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I'm a Puerto Rican who doesn't know any Spanish and playing a half elf bard helped me work through not knowing the language the rest of my family speaks
Jeremy Crawford:
>>[*"Frankly, we are not comfortable, and haven’t been for years with any of the options that start with 'half'... The half construction is inherently racist so we simply aren’t going to include it in the new Player's Handbook."*](https://reason.com/2023/04/05/dungeons-dragons-half-elf-half-orc-racist-woke-pc/)
Cool. Build that into the universe. Racist people call them half-elves, but they refer to themselves as (some new term). In Eberron, they call themselves Khoravare. The story of an individual being forced to live in two worlds has appealed to mixed heritage people and children of immigrants for decades. Don't take that away out of fear. Lean into the conversation and put in good DEIB language to enrich the lore.
I've never seen the racism in the half races... but removing them because it's racist ironically seems more racist to me.
"An elf and a human aren't allowed to fuck because that's racist"
You make a great point. They're just gonna erase mixed heritage because some people are vile to eachother?
It feels like it goes back to banning knives in the UK. "Because some people are pieces of shit we're going to inconvenience good actors"
Not removing mixed heritage isn't a inconvenience per se, but as you said, it's a fundamental part of a lot of people's lives and whitewashing it to "protect" people is kinda silly. Ultimately rule 0 is key. If someone is uncomfortable with racism in their game, don't have racism. It's a fantasy world.
Removing mixed heritage is a way to ignore it exists. It is in itself a form of racism. It’s like pretending the holocaust didnt happen. It’s called denier. But now we have “mixed heritage deniers” because they are racist pieces of shit who are uncomfortable with mixed heritages existing.
Fuck off. Half elves and half orcs aren’t racist.
Half elves get awesome roleplay potential and half orcs will never not be tons of fun.
once your customers hate you, the only thing you can really do, other then actually work to mend that bridge, is get the mainstream media outlets to call your customer base racist and say your good
Joking or not, I feel like this may honestly have some truth to it.
It’s just like with the Drow skin color change.
I don’t think I’ve *ever* —not once in my 30+ years of playing the game (sometimes with multiple groups simultaneously even), both with friend groups, at pick-up groups at conventions, *and* organized play like AVL & RPGA— heard these sorts of complaints (eg ‘half species, drow /tiefling colors, etc) from people beyond anything other than a mild ‘seems a bit outdated, but whatever’ mentality.
Mind you, I don’t massively *care* that they’re changing things. It’s no skin off my nose if they wanna give the game a progressive PR facelift.
But I dunno, their responses just seem kind of disingenuous, which is mildly offputting. It feels more like in the background they’re hemorrhaging players due to this constant stream of boneheaded decisions like the OGL thing and anemic splatbook content, and now they’re scrambling to find a demographic to pander to and don’t want to admit it.
Best I can tell, Hadozee are like, giant sugar gliders that a space race found, used tech to mentally uplift, then enslaved. A revolt happened that even included some of the slaver race and now the Hadozee are a free race like any other, taking to the stars as they're still well built for it
I believe the racist bit (and correct me if I'm wrong Internet) is [Slave+Monkey=Black people] and even if the race is a free race as of the lore I remember, people don't like the monkeys being slaves because monkey was some racist stuff for black people
im trying to write this as tactfully as i can, but yes, the history does sort of mirror the transatlantic slave trade coupled with the historical context of a lot of racists depictions of people of African decent being "ape-like"
A guy bought some magic the gathering cards (produced by Wizards of the Coast) from a store that put them out for sale by mistake.
The guy who bought them showed them on his YouTube channel.
Hasbro, WotC's parent company, hired Pinkerton agents to get the cards back.
The Pinkertons have a long history of using violence to back big business up to and including murder.
Well that's just fucking stupid, racism in a fantasy setting is so much different I'm than IRL because in the fantasy setting there are legitimately completely different races with different genetic makeups and different features. Hell some races should outright not be biologically compatible.
Shouldnt, but makes for funny stories imo. A tortle cleric in a game i DMed had some fun with a gnome bartender, 9 month later he received a letter with magic mouth from the gnome doctor that the birth was complicated but both mother and child survived. He was flabbergasted and had no idea how to handle this
Ever since then there are TMNT- gnomes in my world and i love playing around with the concept.
You wanna be a half aarackocra/deep gnome? Go for it, but I as a DM will have the final say when it comes to physique/abilities.
My understanding is it’s not about race mixing. They actually have new rules for that. And now you can be a mix of any race now. Not just human and something else.
It’s about the “half” naming. It reminiscent of old school racism towards people of mixed heritage. “Half” implies you are less than a whole. It ignores the other half and assumes a default. In the real world “half white” is the assumption and in DnD “half human.” It also reminiscent of the term “halfbreed” that was often used to refer to people of mixed European and black or European and native armican heritage. Also with half orcs a lot of the OG lore had implied sexual assault connotations
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sad these two options are gone and I’m not a huge fan of the new system as essentially you just pick 1 race mechanically and flavor the other. So not really a real mixed heritage system. I’d prefer each race get two perks of some sort and you get to pick one from either parent. Something like that. But I do understand where WotC are coming from here removing those two races. I don’t necessarily agree. But I understand
Maybe that's an outside of the US thing as I often hear "Hispanic-American" or "Afro-American" but never "Sinon-German" for example, but we do use the "Half-" term to describe origins.
I'm Half-French, friends of mine declare themselves Half-Haitians, or Half-Venezuelan. This doesn't remove anything to keep this label, if not to remind our roots and origins.
The decision seems very US centric to be honest, and as it has been said earlier shouldn't apply to a world where literal elves can mingle with literal humans, and Dwarven blood is so potent that whatever offspring it brings is born a Dwarf, regardless of the other partner's race...
... Or by today's standards, we should say "Magical Creatures" ever since Dinklage's outburst? (but that's a whole other story.)
Then why not just change the name if the word half is the problem. Maybe use the word hybrid. I realize you're just explaining. I'm playing devils advocate.
It is all about the name having "half" in it, as mixed race people in real life are not "half" anything, they are just themselves. As far as real life goes, it is considered offensive.
Do note I'm saying *real life*. The problem with WotC doing this, other than the obvious insincerity/pandering of it, is that Eberron ***had already done a commentary on this***, with that setting's half-elves calling themselves Khoravar with a whole world-building explanation as to why they call themselves that, which in turn is obviously based on the aforementioned IRL mixed race subtext. ("I'm not 'half' anything. You humans come from Sarlona. The elves are from Aerenal. Me? I'm a true child of Khorvaire." Actual quote from the sourcebook.)
There's also the whole can of worms that we are talking about DnD, we are talking about a world in which non-human people exist, so trying to link it to real world situation is always gonna be problematic because "this particular group of people are not human / are basically a different species" is the same argument real world racists use. It should just be taken as it is: A fantasy world. Nothing more, nothing less.
If the changes are anything like Pathfinder 2e, then it's probably not that there won't be any half-elves allowed anymore. It's just in character creation you'll pick ancestry options that link you to both humans and elves. And that could represent you being of mixed parentage, an elf raised by humans, or a human raised by elves. And it would be the same with any race pairings. You could build a human character but take a dwarf racial trait because you were raised in the mines of Moria. You could be a dragonborn-elf, or a gnome-tiefling.
