Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Great, then we agree! /hug
Anyway, maybe @ad_hoc will come back and explain what they meant by "against type" but only compared to other PCs.
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D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)
Great, then we agree! /hug
Anyway, maybe @ad_hoc will come back and explain what they meant by "against type" but only compared to other PCs.
Racial ASI are a legacy of class and level restrictions for races, which had the intent and more of the effect of actually creating characters who fit within archetypes (because RAW you literally could not make anything else). For example, from 2e:
I think what @ad_hoc meant is that if you start several 5e campaigns, with set racial ASI you will tend to get human, high elf, and gnome wizards, thus leaning into archetype. Whereas if you float the asi, you might have on campaign where the wizard is human, but another where the wizard is dwarf, then dragonborn wizard, etc, and the archetype fails to be meaningful.
As far as I'm concerned, that ship has long sailed; moving from set to floating racial ASI is not a big inflection point in the change of game design. You can use standard array and make a Dwarf wizard with a +2 to Int or a Gnome wizard with a +3 to Int. They'll both basically feel like wizards, but the former will still feel weird because of the likely preconceptions that players bring to the table, not because of the ASI. More importantly, since the 3.5/pathfinder days, you may well have a party consisting of a human, a bugbear, a changeling, a halfling, and an anthropomorphic bat. I get not being into the world that such party compositions imply (I'm not either, tbh), but it's not a change that will be created by racial asi, but rather one that's been here for a long time already. The game design is just finally catching up to that by ditching what was already an atrophied legacy of Ad&d
If you really want to go against type try having your dwarf not speak in a Scottish accent. That'll really throw people off.
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
If you really want to go against type try having your dwarf not speak in a Scottish accent. That'll really throw people off.
Everybody knows that real dwarves have Russian accents.
Yaarel
He Mage
Regarding 1e, the problem with 1e ability score improvements is, it ignored improvements for the mental ability scores, because the 1e mechanics had the mental abilities drastically empower the number of spells and the spell casting effectiveness.
Unusually, the gray elf did improve Intelligence, but therefor was essentially a "monster race", until the optional 1e Unearthed Arcana permitted them.
So when we see any ability score improvements in the 1e Players Handbook, their mental ability score improvements are missing.
It might be that all elves merit improvements to Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, because of the narrative descriptions about them. We cannot know the mechanics for them, because 1e "did not go there".
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Yaarel
He Mage
"Against type" means, to create an oversimplified racist stereotype. Then to find one of the members of the race who is the "exception" to the racist stereotype.
Maybe this kind of story was fun during an era when racism was a fact of life.
But I am not seeing the merit of designing game mechanics to force this kind of story.
Maybe this kind of story was fun during an era when racism was a fact of life.
But I am not seeing the merit of designing game mechanics to force this kind of story.
Crimson Longinus
Legend
So why you have been promoting 'the racist stereotype' that elves are magical people in several treads then?
Yaarel
He Mage
I agree with the concern.
A solution that I am exploring is to allow for multiple, conflictive, archetypes to be true simultaneously. Allow the player to choose which archetype one wants for the elf character. Pick the race feat that works best for a character concept.
There is a fine line between a symbolic "archetype" and a reductionist "stereotype".
A main difference is, an archetype is divergent: a symbol that invites many possibilities.
A stereotype is convergent: a label that reduces possiblities to a single label.
Scott Christian
Hero
You are so far off on this that this argument couldn't be seen with a telescope.
A stereotype is not an archetype. A stereotype does not have to be racist, it can be cultural. If I go to an Elven enclave someone has modeled after New Orleans, and there are a bunch of musicians and hot-sauce loving elves that speak with an odd elvish accent. Then there is a character that hates hot sauce and is terrible at music and speaks only "proper" elvish, would you call that racist?
You see, there are many things that are celebrated due to regionalities, culture, and religion. People actually take pride in them. Same can be true for fantasy-land. And I mean no offense by this, I am just pointing this out. That when I hear a statement like yours above, it makes me think of someone who doesn't spend much time in other communities or only sees the negative as opposed to the celebrations.
Scott Christian
Hero
Nothing. That is why I asked the questions: Why not just let players choose their ability scores?
Heck, even those arguing about ASI and feats, this solves that problem as well. No need to choose attribute improvement, you already have the attributes you want. Now it's actually growth of your character through feats and spells and skills and etc.
Yaarel
He Mage
This kind of D&D tradition about elves being "haughty", has made the word "haughty" into a synonym of "racist".
Every elf that is "haughty" is a supremacist racist.
I dont want to see the word "haughty" in future publications because I dont want a game about racism.
To speak the dialect of ones own elven community "properly", is pride in self-identity, and is good.
However, the moment one "disapproves" of the dialect of other elven communities, it starts to become supremacist and racist. Yuck.
To subordinate an other subrace is a form of supremacism and racism.
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