The following NPCs, shown in order, are Nedes but all use a Nord character model.
See, this is one of the major problems I have with this argument....and even then your own sourcebook says that "The Breton caste was only allowed to marry humans, so over time their Elven blood became more diluted, and the Nedic appearance predominated," meaning that there indeed was not a physical change among this human population.
We have -one- race, the nedes. fast forward an era and we have imperials, bretons and nords. At the very least the bretons and imperials are supposeldy descendent from the nedes - but they are quite a bit differently depicted and described. The nords may be different having come from atmore rather recently, though it is assumed the nedes came from there as well, jsut a bit earlier then the nords, so... one people back then, three different people now, one magically inclined feudalists, one militaristically inclined empire-builders, and one tough and drunk brawlers. Sounds like someone did some divergent evolving there, as much as you want to deny is, crying "noone saw it happen, so it must not have happened!" all the while.And again,we have no evidence of any kind of slow change over time or evolutionary process with which racials could be justified. We have intermixing of different Nedic populations, but nothing to support the idea that they were adapting to their environments or any other such nonsense.
That's a lot of unsupported assumptions you are making there.At no point do we have some kind of evolutionary process being described, nor do we need an evolutionary process to explain the modern-day cultures of humans in Tamriel.
...which is says... where exactly?As various groups of Aldmer left Summerset and were (magically) changed into the other types of elves,
Funny, how would that work when ALL the ones who split off used the shtick to "redefine themselves"... why would the ones left behind need so too?it's possible that the need for the remaining population to redefine themselves and achieve a racial identity became an important nation-building tool.
Except for the skin color. Altmer get the golden skin tone (in shades ranging from yellow to "white folk"), but king Dynar has bronze tanned skin, more brown then yellow. Visibly different from all the many, many altmer.You do know that not all Altmer are gold-skinned, right? Some of them look like nothing but pointy-eared white people. Saying "golden-skinned" is a useful generalization but hardly fully representative. As for Ayleids, the only NPC I can think of is their last King, and he's not visibly different than any particular Altmer, even uses the same game model.
Oh, the skin colors changing into various ways from whatever the aldmer had is in itself only a indication of -change-, nothing more.In any case, what adaptation does a slightly different gold skin color give, exactly? And can we even be sure that any physical differences, if there are any at all, were not also Daedric fiat? They did worship a boatload of them, after all.
I would not disagree with that. It is certainly a viable explaination, and one I actually believe myself....it is clear that the Bosmer got their current form through the intervention of Y'ffre.
...you -do- realize my main is a sneaky dunmer nightblade and my secondary a magical dunmer caster? I would enjoy those retcons...The most recent game, TES Legends, has some changes for you. The Argonian race is now "known for its natural endurance". Dunmer are "renowned for both their magical prowess and their stealth", so no more warrior recognition for them. Enjoy your new retcons!
Have you looked at Orc mating habits, perchance? Especially like its a wolfpack structure, with the main breeding going on from the chief and his various wives? Now, that kind of thing seems to be in flux, with it being strong in the traditionalists, and laxer in more enlighted orcs (and good thing too), but a history of that sort of thing would explain a thing or two, right?I see some fine descriptions of Orc culture, but culture isn't equivalent with a biological hegemony. ...As a cultural ideal it's undeniable, but biology is a different story.
I personally do not, but I consider the argument made from both sides, and concede that no settlement will be reached.Half of our conversation has been dedicated to teasing out whether or not racials make some kind of logical sense. I've shown quite thoroughly that they do not make sense biologically, so I consider that part of the argument settled.
No, I am saying that you cannot trust -anything- blindly, especially not the lorebooks. Yes, there are a lot of good bits of info there - but also a lot of bad ones. Treating them as gods own truth on the other hand, when they are sometimes even more contradictory then anything else... that is not a good idea. A far worse idea though is working on the assumption that anything not explicitely mentioned in the lorebooks does not exist. Especially things that are logically infered by the game system as we have it.You seem to be suggesting that we can't trust even the most rudimentary inferences about the elder scrolls universe by what's in the lorebooks, and I find that most distasteful.
True enough.We actually have four books written by Narsis Dren to check... ...It was obvious, the writers intended it to be obvious, and they still conveyed useful information about both the world and his character through his tales and exposition.
