An Orc Wizard with 14+ INT (cause pre-tasha's your maximum is 13 I think if you pick normal Orc? (Not talking Half-Orc in this example)) could be statistically a rarity but a player might play that because the Orc in question was raised by non-orcs who were scholars and therefor spent his life reading and studying and not training up his martial prowess. His story could depend on the fact that he is not a musclehead and has mixed feelings about the Orcish culture he did not experience and a weird sense of lack of belonging to either. It is all character specific and the Optional rule enables people to play against typing mechanically and roleplaying wise, and doesn't lock anyone away from options, and it doesn't force itself on any player either.
How can you play out the struggle with your orcish ancestry when you, thanks to Tashas, have no orcish ancestry? For a role player the Int penalty of orcs would be part of the character. In your example probably a central one. But what you then describe is not role playing, but power gaming pretending to be role play. Yet its obvious the the primary concern is power and not role.
The racial ability adjustments are not education or training. Those things are represented by where you place your highest ability score and which stats to increase during the game. The racial modifiers represent pure, unalterable biology (aoart from things like reincarnation) which are the same for ever member of that race.
Originally Posted by Drath Malorn
Absolutely. The (optional) Custom Origin rule opens doors that the (equally optional) Point-Buy rule locks close, in terms of roleplay and story.
That is why Custom Origins increases roleplay opportunities.
No, it only lets powergamer pretend to be roleplayer. You can do a simple test. Do you have a character idea you want to play but in the end don't do it because you miss out on a +1 modifier? Then you are a power gamer.
