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

[Mind of tempest]

I provided Spelljammer (and Planescape later) for settings which, I would imagine, work for the majority of the playerbase to have PCs where all the characters are not the original vanilla, but still be relatable and grounded.
Providing the examples of how the public accepted Transformers and Ninja Turtles as non-human parties I do not feel is a fair comparison to the convo, do you?

How do you feel about a party of Tortles traversing the jungles of Chult? Grounded? Relatable?

depends how they act, most people are relatable when you see them deal with stuff you deal with.

Turtle people are like, baby's second anthropomisation. So, yeah, its grounded and relatable because enough Warcraft has me associated tortles with a certain memetic phrase from Warcraft.

So, yeah, a bunch of old folks (turtles are wrinkly, live a long time, and are slow, so those are the natural assumption) traversing a jungle, yes, that's fairly grounded and relatable.

Frankly the actual problem is going to be Chult-as-written having non-ecologically appropriate animals in it, as 90% of the dinosaur and pterosaur species said to live there did not live in jungle enviroments. It is much easier for me to relate to a grouchy turtle person having to travel than it is imaging the denizens of a sub-tropical floodplain suddenly being in a jungle, to say nothing of dragging Pteranodon (Dwelt along shallow seas) into the mess. Its like just shoving a grizzly bear and an albatross into the middle of the Amazon, its going to be out of place

same man same.

Considering you are either a human (likely) or a bot (unlikely) you certainly can make that call.

I think I got put in statistically human and stopped asking, you lose your rights if you go down one level from there.
regardless the more core point of relatability is having a problem you can grasp and understand at an easy level not much past it.

He's actually super personable and useful to have around despite knowing about five phrases.

from what did he spawn from?

 

[Scribe]

I think I got put in statistically human and stopped asking, you lose your rights if you go down one level from there.
regardless the more core point of relatability is having a problem you can grasp and understand at an easy level not much past it.

Considering your demonstrated ability to communicate, I'd say you know the answer then.

 

[AnotherGuy]

depends how they act, most people are relatable when you see them deal with stuff you deal with.

That is true.
However if I'm running Tortle campaign in a non-native Tortle setting I'd like to accentuate the cultural differences between the Tortles and the natives of that setting. I'm currently running an all-dwarf campaign in Rockhome, using a mechanised system to best try bring to light the pros and cons personality wise of being a dwarf, the philosophy of Kagyar and the influence of the ideology of the various Dwarven clans.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Considering your demonstrated ability to communicate, I'd say you know the answer then.

I would agree that humans make a setting more mundane by nature which can help ground a setting that is otherwise unrelatable but does not make a setting grounded, grounded is more consistent rules and logic.

I'm thinking of Tolkien's own statement that he was "in fact a Hobbit in all but size." His earliest experiences of the West Midlands, which he undoubtedly drew upon in his depiction of hobbits and the Shire, began as early as 1895 when his family moved to Birmingham and then to Sarehole in 1896, but I think of him primarily as a man of the 20th century. I think Edwardian is right on the money, but late Victorian seems appropriate too.

I still can't fathom how he liked the West Midlands the place is dull and depressing on a good day.

That is true.
However if I'm running Tortle campaign in a non-native Tortle setting I'd like to accentuate the cultural differences between the Tortles and the natives of that setting. I'm currently running an all-dwarf campaign in Rockhome, using a mechanised system to best try bring to light the pros and cons personality wise of being a dwarf, the philosophy of Kagyar and the influence of the ideology of the various Dwarven clans.

those are still relatable is the problem

 

[Not a Decepticon]

It's a small lizard dude vs. Gildor Inglorion. Small lizard dude is never going to be taken as seriously.

Why is that? On the other side is jsut some random prick with pointy ears, you make assumptions betraying preexisting biases and expect everyone to share them.

This is wrong. It was assumption based on something, and he told you what that something was. Agree or disagree, but don't misrepresent the argument presented to you.

And I reject validity of that "something", therefore it is an assumption based on nothing.

Why is small lizard dude and teenage mutant ninja tortle(I can't tell you how often I've heard that joke. The race just is not taken seriously) inherently sillier than 9 people who are all variations of human in appearance?

