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Well, let's kick off the afternoon with a chill, relaxed #TabletopChopShop thread!
Removing racial ability score modifiers is only the tip of the iceberg called " #dnd5e doesn't do enough to mechanically or aesthetically differentiate between 'racial' and 'cultural' features."
Removing racial ability score modifiers is only the tip of the iceberg called " #dnd5e doesn't do enough to mechanically or aesthetically differentiate between 'racial' and 'cultural' features."
Not sure what I'm talking about? Well, let's say we get rid of the racial ability modifiers! Boom! Gone! But it still leaves a weird mishmash of biological/magical (racial) features and upbringing/training (cultural features).
As a note, we're defining "racial features" as "any race feature that cannot be changed, learned, or mimicked through practice and skill without the express use of magic" and "cultural features" as "any race feature that can be mimicked through learning, training, or upbringing."
Of course, this wouldn't be a Chop Shop thread without examples and breakdowns, so let's take the Elf as an example!
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There are /how/ many Elf subraces?
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Okay, nah. Fuck that, we're doing Dwarves instead.
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There are /how/ many Elf subraces?
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Okay, nah. Fuck that, we're doing Dwarves instead.
The base Dwarf has the following unique racial abilities: Dwarven Resilience, Dwarven Combat Training, Tool Proficiency, and Stonecunning. The first is a physical trait (bonuses against poison), the next two are proficiencies, and the fourth makes you Dr. Stone (heh).
But the implication here is all dwarves are born into the world dual-wielding a Museum Replicas' battle axe and your friend Joe's artisan craft beer monstrosity maker. Which is... stupid. It's like if Thor was actually the God of Hammers, and decided all the tiny Thors were, too.
Stonecunning has some great lore potential - "dwarves possess a magical connection to rock and stone, giving them preternatural insight to the workings of rock/stone constructions" - but as written it might as well be "all dwarves have a Ph.D in Stone Stuff from Dwarf U."
Assuming Dwarven Constitution is something innate (possibly magical?), the other racial features map to the following:
Dwarven Combat Training -> Weapon Master feat (Cultural)
Tool Proficiency -> Skilled feat / Training (Cultural)
Stonecunning -> Training + Expertise (Cultural)
Dwarven Combat Training -> Weapon Master feat (Cultural)
Tool Proficiency -> Skilled feat / Training (Cultural)
Stonecunning -> Training + Expertise (Cultural)
The subraces don't fair much better. On the one hand, Duergar are actually one of the better ones in terms of racial / cultural ratios:
Extra Language (Cultural)
Duergar Resilience (Racial)
Duergar Magic (Racial)
Sunlight Sensitivity (Racial)
Extra Language (Cultural)
Duergar Resilience (Racial)
Duergar Magic (Racial)
Sunlight Sensitivity (Racial)
But on the other hand, imagine being a magical AF race and your two options are "the Tough feat but worse" (Hill) or "you can have a little armor, as a treat" (Mountain).
BOOOOOOO. BOOOOOORING. It's training/physical conditioning - so cultural - but it's also a tad uninspired.
BOOOOOOO. BOOOOOORING. It's training/physical conditioning - so cultural - but it's also a tad uninspired.
Anyways, you can start to use this framework for everything once you get a handle on it. Forest Gnomes are magically touched (racial) and manifest small sparks of that power, while apparently every Rock Gnome is a Michael's-tier hobbyist Artificer (cultural).
Draconblood Dragonborn carry the memories of that nostalgic time they conquered everything and had slaves (cultural?!), whereas Ravenite Dragonborn were the slaves (cultural) and are still really angry about it in the "break stuff" way. AND THESE ARE IMPLIED RACIAL FEATURES?!
"Wildemount, what've you got there?"
"Thinly veiled historical racism!"
"NO-!"
For those of you who don't get why that's not great, do your homework. Great starting points include "slavery," "Manifest Destiny," and "the Lost Cause of the Confederacy". Others have said it better.
"Thinly veiled historical racism!"
"NO-!"
For those of you who don't get why that's not great, do your homework. Great starting points include "slavery," "Manifest Destiny," and "the Lost Cause of the Confederacy". Others have said it better.
@KiennaS did a great thread here: https://twitter.com/KiennaS/status/1161655684599099392 I'll try to summarize the salient point below.
If a race is meant to be immutably evil, insentient, or obeying the will of an omnipotent creator, then they should never be a PC option, because they make shit PCs: they lack free will, and therefore can't learn, grow, or change.
If they are, you often do one of four things:
If they are, you often do one of four things:
1) Say this one PC is an exception to the rule. This falls back on "they're one of the [heroic/great/good/okay/tolerable] ones!" tropes - fucking looking at you, Drizzt. You skew heavily towards model / exceptional / "you're not like the other ones" tropes with this one.
2) Arrange it so that some benevolent, enlightened person [enlightened/educated/elevated/saved/uplifted] them. This one touches on a lot of white savior tropes. If you don't know what those are, Google it~
3) Acknowledge that your PC character will be "evil," and choose to just dump that on the table. If you didn't check with the other players or the DM, and make sure everyone's on the same page, this makes you a shitty player.
4) Say that certain races are all alike, and all of them are evil, subsentient, and deserve to die. I'm not going to explain to you why this will cause BIMPoC players especially to be uncomfortable at your table, especially if we don't know you or haven't agreed to this prior.
D&D5e forces these topics to be at the forefront of its mechanics because they are baked into the system, beyond just racial ability modifiers. This is why you hire sensitivity consultants often, and early: we can't fix what is broken from the start without a full overhaul.
And as always, Session 0 the fuck out of your games. I'm personally a DM/player who is willing to play with racism, bigotry, etc. But I'm only going to do it if everyone is on board, and if I'm comfortable doing so at the table I'm sitting at.
