D&D 5E Are humanoid mono-cultures being replaced with the Rule of Three?

[Micah Sweet]

Tasha's shows a very different sort of Orc. So does Eberron: Rising From the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

But I agree, the PHB is in desperate need of a reprinting to errata out the racial language and formally adopt the Tasha model of lineages/ancestries.

They're not going to do that though. WotC is terrified of making any significant changes to the core books, and the kind of rewording you're describing would definitely qualify.

 

[CubicsRube]

I wrote and posted up a short document here a while ago separating ancestry and culture. I think there's a false equivalence that everyone from one ethnicity must be the same.

Plus, it's boring. I want to play an elf that grew up in a barbarian tribe, or a dwarf among a forest elf community, or an orc in a university town. Backgrounds don't really do an adequate job of representing that.

As for the rule of 3, I often follow this in games and a lot of life situations. It's a sweet spot between enough choice to be interesting and being too complicated to assess easily.

 

[Reynard]

Sapient beings capable of free will, language, intellect, tool use and abstract thought.

Nope, sorry. That's people.

Orcs don't have free will. They were created by the Dark lord to serve in his armies and destroy the Free People. Orcs are no more "people" than demons or ghouls are.

 

[Reynard]

They have been consistently shown as living mammals with free will, normal sexual reproduction and an established culture and society. That’s the difference between them and say, undead or elementals, or demons.

See, what happened was someone took an inherently evil stock enemy servitor race lacking free will and dedicated only to hatred and malevolence, and then turned them into "people" so they could complain that orcs are people and you shouldn't treat them like stock enemies. It is a circular problem that feeds itself. You could do the same thing with any evil creature in D&D. Why not give Cloakers a culture and call them people? Because it is stupid.

There is nothing wrong with having stock enemies. You avoid the problem of "are we saying something ethically problematic" by not saying they are free willed people in the first place.

 

[ph0rk]

D&D would be better without elves. Most games would.

You avoid the problem of "are we saying something ethically problematic" by not saying they are free willed people in the first place.

I don't think it is that simple, particularly with a trope-ish race with as much baggage as orcs.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Orcs don't have free will. They were created by the Dark lord to serve in his armies and destroy the Free People. Orcs are no more "people" than demons or ghouls are.

Not D&D orcs. Not officially.

 

[Reynard]

Not D&D orcs. Not officially.

Only because a choice was made to make them more human, based on the popularity of orcs in other media (primarily WoW).

Of course if you are treating orcs like people and then throwing them in the position of the colonized you are going to get pushback for also making them stock enemies you can slaughter by the score. All I am saying is making them that was a choice, and so a problem that was created.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Only because a choice was made to make them more human, based on the popularity of orcs in other media (primarily WoW).

Of course if you are treating orcs like people and then throwing them in the position of the colonized you are going to get pushback for also making them stock enemies you can slaughter by the score. All I am saying is making them that was a choice, and so a problem that was created.

So why are you CAPSLOCK SCREAMING as if your house rule is fact?

Also, the issue with 'always evil' violence magnets has been around long before WoW existed.

Also also, people didn't 'invent' the idea of orcs as people to cause a problem, it's been an ethical dilemma as long as the game existed because a lot of people just naturally reject the idea of a stock race as an enemy and inherently evil as a description for races. It's always been an issue, it's just that society has progressed enough that people are comfortable voicing it.

 

[Reynard]

So why are you CAPSLOCK SCREAMING as if your house rule is fact?

Also, the issue with 'always evil' violence magnets has been around long before WoW existed.

Also also, people didn't 'invent' the idea of orcs as people to cause a problem, it's been an ethical dilemma as long as the game existed because a lot of people just naturally reject the idea of a stock race as an enemy and inherently evil as a description for races. It's always been an issue, it's just that society has progressed enough that people are comfortable voicing it.

Is this where we debate whether the paladin is allowed to kill the young ina goblin warren?

Yes, I know that this "debate" has existed for a long time, and it has always been tiresome because it has always been predicated on its own invention. It is begging the question in the worst way. And it is perfectly easily solvable with a simple statement: "Orcs (or whatever else) are not free willed beings." And because the solution is that simple, the argument is not even worth having. It would be like arguing that Hawaiian pizza is bad after you yourself put the pineapple on.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Only because a choice was made to make them more human, based on the popularity of orcs in other media (primarily WoW).

Of course if you are treating orcs like people and then throwing them in the position of the colonized you are going to get pushback for also making them stock enemies you can slaughter by the score. All I am saying is making them that was a choice, and so a problem that was created.

Pretty sure Tolkien was an Alliance player.