Quote from: aramis;341716Certain sub-populations do exhibit adaptations not shared by the general population, which every sociology text I've seen claims do not exist within the human species, but which have been born out in repeated testing. Eskimo phenotype tolerance to wet hands in sub-0°F weather (frostbite taking more than an hour rather than 5-10 minutes). Negroid phenotype tolerance to  heat.

Sure, sounds plausible.

QuoteMany scientists willfully ignore the studies because it's socially unacceptable to differentiate phenotypical sub-subspecies divergences in humans because most correlate to an ethnic minority.

Not that I'm aware of. Scientists generally do not willfully ignore studies, although it must admitted that social bias exists in science. Nonetheless, I don't know of any scientists, personally, who ignore such studies, although I do know a number of scientists.

The Eskimo group is a small population, not a "race." Comparing them to Caucasoids is fine as a control, but then claiming a racial difference is a fallacy, because Caucasoids are not the same kind of small population with common ancestry. You could compare Eskimos to people of German descent living in Western Pennsylvania if you wanted, and the comparison might have more validity.

The existence of genetic variation within a population is a known. Similarly, they are almost certainly variations between groups. That does not mean there are systematic variations that are meaningful. Certainly not "Ability Score" meaningful.

Nothing to do with political correctness, more to do with the ordinary kind of correctness.

Quote from: The Shaman;341703My only issue with demi-human level limts as written is that they don't really reinforce the stereotype of each race. If I were to run 1e AD&D again, I would break it down thus:

• Dwarves are unlimited in fighter instead of thief
• Elves are unlimited in magic-user instead of thief
• Gnomes are unlimited in illusionist instead of thief
• Half-elves remain unlimited in druid (subject to the maximum highest level for the class) and thief
• Halflings remain unlimited in thief
• Half-orcs remain unlimited in assassin (subject to the maximum highest level for the class)

We never had a demi-human 'max out' in our games because almost every demi-human was multi-classed and was still gaining levels alongside the humans throughout the game. Single-class demi-humans were extremely rare in our group.

I like your list!  

However, it would make elves pretty much the ubermenschen of the fantasy world.  Given that they live for 1000+ years, you likely would have several hundred (perhaps more) elven archmages (with levels in fighter and/or thief as well) as the most powerful NPCs around.  One of the reasons why demi-humans could advance 'U' as thieves in 1e, according to Gygax, was that thieves were unlikely to ever become the major 'movers and shakers' of the world.  So allowing demi-humans to rise to any level as theives did not undermine Gygax's concern with ensuring a 'human-as-dominant' swords & sorcery ethos for AD&D.

Quote from: jibbajibba;341728...
The obvious fix would an xp penalty. Elves get 50% of XP earned. It provides the "balance" and it is explicable in terms of psychology, creatures that live thousands of years take longer to change and adapt. With the old XP level progression where you need double xp to go up each level it would only mean that the elf was a level less than the Human most of the time and that seems a reasonable trade for the special abiliites and bonuses.
....

Yes, something like this is far preferable, IMO.

Alternatively, I like the approach taken by Swords & Wizardry: above a certain level, the experience point requirements for a demi-human are always 'one level greater' than they are for a human character (e.g., in order to advance from 8th level to 9th level as a magic-user, an elf would need the same amount of experience points as a 10th level human magic-user, and thereafter would 'lag' one level behind a comparable human magic-user).

The optional 'alternative' experience charts for non-human races/classes in the appendix of the D&D RC book also tries to 'balance' things out via additional experience point requirements for elves, dwarves, and halflings.

Quote from: pawsplay;341760Sure, sounds plausible.



Not that I'm aware of. Scientists generally do not willfully ignore studies, although it must admitted that social bias exists in science. Nonetheless, I don't know of any scientists, personally, who ignore such studies, although I do know a number of scientists.

