D&D General What is the purpose of race/heritage?

[payn]

Sure. But if you have context, you don't need jargon.

I'm not railing against "ribbon" or anything. I just think it is kind of silly term that doesn't really imply what people who already know what it means think it implies. For example, I was trying to figure out how it related to UI ribbons. Jargon is usually for the benefit of people "in the know" and is therefore intentionally a little exclusionary. RPGs -- who are still trying to shed their gatekeeping history -- needs less of it, not more, IMO.

I think these short hand argument derails are worse than just discussing the concepts themselves, but I cant do nothing to stop that.

 

[Scott Christian]

"Fetch", as it were, has already happened.

And what I was trying to point out was that your claim that "minor" is shorter to write and needs no explanation is not true. In order to be shorter, you create the requirement of explanation, and in order to need no explanation, you create the requirement for two words and twice the characters.

Whereas ribbon is very easily understood, pops up often in every online venue in which I see discussions of dnd, and is quicker to write than "minor feature", and once explained is much clearer than "minor feature", which could easily refer to features that are weighed in balance considerations, but that are small and not defining.

I read game forums all the time. This is the first time I have seen ribbon. Could I have overlooked it? Sure. Could I have not been reading specific threads that it was used? Sure.

But if you are actually saying the introduction of a new term is easier for people to understand than the standard usage, ie. "minor ability," then you are mistaken. Jargon is supposed to be used for something new. A minor vs major ability is not something new. It has been discussed since game design was a thing. I mean, you could even just add the appropriate descriptor onto the word ability, and everyone would understand. Here are some examples:

• This is a special circumstance ability, it can only be used if X conditions are met.
• This is a singular use ability, it can only be used once per long rest.
• This is a minor ability, it's not very strong.
• This is a major ability, it is powerful.
• This is an intermittent ability, it can only happen after a short rest.
• This is a forbidden ability, players are never allowed access, only really powerful monsters.
• This is an evolving ability, as players level, it levels up too.
• This is a disappearing ability, once it is used, it goes away forever.

There are a few off the top of my head written in one minute. See how all of them denote what they do - without making someone not "in the know" feel confused. See how the descriptors, again written in one minute, explain, or at least imply, what the ability is. Game design should be about clarity, and the clearest communication, is one people already know.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not really sure what the purposes of different races is any more. If you divorce culture and abilities from a race, what are you left with?

Aesthetic.

And physiology, don't forget that. Physiology remains important.

The fact that physiology differs from culture is in fact exactly why people find racial monocultures (or monocultural races) uncomfortable, beyond their unrealistic implications. (No sapient culture is going to survive exposure to the wider world while remaining utterly unchanged and neither losing any of their current members nor gaining any members from other species.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And physiology, don't forget that. Physiology remains important.

The fact that physiology differs from culture is in fact exactly why people find racial monocultures (or monocultural races) uncomfortable, beyond their unrealistic implications. (No sapient culture is going to survive exposure to the wider world while remaining utterly unchanged and neither losing any of their current members nor gaining any members from other species.)

To a certain extent that is true, but I feel it would also be a mistake to think that biology doesn't affect culture at all. I'm sure flying bird people would develop different cultures than sturdy mole people etc.

 

[MGibster]

And physiology, don't forget that. Physiology remains important.

In what way? If each character can just pick and choose their attributes and other abilities, how is physiology important?

The fact that physiology differs from culture is in fact exactly why people find racial monocultures (or monocultural races) uncomfortable, beyond their unrealistic implications.

Wouldn't physiology influence culture at least a little bit? Cultures with dark vision may have very different attitudes about the night from those of us who are effectively blind in the dark.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In what way? If each character can just pick and choose their attributes and other abilities, how is physiology important?


Wouldn't physiology influence culture at least a little bit? Cultures with dark vision may have very different attitudes about the night from those of us who are effectively blind in the dark.

