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

[Faolyn]

What do you mean?

Ogres were giants in AD&D. They're giants in 5e. ogres have never been humanoid.

They seem to have been humanoid in 4e (going by one site I've seen; don't own any 4e MMs). I seem to recall ogres being a goblinoid in 2e, or possibly related to orcs (because of orogs/ogrillons), but then again, 2e never tried to be precise about their monster type definitions.

 

[Charlaquin]

Producing fertile offspring turns out not to be a great marker of being the same species - Carolina Chickadees and Black-Capped Chickadees have a widespread hybridization zone and quite a bit of study (there tends to be a fitness cost for it, but they seem fertile across generations). Hybrid Macaws on the other hand apparently become sterile over the generations. Some hybrids seem to work ok, although there is disagreement to how the taxonomy should be - Red Wolf vs. Grey Wolf+Coyote. Grizzly/Polar Bear crosses have been in the news lately. Mule-Deer can apparently breed back to either parent species. It's all over the place with plants. Ring species were mentioned previously.

Yep, turns out breeding compatibility is just one of many traits that are often used to determine speciation. But, ultimately, where one species ends and another begins is socially constructed. Turns out, such categories can’t just be worked out deterministically. We have to think like humans, not like computers.

 

[Cadence]

Yep, turns out breeding compatibility is just one of many traits that are often used to determine speciation. But, ultimately, where one species ends and another begins is socially constructed. Turns out, such categories can’t just be worked out deterministically. We have to think like humans, not like computers.

It feels like the criteria vary across the part of the animal kingdom the human scientists who do the classifying specialize in too. I sometimes wonder if you trained one group of (UFO type) aliens to do taxonomy like classically trained mammologists and another to do it like classically trained ornithologists, and then plopped them down on earth say in 1491 (?) for a few months, if the former would mark all currently denoted homo-sapiens as such, while the later would have dozens of species (like the lorikeets and lories on disconnected Islands all seem to be separate species).

 

[Azzy]

Yep, turns out breeding compatibility is just one of many traits that are often used to determine speciation. But, ultimately, where one species ends and another begins is socially constructed. Turns out, such categories can’t just be worked out deterministically. We have to think like humans, not like computers.

This hold true to the subject of this thread, too.

 

[SkidAce]

What do you mean?

Ogres were giants in AD&D. They're giants in 5e. ogres have never been humanoid.

 

[Charlaquin]

This hold true to the subject of this thread, too.

That is the point I was alluding to

 

[Warpiglet-7]

This is such a disingenuous argument.

Yes, groups have been called, evil, for example. But, there is a slight difference between calling something evil and using, nearly word for word, descriptions of a race which are pulled straight from racist texts justifying why a group is inferior. Do you really not see the difference?

So the description of drow fit here? Clearly the larger females are representative of black widow spiders but people claim it’s about misogyny. You know, all those tales of sadistic giant women out there.

decadent, intelligent sadists. I hear drunk dudes yell that at minorities all the time.

Or gnolls? Canabalistic demon worshipping savages. But when you apply lazy to them or a bugbear now it hits too close to home?

I get your point or maybe your motive but I simply think it’s a Rorschach in most cases and people are locked and loaded and ready to find it.

for what it’s worth, I don’t like forced alignment of sentient species on the material plane. I am fine with evil societies that usually produce evil or lazy monsters with some that escape and are more free to be heroes. Free will and all that.

But it does not matter how alien you make the humanoid, folks map it onto some real world thing. Disingenuous nothing.

and when you say “word for word” you mean a single phrase? how many phrases in a row do you see in stat blocks that refer to negative stereotypes about people?

this group is “lazy” or that group is “greedy” that group is “violent.” So we cannot use those generalizations for monsters in the game?

hard pass.

 

[Faolyn]

The issue with 'it's fine because they're fey' is that fey is rather diverse category. Some seem more like spirits, but then there are others such as satyrs that seem to be humanoids in all but name. And at least at glance redcaps seem more like the latter. I'm not really that familiar with their D&D lore though.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of essentially evil spirits either.

The 5e description for redcaps say that sometimes, if a creature is murdered in or near the Feywild, redcaps spring out of the blood. Likewise, boggles are created out of feelings of extreme loneliness in or near the Feywild, meenlocks are created out of extreme fear in or near the Feywild, and mites are created when someone is so frustrated by something they become violent. In or near the Feywild.

Not every fey has this sort of origin, of course. A few are said to be created by other fey (like dryads and yeth hounds). The rest, I assume, are born normally. Personally, I assume pixies and sprites to be born from flowers (and I would do the same for dryads and trees, since the MM's description is kinda dumb as their only origin).

So yes, redcaps are effectively evil spirits. If you don't like the concept, fine, but as they're written in 5e, they're very much not "humanoids in all but name."

 

[jasper]

we don't talk about uncle like and the chicken. but he should be out in 10 months.

 

[Scribe]

this group is “lazy” or that group is “greedy” that group is “violent.” So we cannot use those generalizations for monsters in the game?

If you subscribe to the current thinking regarding humanoids, especially playable (PC) ones, that are not some kind of magical construct (within the definition of the setting yet in the next breath you cannot use the settings definitions 'in game', after all they are all magical of course)?

No, you cannot.