I will debate Planescape and Dark Sun. Dark Sun is a very maybe, given the Psionics rules backlash on all 5e versions (Mystic = hated, Tasha's = hated, UA = hated), it's unlikely that it will come around, especially giving the popularity of Eberron which does Dark Sun more universally friendly and the racism inherent in the original setting.
Nonetheless, I still think there is a high chance Dark Sun is one of the ones.
They could just reprint the psionics options from Tasha's. Yes, they're controversial, but they also are what we got, and WotC doesn't seem inclined to give us more (if they do, it will probably be something aligned with how Eberron treated Dragonmarks or how Strixhaven is treating its college features as feats).
(I'll also argue against the "racism inherent in the original setting" statement. The slavery is justified by the cruelty of the world, and 4e's Dark Sun book walked back the ****-origin of the Mul. Dark Sun can definitely be done in a non-problematic way, and according to Wizards of the Coast's own surveys, Dark Sun is one of the two most popular settings that hasn't been translated to D&D 5e yet. The other was Planescape.)
Planescape is more... Spelljammer and Planescape will be nodded at. They will have refrences. But they're not very 5E beyond refrences, they're not "core" enough.
Spelljammer has been nodded at (Rime of the Frostmaiden with the Nautiloid, Dungeon of the Mad Mage with the Squid Ship, Spelljamming Helm, and Asteroid Dungeon, Mordenkainen's with the Giff, Volo's with the Neogi and reference to Mind Flayers travelling to other worlds). I agree that it's not popular or "core" enough to get a 5e book anytime soon, but Planescape is an entirely different matter.
Planescape is one of the most popular settings in D&D's history. It's technically already a part of D&D 5e, it's right in the DMG's section describing the Planes of Existence. Descent into Avernus shows how they could translate the other planes to D&D 5e in a modern way. WotC has published a ton of Planescape material since the 3 Core Rulebooks (Maruts, Steel Predators, and fiends in Mordenkainen's, Hollyphants in Descent into Avernus, etc).
Planescape is popular enough to get translated to D&D 5e. Especially with the new D&D Magic: the Gathering set and Jeremy Crawford's Vi character being canonically a planeswalker from Eberron that lives in Sigil. IMO, Planescape and Dark Sun are the most likely D&D settings to be translated to D&D 5e in the near future now that Ravenloft, Eberron, and Exandria all have D&D 5e books. (Ignoring M:tG settings and that entirely new setting the WotC team is working on.)
I reckon we'll see Dragonlance or Greyhawk, and honestly I'd prefer the latter.
Greyhawk isn't distinct enough from the Forgotten Realms (or Exandria) to get its own setting book. It doesn't have enough of a following, especially without Mike Mearls at the head of the D&D team now (he was a huge fan of Greyhawk, but was involved in a scandal and was fired, so it's less likely for Greyhawk to come now than it was when he was working there, and since we didn't get Greyhawk when he was basically in charge of D&D, I'm fairly inclined to believe that we won't be getting it now).
Dragonlance is more problematic than most of the other classic D&D settings (representation of women and Native Americans, its extremely religious roots, its ableist portrayals of Gully Dwarves and, too an extent, Tinker Gnomes, etc), and if WotC made a Dragonlance book, it wouldn't be popular enough amongst younger fans that it would probably be a flop. It also doesn't have much new to it that D&D 5e doesn't already have from Forgotten Realms and Exandria. (Also, the fact that Fizban's is about to come out also makes me think that a Dragonlance book would be too similar in theme, especially with the book referencing both Dragonlance and Council of Wyrms.)
While I would dearly like to disagree with you about the Greyhawk part I have to agree, there is a small group of people (compared to the other settings) who still uses it, and I'm part of it as a DM. There have been fan made adaptations to 5th. Lovingly done and of surprisingly high quality. But the Greyhawk fans are still fighting the edition wars like there is no tomorrow. (Me personally I adapt to 5th what I can or just change it completely.) That said even that mixed group of 1st, 2nd, 3.5, 5th, OSR, whatever the Gygax last edition was called is minuscule. Greyhawk fans got living Greyhawk in 3.5 and that's going to be it for a while. And then we have not spoken yet about the controversial figure of Gygax himself or what one of his sons is doing with the new TSR thing. Yeah I wouldn't touch the IP with a ten foot pole.
