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."

 

[Faolyn]

The one thing I will never get about D&D players, they are the only group I know who fight for less options, not more...

In terms of intelligent beings, it's already hard enough to avoid Planets of Hats and create interesting cultures as it is. When you have multiple species that fill the same niche and only differ in appearance and XP value, it becomes downright impossible.

But as I said: the options should be there--have fifty or a hundred PC races. But they don't all have to be available in your particular setting.

 

[Laurefindel]

I have two observations about that:

1. The existence of edge cases, and the difficulty of deciding them, does not invalidate that premise. "The existence of twilight does not disprove the difference between day and night."
2. If members of disadvantaged groups want some aspects of my favorite game to change because they believe that it might make some tiny little dent in one of the biggest problems civilization faces...or, heck, even if they just want it to change because they'll feel more welcome...I'm going to err on the side of saying, "Yeah, sure." It's the least I can do. Maybe quite literally the very least I can do, short of doing absolutely nothing.

Things like "orcs/goblins/kobolds are not bad guys in D&D" are significant changes in D&D paradigm however, as it goes against many of the models that shaped the genre of high fantasy and of the hobby. No matter how necessary this change in paradigm needs to happen, it is not a easy small step, at least not in the perception of many players.

Failing to recognise that is a mistake IMO, because if that "very least (thing) I can do" feels like such a big change, then "doing absolutely nothing" is what ends up happening.

 

[Don Durito]

Things like "orcs/goblins/kobolds are not bad guys in D&D" are significant changes in D&D paradigm however, as it goes against many of the models that shaped the genre of high fantasy and of the hobby. No matter how necessary this change in paradigm needs to happen, it is not a easy small step, at least not in the perception of many players.

Failing to recognise that is a mistake IMO, because if that "very least (thing) I can do" feels like such a big change, then "doing absolutely nothing" is what ends up happening.

This change happened more than 20 years ago.

We had Shadowrun and Earthdawn and World of Warcraft and many other examples. People have been subverting the idea of always evil orcs for over a generation now. We had the kingdom of Obould Many Arrows under 4e, 10 years ago and that was a late example of subversion even then.

To the extent that if you want your Orcs to feel really evil and menacing and demonic and something to be scared of, you really need to work at it.

 

[Morrus]

The one thing I will never get about D&D players, they are the only group I know who fight for less options, not more...

It's a scale going from only needing 2 classes (fighty, magicy - everything's covered by that, the rest is just theming) or a million classes (each concept given full attention and carefully selected abilities). I lean towards the latter, because it's more fun, and I like fun.

 

[squibbles]

Pixies? Elves? Gnomes?

Oh, wait, they're all "good guys" aren't they?

Well they're a limited choice, in part, because WotC assumed they're good guys for us and neglected to print any statblocks for elves that are not drow, or basically any gnomes. There are some low CR fey, like ahem darklings, but pixies and sprites have ~2 HP.

Not that it's a crippling impediment, one of my setting's elves are principally eco-terrorists.

But I admit, I didn't think of that when I was writing my prior post.

In all honestly I can't think of any low-level enemy humanoids that do a very good job of avoiding these tropes. I also haven't spent time studying it, though. I'm just kind of going through the list of traditional cannon fodder bad guys in my mind thinking, "Yup, same stereotype." Albeit to varying degrees, and emphasizing different stereotypes.

I guess maybe the evil Underdark variants of the good guys would come closest. E.g. Drow. They generally don't have the stupid/carnal/emotional/filthy/ugly thing going on. The criticism in those cases seems to be that they literally have black skin, but in my mind the whole white:good, black:evil problem is very different (and, honestly, one that I'm not as strongly sympathetic toward) from the problem involving the language of dehumanization and subjugation.

EDIT: The long term answer is to take a cue from human bandits (and pirates, and ninja, and....?). We don't kill them because they're humans, we kill them because we have identified them as bad humans. But I think it's a long path from here to there, because of all the baggage around orcs and others. When we get to the point where we meet orcs and wonder, "Are these good ones, or bad ones?" we will have made progress.

Ya, I thought that might be the reply. Fair enough.

I was looking through a list of the official elf and gnome statblocks just now and, realized that they are all either very low CR generic elves/gnomes. Or they are named NPCs. Maybe that'd be the way to go with humanoids generally. And have templates to apply to the knight/gladiator/archer statblocks (which there would need to be more of).

I get the feeling a lot of people would seriously hate that.

 

[Scott Christian]

If that is true, next session you play, roll a d12 instead of a d20 when called for and let me know how it went.

Like you, I started in 2e. And I remember wanting to play a paladin or a ranger and being forced to settle for a fighter. Or later in 3e when the wizard (who rolled godlike for his stats) was a better rogue than the actual rogue. As a DM, I was likewise amazed every PC (and I do mean every, in multiple groups who never met each other) somehow always had rolled better than 50% of thier potential max hp before Con mod, often times 75% or more. In the end, it didn't take long to figure out people were willing to cheat (again sometimes the DM allowing the reroll, sometimes the first roll was discarded quietly by the player before the DM knew). So in the end, removing the possibility of getting low scores was worth the cost of getting high ones. It cut down on the cheating and whining, and that was good enough for me.

Rem, I agree with you. I don't really like rolling stats. I have only done it if the DM insists. I actually think things should be fairly even. But a 16 versus 15 is what seems silly to me. (I should not have used the word childish.)

 

[Scott Christian]

Especially with @Scott Christian and @Crimson Longinus and others trying to justify it by saying "well, you still get a bonus to something else! No complaining allowed!"

Not at all what I said. I said two things:

• It would be fine for an optional rule to exist to make sure you get the same score
• Let's look at the effects as a whole character, and not just one stat

That is a far cry from what you say I said. No?

 

[Laurefindel]

This change happened more than 20 years ago.

We had Shadowrun and Earthdawn and World of Warcraft and many other examples. People have been subverting the idea of always evil orcs for over a generation now. We had the kingdom of Obould Many Arrows under 4e, 10 years ago and that was a late example of subversion even then.

To the extent that if you want your Orcs to feel really evil and menacing and demonic and something to be scared of, you really need to work at it.

The change has yet to happen [edit] orcs are still evil, except for when they aren’t, rather than the other way around.

But indeed, Shadowrun, Eberron, and even WoW to a certain extent have provided alternatives and are now contributing to the models of the genre.

until now, core D&D was/is still « orcs = enemies ». A departure from that in the core books, even if orcs are later « more traditionally » defined in specific settings, is a good step in the right direction IMO.

 

[Don Durito]

The change has yet to happen

But indeed, Shadowrun, Eberron, and even WoW to a certain extent have provided alternatives and are now contributing to the models of the genre.

until now, core D&D was/is still « orcs = enemies ». A departure from that in the core books, even if orcs are later « more traditionally » defined in specific settings, is a good step in the right direction IMO.

No it happened. 5e was a deliberate reversion. Just look at how Orcs and Goblins are depicted in Eberron. How most of the non-human races were depicted in 4e.

 

[Laurefindel]

No it happened. 5e was a deliberate reversion. Just look at how Orcs and Goblins are depicted in Eberron. How most of the non-human races were depicted in 4e.

I wish I could agree with you. Eberron remained, and still is, the D&D exception rather than the rule, and "orcs in this setting are not necessarily evil!" had/has to be mentioned and underlined, so to speak.

I said this was a paradigm shift that still meets resistance. You said it was done 20 years ago. Unless you mean it was started 20+ years ago, in which case I agree, but it's still meeting resistance now.