The Erosion of Racial Differentiation in RPGs/Homogenization of Races

[rusty_shackleford]

Gygax's personal views on this matter strongly influenced d&d, and therefore content based on it. They've been trying to wash Gygax off D&D for 35 years, this is all downstream of that.

[rusty_shackleford]

My favorite system in this regard is classes unique to races. Makes complete sense that each race should have a bunch of unique classes, adds tons of flavor to the game.

[UltraFan123]

My favorite system in this regard is classes unique to races. Makes complete sense that each race should have a bunch of unique classes, adds tons of flavor to the game.

I agree with this 100%. Like how in some classic editions the [Shaman] class was only for monster priests, who obviously weren't the same thing as human clerics for obvious reasons.

Even if I like 3.5 edition, it still was the edition that allowed ******* half-orcs to be paladins. And also introduced the concept of "Level Adjustment" that punished powerful races for being too strong.

Now that edition still gave prestige classes to specific races however, which were introduced in its playable monsters handbooks. And said playable monsters still had racial hit die, too.

But yeah, I guess 3.5 was when the idea of "equality" began to slowly infect tabletop games.

[WaterMage]

Leftists and similar-thinking commies believe that the idea of "hierarchy"—as "in there being individuals or entire groups that are superior to others—is evil and must be replaced by universal equality, even if the objective reality of the world proves that hierarchies not only exist but are also good things.

Yes!!! They hate every form of "inequality" except when it is their God (state) and individuals.

OT: WoW has racial abilities/passives, and they DO matter somewhat. So no melting pot of gay ******** here yet.

Yes, but it matters more in vanilla than retail. And way more in EverQuest than in WoW. Even with MMOs, the older the MMO, the more racial variety it has. In Ultima Online, being a gargoyle, a human, or an elf was vastly different (https://www.uoalive.com/wiki/Races), with gargoyles being able to fly and access some gargoyle-only map areas.

This is how races should be in RPGs.

My favorite system in this regard is classes unique to races. It makes complete sense that each race should have a bunch of unique classes; it adds tons of flavor to the game.

IMO, not only races should limit the classes. Culture too. For example, in Warhammer, you can't be a Bretonnian knight if you are an Imperial citizen or even a Bretonnian-born peasant. In D&D 3.5e and games based on it like NWN2, you can technically level up as a Red Wizard of Thay even if your wizard was born and spent his entire life in Waterdeep.

IMO allowing Dwarfs to be an wizard and non humans to be Paladins was the worst mistake of 3.5e.

[UltraFan123]

IMO allowing Dwarfs to be an wizard and non humans to be Paladins was the worst mistake of 3.5e.

I liked how in Fantasy Warhammer the dwarves don't care about wizarding and instead use their giga-chadness to force the setting's magic to fit into their arcane runes.

However, I think that dwarves still make believable paladins, but the likes of elves, halflings, and gnomes being paladins was still a bad choice. Just like how dwarves could now be barbarians.

Another thing that I liked from older editions was how the druid - or "forest nature mages" in general - was a class reserved exclusively for fey and other fairy-types, it added to how mysterious and dangerous the wood spirits could be.

If one day I succeed in creating my own RPG setting, I will definitely have classes and abilities exclusively for specific races and regions.

[WaterMage]

I liked how in Fantasy Warhammer the dwarves don't care about wizarding and instead use their giga-chadness to force the setting's magic to fit into their arcane runes.

Humans are magically neutral. Elves are easily attuned to magic, and dwarves are highly resistant to magic. The whole magic in Warhammer is heavily shaped by the culture and race.

The Empire of Sigmar magic was taught by Teclis and hence is a pale imitation version of elf magic, humans can only attune to one wind of magic. Kislev has Ice Witches, Bretonnia has the Grail Damsels and that wind of magic shapes them: Celestial mages get silver eyes, Bright mages get orange-red hair, etc. The elves that can use multiple winds, too, are different. Ulthuan Archmages try to wield all winds in harmony, aka High Magic; Druchii use Dark Magic, a corruption of all winds. Vampires and Necromancers use corruption of the purple (death) wind, and Beastman use the corruption of Beast wind (Ghur). And Orcs, who knows how their powers work?