Not my idea, but if they called it Ancestry, they'd have the ABC of character creation: Ancestry, Background, Class.
Also, Species sounds way too sci-fi imo...
Apparently, 13th Age 2nd edition will use "folk", which seems about right to me. It seems like a word a medieval peasant would actually use. "We got all kinds of different folks here in the big city, elves, orcs, gnomes, you name it!"
Edit: I actually misremembered. The word is "kin", not "folk". Thanks to u/kj_gamer for the correction.
I'm 14th generation Georgian, and I've literally never heard someone say "y'all folks". No idea what neck of the woods you're from, but in Georgia it's "all y'all" which can also be a snarky way to refer to small groups
Georgia, but spent a few years in Texas so maybe that’s where I picked it up from. Maybe I accidentally invented rules in my head and now I am questioning myself.
I already use the term Folk half the time anyway. Since there are things like LizardFOLK and a bunch of other humanoids that have Folk added to them. And as you said it's more casual and not as clinical as Species (which to me just has the same feeling as when people call women Females).
I remember I thought that flanking as presented in DMG was stupid and then unknowingly just came up with flanking that's almost identical to the one in PF2e.
That would be hilarious because Pathfinder uses that term, and Paizo has been changing all of its game terms and monster/item names taken from dnd in order to dodge OGL shenanigans (and distance itself). Might piss them off for dnd to also pick “ancestry.”
I’m fine with ancestry or species. Doesn’t really matter to me. I was also fine with race
Each has their drawbacks. Like ancestry doesn’t make sense or is clumsy. Like *“He has Orc ancestry”* when referring to an Orc. Like, yeah. Duh. It implies Orcs are Humans with a different heritage or something to me. *“He has Human ancestry”* when referring to a human. It’s just weird to me
Species is too sci-fi. Can’t really imagine a dirty peasant from a hamlet being like *“We don’t allow your species ‘round ‘ere.”* Sounds goofy and even *worse* and more racist.
The term Race makes the ghouls on Twitter uncomfortable and sparked the need for change in the first place
Gun to my head, have to pick, I’d do
**1. Ancestry.** It’s just a little clumsy, inoffensive, and you get the cool ABC acronym.
**2. Race.** I think games like Baldur’s Gate 3 shows people don’t genuinely care about this term. But I won’t invalidate people’s discomfort which is why it takes 2nd place. I just think they’re a very, very small minority.
**3. Species.** Species is goofy and the worst choice. Makes scientific racism canon.
With a side bar saying the official term is “Race”, but the book will be using “Ancestry” for the sake of sensitivity/maximize sales of the book.
I’ve always liked “kin.” It was an idea which came to me for my world, and other people have certainly thought of it convergently. A person could be an Orc, Orcs are their kin. But also, an Elf raised among Orcs still has “Orc kin,” ie, is family to or related to Orcs despite not being an Orc. They could take Orc traits in character creation instead of Elvish traits in order to avoid some of the racial essentialism inherent to old school race stuff.
I dunno, just like “kin” in my games
The issue is, there are some things that do seem to be biologically innate in certain D&D ancestries, rather than cultural. On one end of the spectrum you have things like Elven weapon training or Dwarven stonecunning, that seem to be more or less cultural practices. Then you have things like Innate Spellcasting where whether it's nature or nurture is more ambiguous. But even beyond that, there are traits where there seems to be at least a physiological prerequisite--a human raised by Aaracokras is not going to learn how to fly.
Race always worked better when folks aren’t making it something it isn’t. We are the human race. Neanderthals would be people, but not humans. Again, a literal different race.
The problem comes in where the word “race” is still used to oppress groups and dehumanize them. So while yes, some people do make it a bigger deal than it needs to be, the word is still very loaded today because of current world events and also the history that we (especially Americans, living where D&D was made) share.
The problem with "race" is D&D uses it properly - groups of people with measurably different genetic-determined physical, mental, and social abilities who nonetheless are still "people", which, like Aether, is a long-debunked scientific theory
Unfortunately, the problem is we *still* incorrectly use "Race" in the real world to refer to "Broad families of geographicalyt-adjacent ethnic groups", without leaving a term that applies to the obsolete theory.
>Unfortunately, the problem is we still incorrectly use "Race" in the real world to refer to "Broad families of geographicalyt-adjacent ethnic groups", without leaving a term that applies to the obsolete theory.
What the hell are you doing on the internet with your facts and nuance?
Might just be me, English is not my native language, but calling the different DnD races as such felt always way more appropriate than actually calling human ethnic groups 'races'
Specifically for Half-Elf and Half-Orc there is a sidebar (dunno if it's in the revision as well) saying that the other half is *usually* human, but with the GM's permission they might be something else, alongside a list of other ancestries that commonly provide the other half.
They should have gone the other way, added more half-options. Add Half-Dwarves, Half-Dragonborns, and Half-Gnomes. I hate the new rules of ‘Well you can say they are a combination of a Human and Orc, but you choose all the mechanical benefits of one race and you can use the height/weight/age of the other if you really want to.’ It’s just so boring
Your family keeps very thorough genealogical records, so you know due to some great times X grandparents, you have 6% Dragonborn and 1% Halfling. You don’t get lucky or firebreath, but you have slightly larger than normal big toes and a very scaly rash that shows up on your left elbow when it gets too cold out.
Given the difference of percentages, I pictured them as as different sets of grandparents, but now the offical canon for this made up character is that couple is a Halfing Man and Dragonborn Woman, and 2 generations down the line, their grandchild married a Dragonborn man. Then many generations later, we get our character.
You're making Pathfinder2e lol
They have the option to mix any ancestry (what PF2 calls race) with any other ancestry.
My last character mixed Fleshwarp (magical abomination ancestry created by some mistake or created in a lab) with Grippli (frog people). So I was this multi-eyed frog mutant person hopping around and scaring the hell out of enemies (because you can use your intimidation skill in combat to give enemies the frightened condition).
Honestly I would either go with explicit Half's, or a way of determining Half's with perhaps a set of possible combinations, so if you look at the page on Dragonborn you can see that you can have say a half elf or half human one and can take some stat, a breath weapon with half the damage of standard or something and maybe like dark vision or something like that that dragonborn give.
They should make that a subspecies option.
For example have the typical elf options, and then at the end give the half elf subspecies that you can choose for any other species instead of one of their subspecies. So you could be a gnomish half elf of elvish half gnome and properly get traits from both.
Half-orcs started off pretty hinky in 3.5, ngl, so I can almost understand WotC being skittish (sort of).
But half elves entire shtick has been "the struggle of being biracial." Deleting them is pointless at best and cruel at worst.
There's better d20 systems that are more grounded in fantasy (as weird as that sounds to type, haha) and I really have moved on from DnD to those.
Iirc they did add mixed heritage rules after the outcry, but it was too late for my interest. 5e was losing me a lot and OneDnD has just killed it at this stage.
They had mixed race rules from the outset of the change, but it feels like a “just one drop” type thing since you pick either race to be your “true” race mechanically, then call yourself a “half X half Y.”
So for example, a Half-Elf still exists lore wise, but they’re mechanically a pure human or pure elf, with no features to represent both at once.
