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General Tabletop Discussion
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Are the Races of D&D races of Human or seperate Species according to lore?
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<blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 7793364" data-attributes="member: 5100"><p>One of the best things about D&D is that there isn't a canonical answer to questions like this. D&D isn't a setting. It's a toolkit with which to build a setting. WotC has been nice enough, over the years, to have provided some settings made with that toolkit.</p><p></p><p>As others have said, half-elf and half-orc are largely due to Tolkien's influence on the game. Also, there was originally a strong human bias in the tone and mechanics of the game -- it was considered the only rational "frame of reference" for players who were all humans. From that perspective, it's humans that are special. That's why tieflings aren't elf/fiend hybrids and genasi aren't gnome/elemental hybrids. Humans are the axis around which everything else spins.</p><p></p><p>To the best of my knowledge, there are no official settings that have elves and/or orcs as part of the human "family tree". I've seen a couple of home brew settings that have done that. Personally, when I home brew, I tend to leave out half-elves and half-orcs. Even though I still keep the human bias (I'm an old gamer), I find half-elves and half-orcs to be a bit played out. I allow genasi, tieflings, aasimar, and the like, but those are never in the sense of a true-breeding race. They're either first generation (my mom didn't know that guy was Dagon) or a random manifestation of an ancient indiscretion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mercule, post: 7793364, member: 5100"] One of the best things about D&D is that there isn't a canonical answer to questions like this. D&D isn't a setting. It's a toolkit with which to build a setting. WotC has been nice enough, over the years, to have provided some settings made with that toolkit. As others have said, half-elf and half-orc are largely due to Tolkien's influence on the game. Also, there was originally a strong human bias in the tone and mechanics of the game -- it was considered the only rational "frame of reference" for players who were all humans. From that perspective, it's humans that are special. That's why tieflings aren't elf/fiend hybrids and genasi aren't gnome/elemental hybrids. Humans are the axis around which everything else spins. To the best of my knowledge, there are no official settings that have elves and/or orcs as part of the human "family tree". I've seen a couple of home brew settings that have done that. Personally, when I home brew, I tend to leave out half-elves and half-orcs. Even though I still keep the human bias (I'm an old gamer), I find half-elves and half-orcs to be a bit played out. I allow genasi, tieflings, aasimar, and the like, but those are never in the sense of a true-breeding race. They're either first generation (my mom didn't know that guy was Dagon) or a random manifestation of an ancient indiscretion. [/QUOTE]
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Are the Races of D&D races of Human or seperate Species according to lore?
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