You do realize that there’s considerable difference between describing a culture in broad strokes and asserting that every single individual of a race is essentially cloned from a single personality, right?
You do realize that there’s considerable difference between describing a culture in broad strokes and asserting that every single individual of a race is essentially cloned from a single personality, right?
No.
No, I don't realize that. Because that's not what people are asking for.
People are asking for Wizards to go back to strongly defining, and confining, all playable species save for humanity as narrowly and Tolkien-y as possible.
All dwarves live in stone cities carved into the bowels of mountains and spend every day guzzling gallons of mead, practicing their axework, and forging new axes. Hell, female dwarves don't even exist - adult male dwarves just emerge fully formed from a kiln at the bottom of a dwarven city and are handed their axe, their meadhorn, and their first Celtic beard nut before being ushered up into a forge.
All elves are 'ethereally beautiful' nature-obsessed Turbo Hippies who think of every other species in the world as less than scurrying vermin, live for a million years drinking herbal tea and composing poems about the beauty of autumn sunlight while having a new elf kid once every century, and every single one of them is a master archer even though they're five friggin' feet tall and have no muscle mass whatsoever to put into the intensely demanding task of drawing a war bow.
All orcs are howling blood-crazed primitive savages with the mental capacity of a bruised rutabaga and the general life outlook of a rabid wolverine with a porcupine quill up its ass, and are fundamentally incapable of any of the things required to be an actual society. Like building, or agriculture, or actually being able to tolerate other people's presence for more than thirteen seconds without resorting to murder - and yet despite being fundamentally incapable of doing anything that would actually support their continued existence and allow them to function as a people they're always just over the mountain in a great slobbering horde of thousands waiting to Ravage Civilized Lands.
So on and so forth. Because "That's what D&D is! It's what D&D has always done!"
It's disgusting. It's absolutely putrid and I will never tolerate it. If people are going to have that "conversation" again despite warnings to not, they're gonna have to deal with folks sharply disagreeing with the "necessity" of strongly and narrowly defining entire species as nothing but reductive and irritating stereotropes.
It's disgusting. It's absolutely putrid and I will never tolerate it. If people are going to have that "conversation" again despite warnings to not, they're gonna have to deal with folks sharply disagreeing with the "necessity" of strongly and narrowly defining entire species as nothing but reductive and irritating stereotropes.
What's disgusting is you are the only person here making these arguments. Nobody else thinks in terms of those stereotypes, and if they are they haven't shared them with us.
You're angrily beating a dead horse, and for what?
What you are saying is "Every species in D&D should have a default culture hard-fixed to it and baked into its core statblocks in the core books, and while DMs are technically allowed to change those cultures if they have to, they are implicitly discouraged from doing so because The Game Developers have strictly defined the essence of an entire species by its Faerunian culture and changing it would annoy and confuse players who read the thirteen pages of cultural gook attached to their new character's species in the core books and mistook that stuff for required cannon instead of technically-"optional" fluff."
Why?
Why is it such a giant flaming necessity that Wizards forcibly bludgeon everyone into using the Faerunian lore for their stuff unless the DM makes the active, painful effort of clawing all that crud back out of their game?
EDIT: After all, how often have you heard a DM say "Okay, sell me on this" when a player asks to play an atypical member of a given species? How often do DMs demand justification for not adhering to the established stereotropes of Faerunian back canon? How often do DMs make players jump through extra hoops and do extra dog-and-pony tricks just to be allowed to play what they'd like to play?
Not entirely, but race examples are easier to adapt across various settings.
No, they really aren't. It's possible to create an interesting culture that actually interacts meaningfully with species traits, but (a) D&D has never done that well, and (b) most 'species' or 'races' in D&D are just humans in funny hats anyway, they simply aren't different enough from human to naturally produce significantly different cultures, at most you're looking at some economic effects that D&D is utterly uninterested in modeling.
Counterpoint: most species shouldn't be just humans in funny hats.
Laziness should not be an excuse to omit interesting writing.
Humans in funny hats are the easiest for people to empathize with, which is crucial for effective story telling. And let's be honest, 90% of players and DMs don't have the time or interest in portraying completely alien beings. Instead, we borrow cultures we are already familiar with and adapt them into our fictional worlds. It's just far more efficient to communicate to your players "They're like Vikings" than to spend a hour trying to explain a totally novel culture you've invented. D&D is a game to be played, not an alternate reality to be studied.
