Half-orc dad, half-elf mom --> 'human' child?

[Goblyns Hoard]

Personally, I don't think 'species' or anything like that was on the minds of the first developers <snip> I think they were just pure Tolkienisms and nothing else

That was what I was getting at - they just ran with what they saw in Tolkien, without considering the implications on any further level. It's only now that so many more players have a decent grasp of genetics (still a fairly rudimentary science back in the late 70s) that we get into the debates about it.

Sure, I've already done it.

So how do you handle these things (or have I missed a post higher up this thread )

It's still not quite that simple. A lot of taxonomists are thrown for a loop by all kinds of weird things that happen in the real world. <snip> If we can't figure that out in real life with an animal with which we're very familiar, why do we demand more precision from our fantasy races?

Not saying it is or we should - just presenting some options for people to use as explanations in a game. However as a DM I want to understand how MY world works so that when a player asks I can answer. Afterall I'm the only thing that counts as truly omniscient in my world (well maybe those lesser beings the characters call gods, but only on a good day). And as a DM with a degree in genetics I think I can. In my world all half-breeds are non-viable, and there are some half-breeds that most worlds don't go with (e.g. half-dwarves). However magical creatures (celestials, dragons, fiends, maybe some others) have the ability to manipulate they're genetics into working like a human's (or elf's or bugbear's...) while still passing on the traits of the magical creature.

I think the typos in that last sentence obscured the meaning somewhat, but if you're saying that all races are species, yet are closely enough related to produce viable (yet non-fertile?) offspring; mules, so to speak, then that's a good idea for why we have half-elves and half-orcs in the game. This is probably the best fit to what we actually see represented in the core rules.

Ooops... ummmm.... yeah didn't put that very well did I. The idea was that no races are closely enough related that they can breed at all on a biological basis. They can't even produce mules. However the magic/divine intervention/bizarre magnetic field/whatever allows a few limited species to breed together and produce viable offspring. As you said probably the closest to the 'basic D&D world'

I wonder. The fact that we have half-elves and half-orcs that are crossed with humans, but no other combinations, does indeed suggest a cultural divide more than a biological one. Maybe they all can interbreed? The whole half-x template issue, on the other hand, just doesn't work from a biological standpoint; I'd recommend either tossing it entirely, or tossing biology instead. The two are irreconcilable, IMO.

I'd have to say not neccessarily. You can combine the explanations of magic and biology - I feel my point above holds up to that:

Some species breed on a basic biological level, others on a magical level.

Those that breed purely biologically have to conform to the rules of genetics and need to be effectively a species. This assumes the word species is the biological concept of an organism capable of breeding true with another organism of the same species rather than a species because someone somewhere decided it was a separate species (e.g. your wolf-dog divide which as you point out is very probably not a true species boundary. These creatures may have close relatives they can produce mules with, or may not. Thus elves, humans and orcs could be a single species with very large allelic variation between the populations, while dwarves are an entirely separate species. However the relationships between all of them are constrained by biology - none are inherently magical enough to change their genes through an act of will (though who knows what a wish could do).

Those that breed magically are able to overcome the constraints of simple biology - their inherent magical nature allows them to imprint a morphology on their chromosomes that allows those genes to be compatible with the chromosomes of another species. Those chromosomes allow the organism to breed true with other members of that species, and may (or may not) retain enough of their inherent magic to allow the half-x to breed true with a third species. Effectively the magic introduces a set of new alleles into the gene pool of that species - alleles which reflect the nature of the magical being they derived from.

Personally I feel that this option is much cleaner - it retains fundamental biology but includes magic and thus includes the major aspects of a D&D world.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Suffice it to say, I would speculate that an outsider would need to want a child in order to be 'fertile'[Evil].