Wrong.But you literally also are picking are choosing what you deem as "acceptable". You pick and choose which race descriptions to use, even so far as to pick and choose what specific sentences to believe. And it's not a "false conclusion" to use evidence and reasoning to determine that a lack of mention of something, coupled specifically with the mention of other mutually exclusive things, means that the original subject of inquiry does not likely exist. It is the only actual supportable conclusion.
That's what I would call "adjustments". Keeping the original notion, coming up with a better system for it. Horse training kept the three stats, just changed things around a bit in how they were trained. Provisioning kept the general way of cooking things, just changed the recipes and streamlined the ingredients.Like the provisioning or horse training systems? Those weren't adjustments, they were completely done over.
That IS "racials going away".And if you want to get technical I'm not suggesting that the "racials" go away and start from scratch, I'm suggesting that they take the same system and change the name from "racials" to "background" or "advantages" or some other such thing, and decouple it from race.
Never one for the old legends, eh?Besides it would kind of defeat the purpose of a curse to give you superpowers.
One - cultures remaning themselves seems to be the exception, rather then the rule. And usually happens when regional cultures combine or split think... not for random "Oh, nedes was so yesterday, let's be bretons now..."No, renaming happens naturally over time within a culture. There's always a good reason for it (new national identity, change of state religion, empire building, whatever) but there's no reason to assume that a new name means a distinct new people with magic racial bonuses that defy any evolutionary sense. It's not that I can say with 100% certainty that it didn't happen, but when the evidence just isn't there it would be foolishly speculative to claim it did.
...people who actually have to try and convince their editor to run their story might disagree.No, you are missing the point. They are not "unlikely" protagonists. They are just protagonists. You are making some really wild claims here. Stories get remembered for so many more reasons than just "the first, the best, the last, the worst, and the unlikely one".
So you are saying... what?I'm sorry but you just don't know what you're talking about when it comes to storytelling.
I said "if they were to sum it up in a few short lines" did I not? Of coruse that would by definition be shallow, duh!Is the TES series so shallow that racial abilities get more focus than the culture of the people these descriptions are about?
Actually I was more thinking of a nomadic people having to be more self-reliant -because- they have not outsourced all those crafting skills to a specialized crafter... though in any case, that would definitely be a cultural bonus, and not a racial one.Being nomadic would not apply any more of a selective pressure for such a trait than any other type of living. In fact, culturally speaking, you'd be less likely to have advanced crafting skill because your people would lack the sophisticated tools, machinery, and resources that stationary settlements allow. No advanced forges or deep mines or anything of the like.
I miss those too!starkerealm wrote: »I mean, the other side is, I miss the nine attributes from Arena - Oblivion. The three attribute system from Skyrim and ESO makes sense for ease of use, but I think Fallout 4 and 76 really hammered home how much I missed the "feeling" of knowing how strong my character is, are how smart they are. Ironically, that's where racials really worked. Being able to say, "my Nord starts with an extra +20 Strength, but anyone STR 100, eventually."
I like racians in general...I hate racials in ESO. They are forcing the players to choose a race that they don't wanna play with. Because the racials give too much stats
bellanca6561n wrote: »The whole lore argument falls flat for me in an online game, but I'm used to emergent story MMOs and the whole point for many developers in creating the MMO, to begin with, was to create a form of entertainment where the narrative is told by the audience. This is what made online gaming an innovative form of entertainment compared to all the others that just feed you their product and your only role is to consume it.
The online game that inspired the creation of the acronym, MMO, Ultima Online, had decades of lore based on earlier single player games behind it too. But it was largely ABANDONED when the online version launched because its developers wanted it to take its own course.
But is ESO an MMO? Not entirely.
If it means to follow a story told by others before it was even released, and it is wedged some centuries in the middle of a timeline containing specified events, it never was suitable material on which to base an online game. But here we are.
So, let's put aside cultish arguments and look at common sense. What are all those muscles doing on Dunmer males, Breton males, Altmer males? If they are incapable of physical warfare comparable to Orcs, Nords, Redguards, and others, why do they even have heavy armor and metal weapons? And why do Dunmers have dual wield as their first racial passive? Ambidextrous? Uh, no. If so they'd deal more damage with dual wield than the other races as well.
