D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana: Folk of the Feywild!

Wander into the magical realm of the Feywild with our latest Unearthed Arcana: Folk of the Feywild!

Your character can be a member of one of the new D&D races: fairy, hobgoblin of the Feywild, owlfolk, or rabbitfolk. Which will you choose?

Playtest now:

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[Remathilis]

Potential unpopular opinion: I really dislike the Mos Eisley/Pirates of Dark Water style anything goes attitude for PC ancestries. At some point it's just a bunch of bad rubber masks. A few species with defined, deep cultures (a few each, even; monoculture is bad too) is much more preferable. You can actually tell interesting stories with that.

And, yes, you can kindly get off my lawn.

The only way your solution works is if D&D develops a single setting akin to Golarion where they don't have to reinvent the wheel for multiple settings support. Even then, I don't see them significantly reducing lineage options; at best you cut the setting specific ones and some of the esoteric ones. The Mos Eisley issue has been a lost cause since the late 80s...

 

[ccooke]

I think Eberron, for example, benefits from the inclusion of a distinct set up of ancestries in its background and setting information, even though some of those are not "traditional" ancestries. I think settings can when new ancestries have to be shoehorned in. And someone is going to say "you don't have to allow it" but we all know that if something exists in an official book it is an extra effort to disallow it.

Although be fair - the PHB goes out of its way to say "The core races are generally available, but any of the more esoteric ones are only there if the DM says so".

I can see your argument, but the problem is there are lots of people who like having many choices - both players and DMs (hi). If WotC limited races to please you, then you would be happy and those who like more options would have no recourse other than complicated homebrew.

As it is, people who want lots of races get them, and you get direct support in the rulebooks to say "No, this game only has [these races]". The way they have done it is the only way that the game can actually provide meaningful support to both viewpoints.

 

[Reynard]

Although be fair - the PHB goes out of its way to say "The core races are generally available, but any of the more esoteric ones are only there if the DM says so".

I can see your argument, but the problem is there are lots of people who like having many choices - both players and DMs (hi). If WotC limited races to please you, then you would be happy and those who like more options would have no recourse other than complicated homebrew.

As it is, people who want lots of races get them, and you get direct support in the rulebooks to say "No, this game only has [these races]". The way they have done it is the only way that the game can actually provide meaningful support to both viewpoints.

Oh, sure, I am not trying to suggest people should not have the options they want. I'm just grousing. I have finally reached that stage of grognardism where I can see the direction of the game veering off my preferences in a significant way -- which is totally understandable, inevitable and good for the game. It just makes me grumpy.

 

[ccooke]

Oh, sure, I am not trying to suggest people should not have the options they want. I'm just grousing. I have finally reached that stage of grognardism where I can see the direction of the game veering off my preferences in a significant way -- which is totally understandable, inevitable and good for the game. It just makes me grumpy.

laugh
Grousing is a fundamental human right (I hope; I've done enough of it)

 

[Guest 6948803]

While my kids are really excited for having World of Warcraft Bastion Steward as their D&D sidekick (owlfolk!) I think the moment my regular players see their first rabbit girl out there will mark our last D&D session. If WotC infantilize franchise too much, we will see at some point soon another game, marketed for "mature" audience stealing D&D fans who grown up a little (similar happened in 90's, cool kids and young adults played White Wolf games, D&D was the thing for hopeless grognards and kiddos). Personally I would like to see some distinct support for "D&D for adults" be it in form of separate setting (Greyhawk maybe? I was never a fan, but from what I know, its not as super high fantasy) or just material written and marketed for older audience (Ravenloft in theory had some potential for that, but D&D Beyond already is telling us to make it suitable for kids, Goosebumps style).

 

[dave2008]

Disappointed they still dont provide for Tiny sized PCs

Or a Large sized one

 

[Rhineglade]

The owlfolk sound cool but I'm still holding out for the inevitable wombatfolk.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The owlfolk sound cool but I'm still holding out for the inevitable wombatfolk.

Drop bears

 

[darjr]

 

[DEFCON 1]

Potential unpopular opinion: I really dislike the Mos Eisley/Pirates of Dark Water style anything goes attitude for PC ancestries. At some point it's just a bunch of bad rubber masks. A few species with defined, deep cultures (a few each, even; monoculture is bad too) is much more preferable. You can actually tell interesting stories with that.

And, yes, you can kindly get off my lawn.

Potentially EVEN MORE unpopular opinion...

If (general) you ever feels like any of these races are just "humans in masks"... the primary reason for that ISN'T due to the way these game mechanics are made...

...it's because the players at your table are humans, and they just ain't very good at roleplaying alien races.

Even now... your player playing the dwarf is basically acting out a hard-drinking Scottish person who likes rocks. That's the extent of their "dwarven" roleplay. They are acting as a hard-drinking Scottish rock-lover human being under the supposed guise of "dwarf". And that had nothing to do with the game mechanics.

And try asking a player at your table to really get into the mindset of playing an elf who has already lived for 400 years operating next to a couple of these 23 year old "human" PCs. How exactly are they pulling that off in and around all the combat and exploration scenes? What are they doing, or even ARE they doing anything to play that reality of having lived centuries and needing to interact with these pissant humans? My guess is... they ain't. Instead, they're playing a couple very specific human personality traits that are "stereotypically elf"-- like they are arrogant, or aloof. But at the end of the day... the players are just playing arrogant humans, not some mystically alien, exceedingly long-lived race.

And this is precisely why the game mechanics really don't matter when making the claim that the lineages are just "humans in masks". Because even the ones that currently aren't thought of in that way still actually are.