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

[Malmuria]

And in your mind removing an ability bonus will do that?

Or do you suggest removing all abilities?

Should races only have cosmetic differences?

What is the ideal here?

For me the big problem in that regard is some of the characterization of various races in the phb and the various monster books, along the lines that @Doug McCrae has pointed out, more so than any change in the mechanics or stat blocks per se. If there is going to be an implicit or built-in lore, there should be more done to create variety within the playable races in addition to providing mechanics that might make them distinct. For example, in the phb the entry on humans lists 9 different cultures, where some other races get subraces, and still others are presented as monoliths more or less (including, confusingly, half-elfs and half-orcs). That's a clear bit of worldbuilding that tells us how the game is understanding differences between and within races (not in a good way, imo).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The notion that any differences at all are biological essentialism is patently absurd. You can tell the difference between “this race is smarter than other races” and “this race has wings” and pretending you can’t comes across as really disingenuous.

Of course having wings is biological essentialism, so is being biologically better runner, being stronger (was it via strength ASI or powerful build) and literally any species-wide biological difference in capability. What is disingenuous is to pretend that it isn't.

Yes, I fully understand that some depictions of biological essentialism are far more harmful than others. I am not confused about that. But some people here (I think you included) have said that any biological essentialism is problematic. And I'm not sure that is even wrong. But please, let's be internally consistent with this!

They are different. We just don’t want them to be different in ways that echo the ways bigots try to dehumanize real people.

Sure. But then you don't think any depiction of biological essentialism is bad, just some depictions of it.

But I really think the issue is far more difficult than you are willing to accept.

 

[Scribe]

Of course having wings is biological essentialism, so is being biologically better runner, being stronger (was it via strength ASI or powerful build) and literally any species-wide biological difference in capability. What is disingenuous is to pretend that it isn't.

Yes, I fully understand that some depictions of biological essentialism are far more harmful than others. I am not confused about that. But some people here (I think you included) have said that any biological essentialism is problematic. And I'm not sure that is even wrong. But please, let's be internally consistent with this!


Sure. But then you don't think any depiction of biological essentialism is bad, just some depictions of it.

But I really think the issue is far more difficult than you are willing to accept.

Wings.
Stronger muscle.
More quick twitch fiber, flexible tendons.
Hardier immune system or heavier bones.
More neural pathways.
Just being darn good looking.

Every one of those is a biologically derived attribute.

 

[the Jester]

Four, and most important, the in-game fiction, whatever that is (species? magical creation?), is not really what we are talking about. The idea that the different societies and peoples in the real world are not actually or fully human was and is a core fantasy of the racist worldview. It's this dehumanization that allowed for and justified so much violence. So I don't think it's a good idea for an author or in this case game designers to uncritically replicate this dynamic and especially the specific language of that dehumanization (as it has been used historically) when creating a fantasy world.

Not to gloss over the rest of your post, but I wanted to speak to this bit.

I absolutely agree that other societies being inhuman, or perhaps subhuman is a better way of putting it, is a huge part of racism. And I am coming from the perspective of a white male in the US, so my perspective is, by its nature, limited. I try to remain keenly aware of it in these discussions.

Nonetheless- at a certain point, we have to choose one: dwarves, elves, et al, are just funny looking humans; or, fundamentally, they are not human.

"Not human" needn't mean lesser in any way, though. It just means different. And while, for example, an elf might be "lesser" in sturdiness and endurance by virtue of its -2 Con score, that doesn't mean it is "lesser" in terms of its value as a living being. Which is what the racist trope/ideology is about.

And while I agree that it's good to avoid the language used in perpetrating the racist world view, that doesn't mean it's impossible to describe a different, definitely non-human, race/species/whatever term you like in a way that sets them up as absolutely nonhuman without making them seem like lesser beings.

And then there are monsters. D&D is a game, fundamentally, about fighting monsters. The humanization of everything gets ridiculous in this context- I mean, at a certain point, we end up with people arguing about how it's unfair that we depict redcaps as universally murderous when they are pretty much murder incarnate in the lore. We'd be better off (in my opinion) leaning in, in this case, to the inhumanity of redcaps. "They're basically murder elementals", said someone in that thread, and that's how I see them- not as something to be humanized and sympathized with, but as unrepentant, irredeemable evil.

