D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Hussar]

What if they kept the half-elf and half-orc entries and rules, but removed the bigotry language? Would that be ok?

I would have no problems with that.

Although with orc right there, half-orc becomes rather redundant. But, yeah, take out the whole “if you aren’t pure blooded, you’re a misfit loner that everyone hates” would be a great start.

 

[Incenjucar]

We have backgrounds now if people are desperate to make "had to deal with bigotry" a major part of their character.

 

[Hussar]

We have backgrounds now if people are desperate to make "had to deal with bigotry" a major part of their character.

Really, shouldn’t that at the very least be a flaw? I’d probably prefer it to be something you are rather than something you are subjected to.

Hey, here’s these game perks for being the victim of racism and bigotry is not really something I want in the game.

 

[Incenjucar]

Really, shouldn’t that at the very least be a flaw? I’d probably prefer it to be something you are rather than something you are subjected to.

Hey, here’s these game perks for being the victim of racism and bigotry is not really something I want in the game.

I wouldn't make it part of anything official, but hypothetically having to take survival and diplomacy or something because terrible people wouldn't let you just live is at the cost of something the character would have preferred to focus on, like performance and arcana or something.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The reason for your confusion is because you're omitting words. Just look at the quote you are replying to and see what you have written.

Correct, character goals had nothing to do with humanoids hence they were ignored.

I'd say you're eliminating potential storylines for future gaming generations to create boring "skins"

Eliminating potential storylines... for something you spent years never even bothering to read? "Wait wait, I never cared about this at all for years, but now that you want to change it because you read it and have been thinking about it for multiple years, I think we should keep it the same, after all, it could be interesting."

I don't think your ignorance of the write-ups while others were actually reading them really stack up with equal weight.

That's right. Within the 10 years I have focused on the lore related to
Tyranny of Dragons (+ adventure league, includes Sammaster), Storm Kings Thunder (+ adventure league), Undermountain (+previous edition material), Wall of the Faithless (Fugue Plane + Kelemvor + City of the Dead, Thayan History (module Mission to Thay: Nethwatch Keep),
Murder in Baldur's Gates (+ Baldurs Gate game lore), Legacy of the Crystal Shard, Dragons of Faerun + Wyrms of the Realms, A'tar - Amonataur + Lathander, Parts of Netherese History, Sigil, The Lich Queen's Begotten (+ Astral Plane + Limbo), Other Monster Lore besides Gruumsh and Orcs...etc
But if it helps your case to paint things are you did, have fun with it.

Yes, it does help my case. You spent a decade not caring at all about this lore, not interacting with it in anyway, Did you find the game boring? Flavorless? Did you find your enjoyment of DnD somehow existentially lesser? You basically just grabbed something called an orc, threw it on the map, and didn't care beyond that. And frankly, if that's all you need, no matter what we do to the lore, you'll be able to do the exact same thing.

Elves don't like Orcs and Orcs do not like Elves but I did not see that in the PHB and I had asked about the PHB.
But let us ignore that and get back to my previous post's question which was not answered
What stardate do you wish to start in D&D?

1. No racism: The Age of Happy Hugs and Sunshines Kisses of the Spotless Mind
2. Some Racism: The Age of Conflicts and Struggle

I can tell you which most people are interested...but you won't believe me.

So the only possible conflict in the world is racism? You are correct, I don't believe you. Mostly because I can think of little things like war, conflict over resources, dealing with tyrannical leaders, greed, succession crisises, natural disasters, dark magic rituals, cults,... A lot of things really other than racism. I mean, political intrigue like Game of Thrones seems to not need any racism at all.

I'm really sad that you've expeirenced so little good writing that the only type of conflict you think is possible is racism.

Correct, because there is nothing to fix. You see it as broken, I see opportunities - you wish to remove them.

It is not fixing since nothing is broken. We do not remove Szass Tam beforehand to "fix" Thay because there are a billion+1 story-line possibilities with him present.

Because it is not broken.

It is broken. Szass Tam isn't broken. But I understand, you can't think of conflict in any formation except in racial divides, so a tyrant lich who rules through fear is identical to you to a person being driven out of town because of their species/race.

Yeah, because some fantasy races share stronger emotional traits than others with their respective creators and that is cool. Diversity is fun.

Oh yeah, diversity is fun. And the fact that that line is basically pulled straight out of Jim Crow to describe how mixed race people are a threat to the white people, because they can "pass as people" is just even more fun for people to read I imagine.

I like the description but there is NO CONFLICT.
No inner conflict. - story-lines lost.
No conflict with each other - story-lines lost.
No conflict with others - story-lines lost.
No life style stipulated - no flipped script possibility, orcs are just a skin with STR + some movement.
At this point you may as well change them into a Class.

What inner conflict should I have? At first I thought you meant within orc society, but that's your next one. Why does the very existence of the orc mean they must be in conflict with their own internal self? That isn't a thing for... literally any of the main four species in the PHB. Conflict within their society does exist, it just wasn't something to put in a quick blurb of "what is an orc" after all, discussing conflicts within society is a bit of a deeper dive than what I want a player to glance through.

