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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5113583" data-attributes="member: 22779">Heh, no worries.  Spirited discussion is what we're here for.  And it's nice to see a four pager that has not one single edition war reference in it.  ((Oh damn. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />))I kinda sit on the fence on this one.On one hand, the article does make a pretty decent point.  Humans are depicted as having this broad range of behaviours and cultures while non-humans are slotted into some pretty narrow definitions.  And, the published settings follow this.  Take halflings for example.  There are cannibal halflings in Dark Sun, klepto Kender in Dragonlance, fairly stock Tolkien in Greyhawk, dino riding plains halflings in Eberron and riverboat people in 4e.Yet, you don't have a single setting (that I can think of) where you get all of those.  Yet, the humans in every one of those settings can be from any number of cultures and backgrounds from city dwelling aristocrats to jungle dwelling tribesmen.  Or, look at the gods for the various races.  While elves might have half a dozen gods once you get past core, in 3e, you had about a dozen human gods and then one god for each race - at least in core.  That says an awful lot right there about how non-humans are viewed in the game.  Humans have rich, full pantheons.  Non-humans get one main god and maybe a couple of minor ones in some splatbook somewhere.However, that all being said, there is something that should be remembered.  When you have the existence of those gods in a setting, suddenly the whole nature vs nurture debate becomes rather moot.  Orcs aren't that way because of genetics or how they're raised, they're that way because they were CREATED that way.  The gods basically turn to Darwin and give him the big one finger salute.  <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=":)" />I'm not really sure where I come down on this to be honest.  I can see both sides as having really good points.  I know that there was no malicious intent on the part of any of the D&D creators to spread some sort of political message.  I believe that completely.  But, it is possible that in adhering to genre tropes, they have borrowed some bad habits as well.On the flipside, I'm not sure how you could fix this without making the PHB about ten thousand pages long.  Players need some sort of hook to base a character on, and having a particular race be a particular way does provide that rather well.I'll be over here sitting on the fence.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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