D&D 5E A Lineage and Its Variants: The New Race Format Going Forward

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Mod Note:
I was responding to a report on the post - folks were being ticked off by it, and with some cause.

I chose to respond conversationally, rather than with red text, because I thought folks here would prefer that to the alternative red text, warning points, and thread-bans we otherwise tend to use. The failure of instinct was merely that people would want to consider what was being said, and choose appropriately, rather than be forced to do it by authoritarian voice.

Pardon me for not putting on the hob nail boots for a first approach. I will not likely make that mistake again for a while.

All good. Thanks for sharing your perspective. I don't think there is just cause for being ticked off with the original post but that's my opinion and not germane to this conversation.

I agree with your conclusion that it's better to mod a post with a mod voice. Whether you agree or disagree with the fact that there is a problem with the post, you're just doing your job by responding in the manner in which you did and shouldn't receive any flak for doing so. Fist bump? Or just a cold and clinical handshake for appearances?

 

[Laurefindel]

Given fictional worlds filled with stuff that blatantly defies the knowledge science has provided us, why insist on this one thing holding?

I mean, yeah, there's magic, but all the rest is perfectly explainable with modern biology.

Look at the owlbear for example. This happens when a... hum... ok, nevermind the owlbear. The centaur on the other hand is born when... ok, lets not go there either... Did you know that the chimera was a genetic fluke that happens when the embryos of... well, it's complicated and science-y and stuff. The cockatrice is clearly a naturally occuring chicken-basilisk cross, meaning that turn-to-stone genes must be dominant. Of course the habitats of wild basilisks and domestic chickens don't really overlap, but that accounts for their rarity, right? Displacer beast - mix of a black panther and, hum, otiugh? Yuk, I'd try to phase out of existence too. Better not dwell on that subject... And of course dragons can shapechange, thus altering their genetic material. That's why they can frolic with butterflies and scorpions. Simultaneously. Giving birth to pseudo-dragons ('cause it's kind-of-dragon-genetics-but-not-quite, hence the scientifically recognized use of "pseudo" in the name).

I tell you; D&D genetics, like gravity, physics, and thermodynamics, make complete scientific sense.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Look at the owlbear for example. This happens when a... hum... ok, nevermind the owlbear.

Well, that at least can just be a large monotreme. Owlbear really isn't any weirder than platypus, which, granted, is hella weird.

 

[Umbran]

All good.

Mod Note:
After well over a decade on these boards, you should have known not to do this.

Please review the Terms and Rules. When a moderator breaks out the colored text or puts "Mod Note" or similar on a post, that is NOT an invitation to discussion in-thread. If you have an issue or comment concerning such posts, you are to take them to private message discussion. The thread will not be diverted from its actual topic with such meta discussion.

 

[Yaarel]

Reallife will soon enough have artificial intelligence and casual gene splicing.

The same difficulties that "magic" introduces to our current scientific taxonomy, science will introduce too. How does one classify inorganic artificial lifeforms? How does one classify, modified genetic splicings from various parentages?



Regarding the elves, in my campaign they can have children with humans because the elves are humans, genetically. Actually, elves are immaterial spirits made out of magical force. When they choose to materialize into the Material Plane to wear a physical body, that body is human, albeit their magic perfuses it. Alternatively, elves could just as easily materialize in the physical form of a swan or a wolf or a snake. But culturally, the elves tend to like humans.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding "magic" or superscience, when genetics becomes a choice, then humans will evolve intentionally rather than randomly, by means of learned cultures and cultural values.

Ultimately, taxonomy will look more like a linguistic map of related languages.

 

[Scribe]

Regarding "magic" or superscience, when genetics becomes a choice, then humans will evolve intentionally rather than randomly.

Ultimately, taxonomy will look more like a linguistic map of related languages.

Man, am I ever glad I'll be in the dirt by then. Have fun with the global disparity at that point.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Reallife will soon enough have artificial intelligence and casual gene splicing.

We're not going to have AI in the way most people think any time soon.

Science doesn't actually know how the human mind works. We know the mechanics and the chemistry, but not the whole picture. And we don't have the means to figure it out yet. So AIs are going to be on the level of chat bots and dedicated task machines like Deep Blue for a very, very long time.

 

[Yaarel]

We're not going to have AI in the way most people think any time soon.

Science doesn't actually know how the human mind works. We know the mechanics and the chemistry, but not the whole picture. And we don't have the means to figure it out yet. So AIs are going to be on the level of chat bots and dedicated task machines like Deep Blue for a very, very long time.

Computers are expected to pass the Turing Test in this decade, the 2020s, likely around 2025.

It is hard to believe when it hasnt happened yet. But the same disbelief happened when computer scientists were predicting that computers would defeat chess champions. It seemed inconceivable until it happened.

By the end of this century, the expected events are beyond the current capacity of a human brain to predict. A computer is expected to be more intelligent than the current entire human species combined.



I agree with you skepticism that the current computer technology can ever be "alive".

But computer processing will speed up neuroscience for us to understand how consciousness works. Then we will know how to enable it. (I have a moreorless mystical perspective, that consciousness is an ubiquitous universal principle, part of the Big Bang, that a physical brain is somehow able to utilize and participate in. I am confident, science will get a sense of where the "seat of consciousness" is.)



In any case, D&D "magic" scenarios are useful exercises to navigate our near future. These are thought experiments.

 

[d24454_modern]

Ligers are not fertile. If lions and tigers could produce fertile offspring they would be the same species, rather than just very closely related species.

Actually Ligers are fertile; just not with each other.

"Liliger" Born in Russia No Boon for Big Cats

A liliger—the offspring of a liger mother and lion father—born in Russia may be cute, but it has no relevance in helping save big cats, experts say.

www.nationalgeographic.com