D&D 5E D&D Celebration Schedule Announced

WotC has posted the schedule for it's D&D Celebration online event taking place from 18th-20th September.

The event includes a range of panels and live games, including sessions on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, mental health, inclusive dungeon design, and including asian stories in your games. These include people such as Daniel Kwan (Asians Represent) and Sara Thompson (The Combat Wheelchair), who have both spoken publicly about problematic issues in D&D.

 

[R_Chance]

Unless someone is coming to confiscate your Players Handbook, you can just ignore those rules.

From my cold dead hands!

And that's when the fight really starts

 

[Ancalagon]

Cause how your eyeballs work and whether or not you need to sleep isn't dependent on nurture, while your physical strength, intelligence, and other ability scores are.

Your stats are dependent on more than how your were nurtured. Why is a tiger stronger and faster than I am? Why is "insert athlete X" so much taller than I am (and stronger). Nurture plays a role, of course, but genes do too.

In traditional D&D, all humans have the same stat distributions. We are all the sames. But a dwarf... a dwarf is different. Not as different as a tiger, but still different.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Physical strength being determined by nurture is certainly an "interesting" theory, but I'm not sure it bears much relation to reality. While a nutritionally deprived child will end up with stunted growth, you can't overcome genetic differences just by upping your potassium intake, no matter your tabula rasa beliefs.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Physical strength being determined by nurture is certainly an "interesting" theory, but I'm not sure it bears much relation to reality. While a nutritionally deprived child will end up with stunted growth, you can't overcome genetic differences just by upping your potassium intake, no matter your tabula rasa beliefs.

Strength and intelligence are both pretty complex areas re: genetics. Intelligence is fascinating in that despite being obviously inheritable, so many genes are involved that it's very possible for two smart people to have a dumb kid, or vice-versa. Strength requires both nurture and nature, but you don't really get people who are particularly strong who don't do physical activity (nurture), for example. Just some people put on some kinds of muscle extremely easily, and some find it very hard (even that sometimes involves nurture, of course - some people are always going to skip leg day, or have dietary habits which cause issues with this, or over-train and just damage things).

The actual role of genetics in strength is not well-studied, though. You seem to be assuming it is and that it's massive. That's a misconception. It's kind of shocking how little genetics and athletic performance have been studied.

Here's an interesting article on it which talks about how poorly-studied it is: Genetics and Strength Training: Just How Different Are We? • Stronger by Science

D&D totally refuses to engage with the idea that you can train strength the way you can in real life, though. I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing, though I very much doubt that, had D&D come from a more jock-ish background, STR would be a fixed stat in the way it has been in most editions. It does mirror fantasy fiction of the era (and indeed is justifiable by suggesting all D&D characters are already doing keep-fit routines to maintain "peak strength", as implausible as that may be).

 

[QuentinGeorge]

All very interesting but in the context of D&D when we are speaking about "race" we are not speaking about the murky real-world concept, we are speaking about species. Humans, elves, orcs, gnomes et al are more distinct than the varieties of humans here.

Human vs. Half-Orc is more like lion vs liger.

 

[Weiley31]

Human vs. Half-Orc is more like lion vs liger.

And Kobold Press gives us Bearfolk oh my!

 

[Kannik]

Hmm, I'm not sure why some seem to be jumping to the idea that removing racial bonuses (and reworking the game mechanics and nomenclature around 'race/species/ancestry/background/etc') equates to "all 'races' will be exactly the same". There are plenty of ways to differentiate different species and different ancestries/upbringing that do not involve attribute bonuses or penalties, and they do it in far more interesting, inventive, and imaginative ways.

I've written about it before, but I feel that attribute bonuses are one of the least interesting and effective ways to differentiate between species. For example, while perhaps the average Wookie is big and burly, just as we have amazing diversity of body types among humans, why wouldn't we have the same with Wookies? Especially as we are playing heroes, who are by and large out of the ordinary. Not to mention, as others have been noting in this thread, that there is much more to an attribute than just meat. Upbringing, environment, interests, nourishment, and above all, training, interest, and development play a huge role in determining one's capabilities within the auspices of a particular attribute. So having some bonus or penalty be assigned to an entire species is both unnecessarily restrictive but also kinda weird.

(To forestall any question of "well, what's left then to differentiate?"... plenty! There are a tonne of interestingly designed stunts, abilities, talents, gifts, and so on that could reflect culture, style, worldview, and even the meat part of the species. My gaming group has been using this alternate type of system for many games now, and we have found the characters much more distinct, flavorful, and, best of all, exciting during play than "well, I got a +2 in Int." )

 

[Remathilis]

All very interesting but in the context of D&D when we are speaking about "race" we are not speaking about the murky real-world concept, we are speaking about species. Humans, elves, orcs, gnomes et al are more distinct than the varieties of humans here.

Human vs. Half-Orc is more like lion vs liger.

Yeah but ligers are bred for their skills in magic!

 

[ChaosOS]

Rather than getting into another thread explaining why a gnome with 20 str is already possible, I think what's more notable is not only Daniel Kwan speaking but will get a direct opportunity to publicly address the controversy

 

[Kannik]

Yeah but ligers are bred for their skills in magic!

And for their shields and blades and striking claws and upgradable weapon systems and... oh wait, not those kind of ligers?