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

[doctorbadwolf]

I 'm asking for examples of how different species can be portrayed, not a neutral, anything goes blank slate. The fact that some species have fought other species tells you practically nothing.

This really reads as if you haven’t even read the newer writeups.

The hell are you even talking about?

Please, explain what difference you’re even seeing between the newer wotc writeups and the A5e heritage writeups, that makes such a huge difference.

 

[Faolyn]

Again, you have to put  something in the core book, and that should provide as wide a spectrum of possible characterizations as possible.

But why emphasize the bigotry over information that is actually useful?

 

[Faolyn]

Except this approach also turns off many potential fans and existing fans as well.

Does it? Are there really that many people who are looking at D&D and saying "hey, these fantastic beings aren't big enough jerks to each other; I don't want to play this game now"?

Sure, I imagine that there's some people like that, but I have a feeling that those people would probably prefer a darker game to begin with, not D&D's genre of heroic fantasy. And they probably either wouldn't want to play D&D in the first place, or would have little problem turning an existing setting grittier or making their own "realistic" setting.

 

[Faolyn]

I 'm asking for examples of how different species can be portrayed, not a neutral, anything goes blank slate. The fact that some species have fought other species tells you practically nothing.

Give me a race or two and I'll do it. (Tomorrow; it's late now.)

And honestly, the fact that some species have fought other species tells you a lot about them, and more importantly, gives you, the GM, a lot leeway in how you want that conflict to manifest.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The fact that some species have fought other species tells you practically nothing.

I kinda missed this part before. This is completely false.

The orc writeup tells you that orcs are often raised on stories of their ancestral heroes fighting dwarves and elves.

Like, dude. If you don't get anything of value from that...that's on you.

 

[MGibster]

I thoroughly misunderstood how species were going to work in this new edition totally same edition of D&D coming out. I thought you'd be able to pick whatever traits you wanted for whichever species you decided to play. Or did this only apply to ability scores?

 

[Vaalingrade]

The apparent necessity of centuries old race wars and forcing players to endure in-character bigotry they may have to deal with every day (let's talk about how fun it is to be a mixed kid in the South where neither side want you dating their daughter because you're one of them and all of their kids don't know how to tell you're mixed, so they invite you to join in their racism against your relatives who don't pass! Fun fantasy tropes! Yeah, everyone should just treat as a funny mask to put on and dramatize.) aside...

The 'pick one' option is actually still lazy. And pointless since you already have Tasha's Custom Lineage. This is a straight up own goal.

 

[Faolyn]

There are legitimate criticisms to be made regarding AD&D 1st Edition's capping Strength scores differently for male and female characters, but the idea that "the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women" is in no way "bad science."

It may (or may not) be "bad science," but it's bad fiction and it's bad fantasy. You can't have female character who is blessed by the God(dess) of Strength, or a society of Amazonian women, or a culture where the women are all as strong as the men, or a woman who is even just miraculously strong when you have Strength caps.

 

[MGibster]

It may (or may not) be "bad science," but it's bad fiction and it's bad fantasy. You can't have female character who is blessed by the God(dess) of Strength, or a society of Amazonian women, or a culture where the women are all as strong as the men, or a woman who is even just miraculously strong when you have Strength caps.

Those are likely some of the "legitimate" criticisms Alzrius alluded to. Nobody here is advocating a return to strength caps or penalties for women characters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Man, I'm rereading the Origins UA document and...there's plenty of lore to work with for the elves, dwarves, and gnomes. Dragonborn and Goliath are oddly light, but Dragonborn have all of dragon lore to draw upon, and since these Goliath are tied more strongly to giants (a mistake, IMO), I guess they have all that lore to draw upon. I'd prefer Goliaths get the same amount of lore as dwarves or gnomes, and at least keep the sense of fairplay, the love of high places (which is alluded to, but very vaguely), and competitiveness. That's plenty to hang your hat on, and makes them more interesting than "im a little frost giant".

Likewise, plenty there in the halfling, even if I strongly prefer the 4e traveller halflings and wish they'd stop trying to erase the idea of halflings having cultures that live like that, not just adventurous individuals.

Still. The fact that I dislike how wotc writes species lore, what ideas they latch onto and what they ignore, etc, doesn't mean they're doing something wrong or should change course to suit me. I can and will just write my own species lore to suit my preferences.

Hell, in my games Shadar-kai aren't elves, llolth doesn't exist and drow are literally just a regional ethnicity of elves, goliath and dragonborn have never been descended from giants and dragons and have instead always been separate species from them, gnomes are much more a mix of 4e and the 3.5 Races of Stone writeup mixed with a lot of ideas from Irish mythology about the successive waves of invasion that became the little folk in the hills over the centuries, fir bolg are the oldest mortal race and invented the first written language and are related to goliaths, and a host of other stuff.


I don't think wotc should make official dnd more like my dnd. That's my job.


Now, let's look at the A5e heritage writeups, which are excellent and are one of the things that make me want to try the game in spite of the things I don't like about it.

Dragonborn...has less lore than the UA Dragonborn writeup. If you add one of the Dragonborn related cultures, like Dragonbound, you get...roughly the same amount as the Dwarf writeup in the UA. The rest is mechanical features, in both cases.

Maybe it's a fluke. NOpe! It's all of them!

It's almost like certain folks have no problem whatsoever with a specific thing, and then treat it as a huge and terrible thing when wotc does the exact same thing. Wild!