Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
(I've put my rant about it in spoiler tags. If you were previously having a good day, don't read it.)
Case in point: Orcs. Orcs basically are the answer to the question "what happens if innately good creatures like elves are corrupted to the extent that they almost become demons". Because warmongering is something that Tolkien considered evil (and the orcs were supposed to be as evil as a mortal creature could be), then he took inspiration from the Mongols at around the time of first European contact, a society that seemed to promote war for its own sake. Tolkien also took a bit of inspiration from the evils of all other human societies of history.
HOWEVER!!!! Orcs do not represent any real-world racial group, but are, rather, the "subversion" or "corruption" of the good elves (who also don't represent any real-world group, other than insofar as they represent the Christian values of love, peace, etc.). This "subversion", "inversion", or "corruption" is a common theme of what evil does to good things. It turns everything good about them into bad.
Those people who try to say "hey but they took some inspiration from ancient Mongols and Africans, so therefore they must represent present-day Mongols and Africans, so therefore they cannot be made to be evil" are basically saying "present-day Mongols and Africans are like orcs", which... if anything sounds like a racist comment, it's that.
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So far this session, I have killed three pets, four teammates, and only hit the enemy once, and my fire bolt didn't work against a creature immune to fire. Trust me, you NEVER want to borrow my character or my dice.
This matter has been discussed to death, so while I'm not going to (immediately) lock this thread, I would suggest anyone interested in this discourse save time and energy and go re-read one of the many existing threads on this subject
I don't even think that it is a minority of players wanting alignment gone it could be a minority of players want it retained, myself I'm happy with the changes as they are if you and your table want them in leave them in my table is the new system yours can be the old way. In the end result your table is happy cool.
I would not rely on a two sentence summary to communicate culture, espicialy since most races have several pages of lore, most of which is about culture.
Come back when Woke Police arrive at the door to arrest you for making Orcs evil in your game.
I have little sympathy for people upset at options that in no way block them from the game they want to play. Focus on your own campaign setting and don't worry about what what other people are doing with consent behind closed doors.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
(I've put my rant about it in spoiler tags. If you were previously having a good day, don't read it.)
The actual rant is this part above, not what you put in spoiler tags.
I don't care much either way about indicative alignments. I'd have prefered fixed racial ASIs to have remained an option though, which puts me in a similar argument. My problem with the above is that it's a terrible way to argue anything.
You're implying, in not so many words, that anyone who doesn't like racially defined alignments is likely horrible, loud and aggressive, and probably doesn't play D&D but wants to cause trouble. Insults don't do your credibility any favours and this isn't a good personal look either. If you want to argue, argue the merits of your case. Second, the 'minority' part is a somewhat silly assertion - a pretty big chunk of the community doesn't even care for alignment period, regardless of any racial considerations. Third, nobody's been ruling anything; WotC's perception of what the player base - their customers - wants is what drives their development policies and standards, and it's been like that since day one (as in, when they started work on 3rd edition). It's certainly nothing that only started with Tasha's. Fourth, the bigger argument here is not the "it's racist" angle; the bigger argument is that alignment as part of racial identity is overly restrictive under WotC's stated goal of removing culturally specific references from racial writeups in the core books (i.e. Drow are, a few separate and smaller communities aside, typically evil in the Forgotten Realms; Drow are typically not evil in Eberron). WotC doesn't want the core books to push setting specific racial aspects but rather to let setting material do that; not only does that make sense logically, it also nudges DMs towards taking more creative control personally. That's a good thing. Finally, whether there's a couple of letters assigning a nominal alignment to a racial writeup or not is fairly inconsequential. When I read about Drow in Menzoberranzan, it's pretty clear this is not a nice society. When my DM describes a horde of blood-thirsty wannabe conquerors descending upon defenseless villages to give my hero character a goal, I'm not going to need that DM to clarify that horde is, in fact, Evil; I'm got that message loud and clear from that brief description already. If a specific alignment is typical for any given race in a setting, that's usually abundantly obvious just from what the DM or the setting book tells you; putting a label on it is unnecessary.
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Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
(I've put my rant about it in spoiler tags. If you were previously having a good day, don't read it.)
