D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Remathilis]

Why is fantasy racism is worse than fantasy murder, torture, grave robbing, desecrating corpses, assault and battery, kidnapping, and much more?

Do you WANT to get into that argument again?

 

[Remathilis]

I have a New idea for a half-orc origin not involving crossbreeding

 

[Micah Sweet]

You are an experienced gamer who sounds dedicated to using D&D no matter what the style of game, but not everyone fits that description. D&D is, at its core, about fighting monsters. The vast majority of its ruleset, its artwork, it's raison d'etre is about that one thing. I've noticed that, left to its own devices, writers and designers tend to fall back to the same tropes about fantasy racism. As I said, even the Critical Role team does the same thing - Vex and Vax are two half-elves who were disowned by their elven father because he saw them as inferior - not pure elves. I read an entire book about them released just two or three years ago where this point was driven home.

I don't see a problem with that narrative. It was part of the great characterization that was part of why campaign one was so good.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you WANT to get into that argument again?

Who won last time?

 

[Maxperson]

As I said, even the Critical Role team does the same thing - Vex and Vax are two half-elves who were disowned by their elven father because he saw them as inferior - not pure elves. I read an entire book about them released just two or three years ago where this point was driven home.

Out of curiosity, because I didn't watch Critical Role, how did other elves and humans treat the brothers? And also because I'm clueless, if their father felt that way, why the hell didn't he just marry an elf and avoid the issue?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As I said, even the Critical Role team does the same thing - Vex and Vax are two half-elves who were disowned by their elven father because he saw them as inferior - not pure elves. I read an entire book about them released just two or three years ago where this point was driven home.

Yes, and? The point obviously was their father was a racist prick from somewhat isolationst elven nation. It in no way did show this as a good thing. Not that this is or needs to be the only story one tells with half-elves, but why it is one that should be avoided? And of course we saw different attitude in CR as well. Keyleth is also an half-elf, (daughter of two half-elves,) but from a multispecies commune where no one has any issue with this.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Do you WANT to get into that argument again?

A lot of people seem to insist D&D needs racism.

And then insist that racism isn't racism, what are you even talking about, there's no racism.

But if there was some racism, that'd be cool because other bad things people don't have to face daily as a societal consequence of their existence are also in the game, so it's okay to treat that as blithely as fantasy violence. And if that bothers you shut up and let it happen.

 

[TiQuinn]

Out of curiosity, because I didn't watch Critical Role, how did other elves and humans treat the brothers? And also because I'm clueless, if their father felt that way, why the hell didn't he just marry an elf and avoid the issue?

They were definitely portrayed as outcasts within Elven culture which had a Tolkienesque separation from the concerns of the rest of the world approach. I don't quite recall why the father didn't marry the mother but he left the children to be raised by the mother and only came back to them and take them to live in the Elven kingdom when a dragon burned the village they were being raised in (and killed their mother.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Out of curiosity, because I didn't watch Critical Role, how did other elves and humans treat the brothers?

Siblings. One is a girl. And for most of the setting them being half-elves was a complete non-issue. It is just to the haughty elves of Syngorn, from which their father hailed, to whom it was a bit of a problem. (Typical high elves with a bit of superiority complex.) This is not the only elven culture in the setting, and not all elves share this attitude.

And also because I'm clueless, if their father felt that way, why the hell didn't he just marry an elf and avoid the issue?

He married an elf later and he was not married to the human mother of the twins. It was just a fling when he was travelling abroad.

 

[TiQuinn]

Yes, and? The point obviously was their father was a racist prick from somewhat isolationst elven nation. It in no way did show this as a good thing. Not that this is or needs to be the only story one tells with half-elves, but why it is one that should be avoided? And of course we saw different attitude in CR as well. Keyleth is also an half-elf, (daughter of two half-elves,) but from a multispecies commune where no one has any issue with this.

And...

Then there are people who decide they aren't going to continue perpetuating racist tropes in games and are not willing to simply move on from the game because they see an opportunity to do away with them.

You may not see the point. Others do.