I would say nothing in D&D 5e is a completely original idea. Everything is borrowed, stolen, adapted, or inspired from existing culture(s). Strahd von Zarovich is blatantly Eastern-European inspired, the Vestani are Roma, Theros is thinly veiled ancient Greece, Elves are Oriental, Dwarves are Scottish, Orcs are Mongols/Apache.
That looks all kinds of offensive. I also think if anyone is going to invoke loaded language like "humans in funny hats" then they should actually define what that means.
I think all elves are Oriental─a loaded and outdated term that covers most of Asia─and I have no idea where you got that from.
Yes exactly! This is why people want races to be completely separated from culture as they should be. I use "Oriental" deliberately because I mean that Western stereotype not the actual cultures themselves. Of course none of these races "have" to be like this, but if you look a how they are written in D&D lore those are very clearly the inspirations for them. You could absolutely have US-tech-bro inspired vampires in your HB world - and I personally would love to see a stoner-inspired vampire story. Orcs could be green-hippie-thrill seekers. Elves could be English monarchist-inspired, and dwarves could be survivalist/bunker-types.
You're dragging real life peoples into this, and it's not looking good.
He's not dragging real life peoples into it, he's just recognizing that many 'races' in D&D are in fact racial stereotypes writ large.
There are two core reasons for doing away with species cultures:
Existing cultures are just (frequently offensive) stereotypes writ large. This is certainly the primary reason WotC is doing this.
It's stupid. All of the core species are spread out over the entire world, which means you should see quite large numbers of cultures (dozens to hundreds), which may or may not be species-specific depending on local politics, and even when you do see cultural isolation by species there's no reason to assign any particular culture to any particular species.
What you are saying is "Every species in D&D should have a default culture hard-fixed to it and baked into its core statblocks in the core books, and while DMs are technically allowed to change those cultures if they have to, they are implicitly discouraged from doing so because The Game Developers have strictly defined the essence of an entire species by its Faerunian culture and changing it would annoy and confuse players who read the thirteen pages of cultural gook attached to their new character's species in the core books and mistook that stuff for required cannon instead of technically-"optional" fluff."
Why?
Why is it such a giant flaming necessity that Wizards forcibly bludgeon everyone into using the Faerunian lore for their stuff unless the DM makes the active, painful effort of clawing all that crud back out of their game?
EDIT: After all, how often have you heard a DM say "Okay, sell me on this" when a player asks to play an atypical member of a given species? How often do DMs demand justification for not adhering to the established stereotropes of Faerunian back canon? How often do DMs make players jump through extra hoops and do extra dog-and-pony tricks just to be allowed to play what they'd like to play?
I never said that. I gave examples of how someone could use what's already in their stat block to come up with pieces of a culture. It could make for a wonderful sidebar or article somewhere, and that's about it. A dwarf's stonecunning/tremorsense is most useful on stone, but it can be raw or worked. A goat herder in the mountains would get use out of it, as would a miner underground. Cities with cobblestone streets and castles made of common building materials (like limestone and sandstone) would equally find good uses for such characters. And they start with two tool proficiencies out of four to choose from. But they're not limited to these options; they're just where their gifts are most useful. Not that they even have to use all of these gifts. These are just places you might see them.
And I do mean gifts. In a lot of setting, your accursed Forgotten Realms included, the several species which inhabit them are shaped by the very gods themselves. And their existence is accepted as a fact; not taken on faith. That isn't a universal constant, but it does color how they can be perceived from one table to the next. Some proclivities is unavoidable. And whatever you might think the rule is in a given setting, the players are always exceptions. They aren't limited by these hypothetical rules, and neither is the DM for that matter. And those same rules create tension; which doesn't have to be a bad thing. Narrative tension, drama, is something I think we can agree with.
Unfettered freedom can actually be stifling. Not everyone thrives under it. It's possible to be so spoiled for choice you cannot make a decision. Including some framework, however rudimentary and suggestive, isn't a bad thing. Hell, it's why we have character classes and a hard limit on 20 levels.
Not entirely, but race examples are easier to adapt across various settings.
No, they really aren't. It's possible to create an interesting culture that actually interacts meaningfully with species traits, but (a) D&D has never done that well, and (b) most 'species' or 'races' in D&D are just humans in funny hats anyway, they simply aren't different enough from human to naturally produce significantly different cultures, at most you're looking at some economic effects that D&D is utterly uninterested in modeling.
Counterpoint: most species shouldn't be just humans in funny hats.