It's all rather contrived....lizards swimming faster...responding better to drink than to solid food...a mixed race of man and mer only having bonuses to magic...just LOOK AT THEM, these passives, and say, with a straight face, they make sense in the context in which they're offered, anchored and restricted to specific races.
Does that truely make sense to you? And what of you fellow players? They follow these rules of course, as they must, but do you imagine most ESO players care about lore?
So, who does this product serve?
I am honestly perplexed by this answer.
If the lore means nothing to you, then why play this game?
I mean, you said it yourself, it has had a heavy tendency towards a ZOS imposed narrative from the start. Surely you were aware of this either when you started playing? Or soon after?
Your account creation date suggests you have been here since March 2014 (like me). From the first days of playing the game it was obvious that ZOS was attempting (not always managing) to create an online gaming experience that was steeped in the lore and atmosphere of the Elder Scrolls.
So having become aware of that... you stayed.
If the world-building isn't what you are here for, then... well... why?
I am honestly perplexed by this answer.
If the lore means nothing to you, then why play this game?
I mean, you said it yourself, it has had a heavy tendency towards a ZOS imposed narrative from the start. Surely you were aware of this either when you started playing? Or soon after?
Your account creation date suggests you have been here since March 2014 (like me). From the first days of playing the game it was obvious that ZOS was attempting (not always managing) to create an online gaming experience that was steeped in the lore and atmosphere of the Elder Scrolls.
So having become aware of that... you stayed.
If the world-building isn't what you are here for, then... well... why?
The hell? You dont have to care about the lore to enjoy an mmo. There are plenty of people who play this game just for the mmo experience. They stay because they made friends and like to play with friends.
It isn't about "a mmo" it is about the choice of this one, rather than any others. I even put the word in italics in the post you quoted.
This poster has stayed in a game that which has, as one of the fundamental tendencies that they themselves identified, something that they have no desire for and something that actively prevents them from playing the way they want to...
... for over four years.
Nothing about that situation makes you the slightest bit curious as to the reasoning behind it?
Your consternation at my post would make sense if this is the only mmo that someone could be playing. This is absolutely not the case. There are dozens of the blasted things. As such, why choose the one that annoys you? Rather than one that doesn't?
It really isn't as unreasonable a question as you seem to be suggesting.
It isn't about "a mmo" it is about the choice of this one, rather than any others. I even put the word in italics in the post you quoted.
This poster has stayed in a game that which has, as one of the fundamental tendencies that they themselves identified, something that they have no desire for and something that actively prevents them from playing the way they want to...
... for over four years.
Nothing about that situation makes you the slightest bit curious as to the reasoning behind it?
Your consternation at my post would make sense if this is the only mmo that someone could be playing. This is absolutely not the case. There are dozens of the blasted things. As such, why choose the one that annoys you? Rather than one that doesn't?
It really isn't as unreasonable a question as you seem to be suggesting.
Because many mmo players will tell you that no mmo is perfect, not every mmo will tick all the boxes when it comes to your wishlist, and that people usually stick with an mmo because they like it the most.
You picked one aspect of the game what you think is the driving force for people to stay with it instead of looking at other factors. What I don't get is why you would think this is the only thing that would get them to stick with one game when there are so many facets to this game that makes it fun and enjoyable. And while people love the game, they stick acknowledge that it is not perfect and there are things about it that can be improved for practicality and gameplay's sake, like the handling of racial passives in this game.
TheShadowScout wrote: »See, this is one of the major problems I have with this argument.
You keep using contradicting lore.
Like here, you say "the nedes looked exactly like nords and that proves my point that there have been no evolutinary changes", and then only a little time later you say "the nedes looked exactly like bretons, and that proves my point that there have been no evolutinary changes"... and I look at bretons, and I look at nords, and I am not blind enough to think they look the same, and I shake my head, wondering if you even know what you are talking about...
And I am saying that maybe the neded looked like -both- nords and bretons, and imperials as well while we're at it, with one group evolving in one direction and the other in the other direction and a different one in a different direction... which is -exactly- the logical conclusion you seem so desperate to try and deny.
