D&D General How elder scroll does species

[Shades of Eternity]

I am trying to see if the way that the elder scrolls games does their species is a better or worse model then the current or previous editions of dungeons and dragons.

Like giving humans special abilities based on region makes as much sense as doing sub species for dwarves and elves. Skyrim in particular really is a Norn showcase.

However, there are overtones of well racism in the design.

Which model works better and why?

 

[sevenbastard]

Some older eddtion of D&D had diffrent variations of Humans in some of the supplements, But honestly I think its a bad idea.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Yeah varying human abilities by race would not go over well these days. It works for DnD species, but even then there are people who aren't ok with it.

And I love Elder Scrolls lore. But there is no chance in hell that level of racism would work in DnD.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah varying human abilities by race would not go over well these days. It works for DnD species, but even then there are people who aren't ok with it.

And I love Elder Scrolls lore. But there is no chance in hell that level of racism would work in DnD.

I don't even think it works that well in The Elder Scrolls. There are arguably five species (human, elf, orc, khajit and argonian) but they stretched them into ten via subrace bs. I wonder how that will be handled in TES 6 if/when it happens.

 

[jmartkdr2]

In addition to any implications, there's also the fact that TES takes place in a single, well-defined setting. DnD is meant to work in many different settings including innumerable homebrew settings. Defining specific cultures well enough to have clear mechanical impacts limits settings much more that "there are elves and dwarves" does - or at least adding such pre-defined elements at this point would clash with a lot of existing settings.

I do think a well-written third-party supplement could pull it off but WOTC won't and shouldn't touch that with a 100-foot pole.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I don't even think it works that well in The Elder Scrolls. There are arguably five species (human, elf, orc, khajit and argonian) but they stretched them into ten via subrace bs. I wonder how that will be handled in TES 6 if/when it happens.

I always kinda headcanon elves being seperate species being related to be far older and having longer to diverge from each other (also irl humans are all rather genetically... snug to each other).

Of course that headcanon doesn't work when all the species got created by divine means a few years ago.

I do like how Avatar has different subspecies which are clearly different in what they can do.