Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8374112" data-attributes="member: 7030755">I can see the logic of ASI, among all the other abilities, accentuating an archetype, but it does not create it.&nbsp; Players will come to the table archetypes from other media.&nbsp; Elves connote Legolas and wood sprites, whereas barbarians connote visigoths and dothraki*.&nbsp; So I'd argue that ASI is not doing the heavy conceptual lifting in that regard.&nbsp; For this reason, ASI is easier for elves, dwarves, and halflings, because there is already such a repository of tropes for us to work with.&nbsp; As people have noted, once you get to subraces or other races the archetypes are already much less defined and more fluid.Most of the conversation here has been the physical stats, with Str and Con accentuating the &quot;strong and stout&quot; races with Dex accentuating the &quot;small and slender&quot; races.&nbsp; It is more tricky, both from an in-game and out of game perspective, when it comes to the mental stats, particularly Int and Cha.&nbsp; In-fiction, the 5e skills associated with those stats are cultural and individual.&nbsp; Why are tieflings inherently more persuasive?&nbsp; Persuasive to whom, and about what? Similarly, aptitude with history, religion, and arcana would seem to come down to one's cultural background and individual background (e.g. level of education).&nbsp; Are the schools of forest gnomes (who rely on information from &quot;small forest animals&quot;) better than those of dragonborn (who have a &quot;continual drive for self-improvement [and] value skill and excellence in all endeavors&quot;)?&nbsp; Out of the fiction, the idea of inherently more or less intelligent races should be avoided, imo, as I discussed previously.*edit: and CONAN, obviously</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Malmuria, post: 8374112, member: 7030755"] I can see the logic of ASI, among all the other abilities, [I]accentuating[/I] an archetype, but it does not create it. Players will come to the table archetypes from other media. Elves connote Legolas and wood sprites, whereas barbarians connote visigoths and dothraki*. So I'd argue that ASI is not doing the heavy conceptual lifting in that regard. For this reason, ASI is easier for elves, dwarves, and halflings, because there is already such a repository of tropes for us to work with. As people have noted, once you get to subraces or other races the archetypes are already much less defined and more fluid. Most of the conversation here has been the physical stats, with Str and Con accentuating the "strong and stout" races with Dex accentuating the "small and slender" races. It is more tricky, both from an in-game and out of game perspective, when it comes to the mental stats, particularly Int and Cha. In-fiction, the 5e skills associated with those stats are cultural and individual. Why are tieflings inherently more persuasive? Persuasive to whom, and about what? Similarly, aptitude with history, religion, and arcana would seem to come down to one's cultural background and individual background (e.g. level of education). Are the schools of forest gnomes (who rely on information from "small forest animals") better than those of dragonborn (who have a "continual drive for self-improvement [and] value skill and excellence in all endeavors")? Out of the fiction, the idea of inherently more or less intelligent races should be avoided, imo, as I discussed previously. *edit: and CONAN, obviously [/QUOTE]

Verification