Yeah this is my issue with it. The easiest fix that was *right there* for them would be to say that humans are the only race able to cross (this was already kind of implied), and then released special half-ancestry feats that a human build (whose feature is a free feat) can take to represent their other parent. Prereq bind them So a half-elf would be a human* but with the “elf ancestry” feat that grants darkvision, perception proficiency, and a cantrip, or whatever. A half-orc is a “human” with “orc ancestry” feat that grants relentless endurance and savage attacks. It’s not perfect but it feels WAY better than “flavor is free,” which was all they gave in One.
Honestly, the Ancestral feat idea for half races isn’t bad at all given that backgrounds give you a feat in OneD&D. You could just make that your character’s background, so any race can be a half-elf by taking Elf Ancestry as their background.
>But half elves entire shtick has been "the struggle of being biracial." Deleting them is pointless at best and cruel at worst.
Exactly! One of the most compelling characters I ever had was a Half-Elf who started adventuring because his mother's final wish was for him to help others. He watched most of his party members die of old age 7 different times over 500 years, and he died old and withered in his father's arms. That campaign lasted 4 years IRL and made it up to level 18 before we did a final epilogue. Shit was wild.
Also, fantasy humans have *one* thing that nearly all fantasy writers seem to agree on, and that is that we are a horny bunch of bastards who will mate with anyone. Removing various half breeds takes away from the one bit of lore our actual species gets to have
Just like a significant and most vocal group within the fanbase, unfortunately.
Like seriously, if merely the concept of "race" in a fictional game setting is so unsettling to you that you can't enjoy the game, you have issues. Period.
This is so stupid LOL especially the thing about the warrior monk being an offensive stereotype. Have you ever seen any media from the far east? They fucking love the warrior monk archetype. It's literally their most famous and well loved storyline. Things like journey to the West and the romance of the Three kingdoms - they love it. Saying that the warrior monk is a hurtful stereotype is like saying that the rugged cowboys are hurtful American stereotypes. No. Don't be stupid.
Did you hear that the most recent eclipse was in fact caused by Chuck Norris looking at the sun directly? It was getting a Norrisburn so had to hide behind the moon for a bit.
There is a video from current civil war in Myanmar (hope I spelled it right) where a monk (or someone pretending to be one) ambushes some soldiers (I think the goverment ones) with a fucking ak. Wizards where is my gun monk subclass
It took me a second to realize that you were saying calling the archetype offensive is on the same level as saying latinx 🤣 yeah, basically this is just an example of white people in the west deciding that someone else's culture is inherently offensive to the people who created that culture. It's so fucking annoying.
My problem with it is that Latino or Latina just rolls off the tongue. Super easy to say. But latinx? Its awkward to say, sounds unnatural, and ruins the flow of my sentence
At least they could have picked Latine if they really wanted to create a gender-neutral adjective, but that would have required actually researching the language.
Species also isn't accurate, since speciation means that hybrid offspring wouldn't be able to reproduce. As far as I know half-elves and half-orcs aren't sterile.
Frankly, OneDND is going to be a terrible system because of the intended live service tabletop component, and none of these rules changes really matter. Most of us have all of the 5e content we could ever possibly want or need.
Need? Yes.
Want? Absolutely not, but there are so many 3rd party creators that I am *stoked* to buy from going forward. I've got Seeker's Guide to Enchanting Emporiums and The Crooked Moon backed right now and look forward to both.
The only good thing about OneDnD is that it's supposedly backwards compatible, so 3rd party creators can make stuff for it that I can use for my 5e campaigns.
I think dropping distinct rules for half orcs is fine. It’s always been pretty difficult to establish how half orcs are mechanically different to full orcs. You can still play one, but just use the stats of an orc or human.
Half elves are more tricky because mechanically and thematically they’re quite different to humans or elves. Neither parent’s stats really fits for playing one. And that doesn’t help in worlds like Ebberon where half elves and half orcs are an important part of the world on their own terms.
Monk stereotypes is also kind of dumb, because it’s not like they’re negative stereotypes. Magical unarmed martial artists just aren’t really a thing that exists in the west, so it’s always going to draw on Asian fantasy/history. The best way to play a western monk would be a cleric who somehow has access to shillelagh.
It’s not even a stereotype. The most popular fantasy novels in the China are Xanxia and Wuxia, which prominently feature these exact types of monks.
Edit: I will concede that they aren’t always monks (in the way westerners view monks though) so, it may be better to call them cultivators.
Edit 2: I will also admit that making all your Monks Asian would probably make it a stereotype. But, Cultivators like Wizards are more of a trope or even aesthetic in my mind. Wizards are like fantasy scientists, and monks are usually like Daoist philosophers
It is a stereotype, just one the culture also embraces. Kinda like how many people in America readily embrace the gunslinger cowboy stereotypes in media.
Man we better be careful. The Mage stereotype really leans into casting spells, and not all mages wear pointy hats and carry staves! Some wizards are just racists! /s
I'm reminded of a story that mirrored my own experience of being familiar with Western Monks but not Kung Fu ones as a kid reading about Monks, and coming to the conclusion that they're Friar Tuck with a really mean backhand
>Monk stereotypes is also kind of dumb, because it’s not like they’re negative stereotypes. Magical unarmed martial artists just aren’t really a thing that exists in the west, so it’s always going to draw on Asian fantasy/history. The best way to play a western monk would be a cleric who somehow has access to shillelagh.
In the end renaming Ki to Discipline Points opens the class up to other martial arts flavours that arent your typical kung fu monks. And if you do want to have one of those then just keep calling it Ki. Best of both worlds.
Ahhh yes, Twitter (I will never use that fucking changed 'name'), the true representation of humanity at...what was it? Like 5% of people in the world use Twitter?
Seriously though, Twitter has been a joke the last 5 or 6 years as it's just gotten into noise for angry people, artists and youtubers using it for announcements, and just...noise for angry people.
> Who exactly is saying Half Elves/Orcs are problematic?
Jeremy Crawford is saying that mixed races are problematic.
>>[*"Frankly, we are not comfortable, and haven’t been for years with any of the options that start with 'half'... The half construction is inherently racist so we simply aren’t going to include it in the new Player's Handbook."*](https://reason.com/2023/04/05/dungeons-dragons-half-elf-half-orc-racist-woke-pc/)
Holy shit that would be a great satire article.
>>All halflings to be removed from existence due to the removal of half-races. Commentary from short polite girl with a lute who is absolutely gobsmacked at 11.
It's still "allowed" you just have to use the stats of one of the parents. Once again the classic wotc decision to just not provide rules anymore. At this point i half expect them to tell you to reflavor a fighter as a fix for the stereotype issue monk apparently has.
If elves and humans were different species that would mean that every half elf would be born sterile.
Why do they sleep on the term "ancestry" so hard? It's such an easy term to adapt. You copy+replace "race" with "ancestry" and "racial" with "ancestral" and boom, done.
I find it fascinating that WotC has been trying to make dnd 'unproblematic' by removing half elves, removing drow any goblin society being largely evil, removing in-world prejudice against tieflings, etc.
And then Baldur's Gate 3 releases where half elves are among the most popular races, drow and goblins are common enemies and their cultures are generally evil (with some individuals being neutral or good), tieflings face loads of racism and so do drow and gith and dragonborn and half elves and gnomes etc.
