D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages & New Race/Culture Distinction

The latest Unearthed Arcana contains the Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood races. The Dhampir is a half-vampire; the Hexblood is a character which has made a pact with a hag; and the Reborn is somebody brought back to life.

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Perhaps the bigger news is this declaration on how race is to be handled in future D&D books as it joins other games by stating that:

"...the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage."
 

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Yep. My personal philosophies don’t match the position I hold here, I want decoupled ASIs purely for game design reasons.
Right. Like I want them either gone entirely or decoupled from race and put on class (where they'd serve more of a purpose) if anywhere. All for mechanical reasons.
 

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Totally agree. I've made this point in other threads on this topic. The ASI has a statistical impact, but at the table you don't really notice it on a roll-by-roll basis. The character is more effective, but it doesn't feel distinctive. When the 5th level Dwarf drops to 4 HP, technically it's the racial bonus to Con that kept him up, but does anybody notice that, or think, "Good thing he's a Dwarf!" (Maybe at your table; not at mine.)

But when the half-orc player drops to 0, and the player announces, "I'm still up! Relentless Endurance!" it feels tough.

My experience is similar - not just in D&D, in other games too - higher numbers don't feel like they express differences as well as actual abilities, whether active or passive, unless the numbers are really staggeringly high.

I think @Crimson Longinus post also accidentally helps illustrate one thing here - the ASIs matter most when they're combat applicable and going to be rolled a ton, from a mechanical perspective.

I don't want world build at all, I just want to open the book and play (I only use published adventures), and I want players at my table to be able to do the same.

So you limit what stuff they have access to.

You always had to do this. In every edition. There have always been new standards introduced. Every edition. 1E. 2E (a ton!). 3E (oh my god!). 4E. 5E.

The solution has been the same in all editions. Limit what sources the players can use. If they can't use the sources where the new approach prevails, well, you don't have a problem.

When 5.5 comes out and makes this approach the standard, you make begin the standard complaining about X.5 editions not being 100% compatible.
 

I don't want world build at all, I just want to open the book and play (I only use published adventures), and I want players at my table to be able to do the same.
Maybe your players would rather choose where their ASIs go rather than be fouled-up by the choice. Or maybe, if they removed ASIs entirely, there would be no such issue at all.
 

I don't want world build at all, I just want to open the book and play (I only use published adventures), and I want players at my table to be able to do the same.

So your players never play humans or half-elves, because assigning ASIs vs. having them assigned for you is the difference between "opening the book and playing" and....not?
 

LWell, there are people who think (or at least claim that they think) that the races having differnt ASIs is problematic biological essentialism, and logically that would apply to NPCs too.
Funny, I haven’t seen that. Link?
It's not on this site, but it's there for sure. Most of this line of criticism is coming from RPG designers not on this site, both including 3rd party D&D designers and creators of different TTRPGs. There's also been a few comments from people outside the hobby.

General thoughts:

Disappointed reactions to Tasha's:

And for why DIY isn't a satisfactory answer:

Aaaaaand because this comes up all the time:

The Thermian Argument: https://youtu.be/AxV8gAGmbtk (ENWorld won't let me do the media thing with more than five links)

I just woke up and haven't completely gathered my thoughts (only here because phone addiction ahahahahahaha) so I'll just comment this: the topic of microaggressions might be helpful here. There are things that might seem completely innocuous to an able-bodied neurotypical cishet white man, but which strike the wrong chord with somebody who's disabled, neurodivergent, PoC, gay, trans, a woman or a non-binary person, or any combination thereof due to their differing life experiences on account of their socioeconomic privilege. The way race has traditionally been represented in western fantasy, D&D included, seems to be one of these things.

EDIT: I'll also say that all this criticism isn't some conspiracy to bring down D&D/WotC/Hasbro, though there certainly are things to criticize about their business practices. This is all coming from a place of love, from wanting D&D, and the TTRPG hobby as a whole, to improve and to become more welcoming to all.
 
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If I were to ask you the question "Which animal is stronger, an ant or a human?", what would your answer be? Can you think of a fair definition of "stonger" that would allow ant to be correct? How about is there a definition that would allow human to be correct?
Put a brick over an human, then over an ant. Who dies is weaker. STR in DnD is absolute, not relative and directly correlated with muscolar power.
 

So your players never play humans or half-elves, because assigning ASIs vs. having them assigned for you is the difference between "opening the book and playing" and....not?

To be fair to him I think he's meaning that the question of whether ASIs can be reassigned for other races is the issue, rather than the actual reassignment of them. I don't think it's actually a major issue, but it's slightly different to that.

Put a brick over an human, then over an ant. Who dies is weaker. STR in DnD is absolute, not relative and directly correlated with muscolar power.

No, D&D strength is an imprecise abstraction and doesn't correlate directly at all. Your claim is straightforwardly false. It's like you're saying "human blood is green". There isn't even an argument to be had here, it's a simple matter of fact.
 


Didn't you know? Squeezing an extra 5% out of a build is how you win D&D!

You know what's funny though?

The vast majority of people I see who make statements like this tend to have pretty tightly optimized characters, sometimes even ones relying on elaborate mechanical knowledge. They always seem to be arguing not on behalf of themselves, but some imagined, or once-glimpsed unicorn of a player, who gallops gloriously through their game, tossing their gorgeous mane, and declaring how much they love their un-optimized character. Or more rarely, referring back to some PC they enjoyed when they were 14 who got killed three rooms into his second dungeon.
 

Have you read this thread? The previous threads on this topic? (I know you have.) The articles on the topic and reviews of Tasha's? Complaints about bio-essentialism are common, and in articles are much more in the focus than the game balance aspect you're focusing on. I am really not gonna do the searching for you.

BTW, I fully agree that bio-essentialism is vile when it is related to morality (i.e. orcs are evil) but I do not agree it is harmful when depicting capabilities of actually differnt species (i.e. orcs are strong.)

I agree with you but want to add this: it is vile because demonstrably WRONG. I don't like to focus on morality, I like to focus on science and knowledge of nature. Remove reality is never a good way to approach a problem.
 

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