D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Micah Sweet]

So it has to be an all-or-nothing?

Fine. Then why does the game not have a rule for every single thing a PC is or can do?

See...? Going to the extreme result in an effort to make a point is ridiculous. I can go there just like you can.

There are some fiction that are represented by rules. But not all fiction is represented by rules. And the fiction that isn't represented by rules can instead just be declared as part of the fiction. Who and what those pieces of the fiction are can be whatever the designers wish it to be, as well as whatever an individual player decides they need (and are free to add or subtract from their game.)

It is not required that a species have rules to be considered a species within the fiction and within the game. It certainly can (and oftentimes might be)... but doesn't have to be. A person can play a Gold Dwarf or a Shield Dwarf still in D&D if they decide they want to, even though there are no longer rules to distinguish the two species. The player just identifies their character as such.

The designers/publishers of this game will include those rules they feel they want to include. If anyone needs more rules than that... they are free to make up or find new rules wherever they want and insert them into their game.

I would certainly prefer that more things were represented by rules, personally. A big reason why I play Level Up is that it has more detailed rules for things I want there to be more detailed rules.

 

[CreamCloud0]

So it has to be an all-or-nothing?

well they can't exactly only have 'some' mechanical representation when they're just reskins can they? so they're either a half elf mechanically, or they're not.

 

[TwoSix]

Which is your opinion of course. And you are free to have it. But it doesn't mean that is the only way to look at it, nor that your way is the correct one. There is something to be said about accepting what a character identifies as, regardless of what their equipment might suggest they "should be".

I broadly agree with your argument, but I don’t think conflating “narrative implementation of a character concept should trump mechanical implementation” with a trans acceptance metaphor does this discussion any favors.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Reskinning is just one of those unbridgeable aesthetic divides in the playerbase.

I love reskinning in general, as do quite a few of my players, but I’ve known tons of gamers who either just don’t get it or actively feel like it’s roleplaying incorrectly.

i'm more than willing to reskin things myself...when it makes sense to, the longsword can become the katana, or close enough to serve it's purpose, but an elf/human does not serve the role of the half-elf because the half-elf is explicitly meant to be different from a elf/human as part of it's fundamental defining nature.

 

[TwoSix]

i'm more than willing to reskin things myself...when it makes sense to, the longsword can become the katana, or close enough to serve it's purpose, but an elf/human does not serve the role of the half-elf because the half-elf is explicitly meant to be different from a elf/human.

Well, “when it makes sense to” will also vary from person to person, right?

Like, if I come to a game with a human character that I say is a half-elf in concept, how do you handle it?

For me as a DM, I understand my setting logic well enough that I know how half-elves fit into the campaign, so treating them as a half-elf is easy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One can argue that species do not need to be represented by rules at all, but currently they are. So giving no rules to some species is in effect removing them from the game.

I don’t actually personally care about these species that much. My current setting has no elves nor any hybrid species (it has orcs.) But these, half-elves in particular, are popular species and prominent in the source fiction, so it is quite understandable that people are upset that they have been removed.

But the worst thing about this is that a lot of people feel that these hybrid species were representation via analogy, so it seems rather uncomfortable that their existence is considered problematic and they need to be erased. That’s what makes this different than removing, say, gnomes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So if rules do not represent fiction, why are we having any rules at all?

Because otherwise we'll just argue about whether you hit me or I had a laser shirt that vaporized your fists like we would with normal playing pretend as opposed to our very serious grownup playing pretend.

 

[Remathilis]

i'm more than willing to reskin things myself...when it makes sense to, the longsword can become the katana, or close enough to serve it's purpose, but an elf/human does not serve the role of the half-elf because the half-elf is explicitly meant to be different from a elf/human as part of it's fundamental defining nature.

Well that's the rub, isn't it? One person's barbarian is another's "reskinned fighter". What deserves dedicated mechanics and what is accomplished via reskinning isn't quite agreed upon. I mean, if a human/elf needs specific mechanics, why not (for example) a Drow/High Elf having a unique mechanical representation as well? The line isn't exactly clear.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Well that's the rub, isn't it? One person's barbarian is another's "reskinned fighter". What deserves dedicated mechanics and what is accomplished via reskinning isn't quite agreed upon. I mean, if a human/elf needs specific mechanics, why not (for example) a Drow/High Elf having a unique mechanical representation as well? The line isn't exactly clear.

well for starters, (as far as i am aware) drow/high elf hybrids have never been a thing in the lore/fiction while half elves are quite solidly established.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well that's the rub, isn't it? One person's barbarian is another's "reskinned fighter". What deserves dedicated mechanics and what is accomplished via reskinning isn't quite agreed upon. I mean, if a human/elf needs specific mechanics, why not (for example) a Drow/High Elf having a unique mechanical representation as well? The line isn't exactly clear.

My own thought is that just about everything that would be reasonably different from an in-setting point of view deserves its own mechanics.