TheShadowScout wrote: »We have -one- race, the nedes. fast forward an era and we have imperials, bretons and nords. At the very least the bretons and imperials are supposeldy descendent from the nedes - but they are quite a bit differently depicted and described. The nords may be different having come from atmore rather recently, though it is assumed the nedes came from there as well, jsut a bit earlier then the nords, so... one people back then, three different people now, one magically inclined feudalists, one militaristically inclined empire-builders, and one tough and drunk brawlers. Sounds like someone did some divergent evolving there, as much as you want to deny is, crying "noone saw it happen, so it must not have happened!" all the while.
If your hypothesis that there wasn't any change was correct, then bretons, imperials and nords would have to be exactly the same, looking exactly the same, having the exact same passives handed to them by the game designers in eversy TES game, etc. They don't.
Thus logic dictates there indeed was some change, and since noone noticed any "boom, changed!" event like with the dunmer for example... the most likely option would be a slow, gradual change over time... and guess what evolution shows up as? Yes, indeed, a slow gradual change over time as traits that are more beneficial in the surroundings, be it environmental or cultural, are passed on at an higher rate then others...
TheShadowScout wrote: »That's a lot of unsupported assumptions you are making there.
Sadly, it just doesn't really hold up. The bretons are described as having changed physically to the point where nords mistook them as a new strain of aldmeri (which by itself would indicate that the changing of races to "new strains" is not unknown in Tamriel)
And of course we have a load of aldmeri changing as they settle different places, so... all in all... I say evolution is pretty much a thing, if maybe a wierd magically twisted mutant thing at times over in Tamriel!
The Bretons, in ten generations of Elven intermingling and slavery, had become scarcely recognizable as humans. Indeed, the hunting party attacked them thinking they were some new strain of Aldmeri, halting their slaughter only when one of the oldest began to wail for his life, a shrieking plea that was spoken in broken Nordic. When word of this reached Windhelm, the Nords reasoned that the "Manmeri" beyond the Reach were, in fact, descended from human slaves taken during the Elven destruction of Saarthal. King Vrage made the first priority of his Empire the liberation of his long-tormented kinsmen in High Rock.
TheShadowScout wrote: »...which is says... where exactly?
There is -no- mention of any "magical changes" of that regard, until we get to the aldmer followers of trinimac getting changed into orsimer and the chimer getting changed into dunmer. Oh, maybe the snow elves getting transformed into blind falmer by the dwemer 'shrooms too I suppose. Well, maybe you could count the khajiit as well, there is a myth of them having been mer once upon a time before azura gifted them with kittyness if I recall correctly...
...but I am pretty sure there is no such tale about bosmer (though there is mention of them taking mannish wives, so that's one for the intermingling change theory again i reckon, and a strike for your "magical change" hypothesis), and none about the ayleids, snow elves, chimer maormer... all of which split off from the aldmer, and ended up looking... completely different. Okay, so not completely, but noticeable different. Sounds to me like some sort of "change over time" may have happened after all, and what would that be if not evolution by any other word?
TheShadowScout wrote: »Funny, how would that work when ALL the ones who split off used the shtick to "redefine themselves"... why would the ones left behind need so too?
Personally I think phonetic shift is far more likely to blame for altmer, though until we actually get to see an aldmer, we can only speculate if the altmer are really as "pure" as they like to think. I mean, we have altmer with golden skin, chimer with skin more greyish shaded then altmer, ayleids with bronze skin, maormer with silver-blue skin, snow elves with pale white skin, dwemer with grey skin... who knows what aldmer might have looked like? Altmer will likely imagine them with golden skin, maormer will swear every oath they had silver skin, I reckon... and the two of them have been killing each other over the question since... forever.
Except for the skin color. Altmer get the golden skin tone (in shades ranging from yellow to "white folk"), but king Dynar has bronze tanned skin, more brown then yellow. Visibly different from all the many, many altmer.
TheShadowScout wrote: »Oh, the skin colors changing into various ways from whatever the aldmer had is in itself only a indication of -change-, nothing more.
But as someone who always demands "proof in the lore", how come you don't allpy the same rules to yourself while speculating about "daedric fiat" where none is mentioned in the lore?
(Not that I would be opposed to that, really, it -is- possible after all. But sadly for your base case, daedric fiat or divine blessing would be a good argument for all sorts of racial passives, so...)
TheShadowScout wrote: »I would not disagree with that. It is certainly a viable explaination, and one I actually believe myself.