Laziness should not be an excuse to omit interesting writing.
Humans in funny hats are the easiest for people to empathize with, which is crucial for effective story telling. And let's be honest, 90% of players and DMs don't have the time or interest in portraying completely alien beings. Instead, we borrow cultures we are already familiar with and adapt them into our fictional worlds. It's just far more efficient to communicate to your players "They're like Vikings" than to spend a hour trying to explain a totally novel culture you've invented. D&D is a game to be played, not an alternate reality to be studied.
I would say nothing in D&D 5e is a completely original idea. Everything is borrowed, stolen, adapted, or inspired from existing culture(s). Strahd von Zarovich is blatantly Eastern-European inspired, the Vestani are Roma, Theros is thinly veiled ancient Greece, Elves are Oriental, Dwarves are Scottish, Orcs are Mongols/Apache.
That looks all kinds of offensive. I also think if anyone is going to invoke loaded language like "humans in funny hats" then they should actually define what that means.
I think all elves are Oriental─a loaded and outdated term that covers most of Asia─and I have no idea where you got that from.
Yes exactly! This is why people want races to be completely separated from culture as they should be. I use "Oriental" deliberately because I mean that Western stereotype not the actual cultures themselves. Of course none of these races "have" to be like this, but if you look a how they are written in D&D lore those are very clearly the inspirations for them. You could absolutely have US-tech-bro inspired vampires in your HB world - and I personally would love to see a stoner-inspired vampire story. Orcs could be green-hippie-thrill seekers. Elves could be English monarchist-inspired, and dwarves could be survivalist/bunker-types.
You'll never get 100% separation, nor should you.
As varied as mankind, humans, can be in terms of culture, so can every other species. We also cannot lose sight of the fact that they aren't human. They can do things no human can do. They're going to develop at least some norms to embrace to take advantage of those differences.
And you invoked racist stereotypes to argue how they should be lesser than they could be.
What you are saying is "Every species in D&D should have a default culture hard-fixed to it and baked into its core statblocks in the core books, and while DMs are technically allowed to change those cultures if they have to, they are implicitly discouraged from doing so because The Game Developers have strictly defined the essence of an entire species by its Faerunian culture and changing it would annoy and confuse players who read the thirteen pages of cultural gook attached to their new character's species in the core books and mistook that stuff for required cannon instead of technically-"optional" fluff."
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc. I am not attempting to mandate lore, but such material is a useful building block for both characters and settings to consider. A DM is always free to use or disregard such material as they see fit, but prompts like this are helpful for designing builds that feel connected to a larger setting.
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc.
There should absolutely be advice on creating cultures. It just shouldn't be linked to race.
You're dragging real life peoples into this, and it's not looking good.
He's not dragging real life peoples into it, he's just recognizing that many 'races' in D&D are in fact racial stereotypes writ large.
There are two core reasons for doing away with species cultures:
Existing cultures are just (frequently offensive) stereotypes writ large. This is certainly the primary reason WotC is doing this.
It's stupid. All of the core species are spread out over the entire world, which means you should see quite large numbers of cultures (dozens to hundreds), which may or may not be species-specific depending on local politics, and even when you do see cultural isolation by species there's no reason to assign any particular culture to any particular species.
Yes, there are many levels to a culture.
There's national, regional, ethnic...and you can find those differences for every species in the game. And since the Forgotten Realms keeps getting brought up, a city like Waterdeep has a distinct culture as a metropolitan melting pot. Everyone who lives there is going to share in that common culture. Likewise, the kingdoms of Amn and Cormyr have their own distinct cultures. And that's all a good thing. Everyone who takes part in those societies, regardless of what their species is, takes part in that shared culture.
At the same time, each species is capable of things that humans and other species cannot. There may be some overlap, like with Darkvision, but they're all distinct. Right down to their essence. And it's not unreasonable to expect members of said species to gravitate towards roles which put their abilities to the most use. They're probably not seeing 100% use, but they're likely doing at least something with what they were given by their maker. Maybe orcs go into soldiery of some kind, or maybe there's just an old tradition of physical, sometimes, lethal, challenges because that Relentless Endurance doesn't care how they're reduced to zero hit points. It could be from a weapon or spell attack, or something more exotic like poison damage from extra-hard liquor. Heck, they could bob for apples longer than most since their feature overrides the normal suffocation rules.
Including some framework, however rudimentary and suggestive, isn't a bad thing.
