Yeah, but why does it have to not use the same system as spellcasting? Why can't it just be a collection of all the mind-magic and mind-reality altering spells using a system that has, for better or worse, shown to be popular and stable for most of D&D's existence?
Long already-existing-elsewhere thread short: because then psionic abilities are just strictly worse spellcasting. There is absolutely nothing a psychic character gets to do that a magic user can't do better, faster, more often, earlier on, and with less resource expenditure. Classic example: the Aberrant Mind sorcerer. You could take nothing but 'Brain Power' spells on an Aberrant Mind, and your character would be "psychic". They would also be absolutely terrible, completely unable to hold up their weight in an adventuring party, they would have to scream Magic Wordss at the top of their lungs and do a Sumatran war dance every time they're trying to use their supposedly "mental" powers, need multiple thousands of GP of material components for their supposedly "mental" powers, and all to have a spell list that any other sorcerer would scoff and sneer at before killing you with a Fireball. That you can't take because Fireball is not a 'Brain Power' spell.
Reflavoring "magic" as psychic powers mostly just means you have to eat all the limitations of magic PLUS all the limitations of psychic powers PLUS all the limitations of shitty reflavoring jobs, and end up in a place where you wish you'd just played the same stupid boring overplayed finger-waggling Latin-chanting Studious Wizzerd Guy as everybody else because the magic guy gets all your best tricks, gets to use them better than you can, and ALSO gets all their own tricks to boot.
It's stupid, it's dumb, it's stupid and dumb simultaneously, and it effectively completely locks psychic characters out of D&D. Becuz majik. Even though psychic monsters have been in the game since literally forever; how long have ilithids been TPKing people with Mind Blasts, exactly?
All psionic monsters should have been dropped as soon as the psionic class was dropped. Or at least their psionic powers should have been dropped.
Wait, are you saying that there shouldn't be any psionic monsters in D&D? Or at least take away their psionic abilities? Mind Flayers are one the coolest and most iconic monsters in the history of the game. Without psionics they're just Squidward.
My impression is that they just simply gave up on trying to make a separate psionics system work, because it didn't please enough people, so here we are.
WotC basically screwed the pooch by having "psionic powers" in the game for monsters but not having an actual system in place from the beginning that would work for Players. Trying to add in a whole new system mid edition makes it way harder to do, let alone do well.
Personally, I like the Psionic Energy Dice and think it could be expanded upon to make a full class mechanic, but I am not a game designer so what do I know.
Yeah, but why does it have to not use the same system as spellcasting? Why can't it just be a collection of all the mind-magic and mind-reality altering spells using a system that has, for better or worse, shown to be popular and stable for most of D&D's existence?
Long already-existing-elsewhere thread short: because then psionic abilities are just strictly worse spellcasting. There is absolutely nothing a psychic character gets to do that a magic user can't do better, faster, more often, earlier on, and with less resource expenditure. Classic example: the Aberrant Mind sorcerer. You could take nothing but 'Brain Power' spells on an Aberrant Mind, and your character would be "psychic". They would also be absolutely terrible, completely unable to hold up their weight in an adventuring party, they would have to scream Magic Wordss at the top of their lungs and do a Sumatran war dance every time they're trying to use their supposedly "mental" powers, need multiple thousands of GP of material components for their supposedly "mental" powers, and all to have a spell list that any other sorcerer would scoff and sneer at before killing you with a Fireball. That you can't take because Fireball is not a 'Brain Power' spell.
Reflavoring "magic" as psychic powers mostly just means you have to eat all the limitations of magic PLUS all the limitations of psychic powers PLUS all the limitations of shitty reflavoring jobs, and end up in a place where you wish you'd just played the same stupid boring overplayed finger-waggling Latin-chanting Studious Wizzerd Guy as everybody else because the magic guy gets all your best tricks, gets to use them better than you can, and ALSO gets all their own tricks to boot.
It's stupid, it's dumb, it's stupid and dumb simultaneously, and it effectively completely locks psychic characters out of D&D. Becuz majik. Even though psychic monsters have been in the game since literally forever; how long have ilithids been TPKing people with Mind Blasts, exactly?
I think I may have found where we disagree, or are missing each other... because I agree with everything you've said. (I remember your post on Wild Bill's thread)
Here is where I'm coming from: Everything needs mechanics. Timing, duration, action economy, and actual narrative. That's all part of the spell system already... but I also think that Battle Master Maneuvers should be in the Spells Chapter, and the chapter should just be called Effects.
Do you disagree with this, and if so, how? (I'm honestly hoping for inspiration)
My impression is that they just simply gave up on trying to make a separate psionics system work, because it didn't please enough people, so here we are.
WotC basically screwed the pooch by having "psionic powers" in the game for monsters but not having an actual system in place from the beginning that would work for Players. Trying to add in a whole new system mid edition makes it way harder to do, let alone do well.
Personally, I like the Psionic Energy Dice and think it could be expanded upon to make a full class mechanic, but I am not a game designer so what do I know.
The core problem is that because D&D is strongly classed, it's unnecessarily difficult to add in player-centric features after initial release. If D&D worked like just about every other modern TTRPG and let you just build your character from constituent parts, it would be much more feasible to introduce arbitrary mechanics for everyone to partake in, whether that's psionics, runes, or something else entirely.
But yes, you could easily make an entire class out of psionic energy dice. That's very nearly what Monks were always designed to do anyway, and Bards and Battle Masters have functionally been playing with these dice for the entirety of 5E. Of course, as 5E gets more core classes, more and more of its fundamental design flaws will be exposed, partially because the WOTC design team is explicitly too lazy to bother balancing around multiclassing.
I think I may have found where we disagree, or are missing each other... because I agree with everything you've said. (I remember your post on Wild Bill's thread)
Here is where I'm coming from: Everything needs mechanics. Timing, duration, action economy, and actual narrative. That's all part of the spell system already... but I also think that Battle Master Maneuvers should be in the Spells Chapter, and the chapter should just be called Effects.
Do you disagree with this, and if so, how? (I'm honestly hoping for inspiration)
I'm curious what you mean by this. Do you mean like, a general system for different powers, including spellcasting? Or a system where everything, including maneuvers, is a spell? I apologize if this sounds obtuse.
I think I may have found where we disagree, or are missing each other... because I agree with everything you've said. (I remember your post on Wild Bill's thread)
Here is where I'm coming from: Everything needs mechanics. Timing, duration, action economy, and actual narrative. That's all part of the spell system already... but I also think that Battle Master Maneuvers should be in the Spells Chapter, and the chapter should just be called Effects.
Do you disagree with this, and if so, how? (I'm honestly hoping for inspiration)
I'm curious what you mean by this. Do you mean like, a general system for different powers, including spellcasting? Or a system where everything, including maneuvers, is a spell? I apologize if this sounds obtuse.
The first one. The current system is really good design, and it doesn't need to all be spells and spell slots. It'a typiclly super clear and keeps the game easier to learn.
Note: I have not quoted your entire message in the interest of saving space. My responses are to your points in there entirety, while highlighting what i think are key elements of your words for the sake of context and reading flow.
This statement shows a deep, possibly fundamental, misunderstanding of what Wizards is doing. One that is unfortunately far too common, both in D&D and elsewhere. The goal has never been to 'remove evil' from D&D. Let me repeat that, with all the emphasis I can reasonably muster.
