D&D (2024) (+) New Edition Changes for Inclusivity (discuss possibilities)

[Maxperson]

The nice thing is if WotC does make changes people don't like, we can always house-rule it back.

There's a limit to the amount of changes I'll make. I stuck with 3.5, because 4e made too many changes. If 6e does half the things on that list, I'll stick with 5e or go back to 3.5.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Hopping in late, sorry if this was already covered.

If 6e is going to be more inclusive; it's time to hit the third rail: classes.

Assuming we keep classes in D&D, there are a few names that need rethinking.

• Barbarian: "a person from an alien land, culture, or group believed to be inferior, uncivilized, or violent" The class has all the negative connotations that we have associated with Orcs and other "savage" humanoids.

I agree the class plays up the savage trope a bit too highly, I think Ranger and Barbarian should probably be merged but not for cultural reasons. I just don't think there is enough design space for Ranger anymore, squeezed between Barbarian, Fighter, Druid, Bard, and Rogue. It's too narrow of a design space. Nobody wants to play Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone anymore. Very few still playing grew up watching horse operas and glorifying the Indian Wars anymore, and even fewer want to relive that. That's why Ranger tends to become "the archer class" or "the pet class" or "the two weapon fighting class" and none of those are enough to make a class around. I'd rather just see a class for a warrior from a wilderness heritage. By merging Barbarian and Ranger, you can have that and the character can choose to be either from a native tribe or otherwise.

However, I don't think the idea of "not problematic" is "no cultural references at all". I think that's the way of a generic RPG death. When you strip out everything from the setting from your classes, you risk disconnecting your campaign setting from your mechanics entirely. That will make it difficult to translate the mechanics in the book to the setting you're playing with. I think that's what made Dark Sun so compelling and interesting, while Planescape had interesting, but nearly impenetrable lore that it was almost impossible to run a campaign for. Dark Sun rewrote all the classes to fit the setting. Planescape had this massively complex world, and then took the regular classes and PCs from FR and Greyhawk and tried to fit them into this weirdly shaped box they weren't built for.

• Druid: Very culturally specific and doesn't have any connection to shapechanging nature-priests in game. In addition, it refers to a living religion (as part of the neopagan/Wiccan tradition).

Eh, I don't think so. The witch-cult hypothesis is pretty heavily discredited by historians at this point, regardless of how pervasive it remains in some Wiccan circles. Wicca is an early/mid 20th century religion. I'm not saying we don't have to respect modern Wiccans or that it's not a legitimate religion, but Druid isn't trying to represent modern Wicca.

Furthermore, even if that weren't the case I don't think that Druid is a disrespectful treatment. Druid, Bard, and all the other elements from Celtic and Gaelic traditions are portrayed positively even if it's not exactly how every historical record presents them. It doesn't portray druids as evil, savage, etc. It's portrayed as a different tradition, and not one that is any less valid. They don't include human sacrifice or any of the depraved things the Romans accused them of.

Simply put, I think if Druid is problematic in it's presentation, then Cleric is as well.

• Monk: Obviously, a stand-in for Shaolin/Eastern mysticism, it is a sliver of all the OA troublesome tropes put in a single class.
• Paladin: Probably the least offensive of the list, but very specific to a certain time/era and deserves to remain a class about as much as samurai, cavalier/chevalier, and any other single order of warriors does.

Again, I don't find these disrespectful. Merely stating that they were inspired by pop culture tropes isn't enough to remove the class entirely.

Orcs as inherently evil is disrespectful because it portrays a race using the same dehumanizing terms and tropes that were used to dehumanize countless people in human history. It's problematic because it's dehumanizing, race-based violence. The problem is the dehumanization and the violence. We shouldn't accept dehumanization as a passe element of our games. We should not accept race-based violence justified by dehumanization from ostensibly good characters. But there needs to be something that problematic to actually be problematic. "That's from a different culture" isn't enough. "That's potentially offensive to some theoretical group" isn't enough. It's got to actually portray the culture negatively (e.g., Vistani portrayal in CoS) or misappropriate it to an extent that harms the original cultural.

