Touch fuzZy. get BizZay
Member
sexual tyrannosaurus...rexI guess Xenoblade games ban as well? I mean story behind High Entia and what Melia‘s father try to do save their race.
also….
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Wizards of the Coast Bans Race Mixing from D&D
- Thread starter simpatico
- Start date
Wildebeest
Member
I've had a really deep thought. What if we made a new RPG with playable Orcs and a new playable race called "the baby cannibals" (who cannibalise live babies for fun, not nutrition). Then we make humans a non-playable race because only bad people would want to play humans in a fantasy game, and anyway humans are the real bad guys, not the baby cannibals, when you think about it.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I thought you were joking but I googled it and it's true.
I'm able bodied and all, but I thought the point of imaginary kinds of games is to NOT replicate real life. Get away from day to day boring shit and kick ass killing monsters and grabbing gold whether you're a Barbie waisted slutty spellcaster or club thumping ogre with IQ 3.
For any D&D gamers out there, do gamers want representation in D&D like having characters from Argentina or Indonesia? Is there a demand for making sure your character is fat to replicate someone's real life fat ass. what about someone with diabetes or leukemia? Can characters be made with pre conditioned diseases?
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
My brain stopped working for 2 minutes because I thought Morag was Noah. Very sad day.
simpatico
Member
Can't have spike pits without a ramp next to them.
ByWatterson
Member
Grand Wizards of the Koast
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
I am so old.....
I don't understand.
I don't understand.
Silver Wattle
Gold Member
Another example of racism by people claiming to be progressive, thank you sweet baby extremist group.
Nobody is actually reading the article are they?
They're simply getting rid of the term 'half' race and allowing you to be 25% of one race, 50% of another - more in line with real life mixed race people. They're not banning you from making a mixed race character lol.
The title of this thread is major clickbait - the article itself is worded as 'removing half races is not as dramatic as you think', which should have been a bit of a clue. They're making the change to allow MORE race mixing than before.
They're simply getting rid of the term 'half' race and allowing you to be 25% of one race, 50% of another - more in line with real life mixed race people. They're not banning you from making a mixed race character lol.
The title of this thread is major clickbait - the article itself is worded as 'removing half races is not as dramatic as you think', which should have been a bit of a clue. They're making the change to allow MORE race mixing than before.
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Hollowpoint5557
A Fucking Idiot
I hope a planet killing meteor is on the way here and we just haven't detected it yet.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I read the article. They want to remove the terms "half" and "race". And replace "race" with "species". Because it makes them "uncomfortable". Which unfortunately just makes things problematic for Half-Orcs and Half-Elves along with the differentiation of Elves and Drow. They are removing iconic races and turning them into a trait you select in character creation on your char sheet based on 2 parents. When before these races had their own set of abilities and attributes that set them apart from other races.
Plus if you are a DM I imagine if you know a player is a Half Elf or a Half Orc it's much easier to remember their resistances without looking at a sheet instead of ok this guy is a Human, ok he has an Orcish trait om I gotta figure out if he makes this save with this and that...etc. Just makes things more complicated then they need to be.
All this really just serves to write the likes of Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, Half-Giants out of existence as if they were never there to begin with completely purged from DnD.
I have a feeling players will just use old Player Handbooks to sidestep the issue.
Zathalus
Member
Reading the article it appears Half-Orc or Half-Elf as a separate race is going away to be replaced with a system that allows you to mix any two races together. So Half-Orc and Half-Elves can still be made. So can Half-Gnome or Elf-Gnome or Elf-Orc.
Is this another weak outrage thread about nothing?
Is this another weak outrage thread about nothing?
bitbydeath
Gold Member
Grandpa Simpson said it best.
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ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
5e is fundamentally braindead and always was, anything they do to further hasten its demise from playing tables is good for all of us.
This race bit is just one part of a pattern, with making everything piecemeal instead of having genuinely different types of characters with real restrictions and limitations. It's exactly analogous to "body type" replacing sex on video games -- it means that any kind of coherent identity, even the fictional races or classes, has to be broken apart into separate individual traits and attributes that you can pick from freely.
Everyone has to be amazing and multi-faceted and everything they want to be, to make all the little drama queens happy who never should have sat at a gaming table to begin with. D&D should require hard choices, where picking a certain race or class implies permanently blocking off your character from just as many possibilities as you open--so that actual squad tactics are necessary (eg. magic users are supposed to be weak as glass for the first levels and instantly dead if they don't have full protection from their party)-- but people can't stand that anymore and they want every character to be a badass like some kind of Marvel trash.