THE GOAL HAS NEVER BEEN TO REMOVE EVIL FROM D&D
People have been ranting and wailing and gnashing their teeth over this, but allow mt to state this: removing something from the system is different than removing that thing from the world.
If i may point out, they have been removing things from the world. It isn't just player races that are being updated, its monster lore as well. Before MotM released, entire swaves of lore were being cut out of MtoF (and maybe VgtM as well, but i only specifically remember the former).
Also, as a fellow passionate enjoyer of DnD, i am very familiar with the frustration that can come with discussion of this hobby. I certainly have my share of bad days (my apologies and thanks to Davyd, who is constantly putting up with my shit). However, here and multiple other times through your response you imply that anyone who doesn't agree with you is either woefully incompetent or willfully ignorant. I feel i have done my best to be civil and forthright with my inquiry, and as i am respectfully disagreeing with you on several things, i can't help but feel some level of offence with your assertions. All I do is eat chip and play dice game, and occasionally partake in discussion on my favorite hobby. People are free to play the game however they choose, and in whatever way everyone present is comfortable with. All this is to say that i mean no offence to you or anyone when i share my opinion, and while i know its a lot to ask on the internet, you seem like a reasonable individual with interesting (if differing) opinions, so i would just ask that we discuss with an air of courtesy.
That is patently untrue, and goes right back to malicious misunderstanding. There is no agenda, save for the "Agenda" of not needlessly harming and expelling many thousands of players from the game. The general tone of Athas as a broken world is not problematic at all, at least not in the way people keep attempting to maliciously misunderstand
...
A section in the species write-up for orcs as a playable species saying "whatever world or culture they originate from, orcs are a brutal, merciless breed with no regard for anything but personal strength. They prey on anyone weaker than themselves, and no orc unable to hold their own survives long in these vicious societies" is not f@#$ing okay. It has never been okay to present a playable species in that way. Not in 5e, not in 4e, not in all the different 3e's, not in any damned edition of the game. This is simply the first time enough people have had the courage to stand up and say "Hey, that's not okay" for TSR/Wizards to take notice.
I've always failed to see how alignment recommendations harm or expel anyone from the game... To me, they were always just context for how the societies of those races typically operate or are perceived. I've never felt the need to let them dictate my characters alignment (I'm not actually a massive fan of alignment overall. This isn't really the place for that discussion though, so all i'll say for now is i prefer a homebrew system of Sins and Virtues, it's more open to interpretation and presents more roleplay opportunities than just "i do this because my alignment is XYZ and thats what XYZ does"), and have never really understood why people take them so literally. Even the Alignment traits for races would often prefix things with "usually" or "typically" or "rarely", even the release version of Orc has this caveat, as well as the following tidbit in the section of their description discussing playing them as PC's;
"Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion."
On this note, later in your response you have a quotation that i cannot actually find in the Orc races's fluff text. While i understand this was likely paraphrasing, and that the actual description is quiet harsh in of itself, these descriptions are very explicitly the typical Orcish warband. The real issue is not the fluff text or alignment recommendations, but shitty DM's who use them as an excuse to bombard their PC's with a constant stream of roadblocks and hindrances. Racism against PC's is not an indisputable line that should never be crossed, it like all narrative tools, should be reserved for moments where it has meaning in the story and provides something of value to the overall narrative (which is how i typically run orc characters in forgotten realms-adjacent settings). Depending on the game, there might never even be a place for racism (much like with traditional media, if race is not a theme of the story you are telling, there isn't really a need to shoe-horn race into it).
But, there is a ""right"" way to do racism or racial stereotypes with regards to PC's in DnD (contrary to what some would have us believe), whether that be fighting the concept, overcoming it, or even using it as a point in your characters origins. If a DM has a world where Orcs are so hated by the common man that there is no way they can be played as a PC in a capacity that is fun, they shouldn't be allowed as a playable race for that game at all (Part of being a good DM is knowing when to tell a player that their character idea might not be a good fit for their particular story or world). And as a counterexample, i have a homebrew setting called Armistice where Orcs are not discriminated against by the other races (at least not in the traditional sense) and exist normally within societies (they are the obese pig-like depiction of orcs tho, think 'beyond good and evil'). Suffice to say that the entirety of written lore can be subverted on a table-by-table basis should the setting demand it.
Which brings me full circle to my main point on this; This issue with changing these things and carving them out of the setting is twofold, in that if people really wanted a setting where these egregious things were not the norm, it should be possible then for a new official setting to be created where that is not the case (and its sales metrics would be a perfect indicator of the actual demand for such changes), and that anyone unhappy with the existing settings as they were could simply just change them for use in their own games. When i take issue with how the lore has been changed, it is not because i want to "exclude" or "harm" anyone, it's because changing something that already has quantifiable amounts of precedent and established material should not be preferable to creating something new that ticks the boxes for anyone who took issue with it.
People assume that removing these value judgments from the core books that need to be valid and viable for any setting - Athas, Faerun, Eberron, Exandria, the infinite myriad of homebrew worlds out there - is somehow equivalent to "ruining the lore" for every other specific setting. Again, either that's an absolutely daft and utterly unsupported leap of logic, or it's malicious misunderstanding.
To your credit, the alteration of race lore to make them setting agnostic is about the only valid defense for the removal of lore from races on a general level.
The issue is that most people who defend the changing of lore don't present it this way, they present it as meaning the Orcs and Goblins of the forgotten realms are no longer widely perceived as revers and raiders, shunned from most major uni-racial cities. This said, i must still interject that even the fluff text in MotM and new races in UA all have references to histories that these races would have. If WotC were truly meaning to make the listings for these races purely setting agnostic, there wouldnt be any examples of culture or history in there (which would be boring, the fluff text for races can play a big part in making them interesting to play. It just seems people get up in a tissy when races have roots in evil, and say nothing when they are all depicted as goodie gumdrops that wouldnt hurt a soul).
But regardless, i would have no issues with future printings of races being unattached to any form of setting/culture or background, instead, having those things described for them in setting guides separate from the actual mechanical races. It would however need to be consistent, and not just the removal of anything that could offend someone. We would then need a proper setting guide for the forgotten realms. The PHB, DMG, and MM are all predominantly geared towards the forgotten realms, lore wise. Until WotC properly separate them from any particular setting, the defacto response to the removal of lore from books will be that the forgotten realms itself is being changed. I realize this is a formatting issue, but it is still a fault on WotC's part.
I am denouncing people who want Dark Sun to make the value judgment, above the table, that cannibalism, slavery, tyranny, racism, and injustice are all super awesome and we should all support them wholeheartedly.
Unfortunately, i have never had the privilege of properly running a Dark Sun game myself, only having ever played and read the source material. However, both from my experience as a player and from what i have read, I don't recall the style of play employed by the sorts of people you describe as being either recommended or intended. While i don't doubt there are probably a number of groups who played the setting this way, that is neither a fault of the setting or of the majority of people who speak out against the way WotC is changing lore. That is the result of a small handful of human scum lacking the capacity to understand that is fundamentally messed up. While i would also say its no business of anyone else's what consenting adults do in their own privacy, i would first and foremost say that lumping anyone speaking out against the way WotC is changing the game in with those sorts of people is an egregious insult to say the least.