Anyway, nonhuman need not mean anything in terms of whether a creature is "lesser" or "greater" than humanity. Just that it's different. And while we should be careful to avoid perpetuating racist tropes, we should also be careful not to project too much humanity on all the monsters in the game. Especially those that aren't humanoid as a type (and no, the common definition of humanoid-as-shape doesn't matter a dingo's kidneys here).

 

[the Jester]

This tack is a bit of a cop out for a few reasons.
One, in terms of mechanics, racial asi in 5e does very little work in creating the distinctiveness you are talking about. All characters have ability scores ranging from 3 to 20, and most the variation comes in how you initially generate those stats and ASI from class progression. If it makes your mountain dwarf feel more distinctive because they got a bonus to str at character creation, that's fine, but at the table the halfling fighter next to you may have rolled an 18 str to begin with and then got that to 20 at 4th level, and by that point where the asi came from washes out in play.

This honestly seems to me more of an argument for removing ASIs from the game entirely than anything else.

 

[TwoSix]

Wings.
Stronger muscle.
More quick twitch fiber, flexible tendons.
Hardier immune system or heavier bones.
More neural pathways.
Just being darn good looking.

Every one of those is a biologically derived attribute.

The problem is these leads us down the path where even the ability scores are problematic, because a person should be able to achieve whatever they work for, darn it!

 

[Malmuria]

Of course having wings is biological essentialism, so is being biologically better runner, being stronger (was it via strength ASI or powerful build) and literally any species-wide biological difference in capability. What is disingenuous is to pretend that it isn't.

Yes, I fully understand that some depictions of biological essentialism are far more harmful than others. I am not confused about that. But some people here (I think you included) have said that any biological essentialism is problematic. And I'm not sure that is even wrong. But please, let's be internally consistent with this!

The kind of essentialism presented in fantasy doesn't usually take into account a lot of variation within a species. For example, in order to create bright distinctions, you might say x creature is really fast, whereas y creature is not. But in the real world, the track and field athletes we saw last week in the olympics are faster than I am (and ever was or will be) by several orders of magnitude. So you have this incredible variation within a species before you even get to differences between them. How do you model this in a game? Things like movement rate, or a dex bonus, are obviously extremely crude if you want to do this kind of world building, but they work for the purposes of keeping the game simple.

It's also the case that thinking in terms of species, genes, etc, is not really the idiom of fantasy. So trying to model species variation with a 3d6 bell curve strikes me as off to begin with. Fantasy works better with archetypes, which I still think are mostly ok, except in the cases where the language around those archetypes borrows or copies from real world racist language ("savage attacks" etc)

 

[Scribe]

The problem is these leads us down the path where even the ability scores are problematic, because a person should be able to achieve whatever they work for, darn it!

Which is part of the issue I have with this entire direction. It simply will never work because taken to the logical conclusion it's all 'problematic'. The entirety of Fantasy is built upon these elements.

I'm small. I would NEVER be able to be successful Sumo wrestler, or NBA Center super star, or NFL nose guard.

It doesn't matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't ever happen.

 

[billd91]

The kind of essentialism presented in fantasy doesn't usually take into account a lot of variation within a species. For example, in order to create bright distinctions, you might say x creature is really fast, whereas y creature is not. But in the real world, the track and field athletes we saw last week in the olympics are faster than I am (and ever was or will be) by several orders of magnitude. So you have this incredible variation within a species before you even get to differences between them. How do you model this in a game? Things like movement rate, or a dex bonus, are obviously extremely crude if you want to do this kind of world building, but they work for the purposes of keeping the game simple.

How do you model it in a game? Roll your stats using a bell-curve generating method.

There may be a lot of variation within members of a single species, but there may also be systematic variations between species. The presence of the former doesn't mean there can't be the latter.

 

[abirdcall]

Wings.
Stronger muscle.
More quick twitch fiber, flexible tendons.
Hardier immune system or heavier bones.
More neural pathways.
Just being darn good looking.

Every one of those is a biologically derived attribute.

The last one isn't. Beauty is in the eye of the non-trademarked beholder.