Are they replacing D&D's blacktop playground with foam?

[S'mon]

Half-Orcs are NEVER the result of Orcs raping human women, they're always the result of Human men being seduced by frisky Orc females.

Orc males have very strict taboos that prohibit having relations with "frail and weak" females from other species, but Human boys will be boys...

Does that fix it?

So now orcs are racist bigots?

 

[Steely Dan]

So now orcs are racist bigots?

Only if they're a 3rd Ed ranger.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

honestly, I dislike half-x races by definition; they aren't races but rather hybrids. If half elves were as common as they seem to be in most games, then they would start hooking up with each other and become a true breeding race (which, to my knowledge Eberron is the only campaign to ever come out and do; in that case, they even have a name (Korrivar) which unfortunately is too rarely used)

Actually Forgotten Realms had a pure-breeding Half-Elf ( or at least Half-Drow) kingdom sometime before Eberron was even a twinkle in WotC's eye.

 

[ruleslawyer]

True (that realm is Dambrath, and its aristocracy are true-breeding half-surface/drow elves). Long before that, Aglarond is mentioned as early as the gray box set as being populated to a large extent by half-elves who are the descendants of half-elves (the original Yuir elves are long gone, and it is their half-human descendants who make up a large portion of that nation).

 

[glass]

1: The mention that when they release half-orcs on DDI, they're going to try and change their assumed origin, with the specific mention that currently the origin of half-orcs (i.e. often the result of rape) is something they do not wish to dwell on.

Until they made that announcement about half-orcs, it had never occurred to me to assume anything about half-orc conception.

Also, care to explain the thread title to me? I don't get the reference.


glass.

 

[ruleslawyer]

It's a reference to street ball games. Here in New York, for instance, pickup basketball games can be pretty physical, even rough; such are usually played on asphalt-surfaced ("blacktop") courts, which don't treat the body well when you fall. (I remember that my friends in Costa Rica thought I was *insane* when I played with them while I was there for the summer, because of all the ball-checks and contact.)

 

[Kahuna Burger]

honestly, I dislike half-x races by definition; they aren't races but rather hybrids. If half elves were as common as they seem to be in most games, then they would start hooking up with each other and become a true breeding race (which, to my knowledge Eberron is the only campaign to ever come out and do; in that case, they even have a name (Korrivar) which unfortunately is too rarely used)

if they are so rare that they remain thought of as merely half-x, then they seem odd for a standard race.

But making them a standard PC race doesn't require that they be common in society, only that they be common among adventurers. Or, put another way, that they commonly become adventurers. If Adventurers are 0.1% of the population, and Half Elves are 0.01% of the population, but 90% of Half Elves become Adventurers, then 9% of adventurers can be half elves, making them deserving of inclusion in the PHB without being even slightly common in the game society.

(the same objection and explanation could be applied to sorcerers, 18 str humans and good drow.)

 

[Asmor]

But making them a standard PC race doesn't require that they be common in society, only that they be common among adventurers. Or, put another way, that they commonly become adventurers. If Adventurers are 0.1% of the population, and Half Elves are 0.01% of the population, but 90% of Half Elves become Adventurers, then 9% of adventurers can be half elves, making them deserving of inclusion in the PHB without being even slightly common in the game society.

(the same objection and explanation could be applied to sorcerers, 18 str humans and good drow.)

More generally, PCs are exceptional by assumption, and it should be perfectly acceptable for PCs to play exceptional characters.

Also, care to explain the thread title to me? I don't get the reference.

ruleslawyer summed it up well enough. It used to be that playgrounds were built paved with asphalt, aka blacktop, and now it's more common for them to be built over sand or wood chips (not actually foam, since that wouldn't stand up well to the elements). There's been a steady trend for the past few decades in the US of making everything safer for children, by removing potentially dangerous equipment like tall slides and making everything out of plastic instead of metal so that it hurts less when you fall on it.

Some people (such as myself) are against that trend, but that's not a discussion for this board.

 

[Werebat]

Why would half-elves not be the result of human brigands raping elves?

Why is elf / human breeding always tragic love?

Orcs = auto evil, elf = auto good is standard, but when did human = auto good?

I would be happy for WotC to create a new race that some people call half-orcs, but whose lineage is a pure race of their own. Like the Caliban in a Ravenloft campaign I played. The Caliban are 1/2 orcs mechanically, but they are their own race.

In Eberron, there are many half-orcs in the Shadow Marches whose parents love each other. Of course, in Eberron, Orcs saved the world once, and Orc paladins stem the tide of evil from flowing out of the Demon Wastes...

- Ron ^*^