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

[Micah Sweet]

I mean...if I take the SRD, or recompile the SRD, is it still 'D&D' or no? Is Shadowdark or any of the OSR games 'D&D' or no?

I'm sure its been done, but "What is D&D?"

If you are using the SRD, then your game is at least D&D-adjacent.

Not the only potential qualifier, but that's what you asked.

 

[Reynard]

Got a link of what some of the D&D races look like in these other games?

Here are some race stuff from Shadowdark and Dragonbane. They each give a single trait to the races, which could be easily eliminated.

 

[Reynard]

Non D&D games, yes.

Games that play essentially like D&D.

 

[Scribe]

Wow, I like that style of art for Dragonbane...

 

[Reynard]

Wow, I like that style of art for Dragonbane...

It is GORGEOUS. The game is great, too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Here are some race stuff from Shadowdark and Dragonbane. They each give a single trait to the races, which could be easily eliminated.
View attachment 372263View attachment 372264

All of that looks good. Not sure why you would want to eliminate it.

 

[Reynard]

All of that looks good. Not sure why you would want to eliminate it.

Those abilities could be moved elsewhere from race, but those races would still be what they are.

This whole thing has been about you asserting that races must have robust mechanics to gamify what makes them what they are, and me saying that I don't think that is necessary. Here are examples of games that have the absolute minimum of dwarfiness in mechanical form to refute the notion that races must have a bunch of mechanical elements to be viable.

 

[TwoSix]

Like darkvision and finding sloping passages and secret doors? Yes, those are also things that D&D could do without, as evidenced by other good games involving the same races doing so.

The more interesting ones are the ones which do a lot of heavy lifting for the definition of the race. We've already discussed changeling disguise, but other features like dragonborn breath weapon, eladrin fey step, and pixie flight would fall into here.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Like darkvision and finding sloping passages and secret doors? Yes, those are also things that D&D could do without, as evidenced by other good games involving the same races doing so.

i mean, again, if i wanted a game where races had no mechanics, i wouldn't play D&D (or a D&D-like).

This whole thing has been about you asserting that races must have robust mechanics to gamify what makes them what they are, and me saying that I don't think that is necessary. Here are examples of games that have the absolute minimum of dwarfiness in mechanical form to refute the notion that races must have a bunch of mechanical elements to be viable.

okay...but those races still have mechanical elements to differentiate each other. how does this support your point?

 

[TwoSix]

Because I don't see them as equivalent. I already said, class is what you DO in the game, and race is who you ARE. You don't need mechanics for the latter (IMO of course). You obviously see them as equally important, if not equivalent.

I mean, I think they're more equivalent than not.

Assuming a medium-crunch type of game, like most flavors of D&D, players will want to see their character's capabilities put into some form of player-facing widget. If a race is at least partially defined by its capabilities (i.e. something the character can DO, not just who they ARE), then it's only natural to want to see codification of those active abilities.

And those boundaries can be mutable. In a game a few years back, I played an eladrin valor bard that I reskinned as fey noble. All of his "abilities", in fiction, were derived from his faerie nature; his archery, along his use of illusions and enchantments.