D&D General elf definition semantic shenanigans

[Micah Sweet]

IDK man, mental ability scores are kinda hard to justify anyway (I mean, what is the functional difference between a 12 and a 14 Wisdom in the fiction?) but by saying some races have an innate predisposition towards Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma feels icky. Ickier than physical scores which already felt rough.

I'm beginning to understand why so many games which started off as d20 hacks have moved away from scores in favor of just using the bonus mod.

Why do physical scores feel "rough" to you? There are in many cases obvious physical differences between heritages.

 

[CreamCloud0]

IDK man, mental ability scores are kinda hard to justify anyway (I mean, what is the functional difference between a 12 and a 14 Wisdom in the fiction?) but by saying some races have an innate predisposition towards Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma feels icky. Ickier than physical scores which already felt rough.

I'm beginning to understand why so many games which started off as d20 hacks have moved away from scores in favor of just using the bonus mod.

do you feel 'icky' saying the fact that some animals are smarter than others? because it's literally the same thing, just higher up the scale of brain development.

these species are not humans, nor are they representative of any kinds of groups of humans, they are allowed to be different in these ways, and it does not say anything about anyone if they are.

 

[Remathilis]

do you feel 'icky' saying the fact that some animals are smarter than others? because it's literally the same thing, just higher up the scale of brain development.

these species are not humans, nor are they representative of any kinds of groups of humans, they are allowed to be different in these ways, and it does not say anything about anyone if they are.

I feel icky that we are comparing the intelligence capacity of sapient creatures to animals. It reeks of the discredited science of phrenology. As Micah said, D&D maps mental abilities far more to personality and education than capacity, so mental ability should not be influenced by biology.

 

[Scribe]

Why do physical scores feel "rough" to you? There are in many cases obvious physical differences between heritages.

Great Dane vs Chihuahua.
Gold Fish vs Dolphin.

 

[Remathilis]

Why do physical scores feel "rough" to you? There are in many cases obvious physical differences between heritages.

Rough because the debate of how much bioessentialisn is defined by a +2 score differential. But that's be debated to death already. Even if you can justify the difference in strength between a halfling and a Goliath, I am far more concerned about justifying the difference in intelligence between an orc and an elf.

 

[Corinnguard]

Everyone right now in the now is the culmination of years worth of personal experiences. They have shaped us more than biology has. This is disturbingly very meta, even for me.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I feel icky that we are comparing the intelligence capacity of sapient creatures to animals. It reeks of the discredited science of phrenology. As Micah said, D&D maps mental abilities far more to personality and education than capacity, so mental ability should not be influenced by biology.

well the reason i use animals is because i can't use humans to make the point, the issue with using humans to illustrate the differences between different species is that they're all human, they're all the same species, humans are the only clearly sapient species we know, if there were others i would use those in my comparison but there aren't so i have to resort to using animals for an accurate example of differences between species.

 

[Remathilis]

well the reason i use animals is because i can't use humans to make the point, the issue with using humans to illustrate the differences between different species is that they're all human, they're all the same species, humans are the only clearly sapient species we know, if there were others i would use those in my comparison but there aren't so i have to resort to using animals for an accurate example.

Correct. Until we make contact with another sapient alien species, we can only guess as to the nature of intelligence from our own perspective. However, we did try that before to explain the difference in race in the real world a century ago and it didn't work out well. Even used in its most neutral and objective form, it argued that inherent limitations of certain races made them ill suited for certain types of tasks, showed they lacked the cognitive ability to understand right from wrong and made social integration difficult if not impossible.

In short, they compared them to animals.

And unfortunately, even if it was done innocently or for well intentioned reasons, that language is what is used when we compare races in D&D. An orc's biology and culture defined him as intellectually inferior, a social outcast, predisposed to chaos and evil, physically strong, living a primitive lifestyle and best suited for physical occupations rather than intellectual or leadership ones.

That language has been used before to demonize countless groups of people. It is a relic of bad science used to bad effects. The sooner that that kind of language fades into obscurity, be it for humans or orcs, the better.

 

[Corinnguard]

And unfortunately, even if it was done innocently or for well intentioned reasons, that language is what is used when we compare races in D&D. An orc's biology and culture defined him as intellectually inferior, a social outcast, predisposed to chaos and evil, physically strong, living a primitive lifestyle and best suited for physical occupations rather than intellectual or leadership ones.

I am glad that D&D is steadily moving away from this.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Correct. Until we make contact with another sapient alien species, we can only guess as to the nature of intelligence from our own perspective. However, we did try that before to explain the difference in race in the real world a century ago and it didn't work out well. Even used in its most neutral and objective form, it argued that inherent limitations of certain races made them ill suited for certain types of tasks, showed they lacked the cognitive ability to understand right from wrong and made social integration difficult if not impossible.

In short, they compared them to animals.

And unfortunately, even if it was done innocently or for well intentioned reasons, that language is what is used when we compare races in D&D. An orc's biology and culture defined him as intellectually inferior, a social outcast, predisposed to chaos and evil, physically strong, living a primitive lifestyle and best suited for physical occupations rather than intellectual or leadership ones.

That language has been used before to demonize countless groups of people. It is a relic of bad science used to bad effects. The sooner that that kind of language fades into obscurity, be it for humans or orcs, the better.

okay but like, you recognise that the two situations aren't the same thing right? yes it was absolutely terrible that those peoples were treated as lesser or other, and the choice to use 'race' to describe the fantasy species was wildly inaccurate and has been used to draw unfortunate comparisons, but it is not 'bad science' to say that these different creatures with genuinely different biological makeups who are all presented as sapient can actually have differently developed brains and bodies and be genuinely more adept in different areas at certain types of learning or thinking or doing.

it is quite possible for us to see that different creatures can have differently developed brains suited for different ways of thinking, even if the species we learn that from are not as inteligent as humans are.

those historical peoples were all humans, regardless of what they were called or the ways they were treated, and these species are all different from humans, regardless of how we refer to them, we can gladly move away from the 'all orcs are savage barbarians' mentality while still recognising that they could be built differently in ways that makes them better or worse at certain things in comparison to other species who are also built differently in their own ways.