The Eskimo group is a small population, not a "race." Comparing them to Caucasoids is fine as a control, but then claiming a racial difference is a fallacy, because Caucasoids are not the same kind of small population with common ancestry. You could compare Eskimos to people of German descent living in Western Pennsylvania if you wanted, and the comparison might have more validity.

The existence of genetic variation within a population is a known. Similarly, they are almost certainly variations between groups. That does not mean there are systematic variations that are meaningful. Certainly not "Ability Score" meaningful.

Nothing to do with political correctness, more to do with the ordinary kind of correctness.

There are some genetic variations in localised population groups. These variations vary from improved spatial memory (amongst Aboriginal Australians for example) and physical body shape (Congonese Pygmies versus Samoan Islanders for example).
To suggest that populations will not adpat to localised geographic conditions over time is to contradict the fundamental essence of natural selection and evolution. You expect Siberiean tigers to be adpated so you should expect Inuit populations to adapt.

However, the vast majority of hominid populations are newcomers. Population migration from east Africa is a relatively new phemonema being limited to the last 100,000 years. The degre of genetic adaption you get over such a short time frame is very small. This is evidenced by the fact that Homo Sapiens have yet to split into distinct sub-species.

It is totally scientifically likely that given an additional Million years or so with no interlinking between population clusters hominid evolution would proceed and the development of distinct sub-species would be the net result. However, such isolation is now, under current global conditions, impossible.

The main isuse with academic study in this area is the study of intelligence.
There have been several tests that seem to indicate intelligence variations in 'racial' population groups. The problem with these tests however is two fold. They are used by various right wing groups to indicate White supremacy (interesting in these tests Semitic populations tend to out perform Caucasian populations by 3-5% which these right wing groups tend to ignore) as negroid population tend to do poorly, 10% less than Caucasian is not uncommon. However the test parameters and content are often set by White middle class academics and so white middle class children have an inherent advantage. The tests have been further undermined by the apodtion of sociobiology by right wing groups to 'prove' the primacy of white population because of their social predominance. This can be directly tied to the Eugenics movement in which the poor were deemed to be inferior genetically because they were poor and therefore their antecedents were less intelligent or hardworking or dynamic than the antecedents of the rich who obviously made something of their lives thus making more money.

Today the whole issue is moot as population mixing is so great and there are c. 100 genes that they believe may be linked to 'intelligence' (which itself has many definitions) that finding populations where there has been sufficient isolation to be worth measuring is almost impossible.

Quote from: pawsplay;341756since educated people in general tend to deny racial differences and premise

I think is an extremely valid point and really can't emphasized enough.

Quote from: Spinachcat;341692Nothing political about it.

Yeah. I doubt there's anything political about it. It seems to me that it's more a matter of fun, or lack thereof.

Seanchai

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;341744So elves basically had what I mentioned, then?  Sounds like they got it right the first time, IMHO.

Refresh my memory...what was the "blended class" approach?

From BXCMI type:
Elf: TH as fighter, spells as wizard, armor up to chain, shield allowed. XP 4000/8000/15000 etc. HD d6

Warrior Elf: XP as fighter, same as elf but no spells.

Treekeeper: as elf, but with extra (clerical) spells available. Additional restrictions, however.

Halfling: As fighter, but HD d6, add rogue's HIS and MS.

Quote from: pawsplay;341760Sure, sounds plausible.



Not that I'm aware of. Scientists generally do not willfully ignore studies, although it must admitted that social bias exists in science. Nonetheless, I don't know of any scientists, personally, who ignore such studies, although I do know a number of scientists.

The Eskimo group is a small population, not a "race." Comparing them to Caucasoids is fine as a control, but then claiming a racial difference is a fallacy, because Caucasoids are not the same kind of small population with common ancestry. You could compare Eskimos to people of German descent living in Western Pennsylvania if you wanted, and the comparison might have more validity.

The existence of genetic variation within a population is a known. Similarly, they are almost certainly variations between groups. That does not mean there are systematic variations that are meaningful. Certainly not "Ability Score" meaningful.

