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

[Remathilis]

also; why no darkvision of warforged, if I were making an army of robot soldiers? I would sure give them integrated nighvision goggles.

I assume it's because they have enough bonuses in resisting all those biological needs and environmental hazards as is. At a certain point, you gotta find some weakness for them!

 

[Horwath]

I assume it's because they have enough bonuses in resisting all those biological needs and environmental hazards as is. At a certain point, you gotta find some weakness for them!

I would replace the skill+tool, or give option; darkvision or skill+tool.

 

[Umbran]

Well yes, biology shouldn't have any affect on what kind of person you are. Your intelligence, aptitudes, interests, gender role, or culture is not a factor of biology. The same is, in theory, true of other sapient beings.

So, stepping away from the hot argument, I'd like to add some nuance here. Because... maybe you're wrong, there.

We, in our real world, within our one sapient species in which race is a social construct with no biological basis, have had a horrible history with "separate, but equal", because in reality it was anything but equal. It is absolutely okay to do away with that in our games.

However, it is also a hallmark of speculative fiction to ask, "What if?" Now, in our fantasy, real world biology doesn't hold - so terms like "genetics", "biology" and "species" do not necessarily hold either, but if we agree to allow for some flexibility there, we can consider what kind of impact "biology" can have on such things.

Are we actually sure that all sapience will be completely separate from "biology"? Like, imagine a deciduous tree-people, who are dormant in the winter. Isn't that going to have impact on their collective culture? Imagine a "species" with drastic sexual dimorphism - if they are like, say, deep-sea angler-fish in which males are tiny with respect to the females. Is that not going to have an impact on their gender roles? Are we sure that all "species" have the same cognitive processes and therefore no differences in cognitive aptitudes?

Can we, for example, look at real-world dolphins, and think that, if they really are as sapient as they may seem, we should assume that their sapience is exactly like ours? Or are they remarkably different?

Now, to be clear, I don't think that humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings are at all a good set of species to explore those questions. With the possible exception of elven extreme longevity, they are not obviously "biologically" dissimilar enough for such exploration. I don't think traditional D&D takes on these "species" have interesting questions to ask with those differences - whether one is "biologically" drawn to ale is... not interesting, sorry.

But we could imagine using some other peoples for that purpose. Like, maybe dragonborn, lizardfolk, or tortles? Maybe tabaxi? Aaracora? Myconids or Ents?

The issue isn't that these questions can't or shouldn't be asked in our games - it is that so many use asking such questions badly as an excuse for traditionalism.

 

[Remathilis]

So, stepping away from the hot argument, I'd like to add some nuance here. Because... maybe you're wrong, there.

We, in our real world, within our one sapient species in which race is a social construct with no biological basis, have had a horrible history with "separate, but equal", because in reality it was anything but equal. It is absolutely okay to do away with that in our games.

However, it is also a hallmark of speculative fiction to ask, "What if?" Now, in our fantasy, real world biology doesn't hold - so terms like "genetics", "biology" and "species" do not necessarily hold either, but if we agree to allow for some flexibility there, we can consider what kind of impact "biology" can have on such things.

Are we actually sure that all sapience will be completely separate from "biology"? Like, imagine a deciduous tree-people, who are dormant in the winter. Isn't that going to have impact on their collective culture? Imagine a "species" with drastic sexual dimorphism - if they are like, say, deep-sea angler-fish in which males are tiny with respect to the females. Is that not going to have an impact on their gender roles? Are we sure that all "species" have the same cognitive processes and therefore no differences in cognitive aptitudes?

Can we, for example, look at real-world dolphins, and think that, if they really are as sapient as they may seem, we should assume that their sapience is exactly like ours? Or are they remarkably different?

Now, to be clear, I don't think that humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings are at all a good set of species to explore those questions. With the possible exception of elven extreme longevity, they are not obviously "biologically" dissimilar enough for such exploration. I don't think traditional D&D takes on these "species" have interesting questions to ask with those differences - whether one is "biologically" drawn to ale is... not interesting, sorry.

But we could imagine using some other peoples for that purpose. Like, maybe dragonborn, lizardfolk, or tortles? Maybe tabaxi? Aaracora? Myconids or Ents?

The issue isn't that these questions can't or shouldn't be asked in our games - it is that so many use asking such questions badly as an excuse for traditionalism.

I pointed out later on the example of warforged how we can take an absolutely alien life form and still impress upon it certain notions of humanity because we're still humans trying to figure out what a 300 lb magical golem would do in a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. If that's difficult, something as close to home as an elf is practically impossible. Experienced sci-fi writers or behavioral scientists might be able to pull off a truly alien elf, but Bob the D&D player is probably going to be a human with pointy ears.

That's not to say we can't try to some degree, but it gets very touchy when you start limiting players on what they can or can't do. It's one thing to say "dwarves raises in majority dwarven cultures would be predisposed towards trusting authority" vs something like "orcs cannot be paladins because the orc brain cannot grasp the concept of honor."

 

[Umbran]

I pointed out later on the example of warforged how we can take an absolutely alien life form and still impress upon it certain notions of humanity because we're still humans trying to figure out what a 300 lb magical golem would do in a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. If that's difficult, something as close to home as an elf is practically impossible. Experienced sci-fi writers or behavioral scientists might be able to pull off a truly alien elf, but Bob the D&D player is probably going to be a human with pointy ears.

Yeah, but you know what? That you don't think anyone would perform to to your lofty standards... should mean precisely jack-squat to anyone who isn't at your table.