You say you are angry with the people who are vocal about their displeasure with the way things are being handled, but the linchpin of your point seems to hang on this small sub-sect of disgraceful individuals who, based on my experience with the setting, are simply choosing to indulge in their sick fantasies purely at their own behest or ineptitude (which they could and probably would do regardless of whether they are playing in Dark Sun or any other setting).
Inversely, there is something to be said about imposing modern moralities onto DnD characters. In the same way one could argue that playing a character who is part of the problems in a DnD world is not fun, you could say the same about enforcing modern ideals in one. As an easy example, i personally detest alcohol and its consumption, yet i can play characters who partake and revel in it. Much as i abhor racism and bigotry of all kinds, i have made characters who subscribe to such notions. One of the best parts of DnD imo is exploring perspectives other than your own, even if they are ones you fundamentally disagree with. Not to say i endorse the behavior that you are denouncing, that much should be apparent by now at least. But to say that in the same sense, if every character we played was a moral bastion, and there was never an NPC that every betrayed those morals we hold dear in this day and age, the game would be a lot less interesting. But thats not really the topic of this particular discussion.
I'm not denouncing people who want Wizards to make the above-the-table value judgment that dancing snake cultists are awesome, though. Thank the stars for Zee Bashew.
I see you are a woman of culture. I also enjoy the hijinks of the handsome necromancer, Skenk Mchenk.
The Grim Hollow setting is every bit as broken and awful as Athas is usually portrayed as and those books sold like gangbusters. I personally have all three (if only one in hardcover) and am planning my next game to take place in the land of Ostoya.
I'm currently playing in a GH game. Good setting. At least i think it is, the DM admits its fairly modified but the general premise and plot elements are the same. The way he runs it isn't nearly as bad as Dark Sun, but it's still fun and i'm enjoying the story im telling with my character. Coincidentally, his is also a story about race, being a high elf from the feywilds who has only ever been told that humans are savages who nearly brought elves to extinction. Being in a party with 2 half-elves, he's been forced to realize that maybe not everything he thought he knew was true.
Reflavoring "magic" as psychic powers mostly just means you have to eat all the limitations of magic PLUS all the limitations of psychic powers PLUS all the limitations of shitty reflavoring jobs, and end up in a place where you wish you'd just played the same stupid boring overplayed finger-waggling Latin-chanting Studious Wizzerd Guy as everybody else because the magic guy gets all your best tricks, gets to use them better than you can, and ALSO gets all their own tricks to boot.
I've always failed to see how alignment recommendations harm or expel anyone from the game... To me, they were always just context for how the societies of those races typically operate or are perceived. I've never felt the need to let them dictate my characters alignment (I'm not actually a massive fan of alignment overall. This isn't really the place for that discussion though, so all i'll say for now is i prefer a homebrew system of Sins and Virtues, it's more open to interpretation and presents more roleplay opportunities than just "i do this because my alignment is XYZ and thats what XYZ does"), and have never really understood why people take them so literally. Even the Alignment traits for races would often prefix things with "usually" or "typically" or "rarely", even the release version of Orc has this caveat, as well as the following tidbit in the section of their description discussing playing them as PC's;
"Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion."
On this note, later in your response you have a quotation that i cannot actually find in the Orc races's fluff text. While i understand this was likely paraphrasing, and that the actual description is quiet harsh in of itself, these descriptions are very explicitly the typical Orcish warband. The real issue is not the fluff text or alignment recommendations, but shitty DM's who use them as an excuse to bombard their PC's with a constant stream of roadblocks and hindrances. Racism against PC's is not an indisputable line that should never be crossed, it like all narrative tools, should be reserved for moments where it has meaning in the story and provides something of value to the overall narrative (which is how i typically run orc characters in forgotten realms-adjacent settings). Depending on the game, there might never even be a place for racism (much like with traditional media, if race is not a theme of the story you are telling, there isn't really a need to shoe-horn race into it).
But, there is a ""right"" way to do racism or racial stereotypes with regards to PC's in DnD (contrary to what some would have us believe), whether that be fighting the concept, overcoming it, or even using it as a point in your characters origins. If a DM has a world where Orcs are so hated by the common man that there is no way they can be played as a PC in a capacity that is fun, they shouldn't be allowed as a playable race for that game at all (Part of being a good DM is knowing when to tell a player that their character idea might not be a good fit for their particular story or world). And as a counterexample, i have a homebrew setting called Armistice where Orcs are not discriminated against by the other races (at least not in the traditional sense) and exist normally within societies (they are the obese pig-like depiction of orcs tho, think 'beyond good and evil'). Suffice to say that the entirety of written lore can be subverted on a table-by-table basis should the setting demand it.
Which brings me full circle to my main point on this; This issue with changing these things and carving them out of the setting is twofold, in that if people really wanted a setting where these egregious things were not the norm, it should be possible then for a new official setting to be created where that is not the case (and its sales metrics would be a perfect indicator of the actual demand for such changes), and that anyone unhappy with the existing settings as they were could simply just change them for use in their own games. When i take issue with how the lore has been changed, it is not because i want to "exclude" or "harm" anyone, it's because changing something that already has quantifiable amounts of precedent and established material should not be preferable to creating something new that ticks the boxes for anyone who took issue with it.
What does that bolded line mean by "limited capacity" though? Even that supposed concession implies that an orc PC can't be as compassionate or empathetic as other PCs for whatever reason, which can be viewed as problematic.
Also there are two official settings where orcs aren't depicted this way: Eberron and Exandria.
The reason I don’t want to see Dark Sun in 5e is because WotC has abandoned anything even remotely resembling a true system for Psionics this edition, and DS without propper Psionics is not a DS in which I want to play.
This is 100% an honest question: How do you want Psionics handled?
As long as it’s a unique system that provides a simple, viable, and balanced alternative to spellcasting without relying on spellcasting, I wouldn’t be too choosey.
Yeah, but why does it have to not use the same system as spellcasting? Why can't it just be a collection of all the mind-magic and mind-reality altering spells using a system that has, for better or worse, shown to be popular and stable for most of D&D's existence?
Because then it's just spellcasting. We already have nine spellcasting classes. We do not need more spellcasting. We already have it. There's nothing new there. This is extremely obvious to me and I genuinely just cannot relate to the mind that sincerely asks the question. If I were satisfied with using the same system as spellcasting, I'd play a wizard, which already exists
I mean, yes, to me, what you are asking for is exactly just another spellcasting system. While we do already have a preponderance of spellcasting classes, many (most....all?) of them exist by taking the basic spellcasting system that exists and uses it with their own added mechanical flourish. Like, what do you want to actually do that can't be replicated via the spell system or some minor class feature?
