……… different fantasy races should be impacted differently by each other’s alcohol
no more if this “fine elvin wine” shit, I am going to personally write a fantasy setting in which every human knows that elf booze tastes and feels like fantasy la croix. there’s barely even a flavor, and you’d need to drink a few to even get tipsy.
meanwhile, every human with a lick of common sense knows that you need to plan accordingly if you’re going to be drinking dwarven liquor, because it hits you hard and fast and you’ll lose feeling in your legs faster than you thought was physically possible. the hangovers are the stuff of legend.
the flip side is that elves are an entire race of (comparative) lightweights, and a whole gaggle of teenange elves can get piss drunk passing around one bottle of fruity human wine
I think there’s some compatability among drinks brewed by reptilian races (dragonborn, lizardfolk, tortles, kobolds, etc) although you run into similar translation issues as mammalians, but there is absolutely no crossover. like if a drsgonborn and a dwarf in a (very cosmopolitan) tavern were to switch drinks it would be a nonstarter.
“this is basically just a capri sun,” the dragonborn says, disappointed.
“cool, I’m pretty sure I just drank actual paint thinner,” the dwarf says. “get me to a hospital.”
humans and halflings are probably the most compatible drinkers of any two races, although halflings find most human wines, beers, ciders, etc, a little too dry and bland for their liking. halfling alternatives are very sweet, which makes them a huge hit among the ‘I like alcohol but I don’t want it to taste like alcohol’ crowd
I think it would be very funny if being drunk was like… a relatively new cultural development for gnomes? there’s just something about their wacky gnomish constitution that prevented them coming by it naturally (traditionally they’re more into a variety of mushrooms and other recreational plants) but once they started mingling more with more alcohol-happy races they learned VERY quickly and started opening, basically, turbo-breweries that are basically one part distillery and one part wizard tower. VERY popular job for young alchemists trying to make some good money, and the reason why gnomes are known (among other things) for operating the craziest night clubs
here’s who I think should be able to get drunk but become sober at will:
1.) sufficiently powerful paladins and clerics
2.) aasimar [all of them]
2.) very very few tieflings. it’s not universal at all, but few tiefling traits are. I know 5e has really solidified them as horns + tails + inhuman skin color but we need to be making them weirder
