D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Yaarel]

the problem with “part” if someone is half, is it diminished that aspect of their identity and upbringing. If half your concept and experience of your background is X, that being labeled part X just feels like it isn’t giving full weight to it.

Humans are almost never "half". DNA demonstrates this fluidity clearly. Almost every gene pool is an admixture of many other gene pools.

Ethnicity is fluid.

For example, in the US South, many Whites include Black DNA, such as children or grandchildren of Black slaves who were raised as White. In Norway, I know one of my ancestors is Sámi. I am about to check my own DNA, and am curious to see which ethnicities I come from. I look forward to clarifying the complexities.

BRG, you mention your wife being a member of an other ethnicity. Via your wife, you are a member of the community of that ethnic group. That ethnicity is part of who you are. Likewise, your wife is also a member of your ethnicity.

Any kids you two have might self-identify with one ethnicity, the other, both, or neither.

An ethnicity is like a family that includes the possibility of adoption.

 

[Bagpuss]

It’s not that having shared traits is the issue.

The issue is the language used in half races. Misfits. Cannot belong to either culture. Face fetishization or bigotry. On and on and on.

And it’s based on a history in the game that’s even more problematic. In 2e it was impossible for a half elf to have a half elf child unless the other parent was a full elf. After all, in 2e rules, being less than 50% elf made you human. Never minding the language that states that you could be 99% elf but still be considered a half elf.

That’s the problem.

That's not the problem that's the feature.

Look at the #7 post in this thread @doctorbadwolf shows that this sense of being part of both cultures, but at the same time not part of either is a real lived experience for lots of people of mixed heritage and something they can identify with, with the way half-races are represented in fantasy. Representation matters, even if it is problematic and based on other people's bigotry.

Plus even if you aren't part of the minority, playing a character like that can help you empathise with their plight.

The desire to sanitize D&D by WotC removing racism and bigotry, and all sorts of problematic content is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Part of why people have found RPGs so appealing is it gives a chance to deal with issues in a safe space through allegory, if you remove all the problems because you think words are harmful even in a safe space among friends, it removes that appeal.

 

[Proxior Lord of Dementia]

Mod Note:
Do you really want to take the position of Arbiter of Offense? Do you feel that's going to turn out well?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. It won't (and didn't) turn out well. You get to speak for yourself, but not others.




Making it personal will also turn out badly.


@Hussar and @Bedrockgames It looks about time that you two disengage from each other before things get worse. Thanks.

what the heck is this? If ever I needed to know what a community was about, it was when an adult decided to tell another adult having a conversation that they needed to disengage. What patronizing claptrap.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Humans are almost never "half". DNA demonstrates this fluidity clearly. Almost every gene pool is an admixture of many other gene pools.

Ethnicity is fluid.

For example, in the US South, many Whites include Black DNA, such as children or grandchildren of Black slaves who were raised as White. In Norway, I know one of my ancestors is Sámi. I am about to check my own DNA, and am curious to see which ethnicities I come from. I look forward to clarifying the complexities.

I get that if you run a genetics test, you are likely to get a more complicated picture of a person. And complexity is one of the reasons I think saying the term “half is a problem” is an issue. Identity is about more than just your skin tone, it also is about culture, your awareness of your background, self identification, etc. I think when most people say “I am half X and half Y” it is more about acknowledging the backgrounds both of their parents expressed (if you just label one of those part, it is like denying one of your parent’s backgrounds).

But it is complicated and nuanced so I think the points you are raising are valid

BRG, you mention your wife being a member of an other ethnicity. Via your wife, you are a member of the community of that ethnic group. That ethnicity is part of who you are. Likewise, your wife is also a member of your ethnicity.

This gets complex. I wouldn’t quite go that far but at the same time, in terms of culture, absolutely yes there is change and cross over that happens when you marry someone or are with them for a long time. I have learned to communicate (albeit not in an advanced way) in another language with her, many of her cultural expectations are part of our household (for example I address her how she would be addressed in her culture, and she addresses me the way someone in her culture would address me based on our respective ages and genders), and we are both religious but have different religious backgrounds, but our beliefs have affected one another and we both have much deeper understanding and respect for the other’s religious faith). But I don’t think that makes me half or part anything. It just means culture is fluid.

An ethnicity is like a family that includes the possibility of adoption.

This is a very important point. And I think his someone views their identity is going to vary from one person to the next. My business partner was adopted and I learned a lot about this from him. Not everyone looks like or meets our expectations of their identity

 

[Yaarel]

@Bedrockgames

"Part" can mean 20%, 80%, 50%, or whatever.

