Mr. Welch Fixes D&D's Half Race Problem

[@Shotgun_Gospel]

It's probably the funniest thing that ever happened to D&D because in their unending quest to file every edge off of the observable universe they, without a hint of sarcasm or self awareness, declared orcs to be "black coded" and inadvertently made what is perhaps the most genuinely racist statement I think I've ever heard in my life. And then that statement got approved. Presumably, by people who wrote the game, knew everything about but lacked the sense to point out that you could just play a black human.

[@Mr_Welch]

I have many friends that are black, and only a few of them are 7' tall with green skin and tusks.

[@francesco3772]

​@@Mr_Welch damn I love those aboriginal features

[@AndrewChumKaser]

WotC are run by racists with a guilty conscience and the inability to perceive anyone else as less racist than them.

[@MagicalMaster]

@Nix91 Stay up past midnight, that's generally when the party starts.

[@monkibro]

A black human is LITERALLY their poster boy for the most played combination in the game (that being Human Fighter)😂

[@bellduke6417]

“I think x is racist” is how the department whose job is to find things racist keeps it’s job.

[@DrHackmoff]

Bless them , without them the world would be a peaceful and quiet place and who wants that ?!

[@Anonymous-mp2ln]

Grifters the lot of them.

[@macoppy6571]

Watching them railroad Chris Perkins try to hype Bigby's Giants was incredibly demonstrative of this fallacy.

[@007ohboy]

Cops don't help.

[@Zane-It]

I'm half mexican half Irish and I take pride in half designation

[@dylutant]

Though it's an elegant solution, love me some h.a.l.f.-elf, it solves a 'problem' that could only be spawned in the heads of people who never went cold or hungry a day in their life. Love the video, bemoan the waste of your and others' time.

[@shallendor]

The fact that it took being said verbally what had been written about for 8 months beforehand and for trash media to write about it for it to be discussed is crazy!

[@captainbanjo1617]

As an Aussie, I can confirm that cassowaries are basically demon-emus.

[@robertb7293]

Nah. Emus are lazy grasslands cassowaries/bullet sponges.

[@captainbanjo1617]

@@robertb7293 agreed, at least you can /emus/ though. You could stumble into a cassowary in the QLD jungle and not know it until you stepped on him. Those birds will claw your guts out. Almost as scary as crocs.

[@LezCharming]

I think Wizards has finally found the maximum amount of social complexity with the least amount of understanding. I always kinda respected Shadowrun for just going,"magic race genes domme human like the French leather girl". That said,I love half-races as well,any idea that makes Fantasy less human ruled. Your system doth rock!

[@markusbarten455]

Is the lore in Shadowrun not that magic coming back reactivated some in active genes in the human population, leading to the resurection of some extinct humanoid species in the first place?

[@LezCharming]

@@markusbarten455 That's totally correct. An interesting side note is that once magic comes back,the mystical metagenes become ever dominant. Like,no one has a recessive elf gene in their family. If you have the gene at all,it will dominate. Maybe it flat skips a generation now and again,but your elven dynasty will remain very elven.

[@joshuakanapkey6570]

Awesome use of Chad being "half-Hillbilly"!

[@MLCrisis1790]

These college kids keep killing themselves!

[@DeltaSpark8]

@@MLCrisis1790 Officer, we have had a doozy of a day!

[@fleetcenturion]

6:21 - Hares can't breed with rabbits? I was actually unaware of that, and we raised rabbits when I was a kid. I blame Warner Brothers!

[@MagicalMaster]

Tanis Half-Elven was fucking awesome and there was nothing racist about him.

[@JohnSmith-jv7mv]

🤓 Uhm, Ak-shu-ah-lee, Tanis was very racist against draconians.

[@MagicalMaster]

@@JohnSmith-jv7mv The sad part is... someone might actually use this argument for real and not as a joke.

[@arkdeniz]

He was even asked about why it is half elf and not half-man, and he said something like ‘because half man is a broken thing, incomplete, whereas half elf suggests he is something unique, a combination of two other things’ (I paraphrase - it has been a long time since I read those books)

[@MemphiStig]

I think he also said the Elves called him Half-human. It's been a long time for me too.

[@tirirana]

Of course the real solution is to use Tasha's and the new rule to use the Stone Dwarf template to make +4 attribute characters for every race

[@Cynidecia]

Hearing people have a thing for Aboriginals is so strange to me as an Aussie, because Aboriginals are so normal for me. people find them exotic? I just view them like any other fellow Aussie.

