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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 10:28AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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First of all. Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, and Halflings can all interbreed. Just because the game books don't detail it doesn't mean it can't happen. It's just so rare among some racial groups that it's not listed as an option (at least that's the explanation).
I'm for Race and Sub-race. Just make all the Races have subtypes.
Human
Northmen
Islanders
Imperials
bla bla bla
Elves
High
Wood
Grey
Drow
Dwarves
Hill
Mountain
Deep
Duergar
I think of subrace or subtype as more cultural than biological. Even so all the above races could mate and reproduce in my world.
Now if you want to add Lizardmen or Dragonborn I might see them as truly separate. Probably why I don't like them actually. But I'm for rules for designing your own and the DM deciding the races that fit his game world.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 10:32AM
#12
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First of all. Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, and Halflings can all interbreed.
Citation needed.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 10:58AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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Unless the rules specifically say a certain combination is not possible I consider it at least open. For example in 2e Half-Ogres and Half-Giants were mentioned. Half-dwarves were mentioned in Dark Sun. As DM I just don't feel limited just because in PHB #1 a race or half race is not listed.
Obviously in 3e, there were so many splat books out that nearly everything had a half something. Now I'm not saying a DM has to accept ANY of that but for me that includes an offical race as well. The DM decides everything about the world in my opinion.
I just don't accept an argument from silence that just because they don't list it right out of the box that it is not possible. 4e came up with new races after the fact.
Honestly in 1e and 2e it never occurred to me that the races in the PHB were the end all of possibilities. They were what was provided out of the box.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 11:22AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2011
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I partially agree with Emerikol that if it's not mentioned, it's possible. There are things I wouldn't allow in my games, such as half ogre pcs or half halfling.
Anywho, my contribution is this- Green Ronin's Advanced Players Manual has rules for half races. 3.5e
A great man once said "If WotC put out boxes full of free money there'd still be people complaining about how it's folded." – Boraxe Vote for Orzel, Mayor of Ranger Town!
Show
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Pulp "Encumbrance"
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Good Hunting.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 11:28AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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Why is this such a big deal?
There are races of Frost Giant, and races of Fire Giant, and so on, but calling them a "race" doesn't mean "is the same species as the Human race."
Each character has a race, which may or may not be of the same species as another race. Big whoop.
Given that several races have their own deity (and origin story), how exactly do we know that they are different species, or the same species but different races? I, for one, like the idea that maybe there's a blank "pattern" various deities use to create the different race/species, and that regardless of genetics might still come from the same stock.
So I'm going to call them "racies".
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 1:09PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2007
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Ok, so, a definition of terms: Yes, these are "just words" - but they have distinct meanings. Species: A population of organisms capable of interbreeding with one another, but not with members outside of that population. Sub-species: Populations, within a species, distinguished from one another by their geographic location, ecology, and or behavior. Sub-species can interbreed and produce viable offspring. Race: A breeding pool within a species that ostensibly shares some visually distinctive trait. An informal term with no genetic basis. Nationality: A group of intelligent organisms (because in this case they might not all but humans) with a common social identity. So, for 4th ed: "At the dawn of creation, elves and eladrin were a single race dwelling both in the Feywild and in the
world, and passing freely between the two. When
the drow rebelled against their kin, under the leadership
of the god Lolth, the resulting battles tore the fey
kingdoms asunder. Ties between the peoples of the
Feywild and the world grew tenuous, and eventually
the elves and eladrin grew into two distinct races.
Elves are descended from those who lived primarily
in the world, and they no longer dream of the Feywild.
They love the forests and wilds of the world that they
have made their home." (PHB pg42)
Humans and Elves can interbreed (PHB pg40) - (Sub-Species): Humans
------ Various human races. To stick in FR, pick a given city-state.
- (Sub-Species): Eladrin
- (Sub-Species): Elf
- (Sub-Species): Drow
-----Ssri-Tel'Quessir (Race): A group of surface dwelling Drow in the Forgotten Realms
Let's not talk racism. Period. This isn't useful. This is the internet. That discussion devolves into nothing useful.
This is simply calling an egg an egg. If we can't agree to use correct terms, then how can we possibly agree on subjective rules issues?
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 2:00PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2002
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First of all. Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, and Halflings can all interbreed.
Citation needed.
Half-Elves
Muls
Elflings (Elf/Halfling - reading about one in a Dark Sun novel as we speak :P of course, in DS, they're all just mutant halflings...)
Gully Dwarves (Gnome+Dwarf)
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 5:15PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Jul 31, 2007
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Actually in my game world Elves are a race of humans, a genetically engineered one...
In my world, humans are the "base" race. Nearly everything came from humans, and that is why they are able to mate with pretty much anything. I went off the little lore bit of a human god that was killed and forgotten, and I said that he created the humans as troops to serve in the Dawn War against the primordials and their elemental troops. He made them to be extremely adaptable to many situations and environments.
After his death, the remaining gods took portions of his people and fashioned them into their own. Corellon, Lolth and Sehanine made the elves, Moradin made the dwarves, and so on. A portion of those mortals, though, were set aside and, by pact of the gods, not taken into any one deity's portfolio. They were blessed by the goddess of fertility and named Humans, after their creator, Hume, who sacrificed himself to kill two primordials in what was a turning point of the War.
No mortals in my world know this, of course, and it's actually one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world. The PCs in my campaign are on the verge of knowing, though, and what they do with the information will determine the fate of the world as it goes forward.
Getting back on topic, I'm not sure the change is really needed. While it may be more correct to say "species," sometimes things aren't different species. Different subspecies, perhaps (like in Shadowrun).
Race is a perfectly acceptable term, I think. One of the definitions given for race is "a group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution." I think that fits perfectly well for D&D.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 6:25PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Actually in my game world Elves are a race of humans, a genetically engineered one...
In my world, humans are the "base" race. Nearly everything came from humans, and that is why they are able to mate with pretty much anything. I went off the little lore bit of a human god that was killed and forgotten, and I said that he created the humans as troops to serve in the Dawn War against the primordials and their elemental troops. He made them to be extremely adaptable to many situations and environments.
Cool lots of D&D elements .. mine sort of predates all this.
In my game world humans nascient divine, who reincarnate again and again getting better presumedly till they transcend the world itself. They remade the world in the fashion of there fantasies and it was a rather hazardous thing to do but in the process constructed an incredibly array of quasi people and armies of monsters as war tools.. but only a few of the people created were like the Elves and qualify as a human race and the Giants while very human seeming can be forced in to a dormancy --- others like household dwarves who love children and seem naturally happy and mostly docile love humans as part of their programming and construction dwarves were slave peoples who could be programmed to accept a voice pattern for there master. Animal folk like Eaglines ... a rather mystical folk but only a few of there heroic types actually fly, have an american indian style culture.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 8:42PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Jul 10, 2003
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I see zero benefit in the change.
Also, if your concern is pure semantics, then it has nothing to do with mechanics
I caution people accepting the premise that it's okay to keep a tradition that is fundamentally wrong. That's exactly why broken mechanics return in new versions. The populace accepts that its just how D&D is.
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