I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

[Maxperson]

This example doesn't work for me; isn't the point of Frodo taking the ring require that he his less fit for adventuring and ruling than Aragorn?

One of the reasons, and perhaps the most important reason, is that hobbits are racially resistant to magical corruption.

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps. I am merely positing that you have to go to some pretty great lengths to make that undeniably biological, as opposed to cultural.

Yep. 1000 meters. Kuo-toans lived on the surface, but retreated to the depths of the ocean and the underdark. They adapted to their lightless environments. Light penetrates the ocean to a depth of about 1000 meters, so we are talking about a humanoid race capable of living on the surface and an ocean depth of at least 1000 meters. Without gear.

That doesn't sound cultural to me. Sounds like they have a pretty strong and hardy body to withstand those pressure differences.

 

[Corinnguard]

That doesn't sound cultural to me. Sounds like they have a pretty strong and hardy body to withstand those pressure differences.

Being able to breathe air/water and being able to resist the environmental conditions that far below the ocean's surface would be considered a part of their Kuo-toan heritage. If not that, then a heritage gift.

In fact, the Merfolk heritage in the Manual of Adventurous Resources: Complete has such a trait.

Deep Sea Explorer.
You are adapted to survive the environmental pressures of the deepest oceans and even the Elemental Plane of Water.

 

[Mr. Lahey]

One of the reasons, and perhaps the most important reason, is that hobbits are racially resistant to magical corruption.

Not according to Tolkien’s legendarium- they are a type of human and have no special resistance.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Imo species-as-class gets pretty close to what I want out of species that feel distinctly different while maintaining some degree of balance.

If every dwarf gets the same abilities and levels, then you don’t have a species, and you certainly don’t have coherent society or fiction. Every elf is a cookie-cutter fighter mage, with no Druids, or bards or clerics.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I mean that is just due the bizarre idea that every character needs to be equally good in combat.

That idea didn’t come out of nowhere. The system privileges combat by giving it longer and more detailed rules than anything else.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

If every dwarf gets the same abilities and levels, then you don’t have a species, and you certainly don’t have coherent society or fiction. Every elf is a cookie-cutter fighter mage, with no Druids, or bards or clerics.

Well, no, not if you accept the paradigm of B/X. Because in B/X there is no cookie-cutter fighter mage. Because there is no multi-classing.

(In B/X. there also aren't any Druids or Bards, and assumedly a mage is a magic user)

But let's look at AD&D (1e). In 1e, you have restrictions on the classes for certain species. Some classes are human only. But other classes (for example, clerics or halfling druids) might be restricted in terms of adventurers, but you can still find NPCs that species.

Which gets to the bigger point- "class" is an arbitrary construction, primarily used for adventurers. There are plenty of "clerics," (devout followers of a deity) but most likely do not have levels in that class. For that matter, there might be a large number of scribes who are quite good at scribing (or accountants quite good at accountin') who don't go on adventurers. Heck, maybe there is a John Elfnard Keynes who advises the King Elf on the multiplier effect of adventurers dumping dragon booty into the local economy, but he isn't likely to be adventuring.

There is no coherent society. There is simply a game that is being played, and what works for the players.

IMO, YMMV, etc.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Well, no, not if you accept the paradigm of B/X. Because in B/X there is no cookie-cutter fighter mage. Because there is no multi-classing.

Way to miss the point. I was responding to a poster that advocated returning to species-as-class, then you respond with a paradigm that ISN’T species-as-class.

 

[TwoSix]

Well, no, not if you accept the paradigm of B/X. Because in B/X there is no cookie-cutter fighter mage. Because there is no multi-classing.

(In B/X. there also aren't any Druids or Bards, and assumedly a mage is a magic user)

But let's look at AD&D (1e). In 1e, you have restrictions on the classes for certain species. Some classes are human only. But other classes (for example, clerics or halfling druids) might be restricted in terms of adventurers, but you can still find NPCs that species.

Which gets to the bigger point- "class" is an arbitrary construction, primarily used for adventurers. There are plenty of "clerics," (devout followers of a deity) but most likely do not have levels in that class. For that matter, there might be a large number of scribes who are quite good at scribing (or accountants quite good at accountin') who don't go on adventurers. Heck, maybe there is a John Elfnard Keynes who advises the King Elf on the multiplier effect of adventurers dumping dragon booty into the local economy, but he isn't likely to be adventuring.

There is no coherent society. There is simply a game that is being played, and what works for the players.

IMO, YMMV, etc.

Yea, I don't think the problem is using "species-as-class" as a game construct in and of itself. That works fine, as you simply assume its a metagame assumption that applies only to PCs and the assumed NPCs that exist to be replacement characters when PCs die.

The problem is some of the worldbuilding encoded within the domain rules, which assume that dozens of lower leveled NPCs which have the same "class" as a PC exist within the setting, thus doing a lot of default world-building that's more difficult to ignore since those NPCs are literal class features.

But yea, B/X works fine as long as you're willing as a group to not think too hard about NPCs and how they work. The fact that a fair number of players DID want to do that extrapolation is one of the things that drove the development of alternate rule sets.

 

[Corinnguard]

The system privileges combat by giving it longer and more detailed rules than anything else.

And which only just recently (5.5e) began to talk more about the other two pillars of game play- social interaction and exploration. Not so much in terms of rules for social interaction and exploration, just more talk in getting the players to focus on them as well.