Mixing Races....and why DM's shouldn't allow it

[Doghead Thirteen]

In my opinion, some sort of hybridisation system is a must-have if you're going for multiple playable races, for two reasons.

First off, it helps the players create seriously unique characters.

And secondly, it neatly parallels the real world; there's nothing stopping a guy with brown skin knocking up a chick with pink skin, and why shouldn't the same apply to a short chubby guy with a big beard and a tall skinny chick with pointy ears?

Within reason, it makes the campaign world feel much more realistic.

But half-Kobolds are pushing it.

Oh and BTW, the spelling 'wyld' is Old English...

 

[Psion]

I just read somewhere that a player was a Kobal (ya know, the little lizard guys) and a Halfling....

I wonder, how did that happen? And why kind of DM allowed it?

I mean, mixing races are fine, but put some thought into it. There is a reason that a Man and a female HORSE can't breed? Not the same thing....prob with the whole mateing...

I'm just saying this because I also see Halfdragons, half weretigers on here and I laugh, not becaue its funny, but because one day those players are going to come to me and say "well my old DM allowed me" and I'm just going to continue to laugh.

I don't know, your thoughts.

If the races are genetically compatible, fine. I do not see dragons and anything not of the dragon subtype as being compatible. In 2e, half-dragons came about SOLELY from dragons with shapeshifting abilities; even polymorph spells weren't good enough. The decision in 3e to make it so sapient species can mate, or so it seems, still vexes me.

In the tradition of much fantasy, I generally assume that extreme crossbreeds only come about through magical experimentation or other unusual circumstances. I generally give half-fiends and planetouched a pass because I consider post-mortal souls shaped into fiendish forms to be be fundamentally compatible with the race they came from. But still, half-fiends can also come about IMC by means of infusing a creature with demonic essence or similar extraordanary measures.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Yet another think I prefer about Classic: differing species don't interbreed. No half-elves or half-orcs

Yeah! Just like in classic fantasy!

*cough*Elrond*cough*orc-blooded men in Bree*cough*

 

[Korgoth]

Yeah! Just like in classic fantasy!

*cough*Elrond*cough*orc-blooded men in Bree*cough*

Is that using the Half Straw Golem template?

Classic D&D is not the game of emulating this or that genre of fantasy novels. It is the game of Classic D&D, which draws inspiration from a wide variety of fantasy sources. And I think it's totally cool.

That being said, you can always tweak any game to make it "more like X and less like Y". Such as using Classic D&D to emulate Clark A. Smith by removing all demihumans and insisting that most clerics be Chaotic.

If you wanted to use Classic D&D for a strict emulation of Tolkien it would take some extra tweaking because Tolkien is pretty specific, highly-developed and internally consistent (unlike most S&S: Howard, Clark, Moorcock, Vance, etc.). I'd call Tolkien's Half-Elves (there are what, 3 or 4 in the whole world?) "Elves" (unless they chose mortality, in which case they're "Human") and orc-blooded men "Human". You don't need to introduce extra stats to distinguish low men, Dunedain, Numenoreans, Hillmen, Rohan dudes, etc. That's not a stat-related issue to my mind.

 

[DonTadow]

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=7929&

There's the link to Races of Consequences. It's a real good book for those whom like mixed races.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I find the assumptions of "classic D&D" to be just as uninteresting as the assumptions of Tolkienesque fantasy.

I like a more Lovecraftian approach, with creatures that could be the degenerate descendants of another race - and in a fantasy world, that doesn't have to be an outgrowth of an ugly racist worldview like it is in Lovecraft's writings.

In my own games, I almost never use the "demihumans" of core D&D. Elves, dwarves, halflings, whatever - they're so uninteresting and cliched. It takes a reinvention on the scale on which Eberron does it (and even there, I find dwarves fairly dull except for their clawed-themselves-up-from-barbarism backstory) to get me interested in using them at all - and by that point, you've got Elves In Name Only.

I like the idea that the warlord of an evil army might literally be half-demon. I like the idea that powerful dragons deliberately sire - or magically create - half-dragon champions to pursue their goals in the world.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

And secondly, it neatly parallels the real world; there's nothing stopping a guy with brown skin knocking up a chick with pink skin, and why shouldn't the same apply to a short chubby guy with a big beard and a tall skinny chick with pointy ears?

Well, I guess because their parents are stopping them. (Now I have that weird thought of recasting Romeo and Juliet with a dwarf and an elf)

Oh and BTW, the spelling 'wyld' is Old English...

Ah, back in the day, before they invented spelling.

 

[RFisher]

First off, it helps the players create seriously unique characters.

But when half-elves (or half-dragons or whatever becomes popular with your players) are no longer unique because players keep choosing them...what do you do?

I have enjoyed a good anything-goes, create-your-own-race campaign. (Whether we're talking D&D templates or Gurps-style with Fantasy Folk.) For me, that's about cranking up the fantasy knob to 11, though, not paralleling the real world.

I think there are enough other ways to create unique PCs & to parallel the real world to see a hybridisation system as a must-have. An enjoyable option? Sure. A necessity? No.

 

[hong]

But when half-elves (or half-dragons or whatever becomes popular with your players) are no longer unique because players keep choosing them...what do you do?

Thankfully that has never happened in the last 7 years of 3E, and is most unlikely ever to happen. Even if that's only because of the mechanical obstacles to creating a powerful half-race character, the end result is still the same: the hordes of wacko misfits that always seem to be threatening to overrun precious verism veriso verrisi believability remain unseen, somewhere over the horizon. Possibly over the rainbow.

Damn this thin end of the wedge. Ouch.

 

[hong]

Yet another think I prefer about Classic: differing species don't interbreed. No half-elves or half-orcs or half-flumph lycanthropic anarchic paragon displacer beast monks.

See, d00d, the trick is not to play with someone who wants a half-flumph lycanthropic anarchic paragon displacer beast monk.

. . .

Actually, no, belay that motion. Find that player who wants a half-flumph lycanthropic anarchic paragon displacer beast monk, shoot a tranquilizer dart into him, and bring him here. I've always wanted to meet such a person, who had been taken to be purely in the realm of myth and cryptozoology to this point.