Are half-races an essential option in D&D?

[Pbartender]

One of the projects I am working on involves the question of half races and D&D. Are they really an essential part of the game and a mandatory option for player characters to choose from?

Nope they're not.

They're only really there because of Elrond and the Uruk-hai.

 

[whydirt]

if my partner is without a brain and i'm say an illithid.

This certainly explains a lot.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Core races in my version of the PHB would be human, elf, dwarf and halfling and if I was being really honest, human, elf, and dwarf.

 

[Voadam]

I prefer full races as in Shadowrun (full orcs, full elves, no halves). I eliminated them from my game as hybridization and made races full species. Half X races exist as full X subraces with different fluff and same core mechanics. So gray orcs = 1/2 orc mechanics. I also allow half X from non breeding sources, blessed by dragon god can equal half dragon, dragon disciple also leads to half dragon, and half dragon X can be its own full species or subrace with its own fluff.

In Ravenloft half orc mechanics are used for calibans, humans who were cursed while in the womb. They come out ugly and strong with a prediliction for blending rage fighting into their lives.

 

[diaglo]

And, what kind of "fluff" do you have in your game anyway that requires these details?

i leave that to the players.

May I suggest flowers and dinner? No, seriously, we're talking about different species here. The fact that they can mate at all is unusual, suggesting either magical involvement or a close ancestry. Who knows if they're even psychologically matched to eachother, let alone physically and genetically.

true. again, this is up to the players. if they want to play a half-elf i'll work with them as to how it came to be. work in a backstory. the light from the fifth moon or the comet of X crossed in the sky and made mommy fertile. whatever.

Just because someone might "get together" with their horse doesn't require creating rules for centaur children.

yup. and then no half horse came to be. so it is a moot point. i thought we were discussing half races that do exist or can??? or in your example one that may have a story.

Why not be the child of another nationality/race (as opposed to species)? Or hell, just be a human with some kind of deformity or mutation. I'm sure these things happen even in a fantasy world and are far more plausible than yet another victim of sexual assault's tragic mopey child.

are children of the gods mopey? or children of shapeshifted dragons? or... not all half races have to be on the bad end of the genetic pool.

 

[Sleepy Voiced]

Definately non-essential. For a while I simply banned them from my 3.x games. I just preferred the "different species" angle. However, my players just really seemed to like the half-races. Out of five players I almost always had at least one half-orc and two half-elves. Should I get a chance to run another game (my group slowly disintegrated as four of my players moved out of state over a couple of years. Damn grad-students), I will include the half races mechanically, but make half-orcs a subspecies of orcs (high-orcs?), and half-elves will be human infants stolen by low-birthrate elves and raised to be members of elf society (changelings).

 

[Dagger of Lath]

True. Again, this is up to the players. If they want to play a half-elf i'll work with them as to how it came to be. Work in a backstory. The light from the fifth moon or the comet of X crossed in the sky and made mommy fertile. Whatever.

Likewise should they wish access to nuclear weaponry, such should be granted by the mystical comet of X and divine light of the fifth moon? In short, is it within the perogative of the GM to set the limits of campaign setting and ask players to respect that in the creation of their characters?

yup. and then no half horse came to be. so it is a moot point. i thought we were discussing half races that do exist or can??? or in your example one that may have a story.

I.E. The lack of procreative ability doesn't necessarily impact on the two creatures mating. I was commenting on your statement "The question of what happens when mommy and daddy get together will crop up in some games" by refering it to a similar situation in the real world. In a world where half-races don't exist, two different species mating don't produce an exact half-mix. (horse+human -> centaur). I can see how my example may have been obscure though.

are children of the gods mopey? or children of shapeshifted dragons? or... not all half races have to be on the bad end of the genetic pool.

You used the word "emotional baggage" to describe the situation. Saying "emotional baggage" struck me as a euphimism for a mopey character.

 

[Remathilis]

My next game is going to remove half-breeds and replace them with two other races. I'm thinking Goliath and Changling, but things might change (and no, changlings are a seperate race, not a 1/2-doppleganger).

 

[Kaodi]

Core Races

Like has been said before, you certainly don't need half-anythings, but if you were to get rid of the half-templates, that shouldn't necessarily mean you get rid of the core half-elves and half-orcs. While I don't really see myself doing this, especially since I'm pretty much dedicated to Eberron, I could see making a race list that was human, dwarf, elf and gnome, with the addition of modified LA +0 aasimar and tiefling. Aasimar and tieflings might not be descended directly from celestials and tieflings, but certainly something in their backgrounds would suggest a connection. That would get rid of the half-elves, the half-orcs, the half-lings and the half-templates, while giving the small schtick entirely to gnomes, and having a core race that made good clerics. Tieflings and elves overlap a bit, but I think their fluff is unique enough, and perhaps you might drop the dex bonus from tieflings and give them a bonus to strength, or alternatively, rebalance all of the core races to be equal to a +2 str, -2 dex, +2 con dwarf, -2 cha dwarf.

 

[pawsplay]

Tolkien had Elrond and and the various orc hybrids (goblin-men may actually refer to men of Mordor rather than an orc-human hybrid, though, since "goblin" is not a proper term in LOTR and may be an epithet for creatures of evil; nonetheless, half-orcs and other crosses are of Mordor stock anyway and do exist). In Sword of Shannara, the hero is a half-elf. And then there's Tanis Half-Elven. In Howard's work, you had half-giants and half-demons, and in the stories of those who followed him, you had tribes of humanity with otherwordly ancestry. So it's definitely a long tradition in the literature.

However, Palladium Fantasy took an early stance against half-elves and half-orcs.

It is not strictly a requirement that species be unable to breed. Wolves and dogs, dogs and coyotes, tigers and lions, and tomatoes and deadly nightshade are just a few examples of species (of various relationships) that can interbreed, sometimes with fertile offspring. In traditional fantasy, elves are otherwordly yet humanoid and orcs are monsters created through sorcery, so interbreeding with humans does not offend logic.

In some of the D&D world-building that has occured since, it may not be as logical. If elves and orcs were created by different deities, separate from humanity, it's hard to understand why they can interbreed. One explanation may be that all the standard races have traces of divine ancestry, dragon blood, and so forth in their dim past, and this magic may allow creatures to interbreed that are similar in form and physiology.