Lore and Setting are the purview of the DM so it should appear in the DMG, and not in the PHB. They should also provide multiple suggestions for cultures to stimulate creativity not bake into the mechanics one specific culture tied to one specific setting. That's why there are many classes and extra feats to customize them, and we don't have the AD&D model where your race is also your class (except for humans).
For instance the way they have rewritten backgrounds is a great example, you get a few tools to tie your lore to mechanics (proficiencies) and a diverse bunch of examples to draw inspiration from. But the emphasis is that you can create whatever background you want and that fits with your vision.
For culture I'd like to see a similar thing in the DMG, where you get a bunch of puzzle pieces or template that you can use to build the cultures you want e.g.
Culture Template
God(s) Commonly Worshiped: Choose 1-4 and consider how the ideology of these gods influence the values of this culture Most common species: Choose 1-3 and consider how the strengths and weaknesses of these species would influence the industry and lifestyle of this culture Dominant Lifestyle: [isolated individuals, small-group hunter gatherers, herders, small agrarian towns, dense city] Preferred Geographic Area:[temperate forests, jungle, swamp, underground, oceans, lakes/rivers, mountains, desert, grasslands, polar/icy terrain] Values: What is considered desirable in either objects or people by this culture. e.g. an artisan culture might value beauty, a warrior culture might value physical strength, a magic-oriented culture might value intelligence or cleverness. Taboos: What actions or beliefs would be considered the worst or most shameful by this culture - e.g. highly religious culture might consider criticism of their gods to be taboo, warrior-centric cultures might consider cowardice to be taboo, and trade-centric cultures might consider turning away a visitor to be taboo.
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc.
There should absolutely be advice on creating cultures. It just shouldn't be linked to race.
What, because cultures have never broken down across ethnic lines in all of human history? It’s most definitely not 1-to-1, but it’s not a fictional concept either, and it’s a perfectly reasonable basis to build from, particularly in medieval-esque period before the setting has advanced to the point of allowing for ready intermingling on a large scale. Keep in mind one of the pillars of a D&D setting is that the world is relatively small pockets of civilization broken up by large tracts of untamed wilderness. Obviously the peoples of the setting aren’t just going to all keep to their own lane, but your typical citizens won’t be popping over to vacation in the neighboring country/kingdom/what have you for a week every other year.
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc.
There should absolutely be advice on creating cultures. It just shouldn't be linked to race.
What, because cultures have never broken down across ethnic lines in all of human history? It’s most definitely not 1-to-1, but it’s not a fictional concept either, and it’s a perfectly reasonable basis to build from, particularly in medieval-esque period before the setting has advanced to the point of allowing for ready intermingling on a large scale. Keep in mind one of the pillars of a D&D setting is that the world is relatively small pockets of civilization broken up by large tracts of untamed wilderness. Obviously the peoples of the setting aren’t just going to all keep to their own lane, but your typical citizens won’t be popping over to vacation in the neighboring country/kingdom/what have you for a week every other year.
LOL, within every ethnicity is far more variability in culture than there is between ethnicities. A Pole, an Australian, and a white South African (Or a Polynesia, Zambian, and a Black Detroitian) have less in common with each other than the Emperor of Japan, the Queen of the Netherlands, and the Tsar of Russia. Can we just be open and honest here? Your arguments are straight out of the white-supremacist / Alt-right playbook and no we aren't going to let you infect this community with it, and we applaud WotC for making decisions that you don't like.
What, because cultures have never broken down across ethnic lines in all of human history?
Because the way they break down across ethnic lines doesn't have a genetic correlation, it's mostly caused by accidents of history, and accidents of history are part of setting design.
Do you lot honestly believe that a DM sitting down a bunch of excited new players eager to explore their new imagination space and stretch their metaphysical legs, handing them a fifty-page document detailing the precise geopolitical calculus of a nation and explaining why both ultrarigid monoculture species-based nations and flaming outlandish racism are endemic and necessary parts of the setting, and telling them "if you don't absorb this material and stay 100% true to every last little detail I've written, I will personally punch you in the mouth, confiscate your dice, and send you home without supper" is good for the game?
If some poor new girl - or, hell, an experienced and able veteran player - wants to play a lady dwarven wizardess who abstains from alcohol because her father was an alcoholic brute and she hates the thought of ending up like him, ******* LET HER! Don't smack her across the face with a PHB and yell "but that's not how dwarves work...!" That makes you the *******, not her, and you blurdy well know it.
Including some framework, however rudimentary and suggestive, isn't a bad thing.
