DnD addresses racism.

[Tireseas]

Are you gonna cut out just all evil alignments outright and limit them to NPCs? Is everyone supposed to play lawful good chars because anything else in real life makes you an asshole?

So, I'm not generally a big fan of alignments generally and I don't have my players disclose their alignments to other players because, more often than not, their actions are better indications of their moral alignment than an arbitrary label. Hell, I'm running an Out of the Abyss campaign right now and the question of alignment has never come up because the core of the campaign's first half is focused on just surviving and making it to safety.

But then there is no mechanical reason behind the struggle. At that point you are just struggling for the sake of the roleplay.

Seriously. D&D and other TTRPGs are about roleplay. Good campaigns tend to be focused on creating the immersion that makes those moments the highlights of the players' experience. A shift of modifiers of stat by 1 isn't going to do that. A good DM and group is going to do that. If you don't have that, the game is going to be stale and boring in a hurry.

Do you know what tends to be the biggest difference between the races in D&D in my experience? Whether they have darkvision or not. Even with a negative stat boost, you would still have intelligent orcs and dumb as rocks elves because the racial modifiers only provide floors and ceilings to character creation, artificially limiting potential characters for no particular reason. There's nothing that prevents you from creating stereotypical versions of those races, but it does dissuade players from creating characters that break the mold in favor of stat optimization based on the racial stats. Let the players have the freedom to create the characters they want to. Hell, at least let the player characters be the aberration of their society that so often makes for an interesting character (and a good justification for them to be an adventurer).

I will never understand why there is so much angst over getting rid of a mechanic that serves no purpose but to pigeonhole race-class combinations.

 

[Terminal Blue]

But then there is no mechanical reason behind the struggle.

Goblins in 5e have no racial penalty to intelligence.

The background for goblins in the same book that gives their states makes clear that goblin wizards are extremely rare. The example given of a goblin wizard is a slave who learned magic by copying its hobgoblin master. Goblins, we are told, aren't disposed to magic. They barely have any cultural understanding of magic. They may not have mechanically lower intelligence, but they live in a culture which is adverse to book learning and members of other races will seldom teach them due to prejudice.

Stat penalties were never required in order to roleplay a character with personal hardships, and those personal hardships shouldn't be limited by race anyway. A human who grew up poor on a farm might have struggled to become a wizard just as much as an orc or a goblin, despite having no stat penalties. A player who wants to reflect this struggle mechanically can still put less points into intelligence than normal, but it doesn't have the uncomfortable implications of every member of a particular humanlike race having subhuman intelligence.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[CriticalGaming]

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I think what you two are missing is the "game" part of the ttrpG. At the end of the day, you are correct, you can just roleplay it out.

But there are players who are just fucking shit at roleplaying. As well as there are players who like the Numbers and the Rules within these RPG systems. Some people play the game for the GAME part of it and don't particularly care that much for the roleplay.

By removing the mechanical aspects of the game you are flat out making the GAME worse for the players who like the numbers and like the rules. It is easy to simply handwave away the negative stats if you don't want to use them. But officially removing them objectively makes the GAME part of the system worse, and there is no reason for that.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Except not really. It is generally understood by RP designers these days that no one likes being the party gimp, especially if they get gimped because they wanted to do a cool or unusual character. And especially especially if the rest of the group aren't out to self-gimp or are running more optimized builds. Being the guy who gets to watch while the rest of the party shines gets boring quick, no matter how much it is a "journey of character growth".

I've found that most players will gimp themselves even if they don't mean to. I've had many many players who tend to put all their points into what they require, but fail to realize that they've left themselves with a -2 or 3 in one or even two stats on the sheet. Like a Cleric I played with one time that had 5 Int, who gimped the party by always making the stupid choice, and hilarity ensues.

The magic of these systems is that gimping yourself often leads to more fun that just being the best at everything and anything. At the end of the day, in a group of 4+ people, somebody is gimping the party somewhere. That's the benefit of the negative stats, they prevent players from being Gods in every aspect, giving them flaws as a core part of the system let's players highlight both their strengths and their weaknesses.

In regards to the removal of the negative stats, please my notes in post #224 above.

 

[09philj]

I think what you two are missing is the "game" part of the ttrpG. At the end of the day, you are correct, you can just roleplay it out.

But there are players who are just fucking shit at roleplaying. As well as there are players who like the Numbers and the Rules within these RPG systems. Some people play the game for the GAME part of it and don't particularly care that much for the roleplay.

By removing the mechanical aspects of the game you are flat out making the GAME worse for the players who like the numbers and like the rules. It is easy to simply handwave away the negative stats if you don't want to use them. But officially removing them objectively makes the GAME part of the system worse, and there is no reason for that.