Case in point: Orcs. Orcs basically are the answer to the question "what happens if innately good creatures like elves are corrupted to the extent that they almost become demons". Because warmongering is something that Tolkien considered evil (and the orcs were supposed to be as evil as a mortal creature could be), then he took inspiration from the Mongols at around the time of first European contact, a society that seemed to promote war for its own sake. Tolkien also took a bit of inspiration from the evils of all other human societies of history.
HOWEVER!!!! Orcs do not represent any real-world racial group, but are, rather, the "subversion" or "corruption" of the good elves (who also don't represent any real-world group, other than insofar as they represent the Christian values of love, peace, etc.). This "subversion", "inversion", or "corruption" is a common theme of what evil does to good things. It turns everything good about them into bad.
Those people who try to say "hey but they took some inspiration from ancient Mongols and Africans, so therefore they must represent present-day Mongols and Africans, so therefore they cannot be made to be evil" are basically saying "present-day Mongols and Africans are like orcs", which... if anything sounds like a racist comment, it's that.
I'm not going to respond to most of this, because it's wrong in a countless number of ways that have been covered hundreds of times in various threads of similar topics on not just these boards, but also on RPG.net, ENWorld.org, the DnDNext Subreddit, and similar forums. If you want to see the arguments about why you're wrong, go read those discussions.
However, I do want to point out one major point of your spoiler'ed rant that is just straight up false. The whole "Tolkien based Orcs off of Mongolians" thing is just absolutely false. Yes, in a private letter Tolkien did describe the appearance of Orcs on Middle Earth as being "degraded and repulsive versions of the least lovely Mongol-types", which is extremely problematic any way that you look at it, but he did not base the culture or behavior of the Orcs in Middle Earth off of Mongolians or Africans. In Middle Earth, Orcs are meant to embody the worst parts of what were recent changes to the world around Tolkien's time; industrialization, militarization, and being unconnected with nature (while the Hobbits and Shire represent the exact opposite; being peaceful farmers that are extremely connected with the world and have never lifted a sword).
Did he describe the Orcs as sharing physical resemblances to what he called "the least lovely Mongol-types"? Undeniably yes. Is that problematic? Also yes. Did Tolkien base the cultural elements off of Mongols or Africans (from any documented statements or letters made by him)? As far as we know, no. He based them off of his experiences with fighting in World War I to demonstrate what he believed/perceived to be the worst parts of "modern" human culture.
Now, let's transition this to how it relates to Orcs in D&D.
Orcs in D&D are stolen from Tolkien's Middle Earth setting, much like Elves, Dwarves, Halflings (Hobbits), Goblins/Hobgoblins (which were actually just Orcs in Middle Earth), Treants ("Tree Ents"), Balors (the Balrog), and so on. However, much like everything else that Gary Gygax decided to steal from popular fantasy works of his era, these things were stripped of their context inside of the setting of Middle Earth when Gygax stole them. Gygax knew that they were popular fantasy creatures from a popular fantasy book, so he just straight up stole them from Tolkien and shoved them into the core D&D rulebooks when he was making them (he did this with other popular IPs, too, which occasionally got him into legal trouble for stealing from them). When Tolkien took Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and everything else that he stole from Tolkien, at first, he didn't give them much of their own identity in the broader D&D setting, and certainly did not include all of the coding and context from Tolkien's works that defined who they were.
This is why Eberron's Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are very different from those same races on Dark Sun, which are different from the same races on Dragonlance, which are different from the same races on Mystara, which are different from the same races on Greyhawk. Gygax just stole them from Tolkien without so much as a second thought when creating D&D, and it ended up causing there to be a ton of different interpretations and implementations that they could have in the various D&D settings that would later get introduced to the hobby. This is also why Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings from D&D are so different from their historical roots in Middle Earth, because their contextual identities were lost in the transition from Lord of the Rings to early D&D, and even more from early D&D to the later examples of those races in official D&D settings (Dark Sun, Mystara, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, etc).
And the reason why some of the examples of these races from these settings have problematic elements to them is due to real world racism and racial biases in the creators of these settings throughout D&D's history. Not all of them have these problems (and some settings have certain types of prejudice built in them that others don't, and vice-versa), but it is there in quite a few settings. (Mystara's Red and Yellow Orcs, as the main example of a racist depiction of Orcs in an official D&D setting. Other settings have their own problems, like Vistani in Ravenloft, Drow in the Forgotten Realms, and so on.)
