Friday, November 27, 2015

AD&D Players Handbook part 10

Humans: Not much to say here.  Humans are the baseline, they get no special abilities or penalties, and they have unlimited advancement in every character class.  I kind if like that Gary only gives them about a paragraph, because who needs to waste space on humans?  We all know what they're like.

The section on races finishes up with the Racial Preferences Table, which details in general terms how the various races feel about each other.  This is fundamental world-building stuff for AD&D, so let's take a closer look.

Dwarves: Prefer interacting with other dwarves; have a good relationship with gnomes, as well as stout and tallfellow halflings; are neutral towards humans, hairfoot halflings and half-elves; dislike elves; and hate half-orcs.

Elves: Prefer interacting with other elves; have a good relationship with half-elves; tolerate gnomes and halflings; are neutral towards humans; dislike dwarves and half-orcs

Gnomes: Prefer interacting with other gnomes; have good relationships with dwarves and halflings; tolerate elves and half-elves; are neutral towards humans; and hate half-orcs.

Half-Elves: Prefer interacting with elves and half-elves; tolerate humans and gnomes; are neutral towards dwarves and halflings; and dislike half-orcs.

Halflings, Hairfoot: Prefer interacting with other halflings; tolerate dwarves, elves and gnomes; and are neutral towards humans, half-elves and half-orcs.

Halflings, Stout: Prefer interacting with other halflings; have good relationships with dwarves; tolerate elves and gnomes; and are neutral towards humans, half-elves and half-orcs.

Halflings, Tallfellow: Prefer interacting with other halflings; have good relationships with elves; tolerate dwarves and gnomes; and are neutral towards humans, half-elves and half-orcs

Half-Orcs: Prefer interacting with other half-orcs; tolerate humans; are neutral towards halflings; dislike elves and half-elves; and hate dwarves and gnomes.

Humans: Prefer interacting with other humans; tolerate half-elves; and are neutral towards dwarves, gnomes, halflings, elves and half-orcs.

This is all fairly standard fantasy stuff: dwarves and elves at odds, nobody likes half-orcs, etc.  Most of it stems from Tolkien, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  If you're laying down a baseline for how D&D worlds work, there are worse places to start than the most well-known work of modern fantasy.


The section ends with an illustration showing some of the races, which is handy for size comparison purposes.  But where are the gnome and halflings?

1 comment:

  1. That picture always reminded me of awkward family photos.

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