Like, I get it, the spell system of D&D is kinda lame, not very intuitive, and probably overly broad. But that is because so many classes rely on it to function. Would you prefer the 4th Ed way of doing things, where every class had its own special list of actions and abilities that branched throughout each level? (I would, but I'm in the minority.) With that sort of system you can have any flavor of any ability formed unique to the class. You could have people who did things that were mechanically and flavorfully distinct from other similar classes. Unfortunately, we aren't working in a system where that is really an option. So, with that in mind, what do you want to do that is fundamentally different from magic, and how do you propose to do it, knowing all the ways that have failed thus far? Or do you just want to do magic without doing....magic? I do not mean this in an adversarial way. I am legitimately confused. Are you advocating a return to a system like 4th Ed, where classes were mechanically differentiated, but people complained felt same-y? Or are you demanding that Psionics be treated "special" in a system where arcane magic is treated exactly the same as divine power, which also is treated the same as natural shamanism?
Reflavoring "magic" as psychic powers mostly just means you have to eat all the limitations of magic PLUS all the limitations of psychic powers PLUS all the limitations of shitty reflavoring jobs, and end up in a place where you wish you'd just played the same stupid boring overplayed finger-waggling Latin-chanting Studious Wizzerd Guy as everybody else because the magic guy gets all your best tricks, gets to use them better than you can, and ALSO gets all their own tricks to boot.
It's stupid, it's dumb, it's stupid and dumb simultaneously, and it effectively completely locks psychic characters out of D&D. Becuz majik. Even though psychic monsters have been in the game since literally forever; how long have ilithids been TPKing people with Mind Blasts, exactly?
Agreed. However, we don't live in a world where WotC designed 5th Ed at the start by breaking up each power source individually and designing (or holding back design space) for each one to differentiate each flavor of power. Which means that, in terms of this edition, there is a level of expectation setting that needs to be made so that your expectations can be roughly met or you can be pleasantly surprised if/when WotC manages to pull something new and exciting out of their butts.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I'm also going to be responding to only certain parts of your post, mostly the parts that I think could use some general clarification rather than things specifically addressed to Yurei.
I've always failed to see how alignment recommendations harm or expel anyone from the game...
Let me help clarify. Alignment labels, specifically on entire peoples that are also meant to be playable character types, brush a broad stereotype on entire lineages of people even if the mitigating word "typically" is added to it. This kind of stereotyping is exactly the kind of thing that happens to some of us in real life and is a painful reminder of that kind of treatment that we would like to escape while playing D&D. It's removal is a good thing. It allows more people to play the game without depictions that do more than "offend" us, they harm us.
This is a conscious effort on the part of Wizard of the Coast to make the game more welcoming to all people, as evidenced by their Diversity and Dragons statement from a few years ago: https://dnd.wizards.com/news/diversity-and-dnd
When i take issue with how the lore has been changed, it is not because i want to "exclude" or "harm" anyone, it's because changing something that already has quantifiable amounts of precedent and established material should not be preferable to creating something new that ticks the boxes for anyone who took issue with it.
Alternately, people don't see the value in sustaining the parts of a usable setting that are legitimately harmful just for the sake of purism or nostalgia.
It just seems people get up in a tissy when races have roots in evil, and say nothing when they are all depicted as goodie gumdrops that wouldnt hurt a soul).
I hope my above explanation clarifies why this is not so.
But regardless, i would have no issues with future printings of races being unattached to any form of setting/culture or background, instead, having those things described for them in setting guides separate from the actual mechanical races. It would however need to be consistent, and not just the removal of anything that could offend someone. We would then need a proper setting guide for the forgotten realms. The PHB, DMG, and MM are all predominantly geared towards the forgotten realms, lore wise. Until WotC properly separate them from any particular setting, the defacto response to the removal of lore from books will be that the forgotten realms itself is being changed. I realize this is a formatting issue, but it is still a fault on WotC's part.
You seem to think the changing of lore is automatically a bad thing.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I think the biggest problem with changing lore is this knee-jerk response: "But I've spent so much time and effort learning about things that don't exist that if they change it, I'll have wasted my life!" And as a nerd who does study this stuff: yes. We have. As long as you've had fun, it's okay to have wasted your life reading stuff. We all kill time and waste our lives. If we don't, we'd be miserable. None of that lore is real. It doesn't have to change in your game. If you play with the old lore, the only thing that will happen is Jeremy Crawford will confiscate your stuff.
EDIT: Okay, so I have a better way of explaining my comment. I grew up around Chicago Illinois, and we had the Sears Tower, and Comiskey Park. Those aren't the name on the door. Those aren't the name on the company letterhead... but that's what they are. What's "offical" has changed, but what people call it hasn't. D&D lore is the same way. What's "offical" might change, but that doesn't mean the fans will.
What does that bolded line mean by "limited capacity" though? Even that supposed concession implies that an orc PC can't be as compassionate or empathetic as other PCs for whatever reason, which can be viewed as problematic.
Also there are two official settings where orcs aren't depicted this way: Eberron and Exandria.
It means that what can be considered 'Human Nature' should not be imposed on other races. For example, Elves; where humans are considerably more adaptable and can change based on their environment or circumstances in a matter of weeks or years, elves are much less adaptable and the same mental changes in outlook might take decades or even centuries.
Details like this in how RPG characters are rollplayed can have a massive effect on immersion. I certainly wouldnt want to play in a world where every race is just humans with fantasy shapes and sizes (ofc everyone has different preferences, and if thats your jar of jam then feel free to spread it). Applying the same logic to Orcs, that section of their description (which i remind is geared towards the forgotten realms, not eberron or exandria, hense why i said these details could reasonably be separated from books that are setting agnostic and then revised for printing in a forgotten realms setting guide, much like the Orc of those other 2 settings has in their respective guides) would imply; That typical Orcs by nature are more easy to turn to violence than a typical human would be in the same scenario.
The same logic can be applied to any race based on their forgotten realms lore; Halfings find it harder to build long term commitments, and don't see the same importance in it as humans do. Goliath are more inclined to think on the scale of the group as opposed to individual needs and wants, and have a harder time understanding why other races do. Dwarves are a communal people who dedicate their entire lives to mostly one thing, be it a profession that consumes them or promising themselves to a partner and having children and raising them. These are all examples of the nature of each race that have existed long before 5e, and have been represented within 5e. You could call them stereotypes if you wanted, and you would be right to some degree, but it is more accurate to say that these things are just in their nature.
This is not to say that a forgotten realms Orc character always needs to turn to violence, or to say that an Elf character can never be adaptable. All sentient life would have the capacity to resist and overcome their nature. You can think of human nature like a filter, a set of parameters that modify someones personality, not overrides it. Extending this logic to any fantasy race and their nature, its more than possible to have a member of any race that resists or even overcomes that filter. Hense my point, these descriptions are contextual backgrounds for the setting, not written rules saying that your character cannot be whatever you want them to be. Like i said, the real problem is when DM's let their players play these races knowing full well they re going to destroy any semblance of fun based on the choice of said race.
So to answer your statement directly, yes. Orcs in the forgotten realms are, by nature, less capable of compassion. That isn't to say they are incapable though, if anything, it makes a compassionate Orc character more interesting. You can tell a story about competing with ones nature. I don't see that as problematic, it's compelling. And as usual, if thats not the sort of world you want to play in, by all means don't. I'm not here to say people need to play forgotten realms in a way they aren't happy with, or that they even have to like it, I'm here to say that changing lore that has been a certain way since its conception is not the best way of tackling the issue of people taking offence to it. By all means, make races setting agnostic, but don't cut out things from settings that make them interesting.