[@Mr_Welch]

Outside of your normal environment you are considered exotic. Here I'm just a normal guy. Up north they just call me Tex

[@Amelanduil]

They'll keeep diluting dnd until nothing is preestablished anymore and everything is free to mix and match and personalize. Give it a couple more expansions books and it'll happen to class archetypes.

[@EvilDoresh]

Since 5.X races are just a bundle of 4-ish traits, why not let the halfblood mix-and-match traits from the parents? Now I picture min-maxers figuring out the perfect family tree for their character.

[@Sorain1]

Have a character's backstory essentially be 'Totally not Bene Gesserit breeding program escapee' to explain it.

[@fleetcenturion]

Per (original) Forgotten Realms lore, and I must assume Greyhawk as well, dwarves can interbreed with other demihumans, then breed back into the dwarven population, which will always result in a full dwarf. This was allegedly a gift from the Gods, to solve the dwarf population problem, as well as the fact that males tend to greatly outnumber females. Dwarves ever breeding outside their own race, however, is so rare, that actual cases of it are barely mentioned in D&D lore (except for the "Mul" of Dark Sun). If one is familiar with Tolkien, there are other RL connotations that go along with this as well. Dwarves interbreeding with gnomes, however, will result in gully dwarves. These are always shunned by dwarves, due to their abysmally low intelligence, and chronic disregard for personal hygiene-- a polar opposite to both ancestor races. Though first made popular by Dragonlance, their existence and lore goes back much farther, and can be found in the early monster manuals (as can kender as well!) As for elves, a half-elf who breeds with a human will always result in a human. One that breeds with an elf, will always result in another half-elf, no matter how many times this is repeated.

[@SwordlordRoy]

Personally, I like the approach Green Ronin had in Fantasy AGE: Races would gives some static bonuses, sure, but they also had a table you'd roll on twice for other bonuses. To make a Half-race, pick which parent you most resemble, take their static bonuses, then roll once on each chart for your parent races. Of course, this might seem a bit too simplistic for some people, but Simple RPGs are something I will admit to preferring.

[@Usernamesdontmatter1]

Hell there are some RPGs that have different canonical races but don't let you have a race category instead you pick a series of traits at character creation. As much as I glare at the franchise now the new doctor who rpg does that. You wanna be an alien you pick the alien trait then pick some other stuff, wanna be a timelord and your gm allowed it? Timelord trait. Wanna make a vampire? Pick immortality and have your major addiction be blood drinking. Wanna be the doctor's spunky companion? Pick attractive and screamer.

[@mattnerdy7236]

Hello Mr. Welch, great video really enjoyed it. The H.A.L.F. skit was funny, bravo to you Mr. Welch. You know I like the charisma idea, seems fitting. Great choice on using that pic from Galaxy Quest (Tony Shalhoub & Missi Pyle), if that doesn't scream H.A.L.F., than I don't know what does. Kevin at D&D Homebrew gave you a shout out for your Mystara work. He did a short series on the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I truly believe the world knows you are the "One Above All", when it comes to Mystara. I need another you Mr. Welch but I need this version to do be passionate about Dark*Sun as you are about Mystara. Those two settings are about as unique as it gets. Thank you for your passion & videos, have a wonderful day!

[@derekburge5294]

On the upside, the sooner wotc finishes burning down, the sooner the Mystara license can be picked up at auction!

[@Nightbreed24]

An unpopular fantasy RPG based on a popular book series in Hungary had a chart, that stated which playable races could mix naturally and magically. These are the same people by the way, who think race mixing is wonderful and should be mandatory, because if the Earth's human population is the same shade of brown, they will suddenly start singing kumbaya, yet attack a mixed actor or actress for not being the right shade of color for a role.

[@Some_Really_Random_Dude.]

D&D had this in earlier editions too. This is not a new concept just one lost to history. And now dredged up because everything is ist or phobic now.

[@EvilDoresh]

@@Some_Really_Random_Dude. Plus the third-party OGL market has at least a handful of breeding books

[@Ayeshteni]

11 minutes and 51 seconds of common sense. And humour. And tell me more about these haggis establishments.

