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

[Mannahnin]

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 think there are lots of players who enjoy nonhuman races/heritages for nonmechanical reasons.

But I can happily admit that as a somewhat competitive-minded player, who likes options and powers, that the first time I regularly played humans in D&D is when 3rd edition actually gave them benefits beyond class selection, and let them multiclass like everyone else.

Similar to how the first time I played a single-classed Fighter for any length of time was in 4th ed, once Fighters got cool options and abilities.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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

Yeah... and that means the other half is taking the mechanics. So what would they do if/when mechanics were removed from all the races? Would they care what race they were playing?

(You don't have to bother answering, because we both know the answer and indeed my original point is meaningless anyway. One respondent does not invalidate my claim, but then again my claim doesn't even matter since mechanics will never be removed from the racial write-ups. So me being right or wrong matters not one wick, LOL.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think there are lots of players who enjoy nonhuman races/heritages for nonmechanical reasons.

I agree. They're just fewer in number than those who enjoy races based upon the mechanics (including the ASIs) they get with their selection, in my opinion.

 

[Laurefindel]

I like the game mechanics variety that multiple races/ancestries bring to the game.
I like the aesthetics and archetypes variety that multiple races/ancestries bring to the game.

For me, the two are essential to high fantasy games, but I am rather torn as to whether the two need to be intrinsically linked or not.

That being said, variety doesn't necessarily means abundance. As a matter of fact, I prefer a more focused, small(ish) selection to a wide range of possible choices. Somewhere between 4 and 8 is my ideal.

 

[Blue]

1. Because our real world myths and legends are so varied. The number of players I know who want to play a fairie or eladrin because they are fae connected is pretty high. The Hobbit made me personally want to play a halfling. Plenty out there made me want to play dwarves.

2. Because there are intelligent races out in our settings and they want to experience playing either as them, or as a half-breed of them in some incarnation or another.

3. To be able to be truly different. This doesn't come up as much in 5e as it did in earlier editions but to be the 6" tall winged pixie, or the half-ogre, or the centaur, or the blood-of-demons, or whatever.

4. To be a part of the setting. If you look at a setting with races built for them you can see things like Dark Sun Muls and Half-Giants. Eberron really gave the races their own identities as well as not just introducing the Warforged and the Kalashar but tying them strongly to the world and it's history. I'm playing in an Ancient Greek themed game and I'm playing a satyr.

5. For the mechanics. Because it is a game, and racial abilities are part of the customization you can do at character creation time.

6. To play against type. The dwarven wizard, the half orc sorcerer, and so on. To combine two parts of your identity that don't normally go together in order to create a unique whole.

 

[Celebrim]

Like any 'why does anything exist' question, I think this is going to have a very complicated answer.
Tolkien is a big part of this. While lots of fantasy had non-human characters they were rarely protagonists in their own right. This is one of those as old as dirt tropes that probably goes back to Greek myth with its nymphs, satyrs, centaurs, cyclops and harpies. Yes, you did have non-human races around, but they were supporting characters and monsters in the stories of the heroes. Tolkien is the one that really popularized fantasy beings as separate but equal races to man, worthy of having their own protagonists and stories told. And so between Tolkien, all the Tolkien imitators, and European myth whether Greek or Germanic, fantasy has ended up with the expectation of a lot of fantastic races living in enchanted corners of the world. So D&D has races to draw on that well of mythic story telling, and in turn D&D helped promote the resulting archetypes into stock fantasy figures of a shared consensus fantasy common to all of gaming and for a while most fantasy literature.

I think the second thing to consider is just how limited the character building options in early D&D actually were. Pretty much the game started with everyone being a man-of-arms and grew from that as players began to show a desire to diversify, differentiate, and fulfill new roles. As class roles began to fill out, race became a really important lever to pull if you wanted to differentiate your character from other PCs. It's this nicely visible short cut to getting characterization and differentiating your fighter from your neighbor's fighter. Race, class, and alignment became the very early ways to tie mechanical chargen to to character. How do I roleplay this character? Well, he's a lawful neutral, elven, magic-user. That's a real starting point, and it's likely to give you a character that is different than any other character in the party without having to go deep into method acting and developing quirks, characteristic patterns of speech, backstory, and otherwise doing a lot of heavy lifting that was often tangential to the player's primary aesthetics of play.

And I think the third thing, the one that is least interesting to me but which is often most interesting to many players, is the fact that mechanical diversity gives you build options where you can try to optimize and squeeze the most power out of your character, letting you win, letting you exert narrative force, etc. There are definitely players that love acquiring and displaying system mastery, and like there are players that enjoy the 'lonely fun' of chargen and just cranking out character designs as much as GMs like world building, rulesmithing, and adventure writing.

 

[Laurefindel]

This is close to me. I dont necessarily see myself as a "power gamer" or optimized min/maxer, but I definitely pour over the options and enjoy putting a mechanical package together. I always complete that with a character that fits the GMs campaign and has their own unique personality. I also consider what the other players are choosing as well. I think the game works better when played as a group as opposed to individuals using the same rules. YMMV.

As for the the purpose, I think its to give a wide variety of options for play. It helps build out settings and flavor of a game too. Some folks want a simple dungeon delver, but I want the full fantasy package. Any given campaign might need a particular feel of character and having a wide variety helps make that possible. Also, YMMV.

I too enjoy the character building mini-game very much. Races and classes being "sold" in packages is a big plus for me; I much prefer it to an à la carte piecemeal system. Whether a character has personality or is a 'soulless' husk has nothing to do with it.

 

[Cruentus]

As a player, I use a different race/heritage if I want to lean into a particular area of the world I'm in (if it fits in the DM's world, per se), or just to explore some aspect of that race/heritage from old lore, or background. I don't particularly care about the mechanical benefits, they clutter up my character sheet.

As a DM, I see players take races/heritages based upon sheer numbers. "which one gives me +1 Wis? which one gives me +1 Dex?" are common call outs at the table. And the fact that they all have some sort of spellcasting (usually), and darkvision. When DnD dropped level limits for non humans, non humans were selected more often than humans in games I run.

When 5.5 just uses floating ASIs, my guess is that it won't matter what the PC looks like, just pick what stats you want bumped, pick what abilities you want to start with, jobs a good un. Race and heritage won't be emphasized in the rules, but DMs and players will be free to add those things in if they want.

 

[Zaroden]

Frankly?

It would make more sense if the heritage determined what class status or geographical location or circumstances the person finds themselves in.

But biologically? I don't think it should matter.

 

[Shardstone]

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.

A cosmetic choice is not mutually exclusive from stories, personalities, and lore. You make the lore at the table. Most tables aren't pretending that these races just exist in a vacuum and going into no detail about them; tables homebrew their own campaigns or take lore from elsewhere and fit it to the races.

This idea that not prepackaging tons of lore means that no one will have lore with their races is a backwards view of what actually happens at DND tables, including your own.