D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?

[Yaarel]

I'm not sure why people are conflating alignments with free will. You can be of a specific alignment and still act independently. Drow, as mentioned above, can act on their own even if evil. Perhaps not the best example as they are not always evil, but a classic one is devils. They are always lawful evil yet are not under mind control and can act independently. (Yes, sometimes they are summoned, bound and forced to do something, but that's not how they always operate)

I view Celestials and Fiends as lacking freewill. They are more like figures in a dream.

 

[Andvari]

Maybe that's how Celestials and Fiends see humans.

 

[Incenjucar]

Fiction shows that they generally still have free will - at least if sufficiently self-aware - but they have more alignment-leaning specific natures than mortals. A good being may have an overwhelming sense of empathy, a chaotic being may get uncomfortable with consistent patterns of behavior, an evil being might get an addictive rush around even the slightest sign of pain in others, etc.

 

[Andvari]

"Creatures without free will" are usually classified as neutral or unaligned as they do not act out of personal or moral dispositions.

 

[Yaarel]

"Creatures without free will" are usually classified as neutral or unaligned as they do not act out of personal or moral dispositions.

For animals and so on, they are Unaligned because they lack freewill, relating to lacking sufficient language to imagine a different way of doings things. Instinct is everything.

But for the alignment dominions, Celestials and Fiends are thought constructs. The are paradigms, symbols. They represent and reflect the human ethical behaviors − they themselves actually are the ethical behaviors − rather than free agents who choose to initiate ethical behaviors. Celestials and Fiends are mirrors rather than persons.

By contrast, Aasimar and Tieflings, and so on, do have freewill because of their humanity.

The term Humanoid mainly means, learning, language, culture, freewill to imagine and actualize any alignment.

 

[Andvari]

Animals have free will and can likely imagine many things, depending on the kind. Language is not a requirement of imagination either. Thoughts can exist as pictures, for example. The reason animals are neutral is that they are not involved in the cosmic struggle between law and chaos or good and evil. This is in D&D terms of course, as in real life humans are just a type of animal.

 

[Yaarel]

Animals have free will and can likely imagine many things, depending on the kind. Language is not a requirement of imagination either. Thoughts can exist as pictures, for example. The reason animals are neutral is that they are not involved in the cosmic struggle between law and chaos or good and evil. This is in D&D terms of course, as in real life humans are just a type of animal.

There is a kind of critical mass sotospeak that is necessary for language to override instinct.

(By the way, when I say language, I mean semiotics, including any kind of symbol, whether word or picture.)

 

[Andvari]

I doubt it.

 

[glass]

Imo if a species is forced to just be outright evil (due to gods, magic, etc), then it is lacking any free will and shouldn't be a playable species.

I would go further than that: I would say the for a creature to be categorised as evil, it must have a degree of moral responsibility for its actions. Creatures without free will lack that, and therefore cannot be evil, although they may be destructive and dangerous.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Maybe that's how Celestials and Fiends see humans.

In Soviet Faerun, PCs play you.