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9 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 3:11PM
#31
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You can divide humans by region, you just have to do it purely by adaptive features. Desert humans get fire resistance. Arctic get cold. Forest get poison. Mountain gets lighting. Island humans counter spells. :P
I see what you did there 
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9 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 6:58PM
#32
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I really don't like the idea of dividing humans by regions because as crazy_monkey and others have said there is just too much potential of describing real-world cultures and doing it insensitively. Every arctic culture I've seen has looked like Inuits or Finns. Every desert culture looks like Arabs, Aztecs, or Bedouins.
I much prefer CarlT's approach that human subraces are magical alterations. Tieflings, Gith, half-elves, half-orcs, mul, skulks, elans, half-giants, etc. Heck, I've made campaign settings in which all the races -- dwarves, elves, halflings, etc. -- are altered humans
Regional dwarves and elves are all right because they are fantasy creatures and we can assume that they are physically and metaphysically altered by the terrain in which they dwell. But humans are not. For humans to stop being akin to real-world humans, there should be a supernatural explanation.
+1
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9 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 7:05PM
#33
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Date Joined:
Jun 27, 2004
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I much prefer CarlT's approach that human subraces are magical alterations. Tieflings, Gith, half-elves, half-orcs, mul, skulks, elans, half-giants, etc. Heck, I've made campaign settings in which all the races -- dwarves, elves, halflings, etc. -- are altered humans
I much prefer this - if anything - for human "sub-races" as well.
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(And no, my comments on this forum are not of the same tone or quality as my actual survey feedback.)
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9 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 9:00PM
#34
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Date Joined:
Sep 18, 2009
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Personal opinion...
Human subraces are a very...difficult subject to deal with as humans are real and therefore any attempt to codify subraces in game mechanics can potentially lead to accidental racism.
Depicting fictional cultures in non-mechanical terms is the best compromise, in my opinion and one taken several times in campaign setting books.
VERY, VERY TRUE!
My suggestion was a "regional benefit" option for humans. Humans will still have their default option, of course, but a regional benefit would essentially act as a subrace for humans, without actually being one. The best part is, like backgrounds, they can be expanded for Campaign Settings easily. We'll see.
"Our idea of rules modules has a wide range of scope; sometimes, our rules modules might just be small tweaks and variant rules, while other times they could be large-scale changes and entirely new subsystems. We want people to make the game their own, and that means provided a whole array of possibilities based on what you, the players, tell us that you want." -D&DNext Q&A Blog, 8/29/12, Answer #3.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 10:43PM
#35
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Date Joined:
Dec 29, 2007
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Personal opinion...
Human subraces are a very...difficult subject to deal with as humans are real and therefore any attempt to codify subraces in game mechanics can potentially lead to accidental racism.
Depicting fictional cultures in non-mechanical terms is the best compromise, in my opinion and one taken several times in campaign setting books.
To be fair, I don't recall any issues coming up in previous editions when new human races were released. The Deep Imaskari are a prime example.
I don't have a problem with non-magical human subraces in principle. I would prefer to see them tied to groups that have no clear real-world equivilent though. I would also prefer that all subraces were setting specific.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 29, 2012 - 7:30AM
#36
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i enjoy that so many people are okay with Subraces as long as we just don't call them "Subraces" and instead call them "origins" or "regions".
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9 months ago ::
Sep 29, 2012 - 7:37AM
#37
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2009
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It makes, if you think about it Jester. It's considered much more rude in RL to call someone by their supposed 'Race'. On the otherhand, cultural Identity even within a single country is very important to people. I myself am Scot-Irish on my Fathers side, and my Mother was born in England. My maternal Grandmother refused to discuss our Irish heritage, but I myself enjoy the Identity.
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