D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages & New Race/Culture Distinction

The latest Unearthed Arcana contains the Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood races. The Dhampir is a half-vampire; the Hexblood is a character which has made a pact with a hag; and the Reborn is somebody brought back to life.

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Perhaps the bigger news is this declaration on how race is to be handled in future D&D books as it joins other games by stating that:

"...the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage."

 

[Guest 6801328]

This isn't to say you cannot use, and enjoy, Al Qadim. But acknowledging, and perhaps taking a stab at addressing, how it is appropriating images of a culture we treat pretty shabbily is still called for.

I think this is a key point. I certainly enjoy a lot of the content that is being criticized in these forums. As an American white male, I'm largely oblivious to the painful stereotypes that content reinforces.

At the same time, I think I could probably enjoy it just as much (or more?) if it had been written...or is re-written...to more respectfully address the cultures from which it obviously derives.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

If 1001 Nights is problematic

I'm unaware of this. What are your sources about? Glad to know it.
Anyway, please note that I'm not negating that Al Qadim could be problematic. Everything could be problematic, in fact. What must we do for the future? Obviously change. But devils is in the details. Where we can consider ourselves in a safe zone?

According to Tolkien they are: "Black Uruks of Barad-dûr".

According to Tolkien they are also inspired by Mongols Tribesmen, actually not afro-americans.

According to your point of view, everything is black end in being afroamerican? Where do you decide to stop in this line of interpretation? In Italy we have a fearful figure for babies that is called "l'uomo nero". Hystory says us that this refers to Saracens that ravaged the Italian coasts by raping and pillaging. Black is bad because black is the dark, where the man, that rely on eyes to defend himself, is particularly vulnerable. I'm overinterpreting or putting things in a coherent scheme?
And if you agree that somebody is harmed by OVERinterpretation, what is your strategy to cope with this problem, giving the fact that you, as me, are against people being harmed?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

One thing is a production with stereotypes, and other these being annoying. Speedy Gonzalez is a cartoon based in Mexican stereotypes, but Mexicans love him, and they didn't want him to be censured.

A piece of a lyric to be changed because it was too violent for a kid-friendly production doesn't mean this was potentiall racist or xenophobe, only a little detail. If now "Gone with the Wind" needs a disclaimer, and Dumbo, Peter Pan or Aristocats are not enough politically correct, then in a future titles as "the tale of a maid" will need a very much bigger disclaimer.

Agraba(Aladdin) was designed to be a "chop-suey", a mixture of different Muslim nations, something like in Warhammer Fantasy mixing Spain and Italy. I defend the intentional "chop-suey" of fictional countrys to avoid dangerous analogies with nations from real word.

It is curious but here in Spain some Turky soap-operas are starting to have a loyal audence.

We know Dragon Ball and Naruto, among others, don't show, at all, the true martial arts neither true Japanese culture (the true fact is the real Japoneses never would behave as some characters from fiction) but since the boom of manganime in the Western some people wanted to start to learn Japanese languange and about that country. We shouldn't reject all fiction inspired in not-western cultures but if these are created by natives, only to ask about what limits, and remember neighbour countries have got their own predjudices against the others, worser than old rivalities among European powers.

We can bet Hasbro and WotC will worry very much if they want to produce some title inspired in Eastern cultures. The franchises Transformers and Power Rangers have got Japanese roots.

* In the original 1001 nights Aladdin was Chinese. Do you remember the miniserie?

Arabian Nights (miniseries) - Wikipedia

There was also a French cartoon about the princess Shéhérazade.

Princesse Shéhérazade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Kaladesh is a plane of Magic: the Gathering with a look of Middle East, but everybody was OK with this.

* We need to remember the difference between accidentally and intentionally offensive. "Tintin in the Congo" may be accidental, but acid comedies as "South Park" or "A Family Guy" are intentional.

* Now I wonder about the wildren, a PC race from 3.5 Planar Handbook as potential future lineage. What has this got to be special? Really this is maybe, with the nerafins, one of the PC races I dislike most, but it is perfect for fans of furry (antropomorphic animals) and kemonomimi ("animal ears", cute girls with some animal traits, for example the ears).