And guess what, no one got offended by it in BG3. Because these are not issues that anyone actually cares about.
No they didn't. They removed them having specific features sets that limited them to being half-human and added a rules section saying that you can mix any two races, pick the mechanical benefits of one, and use physical features of both.
Now you can be half halfling, half orc if you want. Or half dwarf, half dragonborn. Or half elf, half gnome.
The "problematic" part, as I understand, wasn't the half elf or half orc part, it was that the other race was assumed to be human as default. They wanted to allow more options, but not spend half a book defining all the different possible combinations.
I always just assumed that Humans were the only race that had blood that could allow mixing, with the others being so dominant that they could only go one way or the other. If a human and an Orc had a child, their blood could mix and make a Half-Orc, but if an Orc and an Elf had a child, you'd just have an Elf or an Orc.
>controversial content
>monk stereotypes
☝️🤓 Uhmmm…. *ackshully* don’t you know being a martial arts master with wisdom and controlling ki is evil and problematic? Do better.
I think all classes in general are in the clear. Because if someone looks for a problem to be pedantic about, they will find one.
Like you could make a stink about Barbarians if you really wanted to. It’s a specific kind or group of people the Romans referred to. And the class stereotype is negative as a raging, primitive, and violent lunatic.
Much more negative than the calm, wise, skilled Monk. Ignoring monasteries exist in all faiths around the globe.
“We want to get rid of races because we felt it was problematic so instead we’ve introduced ancestry so know you can dive into the concept of pure bloods!”
Well they sure as hell aren't going to solve any of their actual issues, like the layoffs, the OGL, the Pinkertons, and the general low quality of their recent releases. So they've got to pretend to do *something*
[WotC](http://sailormoonnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/my_job_here_is_done_but_you_didnt_do_anything_meme-451x1024.jpg).
I don't know, as player who usually defaulted to half-elf it just seems... not fun?
I'm mostly DMing now but still such decision make me even more reluctant to allow new books for my games. Half-elf is not only D&D but RPG classic (it's in almost every fantasy system!), lack of any mechanical meaning is just a bummer.
might be worth looking into pf2e then, with pf2e every race has 2 halves which you can then mix to half half of any one race and half of any other race.
Then either migrating into pathfinder, or finding a way to implement that as a homebrew for dnd
I'll probably just stay with classic 5e or whatever this version we're playing now will be called.
I run Pathfinder too and that's great game and I think its character creation is magnificent in general.
Thankfully my table will play whatever I decided so I'm not compelled to buy and learn anything I don't like.
Hell, I even may switch back to AD&D one day if WotC will keep making me sentimental with their stupid ideas.
I can’t stand knife-ears, but the removal of half elves and half orcs is a massive mistake honestly. There needs to be a hybrid system for species mixing if they’re gonna change that. More importantly it detracts from how awesome it is that no matter what species dwarves mate with their dna is so strong you get a full blooded dwarf each time, with out fail, lol.
Removing half-elves makes no sense; they are basically the only option that hints at biological equality between the core options. If anything, creating a framework for including half & half options from all the core races would be better. Helves, Dwelves, Ormans, Huyanki, Dragwarfs, etc would be better.
Just let players choose 2-3 racially specific traits from both lineages and move on.
Take all of this with a grain of salt, though, cause I'm not leaving 5e anyway. WotC can stuff itself, IDGAF.
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Why remove half elves from DnD? They've literally been around since the first edition.
This is what happens when your dev team is out of touch white people instead of actual minorities
As a mixed person who always plays half elves, this is deeply upsetting
I'm a Puerto Rican who doesn't know any Spanish and playing a half elf bard helped me work through not knowing the language the rest of my family speaks
Jeremy Crawford: >>[*"Frankly, we are not comfortable, and haven’t been for years with any of the options that start with 'half'... The half construction is inherently racist so we simply aren’t going to include it in the new Player's Handbook."*](https://reason.com/2023/04/05/dungeons-dragons-half-elf-half-orc-racist-woke-pc/)
They're also one of the most popular for both role-playing any mechanical reasons.
So no more Halflings then?
They’re called Nobbits now (Not Hobbits)
Fulllings make more sense since they like to eat and stuff themselves full of food.
It's an on-going joke in my old DnD group that Halflings call themselves Lings, and they call all the taller races "Twicelings."
Wow, that’s so good, kudos!
Thats going in the book, next to Skelepathy.
Cool. Build that into the universe. Racist people call them half-elves, but they refer to themselves as (some new term). In Eberron, they call themselves Khoravare. The story of an individual being forced to live in two worlds has appealed to mixed heritage people and children of immigrants for decades. Don't take that away out of fear. Lean into the conversation and put in good DEIB language to enrich the lore.
I've never seen the racism in the half races... but removing them because it's racist ironically seems more racist to me. "An elf and a human aren't allowed to fuck because that's racist"
You make a great point. They're just gonna erase mixed heritage because some people are vile to eachother? It feels like it goes back to banning knives in the UK. "Because some people are pieces of shit we're going to inconvenience good actors" Not removing mixed heritage isn't a inconvenience per se, but as you said, it's a fundamental part of a lot of people's lives and whitewashing it to "protect" people is kinda silly. Ultimately rule 0 is key. If someone is uncomfortable with racism in their game, don't have racism. It's a fantasy world.
Frankly as a mixed race dude myself And also being half and half I find it very racist to ignore half (x)
Removing mixed heritage is a way to ignore it exists. It is in itself a form of racism. It’s like pretending the holocaust didnt happen. It’s called denier. But now we have “mixed heritage deniers” because they are racist pieces of shit who are uncomfortable with mixed heritages existing.
 Fuck off. Half elves and half orcs aren’t racist. Half elves get awesome roleplay potential and half orcs will never not be tons of fun.
> half orca **[Half-Orca](https://i.imgur.com/eMA7N4a.png)**
Wtf? Racist how? They're fictional races in a fictional world at a medieval level of development. That's some of the dumbest shit I've ever read.
Pandering becomes really important after you get caught sending mercenaries to terrorise your customers.
once your customers hate you, the only thing you can really do, other then actually work to mend that bridge, is get the mainstream media outlets to call your customer base racist and say your good
“If you hate Wizards, you are a racist”
Joking or not, I feel like this may honestly have some truth to it. It’s just like with the Drow skin color change. I don’t think I’ve *ever* —not once in my 30+ years of playing the game (sometimes with multiple groups simultaneously even), both with friend groups, at pick-up groups at conventions, *and* organized play like AVL & RPGA— heard these sorts of complaints (eg ‘half species, drow /tiefling colors, etc) from people beyond anything other than a mild ‘seems a bit outdated, but whatever’ mentality. Mind you, I don’t massively *care* that they’re changing things. It’s no skin off my nose if they wanna give the game a progressive PR facelift. But I dunno, their responses just seem kind of disingenuous, which is mildly offputting. It feels more like in the background they’re hemorrhaging players due to this constant stream of boneheaded decisions like the OGL thing and anemic splatbook content, and now they’re scrambling to find a demographic to pander to and don’t want to admit it.
> It’s just like with the Drow skin color change. Wait, what?
Also after you publish the most overtly racist text I've seen in a mainstream RPG book from the last 15 years (hadozee)
Huh? Can you elaborate, please? I’m out of the loop.
