D&D General Should Bearded Female Dwarves be the Default?

[PsyzhranV2]

How would you tell? You are basing your definition of species on myth?

Closer to the real world pre-DNA definition of species, but you go on to explain why that doesn't work in fantasyland.

I'm shorter and stockier than the average human, does that make me a dwarf?

Members of the Mbuti tribe have an average height of less than 4 foot 11', but are definitely human.

Dwarf

The dwarves, or dwarva, as the dwarves refer to themselves, are one of the major humanoid races of the Dragon Age setting. Strong, stocky, and shorter than any other humanoid race, the dwarves are skilled builders and boast a long tradition of courage and martial skill that has served them well...

dragonage.fandom.com

Lace Harding

“Maps are all right, but nothing beats a guide.” Lace Harding is the lead scout for the Inquisition. Harding was born in the Fereldan Hinterlands, just outside of Redcliffe, to a seamstress mother and a trader father. According to her father his bloodline can be traced to a Merchant caste family...

dragonage.fandom.com

Like it or not, she's a Dwarf according to Dragon Age's definition of a dwarf, now can you please go argue something less based on semantic nitpicking?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I.e. she is a dwarf because she identifies as a dwarf. Species has nothing to do with it.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I.e. she is a dwarf because she identifies as a dwarf. Species has nothing to do with it.

Harding's a dwarf because she's a dwarf because the game says so. She's just as much not a human as Iron Bull isn't a dwarf.

There is merit in picking apart the metatextual themes of a text, film, or game in order to interrogate the political and social views that it espouses whether or not the author intended them, bit there is no point in denying the worldbuilding assumptions of the setting. Or else you start looking the 5 year old who keeps asking "why" beyond all reason.

Next you're gonna be telling me that Draconblood aren't dragonborn because they have tails, or Teu-tel-quessir aren't elves because they have blue skin.

But yes, Minister Zhao Gao, the deer that you have presented in front of me is quite obviously a horse.

/s

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Or else you start looking the 5 year old who keeps asking "why" beyond all reason.

5 year olds have a very good reason for asking "why". It's a shame adults forget it.

 

[Oofta]

5 year olds have a very good reason for asking "why". It's a shame adults forget it.

But sometimes the answer is "because the author said so".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But sometimes the answer is "because the author said so".

Not good enough, you will never make a scientist. Why did they author make that creative decision?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I.e. she is a dwarf because she identifies as a dwarf. Species has nothing to do with it.

I'm really not sure how "species" got dragged into this... I'm not even sure that humans, elves, dwarves and orcs are different species, since in some settings they can all reproduce with each other. Yes they create very different looking children, but that's like saying that two different types of dogs are different species (they're not, they're different breeds).

This is part of the reason why D&D refers to them as different races, not species.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

5 year olds have a very good reason for asking "why". It's a shame adults forget it.

Only if you're a solipsist. To otherwise engage with the world in any sort of meaningful way requires accepting some metaphysical propositions as axiomatic foundations, if only for the sake of convenience.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Only if you're a solipsist. To otherwise engage with the world in any sort of meaningful way requires accepting some metaphysical propositions as axiomatic foundations, if only for the sake of convenience.

How are you defining meaningful in this context?

 

[Oofta]

Not good enough, you will never make a scientist. Why did they author make that creative decision?

To paraphrase my own mother "Because I they said so."