Why do you think they have no conflict with other people? Have you met other people? Conflict is inevitable, but the entire species isn't defined by conflict with other species. No Lifestyle? Okay, maybe because they could have many different lifestyles depending on the world I put them in. And they aren't a STR + some movement at all. That's so inaccurate as to be funny. But, then again, you didn't see any of the mechanics, so of course you wouldn't know that.

Bold emphasis mine. There is your Stardate. Racial enmity relegated into the past...because we can only abide by it in books, series, movies, current news, newspapers, computer games, play station games and Small World.

Nothing in that bold section says that those conflicts were racial motivated to begin with. Maybe they fought the dwarves over land, like literally every nation to ever exist. And who says there aren't more conflicts? I certainly don't think that invaders from other dimensions (abberations and fiends) are a thing relegated to the past.

You are just determined to read into this a lack of conflict, but these blurbs aren't meant to be "and this is every emotional, psychological, social, and geo-political conflict this entire species has across the multiverse!" it is a one to two paragraph "what is this thing?" blurb.

And that's without getting into the double standards when you stop and look at halflings, elves, humans, ect.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's not that nothing is going to be heard fairly, but you are incredibly wordy, write long posts, and you are all over this thread. Telling someone to look through an 80 page thread for the time you answered someone, and then even look through that post is very cumbersome. We are now 40 pages past that. If someone asks me to repeat something, I generally do. I do not understand why you do not seem to like to.

Also, you talk about not hearing fairly, but you've just spent multiple posts accusing me of somehow disparaging your position by trying to associate you with Richard Nixon. As @gban007 points out, it is incredibly easy to understand what I am saying and this is an absolutely absurd take on what I am saying.

Really, if you could actually give your examples, it would just make things easier. That you are so resistant to giving them is quite off-putting.

It is interesting to note that back when Bedrock WOULD give examples, they were mostly abstract art or movies from the 80's (which did get made and distributed). Never did get an example of a non-WoTC idea that was shot down in the past ten years when supposedly this all got worse.

 

[Yaarel]

I wouldn't make it part of anything official, but hypothetically having to take survival and diplomacy or something because terrible people wouldn't let you just live is at the cost of something the character would have preferred to focus on, like performance and arcana or something.

Yeah, creating a character who is a "Victim of Racism" or a "Privileged Racist" seems like the kinds of things that the Background design space can manage. Especially, there are local Backgrounds that offer features relating to a specific town or area. These kinds of things would be peculiar to a specific setting, and not part of the generic default setting of the core books assumptions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's also no reason to assume that fantasy elements wouldn't lead to the elimination of slavery.

Imagine a world with an active god of freedom--say, Greyhawk's Trithereon. How long would slavery last in a setting where the god and their clerics are actively removing it from the world?

Imagine a world where people can spontaneously develop magical abilities or make pacts with eldritch beings in exchange for power. How long would slavery last in a setting where slaves suddenly were able to fight back magically?

Imagine a world where people have alignments that codify behavior, instead of like in the real world where people are really one shade of gray or another. How long would slavery last in the kingdom once a truly Good-aligned monarch took the throne?

Imagine a world where ragtag groups of 4-6 people start murdering slavers willy-nilly (and stealing their stuff). How long would slavery last when any potential slaver knows they've got a target painted on their backs?

Sure, you can point out the things that would bring the bad stuff back in--gods of slavery, (expensive to cast) anti-magic zones, evil rulers, alignment-fooling spells. But how many GMs actually think of those things when they make their worlds? Very, very few, I imagine. Instead, they just make a general claim about "realism" or "verisimilitude" as if that's the one true answer. Sure, the people, history, religions, climate, politics, and even the laws of physics are completely different, but of course they're going to be bigoted just like in the real world--as if everywhere in the real world was like this all the time as well! Maybe your fantasy world used to be bigoted, but that was hundreds of years ago and people have learned to be more accepting--which is also realistic and filled with verisimilitude.

Both possibilities are valid, and a hundred more besides, and I have nothing against creating a world without slavery or racism. But I also have nothing against creating a world that does have those things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A lot of this is especially weird given that LotR had so many examples of how racism is stupid and makes everything worse and the good people recognizing this saves the world.

All true, but to be fair, you actually have to have racism in your story to make a case against it. Otherwise you're attacking a paper tiger from an in-universe perspective.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What WotC did is get rid of half-whatevers completely as a separate species block and say that if you wanted to play one, you could just pick one full-race or the other, do a quick aesthetic reskinning, and say they were half-blooded.

This action is problematic for many players for several different reasons. Not only does it get rid of races that some people really like, it makes people of mixed heritage invisible and its evocative of racist "just one drop" policies.

And why did WotC get rid of half-whatevers? Because historically, WotC and TSR had decided that people were bigoted against them.

If you want there to be bigotry against half-whatevers in your world, that's fine. You do you. There is zero reason for it to be in the core books especially when the same sort of bigotry doesn't apply to even weirder races and there's no reason to get rid of half-whatevers when it's not at all difficult to create rules for making them.

I agree with all of that. I just also think that it's ok for a published campaign setting to have that same kind of bigotry in it somewhere. It doesn't have to be relegated to an individual home game, even if you keep it out of the core books (which is fine by me).