Playable Interracial Character Races
I’ve been reading through old Dragon Magazines (again) and came across an interesting article on creating a new player character race. In Dragon Magazine #29 (Sept. 1979), Gygax begrudgingly released ‘official’ stats for the half-ogre race, mainly because he had heard about it being popular from various DM’s and wanted to get his two cents in. He has some strong feelings about what races should be allowed as player races and what shouldn’t, including interracial races.
In designing ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, I considered the possible racial mixtures. Should half-dwarves, half-gnomes, and half-halflings (and is a half-halfling a quartling, perchance?) be allowed? How about dwarf-elf, dwarf-gnome, dwarf-halfling, elf-gnome, elf-halfling, and gnome-halfling crossbreeds? Then there are tri-racial mixtures. Those involving humans and orcs add still more confounding factors. And now somebody decided that ogres could cross with humans! Could they cross with elves also? How about hill giants interbreeding with humans? with elves? with ogres? with ettins? Why leave out goblins? hobgoblins? gnolls? bugbears? Because of the potential for absolute madness in the game, I included only the half-elf, hoping that the rest would not arise to plague the placid waters of racial selection, but it is apparent that it was not meant to be.
Gary Gygax, September, 1979
Much of the article discusses how restrictions in playable races maintained balance, as not to give a singular race an advantage over all others. I understand the point Gygax was attempting to get across to the reader, even if there are some disturbing undertones in what he is saying.
More than anything, though, it seems like a very narrow mindset about how the game should be played. I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of allowable player races, inherent biases in stats for certain races, and so on. Like everyone, I have my opinions on what races make sense - you like playing an animal type race, then I’m all for the Tabaxi or the UA Rabbitfolk - and what races I wouldn’t allow in a campaign - sorry, Aarakocra, I feel that giving a player a 50-foot flight speed is too much.
This got me thinking; why do we have an ever-growing list of new playable races but no template for creating an interracial character? Tasha’s has attempted to address this issue, but it only scratches the surface. Personally, I think that while the change is a positive one, it was also a knee-jerk reaction to the negative press involving some of the races and appealing to players they have lost to Pathfinder. Putting all the power in players’ hands may seem like a good idea, but without restrictions, it can wreak havoc on the game, just as Gygax feared.
I had started off thinking about half-dwarves, half-gnomes, and so forth, but I realized that my thinking was limited. Why couldn’t a dwarf and a goliath, living next door to each other on the cold and rocky mountains, fall in love and have children? The list of possibilities is quite long and continues to grow every time another race is introduced.
So how do I convince the DM I want to play the love child of a Dragonborn and Kobold? Obviously, the first thing you’ll have to do is talk to your DM about it. In the current climate of the game, I have to imagine that most DM’s would be open to the idea. If they are willing to accept this as an acceptable option for a race, then you’ll have to determine how to determine your character’s racial traits.
We can draw inspiration from two races, but after looking them over, let’s say I was less than inspired. The half-elf ability points are a +2 Charisma and +1 to two other scores of your choice. The additional +1 increases pay homage to the human trait that provides a character to +1 to all ability scores. The +2 to Charisma comes out of nowhere. We could debate all day long on this subject, but I find it odd that they went with Charisma instead of Dexterity to respect the race’s elven heritage.
The half-elf traits are mostly pulled from their elvish background. This makes sense since the human race gets nothing beyond an extra language. Granting the half-elf darkvision could go either way, but since the game does not have anything like low-light vision, a la Pathfinder, then I can get behind it. I like the inclusion of Fey Ancestry and the removal of Trance. It feels like a good balance of giving the race an elvish trait that is a core feature of an elf, but denying them Trance is a smart move as that trait should remain solely elvish. Skill Versatility is a ribbon trait, and proficiency in two skills of your choice is a lot for a race that already a total of 4 bonuses to their ability scores.
The half-orc is even worse, in my opinion. You only get 3 ability score boosts, +2 to Strength and +1 to Constitution, both of which feel tied to only your orc heritage. The additional traits are all based on the orc blood flowing through your veins. I made my feeling known above on the subject of granting darkvision. Still, you cannot tell me that Menacing, Relentless Endurance, and Savage Attacks aren’t all directly influenced solely by your orc heritage. There is nothing wrong with this, but why not just create an orcish playable race out of the gate? Again, we can talk about the inherent racism built into the orc creature, but that is not the article's purpose.