[@ChaosTicket]

Well one thing they could do is making mixed races actually useful. Back in the old days Orcs were common, but non-playable Evil Race. The solution were Half-Orcs. Back in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition everyone but Humans have level caps and limited class options. Some people may claim thats racist, buts its more about Game Balance. If Elves could have Unlimited spells known while human mages had a cap then yeah there would need to be some balance to have drawbacks instead of just strengths.

[@tkc1129]

Replacing the subrace features is just a great idea. Very great stuff, and cheekily smart. Thanks for this!

[@godsamongmen8003]

This problem has an easy solution: Keep playing the D&D you've always loved and don't spend another dollar on a Hasbro product, ever.

[@CanuckWolfman]

Gowron cannot back you up on that. He thinks the Wizard has brought dishonour... *on his HOOOOOOUSE.*

[@esajaan]

1:45 "in 1940 race and species was interchangeable" That's why I always called them species and all the half's never made sense to me.

[@Usernamesdontmatter1]

Tbh I thought that too until someone pointed out to me that species sounds too scientific for medieval and high fantasy settings. Ancestry sounds a lot better tbh. It's all basically the same thing just the terminology is different

[@yuin3320]

​@@Usernamesdontmatter1 I personally find Ancestry to be more confusing because virtually every type of entity that proliferates itself will end up with it's descendants having _different_ ancestries, and especially in feudal societies ancestry was lended an importance for distinguishing people who otherwise have numerous similarities. Its weird to say because I'm such a stickler for maintaining medieval/bronze-age fantasy vibes to the point that black powder and firearms bother me immensely most of the time (despite how historically speaking firearms have been around for a LONG time) but I personally find species a much more agreeable term when it comes to medieval fantasy. Although there probably is a better term than both that we could draw from historical languages, so I'm not exactly gonna die on that hill

[@steelshanks1265]

Yes, We are the Race of Man. We are One Race. The problem is how close it is to "racism"... Or "racist". DnD uses the term correctly. Elves are not Human, they are a different Race. However, Chinese and British are NOT a different Race, they are different Ethnicities, they are the SAME RACE. See the issue? Stupid people jump on a word without knowing the meaning, etc. and then try to cast it out. Wizards of the Coast is trying to Virtue Signal how awesome they are, not realizing Race has no issue at all... It's been fine for Decades, now due to modern politics, ideals, etc. there seems to be an issue where there truly isn't one...

[@Usernamesdontmatter1]

@@yuin3320 Same I'm not entirely willing to die on this hill either. I just don't see a king proclaiming a "species" to be public enemy number one because some villages got raided. It just clashes with me. There probably is some extremely old word that fits this better but it might end up being race again considering how back in the day even people with similar skin tones and from the same geographical area were considered different races of men.

[@markfaulkner8191]

Mr. Welch saves D&D!

[@Comicsluvr]

"Don't be offended for somebody else." THANK YOU! If more people got this...we'd have fewer 'diversity experts.'

[@andynonimuss6298]

Half construction does not automatically mean "human" or "lesser". Your character could be 50% elf and 50% dwarf. Full, three-quarter, half, and quarter are just associative measurements. If D&D's senitivy department has issues with "slavery" and "half-races" then they also need to get started addressing ALL of the other sentive issues allowed in D&D games: alcohol use, addiction, assassination, blood, brothels, brutality, cannibalism, classism, corruption, crime, cruelty, curses, death, debauchery, decrepitude, demons and devils, disabilities, disease, disturbing content, drug dealers, drug use, emotional distress, erotica, execution, exploitation, famine, feudalism, forgery, gambling, genocide, graphic sex, graphic violence, gods, gore, hangings, heresy, horror, human sacrifice, human trafficking, imprisonment, injuries, injustice, insanity, insensitivity, maiming, magic, mental illness, mind alteration, monsters, murder, mutilation, mythology, nudity, oppression, pain, personality disorders, perversion, plague, poison, polytheism, possession, poverty, prejudice, profanity, prostitution, religious concepts, segregation, sex, sexual situations, sexuality, shape shifting, spells, stress, strong language, suffering, suicide, terrorism, theft, torture, tobacco use, trauma, undead, warfare, and weapon use.

[@Fernoll]

Don't you worry, they're getting there.

[@andynonimuss6298]

@@Fernoll I'm fully anticipating the 2024 5.5 D&D release to have safe and happy illustrations and read like a children's book.

