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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DammitVictor" data-source="post: 9800204" data-attributes="member: 6750908">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?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.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.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.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.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?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.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'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.</blockquote>

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