Yep - exactly what I was getting at

 

[Desdichado]

So how do you handle these things (or have I missed a post higher up this thread )

No, I probably haven't gone into it in this thread, but I kinda cheated anyway; I use a lot of homebrew races in lieu of orcs, elves, dwarves, etc. All of them are essentially human biologically, but are new races from a games mechanics perspective. The backstory is that humanity was enslaved for many, many generations in the past, and bred in the same way that we have breeds of dogs, cats, horses, cattle, etc. These breeds are true; if they don't mix and produce "mutts" (which of course, they can, but I haven't really explored that yet.) That's the version I'm currently running, anyway. The Mk. II version of the setting, which I'm working on on the side for later introduces a race that mechanically (and appearance-wise as well) will be very similar to Claudio Pozas' half-orcs --I'd link to his pictures, but I'm not sure where the hosted sites have gone anymore-- and explore a dynamic similar to when we had modern humans and Neanderthals coexisting. I'm thinking of having them actually be difference species in that case; able to produce sterile offspring only. In both cases, that ignores the half-x templates, which I would interpret as not actually genetic half-breeds, but rather magical transformations of formerly regular humans/orcs/x-creature.

I'd have to say not neccessarily. You can combine the explanations of magic and biology - I feel my point above holds up to that:

True, that. Good post. I like that somewhat more limited and repeatable aspect of magic. One of my pet peeves is a rather blasé handwave of "it's magic" to explain things. Yes, it's magic, but if it still doesn't make any sense, that's not desirable (in my opinion, of course.) You've got a good workaround; it's magic, but it's consistent and repeatable; almost as if magical implications are another scientific discipline rather than simply a plot device. Good show!

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Cheers mate

The Hoard

PS - any chance you could elaborate on those races of yours... I've got plenty of 'open space' in my current homebre - mostly because none of the game has gone anywhere near it and I don't want to design stuff just for the sake of it, I'd rather wait until a good idea comes along and I'm always looking out for something a bit different. At the moment I need a race of desert-based lizard men (rather than the amphibian types in the MM). I'm using the Reptilian template from Savage Species, but any new ideas are always appreciated.

 

[Desdichado]

Sure, you can look at my campaign website; the races page is specifically right here and if you're interested, you can get to the rest of the stuff from there. The DM only stuff is largely done in a Ray Winninger Dungeoncraft style (I've been meaning to update that for some time, but there's still 13-14 or so articles on the setting right here.)

At least, that's where they are now. I'm going to have to take them off that server by the end of February as my web-hosting company is going through a major overhaul, and as a result I'm getting more services (which I don't want) and getting a major price hike. I'll be moving all these files away from them when that happens, and I haven't identified a new address yet. In any case, if you do want to look at them, I'd suggest you do it sooner rather than later...

 

[Sykotyck]

(not of Subject)

Just saying hi...

 

[the Jester]

I'm not sure if I've been elaborately punkd or something here, but anyway...

Neither am I, but it was fun to watch it happen- whatever it was.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

The player proposes that his half-orc PC and half-elf NPC love interest could actually have a fully human offspring, using the logic that each half human part of the parents' genetic makeup might actually get matched correctly with the other -- a 25 percent chance, he says.

Your perspective, please.

I say "yes" AND "no."

No: His character would be a "mutt," and not truly 100% human (as has been mentioned in above posts).

Yes: I'd allow a player to have such a character. However, for all rules and effects related to race, he's considered a human.

 

[I'm A Banana]

They have rules for this: The kids are called mongrelfolk.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Actually the Kingdoms of Kalamar supplement, "Dangerous Denizens" has stats for unlikely half-races including a half-elf/half-orc mixture. I can't remember the stats right now, but it's an interesting concept.

Dangerous Denizens, page 207-208

It's the tel-amhothlan (in Elven), or the guruk-vra in Orcish.

Basically, as follows, without the flavor text/details:

+2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Cha
Low-light vision
Orc blood
+1 against Enchantment spells/effects
+1 on Listen, Search, Spot
Automatic Languages: Orcish or Elven (depends which parent raised it)
Favored Class: Fighter