If Gygax had just taken Orcs from Middle Earth and completely ripped them off and put them into D&D, we probably would not have this problem right now. Tolkien's Orcs are the embodiment of corrupted nature (being corrupted Elves), industrialization, and militarization. D&D still has "warlike" Orcs, but they're not very "militarized" in any D&D setting other than Spelljammer, aren't corrupted elves in any official D&D setting that I'm aware of, and are definitely not industrialized in any setting other than Spelljammer. (huh. Who woulda thunk that Spelljammer would have the most historically accurate version of Orcs in all of D&D's official settings?)
tl;dr - As far as we know, Tolkien's Orcs were not based off of Mongolian culture, D&D has absolutely had racism in its past (including in representations of Orcs and similar races in various D&D settings), and Gygax was an IP-stealing hack.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I think the problem with any alignment trait is nothing to do with racism or anything so big as that. It's the simple fact that it has only ever existed so that people could make their version different.
"Drow aren't evil im my world, they are neutral"
"Orcs aren't evil in my world, they are noble and good"
"Dwarves aren't good in my world, they are evil"
and so on.
Long story short, the new format is simply to say "Yes, they have alignment, and it depends", and call it at that. You could have an entire dwarven kingdom which is evil, good drow, and so on. If you really want to be able to define these things in a constructive way, what you want is a chart for each area or world which defines the kingdoms and their alignments, as well as if they're all one rac or mixed.
I think the problem with any alignment trait is nothing to do with racism or anything so big as that. It's the simple fact that it has only ever existed so that people could make their version different.
"Drow aren't evil im my world, they are neutral"
"Orcs aren't evil in my world, they are noble and good"
"Dwarves aren't good in my world, they are evil"
and so on.
Long story short, the new format is simply to say "Yes, they have alignment, and it depends", and call it at that. You could have an entire dwarven kingdom which is evil, good drow, and so on. If you really want to be able to define these things in a constructive way, what you want is a chart for each area or world which defines the kingdoms and their alignments, as well as if they're all one rac or mixed.
This right here. I wouldn't mind it being included if it had a little footnote that said something along the lines of:
"All alignments only apply to creatures in the forgotten realms. In addition, they only refer to the majority of the creatures of that race. Think about how many of your characters race being evil may have affected your characters actions: Maybe they have a bad streak or are even more stubbornly good than a creature that was born into a predominantly good lineage. Perhaps your character may have many "good" traits such as loyalty and bravery, but sees killing as a natural occurrence as that was the way he was raised."
There's a lot of strong feeling around a subject which basically boils down to:
Group 1: I want to be told what alignment the creature has. If it isn't, I'll imagine it the way I think it should be, and Ill ignore it when it doesn't suit me.
Group 2: I want to imagine what alignment the creature has. If it's shown, I'll ignore it when it doesn't suit me.
Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
WoTC removed alignments because they don't matter. Players can play their characters how they want to play them, not based off of lore.
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Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
It's sad really when such a vital concept for society - morality - is seen by some as offensive. The torturous logic required to make it so is almost frightening.
I'm sorry, what? By what tortuous logic can we arrive to the conclusion that removing broad-strokes labels means morality is offensive?
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This conversation has been had and here are some links to where they can be read before rehashing the topic. And for goodness sake, if you had your comments deleted in these old threads, don't make those comments again!
There are some more discussions that ostensibly started as something else and turned into a discussion on alignment, but I'm having a harder time finding those.
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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!
Less of an oppressive minority as this OP paints it, I think in fact a majority of players are coming around to the logic that intelligent beings possessed of free will don't fit too easily into boxes.
Alignment is a roleplaying aid, to help players and DM's think of how their characters see the world and react to it. Alignment is DEscriptive, not PREscriptive, and that is a very important distinction. The rules don't tell you what Alignment a race is supposed to be, you use alignment to describe your character.
Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
(I've put my rant about it in spoiler tags. If you were previously having a good day, don't read it.)
Case in point: Orcs. Orcs basically are the answer to the question "what happens if innately good creatures like elves are corrupted to the extent that they almost become demons". Because warmongering is something that Tolkien considered evil (and the orcs were supposed to be as evil as a mortal creature could be), then he took inspiration from the Mongols at around the time of first European contact, a society that seemed to promote war for its own sake. Tolkien also took a bit of inspiration from the evils of all other human societies of history.
