D&D General elf definition semantic shenanigans

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not really comfortable with culture mechanics even as an addition. Certain cultures might have tendencies when we look the population as a whole, but those do not necessarily apply to individuals. Finns who do not like coffee but do like small talk might be rare, but they do exist!

Which is why any culture is possible for any PC. There's a difference between being wary of culture mechanics and essentially calling them (and by extension those who use and/or design them) racist. Which of those did you mean in your earlier comment?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which is why any culture is possible for any PC. There's a difference between being wary of culture mechanics and essentially calling them (and by extension those who use and/or design them) racist. Which of those did you mean in your earlier comment?

But if culture mechanics are not consistently representing a culture, why are we having them? It seems like a meaningless complication. We already have the background. One might logically infer that an outlander would be a rather common background in a hunter-gatherer culture, without needing to assume that everyone from such culture has that background.

Essentialist culture mechanics are problematic and non-essentialist ones are already covered by backgrounds.

 

[Minigiant]

Ok.

The Elf Race for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5e) - D&D Beyond elf.

Make these stats represent:

Athasian elves
The Tarinadal elves of Eberron
The Shadow Elves of Mystara
The Valley Elves of Oerth
Rockseer elves
Star elves of Faerun

Or, Maybe we could make elf a super type of a bunch of different similar species each with their own unique traits and abilities?

again easy

Age, size, dark vision, senses, fey ancestry, and trance are the same.

Then you have about a half feat worth of power to make the subspecies culture.

Athasian elves get bonus speed and conceal thoughts
Valley Elves and Star Elves are high elves

Etc etc

 

[Divine2021]

NGL, I'm really uncomfortable with such a classification. That they are all human, and thus all have the same stats, is...kind of a major selling point for me. Culture as an additional layer on top of "these are the characteristics humans have" is another thing entirely.

Cool. I’m not uncomfortable with it cause I think they handle it extraordinarily well, so I’ll direct you to their work so you can decide for yourself.

I’m not interested in changing your mind, I’m sharing my opinion on a system that does it well. Your mileage may vary, and that’s cool.

 

[CreamCloud0]

But that is obviously what players will tend to do, and if you don't understand that, then you probably shouldn't be a game designer (not you, personally, I mean generally speaking). Since the 5e designers were and are talented professionals, they knew what they were doing and what the result would be. They wanted half-orcs and mountain dwarves to be a bit better choices for fighter/barbarian/paladin types.

eh, i think it just makes sense to make the warrior species strong, and i don't especially see any virtue in counter-designing away the mechanical implementations of a strong species just because there are also strength based classes that people will see and take advantage of the obvious natural synergy between putting the two together.

And I very much question the underlying logic that "because the species tends to be like this, therefore the player character's stats must reflect that tendency." That's my fundamental beef with that kind of paradigmatic thinking. It's basically an attempt to constrain player imaginations. It's absolutely fine to tell the players that a typical orc is like this or a typical elf is like that. But don't try to coerce them to be a typical orc or elf.

i'm not a fan of the idea that the PCs are these super special examples of their species who get to defy their basic fundamental biology just because, they might be an extraordinary member of their species but they're not an abnormal deviation, i've never seen species ASI as constraining imagination, the only ones it constrains in my view are the ones who value having perfectly assigned stats, that 'sickly dwarf' is still a sickly dwarf with their 6(+2)CON even if they're next to that 'sickly elf' 6(+0)CON, because a dwarf is meant to be more hardy than an elf even at their lowest.

Edit: the whole history of D&D has been a slow movement away from trying to prescribe those sorts of decisions that should be left to individual players and DMs. That's a good thing.

i disagree, i mean, customisation options are good but if you're just going to let everything be switched around and swapped out why bother having presets in the first place at all.

 

[Divine2021]

But that is obviously what players will tend to do, and if you don't understand that, then you probably shouldn't be a game designer (not you, personally, I mean generally speaking). Since the 5e designers were and are talented professionals, they knew what they were doing and what the result would be. They wanted half-orcs and mountain dwarves to be a bit better choices for fighter/barbarian/paladin types.

And I very much question the underlying logic that "because the species tends to be like this, therefore the player character's stats must reflect that tendency." That's my fundamental beef with that kind of paradigmatic thinking. It's basically an attempt to constrain player imaginations. It's absolutely fine to tell the players that a typical orc is like this or a typical elf is like that. But don't try to coerce them to be a typical orc or elf.

Edit: the whole history of D&D has been a slow movement away from trying to prescribe those sorts of decisions that should be left to individual players and DMs. That's a good thing.

I’m glad you have discovered what you like and don’t like, and have the presence of mind to not police other people’s imaginations or preferences when it comes to their games of make believe.

 

[Clint_L]

i disagree, i mean, customisation options are good but if you're just going to let everything be switched around and swapped out why bother having presets in the first place at all.

Not sure I follow. I don't think you should have preset stat modifiers based on species. That's my whole point. Letting players assign the modifiers themselves, based on their character concept, is optimal for me.

I just think encouraging player characters to be typical is boring and contrary to what good fiction does. Interesting characters are always outliers.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Not sure I follow. I don't think you should have preset stat modifiers based on species. That's my whole point. Letting players assign the modifiers themselves, based on their character concept, is optimal for me.

I just think encouraging player characters to be typical is boring and contrary to what good fiction does. Interesting characters are always outliers.

i was referring to species as a concept as a whole, you might as well invest in making a better custom lineage generating mechanic than making all these statblocks that barely have anything concrete set in them.

 

[Clint_L]

I’m glad you have discovered what you like and don’t like, and have the presence of mind to not police other people’s imaginations or preferences when it comes to their games of make believe.

I find your response to read as passive aggressive sarcasm. If that's not your intent, I apologize, but that is how I am reacting to it. I try to make my points in as clear language as possible so I am less likely to be misunderstood.

I am not policing anything. I am stating my opinions. IMO, trying to coerce players to make their characters typical is not good. That's my whole thesis.

And I think that, as the world-building DM, you can absolutely create a world where most elves are typically X, while not trying to coerce the player's elf to be X. I don't think those are antithetical premises. In fact, I think letting players know how most elves typically are, will give the players ideas for how to play with or against that stereotype. Just as Bilbo was the hobbit who went on an adventure, maybe their elf is the one who embraces their inner barbarian.

 

[Scribe]

Real shame people have to drag such topics around the same burning dumpster every time.

Elf game folks. Elf game.