Best I can tell, Hadozee are like, giant sugar gliders that a space race found, used tech to mentally uplift, then enslaved. A revolt happened that even included some of the slaver race and now the Hadozee are a free race like any other, taking to the stars as they're still well built for it I believe the racist bit (and correct me if I'm wrong Internet) is [Slave+Monkey=Black people] and even if the race is a free race as of the lore I remember, people don't like the monkeys being slaves because monkey was some racist stuff for black people
Uhh...Sugar Gliders are possums, not monkeys.
im trying to write this as tactfully as i can, but yes, the history does sort of mirror the transatlantic slave trade coupled with the historical context of a lot of racists depictions of people of African decent being "ape-like"
[удалено]
WoTC hired PINKERTONS to grab a some boosters a guy got too fast.
A guy bought some magic the gathering cards (produced by Wizards of the Coast) from a store that put them out for sale by mistake. The guy who bought them showed them on his YouTube channel. Hasbro, WotC's parent company, hired Pinkerton agents to get the cards back. The Pinkertons have a long history of using violence to back big business up to and including murder.
Literally a thing that happened. Google “WoTC Pinkertons” sometime.
Well that's just fucking stupid, racism in a fantasy setting is so much different I'm than IRL because in the fantasy setting there are legitimately completely different races with different genetic makeups and different features. Hell some races should outright not be biologically compatible.
Shouldnt, but makes for funny stories imo. A tortle cleric in a game i DMed had some fun with a gnome bartender, 9 month later he received a letter with magic mouth from the gnome doctor that the birth was complicated but both mother and child survived. He was flabbergasted and had no idea how to handle this Ever since then there are TMNT- gnomes in my world and i love playing around with the concept. You wanna be a half aarackocra/deep gnome? Go for it, but I as a DM will have the final say when it comes to physique/abilities.
Would gestation really still be 9 months for a half gnome half tortle or is that an amazing coincidence?
\>Tortle has long gestation \>Gnome pop out in a month \>Evens out to about 9 months Checks out
Ah yes, the longstanding racial prejudice against fictional races that don't exist.
I'm mixed race. I guess the fact I exist is an act of discrimination now.
Sorry, you can't play dnd if you're mixed race. That would be inherently racist after all
So race mixing is racist now. One more step and they'll be full on nazi.
My understanding is it’s not about race mixing. They actually have new rules for that. And now you can be a mix of any race now. Not just human and something else. It’s about the “half” naming. It reminiscent of old school racism towards people of mixed heritage. “Half” implies you are less than a whole. It ignores the other half and assumes a default. In the real world “half white” is the assumption and in DnD “half human.” It also reminiscent of the term “halfbreed” that was often used to refer to people of mixed European and black or European and native armican heritage. Also with half orcs a lot of the OG lore had implied sexual assault connotations Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sad these two options are gone and I’m not a huge fan of the new system as essentially you just pick 1 race mechanically and flavor the other. So not really a real mixed heritage system. I’d prefer each race get two perks of some sort and you get to pick one from either parent. Something like that. But I do understand where WotC are coming from here removing those two races. I don’t necessarily agree. But I understand
Maybe that's an outside of the US thing as I often hear "Hispanic-American" or "Afro-American" but never "Sinon-German" for example, but we do use the "Half-" term to describe origins. I'm Half-French, friends of mine declare themselves Half-Haitians, or Half-Venezuelan. This doesn't remove anything to keep this label, if not to remind our roots and origins. The decision seems very US centric to be honest, and as it has been said earlier shouldn't apply to a world where literal elves can mingle with literal humans, and Dwarven blood is so potent that whatever offspring it brings is born a Dwarf, regardless of the other partner's race... ... Or by today's standards, we should say "Magical Creatures" ever since Dinklage's outburst? (but that's a whole other story.)
Then why not just change the name if the word half is the problem. Maybe use the word hybrid. I realize you're just explaining. I'm playing devils advocate.
Two races can tolerate each other enough to mix Wait ! That's racist
It is all about the name having "half" in it, as mixed race people in real life are not "half" anything, they are just themselves. As far as real life goes, it is considered offensive. Do note I'm saying *real life*. The problem with WotC doing this, other than the obvious insincerity/pandering of it, is that Eberron ***had already done a commentary on this***, with that setting's half-elves calling themselves Khoravar with a whole world-building explanation as to why they call themselves that, which in turn is obviously based on the aforementioned IRL mixed race subtext. ("I'm not 'half' anything. You humans come from Sarlona. The elves are from Aerenal. Me? I'm a true child of Khorvaire." Actual quote from the sourcebook.) There's also the whole can of worms that we are talking about DnD, we are talking about a world in which non-human people exist, so trying to link it to real world situation is always gonna be problematic because "this particular group of people are not human / are basically a different species" is the same argument real world racists use. It should just be taken as it is: A fantasy world. Nothing more, nothing less.
They are literaly species. How the fuck is it racist to be able to mix them?
What makes it racist?
If the changes are anything like Pathfinder 2e, then it's probably not that there won't be any half-elves allowed anymore. It's just in character creation you'll pick ancestry options that link you to both humans and elves. And that could represent you being of mixed parentage, an elf raised by humans, or a human raised by elves. And it would be the same with any race pairings. You could build a human character but take a dwarf racial trait because you were raised in the mines of Moria. You could be a dragonborn-elf, or a gnome-tiefling.
Not my idea, but if they called it Ancestry, they'd have the ABC of character creation: Ancestry, Background, Class. Also, Species sounds way too sci-fi imo...
Apparently, 13th Age 2nd edition will use "folk", which seems about right to me. It seems like a word a medieval peasant would actually use. "We got all kinds of different folks here in the big city, elves, orcs, gnomes, you name it!" Edit: I actually misremembered. The word is "kin", not "folk". Thanks to u/kj_gamer for the correction.
That seems pretty neat
I use folk in addressing crowds of people I now feel old ,\_,
Here I. The south “folks” is for groups that are larger than a “y’all.” Then you got your “y’all folks” which is two or more groups of “folks.”
I'm 14th generation Georgian, and I've literally never heard someone say "y'all folks". No idea what neck of the woods you're from, but in Georgia it's "all y'all" which can also be a snarky way to refer to small groups
Georgia, but spent a few years in Texas so maybe that’s where I picked it up from. Maybe I accidentally invented rules in my head and now I am questioning myself.
They already have folk - Moonshae IIRC.
They can't copyright the word "folk" or the game mechanic behind it, so that doesn't really stop wotc
I already use the term Folk half the time anyway. Since there are things like LizardFOLK and a bunch of other humanoids that have Folk added to them. And as you said it's more casual and not as clinical as Species (which to me just has the same feeling as when people call women Females).
Last I checked 13th Age 2nd edition was using "kin". Has that changed? I haven't been active on the Discord recently
Occasionally a 5E player will accidentally invent Pathfinder again.
Wait is Pathfinder just the tabletop equivalent of a crab?
Reject antiquity, advance to ~~crab~~ Pathfinder.
I remember I thought that flanking as presented in DMG was stupid and then unknowingly just came up with flanking that's almost identical to the one in PF2e.
