D&D 5E (2014) How do the races breed?

[Lanliss]

This is a magical setting where you regularly have giant fire-breathing dinosaurs disguise themselves as normal pink and fleshy people to get their rocks off, and viable children are a result.

In case that isn't clear, science has no place in this conversation. But if you do want to consider it... consdier the "Liger". Half-tiger, half-lion. Bigger then either. So don't feel constrained by "best of" or "worst of" or "average" or anything. Sometimes half-breeds exhibit traits neither did in isolation. Throw in magic and who knows what's gonna happen.

I did plan on having a few such outliers, with unique combinations of the bloodlines. I felt that they would make more sense blended into a "norm". So a standard half dwarf/ half human is shorter and more resilient than a human, with lower intelligence, but every now and then, you get a Mul. Makes more sense than every crossbreed being more powerful than its parents.

 

[Mecheon]

This is a magical setting where you regularly have giant fire-breathing dinosaurs disguise themselves as normal pink and fleshy people to get their rocks off, and viable children are a result.

In case that isn't clear, science has no place in this conversation. But if you do want to consider it... consdier the "Liger". Half-tiger, half-lion. Bigger then either. So don't feel constrained by "best of" or "worst of" or "average" or anything. Sometimes half-breeds exhibit traits neither did in isolation. Throw in magic and who knows what's gonna happen.

Don't forget the Tigon though

Half lion, half tiger. Smaller than both

 

[TwoSix]

In case that isn't clear, science has no place in this conversation. But if you do want to consider it... consdier the "Liger". Half-tiger, half-lion. Bigger then either. So don't feel constrained by "best of" or "worst of" or "average" or anything. Sometimes half-breeds exhibit traits neither did in isolation. Throw in magic and who knows what's gonna happen.

Well, I think we're all aware that the liger (pretty much my favorite animal) is bred specifically for its skills in magic.

 

[bedir than]

When creating my world, and explaining why humans were the most popular race, I made it so that any combination of races that isn't more than 50% of a single race is human. It helps explain the wide swaths of variation as well.

 

[Beleriphon]

That's not bad. I personally went with the stipulation that half-elves can breed true with each other, although any children with an elf or human are going to be effectively human.

 

[SkidAce]

This is a magical setting where you regularly have giant fire-breathing dinosaurs disguise themselves as normal pink and fleshy people to get their rocks off, and viable children are a result.

In case that isn't clear, science has no place in this conversation. But if you do want to consider it... consdier the "Liger". Half-tiger, half-lion. Bigger then either. So don't feel constrained by "best of" or "worst of" or "average" or anything. Sometimes half-breeds exhibit traits neither did in isolation. Throw in magic and who knows what's gonna happen.

This is clever.

Use general guidelines, then add in whatever makes for a good story.

In one of my campaigns, elves, humans, and drow (druas) are all descended from one race, so if you are 1/3 each you become a throwback to the eldar race, that explored the cosmos in the ancient times.

(Most humanoids are either off shoots (orcs, hobgoblins, etc) or aboleth experiments. (!!)

 

[KahlessNestor]

I believe the new Fantasy AGE system that had a flexible race building system. On Wil Wheaton's Ashes of Vulkana they had a Kili/Tauriel dwarf/elf halfbreed (shudder)

 

[Draegn]

How many have players that tend to treat "pretty" half races as friends and allies, and treat "ugly" half races at best as second class citizens?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This will be a fun one for biology nuts, or for those who have a deep knowledge of the lore. Assuming all of the races can interbreed, what traits carry over? Dragon born/human children will likely be less scaly than the dragonborn, and Dwarf/Gnome will probably be a tall, broad gnome(or a short, slightly less broad Dwarf).

Normally, I'm not inclined to assume that dragonborn are capable of hybridization with mammalian species. However, if you're going with that, that might be a good place to invoke the "dragonfear" ability. Hybridized dragonborn would: have a solid, heavy frame for the other parent's race; tend to be hairless except on the head, and may take longer to grow their hair out; have fine scales on the face, hands, feat, joints, perhaps down the spine, etc; and cannot use dragonbreath, but do have a preternatural "aura" or "charm" to them. Might have particular other-parent races determine whether it's more a "dragon's charm" or "frightful presence," e.g. the children of orcs or half-orcs, dwarves, goliaths, and other "strong/uncharismatic" races would get dragonfear, while the children of elves (including drow and half-elves), gnomes, halflings, and deva/aasimar would get something more "beguiling." The children of humans--the "greatest monsters" in Gygax's words--can swing either way.

What if a gnome has a Tiefling mother and an Aasimar Grandfather, with a Pure gnome father? A pygmy albino tiefling, with pure white horns?

Well either this means an aasimar that had a kid with a fiend (something I find a bit unlikely), or an aasimar/tiefling child anyway. Either way, I'd personally argue that the crossed influence of both celestial and fiendish blood "cancels out" in that particular person--the two traits mutually inactivate each other, leaving an apparently "normal"-looking "tiefling" mother. Her children, however, can be any of four categories: inactive carrier (celestial and fiend), celestial, fiendish, or normal human (failing to inherit either trait). Inactive carriers and normal humans would probably be indistinguishable except by careful arcane/divine analysis, so you'd have a 50% chance of at least a normal-looking gnome-human, and 25% chance each of a half-gnome, half-tiefling or half-gnome, half-aasimar.