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

So, there's an interesting point to be made here.

One of my coworkers is an intelligent engineer, but much younger than I. She just finished watching through the Lord of the Rings movies for the first time, and knew some of us were Tolkien fans, and set up a nice little lunchtime chat to talk about it.

Her biggest thing to start with was... "Wow, orcs are kinda racist, aren't they?"

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, such that someone looks at it and say, "Hey, that's a duck!" you probably want to consider the fact that it is, functionally, a duck.

I think Orcs a kinda racist because there is not a single orc with positive attitude in the whole story. But then you look better and the explanation is "they are corrupted by sauron" so it is obvious that all orcs are bad, because if they were good, they weren't corrupted.

Another thing is to consider orcs like afroamericans because talk like, looks like, walk like. I never see it. Excuse me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

All stories are Islamic. All refers to islamic middle east world.

Um... you are aware that Islam is not a religious restricted entirely to the Middle East, right? Can that 'Arabia' is not 100% Islamic?

 

[SkidAce]

Yup. Welcome to the party. Dice rolls have no business in CharGen, except for when the PC is randomly determining an option they could have chosen freely (for example, personality traits on background). A PC's ability scores, hit points, starting gold for gear, or starting spells should never be random, and it goes double for any system where those random rolls can influence your class and race choice though ability score mins and maxes.

Which of why I ignore rolled ability scores when it comes to discussion of ASI; you've chosen to gamble with your PC by rolling, don't expect ASI to save you from bad rolls.

Alea iacta est

I disagree.

We still roll, maybe a couple of times, then choose a set to play with.

Its a valid style of play. You can get weird variations you may not have been expecting, and thusly create a memorable character.

Balance between characters gets sorted out in place, with various DM tools or its accepted that "so and so" is the best/worst at "whatever".

I am aware we may be in the minority, but its still a valid play style for those who enjoy it.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Um... you are aware that Islam is not a religious restricted entirely to the Middle East, right? Can that 'Arabia' is not 100% Islamic?

yes

 

[SkidAce]

Yeah, it's a legacy artifact that has long outlived its usefulness. I haven't used it since the end of 3.5 and haven't missed it.

Everyone has stories about the character whose lowest score was a 12. You know what you never hear though? The story about the guy who rolled 12, 11, 11, 9, 7, 6. You know why? Because those scores got tossed into the trash so fast (with or without DM's knowledge or permission) that it would make your head spin. The same was true for the fighter who rolled a 1 on hit points. Those rolls never last, but the guys who have a bonus to all scores sure do.

Blech. The sooner D&D gets rid of lootbox chargen like every modern RPG on Earth, the better.

I read this after replying previously.

I mean I hear your points, understand your position, but merely don't agree.

Game On!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

According to Tolkien they are also inspired by Mongols Tribesmen, actually not afro-americans.

No one thinks Tolkien set out to be racist. But that doesn't prevent things being interpreted that way though modern eyes, as @Umbran relates. How things are seen in 2021 is what matters, not the original intent of the authors.

It's interesting that you are amused by the mafia jokes, even though there are some Italians who make a huge fuss about the stereotype. And I'm amused by Terry Pratchett's ginger, kilted feegles, and the English love "stiff upper lip" It's the difference between positive and negative stereotypes, but unless you are on the inside it's hard to tell which is which. And the relative vulnerability of the various cultures. Those people who often find themselves on the receiving end of prejudice are understandably more sensitive to how they are portrayed.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm unaware of this. What are your sources about? Glad to know it.

There are a number of dimensions to this: (1) problematic elements transmitted within the stories themselves (e.g., racism, anti-Judaism, etc.), (2) issues pertaining to how European collected, translated, and edited the tales, including adding new tales like Aladdin, and (3) how Europeans used these tales to transmit harmful stereotypes about "the Orient."

According to Tolkien they are also inspired by Mongols Tribesmen, actually not afro-americans.

That hardly makes the issue any better.