Nothing to do with political correctness, more to do with the ordinary kind of correctness.

Negroid phenotypic endurance is probably to the point of a +1 Con on a 3-18 scale. (Army found that healthy-weight african-americans had a significant difference in average endurance. Again, 1950's.)

On non-linguistic tasks of intelligence*, Orientals and Semitics score higher than other populations, 3-5%.
* the language based tests are strongly biased towards the developing and norming group.

And quite a few social scientists flat out DENY such exist, even when presented the studies. Bruno Kappes, PhD, Psychologist, was doing research on adaptation to cold weather. He flat out refused at one point to consider doing phenotypical analysis of his data on the grounds that it might support racial superiority and would thus be politically incorrect. Working experimental researcher. Was my Psych prof, and my mom's as well.

Several of his colleagues also refused to analyze by ethnicity and/or phenotypical  difference for the same reason: political correctness, and a desire to not be seen as racist.

Quite a few scientists ignore data they find uncomfortable. It's so common that it has a name: confirmation bias. People tend to ignore data during a literature search that doesn't support their initial premises.

And then there are issues with Sociology as a whole. 3/4ths of the sociologists I've met (6 of outright rejected the study of infantile facial expressions (study finding that infantile facial expression is uniform trans-culture to age 3 mo, published in Psychology Today) on the simple basis that Sociology axiomatically says humans are free of instinctual behaviors. Citing that article, and providing access to it, got me tossed out of class; tossing me out of class over it got the professor fired.

My degree is in history; confirmation bias is exceptionally strong in the historical discipline. Sociology is just as bad, but has the "color of science" to it's observational and analytical process....

Quote from: aramis;341790Negroid phenotypic endurance is probably to the point of a +1 Con on a 3-18 scale. (Army found that healthy-weight african-americans had a significant difference in average endurance. Again, 1950's.)

On non-linguistic tasks of intelligence*, Orientals and Semitics score higher than other populations, 3-5%.
* the language based tests are strongly biased towards the developing and norming group.

And quite a few social scientists flat out DENY such exist, even when presented the studies. Bruno Kappes, PhD, Psychologist, was doing research on adaptation to cold weather. He flat out refused at one point to consider doing phenotypical analysis of his data on the grounds that it might support racial superiority and would thus be politically incorrect. Working experimental researcher. Was my Psych prof, and my mom's as well.

Several of his colleagues also refused to analyze by ethnicity and/or phenotypical  difference for the same reason: political correctness, and a desire to not be seen as racist.

Quite a few scientists ignore data they find uncomfortable. It's so common that it has a name: confirmation bias. People tend to ignore data during a literature search that doesn't support their initial premises.

And then there are issues with Sociology as a whole. 3/4ths of the sociologists I've met (6 of outright rejected the study of infantile facial expressions (study finding that infantile facial expression is uniform trans-culture to age 3 mo, published in Psychology Today) on the simple basis that Sociology axiomatically says humans are free of instinctual behaviors. Citing that article, and providing access to it, got me tossed out of class; tossing me out of class over it got the professor fired.

My degree is in history; confirmation bias is exceptionally strong in the historical discipline. Sociology is just as bad, but has the "color of science" to it's observational and analytical process....

My degree was anthropology so these discussions are remarkably familiar.

You are of course right but ... my earlier post still holds that variations are not 'racial' in the sense that most people would use it but limited to isolated population sub-groups that may exhibit other more obvious physical similarities.
It has been racist misuse of the data that has scared academics off open discussion.
If you take the Kalahari Bushmen as a population their average endurance levels are astonishing. They hunt antelope by running after them until the creatures collapse from exhaustion which takes hours and hours and hours. But if you openly acknowledge that that you open up the probability that someone will turn round and say 'similarly in this IQ test poor Irish immigrants scored 10% less than everyone else they should all be sterilised'.

Nothing to do with politics or racial attitudes. It's quite simple:

* Few characters made it to 9th level anway, so players would just make up their Dwarf Fighter and worry about the level cap another day.

