D&D 5E Racial Backgrounds

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I rolled up Astley. He's pretty awesome.

 

[SirAntoine]

They are pretty weird. The fluff is pretty clear that they are soliders with limited life experience, they don't sleep at all (that by itself makes them super weird, imagine never sleeping ), and even if they are superior warriors they tend to be fairly naive on the whole.

The novels tend to play this up a bit more, especially the ones by Keith Baker. Pierce isn't human and he's written very obviously as such, even if Dain can read his "expressions" due to familiarity they are very much called out as not being human.

I don't think they belong in D&D, and as a DM who is usually friendly to the players picking whatever race they want because I have a high level campaign where they visit the Planes, warforged is one race that is always banned.

 

[ranger69]

The trouble of course is that no matter how hard we try to simulate a non-human race, we can't. We are human and think human.

 

[Thyrwyn]

...Let me ask you something, do you think a Martian raised among humans would act human?

No idea, I haven't seen the D&D racial write up for a Martian.

It's been tried with chimpanzee's and Dolphins, didn't work there, now the intelligence would have some effect...

Not sure which studies you are referring to: Koko the Gorilla was given a stack photos containing pictures of humans and other primates she knew and asked to sort them. She put all the humans in one stack, and all of the other primates she knew in another. Curiously, she placed the photo of herself in the stack with the humans.

... but I do not believe an culture is all that separates an alien species from our own.

Neither do I, in reality - but we are discussing the limited set of so-called 'aliens', those included as PC races in 5e D&D.

I get that limiting Backgrounds strikes you as a bad idea, I already ran it past one of my players and she thought it was great

Outstanding - if it works for your game, go for it! Seriously. This discussion is just that, a discussion, I am by no means trying to tell you how to play - honestly

...but let me see what other ideas you have to encourage players to remember that elves are inhuman aliens that just happen to look like people.

This outlines our point of disagreement - I do not see the other player races as "inhuman aliens that just happen to look like people". They are not human (a biological distinction), but how are they not people (a philosophical distinction)?

I'll come back to that - but if that is how you want to portray them, then show your players how the are different: give them concrete examples which illustrate those differences, either during play of your NPCs or through stories and histories of the world you are running.

Getting back to the "inhuman aliens" part: given an elf and a human, both of sound mind, and without extenuating backstory, can you think of a circumstance in which one character would have to act one way, and the other another way, simply because of their elf-ness or their human-ness? I cannot. I see nothing in the racial descriptions of either race which I can point to and say "only an elf/human could think/act/behave that way in these circumstances." The same is true of any of the other races.

Thanks for reading, and good gaming!

 

[dream66_]

Not sure which studies you are referring to: Koko the Gorilla was given a stack photos containing pictures of humans and other primates she knew and asked to sort them. She put all the humans in one stack, and all of the other primates she knew in another. Curiously, she placed the photo of herself in the stack with the humans.

The whole conversation is pretty well mute at this point anyways, but I thought I'd share these, Koko wasn't raise like a human she was still treated like a gorilla just they tried to teach her sign language, and there's a lot of problems with the koko experiments.

I was refering to experiments from the 60's, Project Washoe in which a family raised a Chimpanzee as a daughter in attempt to improve her language ability, and to the experiments of Dr. Lily which had a young woman living in a special flooded apartment with a dolphin. It had rather um controversial results.

 

[TarionzCousin]

My favorite Koko the Gorilla story is when they asked her who tore the sink off the wall she blamed her cat.

 

[Ahrimon]

I don't think they belong in D&D, and as a DM who is usually friendly to the players picking whatever race they want because I have a high level campaign where they visit the Planes, warforged is one race that is always banned.

This makes me sad. They're one of my favorite races. I love the story behind them and all of the RP possibilities.

 

[dream66_]

My favorite Koko the Gorilla story is when they asked her who tore the sink off the wall she blamed her cat.

I liked the time they had an online chat allowed people to come in and ask her questions, and she kept reaching for the trainers shirt and signed nipple and the trainer is like, she means people when she says nipple.

 

[SirAntoine]

This makes me sad. They're one of my favorite races. I love the story behind them and all of the RP possibilities.

Well, I'd like to take back what I said. I actually don't know much about the race even though I played one at a convention once. That was fun, but my concern has always been it's a robot and I don't want to bring too much sci-fi or technology into the game.

I think that because you care enough to say that about the race, it shows me it deserves to be in the game. I couldn't say no.

 

[Ahrimon]

Well, I'd like to take back what I said. I actually don't know much about the race even though I played one at a convention once. That was fun, but my concern has always been it's a robot and I don't want to bring too much sci-fi or technology into the game.

I think that because you care enough to say that about the race, it shows me it deserves to be in the game. I couldn't say no.

I can understand that concern, I've heard it a lot. To me they're no more a robot than Frankenstein's monster.

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

Stone skeleton, plant muscles and metal skin. In the campaign I'm working on the warforged are going to be brought to life by the elves to defend against the undead armies of the dwarves. Struggling with their new life. Created to defend life but to do that they have to destroy.