D&D 5E WotC On Tasha, Race, Alignment: A Several-Year Plan

WotC spoke to the site Dicebreaker about D&D race and alignment, and their plans for the future.

• On of the motivations of the changes [character customization] in Tasha's Cauldron was to decouple race from class.
• The 'tightrope' between honouring legacy and freedom of character choice has not been effectively walked.
• Alignment is turning into a roleplaying tool, and will not be used to describe entire cultures.
• This work will take several years to fully implement.

 

[Scott Christian]

My question then is are they allowed to make an entire culture (most of the people in it) evil? Or at least fraught full of evil acts? Can the orc clan up north be cannibals and do nothing but rape, pillage, and kill? I mean, cultures are historically able to be different than one another. Some more warlike. Some more thoughtful. Some view specific groups of others as evil. Some view specific groups of others as more noble than them.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Ok, I know it's spam, but that juxtaposition is HILARIOUS.

 

[Lanefan]

At your table, maybe. Meanwhile the rest of the gaming community has moved on to a model of D&D that is generally more about completing quests. Violent conflicts are of course still a major part of the game, but it’s rare that these conflicts are initiated by the protagonists unprovoked. It’s not killing monsters and taking their stuff, it’s protecting villages from bandit raiders, recovering stolen goods, or saving the world from cults to evil gods.

Which in the end still boils down to killing bandits and taking their stuff, killing thieves and taking their stuff (which maybe used to be our stuff before they stole it, but hey), and killing the followers of evil gods and taking their stuff.

Or am I missing something along the way?

 

[Scott Christian]

I think the point is to have every humaniod treated the same. Then have individual DMs and setting choose what percentage of each races are antagonistic threats.

So elves, dwarves, orcs,and goblins should all have a MM page that displays how they are when good, when bad,and what they look like and how the play like when they fight you.

EDIT: So the elf enemies should be duelist, archers and mages whereas the orc ones would be brutes, hurlers, and berserkers.
But the PCs could be anything. Aplayer should be able to play a orc wizard and not lament the "wasted" bonuses.

How can you leave that completely up to the DM? I mean, when people buy a PHB, or when they are creating a charcter, don't they want to read a little bit about what they are like? Can you just ask people to forget 100,000's pages of lore?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sure, but the scrawniest bull in the herd is still a bull, and therefore larger than the largest Halfling.

This is why we divide bonuses due to individual attributes from bonuses due to race.

This is why the Powerful Build and "small races have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons" features exist. Small races can have the same Strength score as a goliath or orc, but they still won't be able to carry the same amount or use the same weapons as effectively.

 

[Charlaquin]

OK then, in your view what form(s) should those mechanical differences take? Before answering, please consider the following:

Stat variance is off the table, it seems.
Alignment variance is off the table, it seems.
Vision differences just came off the table, it seems.

What's left?

Vision differences are not off the table. People claiming that humans can have Darkvision in Tasha’s are misrepresenting the optional rules. There are plenty of other differences that are on the table. Descriptive differences of course. Mechanical differences such as inherent spellcasting, powerful build, abilities like the dragonborn’s breath weapon or the Dwarf’s poison resistance, the halfling’s ability to pass through the spaces of larger creatures... anything and everything beyond inherent alignments, ability score adjustments, and racial proficiencies.

 

[Lanefan]

No. This is not a legitimate generalization you're making. I pointed out multiple adventures WOTC published for 5e demonstrating their support for that play style. I mentioned some do still enjoy that play style, in addition to other kinds of play styles, and several others here have said they agree. You had no response.

Your continued mischaracterization of that play style as somehow extreme-fringe to the point where you'd accuse that poster of it being JUST his table and the entire "rest of the gaming community" is different than that poster is gate-keeping and baloney.

So, why are you engaging in this kind of gate keeping? Are you trying to make someone feel alienated in what they enjoy in D&D? Why are you telling people there is only one acceptable way now to play and it's not the one he enjoys? I want to know your motivation for this kind of behavior. Are you just having a bad day or something?

Thanks for the defense, but I don't characterize what was said as gate-keeping (a vastly-overused term of late anyway). Condescending, perhaps, but I can bring that argument up later.

Besides, if anyone does put a gate in front of me it's just part of my playstyle to kick it in, right?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It isn’t problematic to say there are biological differences between fantasy races. It is problematic to say that because of these differences, some races are inherently good/evil/lawful/chaotic,

Fully agreed.

or that because of these differences, some races are better suited to certain professions or roles than others.

Not agreed. The classes are just a game construct, forget them for a moment. Would it be problematic to say that halflings make poor basketball players, that the aarakocra make excellent couriers, wood elves make excellent sprinters, goliaths are good at jobs that require lifting and carrying heavy things or that species with dark vision are good candidates for the night watch?

 

[Charlaquin]

My question then is are they allowed to make an entire culture (most of the people in it) evil? Or at least fraught full of evil acts? Can the orc clan up north be cannibals and do nothing but rape, pillage, and kill? I mean, cultures are historically able to be different than one another. Some more warlike. Some more thoughtful. Some view specific groups of others as evil. Some view specific groups of others as more noble than them.

That’s still pretty iffy. “This group of people are nothing but murderers and rapists” is never a harmless thing to say, whether the group is a race or a culture or a family or whatever else. What is less iffy is to say that the material conditions this group of people live has lead them towards these behaviors. Put the blame on the environment the people exist in, not the people themselves.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

OK then, in your view what form(s) should those mechanical differences take? Before answering, please consider the following:

Stat variance is off the table, it seems.
Alignment variance is off the table, it seems.
Vision differences just came off the table, it seems.

What's left?

Stat Variance is off the tables that want the stat variance to be off the table.
Alignment variance is dependent on setting and table.
Vision is exactly the same, stop pretending like it isn't.

Powerful Build, Size, Natural Weapons, Movement Differences, Racial Feats, Damage Resistances, Amphibiousness, Innate Spellcasting, Breath Weapons, and many, many other features are still available for races. Stop pretending like they aren't, please.