So how do we come up with a balanced interracial playable race to be used in Dungeons & Dragons? To help us with our walkthrough, let’s meet Hope, whose tabaxi father and tiefling mother fell madly in love and settled down to start a family. The happy couple welcomed their baby girl into the world soon after. Influenced by her tabaxi curiosity and tiefling self-reliance, Hope set off as an adventurer upon reaching her 18th birthday.
Our first step is to look at the ability score bonuses, evaluate them, and see what makes sense for Hope.
Tiefling: +2 Charisma, +1 Intelligence
Tabaxi: +2 Dexterity, + 1 Charisma
I propose two methods for deciding which ability scores are increased. The first is the fixed method. For this, we take a look at both races, see if there is any overlap, and do our best to pay our respects to both race’s traits. For Hope, an ability score bonus in Charisma is a no-brainer. Hope will gain a +2 to her Charisma since the ability score increase is found in both races, and it pays homage to her tiefling mother. Since the tabaxi are famous for their agility, Hope will also receive a +1 to her Dexterity score, finishing up our ability score increases for this method.
The second method is the points method, and it is very similar to the point buy system. You’ll start with 3 points you may use to increase Hope’s stats. You can put these points in Charisma, Dexterity, or Charisma in any combination you want. Now traditionally, most classes only have increased in two ability scores. Allowing a player to choose amongst all three scores provides them the flexibility to create a unique character. There is a precedent for this in that the triton has three different increases, and the UA Draconic races allow a player to add +1 to three ability scores of their choice.
Next, we’ll have to decide what additional traits to give our friend Hope. Let’s get the easy ones out of the way.
Age: Life span equivalent to humans. Easy enough since both races are close to that of humans. The easiest way to determine age if the two races are different is to split the difference.
Alignment: Chaotic. Again, it’s easy for us since both tend towards this alignment; if you have two characters at opposite ends of the spectrum, lean towards Neutral.
Size: Medium. If the two sizes are different, lean toward medium as it is the most common.
Speed: Hope’s base walking speed is 30 feet. Again, 30 feet is the standard so that I wouldn’t deviate too much. If one of the races has a swim/fly speed, take that speed and reduce it by half.
Darkvision: Hope can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light, just as her parents can. Torches are so 2nd edition, so lean towards giving Darkvision if one race has it.
Languages: Hope can speak, read, and write Common, Infernal, and one other language of her choice. All characters should know Common, any racial languages, and if there aren’t any, then up to 2 additional languages to speak.
Now we get into the meat of Hope’s traits. Once again, let’s look at both race’s traits and see what we have.
Tiefling: Hellish Resistance, Infernal Legacy.
Tabaxi: Feline Ability, Cat’s Claws, Cat’s Talent.
Most races have three specific racial traits. The tabaxi has three traits, but tiefling only has two. Our intrepid adventurer will get three since it’s the standard. It should be sporadic that an interracial player race receives more than three. Each interracial creation should get one trait from each of their heritages and one new trait resulting from their unique bloodline. The heritage traits should be one of the respective race’s core traits, and by that, I mean the one that is associated as being specific to that race.
For example, Hope receives Feline Agility from her father. Based on our discussions about speed, Cat's claws would reduce the climb speed to 10 feet, so it hardly seems worth it. Cat’s Talent is only a proficiency bump, so it’s hardly special. Next, Hope receives the Infernal Legacy trait. While resistance to fire is a perfect fit for the tiefling, it isn’t anything special, especially given that resistance to fire is the most common resistance out there.
Now our third and final trait shouldn’t be over-the-top since Hope already has two outstanding ones at her disposal. But it also needs to be some that will fit well with both races we are working from. Reading through the race’s descriptions got me thinking that Hope would be proficient in a tool or kit. Tieflings commonly grow up to be swindlers, thieves, or crime lords, equating with the need for thieves’ tools. The tabaxi are often entertainers, actors, musicians, which led me to proficiency in musical instruments or a gaming set. The result was Makeup Artist, providing Hope with proficiency with the disguise kit.
Our character Hope, the tabaxi/tiefling, is now complete. She is the best of both her parents, but different in her own special way, making her a one-of-a-kind character race for someone to play in their next campaign.
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