* On a practical level, what happens when a group has been playing together for two years and the two humans in the party can keep progressing, but the halfling and elf stop levelling because they hit the cap? Well, you can either ignore the cap or you can shut down the campaign and start again with 1st level PCs. Which do you think most groups decided to do?

Quote from: Haffrung;341809...
* On a practical level, what happens when a group has been playing together for two years and the two humans in the party can keep progressing, but the halfling and elf stop levelling because they hit the cap? Well, you can either ignore the cap or you can shut down the campaign and start again with 1st level PCs. Which do you think most groups decided to do?

IME, when I played a lot of 1e during the 1980s, we all adhered to racial level limits.

However, every thief character was a multi-class demi-human, so that the character would continue to progress as a thief even when his/her limit as a fighter, magic-user, or whatever, was reached.  In all of my years of playing 1e, I can't remember anyone who played a single-classed thief, let alone a human one.

I also recall that half-elf druids were quite popular (it was their 'niche', since elves were a better option for pretty much everything else).

Quote from: Haffrung;341809* On a practical level, what happens when a group has been playing together for two years and the two humans in the party can keep progressing, but the halfling and elf stop levelling because they hit the cap? Well, you can either ignore the cap or you can shut down the campaign and start again with 1st level PCs. Which do you think most groups decided to do?

Wait a second, where is that third option that I was just standing on? It seems to have been whipped out from under my feet!

We neither ignored the cap nor shut down the campaign but just carried on. By the time you get beyond 10th level the differences between the levels gets less and less, and if the game is still fun who gives a shit if you're a couple of levels below the humans anyway?

Quote from: pawsplay;341756I disagree with premise

A) left-leaning people tend to deny racial differences

because it is general and misleading, since educated people in general tend to deny racial differences and premise

B) RPG designers tend to be left-leaning

because it lacks both definition and evidence.

If you wish to declare there is a correlation between between being an RPG designer and being left-leaning by some operational definition, and between being left-leaning and de-emphasizing racial differences, then you still cannot say RPG designer predicts racial differences, because we can safely assume that  RPG designers do not have the same characteristics as the general public, and hence whether they are left-leaning or not may be affected by different factors.

On the other hand, it is a known fact that people with education tend to de-emphasize racial differences, and there is a known probable causality: scientific and academic research has generally concluded that "racial differences" are rarely significant, and rarely meaningful when they are significant. In fact, the mainstream opinion is that a "race" is primarily a social construct that coincides to some degree with geography and ancestry, but is generally a stand-in for "color."

So if a game designer were to include "racial differences" within humans that did not posit some kind of cultural basis, they would be arguing upstream against the prevailing opinion of educated, rational people with knowledge of the subject. Which they are, of course, free to do. The racialists might even be right, but I wouldn't count on it.

Mental note: don't bring up the issue of racial difference when pawsplay is around.

Quote from: noisms;341858Wait a second, where is that third option that I was just standing on? It seems to have been whipped out from under my feet!

We neither ignored the cap nor shut down the campaign but just carried on. By the time you get beyond 10th level the differences between the levels gets less and less, and if the game is still fun who gives a shit if you're a couple of levels below the humans anyway?

Indeed. My first AD&D character was a dwarf fighter who maxed out at 8th level (17 Str) and I continued to play him -- between his racial abilities (saving throw bonuses, AC bonus against large humanoids) and his arsenal of magic items he was able to continue holding his own in parties otherwise made up of 10-11th level characters, even as he gradually went from being a "star" character to more of a "supporting" character to the higher-level humans, exactly as Gygax intended.

Quote from: noisms;341858We neither ignored the cap nor shut down the campaign but just carried on. By the time you get beyond 10th level the differences between the levels gets less and less, and if the game is still fun who gives a shit if you're a couple of levels below the humans anyway?

Same here. We even used the weapon vs armour type tables too!

We must have been brain-damaged fools.