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.

 

[Charlaquin]

OK. Then we must remove different movement speeds, height, powerful build, flight speed and dark vision from the races. Fair enough.

That conclusion doesn’t follow from the argument.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

OK. Then we must remove different movement speeds, height, powerful build, flight speed and dark vision from the races. Fair enough.

No, because individuals could wear heavy armor (slowing them down), roll unusually high or low height for their race, have lost their wings or eyes, or a variety of things that would make individuals be outliers.

 

[Ace]

I hate to break it to you, but “killing people and taking their stuff” hasn’t been what D&D is about for years.

That's not what I'm seeing.

 

[Ace]

You do understand that 'Stormtrooper' is not a race?

Actually they kind of are being clones and all but your point still stands.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That conclusion doesn’t follow from the argument.

It absolutely does. Those rules are currently bound to races, and result those races being better or worse at the things I mentioned, just like the ASIs did for classes. If this is problematic these features must be decoupled from the races just like the ASIs were decoupled.

 

[Charlaquin]

Actually they kind of are being clones and all but your point still stands.

Stormtroopers aren’t clones. Clones were only used as soldiers by the republic during the clone wars.

 

[Charlaquin]

It absolutely does. Those rules are currently bound to races, and result those races being better or worse at the things I mentioned, just like the ASIs did for classes. If this is problematic these features must be decoupled from the races just like the ASIs were decoupled.

If certain races being faster, taller, or stronger than others or being capable of flight was problematic in the same way that racial ASIs are, sure. They aren’t though.

 

[Scott Christian]

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.

As DM, I would definitely put the blame on the environment. Be it lack of resources, being told by a dragon to do it for a thousand years and then just accepting it as commonplace, or having a long standing hatred of the people next door. It doesn't mean they don't try to protect their children. It does not mean that they don't find comfort in some of the same things others might: a good meal, a tryst, etc. But, they might also find comfort in torturing the human explorer that stumbled into their camp.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If certain races being faster, taller, or stronger than others or being capable of flight was problematic in the same way that racial ASIs are, sure. They aren’t though.

You have no logical basis for that claim. These are merely different mechanical ways to represent biological differences.

 

[Lanefan]

Vision differences are not off the table. People claiming that humans can have Darkvision in Tasha’s are misrepresenting the optional rules.

OK.

There are plenty of other differences that are on the table. Descriptive differences of course.

Which is fine, but fluff; I'm after mechanical differences.

Mechanical differences such as inherent spellcasting,

OK, that's one.

powerful build,

That's pure fluff unless that species gets a Strength bonus, which is off the table.

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...

That's two, three and four - so there's still some - however...

anything and everything beyond inherent alignments, ability score adjustments, and racial proficiencies.

From here it looks like the Dwarf's poison resistance and the Hobbit's ability to pass through occupied spaces are simply 'racial proficiencies' using another name.

None of these, however, are as basic and-or intrinsic to the species as are stats. I've no problem whatsoever with each species within itself running on a 3-18 bell curve for each stat: Hobbits have their own 3-18 bell curve for Strength, as do Humans and Elves and Minotaurs. Cool.

If parties were always made up of a single species no adjusts would ever be needed.

But, the believability problem arises when you take those disparate 3-18 curves and try to compare them against each other in a mixed-species situation e.g. the typical adventuring party. Humans are the baseline and always have been, so the question becomes how does an 18 Strength (or any Str score) on the Hobbit curve map to the Human curve. Ditto for Elves, ditto for Minotaurs, and on we go.

To suggest that all these map out the same - that Str 18 on the Hobbit curve is the same as Str 18 on the Minotaur curve - is kinda ludicrous. And so, we get species-based bonuses and penalties to stats to reflect how they map on to that Human 3-18 curve. For the physical stats - Str, Dex and Con - I just can't see why there'd ever be any issue with this.

The mental stats - Int, Wis and Cha - might be a different matter; and maybe there all the 3-18 curves would map pretty closely to each other with the exception of the physical apprarance aspect of Cha: some species are simply more attractive overall than others.