While I don't care much about alignment, I do think it's a shame that all the species have become so bland and generic
How is "All X are Evil and All Y are Good" in not bland and generic. It's literally how you define both of those terms.
What you're describing is a desire for stereotyping. To be able to look at an individual and immediately know "They are bad and I feel no moral objection to ending their life or the lives of their compatriots". And while I get that for some people the idea of "Unrestrained ability to simulate violence without morals" is part of what draws them to D&D, the world as a whole has moved foward, and so companies need to be more flexible in their potrayals, to allow better storytelling.
You're not lamenting the loss of storytelling. You're lamenting the muddying of moral righteousness.
There's an argument for the base rules not providing any particularly interesting sample cultures, but in practice all the PCs in a game are usually either from the same culture, or are from cultures that interact closely enough to share a lot of elements, because you have to justify "why are these people hanging out with one another", and outside of things like "You've all been captured by the cult of Blibdoolploop for sacrifice, better figure out how to work together quickly", that's hard unless they're from cultures that regularly hang out together.
While I don't care much about alignment, I do think it's a shame that all the species have become so bland and generic
How is "All X are Evil and All Y are Good" in not bland and generic. It's literally how you define both of those terms.
What you're describing is a desire for stereotyping. To be able to look at an individual and immediately know "They are bad and I feel no moral objection to ending their life or the lives of their compatriots". And while I get that for some people the idea of "Unrestrained ability to simulate violence without morals" is part of what draws them to D&D, the world as a whole has moved foward, and so companies need to be more flexible in their potrayals, to allow better storytelling.
You're not lamenting the loss of storytelling. You're lamenting the muddying of moral righteousness.
What on earth are you on about? I never wrote anything like what you seem to be implying! I specifically said that my post wasn't about alignment.
To see how things have become blander, just compare the entry for dwarves (my favorite species) in 2014 and 2024.
While I don't care much about alignment, I do think it's a shame that all the species have become so bland and generic. A trend that I think really started with MPMM. The 2014 PHB included a comment about how it can be fun to play against type. That is no longer possible in 2024, since there is no type to begin with, everything is just a blank slate.
You could argue that this new approach lets people customize things more, but that was already possible before. Nothing in the rules prevented you from reflavoring stuff in your game. On the other hand, if you don't have a clear picture of what you want, or encyclopedic knowledge of lore from past books, then making a backstory for your character has become more cumbersome.
What I wish they'd done is to present some sort of default characteristics and history for different species while stressing that it's perfectly fine to do things differently if that's what you want.
So i remember back when 2014 5E came out, there was this wave of vitriol against all the flavor text in the descriptions of Races, and Spoony even used the Dwarf entry as an example of his problem with it. He basically said that it was all flavor and evocative prose but no real definition. he would say stuff like " The only thing this doesn't say is what a Dwarf IS" and stuff. As if anyone playing D&D at the time wouldn't know what a Dwarf was. The thing is, these are fantasy archetypes that have been around since Pre-Tolkien, and you would be hard pressed to find someone at the time who didn't already know what it was. But the entry was full of text on culture, society, and other things that would be called flavor. And certain 'oldschoolers' were LIVID at all the "Fluff." If i may, the company may have taken that a little too closely to heart, and now leaves falvor text to setting books, since each setting does them differently. Dwarves of Toril and Dwarves of Krynn were culturally different enough that the two might be baffled should they meet, and some settings like the MTG settings may not have had Dwarves at all, so setting in an image then having to adjust is a sticking point. It is something i have had to deal with.
In a game i ran, there was a little discussion that wasted like 20 minutes. Player was fine with orcs not being evil in that game, but me saying there was no rivalry between elves and Dwarves because of a peace treaty 600 years ago became a sticking point. It is easier for a DM to pitch their world when they don't have to fight the PHB.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
To see how things have become blander, just compare the entry for dwarves (my favorite species) in 2014 and 2024.
I did, and I'm just not seeing the issue. Compared to 2014, 2024 Dwarves are faster, get tremorsense, an origin feat, they ALL get the HP boost now, double darkvision range, and they can freely choose their ability score increases instead of being stuck with specific ones. About the only thing they lost was Mountain Dwarf's armor training, and that shouldn't have been a species trait anyway. There are way, way more character concepts enabled via 2024 Dwarf than the 2014 one.
The one tragedy with the 2024 Dwarf is they didn’t keep the tool profs from the UA, so you need to use your background to get Brewer’s Tools.
You can also pick up additional proficiencies via a Training reward (DMG 81) or your Bastion (DMG 348). So if brewing is something you want your Dwarf to pick up during their adventuring career, just ask!
Even as far back as 2e, it was not unusual for DMs to chunk the fixed racial alignments. One of the reasons you started seeing it was that many times the alignment assignment was perspective based. The Bs are evil from the point of the As because they do this, this, and that. But digging into storylines you realize that from the point of the Bs the As are the ones that are evil. Another reason is that the assignment was often societal based and not truly racial. The Bs of this region are warlike and considered evil while the Bs of this other region are peaceful farmers. So saying Bs are evil doesn't apply across the board.