Lore and Setting are the purview of the DM so it should appear in the DMG, and not in the PHB. They should also provide multiple suggestions for cultures to stimulate creativity not bake into the mechanics one specific culture tied to one specific setting. That's why there are many classes and extra feats to customize them, and we don't have the AD&D model where your race is also your class (except for humans).
For instance the way they have rewritten backgrounds is a great example, you get a few tools to tie your lore to mechanics (proficiencies) and a diverse bunch of examples to draw inspiration from. But the emphasis is that you can create whatever background you want and that fits with your vision.
For culture I'd like to see a similar thing in the DMG, where you get a bunch of puzzle pieces or template that you can use to build the cultures you want e.g.
Culture Template
God(s) Commonly Worshiped: Choose 1-4 and consider how the ideology of these gods influence the values of this culture Most common species: Choose 1-3 and consider how the strengths and weaknesses of these species would influence the industry and lifestyle of this culture Dominant Lifestyle: [isolated individuals, small-group hunter gatherers, herders, small agrarian towns, dense city] Preferred Geographic Area:[temperate forests, jungle, swamp, underground, oceans, lakes/rivers, mountains, desert, grasslands, polar/icy terrain] Values: What is considered desirable in either objects or people by this culture. e.g. an artisan culture might value beauty, a warrior culture might value physical strength, a magic-oriented culture might value intelligence or cleverness. Taboos: What actions or beliefs would be considered the worst or most shameful by this culture - e.g. highly religious culture might consider criticism of their gods to be taboo, warrior-centric cultures might consider cowardice to be taboo, and trade-centric cultures might consider turning away a visitor to be taboo.
There should absolutely be a player-facing side to that; which belongs in the PH. Players shouldn't make their characters in a vacuum; devoid of information. You want to strip them of that agency.
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc.
There should absolutely be advice on creating cultures. It just shouldn't be linked to race.
What, because cultures have never broken down across ethnic lines in all of human history? It’s most definitely not 1-to-1, but it’s not a fictional concept either, and it’s a perfectly reasonable basis to build from, particularly in medieval-esque period before the setting has advanced to the point of allowing for ready intermingling on a large scale. Keep in mind one of the pillars of a D&D setting is that the world is relatively small pockets of civilization broken up by large tracts of untamed wilderness. Obviously the peoples of the setting aren’t just going to all keep to their own lane, but your typical citizens won’t be popping over to vacation in the neighboring country/kingdom/what have you for a week every other year.
LOL, within every ethnicity is far more variability in culture than there is between ethnicities. A Pole, an Australian, and a white South African (Or a Polynesia, Zambian, and a Black Detroitian) have less in common with each other than the Emperor of Japan, the Queen of the Netherlands, and the Tsar of Russia. Can we just be open and honest here? Your arguments are straight out of the white-supremacist / Alt-right playbook and no we aren't going to let you infect this community with it, and we applaud WotC for making decisions that you don't like.
Don't go there. You can point out similarities in rhetoric without resorting to accusations. We don't want yet another hostile thread that's effectively shut down because people cannot control themselves.
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc.
There should absolutely be advice on creating cultures. It just shouldn't be linked to race.
What, because cultures have never broken down across ethnic lines in all of human history? It’s most definitely not 1-to-1, but it’s not a fictional concept either, and it’s a perfectly reasonable basis to build from, particularly in medieval-esque period before the setting has advanced to the point of allowing for ready intermingling on a large scale. Keep in mind one of the pillars of a D&D setting is that the world is relatively small pockets of civilization broken up by large tracts of untamed wilderness. Obviously the peoples of the setting aren’t just going to all keep to their own lane, but your typical citizens won’t be popping over to vacation in the neighboring country/kingdom/what have you for a week every other year.
LOL, within every ethnicity is far more variability in culture than there is between ethnicities. A Pole, an Australian, and a white South African (Or a Polynesia, Zambian, and a Black Detroitian) have less in common with each other than the Emperor of Japan, the Queen of the Netherlands, and the Tsar of Russia. Can we just be open and honest here? Your arguments are straight out of the white-supremacist playbook and no we aren't going to let you infect this community with it, and we applaud WotC for making decisions that you don't like.
