D&D General half-orcs and bad Charisma

[Micah Sweet]

At the point where we are with D&D, there's really no reason for any species/ancestry to give bonuses to stats at all. I would simply roll that into the default array, or perhaps even into class. The discussion as to what a dwarf or elf or orc is these days is increasingly a relic of earlier times. Custom Lineage for everyone. That isn't what I'm looking for but it does remove a lot of baggage.

Yeah, but to me it really throws the baby out with the bathwater. Not my preference.

 

[DammitVictor]

At the point where we are with D&D, there's really no reason for any species/ancestry to give bonuses to stats at all. I would simply roll that into the default array, or perhaps even into class. The discussion as to what a dwarf or elf or orc is these days is increasingly a relic of earlier times. Custom Lineage for everyone. That isn't what I'm looking for but it does remove a lot of baggage.

Honestly... I mean, really take a moment and think about this... if everyone has a custom lineage and a character's actual physical ancestry isn't allowed to matter on a mechanical level at all... why do we even need to have ancestries at all?

Just give humans darkvision and everyone a bonus feat at first level and be done with it.

 

[DammitVictor]

I'm talking about ability score penalties, not the Charisma score.

Are you really going to sit there and claim there's no logical connection between racial ability score modifications (based on appearance) and the objective measurement of ability scores in the game?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Are you really going to sit there and claim there's no logical connection between racial ability score modifications (based on appearance) and the objective measurement of ability scores in the game?

I offered to put the penalties in a part of character creation other than race. Again, I'm responding to a general point made by @EzekielRaiden about ability score penalties.

Regarding charisma, I prefer to focus the score itself on general strength of personality and ability to get your way, and use an Audience system similar to Adventures in Middle-Earth to handle cultural relations.

 

[SteveC]

Honestly... I mean, really take a moment and think about this... if everyone has a custom lineage and a character's actual physical ancestry isn't allowed to matter on a mechanical level at all... why do we even need to have ancestries at all?

Just give humans darkvision and everyone a bonus feat at first level and be done with it.

You're asking a very good question for the future of the game. Why have them at all? I think it depends on who you're designing the game for. From design space, you're giving an additional level of customization for characters, but you also have to deal with all the historical baggage associated with those different creatures. I find the traditions of different lineages or what-have-you to be a core part of the game, and definitely worth saving, but I also don't have to deal with the down side from my customers.

That's definitely the way the design is going, and if that sounds a bit incendiary or salty, I apologize for it.

 

[DammitVictor]

I offered to put the penalties in a part of character creation other than race. Again, I'm responding to a general point made by @EzekielRaiden about ability score penalties.

I'm sorry, then. I was answering the much more specific question of "what makes racial Charisma penalties based on ugliness bad?"

Personally speaking... I don't have a strong opinion on racial ability score modifiers. On the one hand, I think they make sense from a narrative perspective; on the other hand, I don't have a problem with racial modifiers favoring some race/class combinations over others, but I have a much bigger problem with them favoring the wrong ones, especially in the absence of actual hard limits.

There were no racial ability modifiers in Classic D&D, just the ability score minimums to qualify as a non-human class.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sorry, then. I was answering the much more specific question of "what makes racial Charisma penalties based on ugliness bad?"

Personally speaking... I don't have a strong opinion on racial ability score modifiers. On the one hand, I think they make sense from a narrative perspective; on the other hand, I don't have a problem with racial modifiers favoring some race/class combinations over others, but I have a much bigger problem with them favoring the wrong ones, especially in the absence of actual hard limits.

There were no racial ability modifiers in Classic D&D, just the ability score minimums to qualify as a non-human class.

I'd be cool with that; my favored OSR uses that system.

But I also came in on 1st ed, so bonuses and penalties are good too.

 

[DammitVictor]

You're asking a very good question for the future of the game. Why have them at all?

There are at least a few rock-solid fantasy RPGs that don't have "fantasy races" at all, where all of the PCs are either human or variations on humanity. I'm not even advocating for that, so much as reminding people that it's possible and viable to have a fantasy game/setting that doesn't have the "standard" fantasy races. There are point-buy games where there's neither "class" nor "race"... just points... and your character is whoever your points say they are.

There are very good D&D settings that deliberately omit some of those standard races, in favor of wild reimaginings of the ones left, and the introduction of newer, stranger races with less established lore. Those newer, stranger races... have settled, with some resistance, into being the "standard fantasy races" of newer editions of D&D.

"Why have them at all?"

I don't understand why anyone would want all of the baggage that comes with a world populated by dozens of different kinds of sentient peoples... all of the traditional baggage and the stereotypical baggage and the mechanical baggage... if they're not going to make use of those things. If being a "dwarf" or an "elf" is just a laundry list of stereotypes that aren't true of the only dwarves and elves in the game, why are those labels even included? Why are they necessary?

I use these things in my games, in a combination of "traditional" tropes and my own unique spin on them and... you know... blank spaces for my players-- or your players-- to fill. But I'm moving steadily in the opposite direction of where Official D&D (and/or mainstream fantasy) game design is going, going back to hard limits and even race-as-class.

I think it depends on who you're designing the game for. From design space, you're giving an additional level of customization for characters, but you also have to deal with all the historical baggage associated with those different creatures.

I just struggle to understand how that's undesirable, how that isn't part-- the majority of-- the appeal to having these non-human beings in your game and playing as one of them.

That's definitely the way the design is going, and if that sounds a bit incendiary or salty, I apologize for it.

No need to apologize... I agree with your assessment and I get it. One of the advantages of being an apostate is that I can dislike the direction Official D&D and Mainstream D&D are going, and just keep on going the direction I was going in anyway.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The assumptions have always been that most player races hate orcs, that orcs are brutish (thank you tolkien) and that as a result people hate orcs so half orcs start off at a disadvantage in any charisma related encounter with anyone but orcs.

When really what probably happened is that the orcs' homeland turned out to have a lot of natural resources the elves and humans wanted, but the elves and humans had more advanced magic so they were able to pretty much steamroll through and subjugate the orcs, and in order to make that seem morally justifiable they made up all these stories about how the orcs were brutish and stupid and promiscuous, while simultaneously using their cultural dominance to establish standards of physical attractiveness.






Naw...that would never happen. Never mind.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I was answering the much more specific question of "what makes racial Charisma penalties based on ugliness bad?"

I don't really see them as bad as much as not contributing much to the game, just a layer of attempted verisimilitude that complicates without increasing fun. (Then again, some people really liked the full page of modifiers for every weapon vs. every armor in AD&D, so my opinions are hardly universal.)

But if I were going to include such a thing, I would only have it be a factor in initial impressions/disposition at the beginning of an encounter.