TheShadowScout wrote: »Have you looked at Orc mating habits, perchance? Especially like its a wolfpack structure, with the main breeding going on from the chief and his various wives? Now, that kind of thing seems to be in flux, with it being strong in the traditionalists, and laxer in more enlighted orcs (and good thing too), but a history of that sort of thing would explain a thing or two, right?
TheShadowScout wrote: »No, I am saying that you cannot trust -anything- blindly, especially not the lorebooks. Yes, there are a lot of good bits of info there - but also a lot of bad ones. Treating them as gods own truth on the other hand, when they are sometimes even more contradictory then anything else... that is not a good idea. A far worse idea though is working on the assumption that anything not explicitely mentioned in the lorebooks does not exist. Especially things that are logically infered by the game system as we have it.
TheShadowScout wrote: »True enough.
How about the rest of the books tho? Especially the stuff he wrote about himself, hmmm? And that is the trouble, you seem to think you have the divine insight to get to pick which lore is "useful information" and which should be discarded.
And I dislike it when someone think they have the right to tell others what they should believe in, thus I argue that there are parts of the lore that contradict your narrative that are just as valid.
TheShadowScout wrote: »Wrong.
For one, stipulating "mutually exclusive" when there are no such things is a bit of faluty reasoning. For another, your argument is a bit like saying "because there have been wildly different and inaccurate maps of australia in the past, we must conclude australia does not exist".
Now, with an -actual- place like australia, we can go and check, with fictional things we have to ask "Did the author -want- them to exist?", and if the answer is "yes", then the rest is just information getting adjusted as the story is rewitten over time.
The answer here is "yes" by the way, quite obviously.
And here we come back to the core argument... I still say we see the same problem, we just argue stupidly about the lore when the core difference is, I want to adjust the story while keeping with the original intent, and you want to throw part of it away and write a new story instead...
TheShadowScout wrote: »That's what I would call "adjustments". Keeping the original notion, coming up with a better system for it. Horse training kept the three stats, just changed things around a bit in how they were trained. Provisioning kept the general way of cooking things, just changed the recipes and streamlined the ingredients.
You may notice, noone called for horses to be removed from the game, or provisioning, yes?
TheShadowScout wrote: »That IS "racials going away".
TheShadowScout wrote: »One - cultures remaning themselves seems to be the exception, rather then the rule. And usually happens when regional cultures combine or split think... not for random "Oh, nedes was so yesterday, let's be bretons now..."
TheShadowScout wrote: »Two - when the lore actually references physical changes enough that the descendents of nedic men get called "manmer" by the other decendents of their shared ancestor race, well... that usually would be a pretty strong indication for a "distinct new people", yes?
TheShadowScout wrote: »...people who actually have to try and convince their editor to run their story might disagree.
BtW, the "unlikely ones" can also be split into "the miracle" and "the scandal", just in case you ever want to write for a newspaper and make decisions about what is newsworthy.
So you are saying... what?
That we have tons of movies about boxing champions winning and not the underdog going the distance? Tons of books about the scion of a prominent wizarding family going to hogwarts instead of the boy who lived under the stairs? Tons of tales about how the hordes of stormtroopers win the day and not the perky rebel heroes? Tons of stories about a average persons daily routine, and none about something unexpected happening to mess it all up? Tons of stories where the expected happens instead of some plot twist along the way?
Who'd read that? It'd be boring, wouldn't it?
And -that- is why stories about the unlikely one are more commonly remembered. Not saying that this is the only thing that makes a good story, there are many ingredients... but go on, look at stories, look at the heroes... you will find stories about how the hero sure to win did unsurprisingly win become background noise, while the ones of the unlikely one winning get remembered! (not in the least because more people find themselves identifying with the unlikely ones, as most are a member of the masses, feeling they too must be fighting an uphill battle towards recognition and realization of their dreams; and not a scion of the elite who could expect to have an insurmountable advantage everywhere they weanted to and any whim handed to them on a silver platter)
TheShadowScout wrote: »Actually I was more thinking of a nomadic people having to be more self-reliant -because- they have not outsourced all those crafting skills to a specialized crafter... though in any case, that would definitely be a cultural bonus, and not a racial one.
Also, some portable forges were pretty sophisticated, just sayin.