Monk might be based on the Kung Fu TV series, and Paladin based on Three Hearts Three Lions, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible to have a wuxia-inspired class, or impossible to have Song of Roland inspired knights. It's not like depictions of wuxia from Chinese pop culture (or Japanese depictions of ninja or samurai) are particularly devoid of tropes, either. Arguably, the inclusion of Monk makes D&D more inclusive because it means that characters from wuxia have a place in the D&D setting. The key is whether or not you're respectful about it.

If it's not disrespectful, I find it hard to discard it due to cultural misappropriation. If merely using a historical culture's traditions is reason enough to stop using something, then the entire speculative fiction genre falls apart. Indeed, much of fiction and non-fiction starts to fall apart if we start to require perfect cultural authenticity from creators. If we're going to require perfect authenticity in order to create any form of art, then that's a real problem. It's got to be more toxic than "that's not explicitly from the creators' personal heritage." We're not doing cultures any favors by not incorporating their beliefs or ideas or expressions. It's putting them on a pedestal like a museum piece and letting them rot. It's excluding them from being an acceptable part of other cultures. We must accept that there is a healthy and positive way to include elements from other cultures in our creative works. Look at the response to Ghosts of Tsushima. Toshihiro Nagoshi goes out of his way to talk about decisions that Sucker Punch were able to make as an American company which a Japanese company wouldn't make. This is the value of adapting material from other cultures. If you do it respectfully, you can create something of value to both cultures in ways that neither could accomplish alone.

And I don't think we actually want to use things without changing anything. I think we would reject a game that only included cultural elements if presented as accurately as possible. For example, how do we balance the fact that women were historically not included in the ranks of knighthood with our modern ideas of gender equality? There's no way you're going to publish a game in 2020 that says "women can't be knights in this fantasy world." Obviously, we already know that it's acceptable to adapt that part of historic culture to fit ours. It's possible to do that and still be respectful. It's certainly possible to do the same elsewhere.

Improving the game going forward is not a game of "I can identify cultural influences" combined with whack-a-mole to eliminate every single one. That's just a reactionary response. It's missing the point of inclusivity. Missing the point of progressivism. It's going through the motions without caring about the meaning or context of what you're looking at. It's saying, "Mike Mearls isn't an Asian so he can't make a Monk. He's a Christian so he can't make a Druid or a Bard," etc. That's not progressive. It's just proscriptive. It does exactly what it shouldn't: boil down the author into what they are and use that as the only lens for determining the authenticity of their creation. Authenticity in art is important, but cultural authenticity is not the only kind of authenticity there is. It's not the sum total of who a creator is or what a creation is. Authenticity is extraordinarily complex. Boiling it down to judging the race, nationality, religion, and personal heritage of the authors is just as problematic as taking real world races, nationalities, religions, and personal heritages and essentializing them in a work without any respect paid beyond the stereotypes and surface level trappings.

 

[Hussar]

It's tricky. I'm partial to how Arcana Evolved did it: the class names are more descriptive than archetypal (Oathsworn, Greenbond, Magister, etc).

WotC tried to do this with 4e and people lost their collective minds. I really don't think you'll have much luck here.

 

[Hussar]

The point was to consider if certain class names or archetypes might be rooted in similar tropes that people raised with OA and orcs.

I'd also humbly suggest that if you think that class names and archetypes were the problems with OA and orcs, you may have missed the point.

The primary issue with OA is othering but, also, the fact that EVERY element of the area that OA was supposed to cover was boiled down to a single culture - Japan. Having a samurai class in the game isn't the problem. Having every class based on Japanese culture, every piece of equipment based on Japanese culture and actually USING Japanese language to describe setting elements, while completely ignoring the rest of the cultures that the setting book was supposed to draw from was the problem.