[@harvestblades]

Mr Welch I just stumbled across your channel & you have a new follower based on this healthy dose of common sense. I look forward to checking out your other content in the following days. As a 45-year-old father of nine, it can be terrifying & or enraging trying to raise kids in an environment that is trying to do nothing but divide & turn one against another. This video should be required viewing. Thank you.

[@paulcoy9060]

8:01 Damn, I had a toy like that but it was Monsters, interchangable plates with Frankenstein, Mummy, Werewolf, Creature from the Black Lagoon. Good times. Kids these days don't know how to spend hours creating mutants on paper and coloring them in.

[@DIEGhostfish]

"Whose parents occupy different sections of the crayon box set."

[@jameslind9195]

i had to pause a moment when you brought up council of wyrms, the box set almost no one i played with even knew existed till i brought it up to them.

[@Scaramanga7]

I will forever love you for throwing in that pic of Ziyal.

[@Funkin_Disher]

Oh, seems i was on the same track. Ive only got three races (redblood, greenblood and blueblood) that correspond to demihumans, beastfolk and reptilian and you pick from a pool of traits (two from race, two from subrace) to make whatever you want within those categories. You can interbreed any two creatures that bleed the same. Ability boosts i removed from race/class/background and left that purely with the stat generation method.

[@Plxlinixy]

You know all of this would have been avoided if WoTC just took the mask off, and just make Orcs outright playable for all alignments so they can finally align with World of Warcraft or the elderscrolls games . AS that's because that's really what caused all of that confusing nonsense about race with WoTC I reckon.

[@EvilDoresh]

Didn't they already remove the dreaded "mostly evil" text blurb from every stat block?

[@wagz781]

My personal preference on the topic for the setting I run is very simple: The gods are very important to how the races interact and structure their societies. The gifts they give their kin are reflected in the talents and nature of their progeny. Orks have photosynthetic skin and a beef with elves older than the human species. They stole the gifts animal husbandry and Berserking from the elvish wargod that decided it would be a "funny joke" to stab the orkish god in the eye and throw them out of their pantheon. Said elves stole Archery and hunting. The goblins jumped in to help the orks in this surprise mugging, and got the gift of alchemy for their trouble of shivving their previous owners in the kidneys. A practice they have become adept at over the centuries. The two races have been inseparable ever since. Humans, being a relatively new race, have very few gifts. Many other gods have been quite gluttonous in their acquisition of worldly domains they can convey to their followers. Leaving humans with just one, currently: Compatibility. In the words of her holiness' priests "If it can consent, it can breed." As such, a great many of the quirkier races have arisen as part of the natural human inclination to acquire friends. Dragonborn? Human+kobold. Hobgoblin? Human+goblin. The consent part is important, if they're not intelligent enough to understand and consenting it's just abuse and doesn't result in anything. Tieflings, aasimar, genasi, and the various half-races should, presumably, be self explanatory. The only exception to this rule is actually bugbears, which are the result of goblins and orks intermingling. Mostly a result of those two deities having a kind of... on-again/off-again thing when their people are actually safe enough to settle in an area... At least until adventurers bust in to "civilize" them, or elves start shit.

[@BigBatts]

Color me half-surprised that the turnip in charge at WOTC, Chris Perkins, is offended by something the fan base has zero problem with…proven via survey, btw.

[@Usernamesdontmatter1]

Excuse you. It's grand wizards of the coast

[@docnecrotic]

​@@Usernamesdontmatter1 The WotC Party

[@BigBatts]

@@Usernamesdontmatter1 kudos. Way more creative a name than I could have done.

[@BigBatts]

@@docnecrotic I didn’t get it until I said it out loud. Nicely done

[@paulcoy9060]

I love the Half Elf because it has the best bonuses for the types of characters I play. If WotC switched the template to humans, then I would play humans. It's just math.

[@deploribusrex4480]

lol, I love Mr. Welch. The Foghorn Leghorn impression is spot-on.

[@MalleusSemperVictor]

I believe I've made my position abundantly clear in the community post.

[@Braxgar]

6:25 I'll get around to it Sir

[@oshkeet]

Honestly the only reason I never liked "half-" as a moniker is realistically you'd never get exactly half from both parents (think of siblings where one looks more like the mom and the other more like the dad) so splitting traits between two races exactly down the middle feels silly. Granted, I guess is a mechanical limitation cause D&D comes down to dice & numbers, but people end up taking it exactly literally; Half elves, or half orcs or half-whatevers should be able to look different from each other.

