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."

 

[MGibster]

While I don't think those are sufficient reasons not to do it, and would personally love to see what it would look like, I fear that the issues described above will instead lead to exceedingly bland products where the highest priority is to avoid offense. It would be the easiest path going forward. I hope that doesn't happen, and that WotC takes a little risk in this matter, trusting their writers and their audience.

I think we're still finding a balance between recognizing the problematic aspects of things we love from the past and reconciling them against our modern sensibilities.

Also, a lot of people in our community have been told recently that the way they've gamed for years is a problem, and that cultural touchstones that may have been formative in their lives are bad and they shouldn't like them. That can be a hard pill to swallow for anyone, even if the reasoning is sound. I think that's a perspective worth keeping in mind.

That's alright. We're not really the future of gaming and WotC doesn't need to keep us appeased.

 

[Faolyn]

Aladain, the Disney's TV cartoon show was one of my favorites, and I don't remember anybody saying it was potically incorrect or cultural apropiation. If I were from Middle East I would try to use the "1001 nights" and fiction like this to promote tourism in my country.

I distinctly recall people being extremely upset that one of the songs in Aladdin mentioned something about cutting off the hands of thieves, saying it made the Middle East to be barbaric.

 

[Remathilis]

I distinctly recall people being extremely upset that one of the songs in Aladdin mentioned something about cutting off the hands of thieves, saying it made the Middle East to be barbaric.

Correct. The lyrics to the opener "Arabian Nights" was originally

Oh, I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam.
Where they cut off your ear
If they don’t like your face
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

The VHS version was changed to

Oh, I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam.
Where it’s flat and immense
And the heat is intense,
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home

And the recent remake changed it again to

Oh, imagine a land, it’s a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where you wander among every culture and tongue
It’s chaotic, but hey, it’s home

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I don't think that declaring anything that ventures into harmful stereotypes or cultural associations should necessarily be declared as "overinterpreting" particularly when some of these associations are either fairly explicit or rooted in the transmission of recognizably racist tropes. For example, we can see a lot of contextualized Euro-American racism towards non-whites and colonialism in works like John Carter of Mars, which is an early 20 century sci-fi novella about alien civilizations on Mars. But behind the veil of these sci-fi stories are tropes rooted in the racism of Americans fighting American Indians in Westerns, colonial adventure stories set in Africa and Asia, "White Man's Burden," etc. These are the tropes that influenced sci-fi and fantasy, which D&D inherited, adopted, and uncritically used while also establishing some of its own nasty tropes.

And in new products, must emancipate from this. But rewriting... retroediting... mmm no thanks. Every product of human brain is son of its time and this must be respected because allow us to see where to go. As a warning helps you to keep out from danger.

How to emancipate is another big issue. I personally prefer tales of opposing interest and not of good vs evil because I'm the first to find naive to clustering the world. Another think I personally find very upsetting is this gods everywhere attitutude in many settings. In mine adventures gods simply do not exists or they are unable to influence mundane events, even when I play in FR. This is caused by me being an atheist, probably. But don't feel the need to rewrite FR for that.

I'm trying to follow the youtube video about Al Qadim and find very interesting to discover the issues between stereotypical view and reality in the setting, but I can see clearly that even in the view of the speakers there is no claim of this being offensive. This is an intelligent way of approaching things, in my opinion.

 

[Guest 6801328]

And in new products, must emancipate from this. But rewriting... retroediting... mmm no thanks. Every product of human brain is son of its time and this must be respected because allow us to see where to go. As a warning helps you to keep out from danger.

I mostly agree that we don't need to go back and re-write everything. That should be a business decision, not one imposed by the rest of society. Smart businesses might add a new introduction.

But, likewise, I don't think we should necessarily leave them in their original form out of "respect". We can conclude that something is an insensitive or even racists piece of steaming garbage, and also decide that it's not worth the cost of re-writing it. It's still just a business decision.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A rogue will Sneak Attack more often and with more damage the higher Dexterity score they have.

