D&D General Race Has No Mechanics. What do you play?

[Corinnguard]

That said, and I know this seems like a mutually exclusive concept, race and class effectively IS background.

Background is just one facet of who your character is. It's the job they had before they decided to become an adventurer. Race and class are two other facets of who your character is.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Flippantly, because species isn't race. I'm happy to throw the concept of "species" under the bus exactly because the first question for years has been pick your fantasy race and class. That said, and I know this seems like a mutually exclusive concept, race and class effectively IS background.

And the mutual exclusion works because the question is, given this scenario, would you play this, not would you advocate for it to be a change to the rules overall. The question is, would you accept it as a houserule for a specific game, and what would you play.

Or at least that's how I understand it.

species is race, just under a newer more linguistically accurate and appropriate label, but your background is a separate different thing from species, my character's species is not a town guard or an acolyte it is an elf or dragonborn, a Background is a mechanical thing it's not just referring to your backstory, and i wasn't even speaking exclusively to this thread and it's premise, species' mechanics and significance seems to be gradually getting pushed out in favour of making background more and more the thing to care about in new editions of this game in general.

 

[Desdichado]

Background is just one facet of who your character is. It's the job they had before they decided to become an adventurer. Race and class are two other facets of who your character is.

I'm not even sure how to answer that beyond just: no. You're absolutely wrong.

But I'll try. You asked why throw race (and potentially class) under the bus for background. Because your background can already do what race did, and maybe even class in some rules-lighter versions of the game. Picking your race is like a template that gives you potential roleplaying hooks and some minor mechanical customization. That's also exactly what background is. They are literally the same thing. If you want more than one template with some roleplaying hooks and minor mechanical customization, you can take more than one background and it would be exactly the same.

 

[Reynard]

race and class effectively IS background.

Secondary skills are your background, actually.

 

[Desdichado]

species is race, just under a newer more linguistically accurate and appropriate label, but your background is a separate different thing from species, my character's species is not a town guard or an acolyte it is an elf or dragonborn, a Background is a mechanical thing it's not just referring to your backstory, and i wasn't even speaking exclusively to this thread and it's premise, species' mechanics and significance seems to be gradually getting pushed out in favour of making background more and more the thing to care about in new editions of this game in general.

I'm not going to get into the justifications for why "species is better" because it's not. Also most people who confidently throw out a middle school definition of species have no idea of the debate and difficulties current in academic biology, especially with all of the data that genetics is adding to the discussion, in defining what a species actually is. They're literally not prepared to have a meaningful discussion about it. Especially if they're going in hot and dogmatic about what is a pretty superficial and out of date understanding of the problem.

But to your other point, it sounds like you need more interesting backgrounds.

 

[Desdichado]

Secondary skills are your background, actually.

I should probably clarify... I'm not super informed about 5e mechanics. I'm talking about backgrounds more generally as they've been used in the hobby and even in some versions of D&D, D&D settings and D&D spinoffs.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I DMed a Centaur PC for quite some time and it was something of a headache now and then.

The first challenge wasn't ladders, but simple stairs. The player aced every roll, though, to the point where I just said OK, you've got stairs figured. But ladders? Hard no.

Why would a centaur have problems with stairs? They’re as smart as a human and wouldn’t have a horse’s difficulties.

The next challenge was, if it can't climb a ladder, how do we get it up there? It's too heavy to levitate or use any flight device we have, and hauling it up by rope ain't easy. The only recourse they had was the actual Fly spell, which I'd long-ago ruled works on any living target regardless of its size.

I don’t think I’ve seen a ladder in play in the past 30 years. And I’ve been gaming multiple times a week for the past 10.

An ongoing and constant player-side challenge was all the places where the damn thing simply didn't fit. Horses (and thus Centaurs) can't crawl if the ceiling gets low and aren't good at squeezing into narrow spaces (I was lucky here; I know nothing at all about horses but one of the other players was a horse enthusiast, so I just asked her for the details of what a horse could and couldn't do).

Centaurs are medium sized, so they should be able to fit anywhere a human can.

Another ongoing challenge was stealth, to which the clop-clop-clop of hooves on hard surfaces is not kind.

I have never seen a stealth penalty for centaurs, but they could wear soft shoes if it was likely to come up.

The flip side was this Centaur - a Fighter by class - came with some nice mechanical benefits built in. Extra kick attacks, for example, to front or rear (but not both at once!). A major bonus on attacks when charging. Etc.

I’ve also never seen a centaur with a major bonus to charge attacks.

 

[Scribe]

I should probably clarify... I'm not super informed about 5e mechanics. I'm talking about backgrounds more generally as they've been used in the hobby and even in some versions of D&D, D&D settings and D&D spinoffs.

Yeah, there is a disconnect due to this.

There is background (your species, class, and of course your bespoke tragic backstory) and there is Background, which is a rules container within 5e which brings associated other rules and impacts at a mechanical level.

 

[Baron Opal II]

How different? Norse people are generally different than southeast Asian people. Should they have mechanical differences?

If you can describe how they are different, and there being a situation where that difference matters, then yes.
If not, then no.

 

[Corinnguard]

But I'll try. You asked why throw race (and potentially class) under the bus for background. Because your background can already do what race did, and maybe even class in some rules-lighter versions of the game. Picking your race is like a template that gives you potential roleplaying hooks and some minor mechanical customization. That's also exactly what background is. They are literally the same thing. If you want more than one template with some roleplaying hooks and minor mechanical customization, you can take more than one background and it would be exactly the same.

It wasn't me who asked about why some people were throwing race and class under the bus for background.

Background provides your character additional skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies and tips on you could role-play your character. It doesn't tell you how long your character is going to live, how tall they are, how fast they can move or if they possess a trait that is unique to you and those like you.

If you aren't super informed in 5e mechanics, how can you be sure that what I said previously was absolutely wrong?