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

[EzekielRaiden]

Tell me what is ridiculous in Tyranny of Dragons where the Council is made up of Humans, Elves and Dwarves yet you find it not patently ridiculous to have their champions made up of Kobolds, a Rakshasa and a pair or Tortles?

Are you telling me that the only possible people who could be qualified must be the same kinds of people making the decision?

These are people in a crisis, who have their own s#!t to deal with. You take what you can get. LotR made a "fellowship" that consisted of nearly half hobbits, despite no one on the council being a hobbit personally.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Are you telling me that the only possible people who could be qualified must be the same kinds of people making the decision?

These are people in a crisis, who have their own s#!t to deal with. You take what you can get. LotR made a "fellowship" that consisted of nearly half hobbits, despite no one on the council being a hobbit personally.

So, you're defending your position of a non-human team, by using the Fellowship which has 3 humans and the rest being the vanilla races?

 

[AnotherGuy]

It does feel a little weird in that context, but that can be solved by adjusting either the setting or the available PC species options. Seriously, either way is fine, and it's your game.

That is what I have been saying.
I was speaking in general terms that many gamers preferences are informed by novels and settings. Change those and you get to influence that perception.

I wasn't critiquing anyone's style.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And to be clear I said published settings and novels inform and influence our preferences.
You want those preference to change - a PHB with wonderful creatures isn't going to do much on its own. Perhaps a different setting or novel might help in influencing.
Please do not mischaracterise what I said.

I mean, I have repeatedly and consistently advocated for both PHBs and DMGs that dispense with the absolute bovine feces of "true exotics" and literally straight-up telling players that humans and elves are ALWAYS present in EVERY setting (since, y'know, both of those things are patently untrue). Instead, we should be having core books which show how the extant species in a particular world shape and influence the themes, ideas, tone, and experience of that world. A world where the only playable races are humans, dragonborn, satyrs, and kobolds will feel quite different from one where the only playable races are elves, orcs, tabaxi, and lizardfolk. (And oh, would you look at that, that's Tamriel where you play as a mer-aligned faction rather than a man-aligned faction!)

More importantly...it's not like there aren't extremely popular fantasy series that do this. Consider Redwall, where there literally aren't any human characters ever, but somehow people manage to find sapient mice and badgers and rats compelling enough that Mr. Jacques published 22 different books across the series. Or, if we relax the standard to be "humans are important/relevant but not the be-all, end-all," six of the most prominent MMOs today qualify: WoW's Azeroth, FFXIV's Hydaelyn (the world, not the goddess), ESO'S Nirn, GW2's Tyria (the world, not the continent), Star Trek Online's four quadrants, and SWTOR's Republic and Sith Empire.

The idea that it is impossible to identify with and feel compelled by nonhuman protagonists or even entirely nonhuman settings is, frankly, ridiculous and always has been. Yes, it requires that the author recognize the consequences of those choices and prepare for/adapt around them. That's true of every artistic choice you could possibly make.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, you're defending your position of a non-human team, by using the Fellowship which has 3 humans and the rest being the vanilla races?

I am saying that your central thesis--that the people electing the team would ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY choose people like them--is disproved by the very book that started the idea of the "core four" in the first place.

"Vanilla races" only happens when you have elected to shackle yourself to a hidebound, limited set. Tolkien had no such thing when he was writing his world. Hell, he literally invented what most people now think of as "elves" and "orcs" and "dwarves" and "halflings." Elves used to be little sprite things. Dwarves (rather, dwarfs, as "dwarves" is Tolkien's invention) were garden gnome type creatures. Orcs were a boogeyman or demonic entity from Old English, and the name had completely disappeared from English by the 1600s. Tolkien reclaimed it and invented a trope that is now so widespread, it's literally the topic of the thread.

If Tolkien is meant to be a defense of "vanilla" races, you've missed the point of his worldbuilding. Profoundly so.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I mean, I have repeatedly and consistently advocated for both PHBs and DMGs that dispense with the absolute bovine feces of "true exotics" and literally straight-up telling players that humans and elves are ALWAYS present in EVERY setting (since, y'know, both of those things are patently untrue). Instead, we should be having core books which show how the extant species in a particular world shape and influence the themes, ideas, tone, and experience of that world. A world where the only playable races are humans, dragonborn, satyrs, and kobolds will feel quite different from one where the only playable races are elves, orcs, tabaxi, and lizardfolk. (And oh, would you look at that, that's Tamriel where you play as a mer-aligned faction rather than a man-aligned faction!)

