D&D (2024) Half Race Appreciation Society: Half Elf most popular race choice in BG3

[Micah Sweet]

According to the playtest, the lineage is a "supernatural" feature. It seems negatable by antimagic. Since the lineages include "spells", a "lineage" probably is vulnerable to antimagic. Certainly the spells of a lineage are vulnerable to antimagic, and the supernatural darkvision and the supernatural waterbreathing are arguably vulnerable to antimagic too.

In any case, the 2024 core rules need to present the Elf and to characterize its features in a way that is 100% free from any trace of racism.

Again with need. Do they need to do this to make you happy, or is there some more objective reason why they "need" to do this?

 

[Cadence]

Questions of heredity (which is really what you're asking if you're making determinations of whether any trait is "biological" or "inherently magical") don't have any real answers provided in the PHB or other supporting books, as far as I know.

Would the orphaned child of two wood elves raised among sea elves since infancy gain the sea elf abilities, including water breathing? I think that's up to the setting definitions to decide, although the "elven mutability" sidebar in the sea elf description in MotM would provide some textual support for elven children being fairly mutable in terms of their "racial" abilities.

A world where all baby elves have both air and water breathing, and most (all?) have it turn in to one of the other eventually is certainly a way someone could set up the works. It feels like it's a pretty big change relative to anything that's ever been in print before (the fore-runners of today's elves being mutable back when not withstanding).

 

[Yaarel]

Again with need. Do they need to do this to make you happy, or is there some more objective reason why they "need" to do this?

For the sake of business ethics.

For the sake of the WotC corporation owning D&D as a product that remains a popculture phenomenon with international appeal.

D&D 2024 must eliminate every trace of racism − root and branch.

Especially from the player-facing core rules of the Players Handbook.

 

[TwoSix]

A world where all baby elves have both air and water breathing, and most (all?) have it turn in to one of the other eventually is certainly a way someone could set up the works. It feels like it's a pretty big change relative to anything that's ever been in print before (the fore-runners of today's elves being mutable back when not withstanding).

Seems to me to be the most coherent direction the rules are going to end up taking us. Since no one can make an elven infant as a PC, the actual capabilities of elven infants are relatively immaterial outside of lore building.

 

[Cadence]

The issue, of course, is how you support multiple settings when there are finite resources (time, page count, etc) to do it. Elves (to use the go-to example) are present in every world and each world does something a little (or a lot) different with them. That makes it hard to inform a generic "elf" culture, society, religion, even appearance.So,o you get what 5e has done; elven information is a mile-wide and an inch deep. Contrast that to Pathfinder, who has developed elves as Golarion sees them, and you can use that information to inform design choices. (As a second good example, Golarion goblins undertook a radical shift from 1e to 2e, which was partially explained away in canon, something they could do since they only had to worry about Golarion. In D&D, the change to orcs from villain to hero is a confusing jumble of mismatched lore, retcons, and don't-think-about-it. If they only had to deal with one setting, they could move forward with a moment where orcs are elevated to the status of PC race (they overthrow Gruumsh, prove their valor fighting side-by-side against a demon, army, form the Kingdom of Many-Arrows 2, etc). But instead we're getting a "orcs are strong" sort of generic filler any if we're lucky they will explain how the changes to orcs work in the next Faerun or Oerth or whatever guide...

It kind of feels like being more generic has worked for D&D, at least in terms of its popularity compared to all single setting fantasy games (combined?).

 

[TwoSix]

For the sake of business ethics.

For the sake of the WotC corporation owning D&D as a product that remains a popculture phenomenon with international appeal.

D&D 2024 must eliminate every trace of racism − root and branch.

Especially from the player-facing core rules of the Players Handbook.

Ethics definitely falls in the category of "nice to have" rather than "need" in a commercial product.

 

[Cadence]

Seems to me to be the most coherent direction the rules are going to end up taking us. Since no one can make an elven infant as a PC, the actual capabilities of elven infants are relatively immaterial outside of lore building.

It would certainly lead to some different inter-elf-group kidnapping stories and feed into some changeling things in the older inspirational literature.

 

[Mistwell]

This is a playtest looking for feedback.

Correct?

The feedback is: Eliminate all racism from D&D. All of it. Everywhere. Here are some ways to do it.

And yet you acknowledge: 1) Forgotten Realms is rife with racism, and 2) Forgotten Realms should remain the default setting and used as an example for this very species topic we're discussing?

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Heh.

But I assume the 2024 Players Handbook will continue to default to the FR (Forgotten Realms) setting.

I wonder how much people would object if they switched back to the points of light setting...

 

[Micah Sweet]

For the sake of business ethics.

For the sake of the WotC corporation owning D&D as a product that remains a popculture phenomenon with international appeal.

D&D 2024 must eliminate every trace of racism − root and branch.

Especially from the player-facing core rules of the Players Handbook.

And what happens if they don't do that to your personal satisfaction? You know, like I presume they've not done with every previous edition?