John_Falstaff wrote: »@idk , well, they just a couple of weeks ago announced that they're going to allow different sets (or whatever counterpart) of passives that would make every race suitable for every role, I think that's pretty much 180 compared to that effort from 2 years ago that you're describing. I'm not actually trying to provide a compelling argument to ZOS - I know better than that, they're not in the habit of listening to anything - but if anything, their history is a history of 'ouch, we did not really want to make that change'. So, everything's possible.
[snip]
Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
[snip]
Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
Um, no. These are not just variations in skin tone and favorite foods we're talking about. Khajiit are quite clearly and quite substantially biologically different from Nords, who themselves are biologically different from Orcs, who are also different from Dunmer. Moving to Daggerfall for your college years ain't gonna do squat to get rid of your scales and tail.
That's what the racial passives represent. You wanna role play an Orc mage who was born and raised at the mages guild in Cyrodiil, fine, do that. Nothing stopping you. But you're gonna role play an Orc, not a scrawny elf in an Orc costume.
Sure is.Sorry but as already stated, interbreeding is not evolution.
True. From our point of view. It seems to me the text indicates that the people back then had a somewhat different view about what "human" means, and the bretons were perhaps not quite fitting. Maybe not big enough? Maybe not burly enough? Maybe not hairy enough? We will never know, but all those have been used at times to denounce other humans as "different"...And if they're called Bretons, how is it that they're scarcely recognizable as humans? The Bretons we know look quite human.
THANK YOU!And how does this match up with other accounts, already discussed, which say that Bretons kept their Nedic appearance?
...not my insistance, part of the lore. You know, the one from the in-game lorebooks you so heavily depend on, or does that only count for thise bits that support your vierwpoints and not the rest?Or with your own insistence that the progeny takes the race of the mother?
Personally I think the magical change theory has a lot to it in the bosmers case. Moreso then the "mannish wives" interbreeding theory (unless they also interbred with deer, to get those cute horns... yeah, personally I think pacts with anture spirits the more likely one)Sorry, but your argument is impossible to follow here. You say that there is "no mention" of magickal changes, except for every single type of elf except Ayleid, Maormer, and Bosmer. But then later on below in your post you AGREE that the Bosmer were magically changed by Y'ffre. What is it exactly that you believe again?
True enough.While speculative, I think that if we keep seeing this pattern of elves moving from Summerset and getting magically changed, and given that there haven't been nearly enough generations for these superficial appearance changes to have an evolutionary cause, it is more likely that change of this nature on Tamriel is a magical process. If we want to get Deep Lore about it, the Aldmer were descended from the most Anu-related spirits to begin with, meaning they were least metaphysically aligned with change. Thus if they are going to change it makes much more sense to be a sudden magical process rather than some physical one. It's just not in their nature.
Let's look at an Ayleid then:This "bronze" skin of the Ayleids is also silly. The only Ayleid we see has no metalic color to his skin, and in fact looks so close to one of the Altmer presets in the character creator that I truly don't know if it's actually different or just a trick of the lighting.
And I keep saying, there are several bits of lore showing the -intent- behind the fluff, that points strongly towards a "the developers wanted it to be that way", thus the belief is valid as it follows the creators intent.Well don't trust blindly, then. Corroborate your sources across multiple books, using in-game NPCs, etc. And I've not been saying that things not mentioned in the books can't exist, but if you can't find reference to something and can't logically infer it (and I've shown repeatedly that you can't), then you should re-evaluate your beliefs about the topic.
Not at all supported, you mean?As for your core argument, it just goes back to your idea only being supported in one place (and with contradictions at that) while mine is supported through the rest of the lore.
Or show that even in a place where sword-swinging jocks rule the culture (and if you read the lore as much as I assume, you must admit that nords, orcs and redguards definitely lean towards that one) those who seek out the mysteries of magic can reach quite some heights, if with a bit more effort (as it was in days of elder scrolls past).The people designing gameplay may have wanted racials, but those were probably different people from those designing the story, the NPCs, etc. If racials were supposed to be this big important thing in the lore, then the rest of the storytelling department ought to have gone out of their way to support it with the combination of lorebooks, quests, and NPCs that make up the actual story of the game series. The original intent of the storytellers seems to be that they wanted an interesting and complex world populated by interesting and complex characters who can't be easily shoehorned into the "good at swords" or "good at magic" buckets.