Right, because I totally haven’t been saying it’s only one facet of a larger setting. Let me elaborate. It is an extremely common and completely acceptable world building trope to have the various races originate from different geographic locations. Given that, their cultures will develop separately until they start encountering one another, and even then they’re not going to merge all at once. And, given that nearly every race has what amounts to a supernatural power even if it’s not described as such, that trait will influence how the culture develops; as has been said dwarves would likely first look to stone locations to establish themselves so they can take advantage of their stone sense, elves would have a leg up on magical development and wood elves would settle in lands that let them take advantage of their concealment ability, and would likely assign additional significance to nature as a whole due to it. Orcs would be better able to settle less hospitable lands with their endurance and their dash ability would make hunting game easier. All of these factors would produce different experiences for nascent cultures, and thus lead the cultures to develop in different directions. Thus leading to some distinct general characterizations a player can work with when designing a character, to flesh them out a bit. For the umpteenth time, this- like alignment- is something that is descriptive, not proscriptive. It’s a tool for fleshing out a setting into distinct elements.
PS- I do not appreciate being labeled a white supremacist; that was extremely unwarranted and hostile, and I will thank you to please not do it again.
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You do realize that there’s considerable difference between describing a culture in broad strokes and asserting that every single individual of a race is essentially cloned from a single personality, right?
No.
No, I don't realize that. Because that's not what people are asking for.
People are asking for Wizards to go back to strongly defining, and confining, all playable species save for humanity as narrowly and Tolkien-y as possible.
All dwarves live in stone cities carved into the bowels of mountains and spend every day guzzling gallons of mead, practicing their axework, and forging new axes. Hell, female dwarves don't even exist - adult male dwarves just emerge fully formed from a kiln at the bottom of a dwarven city and are handed their axe, their meadhorn, and their first Celtic beard nut before being ushered up into a forge.
All elves are 'ethereally beautiful' nature-obsessed Turbo Hippies who think of every other species in the world as less than scurrying vermin, live for a million years drinking herbal tea and composing poems about the beauty of autumn sunlight while having a new elf kid once every century, and every single one of them is a master archer even though they're five friggin' feet tall and have no muscle mass whatsoever to put into the intensely demanding task of drawing a war bow.
All orcs are howling blood-crazed primitive savages with the mental capacity of a bruised rutabaga and the general life outlook of a rabid wolverine with a porcupine quill up its ass, and are fundamentally incapable of any of the things required to be an actual society. Like building, or agriculture, or actually being able to tolerate other people's presence for more than thirteen seconds without resorting to murder - and yet despite being fundamentally incapable of doing anything that would actually support their continued existence and allow them to function as a people they're always just over the mountain in a great slobbering horde of thousands waiting to Ravage Civilized Lands.
So on and so forth. Because "That's what D&D is! It's what D&D has always done!"
It's disgusting. It's absolutely putrid and I will never tolerate it. If people are going to have that "conversation" again despite warnings to not, they're gonna have to deal with folks sharply disagreeing with the "necessity" of strongly and narrowly defining entire species as nothing but reductive and irritating stereotropes.
Please do not contact or message me.
That’s also nothing like what anyone is saying here.
What's disgusting is you are the only person here making these arguments. Nobody else thinks in terms of those stereotypes, and if they are they haven't shared them with us.
You're angrily beating a dead horse, and for what?
What you are saying is "Every species in D&D should have a default culture hard-fixed to it and baked into its core statblocks in the core books, and while DMs are technically allowed to change those cultures if they have to, they are implicitly discouraged from doing so because The Game Developers have strictly defined the essence of an entire species by its Faerunian culture and changing it would annoy and confuse players who read the thirteen pages of cultural gook attached to their new character's species in the core books and mistook that stuff for required cannon instead of technically-"optional" fluff."
Why?
Why is it such a giant flaming necessity that Wizards forcibly bludgeon everyone into using the Faerunian lore for their stuff unless the DM makes the active, painful effort of clawing all that crud back out of their game?
EDIT: After all, how often have you heard a DM say "Okay, sell me on this" when a player asks to play an atypical member of a given species? How often do DMs demand justification for not adhering to the established stereotropes of Faerunian back canon? How often do DMs make players jump through extra hoops and do extra dog-and-pony tricks just to be allowed to play what they'd like to play?
Please do not contact or message me.
Yes exactly! This is why people want races to be completely separated from culture as they should be. I use "Oriental" deliberately because I mean that Western stereotype not the actual cultures themselves. Of course none of these races "have" to be like this, but if you look a how they are written in D&D lore those are very clearly the inspirations for them. You could absolutely have US-tech-bro inspired vampires in your HB world - and I personally would love to see a stoner-inspired vampire story. Orcs could be green-hippie-thrill seekers. Elves could be English monarchist-inspired, and dwarves could be survivalist/bunker-types.