This isn't about exactly how great a job is done. This is PLAY, a hobby, a place to exercise the mind. That we are perhaps not doing something worthy of a peer-reviewed sociology journal should discomfit exactly nobody!

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, but you know what? That you don't think anyone would perform to to your lofty standards... should mean precisely jack-squat to anyone who isn't at your table.

This isn't about exactly how great a job is done. This is PLAY, a hobby, a place to exercise the mind. That we are perhaps not doing something worthy of a peer-reviewed sociology journal should discomfit exactly nobody!

Hey,, I'm agreeing with you. I think the fact D&D species are all funny hats is acceptable because I really think that playing a truly alien mind isn't possible, and if it was I don't know if it would be fun. So when people say that a dwarf should not have the same mindset as a human, I find that impossible since dwarves are made by and played by humans.

 

[Umbran]

Hey,, I'm agreeing with you. I think the fact D&D species are all funny hats is acceptable because I really think that playing a truly alien mind isn't possible, and if it was I don't know if it would be fun.

So, this is what I mean...
Your focus on "truly alien mind" is, itself, not a peer-journal worthy consideration. You're dropping nuance.

While I've got issues with Orson Scott Card for other reasons, in the Ender's Game series, he introduced us to a Hierarchy of Foreignness. We can consider that there are degrees of alienness of mental processes - From humans just like us, to humans from another nation, to humans from another planet, to "humans" who are of a different species but with whom we can still meaningfully communicate and cooperate (the word for them is "ramen" in the books), to creatures who are so alien that no communication is possible ("varelse" is the word for them).

Only the varelse are "truly alien". Others are different to varying degrees, but understandable.

And in the books, even the one species we are led to believe are varelse, turn out, after a genocidal war, to actually be ramen.

So when people say that a dwarf should not have the same mindset as a human, I find that impossible since dwarves are made by and played by humans.

I don't buy it. We can understand things that aren't exactly ourselves. The whole point of having imaginations and abstract thought is to be able to model things that aren't exactly as we see them currently. There will be flaws, and our attempts may be amateurish, but that doesn't mean we are incapable of it.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think, on a purely meta design level, the most interesting species in D&D is warforged. They are not biological. They have no biological sex, no need for intercourse, no ability to procreate without outside assistance. They do not eat, breathe, or sleep. They have no defined culture except for that of war and the nations that created them. They are mostly of uniform design and size, have no natural predators, and are immune or resistant to a lot of conditions humans aren't (poison, disease, fatigue, high heat and cold temperature, air quality and altitude or lack of.) their bodies are easily adaptable and easy to resist repair or replace damaged parts. Truly, they are as far from human as anything can be, and the only reason they aren't further removed is that the designers have realized they have to be remotely balanced with other species.

But they are still humans in funny (and cool) hats because we only can play them as such. We still think in terms of love, fear, hate, or survival. Would a creature created for war need complex emotions like love? Would a creature with no biological necessities understand want? Even Eberron hedges their bet by implying that warforged have souls (and thus are susceptible to necromancy and raise dead) and thus capable of complex emotional and spiritual reflection.

And the community has pushed to make them more human in playing them. They have genders (sometimes modifying their bodies to assume more masculine or feminine body styles), have hobbies and create art, wearing clothes despite not needing body covering, and a slew of them have taken to the Mournlands to create a society of their own, complete with creating their own "Creator" deity. Even if they are utterly inhuman, we make them human.

Which is why fighting to make dwarves and elves "inhuman" is a lost cause. Because even when handed the most inhuman species possible, we make the goal of playing one to humanize it.

my instinctual answer for this that comes to me is that while golems are useful and very strong they don't have the higher thought capacity required for an independent minion that you don't need to constantly micromanage and that sentience is a package deal, you can't cut and trim away the aspects of it you don't want, or at least, any creators of warforged don't know how to do so, especially if your method of creating sentience is just ripping out and sticking someone else's soul in a construct body.

 

[Kobold Stew]

One game that differentiates species in a meaningful way is Burning Wheel. Among other differences, there is a built-in difference in terms of a fundamental drive, the emotional attribute. Orcs have Hate, Elves have Grief, Dwarves have Greed, and humans (optionally) have Faith. It doesn't need to come into role-play, but when it does (a) you get a small immediate benefit, and (b) the value of the emotional attribute increases, which can help with a longer-term character arc. As a result, you are a more successful dwarf if your big, game-changing roles are somehow fuelled by Greed; Elves are longlived and experience a constant lingering grief, etc. I've laways liked that.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't buy it. We can understand things that aren't exactly ourselves. The whole point of having imaginations and abstract thought is to be able to model things that aren't exactly as we see them currently. There will be flaws, and our attempts may be amateurish, but that doesn't mean we are incapable of it.

Less that we can't imagine what it is like, but our imaginations are still framed in what we understand as humans.

Take an elf. A species who lives hundreds of years, maybe immortal depending on the lore. Even the notion that elves are long-lived is based on the framing of a human lifespan and that elves live multiple human lifespans. But what that kind of lifespan means is still viewed as "what if a human could live that long?" Rather than "what would a society of creatures who measure years like months lol like?"

(As an aside, I find vampires a more interesting exploration of immortality, since they have a humans perspective on time, but that's another topic)

Which is why ultimately, attempts to make fantastical species be anything but exaggerated humans is folly and we should embrace the fact they are exaggerated humans. Elves are 'what if human but immortal?" Dwarves are "what if humans but living under the earth?" Halflings are "what if humans, but rural British?" (I think I understand why they aren't so popular...) Attempts to make them Ramen still end up making them funny hats. Embrace the hats!