Wrong.No, racials would still be there, the stat changes and all, I'm just suggesting changing how you get them. 0:) And instead of "race passives" they can be called "background passives" just like how "horse feeding" became "horse training". It's perfect and follows your formula for what an "adjustment" is exactly!
No, but because of his completely and totally non-wizarding upbringing, perhaps?Is Harry Potter, a full-blooded wizard, a hero in spite of his disadvantaged upbringing? Sure, but very clearly it's not because he belongs to an unexpected race that isn't usually good at wizarding.
Especially since Chewie and the droids definitely were not space humans.Were Leia, Like, and Han heroes because they faced overwhelming odds against a powerful and ruthless enemy? Sure, but not because they were Space Humans.
I was not talking about race, I was talking about underdogs winning the day making for more memorable stories.Race has nothing to do with their stories, and it has nothing to do with the success or failure of the vast majority of characters in TES lorebooks.
...and just how many of those go with the most likely narative? How many storied of intrigue have the most suspiscious character be the actual culprit? How many stotries of comedy have the expected things happen all the time? How many stories of romance have the most likely suitor take the bride? How many stories of horror only include expected narratives?There are stories of intrigue, stories of comedy, stories of romance, of horror, and many more.
Good idea.Now to summarize a few things :
...which in no way contradicts any racial traits.The in-game depictions in lorebooks and NPCs paint an extremely complex picture of the races, where the alleged proclivities and advantages of the race fall away to reveal complex characters with a great many different skillsets
...which still in no way contradicts any racial traits.In particular, we have ample depictions and descriptions of every race having robust cultural traditions around all the big three classic TES categories : Combat, Magic, and Stealth. Trying to essentialize the culture of any of the races inevitably cuts out huge amounts of canonical nuance.
First, you have not given ANY evidence for your hypothesis. At best, inconclusive indications. And if you stopped calling those "evidence" and making absolute statements but instead went with something more fitting like "opinion" or "hypothesis" or "suggestions" I would argue a Lot less with you...Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
[snip]
Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
Um, no. These are not just variations in skin tone and favorite foods we're talking about. Khajiit are quite clearly and quite substantially biologically different from Nords, who themselves are biologically different from Orcs, who are also different from Dunmer. Moving to Daggerfall for your college years ain't gonna do squat to get rid of your scales and tail.
That's what the racial passives represent. You wanna role play an Orc mage who was born and raised at the mages guild in Cyrodiil, fine, do that. Nothing stopping you. But you're gonna role play an Orc, not a scrawny elf in an Orc costume.
You no doubt didn't follow along with the whole conversation, but prowess differences between any of the races to the extent and in the forms that we see regarding racial passives are simply not backed up in the lore or biology. You can look at a Nord and Khajiit and say "yep, they're biologically different" but articulating the specific ways in which the entire race of one is predisposed to be better at a specific task than the other is not possible. To use your Orc example, you very much can play a scrawny orc, who it turns out is another kind of elf.
[snip]
[snip]
Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
Um, no. These are not just variations in skin tone and favorite foods we're talking about. Khajiit are quite clearly and quite substantially biologically different from Nords, who themselves are biologically different from Orcs, who are also different from Dunmer. Moving to Daggerfall for your college years ain't gonna do squat to get rid of your scales and tail.
That's what the racial passives represent. You wanna role play an Orc mage who was born and raised at the mages guild in Cyrodiil, fine, do that. Nothing stopping you. But you're gonna role play an Orc, not a scrawny elf in an Orc costume.
You no doubt didn't follow along with the whole conversation, but prowess differences between any of the races to the extent and in the forms that we see regarding racial passives are simply not backed up in the lore or biology. You can look at a Nord and Khajiit and say "yep, they're biologically different" but articulating the specific ways in which the entire race of one is predisposed to be better at a specific task than the other is not possible. To use your Orc example, you very much can play a scrawny orc, who it turns out is another kind of elf.
[snip]
There's a scrawny looking lion down at the local zoo. Take a guess as to who I'd put my money on in a real wrestling match between him and Dwayn Johnson.
Determining biological predispositions are entirely possible. Not only possible, but necessary to provide distinguishing characteristics between each race. Stop trying to use rare outliers as justification for ignoring biology and established lore.