DnD's non combat crunch is shit anyway. It is one of the worst possible RPGs to play with people who are mediocre role players because it's so heavily reliant on you being able to play the character.

 

[CriticalGaming]

DnD's non combat crunch is shit anyway. It is one of the worst possible RPGs to play with people who are mediocre role players because it's so heavily reliant on you being able to play the character.

Everybody has their preference. Pathfinder, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, DnD, whatever.

Sometimes you are limited to playing the system that the local DM's know. And either case, people still like the systems part of DnD. Even if you think it's shit.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[CriticalGaming]

Compared to D&Ds archaic "buffs and penalties" approach to character creation it was much more flexible yet offered a much better funnel for RPing opportunities.

My argument was never the DnD's system is the best. The point is why remove the very few things that make your character choices matter in a system where not many things matter? Basically you are already taking the simplest system and making it even more simple and not for any practical game-based reason. These scores aren't a balance problem, they are trying to wash away all meaning the character races because they equal real-world racism.

The problem is that the Orc could never get past its penalties in the same way that other races could and was based on some horribly simplistic "stupid, evil brute" archtypes.

A -2 to Int is not that hard to overcome if you really wanted too. A simple score increase on level up fixes that.


This is a knee jerk reaction done by Wizzards simply because someone claimed that these fantasy settings and races are in fact real-world racist which in and of itself is fucking dumb.

 

[Buyetyen]

But then there is no mechanical reason behind the struggle.

You can still assign a dump stat if you're that dependent on the mechanics to craft a personality.

The negative stats allows a player to get emersed into his character better. He isn't casting magic right now because he hasn't gotten there in the story arch of his character, he isn't casting magic because his stats simply don't ALLOW him too. So that character growth becomes both story and mechanical. Not only does he get the ultimate rewards of magic ability within the story, but his character sheet will also reflect this. It allows the player to feel good in both ways.

Without the negative stats, you are only falsely limiting yourself. Because players will allocate the stats to do what they want in the end whenever possible, the chancesare they'll put the stats where they need to be. But with the negative stats, that still might not be good enough, and thus an arch of earning there stats factors in and ultimately feels better to play in the long run.

This is pretentious garbage. We're talking about pen and paper games that are already 99% imagination. And as somebody who's been DMing longer than some of the people on this forum have been alive, I would prefer a table of players who can come up with more original stories than, "He's an orc, so he's dumb, but he wants to be a wizard." Seriously you want to play a character against type? How about a cannibal halfling? How about illiterate barbarian elves? A catfolk with lycanthropy? A half-orc bard with a hurdy-gurdy? Any kind of bard with a glass harmonica?

To say nothing of how limited the scope of your argument is. Let's talk dump stats for a second. What does a 9 in Strength look like? How about a 6 Constitution? Or a 7 Wisdom? You might have noticed that there are no mechanics telling you how to express this in gameplay beyond the dice roll penalties. Someone with low strength may be bitter about it, holding a grudge against the party fighter for their physical prowess. Alternately, they might shun physical labor, rationalizing it as beneath them. They could even be in denial and continually try to prove their strength. Again, there are no mechanics for these options; they're strictly roleplaying. Someone who is physically weak and bitter about it is going to play differently from a character who is weak but realistic about it. A character who over-compensates for clumsiness with boisterousness is going to be different from a more subtle low-Dex character who adapts by making extensive use of cover, concealment and distractions to avoid getting hit. I'm sure you can imagine a difference between one character with low Constitution because they had a birth defect and another because they have a wasting disease and are living on borrowed time. And that's not even getting into the vast wilderness of roleplaying options for playing a character with low Wisdom.

Character stats are just there to tell you how to resolve an action you're taking. To make an actual character with personality and depth, the far more important questions are about how they feel regarding their circumstances and what they do about it. You can do this with racial ability penalties, but it's a clunky system and it seems the number of people who want to is shrinking.

 

[Satinavian]

Seriously you want to play a character against type? How about a cannibal halfling? How about illiterate barbarian elves?

Aren't those very stereotypical characters in certain very popular standard D&D settings ?

 

[Buyetyen]

But there are players who are just fucking shit at roleplaying.

Then if the DM is expecting them to roleplay, they might be at the wrong table.

These scores aren't a balance problem, they are trying to wash away all meaning the character races because they equal real-world racism.

No, that's your 1-dimensional interpretation of everybody else's actions.

A -2 to Int is not that hard to overcome if you really wanted too. A simple score increase on level up fixes that.

The kind of people who are that conscious of stats and making a good build would never waste a level-up bringing a weakness up to a mediocrity for the sake of roleplaying.