In the early days, it made the game simple. Bs were evil and therefore the enemy. Made heavily combat based play straightforward. I don't remember wondering who the bad guys were in Keep on The Borderland, personally playing combat heavy games at that point. A non-evil B was looked upon with suspicion and made for fun role-play as we matured as players and DMs. Plus it was in line with most fantasy and fiction that certain groups were good, bad, indifferent. Now you see a lot more moral storylines were a character goes against the grain.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
How is "All X are Evil and All Y are Good" in not bland and generic. It's literally how you define both of those terms.
What you're describing is a desire for stereotyping. To be able to look at an individual and immediately know "They are bad and I feel no moral objection to ending their life or the lives of their compatriots". And while I get that for some people the idea of "Unrestrained ability to simulate violence without morals" is part of what draws them to D&D, the world as a whole has moved foward, and so companies need to be more flexible in their potrayals, to allow better storytelling.
You're not lamenting the loss of storytelling. You're lamenting the muddying of moral righteousness.
There's an argument for the base rules not providing any particularly interesting sample cultures, but in practice all the PCs in a game are usually either from the same culture, or are from cultures that interact closely enough to share a lot of elements, because you have to justify "why are these people hanging out with one another", and outside of things like "You've all been captured by the cult of Blibdoolploop for sacrifice, better figure out how to work together quickly", that's hard unless they're from cultures that regularly hang out together.
Drive thru RPG is where I get some of that stuff.
What on earth are you on about? I never wrote anything like what you seem to be implying! I specifically said that my post wasn't about alignment.
To see how things have become blander, just compare the entry for dwarves (my favorite species) in 2014 and 2024.
So i remember back when 2014 5E came out, there was this wave of vitriol against all the flavor text in the descriptions of Races, and Spoony even used the Dwarf entry as an example of his problem with it. He basically said that it was all flavor and evocative prose but no real definition. he would say stuff like " The only thing this doesn't say is what a Dwarf IS" and stuff.
As if anyone playing D&D at the time wouldn't know what a Dwarf was. The thing is, these are fantasy archetypes that have been around since Pre-Tolkien, and you would be hard pressed to find someone at the time who didn't already know what it was. But the entry was full of text on culture, society, and other things that would be called flavor.
And certain 'oldschoolers' were LIVID at all the "Fluff." If i may, the company may have taken that a little too closely to heart, and now leaves falvor text to setting books, since each setting does them differently. Dwarves of Toril and Dwarves of Krynn were culturally different enough that the two might be baffled should they meet, and some settings like the MTG settings may not have had Dwarves at all, so setting in an image then having to adjust is a sticking point. It is something i have had to deal with.
In a game i ran, there was a little discussion that wasted like 20 minutes. Player was fine with orcs not being evil in that game, but me saying there was no rivalry between elves and Dwarves because of a peace treaty 600 years ago became a sticking point. It is easier for a DM to pitch their world when they don't have to fight the PHB.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
I did, and I'm just not seeing the issue. Compared to 2014, 2024 Dwarves are faster, get tremorsense, an origin feat, they ALL get the HP boost now, double darkvision range, and they can freely choose their ability score increases instead of being stuck with specific ones. About the only thing they lost was Mountain Dwarf's armor training, and that shouldn't have been a species trait anyway. There are way, way more character concepts enabled via 2024 Dwarf than the 2014 one.
The one tragedy with the 2024 Dwarf is they didn’t keep the tool profs from the UA, so you need to use your background to get Brewer’s Tools.
You can also pick up additional proficiencies via a Training reward (DMG 81) or your Bastion (DMG 348). So if brewing is something you want your Dwarf to pick up during their adventuring career, just ask!
Training is very campaign dependent, and Bastions are likely only a bit less so, plus the boost is temporary.
It wasn’t a serious complaint, though.
Even as far back as 2e, it was not unusual for DMs to chunk the fixed racial alignments. One of the reasons you started seeing it was that many times the alignment assignment was perspective based. The Bs are evil from the point of the As because they do this, this, and that. But digging into storylines you realize that from the point of the Bs the As are the ones that are evil. Another reason is that the assignment was often societal based and not truly racial. The Bs of this region are warlike and considered evil while the Bs of this other region are peaceful farmers. So saying Bs are evil doesn't apply across the board.
In the early days, it made the game simple. Bs were evil and therefore the enemy. Made heavily combat based play straightforward. I don't remember wondering who the bad guys were in Keep on The Borderland, personally playing combat heavy games at that point. A non-evil B was looked upon with suspicion and made for fun role-play as we matured as players and DMs. Plus it was in line with most fantasy and fiction that certain groups were good, bad, indifferent. Now you see a lot more moral storylines were a character goes against the grain.