This race bit is just one part of a pattern, with making everything piecemeal instead of having genuinely different types of characters with real restrictions and limitations. It's exactly analogous to "body type" replacing sex on video games -- it means that any kind of coherent identity, even the fictional races or classes, has to be broken apart into separate individual traits and attributes that you can pick from freely.
Everyone has to be amazing and multi-faceted and everything they want to be, to make all the little drama queens happy who never should have sat at a gaming table to begin with. D&D should require hard choices, where picking a certain race or class implies permanently blocking off your character from just as many possibilities as you open--so that actual squad tactics are necessary (eg. magic users are supposed to be weak as glass for the first levels and instantly dead if they don't have full protection from their party)-- but people can't stand that anymore and they want every character to be a badass like some kind of Marvel trash.
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The Fuzz damn you!
Gold Member
That all seems… fine? Like, a good trade-off for having an expanded and more nuanced character creation mechanic? And, of course, there’s absolutely nothing to stop a player from saying “I’m a Half-elf” other than the DM.
Storm in a tea-cup from people who seem to want anything progressive to be seen as racist.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
To a degree but you only get to choose stat bonuses from one of the parents I'm pretty sure. Not really true to the original attributes of the original iconic races. Removing racial penalties overall was a mistake but then again 5e was a mistake.
But again this is easily sidestepped by playing older editions or just getting approval from your DM. WotC just has guidelines. It really is up to DM and players for char creation and world building.
Homebrew DnD can be fun.
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Jigsaah
Gold Member
I play DnD...my character is a dragonborn, which is half-wolf (my DM encourages, out of left field creativity, last campaign he was a space octopus with 17 arms that ate planets in our hyperlanes campaign. Not exaggerating). That being said, I'm relatively new to DnD and don't really understand why their decision makes a difference. Won't people just still do what they want as long as it isn't in any official capacity?
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phant0m
Member
It's Baby Bingo time
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Just make the ramp uphill.
Must making saving throw or else character rolls backwards.
Each failed attempt reduces dice throw by -2 for next attempt (-1 for each arm) due to getting strained arms.
On third failed attempt, the wheelchair rolls into pit. Instant death. Reincarnation from a magic user is possible, but the wheelchair is permanently broken.
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JonSnowball
Member
BREAKING NEWS: Wizards of the Coast internally refer to mixed raced characters as "mulattos". More details tonight at 10.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
What if someone wants to pick a character that truly is 50/50. What are they called?
Torrent of Pork
Banned
Good thing my table doesn't give a fuck about what WotC thinks about anything. We homebrew all our campaigns.
semiconscious
Member
You know this is a pen and paper game you play in person?
sigmaZ
Member
While I'm not entirely on board with what some might call the "woke" aspects of these changes especially with the term race, it doesn't all seem to be as bad as people are making it. I think the resulting gameplay mechanics could be interesting. The freedom to mix and match racial traits as players see fit could lead to more diverse and unique character creations.
Choosing specific traits or mixing them from different species would make character creation a lot more interesting imo
Choosing specific traits or mixing them from different species would make character creation a lot more interesting imo
Xenon
Member
Like with all of the rest of the changes WotC have made, the vibrant colorful world of D&D keeps slowing moving towards the grey sludge of equity and inclusion. The changes to the race species system isn't as dramatic as the reasoning for it, that there is a group of people at WotC who need to constantly find DEI busy work in a fantasy world. This seems like an enhancement to the race mixing system with fresh coat of purple hair dye and virtue signaling.
anothertech
Member
Fucktards.
They probably think trolls and ogres represent minority races in real life too.
They probably think trolls and ogres represent minority races in real life too.
samoilaaa
Member
they will find a way to ruin that universe too
Cyberpunkd
Gold Member
Wow, just wow. Nazis went at it the wrong way - just need a few decades, the Internet and woke to have people advocating for RACIAL SEGREGATION.
gtabro
Member
1. Exactly WHAT benefit does removing the word "race" provide? *
2. When I hear "species" I immediately think of wild animals. In a sense calling other players, real human beings, "species" is making them more animalistic and sounds way worse having a race, which is linked to human classification and not animal classification.
* Don't know whether these corporations are that money-hungry or just plain stupid - but they seem to not (want to) understand that pleasing the people who constantly find "problematic" and "toxic" words and matters will shut them up for 1 day - the next they just find another thing to be "problematic".
And then again.
And again.
Until you brand is a joke, or just a spineless, souless product.
