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

[AnotherGuy]

Ypu're moving the goalpost pretty blatantly.

How so?

 

[Micah Sweet]

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?

To be fair, there's a difference between half the champions being from different peoples, and all of them being so.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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


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




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

So, Redwall should never have succeeded, right? I mean, the cast is made up mostly of (anthropomorphic) mice, badgers, moles, otters, and rabbits. There's literally not a single human. So it's not possible for people to relate to them, right?

Because--per your own words here--that's the claim you were trying to rebut. That it isn't required for any of the characters to be human in order for people to relate to them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To be fair, there's a difference between half the champions being from different peoples, and all of them being so.

I genuinely don't see one.

 

[Scribe]

To be fair, there's a difference between half the champions being from different peoples, and all of them being so.

There's also a difference between a Hobbit, and a Goo Person, Insect, or Dragon, in terms of the gulf between humanity and the Tolkien options.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

How so?

Ypu begun with saying it is ridiculous for a council composed of humans, elves anddwarves to send adventurers who are Kobolds or Tortles or, I assume you men Rakasta instead of Rakshasa. It was then pointed out to you half of Fellowship of the Ring was made of Hobbits, despite them having no seat in Council of Elrond. You moved the goalpost, switching you argument to "in LotR Fellowship was made if STANDARD races". When called out, you switched again to "fantasy in general was influenced by races in LotR". Wice you abbandonned your previous position for a new one.


Also, ffs, in Wondeful Wizard of Oz the party consists of human, a metal man, a lion and a scarecrow, why arent't these the default consudering how influential to fantasy the Oz series is?

 

[AnotherGuy]

So, Redwall should never have succeeded, right? I mean, the cast is made up mostly of (anthropomorphic) mice, badgers, moles, otters, and rabbits. There's literally not a single human. So it's not possible for people to relate to them, right?

Because--per your own words here--that's the claim you were trying to rebut. That it isn't required for any of the characters to be human in order for people to relate to them.

I honestly do not believe you are comprehending what I'm saying and the fact that you cannot see a difference between the part I responded to initially and what you now changed your position to, means that it is unlikely that we will have a fruitful discussion on this issue.
Also the uncharitable style of using the words only and never to describe my position does not help.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Ypu begun with saying it is ridiculous for a council composed of humans, elves anddwarves to send adventurers who are Kobolds or Tortles or, I assume you men Rakasta instead of Rakshasa.

The conversation did not begin there.....go back a little further.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

The conversation did not begin there.....go back a little further.

Are you saying ypu mived the goalpost even more?

 

[AnotherGuy]

Are you saying ypu mived the goalpost even more?

I'm saying reading and comprehension are two different skills.