Quote from: jhkim on April 18, 2023, 06:04:01 PMHowever, half-elf and half-orc were put into AD&D1 out of shallow copying of Tolkien. There isn't any internal logic to D&D that makes those half-races special, nor is there any special game balance reason for those two compared to any other half-races.

I wouldn't call it "shallow copying of Tolkien", I would call it "Including popular fantasy archetypes."  Which is my main point from the other half-race thread, that there is little reason to include half-anythings in a game in the first place. Especially if, as in D&D, the difference between the races is already so minor.

The only reason they are in 5e+ is that they are trying to create a fantasy version of Seattle, where all races live in harmony and intermarry without any prejudice or social stigma.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 19, 2023, 02:12:13 PM

Quote from: jhkim on April 18, 2023, 06:04:01 PMHowever, half-elf and half-orc were put into AD&D1 out of shallow copying of Tolkien. There isn't any internal logic to D&D that makes those half-races special, nor is there any special game balance reason for those two compared to any other half-races.

I wouldn't call it "shallow copying of Tolkien", I would call it "Including popular fantasy archetypes."  Which is my main point from the other half-race thread, that there is little reason to include half-anythings in a game in the first place. Especially if, as in D&D, the difference between the races is already so minor.

But half-elf and half-orc were not "popular fantasy archetypes" in 1978. Elrond in Tolkien is called "half-elf", but he is effectively the same as other elf characters - and most readers wouldn't even recall that he's called "half-elf". There were no named half-orc characters even in Tolkien - just a fleeting reference in Saruman's forces. Neither half-elf nor half-orc are archetypes even in Tolkien. They're just references.

Can you suggest any popular fantasy in 1978 that features half-orcs or half-elves other than Tolkien?

Quote from: jhkim on April 19, 2023, 02:30:44 PMBut half-elf and half-orc were not "popular fantasy archetypes" in 1978. Elrond in Tolkien is called "half-elf", but he is effectively the same as other elf characters - and most readers wouldn't even recall that he's called "half-elf".

They are popular because of Tolkien. I read The Hobbit once and I've never read Lord of the Rings but even I knew that Elrond was a half elf the moment I opened my brand new AD&D Players Handbook. But the half races aren't the only thing from Tolkien in D&D. Without Tolkien D&D wouldn't have Ents, Hobbits, Balrogs, Rangers, and the elves in the game would be two feet tall, only come out at night, and help you make shoes (or Christmas presents).

So I don't see why half races need to be singled out as copies from Tolkien when most of the game was as well. And that was precisely because Tolkien was an order of magnitude more popular than all other fantasy at the time put together.

Quote from: jhkim on April 19, 2023, 11:44:43 AM

Quote from: FingerRod on April 19, 2023, 09:01:31 AM

Quote from: jhkim on April 18, 2023, 06:04:01 PM
To be clear - there's nothing racist about half-races. However, half-elf and half-orc were put into AD&D1 out of shallow copying of Tolkien. There isn't any internal logic to D&D that makes those half-races special, nor is there any special game balance reason for those two compared to any other half-races.

Agree with you that there's nothing racist about half-races. However, half-elves were 100% in OD&D.

Half-Elves: Half-elves are half elven and half human, and as such they gain some abilities from each heritage. Half-elves are able to progress simultaneously in both the fighter and magic-user classes and may use both weaponry and spells and otherwise act as elves do.

And while your opinions that it was a shallow copying of Tolkien are your own and legit discussion points, contrary to what you are saying there were game balance decisions in the form of level limits and even how experience was acquired.

My apologies about OD&D. I missed that it had half-elves.

I think we might be miscommunicating about game balance. I'm not saying there wasn't any game balance at all in the game. I was saying that there wasn't a game balance reason for only half-elves as opposed to half-dwarves or other half-races - i.e. mixed parentage of dwarf, elf, giant, god, etc.

In folklore (i.e. not Tolkien), I haven't done a survey, but I suspect there are more half-dwarf characters like Ortnit than half-elf. The reason for exclusively half-elves is Tolkien.

No need to apologize, man. It was not in the 3LBBs.

And ahhh, yes now I see your point around one half versus others.

Quote from: jhkim on April 19, 2023, 02:30:44 PM
But half-elf and half-orc were not "popular fantasy archetypes" in 1978. Elrond in Tolkien is called "half-elf", but he is effectively the same as other elf characters - and most readers wouldn't even recall that he's called "half-elf". There were no named half-orc characters even in Tolkien - just a fleeting reference in Saruman's forces. Neither half-elf nor half-orc are archetypes even in Tolkien. They're just references.

