D&D 5E I thought WotC was removing biological morals?

[mrpopstar]

I think the original concept of different stats was - "as compared to humans." I could be wrong, and anyone out there, feel free to correct me. But I swear when we started, that is how we viewed it. It believe it was the same for Gamma World too.

“As compared to humans” was always my understanding/assumption as well, but that accounts for the racial +2, not the different subrace +1.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, and that's part of the problem. Enter the Thermian Argument.

If we admit that it is all made up, then no in-fiction justification holds merit. The world fiction was made by the decisions of real-world humans. If your races are that way "because that's how the world works", then... why the heck did you make a world that results in racist gunk? Remake the world already!

One of the issues I have with Star Wars/Star Trek is that all the aliens are really just humans with rubber masks with a possible exception here and there such as the Borg. I don't see why anything that relates to human morality (which is pretty baked in/instinctual) would apply to a different species. In fantasy, yes, I want monsters. Even sentient ones. I just don't see a difference based on fluff meaning much. The only role some creatures play in my campaigns are as opponents because there's already too many sentient species running around. If you want to run things differently go for it. There is no one true way.

On the other hand, I've said before and I'll say again: there should be a section in the DMG talk about this more. We should probably go back to 3.5 with it's gradations - and let people decide what makes sense for their campaign.

P.S. I don't think the Thermian argument applies and it always feels like a bit of a cop-out. An "I disagree with you so therefore I play the Thermian argument trump card." D&D by and large is about heroes defeating the bad guys for me. Occasionally I want monster fodder, easily identifiable bad guys. I don't have chainmail bikinis I do have creatures that happen to have a moral structure that we would consider evil as the default.

 

[Faolyn]

What makes you say that?

I see the fantasy-world creature collection as Darwin dialed to eleven, with fewer mass-extinction events and more species capable of sustaining their own place in the pattern.

For starters, it's pretty Lamarckian in nature. How many monsters are said to have been created by curses or magical interference and yet breed true.

"Survival of the fittest" actually means "who can survive long enough to pass down their genes." Elves, dragons, and other creatures that breed once in a blue moon should be at Giant Panda levels of population now.

And, well, if you have a conflict where one side is dumb, brutish, and relatively low-tech and the other side has not only good tech (if only in the sense of superior materials) but also a decent amount of magic (it's generally assumed that humans, elves, et al are more magical than orcs and goblinoids), well, the dumb ones are probably going to be wiped out.

(There's a world for you: once upon a time, you had your group (either a race or just a culture) of Always Evil Marauders. They got killed off--but came back as undead. Now the Always Evil Marauders are actually hordes of specters and zombies and death knights and the like who add to their numbers by raising their slain enemies as their minions.)

 

[Faolyn]

I think the original concept of different stats was - "as compared to humans." I could be wrong, and anyone out there, feel free to correct me. But I swear when we started, that is how we viewed it. It believe it was the same for Gamma World too.

Still. "As compared to humans" doesn't explain why high elves are smarter than wood elves, but wood elves are wiser than high elves.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't see why anything that relates to human morality (which is pretty baked in/instinctual) would apply to a different species.

If that's the case, then why is alignment?

Like if nothing but humans see things this way, why does the universe see things the way humans do?

 

[Argyle King]

If that's the case, then why is alignment?

Like if nothing but humans see things this way, why does the universe see things the way humans do?

That's part of what I was getting at with some of my comments earlier.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They have already addressed it. The have already built the dirt road, and soon enough it will be paved.

Attributes, skills, etc. are cultural. They said so, even if some feel it was disingenuous to the original writing or intent of writing. So they will have this world's culture, or this realm's culture or this place's culture, and that world's culture, that realm's culture, etc. On one elves will blend into the forest. On another, they will receive spell benefits. On another they will gain divine abilities. All of this will be able to skirt the issue, and publish a boatload of player-based books, which just so happen to sell more than their adventures.

Its depressing how true that is. And, by the way, it is disingenuous to the original writing, and I am not happy that they pretended it has always been the way they want it to be now.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

It sounds nice to directly conflate the pseudo-science based racism described and the fictional reasons why they tend to be so savage (evil in their actions as a whole). Too many readers and posters make the point that the Orcs are racist, that, in a leap, they actually represent black people.
/snip

This is a simplification and misrepresentation of the argument.

It's not that orcs=black people. That's never been the issue. That's the misunderstanding of the issue that has gotten repeated very often as a counter argument, but, it's not what the issue is.

The issue is that the description of orcs directly (and very often word for word) mirrors the SAME LANGUAGE used to describe minorities in the very recent past. THAT LANGUAGE is the problem. The same way that we don't start quoting from Mein Kampf to describe things in the game. It's a really, really bad idea and carries with it far, far too many connotations and historical baggage.

Orcs=black people is a gross simplification of a much more complex and nuanced issue.

 

[Charlaquin]

Two legs, two arms, head, and beard better than my ugly uncle. Looks humanoid to me.

There’s more to the D&D classification “humanoid” than that.

 

[Oofta]

If that's the case, then why is alignment?

Like if nothing but humans see things this way, why does the universe see things the way humans do?

I don't particularly believe in universal alignment. That doesn't mean that alignment as I use it, from a human morality perspective, isn't useful as one general descriptor of many.

But I'm not going to discuss alignment any further again.