D&D General How elder scroll does species

[Scott Christian]

It's impossible to do without a specific setting, aka quasi-medieval setting. I mean, if you have cultures that rarely travel away from home, like many people long ago - then sure, they are going to learn specific skills inherent to their region. They'll even develop various genetic flavors, a la, "Look at me, I'm not allergic to milk!"

But in a D&D setting, it makes zero sense.

 

[MGibster]

I am trying to see if the way that the elder scrolls games does their species is a better or worse model then the current or previous editions of dungeons and dragons.

I've never noticed a difference between species in Elder Scrolls. The game plays pretty much the exact same way no matter which species you pick.

Culture is a better model to vary humans as it avoids bioessentialism veering into racism. Humans with a Agrarian culture or a Seafaring culture might hail from anywhere, even if Humans with a Desert Nomad culture have a much more obvious analogue.

D&D does a fairly bad job of it because most players pick the background that bests suits the ability scores they want to increase based on their class. In the future, I suspect we'll just switch to floating ASIs disconnected from species or background.

 

[Tonguez]

I've never noticed a difference between species in Elder Scrolls. The game plays pretty much the exact same way no matter which species you pick.

D&D does a fairly bad job of it because most players pick the background that bests suits the ability scores they want to increase based on their class. In the future, I suspect we'll just switch to floating ASIs disconnected from species or background.

yeah 2014 Backgrounds were better, 2025 Backgrounds are junk (it was my biggest issue with 5.5e)