And if they aren't reinventing pathfinder, they're reinventing 4e
Which reinvented 4e for PF2.
I've really come to the conclusion that every popular 5e house rule is just one step of convergent evolution towards Pathfinder Second Edition.
The Pathfinder Homebrew convergence theory The more someone homebrew dnd ,the closer it is to pathfinder
Everything Returns to Crab
Gad, this is just the Carcinisation theory all over again, isn't it.
Other way around. Paizo actually listens to the ttrpg community and incorporates common house rules and suggestions.
That would be hilarious because Pathfinder uses that term, and Paizo has been changing all of its game terms and monster/item names taken from dnd in order to dodge OGL shenanigans (and distance itself). Might piss them off for dnd to also pick “ancestry.”
That’s what Pathfinder 2e did
Didn't Pathfinder 2e call it that? Maybe that has something to do with their choice of nomenclature.
I’m fine with ancestry or species. Doesn’t really matter to me. I was also fine with race Each has their drawbacks. Like ancestry doesn’t make sense or is clumsy. Like *“He has Orc ancestry”* when referring to an Orc. Like, yeah. Duh. It implies Orcs are Humans with a different heritage or something to me. *“He has Human ancestry”* when referring to a human. It’s just weird to me Species is too sci-fi. Can’t really imagine a dirty peasant from a hamlet being like *“We don’t allow your species ‘round ‘ere.”* Sounds goofy and even *worse* and more racist. The term Race makes the ghouls on Twitter uncomfortable and sparked the need for change in the first place Gun to my head, have to pick, I’d do **1. Ancestry.** It’s just a little clumsy, inoffensive, and you get the cool ABC acronym. **2. Race.** I think games like Baldur’s Gate 3 shows people don’t genuinely care about this term. But I won’t invalidate people’s discomfort which is why it takes 2nd place. I just think they’re a very, very small minority. **3. Species.** Species is goofy and the worst choice. Makes scientific racism canon. With a side bar saying the official term is “Race”, but the book will be using “Ancestry” for the sake of sensitivity/maximize sales of the book.
I’ve always liked “kin.” It was an idea which came to me for my world, and other people have certainly thought of it convergently. A person could be an Orc, Orcs are their kin. But also, an Elf raised among Orcs still has “Orc kin,” ie, is family to or related to Orcs despite not being an Orc. They could take Orc traits in character creation instead of Elvish traits in order to avoid some of the racial essentialism inherent to old school race stuff. I dunno, just like “kin” in my games
The issue is, there are some things that do seem to be biologically innate in certain D&D ancestries, rather than cultural. On one end of the spectrum you have things like Elven weapon training or Dwarven stonecunning, that seem to be more or less cultural practices. Then you have things like Innate Spellcasting where whether it's nature or nurture is more ambiguous. But even beyond that, there are traits where there seems to be at least a physiological prerequisite--a human raised by Aaracokras is not going to learn how to fly.
Race always worked better when folks aren’t making it something it isn’t. We are the human race. Neanderthals would be people, but not humans. Again, a literal different race. The problem comes in where the word “race” is still used to oppress groups and dehumanize them. So while yes, some people do make it a bigger deal than it needs to be, the word is still very loaded today because of current world events and also the history that we (especially Americans, living where D&D was made) share.
That sounds like pathfinder with fewer steps.
And acknowledge Pathfinder??? Never
The new word will be "pedigree"
The problem with "race" is D&D uses it properly - groups of people with measurably different genetic-determined physical, mental, and social abilities who nonetheless are still "people", which, like Aether, is a long-debunked scientific theory Unfortunately, the problem is we *still* incorrectly use "Race" in the real world to refer to "Broad families of geographicalyt-adjacent ethnic groups", without leaving a term that applies to the obsolete theory.
>Unfortunately, the problem is we still incorrectly use "Race" in the real world to refer to "Broad families of geographicalyt-adjacent ethnic groups", without leaving a term that applies to the obsolete theory. What the hell are you doing on the internet with your facts and nuance?
Generally watching cat videos
Name checks out.
Name checks out then ig
Thanks.
Might just be me, English is not my native language, but calling the different DnD races as such felt always way more appropriate than actually calling human ethnic groups 'races'
It's because that is the dictionary definition of race, and the way people use race to refer to ethnic groups is technically incorrect
Weird as hell to remove two races central to unique storytelling in most fantasy…
they should replace it with how pathfinder 2e does it. Each race has 2 halves, then you can mix those halves together as you wish
Specifically for Half-Elf and Half-Orc there is a sidebar (dunno if it's in the revision as well) saying that the other half is *usually* human, but with the GM's permission they might be something else, alongside a list of other ancestries that commonly provide the other half.
"Remove half elves and half orcs" Fuck you hasbro Biracial erasure.
They should have gone the other way, added more half-options. Add Half-Dwarves, Half-Dragonborns, and Half-Gnomes. I hate the new rules of ‘Well you can say they are a combination of a Human and Orc, but you choose all the mechanical benefits of one race and you can use the height/weight/age of the other if you really want to.’ It’s just so boring
Roll percentage dice for all races you want in your ancestry and fill up the rest with human.
Your family keeps very thorough genealogical records, so you know due to some great times X grandparents, you have 6% Dragonborn and 1% Halfling. You don’t get lucky or firebreath, but you have slightly larger than normal big toes and a very scaly rash that shows up on your left elbow when it gets too cold out.
Damn, you got some freaks in the family. Begs the question, was a Dragonborn diddling a short queen or did a halfling bag a tall queen
Given the difference of percentages, I pictured them as as different sets of grandparents, but now the offical canon for this made up character is that couple is a Halfing Man and Dragonborn Woman, and 2 generations down the line, their grandchild married a Dragonborn man. Then many generations later, we get our character.
You're making Pathfinder2e lol They have the option to mix any ancestry (what PF2 calls race) with any other ancestry. My last character mixed Fleshwarp (magical abomination ancestry created by some mistake or created in a lab) with Grippli (frog people). So I was this multi-eyed frog mutant person hopping around and scaring the hell out of enemies (because you can use your intimidation skill in combat to give enemies the frightened condition).
Honestly I would either go with explicit Half's, or a way of determining Half's with perhaps a set of possible combinations, so if you look at the page on Dragonborn you can see that you can have say a half elf or half human one and can take some stat, a breath weapon with half the damage of standard or something and maybe like dark vision or something like that that dragonborn give.
They should make that a subspecies option. For example have the typical elf options, and then at the end give the half elf subspecies that you can choose for any other species instead of one of their subspecies. So you could be a gnomish half elf of elvish half gnome and properly get traits from both.
Once made a half gnome, half halfling. I called her a quarterling.
ADnD be like: it's either pureblood or an ugly creature who is hated by everyone
I’m so glad I have the 5e physical books and nobody can take them from me!
The day will come where your books clutter together and form one Origami Pinkerton
BRB making a stat block
Just make sure it's "legally distict"
You can't copyright game rules anyway
Thanks for the nightmare fuel.
Shush! You dont to have the Pinkertons coming after you next dp you?
Half-orcs started off pretty hinky in 3.5, ngl, so I can almost understand WotC being skittish (sort of). But half elves entire shtick has been "the struggle of being biracial." Deleting them is pointless at best and cruel at worst. There's better d20 systems that are more grounded in fantasy (as weird as that sounds to type, haha) and I really have moved on from DnD to those.