HOWEVER!!!! Orcs do not represent any real-world racial group, but are, rather, the "subversion" or "corruption" of the good elves (who also don't represent any real-world group, other than insofar as they represent the Christian values of love, peace, etc.). This "subversion", "inversion", or "corruption" is a common theme of what evil does to good things. It turns everything good about them into bad.
Those people who try to say "hey but they took some inspiration from ancient Mongols and Africans, so therefore they must represent present-day Mongols and Africans, so therefore they cannot be made to be evil" are basically saying "present-day Mongols and Africans are like orcs", which... if anything sounds like a racist comment, it's that.
I could not agree more. It's sad really when such a vital concept for society - morality - is seen by some as offensive. The torturous logic required to make it so is almost frightening.
Of course some of those pushing for the change say "Its about options, not racism" . And why does THAT particular OPTION in THIS particular place and time in the game's history need to change? Is it also coincidental that the same people are pushing to remove ASIs for races too? And their assertion is that it has nooootthhhing to do with real world race issues...or Wokeness......OK. Sure. Just a coincidence. My bad :)
Specifically replying to the bit about ASIs here.
I see people against the ASIs complaining that it's done for 'wokeness' yet whenever I see people actually defending or celebrating to shift away from pre set racial ASIs, they're always arguing in favor of character options. I never see people celebrating this change because of 'wokeness.' Is it just me and I'm not seeing the people doing this, or is this another instance of people complaining about something more than the thing is actually happening?
Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
(I've put my rant about it in spoiler tags. If you were previously having a good day, don't read it.)
Case in point: Orcs. Orcs basically are the answer to the question "what happens if innately good creatures like elves are corrupted to the extent that they almost become demons". Because warmongering is something that Tolkien considered evil (and the orcs were supposed to be as evil as a mortal creature could be), then he took inspiration from the Mongols at around the time of first European contact, a society that seemed to promote war for its own sake. Tolkien also took a bit of inspiration from the evils of all other human societies of history.
HOWEVER!!!! Orcs do not represent any real-world racial group, but are, rather, the "subversion" or "corruption" of the good elves (who also don't represent any real-world group, other than insofar as they represent the Christian values of love, peace, etc.). This "subversion", "inversion", or "corruption" is a common theme of what evil does to good things. It turns everything good about them into bad.
Those people who try to say "hey but they took some inspiration from ancient Mongols and Africans, so therefore they must represent present-day Mongols and Africans, so therefore they cannot be made to be evil" are basically saying "present-day Mongols and Africans are like orcs", which... if anything sounds like a racist comment, it's that.
The important thing to consider is whether things are a key part of the game, and whether anyones game will be affected by it.
If the morons come out in force claiming dnd is summoning satan and all magic and demons should be removed from the game, that is going to change the game. Instead of considering this to be "Alignments have been removed", instead consider it as "Alignments have been added". Used to be Drow = Evil, but now Drow = Good and Drow = Neutral have both been added to the game, giving you more choice.
There is no way to consider "Magic has been removed" as an addition to the game, so yes, it would have a negative impact.
I am genuinely curious if anyone has ever played a game where the alignments given in the source books actually mattered. Just because "The drow aren't all evil" doesn't mean that all the Drow your DM throws your way aren't evil. There isn't a single scenario which has come up in any game which is mitigated by the addition of good Drow and evil dwarves to the canon.
Has anyone ever had this matter? Did it matter to the game whether the Drow in another groups campaign were the same alignment as yours?
Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
Was it really though? Seriously, how was putting an alignment label on races informative regarding the "community/culture"? Critter X is typically Lawful Evil - how much do I really know with that, honestly?
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The important thing to consider is whether things are a key part of the game, and whether anyones game will be affected by it.
If the morons come out in force claiming dnd is summoning satan and all magic and demons should be removed from the game, that is going to change the game.
This actually did happen though, the Satanic Panic in the 80s :)
But the rest i agree with, nothing was actually removed, instead the opportunity for more to be built upon was subtlety added by removing the restrictive alignment.
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Where has the alignment trait gone? I know it isn't binding for player characters (often the reason for adventuring is that one is an outcast whose morals don't align with the community), but it was very useful both for DMs and players for knowing how the community/culture is.
The horrible, loud, aggressive minority of the community (most of whom don't play or DM, but only want to cause trouble) have been ruling what WotC produce since TCoE. They need to stop, and it needs to be realised that FANTASY races are NOT human, and the people who try to compare them to real-world groups of humans are actually being racist themselves (by comparing the real-world humans to the fantasy races).
