D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?

[Clint_L]

Shmorp doesn’t fuse any concepts. The whole joke is that it’s meaningless nonsense.

I beg your pardon!

The point is that if WotC or players want a completely context-free word to replace "race," they should just invent one. "Schmorp" may have started as meaningless nonsense, but it has been imbued with meaning by the good readers of this forum.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am busy building a new character and am really stuck on which schmorp to choose. The new Goliath schmorp seems fun, but so is the Dragonborn. Not an Ardling, though, that schmorp still needs some work.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It definitely doesn’t say that anything can’t crossbreed with anything. It seems to me this is very much “your character can be any combination your DM doesn’t disallow.”

I mean they're not going to have an official cross reference chart encompassing all sixty + species. It is matter of setting building and different settings will handle the matter differently and I don't really see this changing anything about the established settings. I also assume that answer for half-centaur half tri-kreens will in most cases be "LOL, no."

Yeah, they neatly wrapped drow into the core elf race, which I think was a great move. But drow were not the only subrace with this problem. We still have duergar, svirfneblin, Gith, and probably others that escape my mind at the moment.

I have no reason to assume that they wouldn't be handled similarly once they get around to it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Magic, I suppose. Alternatively get rid of them, as there already are tritons who cover the same concept.

I don't agree with removing game elements with similar concepts. People should be able to choose how they want to express an idea.

 

[Yaarel]

How do sea elves breath underwater without being physically different?

Magic.

Innately cast the Waterbreathing cantrip.

 

[ART!]

Which setting book prior to the recent "make anything you feel like" option, had half-dragonborn, half-goliaths, or a gnome-elf cross for example?

Regardless of whether such a thing exists or not, my point remains.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Magic.

Innately cast the Waterbreathing cantrip.

Waterbreathing isn't a cantrip.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again, I’m not sure what you mean by “stat.” They don’t change your ability scores, if that’s what you mean. As for if they grant any mechanical abilities, yeah. I’m using the term “feature,” as do the actual rulebooks, so as not to be using the term “ability” to refer both to the statistical values that determine modifiers to dice rolls, and to exceptions-based special things your character can do. Darkvision, for example, is a feature. Strength is an ability. “Species” grants features like Darkvision, poison resistance, or inherent spellcasting. It does not increase or decrease any of the six Abilities. There is no ability to mix and match the features granted by “species,” you get exactly one set of such features, which is identical to the set of such features exactly one of your character’s parents had.

Can you then pass the feature on to your children or is it strictly limited to you ?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Outside of this thread, and prior to reading it, I had never heard of any negative history related to the world folk, nor have I seen it used in conjunction with modern hate movements, which I'll admit I am passingly but not thoroughly familiar with. I would say that's likely the perspective of the average 5e player? I would not claim so definitively. However, I do hear the word folk regularly in everyday conversation in terms of things like "Alright, gather around folks." or "I know some folks really enjoy playing d&d with this specific rule set." It's not just that the negative side is news to me, but that a friendly toned usage is regular to me.

I don't say this to invalidate the issues, just explaining my perspective, especially prior to hearing it can be used a very contradictory sense to my understanding.

I guess my point is if one is worried about racial essentialism, then the most famous group for that, the Nazis, used this term (albeit they used the German equivalent but it is specifically a blood and soil ethnonationalist movement called the Volkisch Movement. And again it isn't obscure history nor are present day groups that embrace it all that obscure. It is also not a huge leap to go from Folk to Volkisch. This seems exactly the concern people have with race.

 

[Yaarel]

Waterbreathing isn't a cantrip.

In 5e mechanics, waterbreathing makes more sense as a cantrip.

Cantrips didnt exist yet in old school D&D.

A slot 1 spell could work, but the cantrip is better for an always on effect.

The old school slot 3 spell seems undesirable today.

In any case, worse comes to worst, explicitly describe, "A cantrip can be Darkvision or Waterbreathing instead".

 

[Scribe]

I guess my point is if one is worried about racial essentialism, then the most famous group for that, the Nazis, used this term (albeit they used the German equivalent but it is specifically a blood and soil ethnonationalist movement called the Volkisch Movement. And again it isn't obscure history nor are present day groups that embrace it all that obscure. It is also not a huge leap to go from Folk to Volkisch. This seems exactly the concern people have with race.

Well then there goes 'folk'.

Schmorp it is.