Warhammer Fantasy is becoming more popular because it is embracing differences while everyone else(Paizo, WoTC) is embracing homogeneity.
_____________

With technology too. Elf senses are much sharper than humans, hence they don't like the smell and sound of powder and this is why even Druchii uses repeating crossbows over firearms. No elf culture uses firearms. All humans except Bretonnians uses firearms.

, I think that dwarves still make believable paladins

Yep. I'm fine with humans and Dwarfs being paladins, but Dwarf paladins must chose their race Gods and have a different spelllist in D&D.

In warhammer, they have rune magic. And can craft freaking Gyrocopters.

In Dragon Age, no. Maybe Templars.

[Norfleet]

In warhammer, they have rune magic

Yes, the traditional way for dwarves to use magic is to put it in a weapon and beat someone with it.

[WaterMage]

Yes, the traditional way for dwarves to use magic is to put it in a weapon and beat someone with it.

They don't merely put it in a weapon; they make it so the rune is extremely stable, and magic in WH is much more "dangerous" and unstable than in D&D, runecraft has no miscast chance, spells have... There are spells that produce magical effects on weapons, like Flaming Sword of Rhuin. Alchemists have a lot of "enchantment" spells for weapons and armor. If an alchemist saves a dwarf's life by buffing his armor, he would say something like>

- Hmph. Thanks, manling. Now QUIT WITH THE ELF TRICKERY before I lose my temper!!!!

Dwarves naturally are repulsed by magic, just like we are naturally repulsed by cockroaches. And all interactions that Dwarfs have with magic since the War of the Beard were negative. In D&D, allowing dwarves to be wizards destroyed many settings. For example, in Glantri(Mystara), dwarves were persecuted for their magical resistance and their magical ineptitude. Glantri is more tolerant with vampires than with dwarfs.

[rusty_shackleford]

I like the disguise self magic in BG3(DOS2 had it too to some extent with the mask), but due to how downplayed races are it's not nearly as useful as it would be otherwise.

[WaterMage]

Yep. In 5e, with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything you can make a halfling as strong as an orc... Races are just skins in 5e.

[WhiteShark]

I think a large part of it stems from a neurotic focus on balance. The greater the asymmetry, the farther from "perfect" balance, so a fixation on "fairness" pushes designers to minimize racial differences. Of course, there's also the crowd that wants to have their cake and eat it, too, that is, the people who want the aesthetics of a race with none of its limitations. Hence, nu-D&D small races' being just as strong as orcs.

[rusty_shackleford]

I think a large part of it stems from a neurotic focus on balance. The greater the asymmetry, the farther from "perfect" balance, so a fixation on "fairness" pushes designers to minimize racial differences. Of course, there's also the crowd that wants to have their cake and eat it, too, that is, the people who want the aesthetics of a race with none of its limitations. Hence, nu-D&D small races' being just as strong as orcs.

Argument may have held 10 years ago before they started replacing race wholesale with 'culture' etc.,
It's their ideology

[WhiteShark]

I think a large part of it stems from a neurotic focus on balance. The greater the asymmetry, the farther from "perfect" balance, so a fixation on "fairness" pushes designers to minimize racial differences. Of course, there's also the crowd that wants to have their cake and eat it, too, that is, the people who want the aesthetics of a race with none of its limitations. Hence, nu-D&D small races' being just as strong as orcs.

Argument may have held 10 years ago before they started replacing race wholesale with 'culture' etc.,
It's their ideology

In recent times, yes, I agree, but this started a long time ago and built up to where it is now. That same twisted sense of "fairness" also partly underlies the current progressive ideology. It wouldn't be "fair" if some people (and, by extension, races) were genetically superior in any way. Both the mild form and the extreme, modern form are what happens when ideals are placed above reality.

[rusty_shackleford]

Are there any rpgs where pre-modern understanding of what we now refer to as genetics is used? I simply do not know enough about this to even begin to speculate what this may be.

I'm going to guess that much like miasma theory they had a decent grasp on the idea even if they did not understand why or how, just by looking at the results. E.g., a blacksmiths son is a good blacksmith because of course he is, his father is a blacksmith — without understanding that his father was probably successful for genetic reasons.

[Norfleet]

In recent times, yes, I agree, but this started a long time ago and built up to where it is now. That same twisted sense of "fairness" also partly underlies the current progressive ideology. It wouldn't be "fair" if some people (and, by extension, races) were genetically superior in any way. Both the mild form and the extreme, modern form are what happens when ideals are placed above reality.