And to bring us back to our original topic, yes, I don't want to see the same thing happen to Dark Sun, which has arguably far worse depictions of races and their nature.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, "stereotypes" can be powerful worldbuilding tools when used in good faith. Absolutely, some stereotypes are more harmful than others and should be avoided, and who's sitting at your table should always be a consideration, but there is a right way to use them to enrich your world without necessarily having to go into tangential detail about every city and culture within it. Being able to lean on such precedents can not only help players understand your world better, helping immersion, but can also add layers of intrigue to explore.
Let me help clarify. Alignment labels, specifically on entire peoples that are also meant to be playable character types, brush a broad stereotype on entire lineages of people even if the mitigating word "typically" is added to it. This kind of stereotyping is exactly the kind of thing that happens to some of us in real life and is a painful reminder of that kind of treatment that we would like to escape while playing D&D. It's removal is a good thing. It allows more people to play the game without depictions that do more than "offend" us, they harm us.
This is a conscious effort on the part of Wizard of the Coast to make the game more welcoming to all people, as evidenced by their Diversity and Dragons statement from a few years ago: https://dnd.wizards.com/news/diversity-and-dnd
Sincere or not, the article is still PR and damage control. It is in the best interest of any front facing company to not get cancelled, whether they believe the things they say or not.
As i have iterated many times, i have no issue making races setting agnostic. If thats what makes DnD more "welcoming" for people, then fair enough. But, as i have pointed out, they are not making them setting agnostic (nor are they just stripping lore from races, monster lore is being effected to). Orcs are still explicitly the creations of Gruumsh in MotM, and any quick google search will reveal how he made orcs violent by nature in the forgotten realms. Therego, they are not making races setting agnostic.
And if a setting's lore "harms" you, then don't play it that way, you don't even have to play in it at all (homebrew settings are pog). We can all play the game however we want, thats the beauty of DnD, or any tabletop rpg for that matter. If i don't like a part of the lore, i just change it, i don't riot until it gets changed officially for me. So pronounced has become the culture of thinking things should change because they don't suit you.
Alternately, people don't see the value in sustaining the parts of a usable setting that are legitimately harmful just for the sake of purism or nostalgia.
Then leave the setting behind and start anew? Develop an existing setting that doesn't have the issues people take with forgotten realms?
I hope my above explanation clarifies why this is not so.
No, it really doesn't. People get up in arms over the races that have roots in evil, and not the ones with roots in good. Thats basic observation of outcome, regardless of motive.
"The means shall not justify the ends, nor the ends to the means. For justice, both the ends and the means to attain it, must be just'." (gold star to whoever can source that reference 😉)
You seem to think the changing of lore is automatically a bad thing.
Automatically, i would say no. When the changes are just wholesale removing things and putting little to nothing of equal value in it's place, i would say its a bad thing. The value being lost is stories you can tell with it. As i keep saying, i can and will continue to use the old lore until something better is presented, as can others forsake it regardless of whether it is official or not. The thing i don't like about the changes has nothing to do with how it effects my games, because it doesn't, the thing i don't like is how needlessly destructive it is.
And just to complain for a moment: All of the Gorgnards had their chance to get D&D their way. TSR and WotC are companies who aren’t producing a product for their health. It’s to make money, and the people who liked the game that way proved to be too cheap to keep the business afloat. They had their chance and lost. D&D is thriving because they’re reaching people with easier to stomach content.
So what your admitting is its more profitable to be politically correct? I agree with that. I don't like it, but i agree. WotC are a business, and i'm not surprised by a business pursuing the most profit. But i don't have to like it. Which brings me back to the point i made in my very first reply on this thread;
The way WotC has been handling the "reimagining" of lore these days, I don't ever want to see Athas tarnished by the 'make sure we can't offend anyone with fictional races and characters' mentality.
The reason I mentioned Eberron and Exandria is because of this part you said below, especially the bolded, which indicated to me that you might not have been aware that there were official settings like that in 5e already. I don't know about their popularity from a statistical point of view, but I know Eberron has had its dedicated fanbase, and Exandria's popularity hinges a lot on Critical Role's popularity.
Which brings me full circle to my main point on this; This issue with changing these things and carving them out of the setting is twofold, in that if people really wanted a setting where these egregious things were not the norm, it should be possible then for a new official setting to be created where that is not the case (and its sales metrics would be a perfect indicator of the actual demand for such changes), and that anyone unhappy with the existing settings as they were could simply just change them for use in their own games. When i take issue with how the lore has been changed, it is not because i want to "exclude" or "harm" anyone, it's because changing something that already has quantifiable amounts of precedent and established material should not be preferable to creating something new that ticks the boxes for anyone who took issue with it.
As far as the actual lore changes in the Forgotten Realms are concerned, it's not like they said Lolth no longer has any influence over the drow, or Gruumsh or Maglubiyet are no longer factors. From what I understand and have seen, they're simply saying the races affected by these entities are no longer a foregone conclusion as to how they turn out. They are pretty much saying that goblins who aren't horrible, orcs who aren't violent, and drow who aren't scheming slavers do in fact exist in the world even outside of the player characters with those races.
Also you talk about the "nature" of these races, but we have only one example of a sapient, technologically advanced (by nature's standards) species that we know of in the real world, and that's us. And we aren't this monolith that can be boiled down to a set of character traits that can be broadly applied to everyone. So I don't see how one can argue you can do this with any other such species or race, especially when nature is never so clear-cut. Frankly, I find it less immersive that each race has members so similar to each other, given how massive Faerun is. Distance and separation are universally factors that create differences and divergence in a group of organisms. The only reason I don't have more of a hiccup over the fact that there's no language barrier among members of each race in the Forgotten Realms is because I know it's for gameplay convenience, but both Eberron and Exandria treat language how it's supposed to be treated, which is being influenced by geography and culture (not your race or species). (On an unrelated note, it would be nice if D&D Beyond allowed you to create homebrew languages outside of the character sheet that make more sense for your setting, so that you can replace the existing languages with them instead of awkwardly tacking them on in the character sheet, but I digress.)
And given that much of the content in 5e is still heavily rooted in the Forgotten Realms (and therefore 5e still isn't completely setting-agnostic yet), it's important to make that distinction, even if it means changing the old lore.
EDIT: On a sidenote, but still related to the above, if we go by the previously established Forgotten Realms lore, many goblinoids and orcs are fated to end up in the plane of Acheron when they die. Acheron is a Lower Plane where you're forced to fight in pointless, endless, brutal wars for all eternity (in the case of the goblinoids and orcs, for their respective patron deities), and is a cruel and twisted fate. Yet, this is the fate these countless people are apparently facing just by being unlucky enough to be born as goblinoids or orcs. So I can see why someone would not be ok with this kind of detail.
Long already-existing-elsewhere thread short: because then psionic abilities are just strictly worse spellcasting. There is absolutely nothing a psychic character gets to do that a magic user can't do better, faster, more often, earlier on, and with less resource expenditure. Classic example: the Aberrant Mind sorcerer. You could take nothing but 'Brain Power' spells on an Aberrant Mind, and your character would be "psychic". They would also be absolutely terrible, completely unable to hold up their weight in an adventuring party, they would have to scream Magic Wordss at the top of their lungs and do a Sumatran war dance every time they're trying to use their supposedly "mental" powers, need multiple thousands of GP of material components for their supposedly "mental" powers, and all to have a spell list that any other sorcerer would scoff and sneer at before killing you with a Fireball. That you can't take because Fireball is not a 'Brain Power' spell.