Damage is one small part of what a rogue does.

This whole post seems to be trying to pedantically redefine what a rogue is in order to dismiss the other person’s point.

“Slightly decreased damage makes you a worse rogue” is absolutely an opinion, not a fact. It only even approaches fact by pretending D&D is table top fighting game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Damage is one small part of what a rogue does.

This whole post seems to be trying to pedantically redefine what a rogue is in order to dismiss the other person’s point.

“Slightly decreased damage makes you a worse rogue” is absolutely an opinion, not a fact. It only even approaches fact by pretending D&D is table top fighting game.

Yes, although both parties in this back-and-forth are being bullheaded and hyperbolic.

It's true that a rogue can do many things that don't depend on Dexterity. And it's completely valid to build a rogue that prioritizes those things above the core (or canonical) rogue abilities. And all those things have some benefit, that will vary by campaign and DM.

At the same time, it's disingenuous to pretend that the rogue and most of it's core abilities, as well as many/most of its subclass abilities, aren't build around Dex. It's disingenuous to pretend that for most tables out there, and most of the content in official adventure paths, Dex won't be vastly more beneficial than Cha.

To turn the argument around, one might say, "You don't need to be stronger than a halfling to play a goliath. Make up a really fun backstory about how your goliath was always the runt of the litter! Take high Wisdom and pick up the Perception skill. Plus those Wisdom saves are key! See? You'll be just as good!"

I wouldn't expect that to be persuasive, either.

 

[bedir than]

Maybe. But I've red One Thousand and One Night also and Al Qadim seems me in line with the depiction of OTON which is not an interpretation of somebody else culture. So my point of view is why OTON is ok and AQ no?

I suggest you to inform yourself better about the topic.

As a former Arabic linquist and major in Near Eastern Studies and Cultures I have to reinforce all of the objections to these statements.

1,001 Nights does attempt to capture culture, almost none of it to do with what modern people consider the Middle East. The traditions and legends mentioned might be as far west as certain empires in now-Persia but most are of Mogul (Central Asia, India subcontinent). The versions of these tales that exist within the West are changed, not just through translations, but also via their presentation.

They are an enjoyable read. They should inspire you to learn more, not insist that they are the beginning and end of Arab and/or Islamic folklore.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Anyone else ever come across a copy of 1001 Arabian Nights that refers to ever djinn as a 'god' or one that calls them all 'demon'?

We had a truncated copy in my 5th grade classroom. Kinda freaked me out as a kid. I'm pretty sure not all of those guys are actually 'djinn' or 'genies' either.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Damage is one small part of what a rogue does.

This whole post seems to be trying to pedantically redefine what a rogue is in order to dismiss the other person’s point.

“Slightly decreased damage makes you a worse rogue” is absolutely an opinion, not a fact. It only even approaches fact by pretending D&D is table top fighting game.

I'm done. I'm not going to argue this anymore. People are twisting my words, and it's just not working.

Rogues are based off of Dexterity, and it is the most important ability scores to them mechanically. A half-orc rogue that wants a higher dexterity than the typical half-orc should be allowed to have that higher Dexterity bonus and not have people scream at them "Strength is useful for rogues, too! What if you have to carry a bunch of stuff!?!?"

I am not saying that a character is playing the game wrong if they choose to play a rogue with their highest ability score being Charisma or Strength. If they're having fun playing their character that way, they are playing the game correctly. However, it goes both ways. If a Tiefling character would have more fun having a higher Dexterity than Charisma as a rogue, people need to stop screaming at them "mInMaXeR!!!", "YoU jUsT wAnT tHe HiGhEsT DPR!!!", and "cHaRiSmA iS uSeFuL, too!".

If you have more fun with a 20 Charisma Rogue than a 20 Dexterity rogue, all power too you. However, people like @Crimson Longinus and the others need to stop telling me that their fun should/needs to be my fun.

Make sense? Can we finally stop this ridiculous tangent?