Can you suggest any popular fantasy in 1978 that features half-orcs or half-elves other than Tolkien?

Hot take:  Paul Atreides.
Warm take: Spock.

You are correct, of course, that half elves were pretty much in Tolkein and nowhere else, and even there they weren't like D&D would do them.  In Tolkein, when you married an elf, you were some super noble badass guy with a natural lifespan of hundreds of years, and you and your wife would figure out if you, as a couple, were gonna and and die and go to heaven or live for the entirety of the lifespan of the planet, meaning that race was a bit fungible in these special cases, and of course, Elrond had a brother who made the other choice and ruled as a king for hundreds of years before dying of old age.

But the idea of people being half-monsters or bridging two worlds by blood was definitely in the zeitgeist at the time.  Paul Atreides, the protagonist of Dune and the mistaken result of a breeding program gone almost-right, is effectively half noble mundane, and half psionic witch.  Spock's status here doesn't really need much defense- a few might have forgotten that Spock is officially half human and half vulcan, but no one would really claim that Vulcan and Elf are different enough to not qualify.  The more popular version of this trope is someone dropped in and raised among some other group- which was around in a ton of science fiction at the time as well.

In any event, D&D definitely put in half-elves and half-orcs to ape Tolkein, and Tolkein's versions of these, while different from the more biological variants seen later, I would think were the main impetus.  But the concept is extensible outside of that, and it was used for other things almost as soon as the option was available.

I just don't understand this decision by WotC. It seems completely arbitrary. I don't feel there is anything inherently "racist" about half-elves, half-Orcs, or Half-Ogres (a favorite from Dragon 73).

While I enjoy D&D 5e, I'm not sold on the direction of 6e.

The only thing I can think of wotc doing this for is more pandering to their vocal fans.  Their "apology" over the OGL had the "oh we're trying to keep dnd out of the hands of racists and haters" as if there's groups of people using dnd to push their anti-* theories.  Then there's the creator's summit and those questions. If wotc and the diehards can't change the real world into the ideal land of harmony they sure can change the fantasy world. 

In many ways this is being so woke they circle back around to looking anti-miscegenation.

So according to Wankers of the Coast, characters of mixed ancestry have no place in a D&D setting. So much for Morgan le Fay and Galehault (from Arthurian legend), Ravaggio (from The Orange Tree and the Bee), Valgard (from The Broken Sword), Elrond (from The Hobbit) and countless other characters from mythology, folklore, faerie tales and fantasy fiction -or FRPG characters inspired by them.

That really sucks.

Quote from: Elfdart on April 20, 2023, 10:59:52 PM
So according to Wankers of the Coast, characters of mixed ancestry have no place in a D&D setting. So much for Morgan le Fay and Galehault (from Arthurian legend), Ravaggio (from The Orange Tree and the Bee), Valgard (from The Broken Sword), Elrond (from The Hobbit) and countless other characters from mythology, folklore, faerie tales and fantasy fiction -or FRPG characters inspired by them.

That really sucks.

You can have mixed ancestry, but you have to fully identify with one side. Morgan Le Fay is ok as she Fully Identifies As Fay. Morgan Le Half Fay is Not OK.

Quote from: S'mon on April 21, 2023, 01:36:06 AM

Quote from: Elfdart on April 20, 2023, 10:59:52 PM
So according to Wankers of the Coast, characters of mixed ancestry have no place in a D&D setting. So much for Morgan le Fay and Galehault (from Arthurian legend), Ravaggio (from The Orange Tree and the Bee), Valgard (from The Broken Sword), Elrond (from The Hobbit) and countless other characters from mythology, folklore, faerie tales and fantasy fiction -or FRPG characters inspired by them.

That really sucks.

You can have mixed ancestry, but you have to fully identify with one side. Morgan Le Fay is ok as she Fully Identifies As Fay. Morgan Le Half Fay is Not OK.

Because binary is only for gender, m'kay.

Fucking puppets the lot of them.

Though to be completely honest, they pissed off a lot of people with this shit. It's like they managed to anger both the left and the right at the same time by supporting a position that is so radically SJW that it swings around to outright hard core good ol' deep south jim crow hyper-conservative neo-nazi grade bullshit.

The political spectrum is a fucking donut, I swear.