It is normal to say, "I am part Polish and part Irish", or "part Cherokee and part Japanese", or so on.

Even tho these are drastic oversimplifications, they are convenient to convey a general idea of ones origins.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Look at the #7 post in this thread @doctorbadwolf shows that this sense of being part of both cultures, but at the same time not part of either is a real lived experience for lots of people of mixed heritage and something they can identify with, with the way half-races are represented in fantasy. Representation matters, even if it is problematic and based on other people's bigotry.

Plus even if you aren't part of the minority, playing a character like that can help you empathise with their plight.

I think it was roger Ebert who used to call movies Empathy Machines, because they put you in the shoes of another human being. I think RPGs are similar. Obviously watching a movie or playing a character won’t make you fully understand a person’s experience, but it can open your mind towards understanding a different point of view and experience.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm still not sure why making hybrid-species have different traits to their parent species is racist or problematic? Irl hybrid species are like this.

I get why it's an issue mechanically though... Having just elf-human and human-orc but nothing else leaves people wanting things like dwarf-humans or elf-orcs with nothing. But implementing things to allow mixing of every species is just a powergamers dream, and would be by definition not backwards compatible with everything before 1dnd.

Conceptually, there is nothing wrong with it. But mechanically they are stuck between a rock and a hard place because species weren't designed to be that modular and any system to make them is going to be complex, prone to abuse, and not backwards incompatible. My personal fear is also that certain combinations end up mechanically superior and all of a sudden, everyone* is playing halfling/tieflings because luck mixes well with infernal heritage** and nobody plays regular tieflings or halflings anymore.

* "Everyone" meaning anyone who is opting for mechanical advantage over aesthetic preference. Much of the ASI argument was about aesthetic choice over mechanical advantage. I'd hate to see people feeling they need to be mixed to optimize.

** Or whatever combo ends up being OP.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames

"Part" can mean 20%, 80%, 50%, or whatever.

It is normal to say, "I am part Polish and part Irish", or "part Cherokee and part Japanese", or so on.

Even tho these are drastic oversimplifications, they are convenient to convey a general idea of ones origins.

I guess when I hear someone say I am part Polish, my mind goes to 20 percent, 10 percent, five percent. If they are 25%, and identify as such, I would expect to hear them say “I am a quarter Polish”—-or maybe half if they were raised by a culturally parent. If 50 percent I would expect “half”. If over that I would expect them to say “I am mostly Polish” or simply “I am Polish”. Not saying this is accurate or true, it’s just the language I encountered growing up when I did in the North East

 

[Bedrockgames]

Conceptually, there is nothing wrong with it. But mechanically they are stuck between a rock and a hard place because species weren't designed to be that modular and any system to make them is going to be complex, prone to abuse, and not backwards incompatible. My personal fear is also that certain combinations end up mechanically superior and all of a sudden, everyone* is playing halfling/tieflings because luck mixes well with infernal heritage** and nobody plays regular tieflings or halflings anymore.

* "Everyone" meaning anyone who is opting for mechanical advantage over aesthetic preference. Much of the ASI argument was about aesthetic choice over mechanical advantage. I'd hate to see people feeling they need to be mixed to optimize.

** Or whatever combo ends up being OP.

This is why I think it's better to have half orcs and half elves as the two options. Half elves have been in all the advanced editions. Half orcs have been in most of them. Designers can look at how they functioned in each one, see what worked, what might not have, tweak accordingly, but not disrupt overall balance too much. Adding in more options would potentially upset that balance, but the whole heritage route, again I just find that deeply unsatisfying for how D&D operates. The old method of making them races you can choose gives them mechanical heft, and gives them plenty of flavor that matches that mechanical heft

 

[Yaarel]

I guess when I hear someone say I am part Polish, my mind goes to 20 percent, 10 percent, five percent. If they are 25%, and identify as such, I would expect to hear them say “I am a quarter Polish”—-or maybe half if they were raised by a culturally parent. If 50 percent I would expect “half”. If over that I would expect them to say “I am mostly Polish” or simply “I am Polish”. Not saying this is accurate or true, it’s just the language I encountered growing up when I did in the North East

A person whose parents are from two ethnicities is both 100% the one ethnicity and 100% the other ethnicity, simultaneously.

So for me "50%" sometimes makes less sense.

Even the attempt to quantify it creates the impression that DNA, culture, and ethnicity are essentialist, when in fact they are fluid, miscible, and evolving.