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.

 

[Haffrung]

The switch from a default "Entire cultures can be uniformly bad or good but some individuals may not be" to a default "Cultures cannot be uniformly good or bad, but individuals may be" is an interesting one. The effect on playstyle is to significantly limit the ability of non-evil PC groups to strike first.

You go from "kill em unless there is a clear and present indicator that is wrong" to "never kill em unless there is a clear and present indicator that is right".

It may be more nuanced, but I question if it is more fun.

Yes, I'm sure some people will feel more morally upright if their PCs always attempt to negotiate with a band of gnolls or frost giants before they attack. But I doubt it will be more fun for most groups.

I know people can play how they like at their own tables. But this sort of virtuous approach to fantasy action gaming will come to affect published content. It will be tough for adventure writers to present a bloodthirsty band of demon-worshipping gnolls if they have to account for some groups hailing the gnolls and cheerfully entering a peaceful dialogue with them.

And as with most of this stuff, I have my doubts WotC's handling of alignment and race is informed by widespread polling and market analysis of the entire player-base, vs being influenced by a few hundred people highly active on social media.

 

[Charlaquin]

Since you don't explain how...

Oh, sorry. My gnolls’ social structures are similar to that of hyenas. The lowest-ranking female is higher than the highest-ranking male. The women are also much larger and stronger on average than the men. So the idea that “they even killed the women and children!” would be shocking, or that the women and children would only fight to defend themselves is very different to me. In my games it would be more like “they even killed the a*men* and children!” Though there are male Gnoll warriors in my world too, they just don’t tend to be given command positions. And there are non-warrior gnoll women, and they tend to have important social roles. So, really it would be “they even killed the civilians!” And, yeah, that would be a pretty morally repugnant thing to do. There are certainly people who would dismiss it as “Ahh, they’re just gnolls, f**k’em.” Those people are called bigots.

 

[DND_Reborn]

D&D will abandon such silly things as alignment, class, race, and maybe even levels at some point!

They are already well on their way to it.

Alignment serves almost no purpose in 5E. When I was making one of my character sheets, I forgot it entirely (didn't omit it by choice--I literally forgot about it!).

Race is pretty much thrown out the window at this point IMO.

Class also seems to be going down the drain with all the feats that allow PCs to steal features from other classes.

Levels are next-- I'm telling you levels are next!

 

[Haffrung]

Many D&D worlds are much harsher and judgement much more final than in modern society.

This is one of the big cleavages between traditional fantasy and the approach some want to adopt: traditional fantasy gaming is okay, even preferable playing in worlds that don't share modern moral sensibilities; while some people are deeply uncomfortable playing in worlds that have different norms.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"There are certainly people who would dismiss it as “Ahh, they’re just gnolls, f**k’em.” Those people are called bigots."

That's ... a pretty strong conflation of fantasy game behavior and real world beliefs. I don't think it's as one-to-one as you seem to be implying.

 

[Haffrung]

Levels are next-- I'm telling you levels are next!

Well, levels are fiercely hierarchical. Do we really want to validate such a status-driven, vertical social model? Isn't there enough of that in the real world? Surely we can do better.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Oh, sorry. My gnolls’ social structures are similar to that of hyenas. The lowest-ranking female is higher than the highest-ranking male. The women are also much larger and stronger on average than the men. So the idea that “they even killed the women and children!” would be shocking, or that the women and children would only fight to defend themselves is very different to me. In my games it would be more like “they even killed the a*men* and children!” Though there are male Gnoll warriors in my world too, they just don’t tend to be given command positions. And there are non-warrior gnoll women, and they tend to have important social roles. So, really it would be “they even killed the civilians!” And, yeah, that would be a pretty morally repugnant thing to do. There are certainly people who would dismiss it as “Ahh, they’re just gnolls, f**k’em.” Those people are called bigots.

Ah, yes. Thanks for your explanation. I don't play the whole hyena-thing influence in my games, but it is a nice idea, somewhat Drow-esque.

When the Tiefling fireballed them all, afterwards he (the player) felt pretty badly about it. He felt like his PC has "given into the Dark Side" so to say. The PC shortly afterwards left the party, particularly when the other PCs were like, "You know, we've let the women and children leave their caves before, and we understand it was an effective way to defeat the warrior-males, but it was pretty much overkill...".

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Oh, sorry. My gnolls’ social structures are similar to that of hyenas. The lowest-ranking female is higher than the highest-ranking male. The women are also much larger and stronger on average than the men. So the idea that “they even killed the women and children!” would be shocking, or that the women and children would only fight to defend themselves is very different to me. In my games it would be more like “they even killed the a*men* and children!” Though there are male Gnoll warriors in my world too, they just don’t tend to be given command positions. And there are non-warrior gnoll women, and they tend to have important social roles. So, really it would be “they even killed the civilians!” And, yeah, that would be a pretty morally repugnant thing to do. There are certainly people who would dismiss it as “Ahh, they’re just gnolls, f**k’em.” Those people are called bigots.

I'm going to steal some of this, if that's okay with you. In my world, Yeenoghu has died, making the gnolls break free of their demonic nature, making them be just as morally grey as any of the other humanoid races.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"Levels are next-- I'm telling you levels are next!"

Eventually we will only be left with what is truly essential. Welcome to the new char-op paradigm! Left handed, or right handed: which is the one true character choice!

 

[Haffrung]

There are certainly people who would dismiss it as “Ahh, they’re just gnolls, f**k’em.” Those people are called bigots.

Where do you draw the line? Ogres? Trolls? Minotaurs? Or is it bigoted to treat any fantasy creatures in a game as evil monsters to be slain?