[snip]
Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
Um, no. These are not just variations in skin tone and favorite foods we're talking about. Khajiit are quite clearly and quite substantially biologically different from Nords, who themselves are biologically different from Orcs, who are also different from Dunmer. Moving to Daggerfall for your college years ain't gonna do squat to get rid of your scales and tail.
That's what the racial passives represent. You wanna role play an Orc mage who was born and raised at the mages guild in Cyrodiil, fine, do that. Nothing stopping you. But you're gonna role play an Orc, not a scrawny elf in an Orc costume.
You no doubt didn't follow along with the whole conversation, but prowess differences between any of the races to the extent and in the forms that we see regarding racial passives are simply not backed up in the lore or biology. You can look at a Nord and Khajiit and say "yep, they're biologically different" but articulating the specific ways in which the entire race of one is predisposed to be better at a specific task than the other is not possible. To use your Orc example, you very much can play a scrawny orc, who it turns out is another kind of elf.
[snip]
There's a scrawny looking lion down at the local zoo. Take a guess as to who I'd put my money on in a real wrestling match between him and Dwayn Johnson.
Determining biological predispositions are entirely possible. Not only possible, but necessary to provide distinguishing characteristics between each race. Stop trying to use rare outliers as justification for ignoring biology and established lore.
So wait, you're saying a Khajiit is going to be stronger than a Nord now? 🤔
For real though, just asserting that there's a biological or lore basis for the alleged differences in races isn't the same thing as actually doing a deep dive analysis from both ends. I've been doing that this whole thread. Feel free to look it up, but I'm not going to repeat everything here just for your sake when I'm already doing hours of research per post for the main back and forth I've been having.
[snip]
Given the combination of the above, the evidence for which I have been providing throughout the thread, I think the best way forward is to treat the races as the complex cultures they are, and transform racial passives into background passives or some similarly-named system. This is fully supported by the lore, better accounts for the immense cultural variety we see in the TES universe, and simultaneously unburdens players from sacrificing RP choices for gameplay choices.
Um, no. These are not just variations in skin tone and favorite foods we're talking about. Khajiit are quite clearly and quite substantially biologically different from Nords, who themselves are biologically different from Orcs, who are also different from Dunmer. Moving to Daggerfall for your college years ain't gonna do squat to get rid of your scales and tail.
That's what the racial passives represent. You wanna role play an Orc mage who was born and raised at the mages guild in Cyrodiil, fine, do that. Nothing stopping you. But you're gonna role play an Orc, not a scrawny elf in an Orc costume.
You no doubt didn't follow along with the whole conversation, but prowess differences between any of the races to the extent and in the forms that we see regarding racial passives are simply not backed up in the lore or biology. You can look at a Nord and Khajiit and say "yep, they're biologically different" but articulating the specific ways in which the entire race of one is predisposed to be better at a specific task than the other is not possible. To use your Orc example, you very much can play a scrawny orc, who it turns out is another kind of elf.
[snip]
There's a scrawny looking lion down at the local zoo. Take a guess as to who I'd put my money on in a real wrestling match between him and Dwayn Johnson.
Determining biological predispositions are entirely possible. Not only possible, but necessary to provide distinguishing characteristics between each race. Stop trying to use rare outliers as justification for ignoring biology and established lore.
So wait, you're saying a Khajiit is going to be stronger than a Nord now? 🤔
For real though, just asserting that there's a biological or lore basis for the alleged differences in races isn't the same thing as actually doing a deep dive analysis from both ends. I've been doing that this whole thread. Feel free to look it up, but I'm not going to repeat everything here just for your sake when I'm already doing hours of research per post for the main back and forth I've been having.
That's not what you've been doing. What you've been doing is generating huge walls of text hoping that people will assume that it must mean something and therefore you know what you're talking about when you proclaim that all women have prostates. And what is your actual evidence for this? "There was that one woman in Philadelphia and certain medical texts don't specifically say the words 'women don't have prostates'."
Just admit it already. The only reason you're doing this is because you don't like the idea that game mechanics mathematically simply cannot cater to every idiosyncrasy enough to allow you to top the leader boards playing your headcanon orc archmage.
Look, if you wanna argue for some kind of background trait or birth sign or something to give you a bonus to magicka or whatever in addition to racial passives, fine. But don't try to argue that oddities disprove the norm.