D&D General 5E species with further choices and differences

[DammitVictor]

Where is this "every possible value" coming from? That isn't at all entailed by this. I am confused as to what that even means.

From most of the attempts I've seen. Take one of the standard PHB player races and divide it into "species" and "culture"; 9 times put of 10, you're going to see
Remathilis' "size, speed, and senses" under species, usually something like dwarven poison resistance or elven sleep immunity... and then every proficiency or proficiency bonus (including perception and stealth) and sometimes even innate magic slotted into culture.

It makes a measure of sense for "racial" languages to be learned abilities... but, then, should dwarves raised in Waterdeep, by dwarven parents, not still learn the dwarven tongue?

And why would this make species the "least significant aspect"?

Because, separating mechanics from narrative for a second... what I just described is not allowing species-- or 'biology', if you will-- to not be responsible for any part of who your PC is. The special abilities you mention... are a very welcome addition to the game (IMO) but they're also a very recent addition to the game. Much more recent than the efforts to  remove all of the more mundane qualities from race.

Sincerely, honestly: Yes. I am deeply confused why you think that's impossible.

I don't think it's impossible, I'm just pointing out that it's clearly and obviously (to me) not happening in current efforts, and it is being prevented from happening (in part) by the pervasive rejection of any  essential (or  essentialist) factor in the differences between wholly unrelated types of intelligent peoples.

Their modern-day descendants are going to be Texan much more than they are Glorboflaxian or whatever. Being "Texan" is not meaningfully driven by having bilateral symmetry or seeing a spectrum between 380-750 nm.

Leaving aside this argument  entirely, I think that's a fascinating scenario and I'd love for it to be explored in fiction and/or RPGs. Just not by people who think they already know all the answers, or people (like myself) who obviously have an axe to grind about those answers. It would be  awesome if it were implemented by someone who didn't have a dog in this fight.

I also think your throwaway line about visible color spectrum is a perfect example of how much you're underestimating the impact of minor biological differences. What you're referring to is how human (and other) eyes perceive color. Imagine all of the psychological studies of peoples whose languages have restricted color vocabularies... now apply that to people using our language to try to describe colors we're physically incapable of seeing.

Or trying to learn to apply human color theory to colors that exist outside of their range of vision.

It's also a perfect example of how dismissing the differences between the minds produced by different species of brain are discounting and erasing the differences that exist between different human minds because of much smaller variations in biology.

Where did I deny that? I'm baffled by this.


I don't see how I'm not recognizing that, so I don't know how to respond.

I apologize. I'm conflating the arguments you're making with the arguments other people are making at the same time, and with arguments I've had before. Mea culpa.

Re-read the arguments I'm replying to, here, and you'll have a better idea what I'm saying-- and whether or not it's worth your time to respond to.

My point is that the community in general has been resolving the 'nature vs nurture' argument in a fashion that is aggressively dismissive of nature-- to the point that it serves neither realistic nor fantastic worldbuilding, and has passed the point where it was a 'better' (more creative, inclusive, intuitive) solution than the dead horses they're beating.

If you're on the IKR Excluded Middle with me, I'd love to discussed more nuanced solutions to balancing narrative cohesion and creative freedom in 'fantasy races'; the problem isn't that one side or the other is being neglected, it's that without some kind of balance between them,  neither of them functions in a satisfying way for players looking for either.

That is not obvious, to say nothing of tautological.

It's...  not obvious that behavioral phenomena created by human brains and human souls are going to be externally and internally dissimilar when they are produced by nonhuman brains and nonhuman souls?

Barring a few very rare exceptions, the species of D&D have:

Spoiler: Long list

• bilateral symmetry
• a single pair of arms, and either one or (rarely) two pairs of legs
• those arms end in some number of digits (usually 5, rarely 4 or even 3), one of which is opposable, allowing hand-like behavior
• a size between two and eight feet tall, and usually between four and six-and-a-half feet
• weight between 30 lb and 400 lb, fairly strongly correlated with height (e.g. a tall dragonborn might be 6'9" and 350 lb, while a short halfling might be 2'1" and 35 lb)
• a single head with two eyes
• vision centered around the 380-750 nm range, often but not always augmented with superior low-light vision (e.g. if this were IRL, they have a higher density of "rod" cells relative to humans)
• auditory senses in the range between 20 Hz and 20 kHz, 0 dB to ~120 dB, with similar responses to similar sound configurations (e.g. frequency ratios close to small-numbe
• a mouth used for both breathing and eating
• the ability to speak verbally, using a common set of characteristics (voicing, stress, articulation points, etc.) such that no language spoken by any of them is impossible for a different physiology to express (e.g. no "speaking through two windpipes to create two-part harmony")
• a diet consisting of the same types of nutrients, though sometimes in varied proportions (e.g. dragonborn need more protein than humans do, but both get protein from the same sources)
• vastly preferring cooked/prepared foods for their superior nutritional value
• an internal body temperature in the high-30C/low-40C range
• wearing some amount of clothing in order to help sustain this body temperature
• a "childhood" phase of multiple (3+) years, a pubescent phase of several (5+) years, and then reaching maturity sometime between the middle and end of the second decade of life (15-20 years old)
• societal groups, not disconnected family units nor lone hunters etc.

I'd love to tear into that list when I'm not working from my phone-- aside from the probative value in this argument, I think it would be fascinating worldbuilding material for our private games and homebrew settings.

Why would their actions be radically different when they eat the same food, drink the same drink, have similar body temperatures, form similar societal structures, hear the same kinds of music, see the same lights, etc.

It's a fascinating question, but the person you're asking is autistic; this represents a much smaller deviation from human biological norms than what we're discussing, and yet a much larger cognitive variance than we're willing to discuss in the intellects of inhuman nervous systems.

It isn't vapid, and it's rather frustrating that you characterize it as such...

It's vapid because it arbitrarily and dogmatically discounts the possibility of instinctual and inborn behaviors and personality traits in beings designed for purpose by divine creators. It is vapid because it imposes the secular material worldview of 19th-21st century psychology on a pre-modern mythological narrative...  incorrectly, because it discounts any modern scientific understanding that contradicts the idea that all human minds are born tabula rasa and shaped purely by their upbringing and environment.

It's vapid because it's just replacing one overly-simplistic abstraction with another, and then loudly proclaiming it PROGRESS!! while sneering at anyone who points out its obvious shortcomings.

If that isn't describing your attitude or your argument, then it doesn't apply to you and I'm sorry you felt included in it.