Aren't those very stereotypical characters in certain very popular standard D&D settings ?

Maybe? Cards on the table, I never really dug too deeply into the DnD settings. I have a passing familiarity with the Forgotten Realms, but that's it. Otherwise I stuck to the core books and some of the supplements I thought were cool like Lords of Madness.

Though now that I have it in my head, I should make a half-orc bard with a hurdy-gurdy.

 

[happyninja42]

Then if the DM is expecting them to roleplay, they might be at the wrong table.



No, that's your 1-dimensional interpretation of everybody else's actions.



The kind of people who are that conscious of stats and making a good build would never waste a level-up bringing a weakness up to a mediocrity for the sake of roleplaying.

Thinking back to a lot of the various archetypical racial characters in the fantasy genre, most of them are noteworthy for how they BREAK that racial stereotype. Drittz being a good aligned drow, Kaz the Minotaur (from Dragonlance) being rather smart, and also not evil. Tasslehoff Burfoot actually experiencing fear. And countless others. So the fact that they are doing away with a minor stat variation, that ultimately is irrelevant to a character concept, isn't a big deal in my book.

I generally apply my stats for a character based on their concept and background, not really aligned with species. Because come on, just using the idea of genetic variation in a species, you will always have the statistical outliers. The sickly and waifish orcs that rely on intelligence and cunning to survive, etc, etc. So,just say your character is one of those, and let him have penalties in other stats. Like actually boost up that intelligence penalty BECAUSE he's had to rely on his smarts, not his STR/CON to survive in OrcTown. I usually just ask myself what would he be good/bad at, based on the point I'm bringing him to life for this game? Then build him accordingly.

Though now that I have it in my head, I should make a half-orc bard with a hurdy-gurdy.

I made a half-orc wizard in an epic level campaign of D20 with some friends many years ago. He was pretty fun. Because frankly, at that level, a -1 Int/Cha is basically nothing, when you are sporting like 30+ stats in your primaries. Because you know, it's EPIC level gameplay.

 

[CriticalGaming]

This is pretentious garbage. We're talking about pen and paper games that are already 99% imagination. And as somebody who's been DMing longer than some of the people on this forum have been alive, I would prefer a table of players who can come up with more original stories than, "He's an orc, so he's dumb, but he wants to be a wizard." Seriously you want to play a character against type? How about a cannibal halfling? How about illiterate barbarian elves? A catfolk with lycanthropy? A half-orc bard with a hurdy-gurdy? Any kind of bard with a glass harmonica?

So if it doesn't matter? Than why go out of their way to completely write the mechanic out of the system? Players have always had the freedom to modify the system as desired. But why make it official if it's pointless to begin with?

Because it isn't pointless, at the end of the day those mechanical things matter to some players. And for those that don't care, then they have always had the power to ignore it.

 

[happyninja42]

So if it doesn't matter? Than why go out of their way to completely write the mechanic out of the system?

Because of the implied real world inspired racial components of some of these races, and the implied racism within. You know, the title of this thread.

I mean is it really that hard to see for you? It basically boils down to the following:

Ethnic group: "Ok so X DnD race is clearly taking elements from my people's culture, and you gave them a -2 to intelligence, and made them all evil, and engaging in human sacrifice. So you think that my people are dumb, and evil human sacrificers?"

Developers: "Well, I mean I don't think we really thought about it that closely? I mean shit, I just thought they looked cool with those outfits, and I was inspired by my own interests in your culture on a surface level for the aesthetic of them. But, yeah I didn't really think that having all of them being evil aligned, and human sacrificing cannibals, and also dumb, MIGHT come off as a bit insensitive to the source material. I mean I even gave them some fairly obvious physical features, that are distinct to your group. Hmm, yeah ok, so that's my bad, we'll fix that going forward."

or, alternate:

Developers: "Well, not really because some of these were originally made like 40 years ago? Hell I wasn't even alive yet, but, yeah now that you mention it, it does come across as pretty shitty to depict a group like that without any variation or nuance. I was just going with what had been established before I was even born. But, yeah we'll change it going forward."

THAT is why they are removing the mechanics, because of the implication (whether you agree with it or not), that it's you know, fucking racist to the cultures that inspired a lot of these races' designs.

 

[CriticalGaming]

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Yeah I understand that people are crazy and adding make believe racism to a fucking fantasy game. Because they have no purpose in live other than to try and be offended by make-believe nonsense.

Fantasy authors have been creating various races for decades, and even writing fictional racism without those bodies of work. You see in the literally world, it's what we call a meta-commentary, in which you use allegories to show how terrible the real life basis is.