Reflavoring "magic" as psychic powers mostly just means you have to eat all the limitations of magic PLUS all the limitations of psychic powers PLUS all the limitations of shitty reflavoring jobs, and end up in a place where you wish you'd just played the same stupid boring overplayed finger-waggling Latin-chanting Studious Wizzerd Guy as everybody else because the magic guy gets all your best tricks, gets to use them better than you can, and ALSO gets all their own tricks to boot.
It's stupid, it's dumb, it's stupid and dumb simultaneously, and it effectively completely locks psychic characters out of D&D. Becuz majik. Even though psychic monsters have been in the game since literally forever; how long have ilithids been TPKing people with Mind Blasts, exactly?
Please do not contact or message me.
It was inevitable, given that Dark Sun is associated with psionics.
All psionic monsters should have been dropped as soon as the psionic class was dropped. Or at least their psionic powers should have been dropped.
Wait, are you saying that there shouldn't be any psionic monsters in D&D? Or at least take away their psionic abilities? Mind Flayers are one the coolest and most iconic monsters in the history of the game. Without psionics they're just Squidward.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
WotC basically screwed the pooch by having "psionic powers" in the game for monsters but not having an actual system in place from the beginning that would work for Players. Trying to add in a whole new system mid edition makes it way harder to do, let alone do well.
Personally, I like the Psionic Energy Dice and think it could be expanded upon to make a full class mechanic, but I am not a game designer so what do I know.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I think I may have found where we disagree, or are missing each other... because I agree with everything you've said. (I remember your post on Wild Bill's thread)
Here is where I'm coming from: Everything needs mechanics. Timing, duration, action economy, and actual narrative. That's all part of the spell system already... but I also think that Battle Master Maneuvers should be in the Spells Chapter, and the chapter should just be called Effects.
Do you disagree with this, and if so, how? (I'm honestly hoping for inspiration)
The core problem is that because D&D is strongly classed, it's unnecessarily difficult to add in player-centric features after initial release. If D&D worked like just about every other modern TTRPG and let you just build your character from constituent parts, it would be much more feasible to introduce arbitrary mechanics for everyone to partake in, whether that's psionics, runes, or something else entirely.
But yes, you could easily make an entire class out of psionic energy dice. That's very nearly what Monks were always designed to do anyway, and Bards and Battle Masters have functionally been playing with these dice for the entirety of 5E. Of course, as 5E gets more core classes, more and more of its fundamental design flaws will be exposed, partially because the WOTC design team is explicitly too lazy to bother balancing around multiclassing.
I'm curious what you mean by this. Do you mean like, a general system for different powers, including spellcasting? Or a system where everything, including maneuvers, is a spell? I apologize if this sounds obtuse.
The first one. The current system is really good design, and it doesn't need to all be spells and spell slots. It'a typiclly super clear and keeps the game easier to learn.
If i may point out, they have been removing things from the world. It isn't just player races that are being updated, its monster lore as well. Before MotM released, entire swaves of lore were being cut out of MtoF (and maybe VgtM as well, but i only specifically remember the former).
Also, as a fellow passionate enjoyer of DnD, i am very familiar with the frustration that can come with discussion of this hobby. I certainly have my share of bad days (my apologies and thanks to Davyd, who is constantly putting up with my shit). However, here and multiple other times through your response you imply that anyone who doesn't agree with you is either woefully incompetent or willfully ignorant. I feel i have done my best to be civil and forthright with my inquiry, and as i am respectfully disagreeing with you on several things, i can't help but feel some level of offence with your assertions. All I do is eat chip and play dice game, and occasionally partake in discussion on my favorite hobby. People are free to play the game however they choose, and in whatever way everyone present is comfortable with. All this is to say that i mean no offence to you or anyone when i share my opinion, and while i know its a lot to ask on the internet, you seem like a reasonable individual with interesting (if differing) opinions, so i would just ask that we discuss with an air of courtesy.
I've always failed to see how alignment recommendations harm or expel anyone from the game... To me, they were always just context for how the societies of those races typically operate or are perceived. I've never felt the need to let them dictate my characters alignment (I'm not actually a massive fan of alignment overall. This isn't really the place for that discussion though, so all i'll say for now is i prefer a homebrew system of Sins and Virtues, it's more open to interpretation and presents more roleplay opportunities than just "i do this because my alignment is XYZ and thats what XYZ does"), and have never really understood why people take them so literally. Even the Alignment traits for races would often prefix things with "usually" or "typically" or "rarely", even the release version of Orc has this caveat, as well as the following tidbit in the section of their description discussing playing them as PC's;
"Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion."
On this note, later in your response you have a quotation that i cannot actually find in the Orc races's fluff text. While i understand this was likely paraphrasing, and that the actual description is quiet harsh in of itself, these descriptions are very explicitly the typical Orcish warband. The real issue is not the fluff text or alignment recommendations, but shitty DM's who use them as an excuse to bombard their PC's with a constant stream of roadblocks and hindrances. Racism against PC's is not an indisputable line that should never be crossed, it like all narrative tools, should be reserved for moments where it has meaning in the story and provides something of value to the overall narrative (which is how i typically run orc characters in forgotten realms-adjacent settings). Depending on the game, there might never even be a place for racism (much like with traditional media, if race is not a theme of the story you are telling, there isn't really a need to shoe-horn race into it).
But, there is a ""right"" way to do racism or racial stereotypes with regards to PC's in DnD (contrary to what some would have us believe), whether that be fighting the concept, overcoming it, or even using it as a point in your characters origins. If a DM has a world where Orcs are so hated by the common man that there is no way they can be played as a PC in a capacity that is fun, they shouldn't be allowed as a playable race for that game at all (Part of being a good DM is knowing when to tell a player that their character idea might not be a good fit for their particular story or world). And as a counterexample, i have a homebrew setting called Armistice where Orcs are not discriminated against by the other races (at least not in the traditional sense) and exist normally within societies (they are the obese pig-like depiction of orcs tho, think 'beyond good and evil'). Suffice to say that the entirety of written lore can be subverted on a table-by-table basis should the setting demand it.
Which brings me full circle to my main point on this; This issue with changing these things and carving them out of the setting is twofold, in that if people really wanted a setting where these egregious things were not the norm, it should be possible then for a new official setting to be created where that is not the case (and its sales metrics would be a perfect indicator of the actual demand for such changes), and that anyone unhappy with the existing settings as they were could simply just change them for use in their own games. When i take issue with how the lore has been changed, it is not because i want to "exclude" or "harm" anyone, it's because changing something that already has quantifiable amounts of precedent and established material should not be preferable to creating something new that ticks the boxes for anyone who took issue with it.
To your credit, the alteration of race lore to make them setting agnostic is about the only valid defense for the removal of lore from races on a general level.
