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

[Guest 85555]

I think the point here is that she is being direct because your points are very unclear and generally more as reactive to things (like "cancel culture" and "censorship") than positive arguments for. It's not being rude, it's just asking for a clarification on something that has not really been clear from the start.

Another poster engaged me fairly and I was happy to provide them. But you and I have a very different reading of the exchange with Faolyn. And I have no ill will here but I think if I don’t feel the questions are being asked in a respectful way for to to decide not to respond

My mistake quoting the wrong poster

 

[Maxperson]

Human is Homo Sapiens. A neanderthal is Homo neanderthalensis. Which is, by definition, not human. It's like calling a lion a tiger. A lion being Panthera leo, while a tiger is Panthera tigris.

So neanderthals would fit in the definition of a non human people.

Fair enough. When I meet one I will make my decision.

Until then the game is not life and vice versa. I have no need to treat one like the other and it's not wrong to treat them as distinctly different.

 

[MGibster]

Humans aren't special. Humans are also predators, we are actually vicious and cruel predators much of the time, our entire hunting strategy was running animals to exhaustion until they were too worn out to do anything except accept their inevitable death at our hands.

Is there a predator that isn't vicious and cruel?

Human is Homo Sapiens. A neanderthal is Homo neanderthalensis. Which is, by definition, not human. It's like calling a lion a tiger. A lion being Panthera leo, while a tiger is Panthera tigris.

It's been a while since I took any anthroplogy courses, but I don't think you'd find many anthropologist who would agree that Neaderthal wasn't human. I believe Homo habilis is still considered by many to be the creature we'd recognize as human and they were around 1.5-2.5 million years ago.

Other animals have verbal communication, ie speech. We have an entire language that is just whistles (Silbo Gomero) This is not unique to humans, we just tend to be more complex

Animals can communicate with one another, but it's not widely accepted that they have a language. The way we communicate with one another is fundamentally different from how animals communicate with one another.

 

[Maxperson]

Alien in thought like reptiles? You know... life. Morals, like maybe say... Naked Mole Rats... you know, mammalian life. Sure, they might not be carbon-based, but, well, every other type of life we've ever encountered has been carbon-based.

Does that mean anything? All life here on Earth has the same origins. You wouldn't be expected to have encountered non-carbon based life.

 

[Incenjucar]

People can do what they want in their home games, obviously, but I will not buy or play systems that actively play into the notion that humans are more people than non-human people are. That's a line for me. D&D gets too close to that as-is.

 

[Mecheon]

Human is Homo Sapiens. A neanderthal is Homo neanderthalensis.

Neanderthal flip-flops into H. sapiens neanderthalensis common enough . Honestly when we get to the stuff that close its not a clear differentiation but more of a fuzzy line. "Species" of course remains a notoriously inconsistent term for where differentiations are as its there's no real differentiation for where the line's drawn

Does that mean anything? All life here on Earth has the same origins. You wouldn't be expected to have encountered non-carbon based life.

I mean, we nearly had a second completely different branch of life that almost happened. Until oxygen happened and froze the early Earth, as it does

However, while personhood is our debate in question....

I understand but I would push back on the idea that orcs are people

See, this I'm going to argue with. Orcs, as presented by the game, are people and generally always have been. But, well, its also noted D&D doesn't really put much weight into making orcs their own thing, with no big example of orc civilisations or, really, anything. So, I feel its justifiable to say you'd take from other sources that do orcs

In Tolkein's work, orcs are undeniably people. People with a rough origin forced into servitude by a dark lord, but, people. People with some absolute bangers of songs (I'd link the Heroes Must Die version, but it got removed from Youtube and hasn't been re-added)
In Warhammer, orcs are people. They're fungi, sure, but they're a chaotic people who have their dreams, their desires, and all of their various personhood. Really strange people, sure, but, people
In Warcraft, orcs are people. I'd almost argue this is one of the biggest sources for 'orcs as people', but, they're people. People who had a rough go at it and have a worryingly bad chance at corruption but, people
In Elder Scrolls, orcs are people. Heck, they're just another branch of elves

"Orcs are not people" doesn't really match up with how any of the big things around present them

 

[Faolyn]

1) Other animals have verbal communication, ie speech. We have an entire language that is just whistles (Silbo Gomero) This is not unique to humans, we just tend to be more complex

To be fair, very few animals have grammar (mostly birds, IIRC), and of those animals that have been taught to speak, they almost never ask abstract or existential questions. Alex the parrot, the one with a huge vocabulary, may have been the first and possibly only. So most animals can communicate in some fashion but probably in nothing more than one concept at a time.

Mind, there are an increasing number of people who are teaching animals how to use communication boards, so I wouldn't be surprised if the number of animals shown to have a human-like type of thinking increases. (I saw a funny video of a cat who pressed the buttons for yes and treat; when the human responded by pushing no treat, the cat pressed the button for mad.)

