D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t see how those things are dichotomous.

If they're just people with different cultures, then they might as well be groups of humans with different cultures (and with pointed ears, or short, or with feathers, etc).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then let’s stop pretending that “aarakocra have wings” or “dragonborn can breathe fire” is some sort of insightful observation. There’s a clear difference between saying a race is better or worse than others at something in a human way, and saying a race has a fantastical trait like incredible longevity, cat claws, or the ability to shapeshift.

No one thinks it’s problematic for tortles to have shells or changelings to be able to change their appearance. “All differences between D&D races are bad” is a caricature you keep trotting out.

Or, we could stop pretending that our brains work like computers and actually use our ability to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis using broad sets of criteria and principles instead of insisting on the impossible standard of a single objective rule that can deterministically sort all differences between races into “problematic” and “not problematic.”

Biological essentialism is belief that ‘human nature’, an individual's personality, or some specific quality (such as intelligence, creativity, homosexuality, masculinity, femininity, or a male propensity to aggression) is an innate and natural ‘essence’, rather than a product of circumstances, upbringing, and culture. It isn’t biologically essentialist to say birds have wings. Do the lines get a bit blurrier when it comes to made-up fantasy races? Yes, of course they do. But claiming that gnomes having a bonus to intelligence is equivalent to Tieflings having horns is just shameless whataboitism.

I don’t claim it isn’t a complex topic. It is. But again, there’s an obvious qualitative difference between racial ASIs and fantastical traits like a Genasi’s control over their associated element, and it’s a waste of time and energy comparing those traits when we could be focusing on traits that are actually remotely comparable, like racial proficiencies (which I would argue are definitely biologically essentialist), Darkvision (which I would argue is definitely not), and things like dwarven resilience (which I would argue is on the borderline and merits some more in-depth interrogation.)

Look, you know this is not some gotcha to smuggle in evil orcs or some BS like that. But as you note, it gets weird when we apply biological essentialism, a concept that is mainly used about humans, to actually different species. And it is technically biological essentialism to say that birds have wings, just like it is to say that humans are smarter than chimps. It just happens to be that some of these things have been said about real groups of people while some (probably) have not. And yeah, it is pretty easy to spot things that are unlikely to come across as problematic, such as wings or breathweapon or some purely cosmetic things. (Though closer we get to things that actual people have or are describes as that too gets problematic. Drow skin colour is just cosmetic, but it definitely is not an insignificant issue!) But it is far from clear cut. You mentioned changeling shapeshifting. Not necessarily so innocuous, as 'others' that look like us infiltrating our society definitely is a racist trope. And then there of course are things that just measure capability in other way. Due how D&D mechanics work speed is not dependent on ability scores, but that doesn't make being fast conceptually different to being strong. And if being depicted strong is problematic biological essentialism, then it doesn't matter whether it is done via strength score, powerful build or even just in the lore. D&D mechanics are not social justice issue, what they depict might be. Even pretty trivial seeming things may seem problematic to some. A while ago there was discussion (here? somewhere...) about whether goliaths were 'black-coded' due their overt physicality.

I was creating my current setting a while ago when the great orc flame wars raged here, and I thought about this quite a bit. I fully agree that we should endeavour to remove clearly problematic elements and I have been complaining about D&D's racist depictions of certain things (orcs and drow mainly) at least since the 3rd edition. However, I also came to the conclusion that if the standard is "would this be racist if it was said about human ethnic group" then we pretty much cannot (and shouldn't) have non-humans. Anything that would be left would be some cosmetics and perhaps some superpowers*. Eberron is usually considered to be very good with these things, so lets look at its orcs "The orcs of Eberron weren't formed by Gruumsh, and they aren't inherently driven to evil. However, they are an extremely passionate and primal race, given to powerful emotions and deep faith." If I was to describe a real life human ethnic group thusly (ignoring the Gruumsh part obviously) it would be incredibly racist. Ultimately the issue is, that in order to describe non-humans, we have to describe how they're different from humans or at least stereotype then into some sort of extreme form humans. But describing any real human group that way would be racist. Even things like "industruous, holds grudges and loves gold" would be problematic.

* And for a game that needs to be balanced, even superpowers might be an issue, as having them necessitates that the group is worse than humans at something.

 

[Charlaquin]

If they're just people with different cultures, then they might as well be groups of humans with different cultures (and with pointed ears, or short, or with feathers, etc).

Given that humans don’t have pointed ears or feathers, and their body proportions generally fall within a certain range with rare exceptions due to genetic mutations, the bolded would make them not humans.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Given that humans don’t have pointed ears or feathers, and their body proportions generally fall within a certain range with rare exceptions due to genetic mutations, the bolded would make them not humans.

So we are just talking about cosmetic differences then? If that's all there is, then we shouldn't anyone but humans.

 

[TwoSix]

If they're just people with different cultures, then they might as well be groups of humans with different cultures (and with pointed ears, or short, or with feathers, etc).

A human can try to fit in with a warforged culture but they’re never going to BE a warforged.

 

[le Redoutable]

and, why not simply suppressing Humans ?

 

[Micah Sweet]

A human can try to fit in with a warforged culture but they’re never going to BE a warforged.

As an artificial being with actual interesting racial features, warforged are one of the few races where this isn't an issue.

 

[TwoSix]

So we are just talking about cosmetic differences then? If that's all there is, then we shouldn't anyone but humans.

You can have a race that’s mechanically completely identical to humans except that they live to be 600 years old, that race already has a completely different narrative than “standard human”.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can have a race that’s mechanically completely identical to humans except that they live to be 600 years old, that race already has a completely different narrative than “standard human”.

Not a mechanical difference. Being long-lived may change some the stories you tell, but it is still a cosmetic difference.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

So we are just talking about cosmetic differences then? If that's all there is, then we shouldn't anyone but humans.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your observation.