D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[jmartkdr2]

2024 Background feats resolve most problems.

Because magic. Characters from a magical culture can gain magical features.

Yup. You could do that with elemental features or even dragony stuff for dragonborn, too.

 

[Hussar]

Again, the problem with D&D species is that they have to be generic to support the half-dozen D&D settings each with different niches for them.

Look warforged. They have a strong thematic and mechanical niche because they exist in only one world. They aren't made to be generic construct people. Contrast that to elves who have to support dozens of different cultures on different worlds. And look how bland and boring they are for that.

If you want to make species have more nuance than "elemental race, fiend race, cat race, vampire race, etc" then drop support for all but one setting and give them room to grow in that setting!

But warforged have become generic construct people. Players use warforged in any setting. The Eberron warforged background has been largely ignored. Outside of Eberron of course.

I’d say warforged are actually the opposite of what you are calling for. A very setting specific race that has become generic.

 

[Alzrius]

Again, the problem with D&D species is that they have to be generic to support the half-dozen D&D settings each with different niches for them.

Look warforged. They have a strong thematic and mechanical niche because they exist in only one world. They aren't made to be generic construct people. Contrast that to elves who have to support dozens of different cultures on different worlds. And look how bland and boring they are for that.

If you want to make species have more nuance than "elemental race, fiend race, cat race, vampire race, etc" then drop support for all but one setting and give them room to grow in that setting!

I'd say that there's a way to have your cake and eat it too, which is to have "default" races and (where it seems appropriate for a given campaign world) to have localized variants/sub-races that highlight their specific presentation in that setting. Just look at the tinker gnomes of Krynn, for an example (albeit an exasperating one).

Unfortunately, this seems to run counter to the contemporary zeitgeist.

 

[Mecheon]

Y'know, as gnome defender number one, let me just. Fish this back out...

Maybe a Gnome is a culture of a multispecies community of Dwarf-Halfling. Rock regions leans Dwarf. Forest region leans Halfling.

Why, though? Gnomes and dwarves aren't anything alike outside of being small. What gain is there from this?

Rock gnomes are still gnomes. They're whimsical. They use magic regularly. Their dwellings and smaller and quaint, but also they accidentally manage to find a way to artificially create souls and decide to give the resultant living constructs full autonomy which, y'know. Isn't a dwarf thing. Dwarves are, very stereotypically, not whimsical and tend to detest whimsy to the point the D&D comic had a joke about a dwarf bard violating public music ordinance and that's just "Yeah, that checks". You'd just manage to annoy both parties with this, because the stereotypes of the two aren't handled by the other.

Gnomes are gnomes. They're not dwarves. They're not halflings. They're also not gnelfs or gnoblins

 

[Yaarel]

Y'know, as gnome defender number one, let me just. Fish this back out...

Why, though? Gnomes and dwarves aren't anything alike outside of being small. What gain is there from this?

Mainly, Halflings are the redundant species, being virtually identical to the official Small Human (with a Lucky background).

To me surprising − because I like Gnomes − but effectively, splitting the Gnome and giving part to the Dwarf and part to the Halfling, resolves the difficulty of the Halfling, by allowing the Halfling a more salient species concept.

Meanwhile, the old school Gnome (a dwarflike and halflinglike Illusionist) can actually be a Dwarf-Halfling multispecies.

 

[bedir than]

Mainly, Halflings are the redundant species, being virtually identical to the official Small Human (with a Lucky background).

I don't think "Resourceful" is the equal of "Brave" and "Halfling Nimbleness"

 

[Yaarel]

Rock gnomes are still gnomes. They're whimsical.

Any species can happy, sad, whimsical, or mad.

They use magic regularly.

Magic can be cultural.

Their dwellings and smaller and quaint,

Housing architecture is obviously cultural.

but also they accidentally manage to find a way to artificially create souls

You mean the Autognome? Are you saying Gnomes invented Warforged? My impression is Humans did.

and decide to give the resultant living constructs full autonomy which, y'know, isn't a dwarf thing.

Some settings say Dwarves reproduce by bringing stone to life. D&D relates this to Moradin and the origin of Dwarves.

Dwarves are, very stereotypically, not whimsical and tend to detest whimsy to the point the D&D comic had a joke about a dwarf bard violating public music ordinance and that's just "Yeah, that checks".

