D&D 5E WotC On Tasha, Race, Alignment: A Several-Year Plan

WotC spoke to the site Dicebreaker about D&D race and alignment, and their plans for the future.

• On of the motivations of the changes [character customization] in Tasha's Cauldron was to decouple race from class.
• The 'tightrope' between honouring legacy and freedom of character choice has not been effectively walked.
• Alignment is turning into a roleplaying tool, and will not be used to describe entire cultures.
• This work will take several years to fully implement.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A sign of how this is a work-in-progress: The new Young Adventurer's Guide, Beasts & Behemoths, describes orcs in all the ways that WotC has said they're going to stop doing. And given that was an additional book announced after the apparent success of the first four Young Adventurers Guides (I liked them, for the record), the book was likely written in the first half of 2020, but seems to have made it through the editing process before the new direction was decided upon.

Which is a shame, frankly, because I think the "individuals are bad, not cultures" message would have been even more appropriate in a kid-facing book.

 

[mjsoctober]

When do we get to the part where people complain that "killing people and taking their stuff" in the real world is wrong, so we should take it out of D&D?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Keep bringing that point up and someone eventually will.

 

[Jack Daniel]

When do we get to the part where people complain that "killing people and taking their stuff" in the real world is wrong, so we should take it out of D&D?

We are in fact past that point. I'd post a link, but I'm not sure if linking to an rpg.net thread is kosher on EN World. (Does that constitute inter-forum drama? I don't want to do anything that isn't on the up-and-up.)

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

When do we get to the part where people complain that "killing people and taking their stuff" in the real world is wrong, so we should take it out of D&D?

Wow. Calm down. Nothing of that nature was remotely suggested, and I think you are smart enough to know that.

 

[Lanefan]

Wow. Calm down. Nothing of that nature was remotely suggested....

Yet.

Give it ten years.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Do what you gotta do WOTC. I'm not sure about demons from the 666th level of the Infinite Abyss not being "evil" or those who would traffic with them by summoning them into temporary slavery to fight for their amusement.... Ah, I'll stop. I have some strange feeling this thread is going to rehash prior threads' commentaries.

 

[Mistwell]

I think some of these rules should have been in the DMG to begin with. Rules on making your own race, and customizing the existing races with these optional rules, made a lot of sense for the 5e theme they were promoting when the game was in beta. I am not sure why it took "years" to come up with what is essentially customization kit rules which fit the "module" of rules idea for the DMG to make the game your own. I mean, most of these rules are directly the baseline they were using to make the races to begin with, so what took so much work to write down for consumers what they already must have been working with internally to begin with? But I am glad they're here now.

 

[Bitbrain]

When do we get to the part where people complain that "killing people and taking their stuff" in the real world is wrong, so we should take it out of D&D?

You mean like what my mom has been saying ever since me and my dad joined my old group nearly 8 years ago?

I’m not making this up.