[@AndrewChumKaser]

The acronym is "half" Love it

[@vladtheinhailer1428]

I didn't know Shelby Foote played D&D?!? (that's a compliment by the say Sir)

[@ajaxplunkett5115]

good video. i only have one question ( and its unrelated ) How does one make a complete map ///physical version/// of Mystara /// in color without owning the easter and western trails accessories ? and put it together seemlessly in one piece???

[@Ayeshteni]

With difficulty. Only way I can see is to have the PDF's of all the Gazetteers (add in PDFs of the Dragon Magazine of The Voyages of the Princess Ark) and have some Photoshop skills. How you could print it on one piece is another matter, that would likely be a job to send to a professional printer.

[@Mr_Welch]

The weirdest and surprisingly best answer was download the complete map from Atlas of Mystara and go to the Walmart website and turn it into a shower curtain. Sounds insane but the results were amazinf

[@ajaxplunkett5115]

@@Mr_Welch thanks. I just really need Brun and some Desert Nomads western maps. Shower curtain material works, awesome !

[@jm7781]

Corpo speach should be a language option in D&D, I can even imagine how it would sound: Corpo Karen: "Be welcome my friends and coworkers of the multiple spectrum of genders, neogenders and halfgenders, know this is a place of aceptance and understanding and your culture and lineage will be respected, enter this place of love against hate, becose we acept you for what you are, be you short or tall, smart or black, worth of love or white, here you are WELCOME!" barbarian: "What did she said?" Mage: "She said hi, and that we can go in."

[@brightcrazystar93]

Mystara has people with mixed lineage. They are just rare and because ALL adventurers are gaining XP and thus are born of individuals - an Immortal sponsored their existence. ALL mortals owe their existence to a specific Immortal spending Power.

[@Ad00m3d]

Bravo Mr. Welch!

[@BockwinkleB]

Its so funny to watch the racists out racist eachother.

[@DrHackmoff]

Now that is just racist against racists

[@Dermetsu]

5E and Wizards of the Coast continues to embarrass themselves in every thing they do.

[@peebothulhu8768]

A good video. All quite "System Affirmingly Functionality Efficient". Also can confirm there's something disturbing about looking another critter in the eye knowing that it being moved around by a walnut sized bit of grey matter. 😳

[@majbloodnok]

And that those critters are allowed to drive and vote.

[@kennieminski7080]

H.A.L.F., lol what a great fu.

[@youcantbeatk7006]

What about bone marrow transplants?

[@haseoyamazaki8897]

WOTC isn't changing how I play my campaign worlds, I've made so many changes to the game system I can't really say its all there's any more.

[@rynowatcher]

My favorite way to do races is Fantasy Age: you roll on a table for what traits you get. A bit like genetics; not every Irish person has red hair and not every Norwegian is tall; the racial background just makes the traits more likely. If you are half one race and half another roll once on each race table instead of twice on one. I do not know why more gaming systems do not use this for diversity of characters. But I guess every dwarf being raised a drunkard is easier from a mechanical sense.

[@Mr_Welch]

Minimalist systems have their strengths, but Dragon Age suffered from running out of cool things at higher levels. No matter how high a level you were, you felt like a few steps above creation.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

Race in humans is actually ETHNICITY. There’s only one human race. Scientists have known this for many decades. In D&D, races are actually different races. Ethnicity in D&D is “Traladaran” or “Ethengar”, etc..

[@rynowatcher]

@@Mr_Welch sure, it had its problems, bit I always thought the starting race system was a good middle ground to players wanting to play op races: you can have some of the racial traits, but not all. The issue d&d had is racial homoginy when it wants to say your character is a unique and special snow flake. It worked for BECMI, but ad&d onward wanted the players to make a unique human fighter with individual strengths, weaknesses, and options that set them appart from every other x level human fighter. Seems an unexplored area to say that races have several traits that not all members have for the sake of diversity and unique characters. You do not have to throw out the baby with the bath water.

[@rynowatcher]

@@SimonAshworthWood you know this is a d&d Chanel, right?

[@Darkwintre]

​@@rynowatcher remind Crawford of that.

[@wileydutkiewicz3569]

😂😂😂😂 Where do I sign the petition for you to get the Mystara license?

