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Thread: Right way to do racial stat modifiers?

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    Default Re: Right way to do racial stat modifiers?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    If your designing a new system, what's your valid justification for having orcs in the first place?
    What do you mean by valid?

    Do you mean have a reason at all? Do you mean a reason you agree with? Do you mean one that isn't logically inconsistent?

    To answer the question, I guess simply put it is because I want to have a large variety of opponents, and things like dragons, orcs, griffons, werewolves, fairies, and ghosts all have a lot of cultural weight behind them; it makes the game feel more familiar and comfortable, and allows more creativity than my mind alone could come up with creating so many species from whole cloth.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    If you're raising too small sample sizes as a point, that implies you don't except to play a lot of different games with your own system, and don't really care about what other people do it. Also, Drizzt thing was a trend for players, that's part of what the comic was spoofing. Drizzt codified the idea that a Ranger fights with two swords and this wormed its way to game mechanics of multiple games, including his parent game D&D. If you didn't see it, you didn't look too hard
    Players characters are a very small sample size across all games. Let's say the average group has four players and starts a new campaign every six months. That means that I have been at the table with less than 100 PCs despite playing regularly for a quarter of a century.

    This is too small a sample size to make statements about the capabilities of a population, especially considering it is comprised of PCs who are already extraordinary outliers who are defined by their exceptionalism to begin with.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    I'm not talking about forcing players to play stereotypes, I'm talking about your system encouraging, by it's mechanical structure, playing of stereotypical characters. Substituting one internal stereotype with another isn't preferable here. Also, again, if you want diversity and are fine with PC demographics lining up with NPC demographics, just randomize character creation already.
    The goal is for players to play the character they want to play. If it conforms with a stereotype, that's fine, if it contradicts it, that's also fine.

    I haven't said I want diversity or PCs to line up with NPC demographics, those are terms other people have used.

    Randomized character creation is, imo, the worst of all worlds.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    But beyond that, let me write you another satirical conversation:

    GM: "In this world, dark elves are called Drow, they are an evil, subterranean, matriarchal spider-worshipping race."
    Player: "That's so cool! I want to play a Drow!"
    GM: "Nice! So let's start by rolling your abi-..."
    Player: "But I don't want to be evil."
    GM: "Okay? Well, that's workable..."
    Player: "I also don't want to play any subterranean adventures. Those are so cliched."
    GM: *Puzzled* "... well okay, you could be
    part of an exploration party send to the surface..."
    Player: "I also don't want to worship spiders."
    GM: "... well they do have some other gods..."
    Player: "Also, I find this matriarchy thing not to my tastes, so I'll play a lone male who has no ties to that social paradigm.
    GM: *Looks at the player* "Okay, let's see if I got this right: I described an evil, subterranean, matriarchal spider-worshipping race..."
    Player: "That's right!"
    GM: "... but you want your character to not be evil, not live underground, not worship spiders and not have anything to do with their social order?"
    Player: "Yes!"
    GM: *crossing their arms* "... what, exactly, did you find cool about my Drow?"
    Player: *points to a book* "Well, you see, they have dark skin in that picture."
    GM: "And?"
    Player: "And I find your game has too few dark skinned people in it."
    GM: "Okay?"
    Player: "So I thought I'd fix that by playing a Drow."
    GM: "Uh..."
    Player: "But I don't want to be part of an evil matriarchy. That'd give a bad impression of dark skinned people. So, instead, I will be lovable good ranger!"
    GM: "You... you do realize my setting has actual dark skinned humans in it? Including an entire culture of immigrant from historical Egypt?"
    Player: *puzzled* "Yes?"
    GM: "So if you want a positive representation of dark skinned people, why not play, you know, a dark skinned human?"
    Player: "... but they're not elves."
    GM: "... I'm sorry?"
    Player: "They're not elves. So they don't have pointed ears. Or this totally awesome bonus to dexterity. Playing a ranger is totally unoptimal without a bonus to dexterity."
    GM: "Doesn't sound like you really want to play a Drow at all."
    Player: "How come? I just said I wanted to play a Drow."
    GM: "Would you be satisfied with playing an Egyptian with one-time boost to dexterity?"
    Everyone else at the table: "Hey, wait a second! You didn't give us that option when we made our characters!"
    GM: "... why's that a big deal all of a sudden?"
    Player 2: "I totally wouldn't have picked orc and eaten an ability score penalty to mental stats if I could've just been a human with a bonus to strength.
    GM: "But I thought you liked exploring orc culture and special disadvantages they have in society?"
    Player 2: "Well sort of, but these penalties totally stink. I could've just picked a human and... I dunno, pretended I was still an orc?"
    Player 3: "Refluffed."
    Player 2: "Say what?"
    Player 3: "Not 'pretended'. Refluffed. It's what you call it when you take a mechanic made to model one thing and use it for a completely different thing!"
    GM: "Hold on... so you would've been fine playing... refluffed humans?"
    Player 2: "Yes."
    GM: "But then, what was the point of me creating all these special mechanics to model differences between orcs and humans?"
    Player 2: "Eh, I don't play orcs for the mechanics, I play them to explore the culture, the psychology..."
    GM: "But those mechanics are there to model the culture and the psychology! How are you supposed to explore being disadvantaged withouy actually having any disadvantage?"
    Player 2: *sips juice through a straw* "Eh, I can just roleplay it."
    Player 1: "So, can I play a Drow now?"
    What are you trying to say here?