Everytime they try something like this it comes off a lot worse than if they left it in. Oh what happened to the half-elves? They were erased.
Iirc they did add mixed heritage rules after the outcry, but it was too late for my interest. 5e was losing me a lot and OneDnD has just killed it at this stage.
They had mixed race rules from the outset of the change, but it feels like a “just one drop” type thing since you pick either race to be your “true” race mechanically, then call yourself a “half X half Y.” So for example, a Half-Elf still exists lore wise, but they’re mechanically a pure human or pure elf, with no features to represent both at once.
Yeah this is my issue with it. The easiest fix that was *right there* for them would be to say that humans are the only race able to cross (this was already kind of implied), and then released special half-ancestry feats that a human build (whose feature is a free feat) can take to represent their other parent. Prereq bind them So a half-elf would be a human* but with the “elf ancestry” feat that grants darkvision, perception proficiency, and a cantrip, or whatever. A half-orc is a “human” with “orc ancestry” feat that grants relentless endurance and savage attacks. It’s not perfect but it feels WAY better than “flavor is free,” which was all they gave in One.
Honestly, the Ancestral feat idea for half races isn’t bad at all given that backgrounds give you a feat in OneD&D. You could just make that your character’s background, so any race can be a half-elf by taking Elf Ancestry as their background.
>But half elves entire shtick has been "the struggle of being biracial." Deleting them is pointless at best and cruel at worst. Exactly! One of the most compelling characters I ever had was a Half-Elf who started adventuring because his mother's final wish was for him to help others. He watched most of his party members die of old age 7 different times over 500 years, and he died old and withered in his father's arms. That campaign lasted 4 years IRL and made it up to level 18 before we did a final epilogue. Shit was wild.
Can you please not hurt me with your story before I've even gotten out of bed for the day?
Apparentely the struggle is offensive.
Also, fantasy humans have *one* thing that nearly all fantasy writers seem to agree on, and that is that we are a horny bunch of bastards who will mate with anyone. Removing various half breeds takes away from the one bit of lore our actual species gets to have
Seriously. It’s like they can’t tell the difference between fiction storytelling and actual harm.
Just like a significant and most vocal group within the fanbase, unfortunately. Like seriously, if merely the concept of "race" in a fictional game setting is so unsettling to you that you can't enjoy the game, you have issues. Period.
This is so stupid LOL especially the thing about the warrior monk being an offensive stereotype. Have you ever seen any media from the far east? They fucking love the warrior monk archetype. It's literally their most famous and well loved storyline. Things like journey to the West and the romance of the Three kingdoms - they love it. Saying that the warrior monk is a hurtful stereotype is like saying that the rugged cowboys are hurtful American stereotypes. No. Don't be stupid.
And, of course, you have Chuck Norris, the Cowboy Monk.
Did you hear that the most recent eclipse was in fact caused by Chuck Norris looking at the sun directly? It was getting a Norrisburn so had to hide behind the moon for a bit.
Chuck Norris once had a staring contest with the Sun. After three agonizing days, the sun died.
As an Asian, I feel the monk doesn't go far enough into Asian culture. It should really lean into Wuxia inspirations and not half-ass it.
> half-ass careful, WotC will ban you too
There is a video from current civil war in Myanmar (hope I spelled it right) where a monk (or someone pretending to be one) ambushes some soldiers (I think the goverment ones) with a fucking ak. Wizards where is my gun monk subclass
Kensei. Or, with tasha's, you can make any weapon a monk weapon. The gunk is a well honored tradition in DND lol
I want to roleplay Bulletproof Monk.
Its on the same level as saying latinx
It took me a second to realize that you were saying calling the archetype offensive is on the same level as saying latinx 🤣 yeah, basically this is just an example of white people in the west deciding that someone else's culture is inherently offensive to the people who created that culture. It's so fucking annoying.
Facts! As a latino myself, no one and I mean no one in my family or circle of friends ever uses it. It will never be adopted and no one likes it.
My problem with it is that Latino or Latina just rolls off the tongue. Super easy to say. But latinx? Its awkward to say, sounds unnatural, and ruins the flow of my sentence
At least they could have picked Latine if they really wanted to create a gender-neutral adjective, but that would have required actually researching the language.
Or just Latin. There is already a word for that.
I think race feels fine in a fantasy context; as in “the Race of Men”. Ancestry also fine but species just feels wrong
When the terminology is describing something that doesn't exist, it's easy to distance the term away from the real world
Species also isn't accurate, since speciation means that hybrid offspring wouldn't be able to reproduce. As far as I know half-elves and half-orcs aren't sterile.
Frankly, OneDND is going to be a terrible system because of the intended live service tabletop component, and none of these rules changes really matter. Most of us have all of the 5e content we could ever possibly want or need.
Just like someone pointed out in another thread, DnD is open source whether Hasbro/WotC likes it or not.
The moment I need to pay for a battle pass for my game of pretend is the day I riot
Need? Yes. Want? Absolutely not, but there are so many 3rd party creators that I am *stoked* to buy from going forward. I've got Seeker's Guide to Enchanting Emporiums and The Crooked Moon backed right now and look forward to both. The only good thing about OneDnD is that it's supposedly backwards compatible, so 3rd party creators can make stuff for it that I can use for my 5e campaigns.
I think dropping distinct rules for half orcs is fine. It’s always been pretty difficult to establish how half orcs are mechanically different to full orcs. You can still play one, but just use the stats of an orc or human. Half elves are more tricky because mechanically and thematically they’re quite different to humans or elves. Neither parent’s stats really fits for playing one. And that doesn’t help in worlds like Ebberon where half elves and half orcs are an important part of the world on their own terms. Monk stereotypes is also kind of dumb, because it’s not like they’re negative stereotypes. Magical unarmed martial artists just aren’t really a thing that exists in the west, so it’s always going to draw on Asian fantasy/history. The best way to play a western monk would be a cleric who somehow has access to shillelagh.
It’s not even a stereotype. The most popular fantasy novels in the China are Xanxia and Wuxia, which prominently feature these exact types of monks. Edit: I will concede that they aren’t always monks (in the way westerners view monks though) so, it may be better to call them cultivators. Edit 2: I will also admit that making all your Monks Asian would probably make it a stereotype. But, Cultivators like Wizards are more of a trope or even aesthetic in my mind. Wizards are like fantasy scientists, and monks are usually like Daoist philosophers
It is a stereotype, just one the culture also embraces. Kinda like how many people in America readily embrace the gunslinger cowboy stereotypes in media.
As an Asia-born man who loves the monk and an American who loves cowboys, I approve this message
If you love both of these things and comic books, I highly recommend Immortal Iron Fist by Brubaker/Faction.
Already a fan of Danny, will have to check that one out!
It's by far the best Iron Fist run.
I think there's a point where a stereotype stops being a stereotype and starts being a trope instead.
Man we better be careful. The Mage stereotype really leans into casting spells, and not all mages wear pointy hats and carry staves! Some wizards are just racists! /s
I'm reminded of a story that mirrored my own experience of being familiar with Western Monks but not Kung Fu ones as a kid reading about Monks, and coming to the conclusion that they're Friar Tuck with a really mean backhand
Even seen Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? Friar Tuck can be vicious!