[@rebelliousgrayfox]

Godspeed good sir

[@ConsueloWubba]

Be me of half Navajo heritage as DM: I hope y'all like savage tribes of indians, because I got them of every flavor! Humans, Trolls, Goblins, Orcs, Jungle Elves, Wolfmen, Lizardmen, Eaglemen, Frogmen, Gnolls, AND DRAGONS!!!

[@mickmack1409]

Half Elves are my favorite Race in DnD

[@LethargicGM]

A comment and like for the algorithm.

[@dane3038]

300xp plus a bonus 200xp for the extra snark.

[@thekaxmax]

Keep all the 'half-race' stats, change the description, and define them as their own species. They've already done it with the goliath--used to be a half-ogre.

[@Mr_Welch]

That's exactly what I did with the Ralda for Red Steel to explain the contradiction between the rest of world in terms of half elves.

[@thekaxmax]

@@Mr_Welch And my GM told me that Mystara did that for a subspecies of elves on some islands. Easy enough to do, and worth it cos some crossbreeds have some good flavour. Either their own thing, or an 'extreme' subspecies.

[@TheGenericavatar]

How about a HALF Halfling? :D

[@screenmonkey]

Half Hin?

[@samuelbroad11]

H.A.L.F. Haggis Ancestral Livestock Focus? Gonna play me a H.A.L.F.ling. Just about haggis sized. Replace Lucky trait with Undevourable.

[@corwinhyatt519]

😁😁😁🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Loving the Acronyms!!!

[@ByronGiant]

Git'em Sherrif Welch

[@richardstephens3327]

Welsh has spoken and the logic is good! Now can we just stop having the antsiest of the week club controlling the game?

[@mxplixic]

7:53 Isn't the term "Humanoid" racist, or at least, speciesist? Wonder how long it will be before they change THAT term. 😊

[@ct9564]

Hum-they-them-oid

[@madmachanicest9955]

Well technically humanoid is a scientific term meaning an organism with a general human like body plan. But wizards is stupid enough to think it's racist so they'll probably try to change.

[@steelshanks1265]

No. Humanoid is just a term for anything resembling the Human Form.

[@mxplixic]

​@@steelshanks1265But other species would say that they are in their own form, not in human form.

[@steelshanks1265]

@@mxplixic Humanoid doesn't mean "Human", it means Bipedal-Upright-two-arms-two-legs etc. Elves, Dwarfs, Men, etc. all Humanoid, as they all share the same shape. Just like Wolves and Dogs are of a Lupine Form... It's just the shape My guy...

[@Shadowofwampyre]

👍

[@uncouthboy8028]

Has Mr. Welch suffered some kind of injury and made this video on opioid painkillers?

[@Mr_Welch]

Keeping a promise to someone who helped me out substantially with the dogs . They wanted a video with the drawl

[@tesreso5448]

So... how do Tieflings/Aasimar work in this? Theyre technically human, buuuuuuut... I had fun doing a Shifter-Tiefling, i called them a Hellhound, fun times~ halfies are always fun~ :D (Its fantasy, chill ppl, id rather ppl play with fantasy racism and joke about it then being jerks irl)

[@manarayofhope2374]

Have fun with that i,v seen this happen before don,t end well

[@cybrim1]

Do blue women from mass effect next...😂

[@Mr_Welch]

You mean the parasitic squidheaded aliens who constantly demand you breed with them? Despite the fact that you are perfectly happy with your smoking hot red-headed girlfriend that you went through Hell and back over the course of 2 games to keep alive?

[@robertbemis9800]

Is D&D in control of people who hate gamers?

[@RJ3040]

I thought Winona was the “something positive” in your videos….

[@JCPRuckus]

The problem with "Half-whatever" is that by rule the second half could only be human, which is no longer the case. And for the record, as an actual biracial person, we don't like being flattened to one half or the other. Even if we might (and I stress might) choose to do so ourselves sometimes for simplicity sake, that choice itself is a fraught one made on a case by case basis. Walking around referring to your Half-Lizardfolk/Half-Aarakocra as simply either Half-Lizard or Half-Eagle isn't going to fly when people are specifically asking because you obviously don't look fully like either one, and they're trying to figure out what they're missing. I literally have this problem all of the time with Latinos thinking I'm Latino. Telling them I'm half White or half Black isn't going to explain anything, exactly because they'll probably assume the other half is Latin, and I "wasn't raised right" because I don't know Spanish. Whether real person or DND character, if you're actually going to bother to explain your heritage to someone (which isn't really any of their business otherwise), then you're probably going to explain the whole thing so that they actually know what your deal is. As clever as your H.A.L.F. acronyms are, you're still missing the problem with the idea that if these were real people, the idea that they'd be walking around calling out that they were mixed, but only mentioning half of the mix.