(I've put my rant about it in spoiler tags. If you were previously having a good day, don't read it.)
Case in point: Orcs. Orcs basically are the answer to the question "what happens if innately good creatures like elves are corrupted to the extent that they almost become demons". Because warmongering is something that Tolkien considered evil (and the orcs were supposed to be as evil as a mortal creature could be), then he took inspiration from the Mongols at around the time of first European contact, a society that seemed to promote war for its own sake. Tolkien also took a bit of inspiration from the evils of all other human societies of history.
HOWEVER!!!! Orcs do not represent any real-world racial group, but are, rather, the "subversion" or "corruption" of the good elves (who also don't represent any real-world group, other than insofar as they represent the Christian values of love, peace, etc.). This "subversion", "inversion", or "corruption" is a common theme of what evil does to good things. It turns everything good about them into bad.
Those people who try to say "hey but they took some inspiration from ancient Mongols and Africans, so therefore they must represent present-day Mongols and Africans, so therefore they cannot be made to be evil" are basically saying "present-day Mongols and Africans are like orcs", which... if anything sounds like a racist comment, it's that.
Isn’t it more interesting to have evil characters and groups be evil because of their own decisions and not because of how they were born?
This matter has been discussed to death, so while I'm not going to (immediately) lock this thread, I would suggest anyone interested in this discourse save time and energy and go re-read one of the many existing threads on this subject
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I don't even think that it is a minority of players wanting alignment gone it could be a minority of players want it retained, myself I'm happy with the changes as they are if you and your table want them in leave them in my table is the new system yours can be the old way. In the end result your table is happy cool.
I would not rely on a two sentence summary to communicate culture, espicialy since most races have several pages of lore, most of which is about culture.
My homebrew content: Monsters, subclasses, Magic items, Feats, spells, races, backgrounds
Come back when Woke Police arrive at the door to arrest you for making Orcs evil in your game.
I have little sympathy for people upset at options that in no way block them from the game they want to play. Focus on your own campaign setting and don't worry about what what other people are doing with consent behind closed doors.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
The actual rant is this part above, not what you put in spoiler tags.
I don't care much either way about indicative alignments. I'd have prefered fixed racial ASIs to have remained an option though, which puts me in a similar argument. My problem with the above is that it's a terrible way to argue anything.
You're implying, in not so many words, that anyone who doesn't like racially defined alignments is likely horrible, loud and aggressive, and probably doesn't play D&D but wants to cause trouble. Insults don't do your credibility any favours and this isn't a good personal look either. If you want to argue, argue the merits of your case.
Second, the 'minority' part is a somewhat silly assertion - a pretty big chunk of the community doesn't even care for alignment period, regardless of any racial considerations.
Third, nobody's been ruling anything; WotC's perception of what the player base - their customers - wants is what drives their development policies and standards, and it's been like that since day one (as in, when they started work on 3rd edition). It's certainly nothing that only started with Tasha's.
Fourth, the bigger argument here is not the "it's racist" angle; the bigger argument is that alignment as part of racial identity is overly restrictive under WotC's stated goal of removing culturally specific references from racial writeups in the core books (i.e. Drow are, a few separate and smaller communities aside, typically evil in the Forgotten Realms; Drow are typically not evil in Eberron). WotC doesn't want the core books to push setting specific racial aspects but rather to let setting material do that; not only does that make sense logically, it also nudges DMs towards taking more creative control personally. That's a good thing.
Finally, whether there's a couple of letters assigning a nominal alignment to a racial writeup or not is fairly inconsequential. When I read about Drow in Menzoberranzan, it's pretty clear this is not a nice society. When my DM describes a horde of blood-thirsty wannabe conquerors descending upon defenseless villages to give my hero character a goal, I'm not going to need that DM to clarify that horde is, in fact, Evil; I'm got that message loud and clear from that brief description already. If a specific alignment is typical for any given race in a setting, that's usually abundantly obvious just from what the DM or the setting book tells you; putting a label on it is unnecessary.
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I'm not going to respond to most of this, because it's wrong in a countless number of ways that have been covered hundreds of times in various threads of similar topics on not just these boards, but also on RPG.net, ENWorld.org, the DnDNext Subreddit, and similar forums. If you want to see the arguments about why you're wrong, go read those discussions.
