Lineage Design

One of the things that have a lot of grognards and folks on the anti-woke right argleing and bargleing is the choice Wizards of the Coast has made to do away with the term race and get rid of (to the best of their ability) legacy lore that has an aroma of racism or other distasteful -isms. Things like the rapey origins of Half-Orcs and the always evil nature of the only Elves of Color in the game. You know, small things like that.

 

As you should have gathered from the tone of my opening paragraph, I think this is a good idea, despite my age and grognard credentials. 

 

I have been fortunate through the years to have played with a pretty diverse bunch of gamers, and these issues that are being addressed, finally, by the publisher of the most popular RPG on the market have been topics of concern and discussion for decades.

 

With that in mind, I am personally going to replace the word race with lineage in my campaign rules. I am also going to re-assess one of the oldest core assumptions in D&D that the game world, and therefore the game is human-centric. This is an assumption with several intersection points with the rules on character creation and almost no intersection points with gameplay mechanics. 

 

The most important re-assessment, in my mind, is that other lineages should be described in terms of differences from humans, especially in ability score generation. If humans are no longer the baseline that other lineage's ability scores are measured against, does having ability score adjustments for any lineage make sense anymore? I don't believe they do. I'm getting rid of them.

 

Characters are exceptionable individuals with potential beyond that of most, regardless of lineage. 

 

I want the choice of class to carry the heaviest load of mechanics in character creation, followed by ability scores. Players want their ability scores to be conformant to their class choice with the best scores assigned to the ability scores that offer the best mechanical advantage to the chosen class. 

 

So with doing away with human centrism and elevating class to mechanical preeminence, I will have players assign two +1 ability bonuses to their scores after choosing a class and arranging their rolled ability score set.

 

What role does this leave for lineage, especially for humans who are no longer the center of the universe? 

A small number of lineage features for each lineage. Said features will be small, useful talents with nice-to-have but not major mechanical effects.

 

I am going for a grittier, zero-to-hero, old-school style of a game rather than the fantasy superhero feel of 5e.

 

Here is my first pass at the Human Lineage

Humans

By far the most populous lineage in the lands of the Crimson Reach. There are three sub-lineages of humans in the Reach. In order of population found, they are, the Tuari, the Sea People, and the Cyrenican. 

 

While there are some differences in the sub-lineages in appearance and typical classes and backgrounds found among them, they are of one lineage and share the same Lineage Features. 

 

It is not unusual to find humans of mixed sub-lineages, especially in the bigger cities; so when creating a character of human lineage do not hesitate to choose physical characteristics from different sub-lineages.

 

Human Traits

Age. Humans reach physical maturity in their late teens to early twenties. Among the poorer strata of society, it is not uncommon to see humans as young as 12 or 13 following a profession, including adventurers. If fortune favors them, humans commonly reach the age of 70, with some very few seeing 100 years.

 

Alignment. Humans run the full spectrum of alignments, slightly favoring the collective efforts of Law.

 

Size. Humans average around 5 ½ feet tall though they range from under 5 feet tall to 7 feet tall. Most individuals will be between 5 feet and 6 feet. Their average weight is 140 pounds; like height, the range is quite variable. Humans are size Medium.

 

Speed. The base walking speed is 30 feet.

 

Hardy. Humans are a hardy race, able to toil for long hours even in adverse conditions. When they are affected by Exhaustion, they suffer the effects of the next lower level. Humans also have Advantage on any check to resist the effects of extended effort or adverse conditions such as starvation, thirst, or exposure to harsh weather conditions. This does not apply to magical effects.

 

Polyglot. Humans are good with languages and may start with additional languages known equal to their INT bonus, or one additional language if their INT adjustment is not a bonus. This feature also increases the maximum number of languages a character can learn by the same amount.

 

Skilled. Most Humans specialize in a chosen field. For any class ability that gets a bonus to a check based on the character’s level, a Human character determines that bonus as if they are one level higher. For example, Thieves add half their level, rounded down, to their check to Open Locks; a Human Thief of 3rd level would calculate this bonus as if they are 4th level getting a +2 to the check instead of the +1 a 3rd level Thief would normally receive.

 

Languages. All humans speak, read, and write Common and the native tongue of their sub-lineage. This is in addition to the languages they learn from the Polyglot feature.

 

Sub-lineage. There are three common sub-lineages of Humans in the Crimson Reach. A character’s choice of sub-lineage influences their background and helps anchor them in the world. There are no mechanical differences from the choice of sub-lineage.

 

Other lineages will follow this pattern with a few features based on lore for the lineage.

 

If anyone reads this, I would love to know what you think.