[@steelshanks1265]

How do they see or hear the name John Paine then think Latin? Lol... Anyhoo, the real issue is the modern interpretation of the word "Race". It SHOULD be Ethnicity, not Race. We are all the Race of Men... We are One Race... Ethnicity is the different Flavors as You will... So, if yer half of whatever that is yer Ethnicity, not yer Race. Elven Race, Human Race, Dwarven Race, etc. all works... There is nothing inherently racist about the word Race. For Half-Elven, that term has ALWAYS meant Half Human, Half Elf, because that was the only mix of the races at first in Fantasy. There were no others. Also, they'd be fine with the Elven being the only mentioned part, because Elves were always considered greater than Humans, or any other race out there. Elves be ethereal demi-god like beings etc. The problem is not Half, or Race, it's moron's like Wizards of the Coast trying to virtue signal, and eliminate anything that stupid people consider racist or racist adjacent. DnD players are usually quite intelligent, hence there being no issue with Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, or Race in general, for Decades...

[@JCPRuckus]

@@steelshanks1265 - Do you think I walk around with a name tag on? Latin people often look at me and just assume I'm Latino. Literally happened to me just yesterday morning. Anyway, as much as I agree that there is a difference between race and ethnicity, the problem is that the words are used interchangeably in the popular discourse. You can't just pretend like they won't be conflated and confused by many people. And if your defense of this is that "It's not racist, because they wouldn't mind the association (example of fantasty racism trope) with the 'superior' elven race", then you're apparently the most tone deaf person on the planet. Refusing to acknowledge both halves of a person of mixed ancestry's family history is not appropriate behavior. So WOTC removed the rules that literally mandated that behavior in a handful of circumstances. There's absolutely nothing wrong with updating your official rules to fall in line with real life etiquette best practices. Because the people who will be reading those are the players who do exist IRL.

[@steelshanks1265]

@@JCPRuckus The Name thing was a joke. Look, yer seeing Elves as People... They are not. Elves were closer to Deities or Gods, more Spiritual than Flesh. Elves WERE and ARE superior to Humans. They are smarter, better looking, faster, have eyes that can see for miles, walk upon snow instead of through snow, etc. You cannot separate in yer mind this concept, unfortunately. You are seeing Elves as People... It's funny... Europeans can be, and are often of Mixed Ancestry's. Yet, people just see them as "White". Yet, this doesn't bother them at all. Why is refusing to acknowledge one half over the other wrong? Would You be mad if I didn't acknowledge yer ancestry, and just treated You as a Man? Do I have to acknowledge what half of what You are?

[@flpndrox]

Henry V = Like.

[@thewickedproducer579]

This video is funny, WotC is stupid. D&D, AD&D and 2e FOREVER.

[@himedo1512]

If you think only having the abilities from one race counts as keeping the mechanics. You're wrong. You only get play as one race by mechanics. It's also pretty akin to the "one-drop rule". You only get to be one, and you aren't unique. Funny that. WoTC is hilariously racist.

[@patrickholt2270]

Pehaps we could fob off all the hair-triggered language police with their own (human only) class: the Puriteen. Barbarian rage with thief hit die, Wisdom no greater than 7, bard buff abilities using recitation and lecturing only, but only as curses, applied to the party and enemies alike, and weapons restricted to those traditionally used for scolding purposes: unarmed, switches, paddles, canes, rolling pins and thrown slippers. Detect Problematic as a class ability, use automatic, requiring a saving throw against wisdom to avoid rage. Automatically fail all rolls relating to traps, stealth and diplomacy.

[@templarw20]

Check out Aurora by Ghostfire Games. They basically had stuff happen in the past, and only have one species with a crap ton of variety that may show up. And frankly, that seems the best way, or just say “no halves” and then make things like aasimar, tieflings, dhampirs and the like floating sub-races like Pathfinder 2e. Beyond that, remember that even Tolkien thought he messed up making the orcs as he did. And yes, the “evil races” thing that been in so many games for so long is hella racist, and has been used historically for all sorts of bad shit. We can do better.