He's not dragging real life peoples into it, he's just recognizing that many 'races' in D&D are in fact racial stereotypes writ large.
There are two core reasons for doing away with species cultures:
I never said that. I gave examples of how someone could use what's already in their stat block to come up with pieces of a culture. It could make for a wonderful sidebar or article somewhere, and that's about it. A dwarf's stonecunning/tremorsense is most useful on stone, but it can be raw or worked. A goat herder in the mountains would get use out of it, as would a miner underground. Cities with cobblestone streets and castles made of common building materials (like limestone and sandstone) would equally find good uses for such characters. And they start with two tool proficiencies out of four to choose from. But they're not limited to these options; they're just where their gifts are most useful. Not that they even have to use all of these gifts. These are just places you might see them.
And I do mean gifts. In a lot of setting, your accursed Forgotten Realms included, the several species which inhabit them are shaped by the very gods themselves. And their existence is accepted as a fact; not taken on faith. That isn't a universal constant, but it does color how they can be perceived from one table to the next. Some proclivities is unavoidable. And whatever you might think the rule is in a given setting, the players are always exceptions. They aren't limited by these hypothetical rules, and neither is the DM for that matter. And those same rules create tension; which doesn't have to be a bad thing. Narrative tension, drama, is something I think we can agree with.
Unfettered freedom can actually be stifling. Not everyone thrives under it. It's possible to be so spoiled for choice you cannot make a decision. Including some framework, however rudimentary and suggestive, isn't a bad thing. Hell, it's why we have character classes and a hard limit on 20 levels.
You'll never get 100% separation, nor should you.
As varied as mankind, humans, can be in terms of culture, so can every other species. We also cannot lose sight of the fact that they aren't human. They can do things no human can do. They're going to develop at least some norms to embrace to take advantage of those differences.
And you invoked racist stereotypes to argue how they should be lesser than they could be.
Actually, what I’m saying is that having some broad strokes guidelines for cultures makes it easier to kick off role playing distinct races as distinct races, as opposed to just humans with scales, pointy ears, stocky builds and beards, etc. I am not attempting to mandate lore, but such material is a useful building block for both characters and settings to consider. A DM is always free to use or disregard such material as they see fit, but prompts like this are helpful for designing builds that feel connected to a larger setting.
There should absolutely be advice on creating cultures. It just shouldn't be linked to race.
Yes, there are many levels to a culture.
There's national, regional, ethnic...and you can find those differences for every species in the game. And since the Forgotten Realms keeps getting brought up, a city like Waterdeep has a distinct culture as a metropolitan melting pot. Everyone who lives there is going to share in that common culture. Likewise, the kingdoms of Amn and Cormyr have their own distinct cultures. And that's all a good thing. Everyone who takes part in those societies, regardless of what their species is, takes part in that shared culture.
At the same time, each species is capable of things that humans and other species cannot. There may be some overlap, like with Darkvision, but they're all distinct. Right down to their essence. And it's not unreasonable to expect members of said species to gravitate towards roles which put their abilities to the most use. They're probably not seeing 100% use, but they're likely doing at least something with what they were given by their maker. Maybe orcs go into soldiery of some kind, or maybe there's just an old tradition of physical, sometimes, lethal, challenges because that Relentless Endurance doesn't care how they're reduced to zero hit points. It could be from a weapon or spell attack, or something more exotic like poison damage from extra-hard liquor. Heck, they could bob for apples longer than most since their feature overrides the normal suffocation rules.
We should be celebrating those differences.
Lore and Setting are the purview of the DM so it should appear in the DMG, and not in the PHB. They should also provide multiple suggestions for cultures to stimulate creativity not bake into the mechanics one specific culture tied to one specific setting. That's why there are many classes and extra feats to customize them, and we don't have the AD&D model where your race is also your class (except for humans).
For instance the way they have rewritten backgrounds is a great example, you get a few tools to tie your lore to mechanics (proficiencies) and a diverse bunch of examples to draw inspiration from. But the emphasis is that you can create whatever background you want and that fits with your vision.
For culture I'd like to see a similar thing in the DMG, where you get a bunch of puzzle pieces or template that you can use to build the cultures you want e.g.