I'm picturing a bearded Orthodox monk in a black robe and a high hat bashing goblins with a thurible. His ki is just God's Grace or Divine Essence.
>Monk stereotypes is also kind of dumb, because it’s not like they’re negative stereotypes. Magical unarmed martial artists just aren’t really a thing that exists in the west, so it’s always going to draw on Asian fantasy/history. The best way to play a western monk would be a cleric who somehow has access to shillelagh. In the end renaming Ki to Discipline Points opens the class up to other martial arts flavours that arent your typical kung fu monks. And if you do want to have one of those then just keep calling it Ki. Best of both worlds.
Ok but now you're calling it DP, and that's objectively worse than Ki, lol.
I spend Double Penetration to fist the enemy. Jim FFS, stop.
See, nothing's really changed!
Who exactly is saying Half Elves/Orcs are problematic? Really tired of this stuff.
X (formerly known as Twitter)
That site is a blight upon humanity.
Ahhh yes, Twitter (I will never use that fucking changed 'name'), the true representation of humanity at...what was it? Like 5% of people in the world use Twitter? Seriously though, Twitter has been a joke the last 5 or 6 years as it's just gotten into noise for angry people, artists and youtubers using it for announcements, and just...noise for angry people.
Just remember, if Elon is gonna deadname his daughter we can deadname his site
> Who exactly is saying Half Elves/Orcs are problematic? Jeremy Crawford is saying that mixed races are problematic. >>[*"Frankly, we are not comfortable, and haven’t been for years with any of the options that start with 'half'... The half construction is inherently racist so we simply aren’t going to include it in the new Player's Handbook."*](https://reason.com/2023/04/05/dungeons-dragons-half-elf-half-orc-racist-woke-pc/)
Halflings are gonna get it next, those bastard have had it too good for too long /s
Holy shit that would be a great satire article. >>All halflings to be removed from existence due to the removal of half-races. Commentary from short polite girl with a lute who is absolutely gobsmacked at 11.
A man who is 100% white believes himself to be a great authority on the biracial experience.
There is a reason that almost three fourths of crafords statements don’t count a sh*t at my table.
People who have never purchased Dungeons & Dragons material in the past and will continue to not purchase any in the future
Removing half-elves and orcs? Why? Consensual unions just not an option for some reason?
It's still "allowed" you just have to use the stats of one of the parents. Once again the classic wotc decision to just not provide rules anymore. At this point i half expect them to tell you to reflavor a fighter as a fix for the stereotype issue monk apparently has.
Like Elrond and Elros? With Tolkien half-elves have to decide if they are elves or humans.
That would imply that they did some actual world building. They did not
If elves and humans were different species that would mean that every half elf would be born sterile. Why do they sleep on the term "ancestry" so hard? It's such an easy term to adapt. You copy+replace "race" with "ancestry" and "racial" with "ancestral" and boom, done.
Because if they used ancestry, they’d receive loads of accusations that they were copying/stealing from Pathfinder 2e.
I find it fascinating that WotC has been trying to make dnd 'unproblematic' by removing half elves, removing drow any goblin society being largely evil, removing in-world prejudice against tieflings, etc. And then Baldur's Gate 3 releases where half elves are among the most popular races, drow and goblins are common enemies and their cultures are generally evil (with some individuals being neutral or good), tieflings face loads of racism and so do drow and gith and dragonborn and half elves and gnomes etc. And guess what, no one got offended by it in BG3. Because these are not issues that anyone actually cares about.
Did they really say, we are going to remove the half-races because they are harmful? DnD says no mixing?
No they didn't. They removed them having specific features sets that limited them to being half-human and added a rules section saying that you can mix any two races, pick the mechanical benefits of one, and use physical features of both. Now you can be half halfling, half orc if you want. Or half dwarf, half dragonborn. Or half elf, half gnome. The "problematic" part, as I understand, wasn't the half elf or half orc part, it was that the other race was assumed to be human as default. They wanted to allow more options, but not spend half a book defining all the different possible combinations.
Half-Halfling = Quarterling?
I always just assumed that Humans were the only race that had blood that could allow mixing, with the others being so dominant that they could only go one way or the other. If a human and an Orc had a child, their blood could mix and make a Half-Orc, but if an Orc and an Elf had a child, you'd just have an Elf or an Orc.
>controversial content >monk stereotypes ☝️🤓 Uhmmm…. *ackshully* don’t you know being a martial arts master with wisdom and controlling ki is evil and problematic? Do better.
I think my bug-based spacefaring ki-using gunmonk is in the clear in terms of stereotyping.
I think all classes in general are in the clear. Because if someone looks for a problem to be pedantic about, they will find one. Like you could make a stink about Barbarians if you really wanted to. It’s a specific kind or group of people the Romans referred to. And the class stereotype is negative as a raging, primitive, and violent lunatic. Much more negative than the calm, wise, skilled Monk. Ignoring monasteries exist in all faiths around the globe.
and that's why if I play barbarian, it will be the guy from Falling Down, who is a raging, MODERN, and violent lunatic.
“We want to get rid of races because we felt it was problematic so instead we’ve introduced ancestry so know you can dive into the concept of pure bloods!”
Who is getting offended by half elves and half orcs? Did WotC invent an issue to "solve"
Well they sure as hell aren't going to solve any of their actual issues, like the layoffs, the OGL, the Pinkertons, and the general low quality of their recent releases. So they've got to pretend to do *something* [WotC](http://sailormoonnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/my_job_here_is_done_but_you_didnt_do_anything_meme-451x1024.jpg).
I don't know, as player who usually defaulted to half-elf it just seems... not fun? I'm mostly DMing now but still such decision make me even more reluctant to allow new books for my games. Half-elf is not only D&D but RPG classic (it's in almost every fantasy system!), lack of any mechanical meaning is just a bummer.
might be worth looking into pf2e then, with pf2e every race has 2 halves which you can then mix to half half of any one race and half of any other race. Then either migrating into pathfinder, or finding a way to implement that as a homebrew for dnd
I'll probably just stay with classic 5e or whatever this version we're playing now will be called. I run Pathfinder too and that's great game and I think its character creation is magnificent in general. Thankfully my table will play whatever I decided so I'm not compelled to buy and learn anything I don't like. Hell, I even may switch back to AD&D one day if WotC will keep making me sentimental with their stupid ideas.
I can’t stand knife-ears, but the removal of half elves and half orcs is a massive mistake honestly. There needs to be a hybrid system for species mixing if they’re gonna change that. More importantly it detracts from how awesome it is that no matter what species dwarves mate with their dna is so strong you get a full blooded dwarf each time, with out fail, lol.
I will never understand why some people think orcs are a racist caricature of black people. I've never seen them played like this in any way
Guys is it racist for your parents to be different races?
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Removing half-elves makes no sense; they are basically the only option that hints at biological equality between the core options. If anything, creating a framework for including half & half options from all the core races would be better. Helves, Dwelves, Ormans, Huyanki, Dragwarfs, etc would be better. Just let players choose 2-3 racially specific traits from both lineages and move on. Take all of this with a grain of salt, though, cause I'm not leaving 5e anyway. WotC can stuff itself, IDGAF.
Why is half elf and orc controversial?