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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3959008" data-attributes="member: 2067">I wouldn't be surprised in 4e if dwarves don't have that bonus. I certainly never really regarded it. But even if you do pay attention to it, again that's just "dwarves fight orcs." Elves might not have that specific bonus, but that doesn't suddenly invalidate "elves hate orcs" as a trope of the game. So I guess I don't understand how in a bit of 3e mechanics I answered my own concern...? Or that I even had a concern...?You seem to be under the impression that all flavor is created equally.This is incorrect."Elves hate orcs" is basically a fantasy archetype. Any time elves and orcs are in a setting, you can bet that they're not exactly on friendly terms unless the setting is specifically going for the anti-archetype. Mechanics based on that leave questions about why open-ended enough that a worldbuilder fan fill in the gaps without treading on the mechanics (unless they specifically try to go against the archetype). It doesn't matter if the Corellon/Grummsh/Eye-Poke thing is true or if it's because orcs are corrupted versions of elves or if the orcs just like to burn down forests and the elves are ecologically protective, or what. It leaves a lot of room open for a DM to tell their own story."Tieflings are the descendants of those who made pacts with devils in an ancient empire" is NOT a fantasy archetype. Just like "Golden Wyvern Adept" is NOT a fantasy archetype. The existence of tieflings and ancient empires and devils don't automatically inform each other like that. Mechanics based on a specific fallen ancient empire that made pacts with devils and yeilded tielfings are NOT very portable if your tieflings are genetic mutants, or if your ancient empire didn't deal with devils. To port over one, you have to port over the whole inter-dependant story, and it closes off a DM's own explanation as to why the tieflings are who they are. The mechanics based on that explanation are conceptually difficult to deal with when homebrewing -- why my tieflings who are genetic experiments should get a feat that allows them to write magical contracts that steal people's souls is rather difficult to explain, and if I have to disallow the feat because I changed the flavor, I've impacted the race's power level, and now tieflings are either weaker than normal because I have to disallow many of their fluff-dependant feats, or I have to make up a whole new batch of feats for them to take, take the time and effort to design and balance them, and then inform every tiefling player that my tiefling is pretty much purely a homebrew, likely cautioning them against it unless I'm a paid game designer.The more the flavor influences the mechanics, the names of feats, and the rules of the game, the harder it is to chuck it. If the flavor is fairly archetypal ("noble knights will defend the kingdom!"), it's not a problem because it gives  you a point that you can write flavor around. If the flavor is specific, new, and narrow, it is a problem because it "clings" to other mechanics throughout the rulebooks.The flavor of 4e is pretty obviously influencing the mechanics. As my point in the post above, the "design weight" is on the WotC-created flavor for the tieflings, not on the generic, archetypal qualities of a fiendish humanoid. If my 4e halflings have a Swim speed or a bonus on Swim checks, they're going to be that much harder to convert to Darksun (or any other setting). If, as halflings advance in level, they have feats that give them gills and faster swim speeds and their own personal watercraft, that will make it MORE difficult to convert to Darksun (or any other setting). If, later, a halfling can take a paragon path that lets them befriend crocodiles, this is making it more and more difficult to convert to any other setting.Yet these are all mechanics that make perfect sense for a core PHB halfling that plies the rivers of the world. If the design weight is on this, then it is on the unique flavor of the setting, which makes the setting more interesting, but makes it harder to disentangle for homebrew use.That's the thing with having a strong core setting. The stronger it is, the harder it is to homebrew from that base. It's not a matter of fluff vs. crunch. The fluff informs the crunch, and the more specific the fluff is, the more closely related the crunch will be, and thus it becomes more difficult to disentangle the two when you replace the fluff with something else.And more work to make the game your own blows donkeys when for 30 years it's been much more of a process of just asking "why" to various archetypal fantasy archetypes raised in the core (generally speaking, of course).</blockquote>

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