The problem with orcs isn't that they are evil. That was never the problem. The problem is that orc descriptions use language that mirror real world writing on issues like race and eugenics. Strip that out and orcs are fine as is. It takes removing about three sentences from orcs to fix orcs.

The real problem here is that folks are unwilling to accept that those are the issues and are insisting on inventing issues that don't actually exist.

 

[roger semerad]

The default setting - Make a new one that has only the most basic information needed to get started telling stories, and leaves a lot of room to make it your own. This new setting would carry forward a lot of the basic ideas that have shown up in various settings over the years, but nothing is exactly the same. So you might have things that remind you of the Forgotten Realms, but with a fresh spin on them.

Alignments - Remove them entirely from the rules, but have a small section in the DMG that describes them. Basically just list them as additional variant gameworld ideologies, and/or roleplaying guides.

Ability Scores - Hear me out, I know this is going to be a big change, but I feel my ideas could help many areas of the game. Ability scores are no longer added to attacks, damage, saves, or skill checks. Reduce the number of skills to the bare minimum of essential adventurer focused stuff. Now when you want to do something that isn't spelled out in the skill description you instead roll a relevant ability score instead. You also roll your ability score if you are not trained in the skill. Ability scores are now listed numerically like your proficiency bonus ( so no more 8-20 range, instead simply a bonus, like +0-6 ). There would still be some derived traits from ability scores ( like carry weight ).

This accomplishes so many things at the same time. First, since your ability scores are no longer linked to the things that you rely on the most you can bring back the idea of racial bonuses. A Goliath can be intrinsically stronger than a Halfling without bringing along a mechanical deficiency for the Halfling. A Halfling fighter can do the same amount of damage as the Goliath ( and you're free to interpret how that happens however you wish ). Second, this reduces the value of an ability bonus. In 5th edition ability bonuses are so powerful that including one in a race entry takes up a lot of the available design space. With the reduced reliance on ability scores you could have larger bonuses without unbalancing things, and/or folks that don't have ability bonuses can be balanced with other features much more easily. Third, this actually closely emulates how ability scores worked in the first two editions. In those editions your ability scores were basically the skill system. This idea calls back to that, but silos out the most important skills to be based on level and training. So you don't have to worry about your thief sucking at disarm trap if you don't pick the "right" ability scores. Ability scores will still influence what your character can do, but training bypasses it for the stuff you deem important to your character concept. Fourth, this allows you to come up with your character's theme and abilities without having to min-max at all. If you chose to be trained in climbing, you're just good at climbing. If you have a bad strength score, you just assume that character isn't relying on strength for how they do something.

Classes and Races - Break it up into culture, folk, background, and class. Each one of those has a deferent list of abilities/feats/skill training that you can chose from.

List culture first in the Player's Handbook character creation rules. Having culture come first reinforces the idea that who your character is has more to do with upbringing than birth. These cultures should mostly be based on a society rather than a specific folk. If the new Player's handbook wants to be more inclusive, the list of available folks should be in the double digits at least. With that many deferent folks running around most societies would be comprised of a mix of them. There might be a few of these cultures that resemble the classic tropes of elves or dwarves, but the book won't describe them in a way that would exclude any specific folk.

Folk should have some traits assigned that you can't change, but should also give you a couple of choices too. So there are some things common to all folk of a certain type while allowing a little wiggle room for how your elfishness ( or other folkyness ) manifests.

Backgrounds should mostly stay the same, maybe with just a little more traits to chose from.

Classes would have a bit fewer traits assigned to them. Giving more ground to the concepts of culture, folk, and background. It would still be the most important part to how your character plays, just not quite as important as it is now.

