D&D (2024) The Half Orc. Are they still needed?

[Faolyn]

It's hyperbolic. No, nobody is being coerced into using Tasha's on pain of death, but the book may as well be an "unofficial patch" that addresses common complaints about 5th Edition and a good deal of its contents will assuredly be folded into 5.5.

Anecdotally, when I banned it at my table because I didn't want to deal with more player-facing stuff, the overwhelming response was "But WHY, oh my GAWD, that's so LIMITING, UGH."

So, you're saying it's still 100% optional material then. You weren't forced to use it in your game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Did WotC send their goons to break into house and steal all of your books other than Tasha's?

As I said, corporate intention. We can do what we want, but over time the headwinds do seem to get stronger.

 

[Mistwell]

No one said anything about devaluing them, and it seems enough people are bored with them that supporting the "weird ones" (as you call them) might be a good direction for WotC to explore?

There is no good evidence I am aware of that "enough people are bored with them". Do you have a link to some WOTC survey of players indicating that? Because I think this is much more of a deep-rules-focused internet message board phenomenon rather than a generalization about the D&D player base.

 

[Staffan]

I dislike that the most about a half anything race. If we're at the point where they have their own distinct culture and viable population they're not half-anything they're their own thing.

Eh, you can still make a half-elf by having an elf and a human doing the dirty. It's just that there are enough half-elves that it's more common for a half-elf to have two half-elf parents.

Keith Baker fleshed things out a little more back when he was writing Dragonmark articles for the Wizards website. Nowadays they're only around on the Wayback Machine, unfortunately.

 

[MGibster]

So, you're saying it's still 100% optional material then. You weren't forced to use it in your game.

When WotC releases official material, I think there's a lot of pressure on DMs to allow it in their games. And to be fair to players, if they've spent $40+ on a book published by WotC, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect to be able to use it. Nobody from WotC is going to kick down your door and cast Charm Person to get you to use their products though.

 

[DND_Reborn]

There is no good evidence I am aware of that "enough people are bored with them". Do you have a link to some WOTC survey of players indicating that? Because I think this is much more of a deep-rules-focused internet message board phenomenon rather than a generalization about the D&D player base.

You could very well be correct.

I am going off of my own experience in the groups I play at and watch, plus things people have posted here and on other sites. Players seem (as I wrote before) more interested in exploring other half-race options than playing half-orcs and half-elves.

 

[Faolyn]

As I said, corporate intention. We can do what we want, but over time the headwinds do seem to get stronger.

So? Is your current material going away?

I mean, there's groups that have never moved past 1st edition. They've either adapted current material to their own game rules or ignored it and made up their own stuff.

When WotC releases official material, I think there's a lot of pressure on DMs to allow it in their games. And to be fair to players, if they've spent $40+ on a book published by WotC, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect to be able to use it. Nobody from WotC is going to kick down your door and cast Charm Person to get you to use their products though.

I have shockingly felt zero pressure to adopt any new rules from any books I've bought. Mostly because I've liked a lot of the new rules, but there have been rules and lore that I've said "that's stupid" to and just ignore it and use older lore or lore from completely different systems or made stuff up.

Both of y'all, if you don't like the new material, don't use it. If your players won't play without it, either use the rules or get new players. You'll have to determine what's more important to you, though. But does it actually matter what the new rules say? If you're running a game and a player says "I want to play X," where X involves a rule you personally dislike, is it really going to diminish the experience of the game for you? Would it honestly be less fun for you if, I dunno, players who aren't you put their ASIs where they want or do things PB times per day rather than 1/short rest?

 

[MGibster]

I have shockingly felt zero pressure to adopt any new rules from any books I've bought. Mostly because I've liked a lot of the new rules, but there have been rules and lore that I've said "that's stupid" to and just ignore it and use older lore or lore from completely different systems or made stuff up.

Like Whitney Houston sings, you're not every woman. Just because you feel no pressure it doesn't follow that others experience the same thing.

Both of y'all, if you don't like the new material, don't use it. If your players won't play without it, either use the rules or get new players. You'll have to determine what's more important to you, though. But does it actually matter what the new rules say? If you're running a game and a player says "I want to play X," where X involves a rule you personally dislike, is it really going to diminish the experience of the game for you?

So you're acknowledging that there might be some pressure to use WotC's rules?

 

[Reynard]

There is no good evidence I am aware of that "enough people are bored with them". Do you have a link to some WOTC survey of players indicating that? Because I think this is much more of a deep-rules-focused internet message board phenomenon rather than a generalization about the D&D player base.

I don't know if there is a way to access the information, but it seems that characters created for DND Beyond and/or Adventurers League would tell us something, if not the whole story. I seem to recall some front page articles drawing on that information here a while back.

Anyway, even if we can't access that information, WotC can and it's very likely to impact choices going forward.

 

[Mistwell]

You could very well be correct.

I am going off of my own experience in the groups I play at and watch, plus things people have posted here and on other sites. Players seem (as I wrote before) more interested in exploring other half-race options than playing half-orcs and half-elves.

This is the last hard data I've seen, and it shows both half-orcs and half-elves are doing fine:

For what it's worth, a couple years before that, Half-elf was the third most popular racial choice.