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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7796289" data-attributes="member: 32740">You mean, how do you force player characters to be adjusted toward the norms for their race?  My question would be WHY do PC's need to be adjusted toward racial norms?The DM can and will assign stats to NON-player characters however they wish.  If they want more elves with higher dexterity scores, doing more dexterity-oriented things then that is what the DM will have happen.  But I don't see any reason that PC's need to ALSO noticeably reflect ability score patterns seen in their entire race.  If a player wants a dexterous elf to reflect the trend seen in NON-player character elves, then let the player assign a higher amount to Dex, and a lower amount to a stat where elves tend to be lower than humans.  If the player doesn't mind their PC being in the lower Dex percentile for their race, SO BE IT.You do not need to use stat bonuses/penalties to reinforce racial stereotypes that the DM is going to assign to NON-PLAYER-characters as they see fit anyway.  Let the DM worry about the NPC's reflecting the idea that in that campaign world Elves tend to be more dexterous.  Let the PLAYERS decide what they want stats for their character to reflect.  Period.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It doesn't need to start there.  It can start AT character creation when players assign their scores to stats.  There just isn't a reason I can fathom that PC's need to be pushed into having their characters ability scores weighted to specifically reflect those of NON-player characters.  If every dwarf character the players ever create for a campaign actually has a constitution below 11, does that alter the fabric of space-time and make the race of dwarves in that game world weaker and less hardy than humans?  No.  Because the DM will still have all NPC dwarves skew towards being hardier and stronger.  Why MUST player characters always be emblematic of their race regardless of what those racial tendencies are?  It will not alter the GAME WORLD that the DM presents to the players in any way.  At best it will only alter the perception of NPC's toward the individual player characters in comparison to the norms in that game world.But those differences aren't hard-baked in the first place.  NON-player demi-humans run the gamut of low to high in various stats just as humans do.  For a particular stat there will be a higher percentage that are better or worse, but they aren't ALL better, nor ALL worse in the same way - nor should they be - NOR should we keep acting as if they are.Why does this need to be forcibly built into PLAYER character creation?  Again, can't a player choose to create a NOT-above-human-averages-dexterity elf?  Can't they choose to create a NOT-above-human-averages-constitution dwarf?  If so, then let them.  If they want the "usually more dexterous" elf as their character, they can.  They just assign a high score to Dex.  If they want a "usually more high constitution" dwarf, they just assign a high score to Con.  Baking is then done, regardless of how hard the crust is on the dish that the PLAYER chose to make, and the food can be served.But can you argue that PLAYER characters MUST reflect those tendencies? Can't those tendencies be reflected by their choices in assigning stats as to whether their PC will demonstrate those tendencies or not?I find it difficult to buy into that line of reasoning at all.  If you take two characters with identical ability scores and hand them to two different players and say, "Your scores have been assigned.  Make whatever character you like but there are no default RACIAL abilities," would you get all humans?  If someone under those restrictions decides they DO want to play a demi-human despite not being bribed to do so by racial abilities within the game, wouldn't they still do so and still play their character AS a demi-human and not a human to at least SOME degree?  I don't buy that ONLY mechanical benefits of a choice of race will produce results that don't seem like a re-fluffed human.  If anything, I'd argue that giving all characters of a given race the same racial abilities only hands them a roleplaying crutch and expects every character ever to lean on that in order to seem different than humans because they can't and won't be trusted to do it any other way.</blockquote>

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