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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8446474" data-attributes="member: 7028554">Possibly a stupid question here, but is one of the core factors that complicates this issue the fact that many traditional fantasy settings are both sort of small in scope, and also tend to feature single-race (or close to it) nations?In our world the obvious red flag for being racist is when someone assigns stereotypes (even "positive" ones) to an ethnicity, because any reasonable person knows that it's nonsense to fixate on that sort of genetic heritage. But also people of different ethnicities live in all sorts of places now, and the more people you meet, the more universal you realize our collective experiences are, despite relatively small (at this point) cultural differences.But a lot of fantasy settings, whether actual, well-defined ones, or sort of vaguely implied ones (like based on reading the facial feats and descriptions in the PHB) are set in a more primitive framework, and, to me, are also more about the populations of a single continent or area, rather than an entire planet. Even if they do cover more total area, nations and regions often get simplified, which is part of the charm of fantasy. It's vivid. It's direct. There are no smartphones. The combination of those two--a setting that's inherently ancient or old-fashioned but also not terribly large or complex--makes for situations that can understandably clash with modern sensibilities. Orcs get defined by that one nation or tribe over yonder. Mountain dwarves are given a nationalistic fervor, which is easy, because they've got the one nation they're permanently obsessed with. In the interest of narrative simplicity or maybe just tropes we often don't see what happens when the racial makeup of many nations becomes fully mixed, or when those monolithic non-human cultures become truly fractured and diverse. Sure, we have stuff like high elves up there and drow down there, but (usually) not a Spire-like mix of the two. I'm not saying that all fantasy RPG settings are like this, but I do think the default is inherently isolationist and ethno-nationalist. They're recreating some heightened version of "the past." But other (I think much rarer) settings might go for a more post-globalization or cosmopolitan or maybe just more modern feel, with more of a melting pot approach to fantasy races and their cultural and national identities.If that seems like a fair assessment, then I think the choice is incredibly easy.1) Use the flexibility offered (as an option) in Tasha to decide whether your setting is the kind that features the single orc nation whose culture has, for whatever reason, ordered itself around warriors and violence, and have both racial feats and the original ASIs that reflect that. If, as the DM, you want to say those are the only kinds of half-orcs or orcs you can play--because there are no splinter nations or parallel developments, or at least those are outside the scope of your campaign--then you're all done. That sort of limitation isn't any different, to me, than saying, No tortles, because they stupid and they don't exist here. You have to make tons of those kinds of decisions as a DM or GM when starting a game, and players buy in or don't.2) If you're running a game where fantasy races are more distributed and/or diverse, you can either do floating ASIs that players are in full control of, which you can collaboratively explain (this orc wizard is from a clan or sect or tradition whose mystics screened for magical talent, and maybe even nudged evolutionary development in that direction), or you could establish two or three ASI variations yourself, to reflect different orc cultures or ways that orcs have integrated into multi-racial cultures.In other words you can lean into fantasy RPG settings' heritage of broad strokes, or you can incorporate whatever additional level of setting complexity, and attendant rules and mechanical variations, that you want.I truly, honestly don't see why those options wouldn't work for everyone.And if you have the sorts of players who would balk at the notion that you're pinning them down to a given type of orc and set of ASIs, or that you're somehow surrendering to wokeness by going in the other direction and offering distinct, specific options or saying you'll collaborate to do something you both find valid and interesting, then your gaming challenges are probably bigger than to-Tasha or not-to-Tasha.</blockquote>

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