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So, I think Humans need a set of traits comparable to other Races, so that options can be more laterally applied to all playable character Races. I would say "subraces," but people get touchy, which makes me wonder if the term should be used at all. But what if I wanted a "half-dragon" option, where that replaces the subrace? How would it work for humans? How would the Greyhawk human subraces work? (Flan, Oerid, Seul, Olman, etc.) Maybe these could be just flavor differences, but what if I wanted playing them to feel different, the way Hill Dwarves and Mountain Dwarves are different? And playing a High Elf is a totally different experience from playing a Low Elf. I love how D&DNext is providing me with so many options for how I play, excpet that I feel that my options are cut off when it comes to humans. Here's what I suggest:

Human
Common Traits
Medium size
Common, one other language
Speed: 30 feet.
Human Weapon Training: Choose three basic melee weapons. When you attack with any of these weapons with which you have proficiency, the damage die for the weapon increases by one step.
Variety in all things: You gain training in one additional skill. If your campaign is not using skills, You gain a +1 bonus to checks with your lowest ability score. If there is a tie for your lowest ability score, you choose which one this applies to at the time of character creation.

Minor traits
These traits equate to what would be a subrace in other Races. A character creation option that replaces a subrace replaces these traits for a human.
Ability score bonus: Choose one starting ability score. This score increases by 1.
Everybody's second-best friend: Twice a day, you can choose to remove disadvantage from a check you make to interact with one or more humanoid creatures.

These nearly identical in form to existing racial/subracial traits. Details can be quibbled, of course, but my point is, humans can get a write-up that keeps options open. This write-up doesn't even require a re-write of any Human flavor text. In fact, that's where I got the trait names.

P.S. I made ES-BF a Minor trait because you could easily run a campaign world where Humans aren't liked much, so you'd need different minor traits for that world.

P.P.S. The title of this thread has a double meaning. If this thread goes political like the last one, I swear to Melora I will decide who's responsible, reach through the Internet, and strangle them with their own power cord. Human design, as it is, is a serious concern of mine with D&DN design. I'd like to see it discussed, not overshadowed by others' personal agendas. [steps off soapbox]

I get the feeling that most people will be using Backgrounds and/or specialties. Besides, classes already have a "bonus skill" feature every now and then (like the cleric), so why not a Race? I considered the Specialty one, too. My point being, it can be done. Once we acknowledge that, the specifics can be discussed.

Simple answer: Half-bloodlines aren't Core, by D&DN definition. The game was D&D before those options were ever intorduced, and is still D&D without them. They've stated repeatedly that EVERYTHING is somwhere on the list, so they have to prioritize. Half-bloodlines? Probably not too high on the list. Everyone has something they want to see sooner than they will see it. There's too much to D&D to avoid that, no matter what the designers do.

But, yeah, half-parentage was one of my key concerns. Shoot, even a half-elf could be described with what I wrote in the OP, for example: "You take a Human's Common Traits and choose an Elf subrace." (I doubt it would be that, though. Too many people want a fully-realized Half-Elf Race. Not a bad thing.)

Oct 4, 2012 -- 5:29PM, kadim wrote:

How about we go with proximity to civilization? So you'd have a city human, a rural human and a wild human.

That's something people could easily get touchy about, it's best avoided. The most we might do with humans as far as "minor traits" go would be to give alternates for them for campaign settings. The three you mentioned can be flavor text, but should really be chosen and realized by the player.

Oct 4, 2012 -- 5:38PM, rampant wrote:

How about we make the races less boring and actually designed well instead of taking a differently poorly designed boring race and making it just like the other boring poorly designed races?

Could you please be specific as to your reasons why you believe the D&D Races, as they are currently presented, are "boring" and "poorly-designed"?

EDIT: Actually, rampant, could you also provide your view on the original topic, which is whether or not Humans should be described in a similar fashion to the other races, regardless of what you think that way should be?