Ahoy thar, WhiteSquare. Where you been, anyway?

The thing is, the racial differences in RPGs rarely produce a clear unconditional superiority, since in pretty much all cases, the point adjusts happen on equal terms. Rather, it tends to produce a clear case system, where certain races are pigeonholed into certain classes. This issue is GREATLY exacerbated under stat generation methods that reduce randomness, too. Of course, a game's viability with pure random stat gen is highly questionable. Random-straight methods like 3d6-down-the-list are rarely a popular method because the player is effectively denied nearly all agency as to what class he's going to play. Random numbers allocated-to-taste is little better than point-buy in this way, since you just take your best stat and plug it into your prime stat, then stack it with the appropriate meta race. And, of course, in a competitive multiplayer environment, ANY random-gen is undesirable since the most competitive players absolutely will settle for nothing less than the very best, which just exacerbates the difference between those players and everyone else even more.

Ultimately, it's rare that racial differences unbalance the system: They just tend to homogenize the system and result in very repetitive combinations. At that point you may as well just make race = class. There is little point in having race-class combinations if only certain combinations make sense. If you have dwarves and elves and warriors must be tough and strong, while archers must be deft and accurate, then all dwarves are warriors and all elves are archers, and nobody else needs to bother to enter these classes at all because they'd just be clearly worse, so effectively, dwarf and elf are now classes. Perhaps this is for the best: It's how older D&D handled it, after all. Being a non-human WAS the class. Classes are thus for humans only!

[WaterMage]

Oblivion remake/remaster erased the GENDER differences. Transforming all different gender traits into your birthplace. IE - the same "humans are a tabula rasa and all differences are social". My guess. TES VI will have races as skins even more than TESO.

neurotic focus on balance.

In 4e times was ballance cultism. Now is equality cultism.

s. There is little point in having race-class combinations if only certain combinations make sense. If you have dwarves and elves and warriors must be tough and strong, while archers must be deft and accurate, then all dwarves are warriors and all elves are archers

False. You can have a dwarf more focused on warhammer and heavy armor and the elf more focused on rapier and striking in armor gaps, due his high dexterity.

Just like an dwarf cleric and an elf cleric must be different, an dwarf warrior and an cleric warrior must be different.

[Norfleet]

False. You can have a dwarf more focused on warhammer and heavy armor and the elf more focused on rapier and striking in armor gaps, due his high dexterity.

That's when you try to complicate the system by creating multiple options of warriors. I'm talking about the classics, before "Dex-based finesse builds". Even when you try to break things into subclasses like this, you're just going to find a pigeonhole meta again. Turtles all the way down.

Just like an dwarf cleric and an elf cleric must be different

I didn't cover clerics at all, they were outside the simple example. Also, neither of them gets a Wis bonus so they're probably both bad picks, if anyone else does.

[WaterMage]

That's when you try to complicate the system

No, I'm trying to make the system accurately reflect how a dextrous long living elegant creature fights and a short but surdy creature fights.

meta

False. Not all games have meta, mainly when the appeal of the game is to play interesting characters, not min maxing murderhobos.

neither of them gets a Wis bonus so they're probably both bad pick

False. Even if is suboptimal, lets suppose that a player wants to plkay as a cleric of an dwarf or cleric deity. Is his/her choice. If is sub or optimal is irrelevant.

[Norfleet]

That's when you try to complicate the system

No, I'm trying to make the system accurately reflect how a dextrous long living elegant creature fights and a short but surdy creature fights.

You're missing the point. It was a simplified example to reflect how racial stat bonii just create a pigeonhole caste system in which you have specific builds that thus require those combos, functionally rendering the choice irrelevant because if you want to create this build, you're effectively locked in.

False. Not all games have meta, mainly when the appeal of the game is to play interesting characters, not min maxing murderhobos.

"Interesting" characters get left to ERP in bars and don't get to join top raid groups.

[Stack of Turtles]

You can't have both race AND class as options and expect all combinations to work, that's just dumb.

[WaterMage]

"Interesting" characters get left to ERP in bars and don't get to join top raid groups.

We are talking about TT and SP RPGs, not the generic wow clone N 6546135454168534135415346854653746841533125.

