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."

 

[Remathilis]

the what would we even do? plus humans as a whole love violence. perhaps bulking up encounter solution options might be a good place to start?

I'm saying that if we are going to advocate that the game is based around colonial tropes of using violence against inferior species to obtain thier riches, maybe the game should stop and we can all go onto something else?

Or maybe we should force penalties for resorting to violence (such as earning no xp for encounters that end in combat) and bulking up on nonviolent systems, classes and spells as an alternative.

I dunno. Like most of these threads, we argue about the problem and then shrug when solutions are called for...

 

[Remathilis]

No, as long as that group the villain belongs to is not portrayed as universally (or nearly so) as villainous.

Does this apply to trolls, giants, dragons, undead, mind-flayers, beholders, hags, demons and devils too?

 

[Arial Black]

Less AC, as Rogues only get Light Armor,

I know, hence my pointing out they have one point lower AC but get one more hit point per level to make up for it.

less access to ranged combat,

Thrown weapons use strength.

less ability to use Hide to get Sneak Attack, and less useful skills (overall).

I thought you said that skills aren't worth talking about for this comparison.

Evasion also only works for Dexterity-based saving throws,

And Con saves are as important as Dex saves.

and many subclass features are based off of Dexterity (Assassinate), etc).

And you kept saying that it's all about BASE rogue abilities, not about subclasses.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Does this apply to trolls, giants, dragons, undead, mind-flayers, beholders, hags, demons and devils too?

I think the difference (to a large extent...Hill Giants for example might be an exception) is that those other types of monsters are made evil using other tropes.

The problem isn't just that monster X is inherently evil, the problem is when the way it is signaled to us that it's evil, and we know it can be killed on-sight, is because it's lazy, violent, promiscuous, stupid, irrational, etc.

 

[Faolyn]

lol where does that garbage* even come from.

Never in my life, MY WHOLE 40ish year life, have I associated a fantasy race, with a real group of people.

Not one time.

It's less that any particular fantasy race are meant to represent a real group of people and more that the same baggage often used to denigrate one group of real people are also used to denigrate a fantasy group.

As an example, this line from Volo's Guide to Monsters: "No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task."

The line about how "domesticated" an orc is is uncomfortably like how white people once described Black (and other) people--little more than animals who could be "domesticated" but were still savage.

And while yes, in a fantasy world, or a world with uplifted animals or things like that, you could say this is literally true, unlike in the real world--but it still has disturbing real-world analogues, even if the creature you're talking about is nothing like anything from the real world.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm saying that if we are going to advocate that the game is based around colonial tropes of using violence against inferior species to obtain thier riches, maybe the game should stop and we can all go onto something else?

Or maybe we should force penalties for resorting to violence (such as earning no xp for encounters that end in combat) and bulking up on nonviolent systems, classes and spells as an alternative.

I dunno. Like most of these threads, we argue about the problem and then shrug when solutions are called for...

I really have no issue with fictional violence in a game. In a relatively primitive world without functioning modern society there will be various relatively decent motivations for solving matters with violence. 'Racial hatred' just isn't one of them. I mean sure, you can play in characters with such motivations, but let's not then pretend you're playing the good guys.

 

[Arial Black]

No, as long as that group the villain belongs to is not portrayed as universally (or nearly so) as villainous.

Yep, and I read every John Carter story ERB wrote, and his colour-coded races invariably had both heroic and villainous examples.

I think the same about tribal cultures. I feel the same about orcs.

 

[Guest 6801328]

And you kept saying that it's all about BASE rogue abilities, not about subclasses.

...

That strengthens his argument, not weakens it.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'm saying that if we are going to advocate that the game is based around colonial tropes of using violence against inferior species to obtain thier riches, maybe the game should stop and we can all go onto something else?

Or maybe we should force penalties for resorting to violence (such as earning no xp for encounters that end in combat) and bulking up on nonviolent systems, classes and spells as an alternative.

I dunno. Like most of these threads, we argue about the problem and then shrug when solutions are called for...

conversations and diplomacy are crazy hard to gamify so what could we even build games around?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Does this apply to trolls, giants, dragons, undead, mind-flayers, beholders, hags, demons and devils too?

Yes. Granted, sometimes there could be irreconcilable differences. Like if a mind flayer needs to eat my brain in order to survive and I would rather keep my brain, it is unlikely that we would be able to reach an amicable compromise on the matter.