me or indeed anyone at all like me and has wonders far beyond our narrow human priorities.

A world that doesn't need me is the only kind of world I can really believe in. A world in which I occupy the center is far too egocentric and therefore implausible.

The worlds of D&D, then, become that much more viscerally plausible to me when they contain numerous races some of whom are far more impressive than humans. It becomes a bigger world in which any of my egotistical tendencies are immediately squashed. I like that.

I do still agree with John R Davis on something, though: today there are way too many playable races and not enough straight-up monsters. People have complained about racial stereotypes on our threads before, but I flatly do not buy their arguments, and my grounds for this are simple: archetypes--especially Jungian archetypes--are not stereotypes. People who think they are don't yet understand mythology.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's because of the game mechanics.

I firmly believe we'd have more Humans in D&D if race gave no mechanical benefit whatsoever and it was purely a flavor thing a player would append to their character story upon creation.

We see all the time people here talk about not wanting or bothering with "character backgrounds" or "character histories" and instead want their story to come out of gameplay at the table. If a character's race became just one more thing you'd create in your character's "background" or "history" and had no impact at the table... I believe a large number of players would stop bothering to choose.

Some players of course would continue to select a race for their character-- those that actually created a background and past history of their PC prior to adventuring-- but that number would be less than it is now because of all the players who select non-human races because of the mechanical benefit.

Yes, I'm jaded.

 

[Scribe]

Many varied reasons, but @South by Southwest has the closest to what I look for.

 

[el-remmen]

archetypes--especially Jungian archetypes--are not stereotypes. People who think they are don't yet understand mythology.

At the risk of side-tracking this convo:

You don't think mythological archetypes are ever used to reinforce racial and gendered stereotypes - both intentionally and unintentionally?

Given that the Nazis made use of Jung for their purposes, the context of the use of so-called archetypes matter.

Which is my way of saying, "simple grounds" for rejecting complex topics are rarely, if ever, sufficient.

 

[Guest 7034872]

At the risk of side-tracking this convo:

You don't think mythological archetypes are ever used to reinforce racial and gendered stereotypes - both intentionally and unintentionally?

No, I'm not saying that at all: as you note, that has happened and will continue to. My point, rather, is this: an archetype is not at all the same thing as a stereotype. Mythological archetypes are, at their heart, about traits common to all humans; stereotypes aren't.

Will morally greasy racists elide this distinction and thereby abuse myths and literature for their resentful purposes? Both history and mythology testify to it, yeah. But when they do it they're liars.

 

[Shardstone]

People like choosing different races because different races are fun. It isn't deeper than that, because fun can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Mechanics, creating culture, looking weird, exploring identity, there's literally an uncountable infinity of reasons why someone might have more fun with one race as opposed to another. It could even be, we already have a dwarf in the party, it'll be fun to have diversity and make something else, or it'll be fun to make a dwarf too and pal around with them.

Lots of people, especially older DMs, love to try and say that people only pick races for X, Y, Z reason, and I honestly wonder how much thought these people put into this otherwise very restricted and nonsensical opinion. The LGBT+ community didn't land on the Tieflings as their iconic race because of mechanics, and taking away the magic resistance from Yuan-Ti won't make them any less my favorite race.

The long and complicated essays and dissertations on why people pick certain races really are inherently flawed because of this. They are trying to treat all demographics as one demographic. I realize that you could say, Shardstone, you're doing the same thing by saying people are just picking races for whatever their definition of fun is! But...that's the whole point of playing a game. To, somehow, have fun, even if your fun only exists because you just want to pal around with your friends.

 

[Redwizard007]

It's because of the game mechanics.

I firmly believe we'd have more Humans in D&D if race gave no mechanical benefit whatsoever and it was purely a flavor thing a player would append to their character story upon creation.

We see all the time people here talk about not wanting or bothering with "character backgrounds" or "character histories" and instead want their story to come out of gameplay at the table. If a character's race became just one more thing you'd create in your character's "background" or "history" and had no impact at the table... I believe a large number of players would stop bothering to choose.

Some players of course would continue to select a race for their character-- those that actually created a background and past history of their PC prior to adventuring-- but that number would be less than it is now because of all the players who select non-human races because of the mechanical benefit.

Yes, I'm jaded.

I can say with 100% accuracy that at least half the people I play with would take a mechanicless but cool looking race over something with mechanical benefits every single time. It's also worth noting that v human is widely considered one of the strongest race options, but there is exactly 1 out of the 15 PCs in games I'm involved in.

Edit: had a double quote

 

[ninjayeti]

I have to wonder how much these reasons are going to change with recent (and presumably future) changes to the way 5E handles races.

With floating ASIs and Custom Lineage, there is rarely a mechanical benefit to picking any race over CL. WotC also seems to be de-emphasizing races as cultures which really undercuts the idea of playing a race for lore/ RP reasons. There are really no stories, personalities or viewpoints that fit race x better than any other race in the game. Races may essentially become just a cosmetic choice.