Even mmos where better when they don't have "meta" like Shadowbane.

[UltraFan123]

The idea or deities for specific races is something that I also think was a good thing and should make a comeback.

However, while the likes of dwarves, elves, halflings, dragons, orcs, lizardmen, etc all had their own Creator Gods and whatnot in the classic fantasy settings, humans always stood out as a race that didn't had a specific creator. They were just there.

Only times I remember seeing a "Human-only God" in a fantasy setting are Warhammer both Fantasy and 40k as well as the long-deceased Aroden in the Pathfinder world of Golarion.

Neither of those created the humans in their respective settings though, they were just particularly powerful humans who ascended to divinity.

I'm aware that fantasy settings are interesting to people because they're different from the real world, hence why most fantasy authors purposely avoid creating monotheistic religions in said worlds, but that always felt like a cope-out for not creating Human-only Gods if you ask me because many real-life pagan mythologies tell stories of how Odin or Zeus created humanity and things like that.

[Norfleet]

However, while the likes of dwarves, elves, halflings, dragons, orcs, lizardmen, etc all had their own Creator Gods and whatnot in the classic fantasy settings, humans always stood out as a race that didn't had a specific creator. They were just there.

That's because while the other fantasy races were created by the gods, humans are an accident that metastasized out of the leftovers of creation. If any god created them, they aren't aware of it and don't claim credit for it.

[Brother Michael]

Does the pigeon hole really exist with racial attributes? I think the importance of attributes may be overestimated. 12 strength vs. 16 strength is only 10% less chance to hit by itself, which is noticeable but hardly unworkable, especially combined with things like proficiency bonus and other class benefits. The real solution is to add more difference beyond attributes through racial perks and feats that support multiple playstyles in unique ways. An orc sorcerer should ideally find a way to make use of their extra strength, or use magic differently in general.

[UltraFan123]

The real solution is to add more difference beyond attributes through racial perks and feats that support multiple playstyles in unique ways. An orc sorcerer should ideally find a way to make use of their extra strength, or use magic differently in general.

I think this is why archetypes like "magic knight" exist which on paper are weaker than full warriors and less powerful than full wizards, but depending on who uses them, it could add variety to a race that usually shines in only one front.

Like let's compare elves and orcs for example. An elf warrior would be physically weaker and less sturdy than an orc warrior obviously, so this elf could instead dabble as a magic knight by taking advantage of his natural affinity with magic to supplement with warrior skills and have a good chance of defeating an opponent stronger than him.

And likewise, an orc wizard would be nowhere near as good as an elf wizard, so an orc can also become a magic knight to use his relatively weaker magic to supplement his superior natural strength and perhaps some resistance against the elf's attack spells, and now the fight isn't so one-sided.

If an elf magic knight and an orc magic knight fight each other then the result could go either way depending on how their builds were made.

[orinEsque]

The Oblivion remake replacing gender differences with "place of origin" indicates well how leftists think. Differentiation between genders = bad. Differentiation between places where people grew up = good.

Does anyone doubt that TES VI will have all human races and elves the same and the unique difference between a Breton and a Redguard will be their "culture"?

I'll just continue to play Skyrim/ESO, **** that

OT: WoW has Racial abilities/passives, and they DO matter somewhat. So no Melting Pot of Gay ******** here yet

I hear racial bonuses stopped meaning as much as it did in vanilla. i haven't played since i got my tier 6. Pepperidge farm remembers burning crusade.

[WaterMage]

I think the importance of attributes may be overestimated. 12 strength vs. 16 strength is only 10% less chance to hit by itself,

This in 5e. IE - BS. In previous editions, classes, subclasses, and etc had STR requirements. Half-Giant bows in AD&D - Dark Sun required superhuman STR to be used.

[WaterMage]

BTW, did you guys see? WoTC removed "half" races like half elves, half orcs, and probably also dhampir because "muh problematic." Don't ask me how.





https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-be ... half-races



And note that in D&D, half-elves are a very popular race and a very influential culture in Aglarond (FR), and the House Lyrandar is extremely influential in Eberron. This is a huge decline. About the same tier of decline as when WoTC allowed Dwarfs to be Wizards, which destroyed the worldbuilding and reason to persecute them in Mystara.

[Acrux]

The work's not done until halflings are eradicated.

[Mikeal]

* (((Gnomes)))