Level Up (A5E) Changes to race (species?)

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree with most of your ideas here and in other threads, although we disagree on the racism of ASIs assigned by race and/or culture (I feel they are inherently problematic and racist).

But I wouldn't describe a person claiming dogs are better than bears (or vice versa) as racist . . . as there is no oppression or discrimination involved as we're talking animals here. I mean, it's silly to claim something like that, but not racist.

Now when comparing cats vs dogs . . . cats are clearly the superior animal . . . I kid . . .

The bears and wolves are a metaphor for dwarves and elves.

 

[Dire Bare]

That isn’t obvious, or even true, at all.

Imagining different sentient fantasy species/races is, despite the genre, essentially an act of science fiction . . . and is most certainly OK as long as we're careful about it.

One thing to be careful about is confusing species (genetics) with culture (learned behavior) and making implicit value judgments based on species and cultural traits. Another is to insist that species are fully distinct from one another, as IRL the lines between closely related species can be difficult to determine. In fantasy, and science fantasy, our fantastic species/races often embody literary and mythic tropes that are sometimes grounded in systemic racism, and the racist aspects of those tropes need to be subverted and excised from the game. But the idea of trope = fantasy race is a part of the genre, and shouldn't be entirely left behind.

There's been some good conversation here and elsewhere on this topic, and some good game-design work done on the topic as well. I have confidence that Morrus will be building on this work with Level Up, and I'm excited to see what he comes up with!

 

[Dire Bare]

The bears and wolves are a metaphor for dwarves and elves.

Ah, I missed that part of the conversation. I haven't read the entire thread, and there are a lot of folks who post in these things that are on my ignore list, so sometimes I only get half of the conversation . . .

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Imagining different sentient fantasy species/races is, despite the genre, essentially an act of science fiction . . . and is most certainly OK as long as we're careful about it.

One thing to be careful about is confusing species (genetics) with culture (learned behavior) and making implicit value judgments based on species and cultural traits. Another is to insist that species are fully distinct from one another, as IRL the lines between closely related species can be difficult to determine. In fantasy, and science fantasy, our fantastic species/races often embody literary and mythic tropes that are sometimes grounded in systemic racism, and the racist aspects of those tropes need to be subverted and excised from the game. But the idea of trope = fantasy race is a part of the genre, and shouldn't be entirely left behind.

There's been some good conversation here and elsewhere on this topic, and some good game-design work done on the topic as well. I have confidence that Morrus will be building on this work with Level Up, and I'm excited to see what he comes up with!

I agree with most of that. You gotta be careful with how you describe the races more than anything. Giving Agrarians a +1 to strength regardless of their race or class isn't going to be a problem. Making a specific culture that is clearly psuedo-Mexican is going to be a landmine if you aren't well steeped in Mexican culture and history, regardless of what mechanics come with it.

 

[Dire Bare]

I know a number of people who grew up on farms. Without exception, they are substantially stronger than other people I know that grew up in the city. This despite the fact that one is a librarian, and another is a computer programmer.

Their choice of profession later in life has nothing to do with how they developed growing up, and the point of the Culture mechanic (as I described it earlier) is to encompass what is learned and developed before a person begins making personal life choices.

Saying that there is a 'weaker' desk clerk living in the village does not invalidate the point of the Culture selection, which is designed to describe the broad mechanical benefits that growing up in an agrarian society would confer on an individual. You are not yet at the point of individual choices in individual creation; that begins at Background.

I'm joining the conversation late, so forgive me if I'm missing part of it or misunderstanding . . .

I would not consider "farmer" as a culture, but rather as a background. There are certainly, IRL, cultural elements to being a farmer different from being raised in a more urban environment, but it's not usually what we are referring to when we speak of culture. It's not one-to-one, but culture rides along pretty well with language.

For example, if I were raised on a farm IRL, I might describe myself culturally as American, or perhaps some sort of hyphenated-American if I strongly identified with a subculture or immigrant culture. My background would be farmer, and because of that I may have developed certain traits like increased strength compared to others. But that increased strength, while somewhat based in my real experience, is also exaggerated socially and certainly doesn't apply to everyone raised on a farm. And, of course, how much of a difference is there really? Especially compared to other backgrounds that emphasize physical training?

I wouldn't object to ASIs in a D&D-style game being assigned by background. All farmers get a +1 to strength. But I would prefer a more fluid system with a "floating" ASI bonus to assign. For example, you might get two "+1" bonuses to assign to any stat you want, but certain backgrounds, and perhaps certain cultures, have preferences for where those bonuses go. As a German-American farmer, I can put my "+1" bonuses to any stat I want to best embody how I see my character's background, but the game might tell me that farmers often put one of those bonuses to strength due to the physical demands of farming.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm joining the conversation late, so forgive me if I'm missing part of it or misunderstanding . . .

I would not consider "farmer" as a culture, but rather as a background. There are certainly, IRL, cultural elements to being a farmer different from being raised in a more urban environment, but it's not usually what we are referring to when we speak of culture. It's not one-to-one, but culture rides along pretty well with language.

For example, if I were raised on a farm IRL, I might describe myself culturally as American, or perhaps some sort of hyphenated-American if I strongly identified with a subculture or immigrant culture. My background would be farmer, and because of that I may have developed certain traits like increased strength compared to others. But that increased strength, while somewhat based in my real experience, is also exaggerated socially and certainly doesn't apply to everyone raised on a farm. And, of course, how much of a difference is there really? Especially compared to other backgrounds that emphasize physical training?