 

[Minigiant]

See, this I'm going to argue with. Orcs, as presented by the game, are people and generally always have been. But, well, its also noted D&D doesn't really put much weight into making orcs their own thing, with no big example of orc civilisations or, really, anything. So, I feel its justifiable to say you'd take from other sources that do orcs

In Tolkein's work, orcs are undeniably people. People with a rough origin forced into servitude by a dark lord, but, people. People with some absolute bangers of songs (I'd link the Heroes Must Die version, but it got removed from Youtube and hasn't been re-added)
In Warhammer, orcs are people. They're fungi, sure, but they're a chaotic people who have their dreams, their desires, and all of their various personhood. Really strange people, sure, but, people
In Warcraft, orcs are people. I'd almost argue this is one of the biggest sources for 'orcs as people', but, they're people. People who had a rough go at it and have a worryingly bad chance at corruption but, people
In Elder Scrolls, orcs are people. Heck, they're just another branch of elves

"Orcs are not people" doesn't really match up with how any of the big things around present them

That is the thing.

The Orc lore/fluff of 0e and 1e was strictly made for dungeons and random wilderness encounters. There was no thought into orcs outside of the fight.

LOTR, WH, Warcraft, Might and Magic, and TES they all had to think about what is the orc is outside the battlefield.

The default orc loredidn't make sense outside the battle because little thought was put into it.

And that's fine. As long as you never think of orcs outside of battle.

But if you do think about D&D orc out of combat, it doesn't make sense, don't offer much to use, niche, or is bland.

And you definately can't use default orc for a a PC. Hence the creation of half orc. LOTR, WH, Warcraft, Might and Magic, and TES didn't need half orcs.

But fans stated: "Other media made orcs people. Why doesn't D&D just make orcs people?"

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I love Kruthik, they make a great enemy because they are basically super ants that look monstrous and weird. Giving some mutants some spellcasting is a great idea.

I like kruthiks, and one thing I considered as a way to make them scale into higher CR is to give them hivemind qualities similar to the Slivers of MTG. Maybe there are 5 varieties, and every variety has a unique quality that is shared with all kruthiks within 120 feet of each other.

Imagine a 9th level party going up against 10 mid-CR mutant kruthiks, with like 5 different varieties among them. You can just fight the swarm, or you can make tactical targeting choices. If you kill both of the blue kruthiks, they all lose their "wings" mutation, and stop being able to fly. Kill both of the black kruthiks, they all lose the ability spit acid. Kill the biggest one, and they all lose their +4 AC buff. Kill the small one in the back and they all stop regenerating HP, stuff like that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Again we are just going to have to disagree on this question (though I think this is a question that reasonable people can answer differently). From a metaphysical standpoint I do think humans are special but I recognize that is more in the realm of personal belief. More broadly I would say we are special precisely because we have yet to meet a species that is as advanced as we are in terms of the production of culture, our intelligence, self understanding, ability to create complex things. Now there may be another alien species out there that has also done this but we haven’t encountered them yet so we don’t know and if we did, we would recognize they are also special

That is a fair point. However, there is also the risk that if we rely on unproven metaphysical reasons to claim we are "special" then even if we encounter another species that can do everything we can do, we can claim they are not special, because they lack that metaphysical element. Something that we have a long history of attempting to do.

I do get the argument that sapience plus free will equals personhood. I just find that proposition dicey as we have yet to encounter about her sapient species (with the possible exception of dolphins—who I can see bring sapient but not bring persons—-and we don’t know what extending the concept to non-humans would truly mean (we just might find they are so different if incomprehensible that personhood isn’t an appropriate designation. I think further personhood should never be separated out from humanity for ethical reasons because 1) the concept clearly is an outgrowth of the concept of humanity and a reflection of us “, 2) doing so opens the door to denying other humans personhood if they can be described as either non-sapient or lacking free sufficient free will (and you can quickly see the dark turn that can take—-which is also why sapience + free will never seemed fully satisfactory to me )

But it is precisely in fantasy and sci-fi that we explore these questions, and in the exploration of these ideas, try and peer into the future to understand the trials and challenges.

For example, you claim an ethical reason for never separating "person" from "human" because it may deny personhood to humans. However, I have also encountered stories where the opposite was explored. I have been told, by many people, that a digital construct cannot be a person, cannot be human. A writer wrote a story about a person whose mind was digitally downloaded into a computer, therefore since that was a digital construct and not a person, they were free to endlessly torture this individual. It was no crime. It was no moral failing, because it wasn't a person, it was a thing. Even though the person was in a coma, and their mind was in the machine. You cannot torture a digital thing after all.

We run a serious risk when we ascribe certain rights, benefits and privileges to "people" and then make sure that "people" can only be humans. Because while we have never encountered another sapient, free-willed species, we are both trying to create one and statistically nearly guaranteed to meet one in the future of our species. And when we meet them, we need to be ready to either accept that they are people, or consign ourselves to repeating the worst moments of our history as we declare them "non-people" and therefore lacking any right to consideration.