 

[Hussar]

Improving the game going forward is not a game of "I can identify cultural influences" combined with whack-a-mole to eliminate every single one. That's just a reactionary response. It's missing the point of inclusivity. Missing the point of progressivism. It's going through the motions without caring about the meaning or context of what you're looking at. It's saying, "Mike Mearls isn't an Asian so he can't make a Monk. He's a Christian so he can't make a Druid or a Bard," etc. That's not progressive. It's just proscriptive. It does exactly what it shouldn't: boil down the author into what they are and use that as the only lens for determining the authenticity of their creation. Authenticity in art is important, but cultural authenticity is not the only kind of authenticity there is. It's not the sum total of who a creator is or what a creation is. Authenticity is extraordinarily complex. Boiling it down to judging the race, nationality, religion, and personal heritage of the authors is just as problematic as taking real world races, nationalities, religions, and personal heritages and essentializing them in a work without any respect paid beyond the stereotypes and surface level trappings.

Quote for truth and for saying what I wanted to say so much better than me. Well done you sir.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"Object" is a strong word.

Eberron is rather steampunky. But the steampunk fad is well past its peak. Shifting your default to an aesthetic and themes that are a bit passe is probably not wise.

No, it's not.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Flavorful is a matter of one's personal tastes. I'm sorry if some of the recommended changes make the game seem less fun for you. I know a lot of them would make it more fun for me, and my players.

I don't think so. A bad flavor is still a flavor. I just want to see some ideas promoting inclusion that make the game more interesting rather than more generic. I want to see what that would look like.

 

[GreenTengu]

No, it's not.

I think it is no longer so much in vogue as it was 10 years ago.
In the 1980s, Dune and Mad Max were popular so Dark Sun was most relevant. There were also Saturday morning cartoons then and so Dragonlance, which very much had the feel of one with very cartoony characture races and a strong overall metaplot, was very much relevant. Mystara seems to have been inspired by adventure movies like the Goonies and Indiana Jones, and was most themed to explore forgotten areas of the world more than any other setting (it was also the setting for basic D&D, so the setting, like the system, was fairly simple.) The samurai craze of the late 1980s to mid 1990s is what prompted the Oriental Adventures setting.
In the 1990s Disney put out Aladin and TSR responded by putting out the Al-Qadim setting. When Jurassic Park came out and dinosaurs were in vogue, Forgotten Realms was sold as the dinosaur setting (once WotC took over though, the Drizzt series had taken off and the setting was rebranded). There was a monster/vampire craze from the late 1980s through the 1990s which is when Ravenloft was most relevant, and that was also the vibe that the World of Darkness games picked up on.
The 2000s was when Steampunk, Noir and Mystery were most in vogue, so that's why Eberron was chosen to be the "new D&D setting" near the end of 3.5. It was also the era of peak the MMORPG which is why Nentir Vale was created the way it was.

Pretty much every D&D setting was a response to the cultural zeitgeist at the time. It is actually a bit odd that 5E decided to go back and revisit a number of these instead of reacting to what was in the cultural zeitgeist for the 2010s. I would have thought for sure we would have gotten a proper pirate setting. But, I suppose, because 5E from the start has been an over-reaction to people rejecting 4E, the team decided to simply cater to the older fans instead of creating something new.

And I do know that once something has been in the cultural zeitgeist during a person's lifetime, for some people that's just always going to be their most favorite thing. (Sometimes it is even something that was popular for their parents and so their parents passed on a bunch of stuff to the kids.) I probably wouldn't go as far to say that any of these are entirely passe and not worth engaging in-- but its just that the peak has sort of passed by.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Pretty much every D&D setting was a response to the cultural zeitgeist at the time. It is actually a bit odd that 5E decided to go back and revisit a number of these instead of reacting to what was in the cultural zeitgeist for the 2010s. I would have thought for sure we would have gotten a proper pirate setting. But, I suppose, because 5E from the start has been an over-reaction to people rejecting 4E, the team decided to simply cater to the older fans instead of creating something new.

Time to bring back Blue Rose.