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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 8486357" data-attributes="member: 6803643">Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you Bolares in particular needed schooling in Keith's musings on Eberron and this topic.Just thought it was important to add to the discussion and was building off your post in particular (my post was as much a response to Minigiant and Lyxen as it was to you!). I think culture is definitely important, but I think we're vastly under-utilising the potential of alien mindset and experiences when it comes to playing non-humans. There's a real danger that some others in this forum have alluded to and that is that everything becomes a planet of hats - humans in all but name - rather than really exploring what it means to be an Elf or a Dwarf or a Minotaur or a Vedalken or a Warforged in this fantasy world.And in some settings, that's okay. Some people just want them to be humans in all but name, and have badass abilities but not have to worry about how an Elf would approach this differently.But even grandpappy J.R.R. Tolkien tried to dive into the physiology and psychology of differences between Elves and Humans and Dwarves and Ents and Hobbits and Orcs and Trolls and Dragons and Maiar and Valar; in his world, you have your lineage first, and then your culture is a subsection of that because Dwarves and Elves and Humans build entirely different cultures. He also had people like Tuor and Eärendil and Aragorn who lived large portions of their lives in settlements of other cultures (Gondolin, Falas, and Rivendell respectively), so you could definitely say that those cultural aspects affected them and their characters. But as a rule, you didn't have mixed-lineage cultures in Middle-Earth because the uniting of different cultures was the whole point of the campaign (whether the Last Alliance, the Company of Thorin, or the Fellowship of the Ring). These are stories of mixed bedfellows fighting against a common enemy. It should also be noted that even Tolkien said the Wise would advise that if an orc has been captured or has surrendered, they should be offered mercy even in their confinement, rather than killed for being an orc, but that in times of war, not all "free peoples" did the right thing and the sides of battle become a lot murkier. I believe that Peter Jackson et al were trying to portray this muddled morality when the elven-king Thranduil murders an Gundabad orc hunter that Legolas and Tauriel had captured, just for saying that his master serves "the One" i.e. Sauron. Thranduil is morally muddled much like Boromir or Denethor are. The Orc was evil, but evil alone does not mean kill it and take its stuff. It might mean kill it if that's the only way to survive the combat encounter, though, and certainly orcs were used as cannon fodder.But look at the orcs of Goblin-town (in the movies). They're bad, and aligned with Azog's Gundabad orcs. But Thorin's passing through their domain is as much a political conflict as it is a moral-ethical dilemma. The orcs and dwarves have been at war for centuries, Thorin himself has killed many orcs, and now he's brought a company of orcs trespassing into the Great Goblin's domain. This is a whole society, even if a wretched abomination of one. And Thorin is a fellow king that is, at first, offered a humorous bow from the Goblin King - he is King Under the Mountain. Only, he hasn't got a Mountain. And he's not really a king anymore. Smaug, in fact, is now King Under the Mountain. And other factions like Thranduil's elves or Saruman the White and Elrond or Bard the Bowman's supporters in Lake-town who remember the fall of Dale don't want to let Thorin back in the mountain lest he wake the sleeping Dragon and create problems for their nations and interests. So The Hobbit is telling a story of home and theft and conquest and trying to take back homelands and all the political intrigue that comes along with it, which beyond the good and evil factions can be explored with opposing nations of obstensibly good or neutral peoples. It's more like a modern day political border crisis like when a country invades their neighbours and seizes territory, but nobody will do anything about it because they don't want full-scale all-out war. Where am I going with all this? I guess my point is that lineage should not go the way of the dodo and be replaced by culture. In some worlds, culture is higher priority for a character's background than lineage is. But in other worlds, your lineage defines your culture, by and large, so culture should be subservient. Especially when in those worlds, the actual NPC peoples might be racist and kill all orcs or drow on sight because they've never met a good orc or drow. But when we come to BASELINE ASSUMPTIONS of the game, D&D is enthusiastically a generalist TTRPG, and has to remain so, so it has to serve both masters, those who want clear moral lines and those who want ambiguity and cultural flexibility. Any layering of factionalism into D&D as a primary character pillar should be in such a way that it does not diminish lineage but can be interswapped or swapped in priority with lineage. That is to say, you should be able to pull apart the factional and lineage pillars in the DM's toolbox to create character stories that serve the needs of the campaign world. But the game should also have easy prefab options that suggest ASIs, proficiencies, etc lest the game lose players in the confusion of options paralysis...</blockquote>

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