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

[AnotherGuy]

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?

Like I said further upthread, the idea, by some gamers, is that playing an entire party of the weird and wonderful better suits Spelljammer and Planescape UNLESS there is a storywise reason why this kaleidoscope of races found themselves in foreign lands, because those gamers prefer to have a touchstone within the party.

 

[CreamCloud0]

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?

Well, no, I’m basically saying you’re mistaking their familiarity as them being relatable, yes you need to understand them before you can relate to them but familiarity is not the inherent factor which decides if they are relatable.

Edit: the hurdle of unfamiliarity of other species must be overcome before you can truly determine if they are relatable or not.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well, no, I’m basically saying you’re mistaking their familiarity as them being relatable, yes you need to understand them before you can relate to them but familiarity is not the inherent factor which decides if they are relatable.

Edit: the hurdle of unfamiliarity of other species must be overcome before you can truly determine if they are relatable or not.

Agree.
So the word relatable was a relic from my convo with Ezekiel which we had used regarding the existence of 1 human within the party.
It should have changed to familiarity when dealing with the common races given more literature exists on them.

Do you agree with that assessment?

Edit: And to be fair I did mention very early on in this discussion (#610, #613 and #668) that more novels and settings etc would change these gamers perspective which is what you're saying with your edit.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

They don't, but a temperament of another species can still on average be different than that of humans. This doesn't mean they don't have individual variation and their own personalities, it is that the mean for their species is in different place than for humans. This is hardly weird, and absence of it would be peculiar. Rabbits on average are more cautious and timid than honey badgers. This doesn't mean that there cannot be brave rabbits and cautious honey badgers, or that they all have identical personalities.* But it is weird and boring if every species is identical to humans mentally, and there is no bloody point of having them if that's the case.

* I used to have two rabbits as pets; they had very different personalities and one definitely was way braver and more curious than the other.

 

[Minigiant]

Like I said further upthread, the idea, by some gamers, is that playing an entire party of the weird and wonderful better suits Spelljammer and Planescape UNLESS there is a storywise reason why this kaleidoscope of races found themselves in foreign lands, because those gamers prefer to have a touchstone within the party.

The conflicts seem to be whether fans think the standard D&D adventuring party should have:

1) A touchstone or Multiple touchstones
2) Many variants of the same touchstones or Multiple different touchstones
3) Few or Many abnorma unrelatablel folk or obscure touchstones

My, Minigiant's, opinion, is that D&D whether it's WOTC, TSR, 3rd parties, or influential folk..... play too safe when it comes to species.

It's okay to have some normal or very easily relatable species. But this is fantasy and it's okay to point and say "that's not a human. It's another species. so let's give it the mind and body of another species." The problems all start when we try to paint stuff as human and have to go past the 6th variant of human.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The conflicts seem to be whether fans think the standard D&D adventuring party should have:

1) A touchstone or Multiple touchstones
2) Many variants of the same touchstones or Multiple different touchstones
3) Few or Many abnorma unrelatablel folk or obscure touchstones

I think the party composition is largely determined, if not solely determined, by the setting and story being told - from my perspective. That's how my table prefers to play.

 

[Scribe]

I think it largely, if not solely, depends on the setting and story being told - from my perspective.

Yeah this. In my ongoing Shadowdark work, I've got some options, but it would make very little to no sense to try and hammer in an Lizardfolk, or a Goo Person, or any number of other D&D options. They dont make sense for the story its trying to tell because its not telling a typical D&D story.

Despite what some may say, I still dont think every species option belongs in every setting.

 

[Minigiant]

I think the party composition is largely determined, if not solely determined, by the setting and story being told - from my perspective. That's how my table prefers to play.

Indeed.

However the setting is written by the builder.

If the author sets humanocentic world, you'd expect humans to dominate the quantity in parties.
But if the author has 4 empires calling for peace due to a looming extraplanar threat, a party would be expected to be mostly compromised in equal quantities of the top species of the each of the 4 empires.

The issue is that fans don't or won't admit that their concept of familiarity and repeatability are warped by the bias and/or preferences of D&D's inspirational works and it's early designers.

If Gygax was a dwarf fanboy and Tolkien used Dwarves for the common folk rep, people would say a party should be at least 1/3 dwarf and dwarf would 1000% have lineages now.

 

[Scribe]

The issue is that fans don't or won't admit that their concept of familiarity and repeatability are warped by the bias and/or preferences of D&D's inspirational works and it's early designers.

I think people are a lot more open to that than you think lol.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Yeah this. In my ongoing Shadowdark work, I've got some options, but it would make very little to no sense to try and hammer in an Lizardfolk, or a Goo Person, or any number of other D&D options. They dont make sense for the story its trying to tell because its not telling a typical D&D story.

One of our PCs died in this long-running ToD/SKT campaign and I provided 10 character options with story-tie-ins for the player to select from or inspire him for his next character. I actually had fun coming up with some creative and new options as characters. In fact the whole group rather enjoyed them, their unique perks and their backstories which were rather solid for the campaign. I plan to use some of them as NPCs if they don't get selected.
6 out of the 10 were your non-standard races (Githzerai, Firbolg, Air Genasi, Asimar, Tiefling and Lizardfolk)

Despite what some may say, I still dont think every species option belongs in every setting.

Agreed. I think the peculiarities of the settings are part of their charm.