Suddenly the Pathfinder system is looking really good to me...
P.S. Is there a thread that documents all games that were developed with that cancer SweetBaby? I just want to know who not to support in any way.
2. When I hear "species" I immediately think of wild animals. In a sense calling other players, real human beings, "species" is making them more animalistic and sounds way worse having a race, which is linked to human classification and not animal classification.
* Don't know whether these corporations are that money-hungry or just plain stupid - but they seem to not (want to) understand that pleasing the people who constantly find "problematic" and "toxic" words and matters will shut them up for 1 day - the next they just find another thing to be "problematic".
And then again.
And again.
Until you brand is a joke, or just a spineless, souless product.
Suddenly the Pathfinder system is looking really good to me...
P.S. Is there a thread that documents all games that were developed with that cancer SweetBaby? I just want to know who not to support in any way.
lordarchaon666
Member
Pathfinder was born from Paizo copying WOTC and with the way the article says this is going to work in terms of gameplay, WOTC are now trying to copy them 
shoplifter
Member
They've catered to a player base that isn't used to being told no, and as a result believe that every race/species (this is not an issue for me, race seems more 'fantasy' but it doesn't matter) should be able to be just as equally capable at everything. That halfling or gnome should be able to be just as strong as the stout dwarf or half giant. Because stats play a gigantic role in nearly every part of gameplay now, from skills to spell damage/saves, it's impossible to make a 'balanced' or 'optimized' character that will be 'fun'. This approach treats the various races being treated as nothing more than a human wearing a skin suit, laid stark by the 'orcs and drow are black' nonsense.
DMs have always been free to do whatever they want at their table, but now the default expectation is 'everything is unlimited' which leads to problems if you don't play with a curated group of friends and instead play online with randos. The dnd subreddits are filled to the brim with this crap.
Having played D&D since about 1985 (I started around 7-8yo to date myself) I have played every edition and have basically decided that I have zero interest in ever playing non-TSR era D&D again. If asked, I always recommend 1e/2e/BX/Castles & Crusades. WotC era D&D is a completely different game, and it's never been easier to play the earlier editions via PODs, OSRIC (which actually translates High Gygaxian into something you can run a game with
) or OSE.
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Jigsaah
Gold Member
Lotta what you said is complete gobbly gook to me. TSR? BX? PODs? OSRIC? I'm completely lost. I've played 5e and my first campaign was Hyperlanes which ran for about a year and a half. I've never played in person, just with my friends online who live in different states. My current campaign is more traditional (?) 5e.They've catered to a player base that isn't used to being told no, and as a result believe that every race/species (this is not an issue for me, race seems more 'fantasy' but it doesn't matter) should be able to be just as equally capable at everything. That halfling or gnome should be able to be just as strong as the stout dwarf or half giant. Because stats play a gigantic role in nearly every part of gameplay now, from skills to spell damage/saves, it's impossible to make a 'balanced' or 'optimized' character that will be 'fun'. This approach treats the various races being treated as nothing more than a human wearing a skin suit, laid stark by the 'orcs and drow are black' nonsense.
DMs have always been free to do whatever they want at their table, but now the default expectation is 'everything is unlimited' which leads to problems if you don't play with a curated group of friends and instead play online with randos. The dnd subreddits are filled to the brim with this crap.
Having played D&D since about 1985 (I started around 7-8yo to date myself) I have played every edition and have basically decided that I have zero interest in ever playing non-TSR era D&D again. If asked, I always recommend 1e/2e/BX/Castles & Crusades. WotC era D&D is a completely different game, and it's never been easier to play the earlier editions via PODs, OSRIC (which actually translates High Gygaxian into something you can run a game with
So you're saying that as a Dragonborn, aside from my class (I chose bloodhunter) basically the races/species are the same? As for the "fun" part, I'd imagine it would be purely subjective...but I think what you're saying is that if you're playing with randos...that fun is hard to come by because of how WotC has changed the game?
I could be super far off, and if so, I apologize.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Yup. I felt the same way.
Although technically, species would make more sense since a halfling is obviously totally different than an orcs. But race is not only more traditional since the beginning of the game, but it makes the party feel more cohesive. Then again, since the game has half elves and half orcs it seems race might make sense after all since everyone can bone each other and have mixed characters.
