D&D General Are the Races of D&D races of Human or seperate Species according to lore?

[doctorbadwolf]

Just wanted to add that in the Dark Sun campaign setting the lore had it that once Halflings were the only intelligent race, dominated and controlled the world, and that due to a ecological/magical catastrophe they caused way back when, some of them turned into Elves, Dwarves, Humans, etc. so that all those races actually descend from Halfling stock in that setting. No gods created them. (Which of course contradicts what Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes asserts, that every Elf owes his/her ultimate origin to Corellon Larethian, even if the god is unknown in that Elf's world. Since the book passed through the hands of an Arcanaloth editor, maybe take what it says with a grain of salt? )

Gods I hate that book. It’s full of such incredible garbage. Genuinely some of the worst lore in the last two editions of the game. Rivaled only by the worst books from 3/.5e.

As much as I view the FR Sundering as equivalent to a tv show having a garbage season 8 premiere sweeping retcon that makes the last several seasons effectively not mean anything, I’d take a thousand pages more of that mediocre work over 80% of MToF.

“Lol Corellon is an ignoble jackass deadbeat father and Moradin is an obstinate victim-blaming bastard but also you should still view Drow and Duergar as the bad guys lawls”

Okay, Mordy, sure thing. Gonna take that whole book as the ignorant ramblings of a self obsessed scholar with no actual clue what the multiverse looks like.

 

[Bohandas]

They're different species (to the extent that species can be distinct in a setting where dragons, demons, and angels can breed with anything), the game designers just like to use unnecessarily colorful language

 

[Bohandas]

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Just wanted to add that in the Dark Sun campaign setting the lore had it that once Halflings were the only intelligent race, dominated and controlled the world, and that due to a ecological/magical catastrophe they caused way back when, some of them turned into Elves, Dwarves, Humans, etc. so that all those races actually descend from Halfling stock in that setting.

Similarly Dragonlance has the Dwarves, Gnomes, and Kender all descending from a common stock

Well, we can draw some inferences, and both WotC and Paizo did plenty of market research before launching their games...
At the time they were prepping 3E, WotC decided they needed a flagship... but picked the wrong one. The fans generally seem to prefer the Realms. And the mechanics for the realms upped the power level.

When Paizo realized they wouldn't be able to support 4E the way they had 3E, they started their research. They, also, decided they needed a setting - Golarion is a more gonzo setting than either Greyhawk or the Realms.

Meanwhile, 4E was trying the no strong setting elements... Which, as JeffB notes, made it easier to trim and prune... but it also meant more work for the GM. 4E isn't a bad game... but between the lack of D&D feel, and the lack of a strong set of setting elements in the rules, plus no explicit favored setting...

Then, the 5E era dawned. The realms are it. No mods (just specific racial labels) for the realms. ANd 5E has set new records for sales.

I won;t touch 5e specifically because of Forgotten Realms. Forgotten Realms is by far my least favorite setting, behind Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Ghostwalk, and Mystara (I don't know enough about Nentir Vale to pass judgement on it either way)

 

[aramis erak]

I won;t touch 5e specifically because of Forgotten Realms. Forgotten Realms is by far my least favorite setting, behind Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Ghostwalk, and Mystara (I don't know enough about Nentir Vale to pass judgement on it either way)

5E is a solid game; that the baseline is FR is essentially irrelevant, since the FR has been tweaked to fit the 5E, while 5E was written by streamlining and taking the best parts of both 3.x and 4.x.
It easily can handle a homebrewed setting; better, perhaps, than 3.x.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I will say Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes does give a good excuse for why there aren't more half-dwarves (or "muls"). Basically, dwarves don't experience love, and instead of love they experience pride in someone. Elves are more compatible with humans in that they also feel love.

As for other crossbreeds, aren't the halfling subraces supposed to be descended from couplings with dwarves and elves, or are those just hypotheses?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

As for homebrew, I will confess that I once came up with a chart showing how different races were or weren't related. In particular, I set the genies as the progenitors of the galaxy, along with another group of genies who reincarnated as various fey (including elves). Humans came about as a cross between genasi and elves.

I don't really care as much about explaining things now, but I wanted to establish a link with the ancient, human-like genies.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I don’t give the least little damn what Gygax intended. Bad ideas don’t become good because their from the creator of a thing. DnD has improved over time in many varied ways, and this is one of them.

I mean...what if someone thought this was in fact actually a good idea? (A lot of people do. Myself included. Its actually far more rational too conaidering most of the lore on orcs. I like internally proprotionate realism in games.) Though its pretty clear that the majority of half orcs result from a self sustaining population not too far into the history of d&d lore, this is in fact not even incongruent with the earlier idea of "mostly the result of rape" (paraphrased), as if the offspring breeds true and later populations are the descendants of the starting population, well, basically since most are descended even if only partially from the original stock and most later "original lines" also are the results of rape, then its the most sensibke thing in the world (depending on edition) to say both that most half orcs are the result of rape and to say most are the result of a half orc line. Because a half orc line generally originated at least a certain number (potentially thousands) of generations ago as the result of rape. It is quite objectively congruent. Like jigsaw pieces. Not at all contradictory. I also still think for many different kinds of reasons (spiritual and biological to name a few among many) a good idea. I fail to see how its a bad one. If you dont like it you can always change it but i think gygax' idea is in good taste. Just saying.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Personally I don't think D&D needs either rape monsters or a race that is nearly entirely the product of rape. It's a game people are supposed to enjoy, and it doesn't need references to traumatic events that some players may have personally experienced.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean...what if someone thought this was in fact actually a good idea? (A lot of people do. Myself included. Its actually far more rational too conaidering most of the lore on orcs. I like internally proprotionate realism in games.) Though its pretty clear that the majority of half orcs result from a self sustaining population not too far into the history of d&d lore, this is in fact not even incongruent with the earlier idea of "mostly the result of rape" (paraphrased), as if the offspring breeds true and later populations are the descendants of the starting population, well, basically since most are descended even if only partially from the original stock and most later "original lines" also are the results of rape, then its the most sensibke thing in the world (depending on edition) to say both that most half orcs are the result of rape and to say most are the result of a half orc line. Because a half orc line generally originated at least a certain number (potentially thousands) of generations ago as the result of rape. It is quite objectively congruent. Like jigsaw pieces. Not at all contradictory. I also still think for many different kinds of reasons (spiritual and biological to name a few among many) a good idea. I fail to see how its a bad one. If you dont like it you can always change it but i think gygax' idea is in good taste. Just saying.

Nah, Gygaxes idea was lazy garbage, and the game is better off without it.

In modern dnd, half-orcs are predominantly either the children of orcs and members of other races who boned for all the same reason two humans bone each other, or the children of two half-orcs who boned for all the same reasons that two humans bone each other.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I will say Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes does give a good excuse for why there aren't more half-dwarves (or "muls"). Basically, dwarves don't experience love, and instead of love they experience pride in someone. Elves are more compatible with humans in that they also feel love.

As for other crossbreeds, aren't the halfling subraces supposed to be descended from couplings with dwarves and elves, or are those just hypotheses?

Wait, how did I miss that!? Dwarves don’t feel love!?

<cackles sarcastically>

Wow. Mordy’s Fome of Toes is even more egregiously bad than I realized! Amazing!