However, I do want to point out one major point of your spoiler'ed rant that is just straight up false. The whole "Tolkien based Orcs off of Mongolians" thing is just absolutely false. Yes, in a private letter Tolkien did describe the appearance of Orcs on Middle Earth as being "degraded and repulsive versions of the least lovely Mongol-types", which is extremely problematic any way that you look at it, but he did not base the culture or behavior of the Orcs in Middle Earth off of Mongolians or Africans. In Middle Earth, Orcs are meant to embody the worst parts of what were recent changes to the world around Tolkien's time; industrialization, militarization, and being unconnected with nature (while the Hobbits and Shire represent the exact opposite; being peaceful farmers that are extremely connected with the world and have never lifted a sword).
Did he describe the Orcs as sharing physical resemblances to what he called "the least lovely Mongol-types"? Undeniably yes. Is that problematic? Also yes. Did Tolkien base the cultural elements off of Mongols or Africans (from any documented statements or letters made by him)? As far as we know, no. He based them off of his experiences with fighting in World War I to demonstrate what he believed/perceived to be the worst parts of "modern" human culture.
Now, let's transition this to how it relates to Orcs in D&D.
Orcs in D&D are stolen from Tolkien's Middle Earth setting, much like Elves, Dwarves, Halflings (Hobbits), Goblins/Hobgoblins (which were actually just Orcs in Middle Earth), Treants ("Tree Ents"), Balors (the Balrog), and so on. However, much like everything else that Gary Gygax decided to steal from popular fantasy works of his era, these things were stripped of their context inside of the setting of Middle Earth when Gygax stole them. Gygax knew that they were popular fantasy creatures from a popular fantasy book, so he just straight up stole them from Tolkien and shoved them into the core D&D rulebooks when he was making them (he did this with other popular IPs, too, which occasionally got him into legal trouble for stealing from them). When Tolkien took Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and everything else that he stole from Tolkien, at first, he didn't give them much of their own identity in the broader D&D setting, and certainly did not include all of the coding and context from Tolkien's works that defined who they were.
This is why Eberron's Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are very different from those same races on Dark Sun, which are different from the same races on Dragonlance, which are different from the same races on Mystara, which are different from the same races on Greyhawk. Gygax just stole them from Tolkien without so much as a second thought when creating D&D, and it ended up causing there to be a ton of different interpretations and implementations that they could have in the various D&D settings that would later get introduced to the hobby. This is also why Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings from D&D are so different from their historical roots in Middle Earth, because their contextual identities were lost in the transition from Lord of the Rings to early D&D, and even more from early D&D to the later examples of those races in official D&D settings (Dark Sun, Mystara, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, etc).
And the reason why some of the examples of these races from these settings have problematic elements to them is due to real world racism and racial biases in the creators of these settings throughout D&D's history. Not all of them have these problems (and some settings have certain types of prejudice built in them that others don't, and vice-versa), but it is there in quite a few settings. (Mystara's Red and Yellow Orcs, as the main example of a racist depiction of Orcs in an official D&D setting. Other settings have their own problems, like Vistani in Ravenloft, Drow in the Forgotten Realms, and so on.)
If Gygax had just taken Orcs from Middle Earth and completely ripped them off and put them into D&D, we probably would not have this problem right now. Tolkien's Orcs are the embodiment of corrupted nature (being corrupted Elves), industrialization, and militarization. D&D still has "warlike" Orcs, but they're not very "militarized" in any D&D setting other than Spelljammer, aren't corrupted elves in any official D&D setting that I'm aware of, and are definitely not industrialized in any setting other than Spelljammer. (huh. Who woulda thunk that Spelljammer would have the most historically accurate version of Orcs in all of D&D's official settings?)
tl;dr - As far as we know, Tolkien's Orcs were not based off of Mongolian culture, D&D has absolutely had racism in its past (including in representations of Orcs and similar races in various D&D settings), and Gygax was an IP-stealing hack.
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I think the problem with any alignment trait is nothing to do with racism or anything so big as that. It's the simple fact that it has only ever existed so that people could make their version different.
"Drow aren't evil im my world, they are neutral"
"Orcs aren't evil in my world, they are noble and good"
"Dwarves aren't good in my world, they are evil"
and so on.