PCs are not really part of any culture in D&D, or at least that what I've been told. They just have a similar asthetic to what might be an existing NPC heritage. Maybe.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To a certain extent that is true, but I feel it would also be a mistake to think that biology doesn't affect culture at all. I'm sure flying bird people would develop different cultures than sturdy mole people etc.

Sure. But being a flying bird person shouldn't make you any better at memorizing information about religions or binding up the wounds of others. Physiology can have effects on some things, such as perception abilities, but the vast majority of physiological effects are way, way beneath the notice of anything cultural that D&D encodes into its rules--or else specifically ignored because 5e just doesn't do that (stuff like all races having the same maximum Strength value, which theoretically should be affected by physiology, but it would be an overall less fun game for most players if that were the case.)

Frankly I had thought this was obvious enough that I didn't need to mention it. E.g. dragonborn have dragon breath; their prisons are going to look different because they need to be able to hold prisoners who can try to set the prison on fire or weaken the bars with repeated heating.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In what way? If each character can just pick and choose their attributes and other abilities, how is physiology important?

Dragon breath, flight and other movement modes (climbing, swimming, tunnelling, etc.), darkvision (though this one is controversial) and other perception abilities, whether or not one needs to eat/sleep/breathe, inherent armor (e.g. tortle and warforged), telepathy/telekinesis and other innate psionic/magical abilities, water breathing, carrying capacity modifiers (e.g. powerful build)...

These things are physiological, and cannot be freely-chosen in 5e as it currently exists. You cannot, for example, have both dragon breath and darkvision on a single character. You can of course mimic it with certain choices of initial feats (e.g. Custom Lineage with Magic Initiate feat to get burning hands or frost fingers or the like), but the "genuine article" as it were is specific to a race that doesn't get darkvision. Likewise not needing to eat/sleep/breathe cannot be had on the same race as one that has telepathy. That combination of physiological features doesn't exist in 5e.

If we're talking about a hypothetical game where all possible traits can be mixed and matched with the right sacrifices or tweaks, then sure, physiology ceases to matter beyond thematic relevance. But that would also be a game fairly different from the game we currently have.

Wouldn't physiology influence culture at least a little bit? Cultures with dark vision may have very different attitudes about the night from those of us who are effectively blind in the dark.

sigh Again, I figured this was so blindingly obvious I didn't have to say it. Yes, obviously, physiology can have SOME influence on culture. A race that has a tail will build chairs differently compared to a race that does not have a tail.

It should have been painfully obvious from both all the discussions of this up to this point (which there have been MANY on this forum alone) and all the stuff we've heard from WotC that there's something more specific being said when one says, "Physiology differs from culture." That is, up to this point, we've had race (an allegedly physiological status) confer things like Medicine or History, which are purely academic skills that come from training, not something that can be hardwired into a being's physiology.

Like...are you really going to claim you GENUINELY thought I was saying, "Physiology has ABSOLUTELY ZERO influence on culture!!!" and not the much more reasonable, well-evidenced, specifically discussed, "It's kind of uncomfortable to imply that fully mortal, humanoid people with a certain physiology are just innately good at telling lies, purely because of their physiological differences."?

 

[MGibster]

sigh Again, I figured this was so blindingly obvious I didn't have to say it. Yes, obviously, physiology can have SOME influence on culture. A race that has a tail will build chairs differently compared to a race that does not have a tail.

My apologies for having raised your ire. But I haven't been rude to you or anyone else in this thread and I would certainly appreciate the same respect in return.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My apologies for having raised your ire. But I haven't been rude to you or anyone else in this thread and I would certainly appreciate the same respect in return.

Perhaps it is just tiredness talking. It's just...very frustrating to have a question that seems both highly unnecessary, and already covered by literally years worth of discussions up to this point. I apologize for my rudeness.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think it is unnecessary at all to contemplate how alien physiology could inform alien culture. I think that is highly relevant to question of what's the purpose of fantasy races. And how could (or should) that translate into mechanics is a related and also relevant question.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think it is unnecessary at all to contemplate how alien physiology could inform alien culture. I think that is highly relevant to question of what's the purpose of fantasy races. And how could (or should) that translate into mechanics is a related and also relevant question.

