I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

[Bill Zebub]

And that's why it "works" for representing great strength. It feels significant so it is significant.

And I certainly do not expect the level of simulationism from D&D where we can equate the exact percentage of the ability score increase to the exact percentage of strength increase in the fiction. It is more vague "bigger number stronger, more bigger more stronger," and don't sweat the details.

That's exactly why I like special abilities over stat bonuses. To me, something like "You have Advantage on rolls to resist being moved against your will" (or whatever) conveys a much greater sense of being powerful than a stat bonus that results in 15% more melee damage.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have no doubt I'm in the minority here, but...

I have no problem casting different groups (whichever nomenclature you prefer) with certain embedded characteristics. I think that - for me - the game works best as a kind of psychomachian, mythopoeic, anthropopsychic, ethnopsychic allegory, where different groups stand in for functions of our own consciousness.

Bioessentialism doesn't really figure into it.

As much as I despise allegory, I can respect this stance a hell of a lot more than the supposedly simulationist arguments for bioessentialism.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thinking through the first 34 pages of this thread, I think the most salient point was made by @Umbran: if culture can explain/provide whatever explanations we need for groups of sentient beings to "be" a certain way, why do we even need bioessentialism? What purpose does it serve to be able say, "No, it's not just that they were raised in a culture that taught them that, it's intrinsically who they are"?

Except when the bioessentialism has to do with their actual biology though, right? Wings, scales, breathing fire?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Except when the bioessentialism has to do with their actual biology though, right? Wings, scales, breathing fire?

And mythic. If you're created by the God of Elves, and he thinks that his folk should be able to talk together, he'll imprint elvish in their mind when he feels like it, irrespective of where they are raised. You're an orphan? You were raised among humans? You don't have pointed ears because only one of your grandparent was an elf? Yet suddenly, at age one, you suddenly speak fluent elvish and asked for a longbow next Christmas, because bows are cool, even if you have never seen one and neither your parents, with their culture not being bow-using. They refused, but you told them they'll soon cave in, because humans are weak-willed.

Basically, culture can only accurately reflect cultural traits, which is why it's called culture. And while there are a lot of traits that are cultural, when you consider that elves are "haughty humans with blond hair, a fixation on bows, trees, have pointy ears and darkvision" and halfilings are "small, lucky humans with darkvision" and orcs are "big bulky humans with darkvision", well, when basically everyone is human, sure, there is no reason to have anything different than culture to express difference. But if one takes the time to make their groups fantastically different, culture can't explain everything.

It can't make you sprout wing, it can't make you know things without a tutor, it can't make you able to cast faery fire, and it can't explain why you never let pass an opportunity for squashing spiders.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I have no doubt I'm in the minority here, but...

I have no problem casting different groups (whichever nomenclature you prefer) with certain embedded characteristics. I think that - for me - the game works best as a kind of psychomachian, mythopoeic, anthropopsychic, ethnopsychic allegory, where different groups stand in for functions of our own consciousness.

Bioessentialism doesn't really figure into it.

Sure, but if you are not careful with it, you might mess up the message of your allegory when you consociate it with your mythopoeia. Like for example if you have hobgoblin nazi-analogues as allegory to the human evil of xenophobia, then if the hobgoblins are born like that, as hateful things that just want to exterminate the other, then in the setting it actually makes sense to judge their character by their appearance, and your allegory actually ends up justifying what it was aiming to criticise.

 

[Jahydin]

I prefer a mix myself.

Race/Species/etc are intrinsically different than humans physically which modifies stats accordingly, but Class/Background also plays a part in what those scores are as well.

One of the reasons I'm so enamored with the PF2 system at the moment.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Except when the bioessentialism has to do with their actual biology though, right? Wings, scales, breathing fire?

Yeah....which I don't actually thinks counts as bioessentialism. That's just...biology.

Bioessentialism is "this sentient species is bloodthirsty and violent because they are hard-wired that way. Raising a baby in a pastoral society wouldn't do any good; you'd still get a crazed savage."

And, sure, we can probably think of edge cases all day, but... "the existence of twilight does not negate the difference between night and day."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah....which I don't actually thinks counts as bioessentialism. That's just...biology.

Bioessentialism is "this sentient species is bloodthirsty and violent because they are hard-wired that way. Raising a baby in a pastoral society wouldn't do any good; you'd still get a crazed savage."

And, sure, we can probably think of edge cases all day, but... "the existence of twilight does not negate the difference between night and day."

But that is not how it has been used here nor I think this is even correct.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Humans have a racial flaw, they need food. There are even rules in D&D that makes people without food for long gain exhaustion level, from which they can die even at full HP.

Imagine that Aldryami elves (not even another species, another genus) do photosynthesis. Their culture don't know the concept of food. If you're raised a human in an Aldryami society, what are your chances of surviving?

Aldryami can raise a human child however they want, he'll still crave food and will go to unexplainable extremes to ingest our brothers the fruits and our sisters the cereals, he is born that way. Of course, eating our reincarnated brothers and sisters is contrary to our core values against cannibalism. No amount of education can change this baby from becoming a hunger-driven savage.

How Aldriamy react to finding an infant human baby is probably a cultural thing. They can accept it depite being born different, ignore him (and he dies), kill him out of spite, kill him to make his suffering shorter out of compassion... but clearly the need for food isn't cultural among humans.

This is very different from "this person born on the other side of the border or with some minor irrelevant physical difference will always become a frenzied savage".

 

[Bill Zebub]

But that is not how it has been used here nor I think this is even correct.

I mean, it's getting used in a lot of different ways here.

FWIW, the real definition is about individuals, not populations. So (despite my enthusiastic participation in the debate) discussions about "half-orcs tend to be stronger than halflings" is not a bioessentialism discussion at all.