Long story short, the new format is simply to say "Yes, they have alignment, and it depends", and call it at that. You could have an entire dwarven kingdom which is evil, good drow, and so on. If you really want to be able to define these things in a constructive way, what you want is a chart for each area or world which defines the kingdoms and their alignments, as well as if they're all one rac or mixed.
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This right here. I wouldn't mind it being included if it had a little footnote that said something along the lines of:
"All alignments only apply to creatures in the forgotten realms. In addition, they only refer to the majority of the creatures of that race. Think about how many of your characters race being evil may have affected your characters actions: Maybe they have a bad streak or are even more stubbornly good than a creature that was born into a predominantly good lineage. Perhaps your character may have many "good" traits such as loyalty and bravery, but sees killing as a natural occurrence as that was the way he was raised."
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
There's a lot of strong feeling around a subject which basically boils down to:
Group 1: I want to be told what alignment the creature has. If it isn't, I'll imagine it the way I think it should be, and Ill ignore it when it doesn't suit me.
Group 2: I want to imagine what alignment the creature has. If it's shown, I'll ignore it when it doesn't suit me.
WoTC removed alignments because they don't matter. Players can play their characters how they want to play them, not based off of lore.
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I'm sorry, what? By what tortuous logic can we arrive to the conclusion that removing broad-strokes labels means morality is offensive?
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This conversation has been had and here are some links to where they can be read before rehashing the topic. And for goodness sake, if you had your comments deleted in these old threads, don't make those comments again!
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/110226-why-dont-new-monsters-have-alignments?page=17
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/80091-how-important-is-alignment-nowadays
There are some more discussions that ostensibly started as something else and turned into a discussion on alignment, but I'm having a harder time finding those.
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Less of an oppressive minority as this OP paints it, I think in fact a majority of players are coming around to the logic that intelligent beings possessed of free will don't fit too easily into boxes.
Alignment is a roleplaying aid, to help players and DM's think of how their characters see the world and react to it. Alignment is DEscriptive, not PREscriptive, and that is a very important distinction. The rules don't tell you what Alignment a race is supposed to be, you use alignment to describe your character.
Specifically replying to the bit about ASIs here.
I see people against the ASIs complaining that it's done for 'wokeness' yet whenever I see people actually defending or celebrating to shift away from pre set racial ASIs, they're always arguing in favor of character options. I never see people celebrating this change because of 'wokeness.' Is it just me and I'm not seeing the people doing this, or is this another instance of people complaining about something more than the thing is actually happening?
Here's someone on these very forums for whom the depiction of orcs and half orcs specifically caused them to be discouraged from playing D&D for years:https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/95854-design-direction-changes-for-race-in-d-d-5e?comment=398
Here's me talking about how it's not somehow being offended on the behalf of orcs: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/95854-design-direction-changes-for-race-in-d-d-5e?comment=368
Me again, talking about essentialism and linking to an article specifically about how the portrayal of orcs is harmful and how yes, it does hit on a lot of tropes and stereotypes that ring very painfully familiar for real people: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/95854-design-direction-changes-for-race-in-d-d-5e?comment=320
To be honest, I don't really want to further this topic so I'm just going to keep pointing at the stuff that's already been said.
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!
The important thing to consider is whether things are a key part of the game, and whether anyones game will be affected by it.
If the morons come out in force claiming dnd is summoning satan and all magic and demons should be removed from the game, that is going to change the game. Instead of considering this to be "Alignments have been removed", instead consider it as "Alignments have been added". Used to be Drow = Evil, but now Drow = Good and Drow = Neutral have both been added to the game, giving you more choice.
There is no way to consider "Magic has been removed" as an addition to the game, so yes, it would have a negative impact.
I am genuinely curious if anyone has ever played a game where the alignments given in the source books actually mattered. Just because "The drow aren't all evil" doesn't mean that all the Drow your DM throws your way aren't evil. There isn't a single scenario which has come up in any game which is mitigated by the addition of good Drow and evil dwarves to the canon.
Has anyone ever had this matter? Did it matter to the game whether the Drow in another groups campaign were the same alignment as yours?
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Was it really though? Seriously, how was putting an alignment label on races informative regarding the "community/culture"? Critter X is typically Lawful Evil - how much do I really know with that, honestly?
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This actually did happen though, the Satanic Panic in the 80s :)
But the rest i agree with, nothing was actually removed, instead the opportunity for more to be built upon was subtlety added by removing the restrictive alignment.