D&D General Do genes exist in D&D?

[Umbran]

I believe they do, because IMO there is no reason not to.

That's not really good enough. Because there's no reason to have them, either. When the exact same argument fits both possibilities, that argument doesn't really give you anything.

Consider dwarves. "Forged by Moradin" could be their mythology for their god creating them. Nothing says Moradin didn't use genes and science (i.e. magic or god-like power or whatever) to "forge" them.

The minotaur. A curse, certainly, in a world of magic. Nothing says the curse can't manipulate the genes and mutate them, just like how mutation happens with superheroes or even things in the real world.

So, does a fantasy world need genetics? Of course not, it's magic, after all, but IMO I see no reason not to have genes, DNA, etc. In the same line, it is why there is still gravity. Does "magic" make things fall down??? Probably not, but you could say so if you wanted, its your world.

But, really, there is a reason to not have genes and such in your fantasy world. That reason is that words mean things. The terms "gene" and "DNA" bring with them a significant number of assumptions about how the world works. That sets expectations of how the world works in the player's minds.

Are you bothering in the least to actually follow those expectations? No? Then don't set them. There is no reason to do so.

 

[BookTenTiger]

The existence of "half-races" which blend the traits of two different species suggests two things:

1. Heredity certainly exists in D&D, since the child has traits of both parents.
2. Genes, specifically, probably do not. The ability of wildly different species (e.g., humans and dragons) to interbreed is way outside the range of what can be explained by genetics.

So, heredity must be mediated by some other mechanism--a spiritual essence, probably, given that shapechanging magic doesn't affect it. (Again, see humans and dragons, who typically interbreed while the dragon is polymorphed into human form; yet the offspring inherits traits of the true draconic form.)

Edit: I suppose you could say that normal within-species reproduction is handled by genetics and inter-species reproduction is handled by spiritual essence, or that all shapechanging magic has a built-in CRISPR editor, but that seems inelegant. I prefer to have one single explanation that covers all cases.

Oh man, this makes me imagine Stirges engineered to inject CRISPR into adventurers to turn them into mutants!

 

[DND_Reborn]

That's not really good enough. Because there's no reason to have them, either. When the exact same argument fits both possibilities, that argument doesn't really give you anything.

It's good enough for me.

There are definitely reasons to have them, such as it lends to the expectations of what players can expect when interacting with the game world.

As I said before, do you need them? No, of course not, but it makes things simpler to have them and follow the laws of reality (even in a fantasy setting ).

But, really, there is a reason to not have genes and such in your fantasy world. That reason is that words mean things. The terms "gene" and "DNA" bring with them a significant number of assumptions about how the world works. That sets expectations of how the world works in the player's minds.

Exactly, assumptions that my fantasy world follows the same laws of science as our real world. Fire burns and consumes the fuel source, things fall when dropped, plants grow because there is sunlight, etc.

I expect my fantasy world to operate as our world and players expect the same thing. I don't want to have to "set-up" the alternative laws of science (or "magic") for my table whenever I start a new game. If you want to otherwise, knock yourself out.

Are you bothering in the least to actually follow those expectations? No? Then don't set them. There is no reason to do so.

Yes, of course I am! That is why I have them. And there are plenty of reasons to do so... namely so when a player sits down at the table, they can expect the fantasy world we play in to operate the same way things do here--it gives us a unified basis of understand of how the game world works.

At any rate, I answered the OP's question. You don't agree? That's fine, too.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In my opinion, genes do not exist in D&D. Children are born with brown hair or darkvision or horns because that is the will of the gods, not because of dominant and recessive genes. A rooster can give birth to a cockatrice. Humans can give birth to tieflings not because their great grandfather had hooves, but because they made a bad deal with a devil.

That's my two cents, anyways!

As is well-known and cannot be reasonably disputed, you do not get inherited powers or hereditary traits in D&D from genes. C'mon! What kind of foolishness is that!

You get your your traits from midi-chlorians.

 

[Mind of tempest]

As is well-known and cannot be reasonably disputed, you do not get inherited powers or hereditary traits in D&D from genes. C'mon! What kind of foolishness is that!

You get your your traits from midi-chlorians.

but where are they found? are they like arcane mitocondia?

 

[Vaalingrade]

In my world, yes, but not was we know them.

See, magic is part of the natural physics of the world, so there are altered/substituted factors. You have genes for the proclivity toward elemental fire... and genes that ARE elemental fire for example.

And then there's shapeshifters, who have unstable DNA that that 'infects' partner DNA, allowing natural shapeshifters like dragons to breed with anything or have their genes spliced to anyone using life magic.

Meanwhile humans can and will sleep with anyone, but can only breed fertile children with species born of human stock or that are carrying shapeshifter DNA already.

Add in that dopplegangers are amnesiac refugees from another world who don't know they're dopplegangers and there are plenty of opportunities for the latter to happen.

 

[Oofta]

Like @6ENow! I assume the D&D world works just like the real world unless we're explicitly told otherwise. We have half-elves and half-orcs because those races are magically compatible with other races. We don't have half-dwarves (outside of Dark Sun) because they aren't magically blessed.

But it also doesn't really matter. Outside of a few oddities we don't have dog/cat mixes. There are no half-gnolls or half-tortles running around that I know of. Most species cannot inter-mix. Unless it's campaign specific new species don't spring to life from rock formations (unless there's magic involved of course). Even if here aren't genes, there's something that works close enough that unless you have higher level of tech assumed for most D&D worlds nobody will know.

I also don't think there's one answer. The real answer is to figure out what makes sense for your world but if you vary from what happens in the real world be ready to explain it. We need some frame of reference to start from, even if there are exceptions. You need air to breath, gravity works the same way it does in the real world, water freezes if it's cold enough, genetics still function basically like they do in reality.

 

[Weiley31]

When a super strong halfling and a super strong goliath love each other very much

They kitbash together and the Alchemist Artificer is Murray.

 

[Charlaquin]

In a lot of ways, D&D wants to eat its cake and have it too when it comes to real-world science. Less so these days than it did during the 3e era, but nerds gonna nerd, and so you often end up with inconsistently applied scientific concepts mixed in with the mythic fantasy.

Personally, my stance is that it doesn’t really matter if genes exist. Heritability is a thing, and the characters in the world don’t have the tools to identify the mechanism behind it. Maybe it is a result of bio-chemical markers that instruct a creature’s DNA how to express itself, or maybe it’s the will of the gods. Either way, the outcomes are the same for the people who live in the fictional world. There being a right answer doesn’t really serve the gameplay in any meaningful way.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've never had the question come up but would probably lean towards yes simply because it's a simple thing to convey & doesn't require building something new I'd need to remember if it ever came up

I recently finished reading a book called throne of magical arcana that has an interesting spin on the question by having a country big on science through magic (dubbed "arcana") in an otherwise very d&d-like world with d&d like political problems. After starting out with music & piano it moves onto things like gravity, the periodic table, chemical fertilizer & production of it, general/special relativity, electromagnetic waves, a few types of advanced math, particle physics /the structure of an atom, the development of early computers, fission/fusion, development of AI on advanced computers in a world that already had golems of varying intelligence, & eventually things like the soul as a higher dimensional object capable of producing electromagnetic waves to cause magical effects plus later genes & dna. It's all very interesting seeing how some of those things change the world in similar/different ways due to magic & how their doscpvery gets tackled in such a world.