The term species is no different than the Snow White 7 Dwarfs movie coming soon where they are relabeled as "creatures". Who the fuck wants to be relabeled like you're a gecko lizard in a National Geographic episode? lol
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
I can jump in on his abbreviations, since I seem to hail from the same circles and mental space:
- TSR is the original publisher of D&D, up through 2nd edition, and in those years you had the familiar names like Gary Gygax in charge of the game's direction; WOTC (Wizards of the Coast) purchased it in the last 90s and made everything started with 3rd edition. Because of this, the style of the game changed dramatically at that point, so there's a clear divide between TSR-era and WOTC-era
- BX is Basic/Expert D&D. This is the "simplified" ruleset that was published in the TSR era in many iterations in parallel to the "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" editions like 1e and 2e. Basic was more streamlined and easier to jump in at the lower levels but actually expanded into further editions as your characters level up, so it still has plenty of complexity eventually. Many old-school players actually like this, while others prefer the AD&D style.
- PODs = print on demand modules for RPGs, meaning online sellers of basically PDFs, which has greatly expanded options for finding great modules in any era / style
- OSRIC is a particular clone of first edition AD&D, with a streamlined rulebook that translates the original game without all the confusion; it was also published largely in order to make it easier to legally create new modules for AD&D 1e, because you can make them for OSRIC instead and it will be compatible with both
Shake Your Rump
Gold Member
I don't know if you mean the jargon, or the actual grammar, but it is written poorly. Maybe English is not the author's native language, or maybe it was written by AI?
Gems like this:
"Imagining all the possibilities laid on the table, the official removal of those half races opens doors to a whole new way to build not just characters, but worlds and cultures."
edit: The author is a "lead editor" with a degree in "English and Creative Writing". Maybe I am the dumb one here? Actually, never mind. Her duties with the site are to promote it via SEO and such. So, yeah, probably ChatGPT or something got involved.
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shoplifter
Member
No worries! See above for a pretty good rundown! The general point is that TSR era D&D had very different play expectations baked into the game. 3e/4e/5e assumes the characters are 'heroes' from the start, and that they're special snowflakes in the game. Earlier D&D assumes that the characters are largely nobodies at the beginning of the game, and their aim is to delve into dungeons and other dangerous situations to make some coin in an uncaring and harsh world. There's more to it than this, but that's the basics. Did every table play that way? No, but that was the default.
In TSR era D&D, various races had class level maximums as well as hard racial caps/minimums on ability scores, partially because of Gygax's desire for a humanocentric campaign world, partially to enforce genre conventions at the time, and partially as a way to 'offset' the racial special abilities that elves, dwarves, etc got. In return, demihumans were able to be more than one class at the same time, generally getting the best benefits of each one.
Ability scores were generally scaled on *human* averages, meaning the average human will be stronger than the average halfling, or the average elf will be more agile but less hardy than the average dwarf. By taking racial limits/bonuses away from the various races (ie, halflings can have an 18 strength, half-orcs and dwarves can be wizards, etc.) the game is essentially putting all races on the same scale, and making elves 'humans that don't sleep' or halflings 'short humans that love food'. The root of this issue is that due to 5e's design, a race that cannot have the max in a given ability score will by default be a suboptimal choice for a class that needs that ability score, so in order to make every race/class combination 'viable', they should all have the same statblocks.
I simply don't find that interesting - they way elves, orcs, and dwarves think and experience the world should be completely foreign to a human, and to one another. Orcs are evolved to aggressively expand their territory for the orcs, they don't have the same drives and morality that humans, elves, and dwarves do. Does that make them 'evil'? If the definitions in your game's system of morality (ie, the alignment system - let's not get into how it used to be derived from cosmic forces) comes from a human outlook, then it probably does.
As far as the 'randos' comment - the default assumption of a 5e D&D game for a 'modern' online player (when I say that, I'm talking about the very vocal, terminally online D&D redditor types) is that the game is going to be heroic, that their character needs a significant backstory, the game is generally narrative/quest driven, and that their character isn't going to die without their input/consent on it. No this isn't everyone, but these are the people that have a voice in the direction of the game, because they're the most vocal. "Fun" is a subjective term, and if someone is having fun, who am I to tell them they aren't allowed to? My issue arises when the game is greatly changed to make the vocal minority stop complaining.
Sorry for the wall of text - this is a sore subject for me. If you're interested in an older-school style of play, check out Principia Apocrypha for a pretty decent example of how those games were played. I have real concern that the big jump in players due to stuff like Critical Role (I met a guy with a tattoo of a full set of polyhedrals, wearing D&D pins, etc. that *has never played an RPG*) is going to shape the hobby, then that group will just leave once the fad dies down, leaving the industry in a rut again.
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