D&D 5E Recent Errata clarifications

[whimsychris123]

"We removed alignment before on PC races" well, I disagreed then, I continue to disagree

You disagree with people making the game what they want it to be? Some people will continue to make certain races a certain alignment and others won't. Nobody is wrong. It's a preference. WotC is acknowledging that.

 

[pukunui]

Mmmm they really are though. I've not jumped to any conclusions in the previously locked threads.

"We removed alignment before on PC races" well, I disagreed then, I continue to disagree.

They're not "removing alignment", though. They've simply stopped recommending a particularly alignment for each playable race. You can still infer that most dwarves, for example, will be lawful good based on their descriptive fluff. Nothing's actually changed about how the vast majority of dwarves in the game world behave.

 

[Scribe]

You disagree with people making the game what they want it to be? Some people will continue to make certain races a certain alignment and others won't. Nobody is wrong. It's a preference. WotC is acknowledging that.

They always could, that isnt what is being changed.

 

[Scribe]

They're not "removing alignment", though. They're removing the sections that could be read as meaning "If you want to play this race, you really should make your PC this particular alignment or else you'll be doing it wrong."

People failing to read, shouldnt be a reason to change this.

 

[JEB]

This addresses corrections like the blanket disclaimer added to p.5 of VOLO’S GUIDE.

If they added the disclaimer to indicate that the material in Volo's was biased, then why did they need to remove any of the information about monster cultures, backgrounds, or roleplaying? Just blame Volo.

We also removed a couple paragraphs suggesting that all mind flayers or all beholders (for instance) share a single, stock personality.

Instead of deleting the information entirely, what kept them from rewriting the paragraphs with that supposed suggestion? Just add more qualifiers to the paragraphs, clearly indicate this is only a starting point, and that your version of the monster can and should be whatever you want. Heck, don't the tables that follow (which are now all that remains for RP purposes) already pretty strongly hint at this customizability?

Side question: What if you don't want to roll up the personality of every single mind flayer or beholder you throw at your party, and were perfectly happy to use the "stock personality" for a random encounter or simple dungeon crawl? At least having a default gives folks something more interesting than "grr monster."

After all, the most memorable and interesting characters often explicitly subvert expectations and stereotypes.

As @Scribe hinted at, this is a funny thing to say when the apparent goal is to remove expectations and stereotypes.

We didn’t alter the essential natures of these creatures or how they fit into our settings at all.

By his own words, they deleted the "stock personality" for each monster. Sure sounds like changing essential nature to me. If the removal really wasn't about essentialism, then why do it?

 

[Scribe]

As @Scribe hinted at, this is a funny thing to say when the apparent goal is to remove expectations and stereotypes.

Certainly is, it will keep a smile on my face throughout the night while I play some Wrath of the Righteous.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Wasn't there like one Yeerk in Animorphs that was like that and swore off possessing people's brains and enslaving them? I think they eventually gave it morphing power and then forced it to be trapped in the body of a whale or something lest that morphing ability was used against it. So the one good Yeerk could live free.

It would be like that.

Wow. I think this is the first time I've seen an Animorphs reference online (besides the meme templates). Nice.

 

[TerraDave]

Thanks, I got confused.

I feel like our forum conversations are actively being called out, for better or worse.

FYI, I agree with this beneath the hood.

Ya. Like I am being called out...head messages, I am telling ya!

Actually, I like this. More in a bit.

 

[Scribe]

If the removal really wasn't about essentialism, then why do it?

Plausible deniability.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And if there was no stereotype well they would be less memorable and interesting wouldnt they.

Okay. But not listing a two-word descriptor of the vaguest sense of a creature's morality doesn't stop that kind of character building. You can have characters that "play against type" without having that "type" that they're playing against be a different alignment from them. Hell, you can even have societies filled with multiple different common alignments for members of that culture, and still have people that stand out within that culture (Example: See the Kryn Dynasty from Exandria).

So, no. This is a false premise and mischaracterization of what they're doing in the first place.

Dude, I get that you don't like this errata or the general direction of D&D, and we've discussed this and our different opinions on the issue fairly extensively on this forum, but this just isn't a fair representation of what's really happening, and you seem to be taking this to a larger extreme than you were before. You don't have to yuck my yum.