"Half-" races

[Driddle]

It's also bothersome that the default description of "half-" character races is that everyone in that group must necessarily be depressed, confused, uncertain or otherwise unable to feel comfortable with both aspects of their heritage. The assumption is that all mixed-heritage characters will be outcasts everywhere they go.

The real world keeps a'changing with every new version of this classic game. Shouldn't the designers be able to embrace new perspectives as well, rather than getting mired in old paradigms? Even though the character culture/genetic templates have been described as "races" for game mechanics purposes, the one underlying assumption is that they are are PEOPLE first -- human people, elf people, dwarf people, whatever, the "race" labeling inadvertantly reflects in-group/out-group biases that need not be propagated. Especially so in "half-" labeling, as though the fantasy races are nothing more than dog-breeding experiments.

 

[Driddle]

It is just time to get rid of the half-races.

It's not time to simply get rid of them. It's time to broaden our perspective on how to embrace their complexity.

 

[Klaus]

It's also bothersome that the default description of "half-" character races is that everyone in that group must necessarily be depressed, confused, uncertain or otherwise unable to feel comfortable with both aspects of their heritage. The assumption is that all mixed-heritage characters will be outcasts everywhere they go.

The real world keeps a'changing with every new version of this classic game. Shouldn't the designers be able to embrace new perspectives as well, rather than getting mired in old paradigms? Even though the character culture/genetic templates have been described as "races" for game mechanics purposes, the one underlying assumption is that they are are PEOPLE first -- human people, elf people, dwarf people, whatever, the "race" labeling inadvertantly reflects in-group/out-group biases that need not be propagated. Especially so in "half-" labeling, as though the fantasy races are nothing more than dog-breeding experiments.

In Don Bassingwaithe's very cool "The Dragon Below" trilogy there's a half-orc... I wanna say "rogue"... named Natrac. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with a middle-aged human woman named Bava, who lives in the capital of the Shadow Marshes. They even have a (half-orc) son together. When the main characters had to hide at Bava's for a bit, she got really freindly with Orshok, a very naive (full) orc druid who was with them.

I think half-races (hybrid races, or mixed races, or whatever) have a place in fantasy, and thus at D&D.

 

[Driddle]

I know this may not be noticed by many people as it's buried in a fairly minor thread, but if YOU are a person of mixed race/heritage, please share your perspective.

 

[Mercule]

I'm really hoping they finally drop the outdated convention of labeling certain characters of mixed racial heritage as "Half-" this or that, ala half-orcs and half-elves. It's bothersome for a couple of reasons, the biggest of which is that the undeclared half is assumed to be human -- the default privileged race -- and that the person's declared half (elf, orc) is diminished by the mixing. Are there no half-humans? No self-identifying terms such as "hapa?" Characters with diverse parents who didn't include a human, elf or orc?

Why? It's not like this is a real-world political correctness issue. No one's feelings are getting hurt, so why make up some cute term for it?

The fact is, the PHB (an other books) are written from a humanocentric point of view. It's all well and good that you've been playing RPGs long enough that you can follow along with any names, but a subsection of the PHB audience needs something a bit more intuitive. The brand new players should be able to just grok what a half-elf is.

The term Khorevar is awesome for Eberron. What's the term for Faerunian half-elves, though? As much as I like Eberron, I don't see it making much sense to have Eberron-specific terms in the PHB. And I certainly want to avoid anything FR having even the hint of becoming the "implied setting". If nothing else, it is absurd to make up a word for the PHB and then explicitly provide a different made up word for each default setting.

The day an actual elf plays D&D is the day I'll consider a "racially neutral" term for half-elves as the default form.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Ah, the Deluxe Book of Templates rocks.

Not to mention, it solves this problem all in one go. Elegantly, too.

The "Half-anything" metatemplate, and the "Halved" template. Simple as that.

I'd take elf stats and have them be "half-elves", or "elf-kin". And then make the elves much more rare and farther towards fey creatures (stuff like -2 Str, +2 Dex, -4 Con, +4 Cha). The mixed races have interesting potential, but you have to make them actually *be* halfway between a human and the other race.

And holy crap, someone's been reading my house rules! Well, glancing at them briefly, it would seem. (stats are a bit off and such, but hey, not bad memorisation there!)

 

[JVisgaitis]

I think half-races (hybrid races, or mixed races, or whatever) have a place in fantasy, and thus at D&D.

Sure. They have a place thematically. Not mechanically.

 

[The Shadow]

I'd take elf stats and have them be "half-elves", or "elf-kin". And then make the elves much more rare and farther towards fey creatures (stuff like -2 Str, +2 Dex, -4 Con, +4 Cha). The mixed races have interesting potential, but you have to make them actually *be* halfway between a human and the other race.

This is what I do. I like elves to be very mysterious and very fey. The "elf" race is just humans with a noticeable percentage of elven blood.

And hey, Spock is a half-Vulcan!

*rolls eyes* Yeah, I think they put that in (ridiculous as it is) just to convince the execs he wouldn't be too weird to be accepted by audiences. I mean, they nearly didn't let Spock have the ears!

 

[jasin]

And one could argue that something about humans makes them able to interbreed with species that cannot breed with each other. It would fit with the whole notion of humans as the "jack of all trades" race.

And if we move away from the rational/biological way of thinking and back towards the more traditional fantasy/mythological, it can be argued that the non-human races are aspects of human nature, humans observed through a particular lens, and as such each more related to humans than either of the others.

 

[jasin]

You want to go one step further and give them some mechanical difference? Fine. Come up with a feat or two for the representative common half types like half-elves.

That's not a bad idea. After all, even Elrond and Elros aren't halfway between humanity and elvendom: they're mostly elven and human (respectively), with just a touch of the other ancestry.

Of course, this has to do with Tolkien's underlying framework, but it's not a bad model, and it's more easily extensible: just add a new feat (or similar mechanical element) when you want to represent a new hybrid, rather than making a whole race from scratch.