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

[W'rkncacnter]

It is well written, I like it, but its not getting to the meat of the issue here at all.

What are these species, and what mechanics do they have? Yes we could infer, subjectively, that there are some cultural things going on, maybe a dash of magic, maybe some increased hardiness but if there is no mechanics behind it, its fluff.

Well written, nice structure, evocative, but its fluff, it doesnt nothing for me in play, on the game side.

"Race has no mechanics, what do you play?"

Human.

...uh. yeah. i agree.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, it is. Thanks for the benefit of the doubt.

These orcs have talents in woodworking, seamanship, enhanced strength and are lucky. These halflings are resistant to fire, have metal cunning, and enhanced dexterity.

Then none of that applies to the discussion. Homebrew races with different abilities than the standard versions are not applicable. You might as well claim that a 20th level wizard and a 20th level fighter are the same because this setting over here gives wizards fighter abilities.

 

[Baron Opal II]

this is really nicely written.

well, i mean, thulians can seemingly subsist on less food then humans while sunaya can speak to birds, according to those entries. i guess humans could do the latter with magic, but the text implies it's an innate ability, not a spell.

that said, i'd expect those two things to be represented as racial/heritage/ancestral/whatever word you wanna use mechanics, so...

No, actually. Both could be Human, just as easily as anything else.

And I do not mean to be dismissive or disrespectful of the setting work, as its quite nice and evocative of the cultures at a high level and in brief, so well done, but it says nothing of the species.

Thank you!

It was an interesting challenge expressing dry mechanics narratively. I've found that I've become quite partial to the Sunaya. I need to find them a place in my world. Here is what I was attempting to convey:

Thulian
+2 Strength
Powerful Build (Counts as large size in certain circumstances)
Adaptive Metabolism (Requires only a third the food as normal. When in lack, loses Powerful Build)
Wood cunning (As per Stonecunning, culturally tied to shipwrighting)

Sunaya
+2 Charisma
Speak with typical birds (As per the gnome ability to speak with woodland creatures)
Heat Resistance (Ignore environmental heat effects, 1/2 or -6 damage from intense or magical fire, whichever is less)
Red smiths (As per Stonecunning, but with copper and its alloys)

A little disappointed that no one tried to derive the stats, but I didn't make that challenge.

 

[Cergorach]

If your group does role-play an all Tortle group, will their characters be in their teens and learning to be Monks from Way of the Shadow?

A Monk, a Fighter, an Artificer, and maybe a Bard?

 

[Bluenose]

What about the mechanics of a character class?

If the races are cosmetic and the classes still retain their mechanics, then the PC is defined by their class only.

If both the races and the classes are cosmetic, then how do we go about knowing what they are capable of and the limits?

D&D would become a LARP if this were to happen.

By having mechanics that aren't based on race and/or class. D&D has not always (often?) been good at handling things which go outside that but it hasn't resolved everything just through race and class abilities for a very long time.

 

[Corinnguard]

A Monk, a Fighter, an Artificer, and maybe a Bard?

Donatello- Monk (Way of Shadow)/Artificer (UA-modern day Archivist. Archivist UA - DND 5th Edition ), Michelangelo- Monk (Way of Shadow), Bard (UA-College of Satire Bard: College of Satire (UA) - DND 5th Edition ), Raphael Monk (Way of the Shadow)/ Fighter (UA-Brute Fighter: Brute - DND 5th Edition ) and Leonardo (Way of the Shadow)/ Fighter (Samurai)?

Turtlefolk (5e Race) - D&D Wiki Check out the pic!

 

[Bohandas]

There are certainly non mechanical impacts of the choice, no?

Yes, but a lack of mechanics inherently eliminates some of the more magical choices such as shifters and changelings

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yes, but a lack of mechanics inherently eliminates some of the more magical choices such as shifters and changelings

Not necessarily. It really depends on how free-form the DM (and the players) are willing to play without requiring dice rolls to do things, and instead just act and make decisions in the manner that the species features suggest.

If someone is playing a shifter (for example) and their species feature is that when they shift their form they become more bestial and wild... the player can show that off by making choices in-character that are just more chaotic or more animal-like that they do when their PC hasn't shifted, so that their actions and what occurs denote them being more bestial. For example, a bear-like shifter player decides that when their PC shifts... the PC is more apt to run into melee combat and absorb attacks in hand-to-hand that their PC might otherwise not when not shifted.

Now of course the issue for a lot of players is that they look at the game from a meta and top-down perspective... and not from just what occurs in the story. They would say that with no mechanical change in the statistics of the PC, then the character isn't becoming more bear-like or tank-like when they shift because the numbers are no different than they were before. The non-shifted PC is exactly like the shifted PC so the so-called "shifting" has no actual effect to the game... it's merely in the "imagination" of the player(s). We're all saying that the shifter has shifted based on how the PC perhaps acts differently... but action without mechanical change is not meaningful for a lot of players.

It's the same way that some folks think that an elf that doesn't have a +2 Dexterity built into their species write-up isn't truly more agile than other species. They need that +2 Dex in order to get that across that elves are all more dexterous. Nevermind the fact that the player could just take actions to show off how "agile" the elf PC could be-- purposefully running across rooftops or jumping and swinging from chandeliers, or taking more Disengage actions to get out of melee combat moreso than other players have their characters act... for many players those things "don't count". Because it's not the narrative of what actually went on in the story, but what the game mechanics actually are that tells them what the reality is. I mean I argue with other folks here about this sort of thing all the time when I ask how could a +2 to Dexterity in the elf species write-up actually matter when the player can still end up playing a elf PC with a Dexterity of 10 while the player of the dwarven PC has a Dexterity of 16? That elf numerically and mechanically isn't more dexterous for being an elf... so what did that +2 in the write-up actually get you?

At the end of the day... it's all about a person's perception of their game. Are they someone who sees characters sheets and the mechanics therein as an actual indicator of the reality of the world... or are they someone like me who thinks only that what actually occurs during play is "real" (within the story) regardless of what our character sheets say? Because to me... even if a character sheet says I can do X... if I never actually do X during gameplay, then to me X doesn't exist. Or if my sheets says I am Y but I never act in a way that indicates I am Y... then as far as I'm concerned I am not Y. That's my perception and how I wish to play the game. But obviously there are hundreds of thousands of other players who perceive it differently. And that's totally okay.

 

[Voadam]

Are you saying that the ability of a changeling to shift their appearance to hide their identity is not a mechanical effect in your opinion?

I don't consider dice the definer for what is or is not game mechanics.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Would race being cosmetic only be a turn off for you?

No: I've learned that mechanical emulation rarely has much effect on how I play a character.