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They are not. But they are related! The reason each race's ability score bonuses go where they go is because they reflect that race's concept.

Agreed. The reality is that the reason they changed their minds has absolutely nothing to do with any change in their concepts for what elves, dwarves, halflings and goliaths are like, and therefore making this the motive for changing the rules. No, they were worried that real world politics...

The races with floating bonuses already-especially humans-get those floating bonuses because those races are famous for being...adaptable. That's their concept, just like being strong is part of the goliath concept, and NOT part of the halfling concept. Racial bonuses to ability scores get you...

At last! You might not like the word 'earn'; fair enough. Your choices get you what they give you, and what they give you is because that source is associated with that benefit. Choosing wizard gets you spells not Rage because wizards are associated with casting spells and NOT associated with...

At first level, you choose a race, a class, and a background. That 'earns' the abilities provided by those choices. If you choose, say, barbarian, then that 'earns' Rage and Unarmoured Defence. But choosing barbarian does NOT earn you Spellcasting, because choosing barbarian gets you...

The bonuses you get from a feat (such as, say, Heavy Armour Master), you get because that feat represents you getting used to moving the weight of heavy armour in combat. +1 Str makes sense, +1 Cha would not. The bonuses you get from your class, say a 20th level barbarian, represent you...

I was going to reply to Chaosmancer on this point, but two birds one stone. Bit of D&D history: I remember reading the opening chapter of the AD&D 1e DMG back in the '70s. There was a section giving, IIRC, six different ways of generating ability scores for PCs. The two methods out of the six...

It's a fallacy to say that just because something can be fixed that therefore it is not broken.

I think this is the crux of the matter! For me, and I believe those on my side of this debate, the game mechanics of 'Race' in D&D really do apply to every member of that race, and not just to that one halfling/orc/whatever that happens to be a PC in the metagame. In this understanding, ALL of...

Things I've learned about why it's not only important to have floating bonuses for those DM's that want them, but it's also important that DM's are NOT given the option of set racial bonuses for future published races:- 1.) It's totally not about min-maxing, it's just that it's impossible to...

Here is the sequence of events:- The 5e PHB gives the information required to play each playable race. That information includes, but is not limited to, racial modifiers to ability scores. Later 5e products include new playable races, and the information required to play each race. Part of...

I beg to differ. And I would've gone the other way. I would have set the cap at 20+racial modifier. And even as it is. it does affect first level. I've no problem with high level PCs getting higher stats, because every high level PC is going to get access to amazing abilities. But they have to...

From my perspective as a Briton, we tend to be on the side of the Native Americans in general.

Alright, we seemed to have converged to the point where we agree that orcs (and other natural sentient beings), because they can be any alignment (unlike, say, devils) can and should be portrayed with nuance. Some can be good, some evil, most probably neutral, but each with coherent motivations...

Hey! No real world religions!

Agreed. And I'd extend that to, "It's tribal, therefore evil" is equally not a motivation. Therefore, 'tribal' is not insulting, just descriptive. Nothing wrong with tribal cultures. So why can't orcs be 'tribal' again?

Quite the opposite. My first comment on that conversation was saying that my 16 Charisma Swashbuckler rogue disagrees with the assertion that rogues only care about DEX. I got the replay that it was all about BASE classes, not subclesses.

Yep, and I read every John Carter story ERB wrote, and his colour-coded races invariably had both heroic and villainous examples. I think the same about tribal cultures. I feel the same about orcs.

I know, hence my pointing out they have one point lower AC but get one more hit point per level to make up for it. Thrown weapons use strength. I thought you said that skills aren't worth talking about for this comparison. And Con saves are as important as Dex saves. And you kept saying that...

So we cannot portray other cultures at all? Tribal cultures have been brutalised in real life, therefore stories about tribal cultures are forbidden? Shall we erase them from history? Portraying tribal cultures as irredeemably 'worse' (by whatever metric) is problematic. Portraying tribal...