The issue is that most people who defend the changing of lore don't present it this way, they present it as meaning the Orcs and Goblins of the forgotten realms are no longer widely perceived as revers and raiders, shunned from most major uni-racial cities. This said, i must still interject that even the fluff text in MotM and new races in UA all have references to histories that these races would have. If WotC were truly meaning to make the listings for these races purely setting agnostic, there wouldnt be any examples of culture or history in there (which would be boring, the fluff text for races can play a big part in making them interesting to play. It just seems people get up in a tissy when races have roots in evil, and say nothing when they are all depicted as goodie gumdrops that wouldnt hurt a soul).
But regardless, i would have no issues with future printings of races being unattached to any form of setting/culture or background, instead, having those things described for them in setting guides separate from the actual mechanical races. It would however need to be consistent, and not just the removal of anything that could offend someone. We would then need a proper setting guide for the forgotten realms. The PHB, DMG, and MM are all predominantly geared towards the forgotten realms, lore wise. Until WotC properly separate them from any particular setting, the defacto response to the removal of lore from books will be that the forgotten realms itself is being changed. I realize this is a formatting issue, but it is still a fault on WotC's part.
Unfortunately, i have never had the privilege of properly running a Dark Sun game myself, only having ever played and read the source material. However, both from my experience as a player and from what i have read, I don't recall the style of play employed by the sorts of people you describe as being either recommended or intended. While i don't doubt there are probably a number of groups who played the setting this way, that is neither a fault of the setting or of the majority of people who speak out against the way WotC is changing lore. That is the result of a small handful of human scum lacking the capacity to understand that is fundamentally messed up. While i would also say its no business of anyone else's what consenting adults do in their own privacy, i would first and foremost say that lumping anyone speaking out against the way WotC is changing the game in with those sorts of people is an egregious insult to say the least.
You say you are angry with the people who are vocal about their displeasure with the way things are being handled, but the linchpin of your point seems to hang on this small sub-sect of disgraceful individuals who, based on my experience with the setting, are simply choosing to indulge in their sick fantasies purely at their own behest or ineptitude (which they could and probably would do regardless of whether they are playing in Dark Sun or any other setting).
Inversely, there is something to be said about imposing modern moralities onto DnD characters. In the same way one could argue that playing a character who is part of the problems in a DnD world is not fun, you could say the same about enforcing modern ideals in one. As an easy example, i personally detest alcohol and its consumption, yet i can play characters who partake and revel in it. Much as i abhor racism and bigotry of all kinds, i have made characters who subscribe to such notions. One of the best parts of DnD imo is exploring perspectives other than your own, even if they are ones you fundamentally disagree with. Not to say i endorse the behavior that you are denouncing, that much should be apparent by now at least. But to say that in the same sense, if every character we played was a moral bastion, and there was never an NPC that every betrayed those morals we hold dear in this day and age, the game would be a lot less interesting. But thats not really the topic of this particular discussion.
I see you are a woman of culture. I also enjoy the hijinks of the handsome necromancer, Skenk Mchenk.I'm currently playing in a GH game. Good setting. At least i think it is, the DM admits its fairly modified but the general premise and plot elements are the same. The way he runs it isn't nearly as bad as Dark Sun, but it's still fun and i'm enjoying the story im telling with my character. Coincidentally, his is also a story about race, being a high elf from the feywilds who has only ever been told that humans are savages who nearly brought elves to extinction. Being in a party with 2 half-elves, he's been forced to realize that maybe not everything he thought he knew was true.
Couldn't agree more. Well said.
What does that bolded line mean by "limited capacity" though? Even that supposed concession implies that an orc PC can't be as compassionate or empathetic as other PCs for whatever reason, which can be viewed as problematic.
Also there are two official settings where orcs aren't depicted this way: Eberron and Exandria.
I mean, yes, to me, what you are asking for is exactly just another spellcasting system. While we do already have a preponderance of spellcasting classes, many (most....all?) of them exist by taking the basic spellcasting system that exists and uses it with their own added mechanical flourish. Like, what do you want to actually do that can't be replicated via the spell system or some minor class feature?
Like, I get it, the spell system of D&D is kinda lame, not very intuitive, and probably overly broad. But that is because so many classes rely on it to function. Would you prefer the 4th Ed way of doing things, where every class had its own special list of actions and abilities that branched throughout each level? (I would, but I'm in the minority.) With that sort of system you can have any flavor of any ability formed unique to the class. You could have people who did things that were mechanically and flavorfully distinct from other similar classes. Unfortunately, we aren't working in a system where that is really an option. So, with that in mind, what do you want to do that is fundamentally different from magic, and how do you propose to do it, knowing all the ways that have failed thus far? Or do you just want to do magic without doing....magic? I do not mean this in an adversarial way. I am legitimately confused. Are you advocating a return to a system like 4th Ed, where classes were mechanically differentiated, but people complained felt same-y? Or are you demanding that Psionics be treated "special" in a system where arcane magic is treated exactly the same as divine power, which also is treated the same as natural shamanism?
Agreed. However, we don't live in a world where WotC designed 5th Ed at the start by breaking up each power source individually and designing (or holding back design space) for each one to differentiate each flavor of power. Which means that, in terms of this edition, there is a level of expectation setting that needs to be made so that your expectations can be roughly met or you can be pleasantly surprised if/when WotC manages to pull something new and exciting out of their butts.
I'm also going to be responding to only certain parts of your post, mostly the parts that I think could use some general clarification rather than things specifically addressed to Yurei.
Let me help clarify. Alignment labels, specifically on entire peoples that are also meant to be playable character types, brush a broad stereotype on entire lineages of people even if the mitigating word "typically" is added to it. This kind of stereotyping is exactly the kind of thing that happens to some of us in real life and is a painful reminder of that kind of treatment that we would like to escape while playing D&D. It's removal is a good thing. It allows more people to play the game without depictions that do more than "offend" us, they harm us.
This is a conscious effort on the part of Wizard of the Coast to make the game more welcoming to all people, as evidenced by their Diversity and Dragons statement from a few years ago: https://dnd.wizards.com/news/diversity-and-dnd
Alternately, people don't see the value in sustaining the parts of a usable setting that are legitimately harmful just for the sake of purism or nostalgia.
I hope my above explanation clarifies why this is not so.
You seem to think the changing of lore is automatically a bad thing.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I think the biggest problem with changing lore is this knee-jerk response: "But I've spent so much time and effort learning about things that don't exist that if they change it, I'll have wasted my life!" And as a nerd who does study this stuff: yes. We have. As long as you've had fun, it's okay to have wasted your life reading stuff. We all kill time and waste our lives. If we don't, we'd be miserable. None of that lore is real. It doesn't have to change in your game. If you play with the old lore, the only thing that will happen is Jeremy Crawford will confiscate your stuff.
EDIT: Okay, so I have a better way of explaining my comment. I grew up around Chicago Illinois, and we had the Sears Tower, and Comiskey Park. Those aren't the name on the door. Those aren't the name on the company letterhead... but that's what they are. What's "offical" has changed, but what people call it hasn't. D&D lore is the same way. What's "offical" might change, but that doesn't mean the fans will.
It means that what can be considered 'Human Nature' should not be imposed on other races. For example, Elves; where humans are considerably more adaptable and can change based on their environment or circumstances in a matter of weeks or years, elves are much less adaptable and the same mental changes in outlook might take decades or even centuries.
