D&D General No More "Humans in Funny Hats": Racial Mechanics Should Determine Racial Cultures

[Faolyn]

It's still more of a boogeyman than a feared deity. Supernatural darkness would be too rare in dwarven life to elevate to godhood. Unlike alcohol.

Who's to say (beyond the DM, of course) what qualifies a thing to make the jump to godhood?

 

[Tonguez]

It's still more of a boogeyman than a feared deity. Supernatural darkness would be too rare in dwarven life to elevate to godhood. Unlike alcohol.

said like a true surface dweller

I‘ve been in deep mining tunnel shafts and there are definitely different layers of darkness. I’d imagine a dwarf with true darkvision would see even more and being more aware might invest superstitious belief in those darknesses that evade even their perception

 

[jasper]

First you would have to cull the number of races and no subrace. So only Elf, no hill, wood, valley, drow, vulcan etc. Second A reskin option must be allowed but the what ever rubber mask the pc is wearing the mechical benefit would be the same. Ex. Anything out of volos, monster manual, etc would just a floating +2/+1

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If Halflings are "the best farmers to ever farm, and nearly magically-so" and "the happiest people to ever be a people since the Scandinavians, and possibly law-required to be happy", that gives them a bit more flavor that separates them culturally from humans, and in unique and interesting ways.

Not all races should be alien in mindset from humans.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Personally, I'd love it if that percentage were shifted a bit, say, 75% class 25% race. Any nonhuman character in literature is defined more by their race than pretty much any PC is.

I can get on board with that. I'm not sure how best to approach it in a way that meshes with D&D(or at least WotC era D&D) though. Racial levels have been a thing, but I wouldn't say they've been a thing that's been done particularly well. You could make racial abilities part of class features(with different possibilities for each race depending on class), but that would require a pretty hefty page count to pull off in a satisfying way. Anything disconnected from the leveling process would feel either anemic or frontloaded, and anything that added to the existing power curve instead of partially replacing it would possibly bog the game down.

Dunno. Like the idea of it though.

 

[Fenris-77]

On second thought, let's not go to Camelot, 'tis a silly place.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

reminds me of TPratchetts Discworld Dwarfs -"In place of gods and demons, dwarfs have several dozen different words for "dark". Many of these are highly mystical and dangerous, such as the "closing dark," the "calling dark" and the "waiting dark" (the dark that waits to fill new holes). Worst of all is the "Summoning dark ", which is said to have a mind of its own and to seek out and corrupt certain victims susceptible to it."

that would certainly fit with the shades of grey nature of Darkvision

Makes me think of Guy Gabriel Kay’s Dwarves in The Fionavar Tapestry, with their Dwarfmoot, where the silence of the assembled Dwarves is weighed and measured.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Not all races should be alien in mindset from humans.

You forgot to say that that is your opinion, and should not have been stated/taken as an absolute fact.

I disagree. They're just matters of differing tastes. I agree that they should be close enough to humans for us to properly understand and roleplay them, but I do think that there should be some amount of an alien-mindset to playing a non-human race.

 

[Scars Unseen]

You forgot to say that that is your opinion, and should not have been stated/taken as an absolute fact.

Can we get past this? Please? The topic is subjective. Of course it's their opinion. We shouldn't have to preface every opinion with the words "in my opinion." Sniping at people for using declarative language accomplishes nothing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You forgot to say that that is your opinion, and should not have been stated/taken as an absolute fact.

I disagree. They're just matters of differing tastes. I agree that they should be close enough to humans for us to properly understand and roleplay them, but I do think that there should be some amount of an alien-mindset to playing a non-human race.

By virtue of the fact that many people want to play non-humans that aren’t alien in mindset, we can pretty well determine that it is objectively true that not all races should be alien in mindset.

It is also true that some non-humans should have significantly alien mindsets, by virtue of a significant amount of the player base wanting that.