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.

 

[humble minion]

My question then is are they allowed to make an entire culture (most of the people in it) evil? Or at least fraught full of evil acts? Can the orc clan up north be cannibals and do nothing but rape, pillage, and kill? I mean, cultures are historically able to be different than one another. Some more warlike. Some more thoughtful. Some view specific groups of others as evil. Some view specific groups of others as more noble than them.

I think that's entirely reasonable, but with two caveats:

• just because the culture as a whole is like that, doesn't mean the individuals within it don't have a wide variety of opinions and attitudes. Maybe there's a sizeable minority of people in the evil culture who just keep their heads down and hope to survive. Maybe there's a tiny minority of resisters who seek to reform or overthrow it. And so on.
• it's a problem if all of the 'evil cultures' that end up being created always seem to reflect 'tribal' or 'savage' cultures, or any of the other various dehumanising stereotypes used in history to justify colonialism, oppression, etc. Sure, have your evil pillaging cannibal orc tribe - but also consider having some of your urbanised or agricultural kingdoms/republics/whatever be rapacious exploiters who murder relatively peacable orc tribes over land and resources. Evil shouldn't be CONFINED to tribal-coded cultures made of people with unusual skin colours.

 

[MarkB]

Not agreed. The classes are just a game construct, forget them for a moment. Would it be problematic to say that halflings make poor basketball players, that the aarakocra make excellent couriers, wood elves make excellent sprinters, goliaths are good at jobs that require lifting and carrying heavy things or that species with dark vision are good candidates for the night watch?

Yes - because those are all generalisations. There may be individuals within any of those species for whom those statements are untrue.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Would it be problematic to say that halflings make poor basketball players, that the aarakocra make excellent couriers, wood elves make excellent sprinters, goliaths are good at jobs that require lifting and carrying heavy things or that species with dark vision are good candidates for the night watch?

No. No it would not be problematic.

Because in a fantasy world, which is not the real world, these statements may be true. Just like "People can do magic" and "A bewildering variety of Gods actually exist" and "Monsters can live in one room their whole lives and not know what is in the next room."

Perfectly true in a fantasy world. Laughably wrong in the real world.

 

[Jacqual]

Myself I am quite happy with the changes in Tashas and I have been running games for awhile where every allowed PC race is considered Neutral the same as humans. Orcs can still go on a rampage but now the need a reason to like maybe the local human village violated ancient burial grounds while knowing this area is sacred to the orcs. But other then that yes some of the humanoid races can be robbers, killers or whatever else that can be bad. While others may be good kind and helpful and trying hard to protect the humans from the bad ones. Humanity is considered Neutral but look at the good and evil humans have done, nothing saying that any of those races allowed to be PC's haven't been the same having done good and evil over the history of thiers. Doing this brings more roleplaying options to all of our tables.

 

[tetrasodium]

My question then is are they allowed to make an entire culture (most of the people in it) evil? Or at least fraught full of evil acts? Can the orc clan up north be cannibals and do nothing but rape, pillage, and kill? I mean, cultures are historically able to be different than one another. Some more warlike. Some more thoughtful. Some view specific groups of others as evil. Some view specific groups of others as more noble than them.

Probably not, such a culture would end up destroying the very people it preys upon & collapse when there is ultimately nobody in the area left to prey upon if the victims don't ally together and directly purge the reavers or hire some outside power to do it for them before they themselves are wiped out. Even the mongols were more self controlled & productive than that "orc clan"

 

[Charlaquin]

Not agreed. The classes are just a game construct, forget them for a moment. Would it be problematic to say that halflings make poor basketball players, that the aarakocra make excellent couriers, wood elves make excellent sprinters, goliaths are good at jobs that require lifting and carrying heavy things or that species with dark vision are good candidates for the night watch?

What @MarkB said.

 

[Scott Christian]

Giving Humans darkvision is likely just to relieve players of the unspeakable horror of having to keep track of their light sources and durations at low levels.

Sad.

I have said it enough that everyone is sick of it... but it is always about making the game easier. The darkvision is a perfect example.

Now if they would have created a specific group of humans that only hunt, work and play at night because of some weird daytime terrors. And then over time they acquired nightvision, that would be cool. But instead, it's let's make easy. Now they can get darkvision.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes - because those are all generalisations. There may be individuals within any of those species for whom those statements are untrue.

OK. Then we must remove different movement speeds, height, powerful build, flight speed and dark vision from the races. Fair enough.

 

[jayoungr]

I'd like to use something that's specifically race X with its own mechanical twist instead of just generic guard.

So you take the gladiator statblock, rejigger the racial bonuses to match a dwarf, and voila, dwarf gladiator.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ok, humans don’t have Darkvision in Tasha’s, and claiming they do is only serving to muddy the waters in an already fraught conversation.