The minotaur question is still roiling around in my head. Is it a SPECIFIC labyrinth? That smells like a powerful religious cultural element to me. Is it just labyrinths in general? That is going to lead to a motif that cuts across all aspects of culture. Is it that they have a perfect direction sense? That might have more subtle effects on culture and not really display itself overtly.

 

[Vaalingrade]

But it's also important to ask whether players are going to even want to engage in the weird culture you come up with in order to fulfill that wish.

I remember the Raptorians, a 'now shut up' species of fliers who can't actually fly, who were tree dwellers with dumb bird feet who used foot bows and had a culture based around how they're also egg layers because there were a lot of fetishes colliding in this one.

I remember them because I hate them so much because of all their stupid, pointlessly weird cultural stuff. Also the bubbling distain for flying species that dripped from every page of that thing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

"Minor" is one fewer letter than "ribbon" and requires no special explanation.

I think there are three tiers (at least). So you decide what you want to use in addition to minor and major if you don’t want to use the word everybody else is using.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I wasn't being terribly serious. I don't care what people call things, but I do think that random jargon invention just confuses issues that are otherwise pretty straight forward. I mean, you aren't actually suggesting that "ribbon" is intuitively easier to grasp than "minor ability" are you?

It’s how language evolves.

A ‘minor ability’ is, in my mind, something like Elven Trance. Has mechanical impact, and may even occasionally save the day, but isn’t equivalent to a free cantrip, or 5’ extra movement, or whatever.

A ribbon is ‘your eyes glow whenever you cast a spell’.

And, yes, I actually think it’s perfectly intuitive and exactly the right word. It’s just like a ribbon on a package: makes it prettier without actually changing the value of what’s inside. To me it’s not ‘jargon’ but anti-jargon: using a familiar word to describe a new concept.

What would you have preferred they call the first computer mouse?

 

[Reynard]

It’s how language evolves.

A ‘minor ability’ is, in my mind, something like Elven Trance. Has mechanical impact, and may even occasionally save the day, but isn’t equivalent to a free cantrip, or 5’ extra movement, or whatever.

A ribbon is ‘your eyes glow whenever you cast a spell’.

You just proved that the term isn't particularly useful because different people use it differently, thereby eliminating it's only virtue. So now I not only have to incorporate jargon, but I have to interpret what you mean when you use the term. So "minor ability" remains more efficient.

I honestly don't understand the desire to embrace this kind of terminology. As a serious question, no snark meant: what is the upside?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think this "semantics of the word ribbon" tangent is super productive...

 

[Cadence]

"minor ability"

So do you mean the 12 "Player's Options: Skills and Powers" abilities? (Stamina, Muscle, Aim, Balance, Health, Fitness, Reason, Knowledge, Intuition, Willpower, Leadership, and Appearance?) or do you mean the special things that only folks under 18 years old get to do?

 

[Mind of tempest]

But it's also important to ask whether players are going to even want to engage in the weird culture you come up with in order to fulfill that wish.

I remember the Raptorians, a 'now shut up' species of fliers who can't actually fly, who were tree dwellers with dumb bird feet who used foot bows and had a culture based around how they're also egg layers because there were a lot of fetishes colliding in this one.

I remember them because I hate them so much because of all their stupid, pointlessly weird cultural stuff. Also the bubbling distain for flying species that dripped from every page of that thing.

why even make it if you hate flying races? plus biology does affect culture but it is a gross oversimplification, environment and a host of other factors are in play.

 

[Reynard]

So do you mean the 12 "Player's Options: Skills and Powers" abilities? (Stamina, Muscle, Aim, Balance, Health, Fitness, Reason, Knowledge, Intuition, Willpower, Leadership, and Appearance?)

I mean, they weren't called that so this is a strawman.

or do you mean the special things that only folks under 18 years old get to do?

Even strawier.