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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ComradeGnull" data-source="post: 5997286" data-attributes="member: 6685694">Can't really take too much credit for it- I think Keith Baker came up with the idea in an article on why he limited the subraces in Eberron.Anyhow, part of the problem is that Race in D&D has traditionally encompassed several different things- biology, culture, and background/occupation.  Next is attempting to split out the background/occupation aspect- if you were an Elven fisherman, you can just take the 'Fisherman' background instead of needing to create 'Fishing Elves' or whatever- but the biology vs. culture aspect is still quite blurry.Pathfinder took a stab at this with their alternate Racial features, but subraces still seem to be the go-to for cultural differences- thus we end up with Desert Dwarves, City Halflings, Lowland Elves, whatever.If these were Humans instead of demi-humans and in the real world rather than the game world we would say: look, a person living in Sao Paolo in Brazil does not have a different biology from a person raised in a Amazon basin tribe (though different nutrition and medical care may have produced slight differences, like one person being taller).  They have the same underlying biology, but slightly different skills because of their cultural backgrounds.  Because D&D hasn't ever separated Race from Culture, we end up with this slightly silly situation where you need to make Jungle Humans and City Humans a separate race if you want to mechanically differentiate a Fighter who grew up in a city from a Fighter who grew up in a hunter-gatherer tribe.</blockquote>

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