Details like this in how RPG characters are rollplayed can have a massive effect on immersion. I certainly wouldnt want to play in a world where every race is just humans with fantasy shapes and sizes (ofc everyone has different preferences, and if thats your jar of jam then feel free to spread it). Applying the same logic to Orcs, that section of their description (which i remind is geared towards the forgotten realms, not eberron or exandria, hense why i said these details could reasonably be separated from books that are setting agnostic and then revised for printing in a forgotten realms setting guide, much like the Orc of those other 2 settings has in their respective guides) would imply; That typical Orcs by nature are more easy to turn to violence than a typical human would be in the same scenario.
The same logic can be applied to any race based on their forgotten realms lore; Halfings find it harder to build long term commitments, and don't see the same importance in it as humans do. Goliath are more inclined to think on the scale of the group as opposed to individual needs and wants, and have a harder time understanding why other races do. Dwarves are a communal people who dedicate their entire lives to mostly one thing, be it a profession that consumes them or promising themselves to a partner and having children and raising them. These are all examples of the nature of each race that have existed long before 5e, and have been represented within 5e. You could call them stereotypes if you wanted, and you would be right to some degree, but it is more accurate to say that these things are just in their nature.
This is not to say that a forgotten realms Orc character always needs to turn to violence, or to say that an Elf character can never be adaptable. All sentient life would have the capacity to resist and overcome their nature. You can think of human nature like a filter, a set of parameters that modify someones personality, not overrides it. Extending this logic to any fantasy race and their nature, its more than possible to have a member of any race that resists or even overcomes that filter. Hense my point, these descriptions are contextual backgrounds for the setting, not written rules saying that your character cannot be whatever you want them to be. Like i said, the real problem is when DM's let their players play these races knowing full well they re going to destroy any semblance of fun based on the choice of said race.
So to answer your statement directly, yes. Orcs in the forgotten realms are, by nature, less capable of compassion. That isn't to say they are incapable though, if anything, it makes a compassionate Orc character more interesting. You can tell a story about competing with ones nature. I don't see that as problematic, it's compelling. And as usual, if thats not the sort of world you want to play in, by all means don't. I'm not here to say people need to play forgotten realms in a way they aren't happy with, or that they even have to like it, I'm here to say that changing lore that has been a certain way since its conception is not the best way of tackling the issue of people taking offence to it. By all means, make races setting agnostic, but don't cut out things from settings that make them interesting.
And to bring us back to our original topic, yes, I don't want to see the same thing happen to Dark Sun, which has arguably far worse depictions of races and their nature.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, "stereotypes" can be powerful worldbuilding tools when used in good faith. Absolutely, some stereotypes are more harmful than others and should be avoided, and who's sitting at your table should always be a consideration, but there is a right way to use them to enrich your world without necessarily having to go into tangential detail about every city and culture within it. Being able to lean on such precedents can not only help players understand your world better, helping immersion, but can also add layers of intrigue to explore.
Sincere or not, the article is still PR and damage control. It is in the best interest of any front facing company to not get cancelled, whether they believe the things they say or not.
As i have iterated many times, i have no issue making races setting agnostic. If thats what makes DnD more "welcoming" for people, then fair enough. But, as i have pointed out, they are not making them setting agnostic (nor are they just stripping lore from races, monster lore is being effected to). Orcs are still explicitly the creations of Gruumsh in MotM, and any quick google search will reveal how he made orcs violent by nature in the forgotten realms. Therego, they are not making races setting agnostic.
And if a setting's lore "harms" you, then don't play it that way, you don't even have to play in it at all (homebrew settings are pog). We can all play the game however we want, thats the beauty of DnD, or any tabletop rpg for that matter. If i don't like a part of the lore, i just change it, i don't riot until it gets changed officially for me. So pronounced has become the culture of thinking things should change because they don't suit you.
Then leave the setting behind and start anew? Develop an existing setting that doesn't have the issues people take with forgotten realms?
No, it really doesn't. People get up in arms over the races that have roots in evil, and not the ones with roots in good. Thats basic observation of outcome, regardless of motive.
"The means shall not justify the ends, nor the ends to the means. For justice, both the ends and the means to attain it, must be just'." (gold star to whoever can source that reference 😉)
Automatically, i would say no. When the changes are just wholesale removing things and putting little to nothing of equal value in it's place, i would say its a bad thing. The value being lost is stories you can tell with it. As i keep saying, i can and will continue to use the old lore until something better is presented, as can others forsake it regardless of whether it is official or not. The thing i don't like about the changes has nothing to do with how it effects my games, because it doesn't, the thing i don't like is how needlessly destructive it is.
So what your admitting is its more profitable to be politically correct? I agree with that. I don't like it, but i agree. WotC are a business, and i'm not surprised by a business pursuing the most profit. But i don't have to like it. Which brings me back to the point i made in my very first reply on this thread;
The reason I mentioned Eberron and Exandria is because of this part you said below, especially the bolded, which indicated to me that you might not have been aware that there were official settings like that in 5e already. I don't know about their popularity from a statistical point of view, but I know Eberron has had its dedicated fanbase, and Exandria's popularity hinges a lot on Critical Role's popularity.
As far as the actual lore changes in the Forgotten Realms are concerned, it's not like they said Lolth no longer has any influence over the drow, or Gruumsh or Maglubiyet are no longer factors. From what I understand and have seen, they're simply saying the races affected by these entities are no longer a foregone conclusion as to how they turn out. They are pretty much saying that goblins who aren't horrible, orcs who aren't violent, and drow who aren't scheming slavers do in fact exist in the world even outside of the player characters with those races.
Also you talk about the "nature" of these races, but we have only one example of a sapient, technologically advanced (by nature's standards) species that we know of in the real world, and that's us. And we aren't this monolith that can be boiled down to a set of character traits that can be broadly applied to everyone. So I don't see how one can argue you can do this with any other such species or race, especially when nature is never so clear-cut. Frankly, I find it less immersive that each race has members so similar to each other, given how massive Faerun is. Distance and separation are universally factors that create differences and divergence in a group of organisms. The only reason I don't have more of a hiccup over the fact that there's no language barrier among members of each race in the Forgotten Realms is because I know it's for gameplay convenience, but both Eberron and Exandria treat language how it's supposed to be treated, which is being influenced by geography and culture (not your race or species). (On an unrelated note, it would be nice if D&D Beyond allowed you to create homebrew languages outside of the character sheet that make more sense for your setting, so that you can replace the existing languages with them instead of awkwardly tacking them on in the character sheet, but I digress.)
And given that much of the content in 5e is still heavily rooted in the Forgotten Realms (and therefore 5e still isn't completely setting-agnostic yet), it's important to make that distinction, even if it means changing the old lore.
EDIT: On a sidenote, but still related to the above, if we go by the previously established Forgotten Realms lore, many goblinoids and orcs are fated to end up in the plane of Acheron when they die. Acheron is a Lower Plane where you're forced to fight in pointless, endless, brutal wars for all eternity (in the case of the goblinoids and orcs, for their respective patron deities), and is a cruel and twisted fate. Yet, this is the fate these countless people are apparently facing just by being unlucky enough to be born as goblinoids or orcs. So I can see why someone would not be ok with this kind of detail.