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

[Hexmage-EN]

A Redcap that became good would cease to be a Redcap, in the same way that Zariel ceased being a celestial

The original Tal'Dorei setting guide goes so far as to say that a fey creature's identity is based in its primary emotions and that a fey will transform into another kind if their emotions change.

So, a redcap could transform into a korred or boggle or sprite or something.

At some point there have to be monsters that are just monsters unless every evil creature from real world folklore and mythology is to be made no better or worse than an average human, at which point what purpose do they serve in the game?

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I like the way my discussion on the actual armor in question is dismissed as “obviously wrong” without any counter points.

It is in response to a post claiming that the 1e hobgoblin like drawing is a direct link to racist propaganda WW2 images.

I point out that the armor and weapons is not particularly Japanese.

I point out that a heavily exaggerated racist image is not the same as a line drawing of a monster that is viewed as wearing Japanese armor. The fact that a racist image exists does not mean that all images of monsters with a Japanese motif calls to the racist images in common. There is a lot of art over a long time period by Japanese artists that draw traditional Japanese monsters / spirits / goblins (in tne broader use of the word) with Japanese armor and weapons. Just like many of the monster manual humanoid races use western style armor and weapons in illustrations.

Without repeating the racist images again, can someone claiming that they are the same (one not a monster but over exaggerated in caricature style) and one that is a line drawing of a monster say what is obviously the same? The existence of racist caricature does not mean that the hobgoblin is a racist drawing.

This should be able to be discussed without the “biological imperative” argument being tossed in. Alignment - role playing fluf in 5e with no mechanical value - is not shown to be genetic in any humanoid monsters with the exception of gnolls.

I understand the concept of othering and the long history of monsters and monstrous depictions, but it is stretch for me to take that academic concept and say that it matches D&D monsters. Many of the evil races (another word that is very charged and means something else in D&D) are the way they are because of the outside influence of their gods. It is not generic but religious and societal factors that make the average specimen of the different monsters most likely to be a certain alignment.

WoTC decided that humanoids are too close to humans and would rather error on the side of caution and not use a one alignment label for them because they fear that it has caused harm in general in the past and might be causing harm today? OK, it is a conclusion I don’t agree with but I can see the logic path to the conclusion. The ever expanding worry about more and more monsters I don’t get.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

The OP seems to be under the mistaken impression that WotC is going to remove default assumptions from all monsters. Mind you, with wholesale removal of alignment from Candlekeep and Van Ricten's, this seems to be a fair mistake.

Van Richten's is the only book without alignment. Candlekeep describes several creatures in the text as having an alignment, including a Chaotic Good ogre that apparently only became Good when a Headband of Intellect made him smart enough to consider that killing and eating the halfling he got the headband from was bad.

 

[Weiley31]

I personally feel that only specifically named NPCs that are part of a module should have an Alignment technically. I see that as a good compromise between the old school/new school approach to Alignment in current DND.

 

[Weiley31]

Van Richten's is the only book without alignment. Candlekeep describes several creatures in the text as having an alignment, including a Chaotic Good ogre that apparently only became Good when a Headband of Intellect made him smart enough to consider that killing and eating the halfling he got the headband from was bad.

Kinda like how the one Gnoll in Out of the Abyss was good cuz said Gnoll was inflicted with Insanity and curing it would revert it back to evil.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Van Richten's is the only book without alignment. Candlekeep describes several creatures in the text as having an alignment, including a Chaotic Good ogre that apparently only became Good when a Headband of Intellect made him smart enough to consider that killing and eating the halfling he got the headband from was bad.

That sounds rather iffy to me... Conflating good morals with intelligence like that. At most a creature so dumb that they don't realise killing others is bad would be neutral.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Many of the evil races (another word that is very charged and means something else in D&D) are the way they are because of the outside influence of their gods. It is not generic but religious and societal factors that make the average specimen of the different monsters most likely to be a certain alignment.

At some point around either the release of Mordenkaninen's Tome of Foes or Eberron: Rising From the Last War (I forget which) it was stated in a video WotC put out that the races of Eberron are unlike how they are depicted on many other worlds because they are protected from the influence of the creator gods. They used dwarves as an example, stating that even Moradin supernaturally influences dwarves to act in accordance for his design for their lives. This shifts the framing from "this kind of creature is biologically evil" to "gods supernaturally influence their creations to act in accordance to their will for them".


Explorer's Guide to Wildemount tries to have its cake and eat it, too. The book states that drow, orcs, and yuan-ti were manipulated and used by their evil gods, but that after a certain event this supernatural influence faded. The drow of Wildemount have rejected Lolth (and apparently in Tal'Dorei Reborn are looking to team up with the elves of Tal'Dorei to "save" those drow who still follow Lolth from her influence). Orc priests of Gruumsh teach that orcs are inherently vicious and can never peacefully coexist with other peoples...but this actually isn't true and just Gruumshite propaganda.

However, goblins ARE, for whatever reason, still vulnerable to being influenced by their creator god Bane from birth to play the role of goblin, hobgoblin, or bugbear, as he intended for them, and can only escape it via magical means to remove his Curse of Strife (such as Remove Curse or the proximity of a Luxon beacon) or an extraordinary act of mercy when the goblin expects death. Perhaps this is because Bane is the god of tyranny, and his tyranny includes mind control? One group of goblinkin is mentioned that searches for fellow goblinkin to save from Bane's curse.

Yuan-ti are still mostly evil followers of Zehir who mostly live in an isolationist city-state, with the one good group of yuan-ti who oppose their creator suffering under a curse of sickness inflicted by him. They don't seem to be supernaturally brainwashed from birth like goblinkin are said to be, but living in a theocratic city-state probably makes that unnecessary.


So, effectively, the situation has shifted from "gods made these creatures inherently evil" to "evil gods supernaturally influence their creations", which sets up the possibility of PCs thinking "okay, if they aren't inherently evil it would be bad to kill them...so let's convince them their religion and god is evil so that they reject it and maybe start worshiping the gods we worship instead". Wildemount and Tal'Dorei Reborn both feature a group of individuals (goblinkin in the former, drow in the latter) who wish to convert their kin away from their gods. Which of course has parallels to real world situations where visiting missionaries try to convert people away from their "evil" gods, with the caveat that in the fiction these gods (Bane, Gruumsh, Lolth, Zehir) actually are evil.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I point out that the armor and weapons is not particularly Japanese.

Gary Gygax described the armour as "samurai-like".

Source

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Gary Gygax described the armour as "samurai-like".

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Source

Which clearly shows that it is not samurai armor (it is like) and was not intended by basic design but just what the artist did. Pig faced orcs were also not intended.

Hobgoblins were not intended to be the Japanese in monster form, and from that one drawing they have had that motif for a while but I don’t see it more than an artistic style.

 

[Mirtek]

It's not a problem that something is evil. It's a problem when your evil race is LINKED to RW bigotry.

which covers such a wide range that anyone can do ut for almost anything.

The horde of mindless flesh eating zombies? Poor proxie for the "dark hordeds of savage others, who are of limited intellect and a threat to your ressources. Making them mindless is just an attempt to hide the racism they're truly representing"

Offense can taken ftom everything