Racism must lie with intent. The same goes for maliciousness. You cannot force ill intent on a thing in which no such intent exists.

Otherwise you can equate anything you want to an offensive metaphor and thus prevent anything from having any form of expression.

If you have a problem with it, go find another fiction to read/play. The existing system should not have to change because people get triggered for no reason.


EDIT: BTW Orcs in Pathfinder are also a brutally violent race and actually get the LEAST race points out of any of the other standard races, making them the lesser of all the races. So after people are done being mad at DnD (because it's the most popular) make sure ya'll go hit up Pathfinder and yall at them too.

 

[Buyetyen]

Because it isn't pointless, at the end of the day those mechanical things matter to some players.

Then tough titties for them.

Yeah I understand that people are crazy and adding make believe racism to a fucking fantasy game. Because they have no purpose in live other than to try and be offended by make-believe nonsense.

And this is why we have 12 pages of this shit.

 

[happyninja42]

Yeah I understand that people are crazy and adding make believe racism to a fucking fantasy game. Because they have no purpose in live other than to try and be offended by make-believe nonsense.

And yet here you are, being offended by their offense at a fucking fantasy game. Because apparently YOU have no purpose in life than to try and be offended at other people's offense at make-believe stuff that can fairly often show the cultural/physiological influences from real world cultures. Funny that.

I mean, the trolls in World of Warcraft don't just HAPPEN to sound like Jamaican's by pure accident. They don't just HAPPEN to have outfits and ancient structures that scream Aztec/Mayan (and probably some other inspirational sources I'm not familiar with) by pure accident. They don't worship an ancestor spirit/god pantheon , who just HAPPEN to be called the Loa, and even have one whose name is clearly a variation on Baron Samedi by accident. Those are such painfully obvious pulls from a real world culture. And I don't think it's unreasonable, for someone who IS of those cultures, to take offense, if they so blatantly pull from their source material, but then butcher it, or misrepresent it, or make it depict the culture in a very negative way. I mean even before the later expansions included the Loa, when I first started playing WoW, and played almost exclusively trolls (because they fucking rule), when I saw their ancient cities in that desert zone, my brain instantly said "oh, ok so we're going for an Aztec/Mayan vibe. Head dresses, bones through the nose, all that jazz. Ok cool." There was no doubt or subtlety in it. So if they were all depicted as being evil, ravenous baby eaters, who raped horses, and rode off on the women, yeah, I think a person of actual Aztec/Mayan heritage (and then later of...whatever culture the Loa are tied to, I think various African tribes/regions?) actually getting mad about it? Perfectly reasonable.

I mean I get mad when various religious fuckwads vilify atheists to justify their own agendas in movies/tv, constantly painting us as the bad guy, that just "needs to find GEEZUS!" and then we'll be fixed. Because it clearly shows the people don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and they are misrepresenting a group to the world at large, which does influence how we perceive each other. We can dislike stereotypes all we want, but there is a reason that certain caricatures persist. I doubt anyone who reads the word "pocket protector" isn't going to imagine a stereotypical "nerd", depending on your age demographic, possibly specifically examples from Revenge of the Nerds, or Steve Erkle, or *shudders* The Big Bang Theory. If I say French person, most people who only know French from pop culture, will probably picture someone with a neckerchief, and a beret, possibly with a pencil thin mustache (moooostaaache!!), probably a striped, white shirt, and the rest. And when you say Aztec, I'm going to think headdresses, temples, sun dials, etc. Why? Because those are the most common traits associated with those groups in the most commonly consumed mediums.

So yes, a group being annoyed that that evil serpent race, who look, and act, and dress an awful lot like people of asian ethnicity, might get annoyed, because odds are pretty fucking high that their cultures did inspire the aesthetics of it.

 

[Dreiko]

I can work with a player to roleplay all that without the need for negative stats.

Right, so there's no point to removing all that outside of virtue signaling then.

Only if you require mechanics for every single aspect of roleplaying. There are tons of systems with far less crunch than DnD that manage a degree of diversity that according your argument should be impossible.

It's less that they require them, and more that it's just one more cool element that pitches in and contributes to the feeling of realness.

I tell good stories, not juvenile power fantasies.

You must be a pretty mediocre writer to not be able to have epic and inspiring combat scenes without having them be mere juvenile power fantasies. As such, any bit of mechanical flavor help would be good for ya.

 

[Buyetyen]

Right, so there's no point to removing all that outside of virtue signaling then.

No, that's just the limit of your imagination.

It's less that they require them, and more that it's just one more cool element that pitches in and contributes to the feeling of realness.

So it doesn't really matter, and you're just complaining over nothing.