Well for me personally, the appeal of playing against type is in roleplay, not mechanics. I want the world to penalize my character for trying to break out of typical racial boxes, not the system.
You still have racial traits, and all the social baggage that comes with being a member of your race in whatever setting you're playing in. That's adversity you don't need mechanical bonuses to represent. Then there's the social stigma of being say, a super smart orc from a culture where that sort of intelligence isn't valued. Or an elf who's viewed as bizarre and unsavory because of the focus she puts into honing herself for strength rather than the nimbleness that's seen as desireable. [...]
The key point here is that the "typical racial boxes" need to be specified for you to break out of them. Which kind of necessitates that different races get different ASIs by default, at least if you want those racial boxes to include physical and mental stats. I suppose you could replaced default ASIs with "Powerful Build" and "Nimble" and other feat-esque racial abilities, but then you
also literally cannot play against the type because your character will have that trait.
See what WotC is doing for seemingly all future races (disclaimer, I'm taking this info from 5e wikidot so the official rules/race description might be different);
- e.g., Owlin: "Increase one ability score by 2, and increase a different one by 1." [or +1 to three different stats]
Nowhere on that page does it mention that the typical Owlin is particularly wise or dexterous or intelligent. So an Owlin PC
can't play against type or fall in line with their race, as Owlins have no (ability score) type to play against/with.
(Again, I'm an advocate for *optional* free-floating ASIs. But the default racial ASIs should very much still be included.)
