A farewell to races

Since the days of AD&D you've had race and class that you can choose. Way back before that, for old fogeys like me that remember it, Elf and Dwarf were essentially a character class you chose to play.
I think what 5e does with race is interesting, although I'm going to propose some changes, but first up, I'm going to change the name. They're not races, they're species. And I'm going to call them that. If a bunch of White Supremacists lose their knickers over this, tough.
I'm going to look, in at least some species, at more interesting things to do with sex and gender too. Sexual dimorphism isn't the only rule on the planet, just because it's the most common. And in a fantasy world, Trimorphism, asexual reproduction and more should be out there I think. Gender fluidity - we see this in various fish and amphibians for example should be there too. Some will say that's just window dressing, but to communities where that matters, having it built in matters too.

Stats

I'm not going to commit, wholly, to this, because I haven't really thought through how I want stats, rolling and character creation to work. However, I'm tempted by some sort of semi-flexible stat system. In 5e, if you're an Elf you get +2 Dex, blah, blah, blah, and depending on your sub-type, a second boost. It's why we see so many Wood Elf monks, for example.

I propose, instead, to offer an Elf package. In that package you would get 30' movement, medium build, probably trance instead of sleep, possibly fey heritage, possibly +1 Dex. Then you would get a batch of other things to pick. This hasn't been thought through particularly but one of high elf, wood elf, dark elf or sea elf weapon training packages, one of high elf, dark elf, sea elf, eldarin (etc.) magical heritage package, one of wood elf, sea elf (etc.) movement packages, dark elf vision and sensitivity package, +1 to any stat (as many as you like, but not more than once per stat, can take this to Dex for a max of +2 Dex). Possibly in here, things like Dark Elf Charisma (extra +1 Cha, over the normal +1 limit). You could pick and choose, build an elf that lets you get stat bonuses where you want, skills and so on where you want.

This wouldn't only be for Elves of course, they were just the first race I found when I opened the PHB.

Farewell to Ubiquitous Darkvision

In my opinion the ubiquity of darkvision has done 5e a disservice. Players who choose one of the few races not to get darkvision force crazy compromises on the GM and/or the party. Do you give them goggles of night so everyone can see in the dark? Does the whole party carry torches, negating any advantage from darkvision?

That also got me thinking. Why is it so common anyway? Very few creatures that don't live in caves can actually "see" in the dark. They mostly see in low light, not in the dark. So, I'm going to have night vision, for elves and most things that might be able to see at night, and most monsters, dark vision, rarely, for the cave dwellers, and blindsight for the bats and so on. If you have dark vision though, you suffer when you're out in bright light.

Keeping watch at night? You probably want a fire anyway. In a dungeon, torches on please...

Common Core Proficiencies

Adventurers get used to looking out for ambushes, running away, climbing walls and stuff like that. In most campaign settings, they probably get raised knowing about the gods and goddesses and roughly how magic works. Kids today might not be able to repair a car or fix a computer, but they all have some idea how to log on, where the router is, a rough idea of what the technology does. Kids in your fantasy world should too, no?

So, rather than characters diving around contorting themselves trying to get proficiencies in these things. arcana, athletics, perception and religion everyone gets some training. Some form of expertise and possibly more, depending on what's out there in terms of skill mechanics, will be available for certain classes still, but everyone will get that baseline proficiency.