And why exactly is a species of short people with beard on their faces and a species of short peopel with beard of their feet and a species of tree-hugging hippies (I can't tell you how often I've heard that joke. The racie just is not taken seriously) inherently more "respectable" and serious than Kobolds or Tortles? How exactly is "variation of human apeparance" inherently respectable? I'd argue it makes them look dumber.

Except that the hobbits are human when it comes to relatability. Horton the Loxodon will not be as relatable to most people.

1. No. Hobbits are not humans. The entire point was they are not humans and are more relatable than humans in the group. Tryingto claim now they are "human when it comes to relatability" is a cowardly cop-out and it inherently destroys the idea of having a fantasy race to begin with. If Hobbits, despite NOT being human, are made human by being relatable and we treat relatability as an inherently human trait, then every species that can be relatable is inherently human. And since relatability is a trait you give to other characters as a writer, hence everyh race can be made relatable. Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds - all of it can be made relatable, and all of it is, if we follow your logic, just humans.
2. Horton Hears Who is one of Dr. Seuss' msot famous and beloved stories. Clearly people in the whole world have found Horton interesting and relatable. You could not use worse example unless you picked up the Grinch.

 

[AnotherGuy]

those are still relatable is the problem

Ok this is an interesting tangent, let's do a deeper dive into what some consider what is relatable to a race.

1. Appearance is one measure
2. Actions/Behaviour
3? Cultural similarities (this would include what they Value) but that leads back to Actions/Behaviour right? I'm not 100% certain it should be considered separate. I do not know.

Anything else you can think of?

So if Appearance is unfamiliar we evaluate/compare their Actions/Behaviour to humans as this is base.
Do they suffer the same emotions, act out the same way?
What do they value while alive?
How is death viewed?
What cultural norms do they observe? And what cultural norms would they find alien, possibly offensive?

What am I missing?

 

[CreamCloud0]

That is true.
However if I'm running Tortle campaign in a non-native Tortle setting I'd like to accentuate the cultural differences between the Tortles and the natives of that setting. I'm currently running an all-dwarf campaign in Rockhome, using a mechanised system to best try bring to light the pros and cons personality wise of being a dwarf, the philosophy of Kagyar and the influence of the ideology of the various Dwarven clans.

I might’ve missed something when the conversation dipped into settings that i lack knowledge of, but for the purposes of determining if nonhuman species (tortles here) can be ‘relatable’ despite not being a direct human analog species, if we want a fair evaluation of that, why are we considering scenarios where tortles are depicted as (for lack of a better descriptor) foreigners?

 

[CreamCloud0]

I'd say many of us relate more to Dwarves just purely on the mass content in D&D and just general literature that exists about Dwarves

Doesn’t this just boil down to ‘theyre relatable because we’ve known them longer and they have better pop culture recognition’? Those aren’t traits actually inherent to dwarves, if tolkien had written his stories with tortles, leonin and kobolds instead of dwarves, elves and hobbits they’d be the common faces instead and we’d be saying how unrelatable it is how dwarves spend so much of their lives underground and elves are out of touch with their immortal lifespans.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Doesn’t this just boil down to ‘theyre relatable because we’ve known them longer and they have better pop culture recognition’? Those aren’t traits actually inherent to dwarves, if tolkien had written his stories with tortles, leonin and kobolds instead of dwarves, elves and hobbits they’d be the common faces and we’d be saying how unrelatable it is how dwarves spend so much of their lives underground and elves are out of touch with their immortal lifespans.

Hmmm, surely relatable requires understanding of them right? So we understand their desires, their fears, their cultural norms etc. Perhaps a more suited word is familiarity rather than relatable?

 

[Vaalingrade]

So imagine the RPG was Star Trek and there was a race that was better at Diplomacy and Persuasion than the hot-tempered Klingons...

EDIT: And remember these are general guidelines for the average Klingon, outliers would exist ofcourse. That you'd take up with your DM.

The fact that the same problem exists in other media doesn't excuse it. The idea that an entire species has the one personality except for 'outliers' is pretty gross.