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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9189485" data-attributes="member: 6915329">Ugh. The very idea of an Always Evil--or Always the Enemy--race makes me literally physically ill. Unless you decide that the "good" race (say, surface elves versus drow) are actually hateful, propaganda-spreading xenophobes who can't conceive of not being at war with their chosen scapegoats, the idea of an Always Evil/Enemy people isn't at all realistic to me. It's a good idea for a very specific type of campaign, if you remove alignments or explain that alignments are subjective, not objective. But for the standard type of game setting? Nope.And unnecessary. Fiends are basically evil-based elementals. Aberrations and undead are perversions of nature. Constructs are as evil as they were programmed to be. You could even do a "man versus wild" thing and say that fey and elementals are actively hostile to mortal life because they believe everything should return to its original, primal state. It makes sense to say that these beings lack free will, that they aren't people like drow or orcs are.People at war? Sure. The human kingdom and the goblin kingdom could be at war and hate each other because of it--as long as there's a reason for the war. Land, resources, religious differences, grudges, old-fashioned racism--the standard things. Maybe the humans stole the goblins' lands (humans are good at that) and the goblins refuse to go quietly. Or vice versa; goblins could be the ones with the power. These things make sense, and it makes sense, then, that humans and goblins would want to kill each other. But that's not Always Evil/Enemy.This is when you have to ask yourself what realism actually means. You can't say "it's realistic for orcs to be fantastically stronger than humans" and also say "orcs are people who are always evil."If an ability isn't going to be useful much of the time, it shouldn't be an ability that clutters up space on your character sheet.I've only ever made backgrounds first, and just about everyone I've ever gamed with--going as far back as early 2e--has made at least skeletal backgrounds first (with exceptions for games such Traveler), and I can honestly say that everyone has never had their fun reduced at all.You're missing the point. It's not how many dice you roll--and note that a lot of people, probably the majority of people, prefer point buy/stat array--it's that people want the be able to choose their character.Nobody should be forced to play a character they don't want to play. D&D isn't a job you have to put up with; it's supposed to be fun."Humans expletive-deleted Yeah!" It's the idea that humans are awesome in comparison to others species.This is perhaps the most famous meme-style example of it (I hadn't realized bogleech had started it), but there's subreddits, TV Tropes pages, and a lot more dedicated to the concept.[SPOILER="Spoilered for size and language"][ATTACH=full]325623[/ATTACH][/SPOILER]I read an early story--perhaps among the first on r/HFY--that had the aliens decided to land amongst a crowd of humans in order to frighten, intimidate, and capture/kill them. Too bad for the aliens that the crowd they landed in was actually a hockey game.Which is why it's a good thing to emphasize what's cool about humans as well.In Level Up, humans, like other heritages, have several gifts to choose from. There's a "long-distance runner" gift, a "survivalist" gift, and a "hyperfocus" gift--the last of these made me, a person with both autism and severe ADHD, jump for joy, since this was actually acknowledging that being neurodiverse isn't all doom and gloom.So what does this mean? It means dwarfs--and other heritages--tend to be less able to run for extended periods of time, less able to survive in the face of adversity, and less able to focus so completely on a task. And this is a good thing. It's pointing out differences not by saying how one people is less than the other, but by showing how all peoples have their own strengths.Which means that if the DM chooses to not have an adventure take place on water and you don't write a background where your inability to swim is important, then you not being a good swimmer isn't important at all and might as well not exist. It's why I gave elves the ability to change their chosen terrain. IIRC, people have complained en masse for years about rangers being limited to a few terrain types and how it made the class useless. WotC finally addressed that in TCE by giving an (optional) replacement trait. I've learned from that.This is a hard no from me. Maybe you're lucky in that you don't belong to a group that constantly has to deal with these unfortunate implications, but I do. And so do a lot of other gamers. But I will literally quit writing this game than knowingly include "unfortunate implications" in it, especially when there are other, more inclusive options.Plus, this is stupid. Humans, no matter their origins here on Planet Earth, are all about as intelligent as one another. Medieval people were as smart as you and I are; we just have different types of education and different skill sets. The same is true for any other group of humans.In the real world, people who lived, or live, in tribal societies have fully-realized cultures, religions, histories, trade networks, artwork, crafting abilities, and everything else, and were hampered only by the materials they had available to them. You want tribal orcs? (or goblins or ogres or whatever) Then they also need need to be a fully-realized people. And that means no penalties to their mental stats. The only reason to make orcs low-Int is so people can think that they're just dumb savages that you can kill without risking an alignment change. And that is a bad reason, and I won't include reasons like that.And if you want that play a different game, one that uses multiple dice to determine outcomes. GURPS, PbtA, probably a whole bunch of others. Not D&D.It still wouldn't work. To actually represent what you want it to, you would have to give it too much of a bonus so it becomes OP.So you either do what a lot of other, story-first games do, and let the players be the judge of what their character can do while trusting them to be honest about it--or you stick to something that is balanced but not "realistic."But it actively penalizes you, if only a bit, if you choose to play against type.And again, it's too setting-specific. There's no reason to assume that all or even halflings are built to be rogues, simply because, nearly 90 years ago, Tolkien wanted Bilbo to be a burglar and Gygax took that a little bit too much to heart.D&D was always supposed to be a game about exploring your imagination, but at the same time tries to force your imagination into neat little boxes. Maybe you've seen this meme:[ATTACH=full]325620[/ATTACH]People tend to think of halflings as the European badger. Why not view them as the American badger instead?And why wouldn't they be?First, yes, orcs are beefy and burly. A Strength 6 orc isn't going to have the wasted-looking noodle-limbs an incredibly weak human might. A Strength 6 orc might look like human who has a sedentary lifestyle, in terms of muscle mass.As I said, I worked with developmentally disabled adults. Real-life humans locked away people with disabilities, often in horribly abusive facilities. I literally worked with people who had suffered from that sort of abuse. That's a type of real-world evil I have zero interest in ever using in my fun elf game. I don't care how "realistic" it is; I'm not writing it into this game.So scrawny orcs might get mocked because they can't throw an orcball worth a damn, but there's still plenty of room for them to thrive in any other class out there. Bring on the Strength 6 orc thieves and priests and wizards!Except it's (A) a game, so that "the universe is in charge" is a rule that can be changed, not an immutable fact, and (B) most people don't use dice to determine stats anymore. The game has to appeal to everyone.</blockquote>

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