There are games that have replaced the defined half-races with other mechanics, usually 'blood/ancestry' feats or traits--HARP, Fantasycraft (with the Adventurer's Companion)--and the core premise of 'pick one for mechanical purposes, define the non-mechanical elements however you like' isn't necessarily a bad approach. But like Steven Mitchell, I don't trust WotC to do this in any but the most heavy-handed and coercive manner.

I couldn't decide what was more idiotic:

Removal of half-races, which actually ganks a portion of FR lore (specifically, Deepingdale, not that I expect them to care).

Or their inability to even suggest specs needed to run their VTT.

Willing to bet that the "removal" will simply be a renaming, like Half Giant = Goliath. No chance in hell that they will remove established options.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 05, 2023, 10:03:44 AM
I couldn't decide what was more idiotic:

Removal of half-races, which actually ganks a portion of FR lore (specifically, Deepingdale, not that I expect them to care).

Or their inability to even suggest specs needed to run their VTT.

My answer: Both.  WOTC is very good at being very dumb.

What a weird thing to do.

I was reading Forbidden Lands the other day and that game considers half-elves to be the inheritors of the world, since they take the best from both races. Oh yeah, and orcs started off as a slave race. Interesting, if not original, ideas with lots of room to role play.

Sanitization is the opposite of interesting. I hope WotC keeps sanitizing their game, so more people move to other, better games!

I don't think half-things are racist or whatever, but I also don't like them for setting or game purposes.
E: I also don't think it makes sense for other species to fall in love and have kids in sci-fi. It just really doesn't make any sense.

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 05, 2023, 10:34:50 AMSanitization is the opposite of interesting. I hope WotC keeps sanitizing their game, so more people move to other, better games!

Dear God no! Let them stay in their sanitized reservation.

If they move they'll be like the people who flee California, then try and make their new home in to California. They can't help themselves.

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 05, 2023, 10:34:50 AM
What a weird thing to do.

I was reading Forbidden Lands the other day and that game considers half-elves to be the inheritors of the world, since they take the best from both races. Oh yeah, and orcs started off as a slave race. Interesting, if not original, ideas with lots of room to role play.

Sanitization is the opposite of interesting. I hope WotC keeps sanitizing their game, so more people move to other, better games!

And in The One Ring 2E they explicitly state: "The aim of The One Ring is to let players feel what it means to go adventuring in a wild and perilous land from a forgotten past. It is a threatening world that has more in common with the world depicted in epic sagas of the Dark Ages of Europe than with our contemporary world." - Pg 11 text box

I know there are people who aren't necessarily fans of Free League's in-house system, but at least they seem to be able to make a game without completely neutering the concept of it. They're my favorite company just by virtue of the fact that they have a wide pool of genres that actually feel different from each other, largely because the interesting parts haven't been stripped out of them over complaints by overly-sensitive people with nothing better to do with their lives. I sincerely hope they continue in that vein, but they have definitely become a much bigger player in the TTRPG sphere in the last few years and that generally draws the attention of the wokescolds and self-appointed wrongfun police, so we'll see.

Quote from: Corolinth on April 05, 2023, 08:57:14 AM
I have a theory that a lot of the "people of color" among the high society woke are actually the biracial children of activists from a previous generation.

Put in D&D terms, they are half-elves who are terrified that their human heritage might mean they have "human privilege". Raised by their human mother, they are entirely human in every way that matters culturally, but they have enough superficial elven features to qualify for all of the special equity programs designed to give elves an advantage in human society. They don't want to be challenged on their human ancestry when they attempt to claim these special legal advantages, and so they insist that they, too, are full elves.

See Halle Berry and Colin Kaepernick as prime examples.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on April 05, 2023, 09:53:16 AM

  There are games that have replaced the defined half-races with other mechanics, usually 'blood/ancestry' feats or traits--HARP, Fantasycraft (with the Adventurer's Companion)--and the core premise of 'pick one for mechanical purposes, define the non-mechanical elements however you like' isn't necessarily a bad approach. But like Steven Mitchell, I don't trust WotC to do this in any but the most heavy-handed and coercive manner.

Very much the case.

This is less about what they're going to as it is about why and who is doing it.

Also, the more continuity from prior editions you remove the more customers you lose no matter how good the game. 4e should have taught them that one (and I say that as someone who loved running 4e).

Quote from: Wasteland Sniper on April 30, 1975, 02:17:29 AM
I know there are people who aren't necessarily fans of Free League's in-house system, but at least they seem to be able to make a game without completely neutering the concept of it. They're my favorite company just by virtue of the fact that they have a wide pool of genres that actually feel different from each other, largely because the interesting parts haven't been stripped out of them over complaints by overly-sensitive people with nothing better to do with their lives. I sincerely hope they continue in that vein, but they have definitely become a much bigger player in the TTRPG sphere in the last few years and that generally draws the attention of the wokescolds and self-appointed wrongfun police, so we'll see.

I'm a big fan of Year Zero Engine and Free League's range of games. Being Euros they are insulated from the worst of wokism. My guess is they keep on trucking.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 05, 2023, 10:47:48 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 05, 2023, 10:34:50 AMSanitization is the opposite of interesting. I hope WotC keeps sanitizing their game, so more people move to other, better games!

Dear God no! Let them stay in their sanitized reservation.

If they move they'll be like the people who flee California, then try and make their new home in to California. They can't help themselves.

You jest, but I know a few 5e refugees and they're cool. They left for a reason, after all.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 05, 2023, 08:19:30 AM
This is all coming from someone that doesn't really like half races.  WotC has this amazing ability to even when they do something that on the surface goes in the direction I'd like, still manage to completely screw it up.  They are worse than the proverbial blind squirrels and the stopped clock.  When they find a nut in spite of themselves, it's got a bacterial infection.  When they have the correct time, it's attached to a bomb.

Ditto. I've just never been a fan of half-races concept since it steps on various toes, either "scientifically" or metaphysically. But even though my games don't feature these races, it's clear that WOTCs motives for wanting to make this move are terrible. This won't make a better game. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, but it's clear that the apologists for WOTC are being proven more and more wrong every day.

Unsurprisingly, I don't think they've thought this through.

No more "Half" races?  OK.  So no more Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Half-Giants...

I guess that means they're getting rid of Tieflings and Aasimar then?  They're "half" human and "half" demonic/angelic, respectively...

That ought to go over well. >_<

I see what they are doing as something that will appease the woke, but they don't game anyway for the most part.

Meanwhile, I can't see how anything they are doing will appeal to everyone else and cause people to jump to the new version.

Sure the people who always have to play the latest and greatest will, but I think that is a small number of gamers.