A person can comprise a diversity of personalities.

You'd just manage to annoy both parties with this, because the stereotypes of the two aren't handled by the other.

Gnomes are gnomes. They're not dwarves. They're not halflings. They're also not gnelfs or gnoblins

In 1e, a Dwarf couldnt to magic, and a Gnome was a Dwarf who could do magic.

 

[Yaarel]

I don't think "Resourceful" is the equal of "Brave" and "Halfling Nimbleness"

"Halfling Nimbleness: You can move through the space of any creature that is of a Size larger than yours, but you can’t stop there."

Move thru larger creature space seems like feat that anyone can take. Even a Fighting Style. It feels insufficient to define a "species" that occupies realestate in the Core Players Handbook.

Similarly, the Lucky background feat is better than the Halfling Luck.

The Halfling has always felt too Human.


But consolidating Halfling with Gnome, helps a concept that is distinct from every other species.

 

[tetrasodium]

sorry i'm not familiar enough with the source materials to get the nuance of either of those references, but how much lore do you really need for the concept of 'someone made you, and controled you to perform actions you had no choice or desire to perform before being abandoned because they'd finished what they needed you for'? why does it need to be that war, or that sociopolitical landscape to ask the question 'what makes a person'

The trouble with this back & forth is that you admittedly don't know the setting & are trying to declare what kinds of changes are not going to be a problem for it. The lors tied to warforge It goes beyond the warforge. "THEY TOOK OUR JORBS!"psuedo-automation feats walking picket line scabs who were also the T1000 weapons everyone remembers adding post ww1 Europe type scars & dragonmark house(proto-megacorp) seedy underbelly. It extends past the warforge. Imagine if every automation putting people out of work was also sapient and sorta able to interact with others like a person with the sorta largely the result of child soldiers PTSD and so on as the only life it's ever known. This has not even gotten into the historical stuff implied sources of their souls the creation forge tangled web or anything else .

Earlier you said "it's not like they're tied to some god or religion or whatever", eberron has never at any point in its history have hands on gods like FR & even spells like commune are likely only to get just some celestial/fiend who also can't prove that $deity exists... so just retcon replace all of the FR gods with catchall pantheon type faiths soverign host dark six & BoV and everything is cool with no problems right?

 

[Mecheon]

Any species can happy, sad, whimsical, or mad.

And dwarves have, for the past 50 years, been described as gruff and stoic. They do not share any of the gnome traits. They are not whimsical, they're not pranksters, they're not illusionists, they can't talk to animals. Hell, dwarves are more likely to be industrialists in a setting and probably end up in wars with gnomes as a result.

Magic can be cultural.

Even if magic is cultural, there's still the fact that we're talking about dwarves, which Dungeons and Dragons has stereotyped as far away from gnomes as possible for the past, oh. 50 years.

Housing architecture is obviously cultural.

Housing architecture doesn't really have much to do with "One of these two has been stereotyped for 50 years as gruff underground dwellers who are good at fighting" and "One of these two has been stereotyped as whimsical prankster types with illusion"

You mean the Autognome? Are you saying Gnomes invented Warforged? My impression is Humans did.

Autognomes are one, but there was also another in Dragon Magazine, the Golmoids.

Dwarves and elves might have golems and other constructs sometimes, but gnomes are the ones to have accidentally managed to artificially create souls on multiple occaisons.

Some settings say Dwarves reproduce by bringing stone to life. D&D relates this to Moradin and the origin of Dwarves.

Yeah that's just a myth relating to myths about humans being made from clay by varying deities. Just cause Nu Wa and Enki both managed it, doesn't mean you can make someone out of clay these days.

I'm pretty sure dwarves reproduce in most settings by the old classic way, especially based on the number of Interesting tells I get on my dwarf warrior on Warcraft and a lot of comments I've seen on some Dungeon Meishi fanart.

A person can comprise a diversity of personalities.

We're talking about an RPG race that has been stereotyped a very, very specific way over 50 years

In 1e, a Dwarf couldnt to magic, and a Gnome was a Dwarf who could do magic.

In 1E, gnomes had a flying city and fighter planes. Gnomes were not dwarves who could do magic, they were the stereotypical illutionist. They were specifically brought in to be the magic-caster small race, as very distinct from the rogues in Halflings or fighters in Dwarves.