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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 9111774" data-attributes="member: 50987">I agree, [USER=58172]@Yaarel[/USER].  It would be nice to have a description of the half-elf lore in the new Player's Handbook.  It could even be the textbook example of "Here's How You Build a Custom Ancestry" or whatever, and walk the player through the whole process over in the sidebar, while presenting the stats, background, lore, and artwork in the main body of text like they do for all of the other Core ancestries.  I think that would be a good way to satisfy the folks who need half-elves in their home games, and introduce the "new way" of doing things, in one fell swoop.The part I'm struggling with is things "disappearing from D&D lore."  How does that happen?  What does it look like?Because if "disappearing from D&D lore" means that half-elves won't be included in any new books that Wizards of the Coast writes, that's not really a problem: from third-party publishers to the creative people sitting at your game table, anyone can contribute to the lore of your game.  And even if this wasn't true, or relevant to your argument, there are still hundreds of "official D&D" products--spanning multiple editions--on DriveThruRPG with all of the half-elf lore you could ever use.  That lore will always be there, it isn't "disappearing."And if "disappearing from D&D lore" means that nobody will ever want to play a half-elf again, maybe ask yourself why you wanted to play a half-elf in the first place.  I'd wager that all of those things are still there, just in different places.  And that's not a dismissal, I totally get it--I hate it when my local grocery store decides to reorganize everything for no good reason and now it takes me twice as long to complete my shopping.  But it's not like they discontinued my oatmeal and prunes, I just have to go to different aisles.  It's annoying, but it's not like they're forcing me to stop eating oatmeal.Ahem.  Anyway.If "disappearing from D&D lore" means that half-elves will no longer be unique or distinct, I imagine that is the whole purpose of the exercise from Wizards of the Coast's point of view.  Here's the deal: historically, the things that made the half-elf and half-orc races unique or distinct have been problematic for certain groups of people.  So I hear people panicking about "erasure" but we need to understand that the goal isn't to remove the half-elf, the goal is to redefine it in less-problematic terms.  (And I think this is where I need to spend a little more time listening to others, instead of doing all of the talking.)  If this is indeed the case, the only way the half elf will "disappear from D&D lore" would be if there wasn't enough distinction and uniqueness to let them stand out.  And I doubt that's the case.And that's the other thing.  Some of these lore changes are both necessary and long overdue.  If you're arguing that these problematic elements need to stay just because they are "part of the lore" or whatever, you are really saying that you are opposed to WotC removing problematic content.  Which is another way of saying you don't mind that problematic content, and I'm sure you have your reasons.</blockquote>

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