D&D (2024) Which races would YOU put into the 50th anniversary Players Handbook?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Halflings aren't real, their physiology is whatever their creators say it is. An actual child would simply die in their first combat encounter, so it's understandable people do not want to play halflings who are "realistic" for their size.

Yeah. Halflings could just have proportionally stronger muscles for their size than humans, like chimpanzees.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not the same actually, at all.

A Halfling is quite literally a small child as far as stature, mass, leverage, physiology goes.

As already noted, halflings are not real, and their physiology is what we say it is. They have a height similar to children. Beyond that, they are whatever we wish for them to be. We are already talking about a world where being struck by a flamethrower belched out of the face of a bus-sized flying lizard has a decent chance of simply leaving an ordinary, albeit highly trained, human injured enough to need a night's sleep.

We are not talking about IRL human physiology to begin with. Why should a creature invented by our imaginations--which necessarily defies parts of physiology and biology as we know it--have any specific characteristics at all, unless we are expressly told so?

Its not comparable to male/female dichotomy that was present and rightfully removed, at all.

Why not? I already said it clearly has parallels in race essentialism, an ideology that really exists, which is actually harmful to real people, and which its proponents do in fact use TTRPGs to advocate.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Everything except human.
Take away the yardstick.
Let weird flags fly.

Break the chains to pseudo-medievalism and "no way could that happen in real life.."

 

[Cadence]

Halflings aren't real, their physiology is whatever their creators say it is. An actual child would simply die in their first combat encounter, so it's understandable people do not want to play halflings who are "realistic" for their size.

Yeah. Halflings could just have proportionally stronger muscles for their size than humans, like chimpanzees.

As already noted, halflings are not real, and their physiology is what we say it is. They have a height similar to children. Beyond that, they are whatever we wish for them to be.

That all sounds great. So we could do that simply by saying in the halfling description "Halflings and Gnomes often surprise those who think they are human children. They are vastly stronger for their size than a human child - in fact an adult Halfling or Gnome is just as strong as an adult Human , Orc, or Dragonborn!"

 

[Scribe]

Halflings aren't real, their physiology is whatever their creators say it is. An actual child would simply die in their first combat encounter, so it's understandable people do not want to play halflings who are "realistic" for their size.

lol then why have them in any way?

Humans with funny hats it is.

 

[Cadence]

Yeah. Halflings could just have proportionally stronger muscles for their size than humans, like chimpanzees.

I don't think we can say they have proportionally stronger muscles for their size than humans.
Doesn't a human the size of a halfling in D&D has the same range of strength and dex as one the size of an olympic gymnast, a basketball player, or an offensive lineman? Is it moving towards adulthood that makes one strong in D&D, not size or working out or whatnot?

 

[Lanefan]

Everything except human.
Take away the yardstick.
Let weird flags fly.

Break the chains to pseudo-medievalism and "no way could that happen in real life.."

For me, that pushes it into "no longer D&D" territory. It's something else - not necessarily a bad something else, but still something else.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

lol then why have them in any way?

Because people like them. Because they add color and interest, emphasizing that this is a fantastical world. Because their physiology, while not being determinative of the limits of what they can achieve, can still be an influence on their behavior, interests, preferences, language, architecture, etc., etc. Because there may be interesting stories to tell which leverage the differences that remain even when ability scores are not the primary differentiation between them (since, as I have already argued, there are more and IMO better ways to differentiate goliaths from halflings.) Because they may offer the author a chance to provide a creative new take on a classic concept, leveraging audience familiarity for some kind of benefit (consider Dark Sun's dark re-imagining of most races, including halflings, who are terrifying jungle "cannibals.")

I'm sure I could go on. Point is, there are many reasons.

Humans with funny hats it is.

It really isn't.

Now, if you'd actually like to have a discussion about this, rather than simply a duelling of crappy assertions, I'd be quite happy to engage. But if you're merely going to belt out a tired, one-line, no-thought argument, what's even the point of posting it?

 

[Gammadoodler]

For me, that pushes it into "no longer D&D" territory. It's something else - not necessarily a bad something else, but still something else.

I'm curious about that. Is it the "no more humans" or the "everything else"?

If you're still strapping on your best sword and shield before going underground to fight dragons with a small party of compatriots..

If it was just a setting with no humans instead of the rulebook..

 

[MoonSong]

"Special" is not the same as "better," and differences in performance are not the same as differences in inherent worth. Michael Phelps has both the massive training and dedication to be an Olympic athlete (or at least he did, he may be retired now?), and the small but meaningful advantage of his genetics, which give a tiny, tiny edge over others....but when you are already at the peak, the top 0.01%, those small advantages become much more significant. That doesn't mean Mr. Phelps is a more valuable human being than you or me.

Olympic athletes collectively are a special kind of people. Even if they don't win a single medal, to be part of the Olympics is an honor and something that should, by definition, mean you don't match the generic statistics for human beings. Physically stronger, hardier, more flexible, etc. Recognizing that training and selection pressure combine to shift the population statistics for Olympic athletes compared to general humans is not some elitist garbage elevating them as inherently more noble; it is simply a recognition that they are choosing a life that makes them different in some ways, and that succeeding at that life necessarily filters out some people who make the attempt but don't measure up.

I have a rebuttal to that, but it isn't appropriate for this forum. Let's just agree to disagree and move on.