Good to know this is your stance, even if you leave a ton of wiggle room in your stance. I have no idea why you do, perhaps a debate tactic, but it is frustrating. Try using the terms the actual game we are discussing uses. Your semantic line is exactly what I am talking about - and have mentioned many times on this very thread.
D&D does not use the term "human-like sapient beings." It uses race. Use the term they give you. By switching the term, you loosen your claim and now have wiggle room to move. I feel it is probably some debate tactic you have picked up, but all it does it perpetuate arguments. You also have to add in "intentionally." Now that leaves room for you to say: "For this person it was okay, for this person it wasn't." And then the disclaimer at the end, "or something else." I mean, can you leave any more room to shift your decisions on the fly if someone points out some flaw in your argument. Again, this type of semantic malarky just perpetuates arguments - it does nothing to solve them.
Maybe an example is needed. Watch, here is mine: "In D&D, the DM gets to decide a race's alignment, the player decides their PC's."
See how absolutely clear that is. Now, if someone disagrees, we can specifically discuss why the DM gets to decide, why the player gets to decide, or why letting the DM decide is wrong, or why letting the player decide is wrong. And they can start out by saying: "In D&D, DMs should not have the ability to decide a race's alignment."
Alright. I was trying to use non-game terms that...are more like how people generally speak, rather than game jargon, but if game jargon is what you want, "DMs should not employ races that have inherent alignment."
I had no intent to put in "wiggle room." Pretty much every word was very carefully chosen. I used "human-like," for example, because proximity to human-ness is a very serious component. Nobody really seems to care much that Beholders (for example) are always evil, because beholders are radically unlike human beings physiologically, psychologically, and socially. They have little to no relationship to any real-world ways that human beings have been (sometimes literally) demonized. They aren't coded with any characteristics that evoke real-world cultures or caricatures thereof.
I used "sapient" because sapience is a critical concern, as reflected in most science fiction regarding robots. We don't feel bad about a perfectly ordinary assembly line robot having a malfunction and needing to be replaced. It is clearly a tool, not even possessing the minimal awareness of a beast of burden. But when a robot can genuinely and spontaneously ask questions like, "Does this unit have a soul?" we pretty much instantly recognize that that being can no longer be treated as a tool, and is instead a person. Similarly, fiction where ordinary animals are featured, such as pets or named horses, is perfectly acceptable. While these creatures are
sentient, aware of their surroundings and capable of feeling, they are not
sapient. So long as they are treated with appropriate kindness and respect, humans keeping them domesticated (and possibly extracting labor from them) is acceptable. However, if one were awakened somehow, it would not be acceptable to continue doing that, as with the aforementioned robot demonstrating their sapience. (See, for instance, the Talking Animals of Narnia.)
I absolutely
do disagree with "In D&D, the DM gets to decide a race's alignment," because, as stated, I oppose the
idea of "races" having inherent alignment. Players getting to decide their own character's alignment is fine, because that has zero intersection with inherent alignment (and, at least in principle, is a rejection thereof; if the player can
always decide their alignment, then anything they're permitted to play cannot have inherent alignment, which is what I was going for to begin with.) I would grant, "The DM gets to decide each NPC's alignment," because that does not invoke the specter of "this is a fully sapient being, by sight and by generic actions equivalent to an actual human....
except that it is just axiomatically evil and therefore morally okay to kill on sight no matter what."
I find most "lore" justifications for this to be, as noted, merely fig-leaf excuses--particularly because a lot of it just looks like being really
really insistent that "no these guys actually ARE just soulless monsters that happen to look humanoid, we pinky-swear this time!"
Character motive reasons may be appropriate, since (again) characters are individuals who make their own decisions.
So long as something is a "race," it should not have inherent alignment, and vice-versa. Races, as D&D uses the term, are almost always sapient and human-like (hence why 3e referred to them as subtypes of "humanoid.") Things that are
not races are, in general, either non-sapient or
very non-human-like--and even among them there are some areas that it might be better to not use inherent alignment (such as dragons, which
other than physiology, are a bit too much like humans to be comfortable as inherently aligned.)
There are ways around some of this that aren't nearly as problematic and
aren't just fig-leaf excuses, too, though as with all of this they require a little thought in use. My oft-mentioned explanation for fiends being Always Evil is one, best used for very supernatural beings. Another is where evil behavior becomes physically reflected in the body of the being. This is best used for beings that are already at least a little non-human-like, such as dragons; e.g. in order for a dragon to
have gold scales, it has to have a certain kind of personality and have sustained commitment to certain kinds of action, and falling short of that standard would directly lead to looking like something else. (In effect, it makes these dragons not actually having "race" at all, because their "race" IS in some sense a choice, or a series of choices, whereas "race" is usually understood to
not be something a person is capable of choosing for herself.)
Or, if you prefer a TL;DR:
I reject the statement, "In D&D, the DM gets to decide a race's alignment, the player decides their PC's" as unacceptable. I reject it because "race" is not a choice, but alignment
with regard to "races" is in principle a choice, as it is about moral behavior, and entities which cannot make moral choices cannot have moral behavior. As a result, I see clear and serious issues with "races" that have inherent alignment. If a class of beings is a "race," as D&D uses the term, then it should have the freedom to choose (so that the player may decide their PC's alignment). If it is
not a "race," then it may be acceptable for it to have inherent alignment. Various means (true and thorough alienness, "team jersey" approach) can get you there. The vast majority of actual "races" that are presented as inherently aligned look like elaborate fig-leaf excuses.