I wouldn't object to ASIs in a D&D-style game being assigned by background. All farmers get a +1 to strength. But I would prefer a more fluid system with a "floating" ASI bonus to assign. For example, you might get two "+1" bonuses to assign to any stat you want, but certain backgrounds, and perhaps certain cultures, have preferences for where those bonuses go. As a German-American farmer, I can put my "+1" bonuses to any stat I want to best embody how I see my character's background, but the game might tell me that farmers often put one of those bonuses to strength due to the physical demands of farming.

Here's the thing.

The further back in history you go, the more different an agrarian American is from a coastal urban American.

Because it's not that "Farmer" is a culture, it's that Agrarian Society is a culture, that you can then place in a world, decide which races are predominantly part of it, and fill in the rest from there.
In an Agrarian society, everyone grows up doing agrarian tasks. Even the folks who aren't fully able bodied. And it sticks.

I know people raised on farms whose Background in DND would not be Farmer. My father in law would be a Guild Artisan from an Agrarian Culture, because he grew up on a farm in a farming town in a rural region of America in the mid 20th century, and became a mechanic.

He has things in common with other farmfolk down here in California that he doesn't have in common with city-folk from Idaho or Washington, where he grew up.

 

[Kinematics]

I'm joining the conversation late, so forgive me if I'm missing part of it or misunderstanding . . .

I would not consider "farmer" as a culture, but rather as a background. There are certainly, IRL, cultural elements to being a farmer different from being raised in a more urban environment, but it's not usually what we are referring to when we speak of culture. It's not one-to-one, but culture rides along pretty well with language.

I didn't say that farmer is a culture. Rather, a farmer (or rancher, or similar) is someone representative of agrarian culture to a relatively broad degree, and sufficiently representative (compared to a non-agrarian culture) that getting a +1 Str from it would be entirely believable simply because of what growing up in that culture means.

For example, if I were raised on a farm IRL, I might describe myself culturally as American, or perhaps some sort of hyphenated-American if I strongly identified with a subculture or immigrant culture.

You skipped some of my write-up, it seems. 'American' is a culture recognized in real life, even though if you ask for details, no one can really describe what it is. But there are some vaguely agreed-upon elements that you could derive from it, as a standard stereotype level. Same if you took any subgroup, such as the stereotype of rednecks, or African-Americans.

However, if I may re-quote myself:

First, do not conflate the Culture mechanic idea with the real term, 'culture'. A game mechanic is not the same as the real-life thing, even if we try to interpret it through that lens. It's the same as looking at Strength or Intelligence as reflective of their real-life counterparts. There are certainly similarities, and there's a broad parallel intent, but they are not the same thing. Making assertions based on the assumption that they are the same thing is arguing in bad faith.

And further:

As an abstract, that's fine. But how do you define individual instances? Dwarf culture vs Waterdeep culture vs nomadic culture?

For casual shorthand purposes, any of the above might work, but for the published rules you want to be as clean and abstract as possible. You don't want to reference Waterdeep, because what if you're running the campaign in Greyhawk? You don't want to reference dwarves, because what if your world doesn't have dwarves?

Even if D&D were set in modern day, "American Culture" would not be a useful mechanical descriptor. The term 'Culture' is used as a label for a mechanical element of the game which has a rough correspondence with what we might in casual conversation term 'culture', but is not the same thing. It's a label for a set of boosts (stats, skills, languages, whatever is decided upon) which are common to people who are members of a named group which can be agreed upon as being fairly narrow in scope, but broad enough to be easily understood by anyone referencing the rules. It also is a wrapper for social conventions common to that group.

It is not narrow enough to be a single person's occupation or choice of vocation. A culture must be broad enough that you can say that your character has a decently large number of things in common with other people of the same culture. A desk clerk who works in a farming town, but was raised in the city, and doesn't really gel with the other locals, isn't part of an agrarian Culture. He may be a member of an agrarian society (and may equally describe himself as an "American", in your examples), but that is very much not the same thing.

Not everyone within the same community shares the same Culture. That is by intent.

Culture, as described by my writeup, is not the same as "Chinese immigrant culture" or "African-American culture" or whatever, because those appellations are vastly broader in scope (while also being extremely specific to the setting) than what can be contained within a mechanical write-up. Each Culture must be narrow enough that you can easily extract the intent of it, but broad enough that it can easily be applied to a number of places within your world setting.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

And what exactly do you find disingenuous?
Why would people living in an agrarian society/culture be stronger than other people?

It's not "people", it's "adventurers."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I want to take a closer look at the Culture mechanic idea.

First, do not conflate the Culture mechanic idea with the real term, 'culture'. A game mechanic is not the same as the real-life thing, even if we try to interpret it through that lens. It's the same as looking at Strength or Intelligence as reflective of their real-life counterparts. There are certainly similarities, and there's a broad parallel intent, but they are not the same thing. Making assertions based on the assumption that they are the same thing is arguing in bad faith.

I think that overall your post had many good points, but I don't think this is gonna work. We are literally having this whole conversation because of the real life implications of word 'race' even though it is abundantly clear that the fantasy 'races' in D&D are not at all the same thing than the bogus concept of human 'races'.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Have you never heard of farm strength? They discuss it in MMA and wrestling all the time. Of course it is not everyone, but what they say is that all the awkward lifting, pulling and pushing helps build a physique that is stronger than most (including people who just traditionally lift) because all the intermediary muscles are being used. Much like a sherpa has good constitution and endurance.

This is a modern concept. Historically people from agrarian societies were smaller and presumably weaker than hunter-gatherers because they did have rather protein-poor diet. For the same reason a person from noble or wealthy background would likely be taller and potentially stronger than a peasant; they had access to better food. Though in that instance they might have such a good access that they could develop adverse effects like the modern people often do.

In any case, as has been stated 'farmer' or 'grew on the farm' is not a culture, it is background. There is no culture where everyone is a farmer.