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."

 

[Aldarc]

Because it's an overly reductive, biased, and vague way of modeling ethics and ideology that carries with it unspoken setting assumptions. It's a meme at this point. There's at least a hundred different ways to better model a character's personal values that have been used in RPGs by now.

This isn't even a case of "perfect being the enemy of the good", it's acknowledging that game design has moved on since the 90s.

Alignment is the MBTI of meta-ethics, and it's just as useful to TTRPGs as MBTI is to psychology.

 

[Minigiant]

This is the opinion of many. But, just as the other side says: "You can still have a lower number in your primary stat, it stands to reason that player choice was never narrowed. There were no class/race restrictions. The only restrictions were those imaginary ones built by players.

But then the argument of "is my usual PC good enough".

Because whether your fighter can work with Str of 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 or 18 is determined by one person....

The DM.

..And if you are a grimdark or killer DM, you should not be surprised that people at the table would want to shift their +2 to their primary or secondary score.

 

[Alzrius]

..And if you are a grimdark or killer DM

Hey! I resemble that remark!

 

[Minigiant]

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Hey I calls it how I sees it.

Many old school DMs and OSR books are brutal. I would be shocked if players there don't want to lose an ounce of power when trying new archetypes.

 

[Arial Black]

Here is the sequence of events:-

The 5e PHB gives the information required to play each playable race. That information includes, but is not limited to, racial modifiers to ability scores.

Later 5e products include new playable races, and the information required to play each race. Part of that information is the racial adjustment to ability scores.

Later, WotC publishes Tasha's, which gives DMs another option. That option is to allow DMs to turn those set racial ability score bonuses into floating ability score bonuses.

At this point, there is now a choice in the official published rules. Take the set bonuses, OR exchange them for floating bonuses.

Now they publish a note saying that from now on new races will not have set bonuses, only floating bonuses.

Now, for already published races, DMs have a choice: either use the set bonuses OR use the floating bonuses.

But, and here's the problem, they strongly imply that they will not provide the set bonuses for new races. Now, DMs do NOT have the choice to use the set bonuses for new races.

Choice removed.

Those on the other side of this debate on this thread have frequently posted that 'moar choice' is the reason (or a reason) why they like the floating bonuses. So why are they anti-choice now?

What's wrong with publishing future races with set ability score bonuses, while reminding DMs they have the option of turning them into floating bonuses? That would retain the choice for both sides.

 

[Aldarc]

Those on the other side of this debate on this thread have frequently posted that 'moar choice' is the reason (or a reason) why they like the floating bonuses. So why are they anti-choice now?

This is rhetoric is being somewhat duplicitous. Imagine that we were talking more broadly about freedom (and choice), particularly regarding some political issue. Then you depicted the "pro-freedom" crowd as being hypocritical about being "pro-freedom" when presented with the choice of "freedom for X issue" and "no freedom for X issue." It would be absurd to accuse the "freedom for X issue" crowd as being anti-freedom for X issue when "no freedom for X issue" exists as a choice.

In a fantasy elf game with floating bonuses, the anti-floaters could still put their +2 bonus into Dex for their elf, but if the option existed to coerce ASIs, then the choice no longer exists for the pro-floaters. These are not equivalent positions, and I don't think that it makes the pro-floaters any less "moar choice" by opposing the option or ability for GMs to invalidate their freedom of choice by choosing the anti-floater option.

 

[Scribe]

Who has more choice, a person presented with 2 options, or a person provided with 1?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In a fantasy elf game with floating bonuses, the anti-floaters could still put their +2 bonus into Dex for their elf, but if the option existed to coerce ASIs, then the choice no longer exists for the pro-floaters. These are not equivalent positions, and I don't think that it makes the pro-floaters any less "moar choice" by opposing the option or ability for GMs to invalidate their freedom of choice by choosing the anti-floater option.

Following this logic, should classes be eliminated too? Instead of having classes, just have a list of traits and features you can choose at given level.

 

[Scribe]

These are not equivalent positions, and I don't think that it makes the pro-floaters any less "moar choice" by opposing the option or ability for GMs to invalidate their freedom of choice by choosing the anti-floater option.

Ah so is this the root of it then? People are afraid that if presented with 2 options, that the DM will pick against them? So truly the only solution is to remove choice and force floating on everyone?

 

[Minigiant]

Following this logic, should classes be eliminated too? Instead of having classes, just have a list of traits and features you can choose at given level.

I don't think that's the follow.

The next step is to make classes rely/utilize more ability scores.

Because that's the whole crux of the issue, isn't it.

That if you want to play a wizard, you want high INT. So your race choices are constrained to races of certain adjustments depending on the difficulty of the campaign.