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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9188656" data-attributes="member: 6915329">Good idea! I'm not entirely sure about the disadvantage when swimming. It's a good idea, but I haven't included any disadvantages in any other ancestry.Folks? Should each ancestry have a disadvantage in some way?I honestly don't see a problem with them using it above ground.The drow and the Mystaran shadow elves have both entered the chat. And mythologically speaking, you have the dokkalfar and a couple of types of subterranean nymph in Greek myth.That's one possibility, but it leads to a problem: what if the terrain you took as a background never comes up in game. I.e., you choose to be a Prairie Elf, but the game takes place entirely in forests and dungeons. For a lot of people, this would be a major disappointment, bordering on anger-inducing. I could see dialing it back a bit. I don't want these elves to be Better Than You.Plus, it's connected to the bit about them being able to choose their sex, which comes from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.I disagree here. Random rolls can mean the difference between a character that is fun to play and and one that is completely worthless or boring. When I've played Cypher System games, your starting cyphers are rolled randomly (at least that's what my GM does) and are almost always useless for me. I don't mean in terms of power level; I mean in terms of having nothing to do with my character's background or the idea I had for them. Imagine getting a magic item designed for loud, flashy, front-line fighters and you're playing a sneak-thief. Cyphers one-use items and easily replaceable because the whole game is about getting new ones, but because they were randomly rolled and didn't fit my characters, I had no use for them and thus was missing out on options. This would be worse if it were a cantrip you can't get rid of or swap out.Again, this is something that would be very troublesome for a lot of players. Some people don't want to play certain sexes and many people don't want something as personal as their gender to be dictated by a die roll. One of my players is non-binary and really doesn't want to play any game that would force them to be a particular gender; the idea of it really upsets them.And honestly, it doesn't fit any aspect of orc I've heard about it.Humans need something; they should be cool in their own right, not just be the base average.This ties into the Mighty Thews. Even a scrawny 6-Strength orc who doesn't know what part of the sword to hold is stronger than a 6-Strength human. They can carry more and can sometimes hit a lot harder. It's a game rule, which means it already is completely optional, and, well, see above for random things and how they aren't useful. Plus, if you want to have a character who background says they escaped the Feywild or their parents were cultists or whose fly-by-night dad was actually an angel, it's nice to be able to reflect that in your stats.</blockquote>

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