"Pigmy" seems like an exaggeration, since that would probably end up being of similar size to the gnome father. I'd guess the child would be very short for a human but tall for a gnome--four to four and a half feet (1.2 to 1.4 meters). A child with the celestial trait would have one of the classic aasimar "tells," and +Wis as a secondary stat; a child with the fiendish trait would have a tiefling "tell" and probably +Cha (or maybe Dex) as a secondary stat. Int, of course, would be primary. The carrier/"normal" human would benefit from the stat flexibility of the human line.

What traits are normally dominant in humans, and how do you think that translates to the races in D&D?

Well, if we're open to all sorts of hybridizations here, I'd argue the most recognizable human traits are:
- Height typically between 5 and 6.333 feet, counting both genders (~152 cm to ~193 cm)
- Facial hair for males; head hair, as well as armpit/groin/etc. hair, for both genders
- Hair color of either brown, red/orange, yellow, white, or black
- Skin color chosen from variations on the brown-orange spectrum (occasionally leaning to either side on the color wheel--"coppery" or "golden")
- Eyes of grey, blue(/violet), green, hazel, brown, or black
- Nose halfway between being "wide/stout" (e.g. dwarf noses) and "tall/narrow/pointed" (e.g. elf noses)
- Game-statistics-wise, significant flexibility (able to improve any or even all stats)

All but the last are generally subject to change--but never more than a few of them at a time. Height is almost always treated as the average of the two parents', though I feel like in some cases (perhaps half-orcs?) that might not necessarily be true. Facial hair is probably the only trait that is consistently heritable into races that don't naturally have it--in fact, it's not uncommon in fiction for a species to not have facial hair, except for the fraction of the population that has a tiny amount of human ancestry (see: the Minbari of Babylon 5). However, hair generally can be subject to substantial change if paired with a sufficiently "magical" other parent--genasi, aasimar, and tieflings can all have it tweaked into something more magical (hair that's literally fire, for example). Skin, eye, and hair color varies widely; close-to-human species like elves and orcs don't tend to feature non-human hair colors, but going further afield (such as the previously discussed human-dragonborn hybrid) might have hair colors based on some feature of their nonhuman parent's ancestry (e.g. dragon color, though metallic descendants might be hard to detect unless it's REALLY DAMN SHINY).

What about stats? Will the pygmy albino Tiefling have high charisma and intelligence? How various stat changes carry between the races will be important for my question.

As said above (just separating it out so it's easy to see):
Gnome-human with no visible outsider traits: +Int and +stat of choice (possibly +1 to two, like the half-elf)
Gnome-tiefling: most likely +Int, +Cha (maybe +Dex)
Gnome-aasimar: most likely +Int, +Wis (maybe +Cha)

I plan to have races able to breed between each other, and will probably have a large number of half x/half y persons, in my campaign world, so any help is appreciated.

In that case, I recommend that you either select particular traits that you wish to "predominate" over others (e.g. fiendish/celestial/genie blood always preferentially displays, if it is inherited at all), or determine some kind of rule for the "amount" of inheritance required for someone to be likely to manifest a trait.
For example: Ancestors further removed than great-grandparents (3 generations) do not typically appear in children. This is convenient, because it lets you use a d8 to determine which inheritance dominates. For the above child, 4 of its great-grandparents are gnomes; presumably 2 are humans; and one each is celestial or fiendish. If you wish to allow for "throwbacks," a second die can be used for that. I'd personally recommend a d100; for 1-89, nothing unusual occurs and you do a simple determination (e.g. decide what the "main half" is, like the gnome father above, then roll for the "other half"). For 90-99, the child's physiology is a bend of two randomly-selected inheritances, not just one--it's still slanted in favor of gnome, but it could end up LOOKING like a half-human, half-fiend (tiefling), or even a half-gnome, half-celestial. But then if you get that precious 00...that's when the throwback considerations come into play. Pick a (part) race of one of the parents, and then roll on a full table of all options--you never know what species are hidden in your family tree!

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't plan on having a lot of flavor text like there is for the Half-orc and half-elf, because there won't be anyone looking at a halfbreed funny when everyone is a halfbreed. I was hoping for help from biology because your DNA decides what kind of skeletal structure you have, or hair color and things like that. I may just have to wing it on the "Dominant/submissive gene" choices. Could still use help on stats though.

Dominant/Recessive, IIRC. No reason a fantasy world has to even have genetics, even if Mendel started the ball rolling on that earlier than most people would probably guess. The paradigm before that was 'mixing blood lines,' and half-elves & half-orcs seem pretty consistent with that. So did half-dragons and the like other editions. Indeed, Tieflings are already a mixed human-infernal bloodline (and it's odd they made the PC-race cut ahead of Aasimars, who are 'touched' by the Goody-good planes), and the less-broken Dragonborn was arguably a replacement for 3.5/PF half-dragons. In 1e, it was at least implied that halfling sub-races were the result of interbreeding, Stouts with Dwarves and Tallfellows with elves. Half-giants, half-ogres, ogrillons (half-orc/half-ogre), campions, alu-demons, Muls (human/dwarf), all sorts of 3.5 templates, and the most extreme case 'mongrelmen,' have been seen in the past. Heck, there was so much speculative mixing back in the day that it led to a pixie/storm-giant parody in Dragon mag.