Bolded emphasis mine. I would absolutely love this!

More importantly...it's not like there aren't extremely popular fantasy series that do this. Consider Redwall, where there literally aren't any human characters ever, but somehow people manage to find sapient mice and badgers and rats compelling enough that Mr. Jacques published 22 different books across the series. Or, if we relax the standard to be "humans are important/relevant but not the be-all, end-all," six of the most prominent MMOs today qualify: WoW's Azeroth, FFXIV's Hydaelyn (the world, not the goddess), ESO'S Nirn, GW2's Tyria (the world, not the continent), Star Trek Online's four quadrants, and SWTOR's Republic and Sith Empire.

Some of these I'm unfamiliar with but I get your point which is my point - setting actually helps. Star Trek and SWTOR's falls into Sci-Fi which closest D&D equivalent is Spelljammer which is what I mentioned originally.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I am saying that your central thesis--that the people electing the team would ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY choose people like them--is disproved by the very book that started the idea of the "core four" in the first place.

"Vanilla races" only happens when you have elected to shackle yourself to a hidebound, limited set. Tolkien had no such thing when he was writing his world. Hell, he literally invented what most people now think of as "elves" and "orcs" and "dwarves" and "halflings." Elves used to be little sprite things. Dwarves were garden gnome type creatures. Orcs were a boogeyman or demonic entity from Old English, and the name had completely disappeared from English by the 1600s. Tolkien reclaimed it and invented a trope that is now so widespread, it's literally the topic of the thread.

If Tolkien is meant to be a defense of "vanilla" races, you've missed the point of his worldbuilding. Profoundly so.

And yet his books influence public perception of Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits which is what I was saying...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And yet his books influence public perception of Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits which is what I was saying...

Yes...but to claim that because they influenced perception, these are the only things that should be allowed as PCs is both ridiculous from a "what was Tolkien doing" stance, and from a "what actually happened within the world of Middle-Earth" sense.

Because creating a Fellowship of the Ring where nearly half of the members are hobbits is the in-Middle-Earth equivalent of a council of Elves, Dwarves, and Humans choosing a cadre of champions where about half of them are dragonborn, tabaxi, kobolds, gnomes, or whatever else. It's literally choosing to put about half your trust in an obscure, barely-known species when you literally could, right then and there, assign every spot on the Fellowship to Men, Dwarves, Elves, and Gandalf. Hell, Gandalf himself is a weird aberration, being an incarnated angel! So less than half of the Fellowship of the Ring, entrusted with the solemn and incredibly dire duty of saving the world from Sauron and completing the task that even Isildur could not bring himself to do, are any of the three races actually deciding who should go. How is that in any way different from a typical humanocentric setting setting up a group that is more than half not human or "vanilla"?

You act like this choice is somehow deeply, profoundly ridiculous--your exact words were "patently ridiculous to have their champions made up of Kobolds, a Rakshasa and a pair or Tortles". But if that's the case, then the very foundations upon which this alleged tradition was built were already "patently ridiculous," yet nobody batted an eye then. Why should we bat an eye now when we do the same thing, just in our context, rather than Tolkien's?

 

[AnotherGuy]

Yes...but to claim that because they influenced perception, these are the only things that should be allowed as PCs is both ridiculous from a "what was Tolkien doing" stance, and from a "what actually happened within the world of Middle-Earth" sense.

I'm not making that claim. I said gamers have preferences and these are primarily influenced by x, y and z. Not ONLY.

Because creating a Fellowship of the Ring where nearly half of the members are hobbits is the in-Middle-Earth equivalent of a council of Elves, Dwarves, and Humans choosing a cadre of champions where about half of them are dragonborn, tabaxi, kobolds, gnomes, or whatever else.

That is a different debate.
Please see below what I responded to initially...and compare that to the bolded part above.

...you get the simple fact that it isn't necessary to have a human in the party in order for the PCs to still feel relatable and grounded

You act like this choice is somehow deeply, profoundly ridiculous--your exact words were "patently ridiculous to have their champions made up of Kobolds, a Rakshasa and a pair or Tortles".

You used those words first in a reply to me, I responded in kind.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

And yet his books influence public perception of Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits which is what I was saying...

Ypu're moving the goalpost pretty blatantly.