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13th Age has awesome racial powers as well! And on the grittier end, Shadow of the Demon Lord has some interesting ideas about racial bonuses.

This is just the absolutism about "minmaxers" again. The only thing that seems to consistently skew race choice among most players is the ASIs. I and many of my players would be happy with having different mechanical benefits based on race. But losing the ASIs just for roleplay reasons just...

How do you feel about legendary actions? Because my inclination is usually to give legendary actions to boss characters, and to give them special abilities that make the players work for their victory. I could do that by drafting a level 1 wizard, selecting an archetype, and going up the levels...

Well, granted, but at least that means I just lose access to some small out of combat capability rather than losing access to a 16. I also do think it might be a good idea to give each race a few options for racial feat, especially because that provides even more of the desperately lacking...

It's alright, I play games with actual social mechanics, and a playable exploration system when I want those things. 5e doesn't have those, and that's fine. It's trying to be a particular type of game. Socializing is a very small part of 5e's mechanical weight, and that's fine. I will say just...

Maybe racial biases isn't quite the right word. I have my own political opinions, but as far as my arguments here, I view this as very much a mechanical issue. Or specifically an issue where mechanics infringe on players' willingness to play out the stories they want to tell. I just think...

I don't really think I'm confusing them though I did kind of use them interchangeably there. My position is basically that DnD has sat at the front of the TTRPG world for so long, that its catch-all tropes and racial biases have become the base other fantasy games build from or make changes to...

I don't actually know why this quotes me. Is it directed at me?

I think its the same problem as the original, just reversed.

What about Strength? You cheated by using Con as your example. It's the only stat useful to all characters in combat. Dex is pretty similarly generally useful for AC. But what do you do with Strength? Or Int? Those aren't opinion anymore. They are worse if you can't attack with them in a...

I pretty much wholesale reject the idea that DnD isn't the "generic fantasy character" game already. It's the default game for any fantasy gaming group, and most people who play other games have reasons for doing so, while people usually pick DnD because... why not?

I think this solution is interesting, but it is too far in the opposite direction imo. It basically punishes you for investing at character creation in a stat your race would previously have had a bonus to. Like, halfling rogues now have less stats to play around with than halfling barbarians.

Quit only cherry picking the arguments you think you can distort. I'm pretty close to being done with you but I'll give this one more shot. Does 5e give more benefits to some race/class combinations than others? And if it does, is that good?

Bunch of lawful good dorks. I'm just trying to swipe a few extra gold from the local robber baron, leave me alone.

I think a lot of people here are missing examples of races differentiated much beyond their ASIs because they mostly play 5e or 3.5, so I'm gonna provide a partial list of the racial features from 13th age, a game designed by a mix of 3e and 4e designers and which I think is basically an...

So you do want the game to encourage certain race/class combos over others. That at least is a position. Not one I agree with, but a position.

I understand this is an obvious joke, but the fun thing about the Veil of Ignorance is that, as a thought experiment, its pretty explicitly opposed to racial bonuses. Not super relevant here, but funny nonetheless.

Can I ask, out of curiosity, what you find mechanically interesting about the choice between half-orc and high elf wizard? I just want to understand what it is that makes losing 5% efficiency at nearly everything you're supposed to do well in exchange for getting to tell your story a compelling...

Wherever you believe the bar is, the game provides a bonus for picking "preferred" race/class combos.

Even if the game said that, the math doesn't add up. The game, in practice, as played by real living humans, shows a marked difference in play rate between combos that can get a 16, and those that can't. It's up to the game to change what its telling its players through mechanics. Let me use...