    It seems like you are agreeing with me, that we have two players both picking a race they don't really want to play for mechanical reasons when they would be happier with a more freeform set of bonuses.

    Or are you just saying the players are both idiots wanting to have "badwrongfun"?

    Also, the idea that Orc culture and psychology boils down to "-2 int" is laughably absurd.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    I'm going to ignore your Changeling example because I don't know that game and you aren't giving me enough information to give a reasoned analysis.
    Well, that's your loss then.

    In my opinion, Changeling is the optimal way to do a game with a cosmopolitan mixture of races; where each race has a handful of very flavorful rules (almost none of them numerical) but with rich cultures, psychologies, and aesthetics. The game is well liked, and people are very passionate about the races in it.

    Were I trying to create or looking to play in a game with a bunch of PC races (which I am not), this would be my ideal model.

    When you say this doesn't work, Changeling is the perfect counter example to illustrate that it can and does, but if you want to ignore it I guess I can try explaining it a different way.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    The Talakeal method of being one of several methods of changing the cap in point buy is great for making races meaningless ("cosmetic") outside of min-maxing. And point buy is great for letting people create the character that they envision, and for min-maxing. So it's a system that has doubled down on encouraging min-maxing.
    Aside from terminology, there is literally no difference between adjusting the cap and D&D style racial modifiers; I just find the math more straightforward.

    As for min-maxing, it really isn't enough of an issue to warrant limiting player freedom and handholding.

    Generally, a min-maxxed character slightly outshines the rest of the party in their area of specialty, and then sits around being useless and bored when their specialty isn't applicable.

    Then they die the first time one of their weaknesses is targeted, and throw a temper tantrum about how the GM went out of their way to screw over their character, and I add another to my tally of gaming horror stories.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    So, start with answering the question, "what do you want?". Then we can describe a system which does that.
    I want a system where players are free to make the character they want but the DM can fall back and racial stereotypes to create diverse encounters that play differently.

    But really, the point of the thread was trying to identify and avoid exactly what real world offense people are taking with the D&D system of racial modifiers.

    Quote Originally Posted by SwordCoastTaxi View Post
    As influential as D&D is now, never forget that tampering with the game mechanics can lead to ruin. It's why WotC isn't listening to the SJWs and their rant against races.
    They clearly are though. They have issued public apologies, banned a bunch of old magic cards from tournament play, allegedly breached contract over offensive content in Dragonlance, and redid how racial stat modifiers work in Tasha's.

    Now, if or how any of this actually addressed the problem is anyone's guess.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anymage View Post
    Also, I do think it's worth noting that most fans of flex stats aren't calling racial modifiers actively racist. They can say that they diminish the real options at the table to only ones with properly stat boosts, or that a stat modifier (especially one that boils down to just +1 to a roll) isn't all that exciting as a racial feature. Those are game design points. That's different from a race like drow having been written in problematic ways, which is solved by being more conscious in your writing. Again Tal won't be perfect, but it's worth splitting the game design elements from the world design elements.
    Agreed; but I have seen numerous people on forums make statements like "Numerical racial modifiers are racist" or "Physical mods are ok but mental mods are offensive" or "Bonuses are all right but penalties need to go" or even "Abilities that encourage a certain style of play are ok as long as they aren't flat numerical modifiers".

    Again, I am mystified as to how or why, but I really do want to learn and am trying to avoid those pitfalls.
    Last edited by Talakeal; 2020-12-26 at 04:04 PM.
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