[@yuin3320]

I fail to see how having species or creature types being dedicatedly evil, in any way makes statements or reinforces ideas applicable to the real world. The only people that might take that to reinforce some terrible real-world notion about humans is people who either can't separate fiction from reality, or who are already racists (which already have a well earned reputation for ill logic and warping everything they see to justify moronic beliefs). I've never heard of openly fully fictional media/stories (and certainly not games) referring to strictly nonhuman entities, being used historically to cause harm to anyone. The harm with talk of "evil races" or peoples, only comes from instances where it gets presented as truth, at least as far as everything I've ever learned. So could you please explain what the actual issue is?

[@SimonAshworthWood]

Using a southern accent to talk about racism is not a good look - unless you show yourself to be clearly anti-racist, like the Free State of Jones or something.

[@Mr_Welch]

I am very accustomed to being stereotyped by the sound of my voice and the location of my birth. Texans are always portrayed as cartoon characters in media. It is something that has stuck in my craw for decades now.

[@armorclasshero2103]

​@@Mr_Welchyou *chose* to stereotype yourself here.

[@h.s.lafever3277]

there is no controversy... there is no such thinkg as a half elf. one drop of nonelf blood means that its no longer an elf.

[@Mr_Welch]

And one drop of dwarf blood means you can't legally drive or operate heavy machinery.

[@h.s.lafever3277]

@@Mr_Welch in our D&D, the Dwarves existed only to be killed, eliminated, and the dwarven occupied government overthrown. Elvenkind restored to the apex of design, and the brutal stunties brought to a final solution. until greyhawk and ravenloft are rid of dwarves, no elf is safe. we bladesingers live by fourteen words alone: we must secure the existence of our race, and a future for elven kind.

[@steelshanks1265]

@@h.s.lafever3277 Who doesn't love Elven-Nazi's right?

[@h.s.lafever3277]

@@steelshanks1265 nope... its cool because we were also jewish. so no controversy

[@steelshanks1265]

@@h.s.lafever3277 Oof...

[@MemphiStig]

WOTC needs to quit preaching and pandering and start coming up with useful content like this. And just because you're calling it "species" or "ancestry" or "heritage" or whatever, that doesn't mean you can't still be racist af. Same with that commandment about taking God's name in vain. There are lots of ways to do that and none of them will get you demonetized or censored. But it's still a sin. And so is pride.

[@BanjoSick]

Tolkien doesn't use races, he says peoples.

[@sirderik]

Tbh, Half races issue to me is that its pointless...thanks to how dnd 5e handles pretty much everything half races has been pointless sense tasha cauldron. we don't use races anymore to describe mechanical characteristics only to refer to a fantasy world lore nobody cares about. to prove nobody and i means nooo body care, teiflings are some of the most played races, a race who should be hated and feared for its connection to the demonic is super common and in every colour under the sun, i could rant about how dnds "everyone is special so nobody is" is a big issue but i am trying to stay on point. dnd 5e now don't need races as its just pick some stats, get darkvison and some other power or proficiency you will forget, call your creation anything, than go into the class who actually has rules. WotC IS a cowardly company as they bend to whom every scream the loudest on twitter about anything. we don't have large PC,s because that's evidently super scary, we don't have multiple settings because that would be scary, the word NO we don't have anymore other than "mounting players" and fun things like difference size players. the cost is DnD, counter too what all the players think is getting harder to DM over time, now we don't have alignments, so DM have to read a block of lore to interperate what a Drow would do, which again they changed soo DM has to be updated and DM has to have the setting books and the player class option books and for some dumb reason the race books no matter how useless that is, and beastiary. meanwhile the player bring 1 book they borrow from the forever dm and some dice. i DM soon over 10 different campaigns which may sound small but it ain't, different systems, and DND keeps surprising me on how it expects the DM to do all the work, and i mean all, world, class monsters narrative, name a thing its evedntly its job. but oh the horror of half races wich is either just mules in the horse kingdom or something we have irl that's usually a tag on pronhub. sooo i don't agree with wotc at all.

[@unfortunatesun]

Yeah man, bad take. I'm out.

[@jenniferzoch3309]

I'll play the old versions before dnd went woke and hopefully went broke