Quote from: Psyckosama on April 21, 2023, 02:36:12 AM

Quote from: S'mon on April 21, 2023, 01:36:06 AM

Quote from: Elfdart on April 20, 2023, 10:59:52 PM
So according to Wankers of the Coast, characters of mixed ancestry have no place in a D&D setting. So much for Morgan le Fay and Galehault (from Arthurian legend), Ravaggio (from The Orange Tree and the Bee), Valgard (from The Broken Sword), Elrond (from The Hobbit) and countless other characters from mythology, folklore, faerie tales and fantasy fiction -or FRPG characters inspired by them.

That really sucks.

You can have mixed ancestry, but you have to fully identify with one side. Morgan Le Fay is ok as she Fully Identifies As Fay. Morgan Le Half Fay is Not OK.

Because binary is only for gender, m'kay.

Fucking puppets the lot of them.

Though to be completely honest, they pissed off a lot of people with this shit. It's like they managed to anger both the left and the right at the same time by supporting a position that is so radically SJW that it swings around to outright hard core good ol' deep south jim crow hyper-conservative Dixiecrat neo-nazi grade bullshit.

The political spectrum is a fucking donut, I swear.

I'm not really sure the donut theory is real.

Yeah, they angered a lot of people regardless of politics, and that's a good thing. Fuck GWotKKK

Quote from: S'mon on April 21, 2023, 01:36:06 AM

Quote from: Elfdart on April 20, 2023, 10:59:52 PM
So according to Wankers of the Coast, characters of mixed ancestry have no place in a D&D setting. So much for Morgan le Fay and Galehault (from Arthurian legend), Ravaggio (from The Orange Tree and the Bee), Valgard (from The Broken Sword), Elrond (from The Hobbit) and countless other characters from mythology, folklore, faerie tales and fantasy fiction -or FRPG characters inspired by them.

You can have mixed ancestry, but you have to fully identify with one side. Morgan Le Fay is ok as she Fully Identifies As Fay. Morgan Le Half Fay is Not OK.

Elfdart - in case you missed it, there was a clarification from WotC where they posted: 

QuoteOptions for creating characters descended from more than one species are not being removed from Dungeons & Dragons.

Proposed adjustments to character origins have been open to the community since August 2022 and will be revised further: http://spr.ly/6019OyEdH

Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/DnDBeyond/status/1644119263286812672

That links to the D&DOne documents from last year, which has this sidebar:

QuoteCHILDREN OF DIFFERENT HUMANOID KINDS

Thanks to the magical workings of the multiverse, Humanoids of different kinds sometimes have children together. For example, folk who have a human parent and an orc or an elf parent are particularly common. Many other combinations are possible.

If you'd like to play the child of such a wondrous pairing, choose two Race options that are Humanoid to represent your parents. Then determine which of those Race options provides your game traits: Size, Speed, and special traits. You can then mix and match visual characteristics—color, ear shape, and the like—of the two options. For example, if your character has a halfling and a gnome parent, you might choose Halfling for your game traits and then decide that your character has the pointed ears that are characteristic of a gnome.

Finally, determine the average of the two options' Life Span traits to figure out how long your character might live. For example, a child of a halfling and a gnome has an average life span of 288 years.

Source: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/one-dnd/character-origins

S'mon suggests that this means identifying fully with one or the other, but I don't see that in the doc. It does say that your game stats come purely from one side or the other. So Elrond or Morgan Le Fay would have elf stats, but in role-playing, the character could identify in whatever way the player likes.

Quote from: GamerSince77 on April 19, 2023, 11:12:59 PM
I just don't understand this decision by WotC. It seems completely arbitrary. I don't feel there is anything inherently "racist" about half-elves, half-Orcs, or Half-Ogres (a favorite from Dragon 73).

While I enjoy D&D 5e, I'm not sold on the direction of 6e.

Totally agree.  It does feel like a very arbitrary decision and makes no real sense.

6e really sounds like all they are doing is rewriting 5e to make it more woke to appease people that don't even play D&D/Buy their books.

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 21, 2023, 03:23:30 PM
Totally agree.  It does feel like a very arbitrary decision and makes no real sense.

6e really sounds like all they are doing is rewriting 5e to make it more woke to appease people that don't even play D&D/Buy their books.

And they annoyed Daniel "My existence is not Racist!" Kwan!

This banning of half races seems like one of those stunts 4Chan would pull, like getting the OK hand gesture declared a hateful symbol of White Supremacy. Maybe WoTC got trolled?