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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 8023560" data-attributes="member: 18182">11 pages, huh? Doesn't seem that bad when you have the most problematic posters on the ignore list, it all goes by so much quicker. But then you wonder why the posts you do see are all irritated . . . .Discussions don't always go the way you want, they drift. It's how these things go. I found the tangents fascinating, personally, although I agree those who started them didn't necessarily do so with honest intentions.What more would you like to see about orcs or drow or other close-to-human races? In game design and in our home games, we need to, 1) watch out for and avoid language that mirrors racist colonial tropes (which is tough, as it's deeply embedded in the game and the source literature), 2) avoid classing entire races as evil, savage, bestial, and "non-people", at least races that aren't outsiders or spirits of some kind ("mortal" races), 3) drop ability adjustments and racial traits that play into those racist tropes (maybe even drop them all together), and 4) give orcs (and other races) more cultural variety both to buck the mono-culture trend that too easily leads to racist tropes and to also give more player variety . . . .In my home game, I'm starting with Arcanist Press' "Ancestry and Culture" which tweaks the racial system from the PHB and tries to separate inherited traits (biology or magical) from learned traits (cultural). I'm going to tweak it further by making all ability adjustments as cultural suggestions only, and every character, regardless of race, gets to put +3 towards any abilities they want (either +2 and +1 or three +1 adjustments). This product only gives the crunch for OGL races/subraces, so I'm starting to work on converting the other races from the PHB and other D&D sources. At the same time, I'm going to try and come up with some reworked cultures and mayhaps some new ones . . . . rewrite the Gruumsh and Lolth stories to make those deities (and the cultures they inspire) more realistic and less cartoonishly evil.EDIT: I'll add a bit about another newish product I like from the DM's Guild, "Grazzilax's Guide to Ancestry". I prefer "Ancestry and Culture", but Grazilaxx's Guide provides a bunch of alternate rules to deal with those pesky racial ability adjustments. The book gives detailed breakdowns for assigning those extra three points by class, or by background, or by simply using point-buy and increasing the points . . . and some others I forget off the top of my head. Worth a look if you are not happy with assigning ability adjustments by race (or culture).</blockquote>

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