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

[Scribe]

Level Up is much more that game, for me anyway. And I can tweak it the rest of the way.

Some of it I liked, quite a bit, some not.

 

[MGibster]

They may change how race works in D&D multiple times over editions, but I think either way I'll still have fun with the game. We'll still be butt kicking for goodness.

 

[gamerprinter]

Consider the opposite. I have inklings of building a weird west setting, but instead of making an Old West like setting, I prefer to use 19th century Earth, which means the only race you could play is human. I want to incorporate real world history and historical figures, along side, myth, folklore and cosmic horror. Non-humans would be monsters, for all intents. While I'd love to build such a setting, I fear, it wouldn't sell, nobody would want to play a setting where human is the only viable race. Multitudes of cultures, and not necessarily historical representations of past racist beliefs, but even if roughly based on Earth, makes humans the only race.

What's the purpose of race/heritage - reasons to get people to play your game!

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Races, like ability scores, are something I don't think you can remove from DnD. But they also don't quite have a specific design space that they fill, since theoretically background can cover all the stuff about home culture you would look to race for.

Which I think is the best use of races: to broadly define a home culture for the character (background covers what you did, not where your from) in a way that doesn't require knowing the setting. That's the thing about dwarves: if you're familiar with fantasy fiction from the past 30 years, you have a mental image of dwarves that's boht vague and flexible while being surprisingly complete. Just saying "My character is a dwarf" gives the other players a lot of implied background to work with - even if none of the details are fixed, the shape of the culture is known broadly enough.

You can play against those tropes, but you can only play against tropes if those tropes exist.

Dwarves, elves, and orcs have this by virtue of longevity in DnD (which influences all other fantasy media), and goblins have equally old and established roots on fantasy in general. Dragonborn and tieflings work off of even broader well-known tropes (the proud warrior race from, like every sci-fi and fiendishnes) so they work too. Halflings and gnomes are quite as good but are close enough, and a few other races seem to work in my own experience (goliaths, centaurs).

Animal-people races lean on animal tropes, so they works to varying degrees, although in general I find them lacking since most animal tropes imply personality but not culture.

You could detail a bunch of human cultures and this theoretically should work - but in practice I find it often falls flat because you need every player to be well-versed in all of the made-up cultures in the setting which just never seems to happen. After all, it's a pretty hard-core Tolkien nerd who can talk about the culture of Gondor since that isn't in the novels or movies. (except for some royals we don't meet many). I suppose if I had a table of big-time Wheel of Time fans I could pull it off, but asking someone who hasn't read the whole series several times to join the table would leave them lost or confused.

But dwarves - I don't care what you've read or which games you've played, you know the stereotypes about dwarves. And that's enough.

Thing is, playable species in DnD are more than just culture. They're physical traits as well.

For example aarokocra have wings. They can fly. That's not cultural. The same with many physical traits like lizardfolk jaws, triton water breathing, goliath's size, and dragonborn breath.

 

[Minigiant]

This is why I think race should be purely the physical, mental, and spiritual characteristic of a race.

A bugbear has long arms so their attacks have 5f oot extra reach

Minotaurs' minds remember and map every place they've been so they can't get lost and always know how to move in a maze.

Deva are from the astral plane so they can be resurrected past the duration of revival magic.

Culture, caste, and history would be up to the setting or DM.

 

[Mind of tempest]

This is why I think race should be purely the physical, mental, and spiritual characteristic of a race.

A bugbear has long arms so their attacks have 5f oot extra reach

Minotaurs' minds remember and map every place they've been so they can't get lost and always know how to move in a maze.

Deva are from the astral plane so they can be resurrected past the duration of revival magic.

Culture, caste, and history would be up to the setting or DM.

there is one flaw in this line of thinking most dm are not qualified world builders thus most copy-paste what is available to them so you end up with very little depth, not that your line of thinking is wrong but it has an obvious flaw in its line of thinking when dealing with our situation.

 

[Minigiant]

there is one flaw in this line of thinking most dm are not qualified world builders thus most copy-paste what is available to them so you end up with very little depth, not that your line of thinking is wrong but it has an obvious flaw in its line of thinking when dealing with our situation.

I'm just suggesting taking culture and social out of race. There can still be a lore write up but culture shifts to background or theme.

 

[MGibster]

there is one flaw in this line of thinking most dm are not qualified world builders thus most copy-paste what is available to them so you end up with very little depth, not that your line of thinking is wrong but it has an obvious flaw in its line of thinking when dealing with our situation.

I'm curious, what does it mean to be a qualified world builder? How does one even become qualified world builder? Are most GMs qualified writers? I know I've written my own scenarios, but I don't have a certification in character design. Since 1974, each edition of D&D has operated under the assumption that you are qualified to build your own world.

 

[Reynard]

I'm curious, what does it mean to be a qualified world builder? How does one even become qualified world builder? Are most GMs qualified writers? I know I've written my own scenarios, but I don't have a certification in character design. Since 1974, each edition of D&D has operated under the assumption that you are qualified to build your own world.

You have to be licensed by the International Guild of Worldbuilding Experts. It's an 8 week correspondence course and a 6 hour exam in which you have to invent one language and at least three completely unique cultures. Inclusion of gnomes causes automatic failure.

 

[Mannahnin]

Inclusion of gnomes causes automatic failure.

Spoiler! You'll be sanctioned by the guild for this!