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

[DEFCON 1]

I don't care what the character identifies as. If your halfling PC wants to identify as bugbear, go for it. That's between the PC and the game world. Outside of the fiction, though, your "half-elf" is pure human or pure elf.

If you wish to play Dungeons & Dragons strictly as a board game and don't care about the fiction that is generated by the playing, that's fine. But that is not in any way how Wizards of the Coast sees this game. Everything in this game is designed with story in mind... that's why all these numbers have these fantasy nouns and adjectives on top of them... to create a story out of their use. Thus for them (and a lot of us)... "outside the fiction" is is a phrase that might as well not even exist, because the entire point of playing an RPG as opposed to a board game is to create a fiction. This is why we name our D&D character but don't name our train developer "identity" when playing Ticket To Ride. Because they are two different types of games.

You may not like that WotC cares more about focusing on fiction rather than mechanics in many places within D&D... and that's fine, you don't have to. But if you want "outside the fiction"-first emphasis in your RPG... waiting on the D&D design department to give it to you means you might sometimes be waiting a long time for it or might not even ever get it.

 

[pemerton]

Sorry, what were they? It has been a long thread...

This:

For instance, I may as DM offer a PC elf
Advantage when attempting to persuade a fellow elf in the elven tongue
Advantage in history when attempting to recall an elvish poem to solve a riddle
Advantage in religion when attempting to perform the traditional elvish funeral rites
...etc

To describe it more generally, being of a particular race establishes fictional position that matters to resolution, but doesn't itself need mechanical modelling/expression.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You'd have to give every ability some sort of weighting score so that you don't end up creating something too powerful for game.

You could easily end up not really being able to represent a half race effectively since to do so would be unbalancing, and it would be unsatisfactory to create an ineffective representation that fits within the design space.

The Level Up system manages this just fine, to the point where a supplement literally gives each heritage gift and trait a weighting score, and adds a bunch more.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean this should be patently simple. Is it in the book? Multiple people have said its not in the book, therefore, its not in 5.5.

I'm still a little bitter over how hard they pushed to convince us it was the same edition.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Huh. My astral elf lunar sorcerer made with the 2024 sorcerer class is going to be shocked she isn't a 2024 character....

It's ok. She can't know without casting Detect Fourth Wall.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if I use any 3pp material (such as monsters from TotV)!I am not running a 2024 game either? Only officially sanctioned products count?

Technically? Yes, I think so. Not that that fact has any practical value at your table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you wish to play Dungeons & Dragons strictly as a board game and don't care about the fiction that is generated by the playing, that's fine. But that is not in any way how Wizards of the Coast sees this game. Everything in this game is designed with story in mind... that's why all these numbers have these fantasy nouns and adjectives on top of them... to create a story out of their use. Thus for them (and a lot of us)... "outside the fiction" is is a phrase that might as well not even exist, because the entire point of playing an RPG as opposed to a board game is to create a fiction. This is why we name our D&D character but don't name our train developer "identity" when playing Ticket To Ride. Because they are two different types of games.

You may not like that WotC cares more about focusing on fiction rather than mechanics in many places within D&D... and that's fine, you don't have to. But if you want "outside the fiction"-first emphasis in your RPG... waiting on the D&D design department to give it to you means you might sometimes be waiting a long time for it or might not even ever get it.

You can do both, if you start with the fiction and then create mechanics to back it up. Both aspects of the game are import to many players, and indeed necessary for some to feel they're playing a game at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This:
To describe it more generally, being of a particular race establishes fictional position that matters to resolution, but doesn't itself need mechanical modelling/expression.

Depends on the game and your preference. What you're describing works well for you. It doesn't work well for others.

 

[Remathilis]

Technically? Yes, I think so. Not that that fact has any practical value at your table.

Awesome. I haven't run Dungeons & Dragons (2014 or 2024) for years now...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Awesome. I haven't run Dungeons & Dragons (2014 or 2024) for years now...

Me neither.