Culture Template
God(s) Commonly Worshiped: Choose 1-4 and consider how the ideology of these gods influence the values of this culture
Most common species: Choose 1-3 and consider how the strengths and weaknesses of these species would influence the industry and lifestyle of this culture
Dominant Lifestyle: [isolated individuals, small-group hunter gatherers, herders, small agrarian towns, dense city]
Preferred Geographic Area: [temperate forests, jungle, swamp, underground, oceans, lakes/rivers, mountains, desert, grasslands, polar/icy terrain]
Values: What is considered desirable in either objects or people by this culture. e.g. an artisan culture might value beauty, a warrior culture might value physical strength, a magic-oriented culture might value intelligence or cleverness.
Taboos: What actions or beliefs would be considered the worst or most shameful by this culture - e.g. highly religious culture might consider criticism of their gods to be taboo, warrior-centric cultures might consider cowardice to be taboo, and trade-centric cultures might consider turning away a visitor to be taboo.
What, because cultures have never broken down across ethnic lines in all of human history? It’s most definitely not 1-to-1, but it’s not a fictional concept either, and it’s a perfectly reasonable basis to build from, particularly in medieval-esque period before the setting has advanced to the point of allowing for ready intermingling on a large scale. Keep in mind one of the pillars of a D&D setting is that the world is relatively small pockets of civilization broken up by large tracts of untamed wilderness. Obviously the peoples of the setting aren’t just going to all keep to their own lane, but your typical citizens won’t be popping over to vacation in the neighboring country/kingdom/what have you for a week every other year.
LOL, within every ethnicity is far more variability in culture than there is between ethnicities. A Pole, an Australian, and a white South African (Or a Polynesia, Zambian, and a Black Detroitian) have less in common with each other than the Emperor of Japan, the Queen of the Netherlands, and the Tsar of Russia. Can we just be open and honest here? Your arguments are straight out of the white-supremacist / Alt-right playbook and no we aren't going to let you infect this community with it, and we applaud WotC for making decisions that you don't like.
Because the way they break down across ethnic lines doesn't have a genetic correlation, it's mostly caused by accidents of history, and accidents of history are part of setting design.
What's "realistic" or not doesn't matter.
What matters is what's good for the game.
Do you lot honestly believe that a DM sitting down a bunch of excited new players eager to explore their new imagination space and stretch their metaphysical legs, handing them a fifty-page document detailing the precise geopolitical calculus of a nation and explaining why both ultrarigid monoculture species-based nations and flaming outlandish racism are endemic and necessary parts of the setting, and telling them "if you don't absorb this material and stay 100% true to every last little detail I've written, I will personally punch you in the mouth, confiscate your dice, and send you home without supper" is good for the game?
If some poor new girl - or, hell, an experienced and able veteran player - wants to play a lady dwarven wizardess who abstains from alcohol because her father was an alcoholic brute and she hates the thought of ending up like him, ******* LET HER! Don't smack her across the face with a PHB and yell "but that's not how dwarves work...!" That makes you the *******, not her, and you blurdy well know it.
Please do not contact or message me.
There should absolutely be a player-facing side to that; which belongs in the PH. Players shouldn't make their characters in a vacuum; devoid of information. You want to strip them of that agency.
Don't go there. You can point out similarities in rhetoric without resorting to accusations. We don't want yet another hostile thread that's effectively shut down because people cannot control themselves.
Use this space and time to educate, not belittle.
Right, because I totally haven’t been saying it’s only one facet of a larger setting. Let me elaborate. It is an extremely common and completely acceptable world building trope to have the various races originate from different geographic locations. Given that, their cultures will develop separately until they start encountering one another, and even then they’re not going to merge all at once. And, given that nearly every race has what amounts to a supernatural power even if it’s not described as such, that trait will influence how the culture develops; as has been said dwarves would likely first look to stone locations to establish themselves so they can take advantage of their stone sense, elves would have a leg up on magical development and wood elves would settle in lands that let them take advantage of their concealment ability, and would likely assign additional significance to nature as a whole due to it. Orcs would be better able to settle less hospitable lands with their endurance and their dash ability would make hunting game easier. All of these factors would produce different experiences for nascent cultures, and thus lead the cultures to develop in different directions. Thus leading to some distinct general characterizations a player can work with when designing a character, to flesh them out a bit. For the umpteenth time, this- like alignment- is something that is descriptive, not proscriptive. It’s a tool for fleshing out a setting into distinct elements.
PS- I do not appreciate being labeled a white supremacist; that was extremely unwarranted and hostile, and I will thank you to please not do it again.