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

[Remathilis]

Removing species restrictions for classes gave more mechanical options. Making hybrid species flavour only gives us less.

2014:
Player: Can I play a half-elf/half-tiefling?
DM: sorry, the game rules say only humans and elves can mate to form half-elves.

2024:
Player: Can I play a half-elf/half-tiefling?
DM: sure. Pick one of those species for your traits, then describe your character looks and acts. Your lifespan will be the average of the two.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

2014:
Player: Can I play a half-elf/half-tiefling?
DM: sorry, the game rules say only humans and elves can mate to form half-elves.

2024:
Player: Can I play a half-elf/half-tiefling?
DM: sure. Pick one of those species for your traits, then describe your character looks and acts. Your lifespan will be the average of the two.

2014:
Player: Can I play an elf/human?
DM: Sure here it is in the PHB.

2024:
Player: Can I play an elf/human?
DM: Just pick elf or human and pretend it's what you want.

Reflavouring always been there. A player could always ask their DM if they could reflavour their tiefling as an elven tiefling rather than a human tiefling. I've done it. My last character for a 1-20 campaign was a half-elf water genasi, which used the water genasi statblock. Actual mechanical options for half elf and half orc are no longer being updated for 1dnd.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Heh, that Italian grandmother might be from Morrocco. So the grandchild is both "quarter" Italian and "quarter" Morroccan thru the same grandmother.

Seriously, who could be more Italian than Leonardo di Vinci? But recent historians suspect his mother is a Circassian Jew, who was taken into child sex slavery and via Russia ended up in Italia, where his father married her and officially freed her from slavery.

Heh, to pretend that there is such thing as "half" or "quarter" of an ethnicity sounds old fashioned and is ... wrong.

I am not saying ethnicity isn’t complex or nuanced. I think my responses have shown I get the complexity. That said, I see nothing wrong with someone saying they are half (or with Leonardo saying he is Italian

 

[Blue Orange]

Heh, that Italian grandmother might be from Morrocco. So the grandchild is both "quarter" Italian and "quarter" Morroccan thru the same grandmother.

Seriously, who could be more Italian than Leonardo di Vinci? But recent historians suspect his mother is a Circassian Jew, who was taken into child sex slavery and via Russia ended up in Italia, where his father married her and officially freed her from slavery.

Heh, to pretend that there is such thing as "half" or "quarter" of an ethnicity sounds old fashioned and is ... wrong.

Oh come on, let the Italians have da Vinci, we already have almost a quarter of the Nobels.

Your general point, of course, is valid (is an English nobleman 'really French' because of the Norman invasions?), though I think more valid in our modern era of widespread migration. An awful lot of people throughout history stayed in one place their whole lives.

It's a convenient way to talk about your heritage for most people, I think. As diversity increases I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of a demand for playing characters who have more than two ancestral lines.
"Is he half dwarf, half gnome-halfling, or half dwarf-gnome, half halfling?"
"I don't know but he just shapeshifted into...is that half man, half bearpig, or..."
<CHOMP>

 

[MGibster]

Basically means they won't be appearing in any products going forward. Which is effectively trying to remove them.

I wonder if they picked up this trick from Games Workshop. They're masters of ignoring problematic lore long enough that by the time players age out and new ones are introduced it's been forgotten by most.

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

Here in the United States, saying we're part whatever can mean a lot of things. My family on both sides can trace their origins to Scotland and if asked about my background, I'll happily say Scottish but I don't think of myself as Scottish. No Scotsman would ever in a million years think of me as Scottish. I don't eat Scottish food, participate in Scottish cultural events, I don't speak in the same dialect, and when Scotland was voting whether or stay in Great Britain I didn't understand what the issues were. (True Story: My sister mentioned our strong "Irish" background and I had to disabuse her of that notion and explain most of our ancestors hailed from Scotland originally. Though that includes the Scotch-Irish, which is even more complicated because while recognized as a distinct group in the United States, and Canada maybe, it's not recognized in Great Britain or Ireland.)

This is a sticky wicket indeed. When WotC made the switch from race to species I thought that'd be the end of it. But after this thread and others, there is no solution that will leave everyone feeling warm and fuzzy. I think WotC is just going to have to make a decision and accept that some people are going to be unhappy.

 

[Yaarel]

(is an English nobleman 'really French' because of the Norman invasions?)

Heh, of course, according to my culture, the Norman nobles in England are Nordic because these descend from Norwegians and Danes who immigrated to France along with Hrólfr / Rollo.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Heh, that Italian grandmother might be from Morrocco. So the grandchild is both "quarter" Italian and "quarter" Morroccan thru the same grandmother.

Just wanted to address this specifically. I think the thing to keep in mind, at least in the US where most of us can trace our heritage back through different waves of immigration, is what someone is talking about if they had Italian grandparents, and call themselves a quarter Italian, is their grandparents came over from Italy, continued to speak Italian and were culturally Italian. They aren't necessarily going to know what their grandparents specific ethnic break down was in Italy. So it is more about what was relevant to one's childhood and upbringing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here in the United States, saying we're part whatever can mean a lot of things. My family on both sides can trace their origins to Scotland and if asked about my background, I'll happily say Scottish but I don't think of myself as Scottish. No Scotsman would ever in a million years think of me as Scottish. I don't eat Scottish food, participate in Scottish cultural events, I don't speak in the same dialect, and when Scotland was voting whether or stay in Great Britain I didn't understand what the issues were. (True Story: My sister mentioned our strong "Irish" background and I had to disabuse her of that notion and explain most of our ancestors hailed from Scotland originally. Though that includes the Scotch-Irish, which is even more complicated because while recognized as a distinct group in the United States, and Canada maybe, it's not recognized in Great Britain or Ireland.)

That is definitely true that it can mean many different things. This also varies a lot by region in the US, and even by family. We were raised to participate in Italian cultural events, I grew up mostly on Italian food (but again that is still a bit different from what you will eat if you go to Italy), live with all my Italian relatives, also was raised celebrating certain Jewish holidays and there was Jewish, as well as some Irish culture in the household. Now if I went to Italy (which I have done), I can immediately recognize I am an American and not an Italian (though I feel strong connection to Italy, have connection to the culture, and feel strong connection to Israel and Jewish culture). I think in the US it is beautifully complex

So like I said, it is very nuanced and complicated, particularly here in the North East. In Boston, someone being Irish is still pretty significant. It isn't the same as being from Ireland, and I have no real strong culturally connection to it myself, even though it is part of my background. But I know people in the Boston area, who are Irish on both sides and there is a culture of Boston Irish that is very different from the other groups in the area. Granted there is also this thing where everyone claims to be Irish for a day on Saint Patrick's, and a lot of these old cultural divisions in Boston are changing as new waves of immigration become more relevant, but you still have large Irish sections and you still have places like the North End (which is like our Little Italy). And I can often guess a person's background just based on what part of what city they are from (again though that is changing a lot and has changed a lot over the course of my lifetime)

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is a sticky wicket indeed. When WotC made the switch from race to species I thought that'd be the end of it. But after this thread and others, there is no solution that will leave everyone feeling warm and fuzzy. I think WotC is just going to have to make a decision and accept that some people are going to be unhappy.

On this I do think you are right. Every choice is bound to upset someone. It is just one of those things where it isn't that simple (like most things in life). Which is one of the reasons I think the focus should be on what works and what is interesting. Trying to take a topic this complex and nuanced and find one solution to rule them all, is a recipe for failure (even if they go completely in a direction I don't personally want, they should really prioritize "Is this interesting, is it gameable, does it add to the game and make it more compelling over the long haul")

 

[Umbran]

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.

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