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

[Yaarel]

In your opinion are the 2024 rules changed in any meaningful way with regard to this topic? In the 2014 PHB there was an entire appendix about the Gods, but I noticed in 2024 that seems to be gone. In the Outer Planes section they don't even mention the word Gods or Deities, just "immortals."

What really matters for me, is the 2024 clarification of the Cleric class. I really can use this class (as written) for any culture.

Where the Cleric class specifies the Astral Plane as the source for the divine magic, it is still a bit awkward for an animistic culture, but doable.

Plus, the Paladin utilizes divine magic, via the magic of language: oaths. This is appropriate for Nordic sensibilities. The magic of a "command" and the magic of "singing" are a thing. Oaths are a big deal.

For those wanting the gods of the Greyhawk setting, the DMs Guide will list them.

 

[Mistwell]

Really? 'Cos splashed across the front page of the site is

New Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide Art and Details Revealed​

Check out new images from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.

and

2024 Player’s Handbook is ‘Fastest Selling D&D Book Ever’​

2024 Player's Handbook sells three times as many as the 2014 version.

and that one has Morrus' byline on it.

He said directly he was calling it 5.5e, and has repeatedly done so when not calling it 2024. Like for example:

Did you not get the 5.5 playtest documents?

None of these comments were said in a negative tone. If you do a search for 5.5e and Morrus, you will see many here. He seems to be using 5.5 and 2024, none with any sort of judgmental tone or negative spin. Just seems like generic neutral terms.

Yet, if I got to pretty much any site or youtube channel that's engaging in clickbait about how bad 2024 D&D is, it's inevitably got 5.5 somewhere in the title or at least in the first paragraph.

Yes and some also use 2024. And the sites which are positive about it also tend to call it 5.5e if they're not calling it 2024. Because that seems to be the two leading generic neutral names that are sticking.

You know what the seriously negative clickbait sources call it? 6e.

 

[pemerton]

Just because a setting change change the default rules, doesn't mean that the default rules are setting.

Of course default rules establish (some elements of) setting.

The PHB contains rules for building heroic fantasy warriors and magic-users, but not for building space marines who fly about in spaceships. That establishes setting.

Likewise, to the extent that the PHB establishes expectations about what sorts of people will figure as protagonists in the fiction of the game, it contributes to setting.

Half-elves do not exist within the 5.5e rules.

I think what you intend by this is that there is no distinct species template for Half-Elf PCs in the 5.5/2024 PHB.

Which is (as I understand things) a true claim, but not the same in literal meaning as what I quoted.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sure, Star Wars and Flash Gordon are fantasy with some sci-fi tropes laid over the top.

But something like 2001 or even Arrival is going for a different sort of aesthetic.

Sure. And things like Star Trek would be somewhere in the middle. It is a spectrum, no a binary.

But JRRT doesn't try to show us how immortal, super-healthy beings would act.

Doesn't he? Because he does show us one interpretation of that.

Rather, the immortality and health of Elves creates a fictional, almost metaphorical, context, for thinking about how higher ideals might be dealt with, if those mundane and worldly concerns could be set aside. When joined with other beliefs JRRT has about humans and their fate vis-a-vis mortality, it also provides a way for thinking about those matters.

Sure, that is his primary goal. Nevertheless, the qualities of the elves are chosen in way that helps him show that. They're not immaterial or incidental.

My Star Trek-fu is not that strong, but Vulcans and Klingons (the Star Trek aliens I have some familiarity with) don't seem all that non-human to me.

Those two were exactly what I had in mind. They're in my opinion good examples of "playable aliens." They're human enough that they're feasible to portray, but still have characteristics that would make you go "oh, those guys are Klingons," or "that's a Vulcan," even if you just listened them to talk and to do stuff and were not told or shown what they were.

 

[akr71]

No, we just need better rules for creating mixed race characters.

 

[Remathilis]

I think what you intend by this is that there is no distinct species template for Half-Elf PCs in the 5.5/2024 PHB.

Which is (as I understand things) a true claim, but not the same in literal meaning as what I quoted.

I think the word missing from a lot of the half-x discussion is the word " ...yet." They are not in the PHB (neither are necromancers) but there is no indication they won't exist later in some form or another.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, we just need better rules for creating mixed race characters.

And we do have them. You just have to go outside WotC.

 

[Maxperson]

Of course default rules establish (some elements of) setting.

The PHB contains rules for building heroic fantasy warriors and magic-users, but not for building space marines who fly about in spaceships. That establishes setting.

And yet you can use the same rules to play space marines if that's your goal, since setting alters the default assumptions in the rules. Hell, the Spelljammer setting does much of that work for you. There's no rule that is unchangeable in a setting environment, so no rule is inherently part of a setting. People are going to leave the vast majority of the rules alone when building their settings, but across all tables combined I would think that all rules will be changed before being put in a setting.

 

[Maxperson]

Really? 'Cos splashed across the front page of the site is

New Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide Art and Details Revealed​

Check out new images from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.

and

2024 Player’s Handbook is ‘Fastest Selling D&D Book Ever’​

2024 Player's Handbook sells three times as many as the 2014 version.

and that one has Morrus' byline on it.

Yet, if I got to pretty much any site or youtube channel that's engaging in clickbait about how bad 2024 D&D is, it's inevitably got 5.5 somewhere in the title or at least in the first paragraph.

And yet I have read articles online and seen video links here where people are praising the 5.5e PHB and calling it 5.5e. It's not even close to being used as a universal negative.

 

[Mistwell]

No, we just need better rules for creating mixed race characters.

We could use ANY 2024 rules for creating mixed species characters.