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

[Malmuria]

My mistake, OP said he was just confused.

But, my post traveled through time! Note the post three down from my original post, comparing the imagery to Nazi stuff.

I was raised Jewish, and have been on the receiving end of anti-Semitism. I'm sorry but I don't see the relationship. And this is before I read the next 8 pages, I would guess some in there are upset as well.

All good, just giving my opinion. Nothing to write home about.

My impression is that most of the arguments here claiming that the redcap is possibly offensive are slippery slope arguments, seemingly offered in bad faith. The provocation seems to be that one should offer a hard and fast rule of what is an acceptable representation and what is not, and that such a rule should cover all cases not only now or in the future; or, if that's not possible, that the whole issue should be dropped for lacking consistency. This take regenerates every round.

 

[Gradine]

What about "always good"? For some reason that always seems to get a pass.

Yes, that is equally absurd, which is why we complain about all the examples of it, like:

And if that "certain way" of the culture* is might makes right, only the strong survive, and-or whoever last stole it owns it then boom, you've got a culture of raised-as-evil Orcs. Which means that Jenny grows up either able and very willing to hold her own (or more) in a fight, or as a proficient sneak and-or thief, or dies young.

* - underpinned and reinforced at every turn by its religion.

Now sure, specific individuals could maybe escape this society now and then and try forging a new life elsewhere, or in a different society; but a quite-possibly overwhelming amount of cultural baggage and unpleasant personal history comes along for the ride.

That's... that's my point. That's my whole point, right there. They're not "always evil" if they can forge their own path, which means the idea that they're biologically evil is demonstrably false.

 

[Gradine]

People keep saying things like this, and I really do not understand how this can make sense when talking about literal different species. Like certainly dwarves, centaurs and aarakocra are biologically different from each other rather essential manner? And sure, it can be icky when we get to the morals, but even there we should be able to recognise that different species may have different instincts and needs which may lead to different values.

The reason it feels icky is because it's (a) wrong and more importantly (b) it's the and worldview as racism.

If a creature possesses the ability to reason, then it can make the choice to resist instinct; they can choose to understand other conscious beings and find accord.

You bring up brain eaters, as if there has never been a neutral (or good) mind flayer before

 

[CleverNickName]

The "biological morals" part of the OP doesn't really apply here, I think. Redcaps don't really have a biology, at least not like we think of one: they don't grow and age and reproduce. Instead, they are formed directly from an evil act, a violation of an established philosophy or ethos. So you could argue that redcaps don't just have an alignment; they are an alignment.

 

[Malmuria]

You bring up brain eaters, as if there has never been a neutral (or good) mind flayer before

This could be an interesting premise for a game, like VtM but with mindflayers

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The reason it feels icky is because it's (a) wrong and more importantly (b) it's the and worldview as racism.

If a creature possesses the ability to reason, then it can make the choice to resist instinct; they can choose to understand other conscious beings and find accord.

You bring up brain eaters, as if there has never been a neutral (or good) mind flayer before

Yes I greatly dislike species wide morals, and D&D's simplistic take on the even more. Then again, I think it is fine to say that different species may have tendency to think differently about certain things. For example herbivores and carnivores probably see the world rather differently, creatures with very short lifespan might see things very differently than ones with very long lifespan, creatures that nurse their young may see things differently than those who don't, creatures with telepathic hive mind definitely see things very differently than ones without such a thing etc.

And no, I wouldn't classify mind flayers as evil in some objective sense; they however have certain tendencies that might often lead to irreconcilable differences between them and other species.

 

[Oofta]

Some of this goes back to supernatural influence*, but also to biology and brain structure. There's no reason to assume that an intelligent species shares our sense of morality. They may decide that not murdering others for fun and pleasure will lead to better results, but that doesn't change their inherent moral compass. There are real people who simply don't process like most of us do, see the article When Your Child is a Psycopath.

* for example drow in my campaign world can escape Lollth's influence and escape the underdark (which has it's own negative influence) but their skin color slowly changes over time from dark grey to light grey. Honestly still not particularly happy with my homebrew lore, but in my world drow that escape become grey elves.

 

[Remathilis]

I wonder if the "fey are bound but strong emotions" excuse applies to centaurs, satyrs and hexbloods? You know, the three PC "fey" races so far...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In my tabletop the mindless creatures can be "evil" because they have got a "dark aura", and then they can be hurt by sacred powers of the divine spellcasters. For example an exqueleto or an animated zombie. Technically they are unaligned because they are mindless and they can't understand the difference between good or bad. Even an object, for example the statue of a evil deity used in ritual and sacrifices, could be destroyed by spells with Good Aligment key. Or even sacred objetcts from a temple could be damaged by divine magic from an enemy god only because they are "attuned" with a rival cosmic power. For example a mechanical machine attuned with law can suffer by spells with "chaos aligment" key.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Some of this goes back to supernatural influence*, but also to biology and brain structure. There's no reason to assume that an intelligent species shares our sense of morality. They may decide that not murdering others for fun and pleasure will lead to better results, but that doesn't change their inherent moral compass. There are real people who simply don't process like most of us do, see the article When Your Child is a Psycopath.

Yes, sure, in theory at least. Then again, I have hard time imagining an entire species of psychopaths being able to survive.