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.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I think it's worth pointing out that Jeremy is only talking about humanoids. He's not talking about removing built-in alignments for other kinds of creatures, like fiends.

Dunno, and dammit I wasn't going to comment but now I can't help myself. So, I looked at my copy of Tasha's and under Summon Fiend (6th level conjuration), the demon you summon has no alignment. Not one creature mentioned in the entire book has an alignment.

I suppose this could be because its alignment doesn't matter when its under your total domination and enslavement. You could make the demon hug small children, hand out flowers, and kiss babies for an hour, or perform hard labor, or rip apart your enemies with all the fury that a demon brings.

But damn, demons aren't evil, is that where the end goal lies? I don't play D&D to gain my moral and ethical spectrum on the real world. I play it because it's fun to be the heroes in Lord of the Rings who fight overwhelming odds to save the world from the balrog that ripped itself from the depths of the hells to burn the world and everything in it, or the mutilated elves turned orcs who aren't going to be good guys no matter how many flowers you give them because they are manufactured aberrations, abominations, things created by darkness to be dark.

I play an elf because it intrigues me, and I don't get jealous when they don't have the same physiology as a dwarf. I don't complain that my human should be able to see in the dark because elves can, or that my 3 foot tall halfling isn't as strong as an ogre can be. If my character wants to see in the dark as a human, he'll work for it. He'll learn magic and cast the Darkvision spell, or quest for some magical glasses. If my small character has physics against him, he'll work for it. He'll find a different way to fight than the ogre does, or he'll quest for some magical gear to enhance his strength.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Orcs aren't natural either according to the books. They were created by a pissed off god for the sole purpose of waging endless war. Gnolls are basically mortal demon spawn.

I fail to see why the distinction matters to any game but yours.

That's according to the lore of one 5e setting, which also allows orcs to be good, and has for years. Gnolls, again, only apply to that one setting.

It matters to every other setting that has different lore than that one setting. Volo lives in the Forgotten Realms, so he's only going to report on things specific to that setting in his book.

 

[Flamestrike]

We were playing Keep on the Borderlands (Goodman version) and when our Tiefling Warlock hit 5th level and got fireball, he toasted an entire room of gnolls IIRC-- females and children included-- with his very first fireball.

As DM I would remind him the room is full of women and frightened children before he performed that action, and let him know the spell would incinerate them as well as any hostiles.

If he proceeded anyway, and there were no other options reasonably available to him to kill those combatants and minimise civilian casualties, I would correct the error he made on his character sheet when he erroneously wrote 'Good' in the alignment section.

 

[Charlaquin]

We're all playing a murder simulator.

Perhaps we're playing a murder simulator where, through mental gymnastics we convince ourselves the things we murder deserve it or we don't have a choice. And we all have our own interesting little in-game personal ways of making it ok - "I killed it because it was dangerous, I killed it because it hurt me, I killed it because it was intolerant, I killed it because it was different, I killed it because the gods made me, I killed it to protect something I love" - but we are all pretending we're doing the same thing. Even if there is only 1 combat a session or 1 every ten sessions or 1 in the entire campaign:

We're all killing imaginary things for fun.

So please if we want to argue if something is good or bad for the game, that's one thing. But let's not snipe at each other because anyone believes that they hold, or that there even exists, a moral high ground when it comes to playing D&D.

Speak for yourself. Some of us are playing games where heroic characters face challenges, and violence is one means among many of resolving those conflicts.

 

[Umbran]

This is not a good set of arguments.

Evil cannot be excused because it’s done for revenge, and motivations don’t change the nature of actions.

Well, in our legal system, motivations do change the judgement placed on some actions. The categorizations of First Degree Murder and Manslaughter, for example, are largely about motivations - whether you intended to kill or not matters. And if you kill to protect yourself or a third party from imminent harm, you may well not even be charged with a crime!

 

[Charlaquin]

Orcs aren't natural either according to the books. They were created by a pissed off god for the sole purpose of waging endless war. Gnolls are basically mortal demon spawn.

Orcs and gnolls are natural creatures, born of other natural creatures, native to the world. Some people believe gods or demons or other otherworldly entities played a role in their design, but these things are unfalsifiable. At the end of the day, they are natural, thinking beings.

I fail to see why the distinction matters to any game but yours.

It doesn’t.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What about Tieflings, Genasi, or Vampires? At least two of those were playable pretty early on in 5e's lifetime.

They're still humanoid (the first two at least), right? They still have agency and can be any alignment. Vampires are different, as they need to drink blood. They're undead, and undead are normally evil (there are exceptions, like the Undying Court of Eberron).

 

[DemoMonkey]

"Those killings were always in self defence (or the defence of others) from a creature that was using or threatening violence."

Did you always have proof of the creatures crimes? Or did you go on the hearsay of villagers and questgivers?

Did you attempt to capture and incarcerate them?

Did you give them a warning to drop their weapons and surrender, waiting to see if they did so before anyone in the party attacked?

In fact, given that you can choose when you reduce an enemy to zero HP whether they are unconscious or dead, every killing was a deliberate one. Wasn't there another option?.

No?

Murder simulator. Welcome to the club! Pull up a chair, I'll get you some nachos.

 

[DND_Reborn]

As DM I would remind him the room is full of women and frightened children before he performed that action, and let him know the spell would incinerate them as well as any hostiles.

If he proceeded anyway, and there were no other options reasonably available to him to kill those combatants and minimise civilian casualties, I would correct the error he made on his character sheet when he erroneously wrote 'Good' in the alignment section.

LOL I'm glad you weren't DMing then.

Good people, yes good people, sometimes to evil things, for whatever reason. They (most likely) will feel regret, remorse, etc. afterwards and possible atone (if possible) or vow to do better in the future.

And again, "good" is defined by whatever society defines as good. Your definition is likely not identical to mine (close, surely, I would hope though!).

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

"Those killings were always in self defence (or the defence of others) from a creature that was using or threatening violence."

Did you always have proof of the creatures crimes? Or did you go on the hearsay of villagers and questgivers?

Did you attempt to capture and incarcerate them?

Did you give them a warning to drop their weapons and surrender, waiting to see if they did so before anyone in the party attacked?

In fact, given that you can choose when you reduce an enemy to zero HP whether they are unconscious or dead, every killing was a deliberate one. Wasn't there another option?.

No?

Murder simulator. Welcome to the club! Pull up a chair, I'll get you some nachos.

All of this is a bunch of nonsense, and I don't feel like responding to all of this, so I'm just going to mention that resurrection magic exists in D&D worlds, so if the party can't be sure that the person they killed was guilty at the time that they had to kill them, they can just bring them back and ask them.