I'm really going to regret saying this and potentially dumping gas on a fire, but nobody is complaining about fictional characters being racist. The complaint is twofold:
In many cases, it is all but confirmed that the racism is correct (such as by saying that one race is inherently inclined towards being good and another evil). There's a difference between a human in the Eberron setting assuming that because an orc is an orc that they must have innate violent tendencies and a human in the Forgotten Realms setting doing the same. The former is textually, objectively wrong, but in the case of the latter, they are not wrong to think that. Even if an individual orc is not evil, the text states they are imbued by their gods with a strong tendency in that direction.
In the case of certain races (again, orcs), the negative stereotype bears a disturbing resemblance to real world stereotypes about racial minorities (strong, unintelligent, violent, sexually aggressive). And before anyone tries to read that in bad faith and say "oh, so you're saying you think black people are orcs" as I've seen people responding to this do in the past, pointing out that a stereotype exists is not the same thing as holding that stereotype. The Star Wars prequels got flak for having Watto look like an Antisemitic caricature, and you don't need to actually be an Antisemite to see the connection.
None of this is to say that I am against racial stereotypes in fantasy. You shouldn't expect a nonhuman to exhibit human behavior, and my favorite examples of this are lizardfolk and tortles. I don't even think it is inherently racist to have some fantasy species exhibit behaviors that we'd consider to be antisocial. However, I do think there is valid criticism of some fantasy racial tropes that can't be dismissed as simply the snowflakes getting offended about everything.
Tl;dr, having a fictional character be racist is fine. Having the text say that their racist views are basically correct is not so much.
I'm not going to go over most of this, because it's been done hundreds of times now, and I agree with you on most of the points.
I, as an autistic person, love playing Lizardfolk. Not that I've actually ever played one, because I'm always the DM, but Lizardfolk are one of my favorite races because of their social quirks. To me, it's relatable, and I can understand how to roleplay someone that doesn't understand social cues or emotions because that's my life. The same applies to Gnomes and Warforged. I love these three races, they're my favorite races in the game, because they're so relatable to me. Roleplaying Gnomes brings out my hyper-fixations on things that I like (reading, D&D, music, video games, etc) and my ADHD side (where they're all frantic, disorganized, and twitchy), and Warforged help me tell stories about discovering your place in the world, being different from everyone else, and trying to be accepted by the world around you as a person, which are also incredibly relatable to me.
And this is the correct way to build races. Give them traits that people can relate to, give them a place and story in the world, and make them be important to some niche in your world. Don't make them caricatures, or 1 dimensional stereotypes, and definitely don't mock them or say that they're wrong for being the way they are. Embrace them and help the people that want to play them explore what it means to play that race. That's one of the major ways how you keep races from roleplaying exactly like humans do. When they embody negative tropes, that's when you get into the problematic area. Gnomes, Warforged, and Lizardfolk can embody specific aspects and personality traits similar to those that people with Autism, ADHD, or a vast swathe of different background experiences, and that's absolutely fine as long as it's done in the right way.
That's the difference between the concerns raised about Drow and Orcs and the traits that Gnomes, Warforged, Lizardfolk, (you said Tortles), and other races can embody.
I brought up Tortles because of their reproduction. They don't develop the urge to procreate until later in life, which WILL affect the developmental psychology of a species when that is the norm, and young tortles will usually have their parents die before they fully mature. This, for them, isn't a tragedy. It is normal, and if they never meet a human and live among humans, it is simply the natural order of things to not have parents when you reach adulthood.
So, this is more long term than related to the next Unearthed Arcana, but with the announcement of something big coming in 2024, any guesses on what that will be? I don't think it will be 6th Edition, as 5e is doing pretty good, and it has been promised to be backwards compatible.
Im expecting there to be alot of either variant/optional features for or reworks of certain classes/subclasses. Maybe making the way races work post-Tasha's a standard, idk. I dont expect them to change the core mechanics of how 5e works though, since they are suggesting it will backwards compatible
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5.5 with the errata, the ranger changes, Tashas character creation as part of the core or on the same lvl as feats, and some other small updates to what went wrong with 5th. Clarifications of rules that needed sage advice. And a general revamping or scrapping or the alignment system and cultural system like we are already seeing with Drow and Vistani. That would be my guess.
With the announcement of the new monster book, which will reprint alot of stuff with changes, I wonder if we will soon see UA for the new/changed races that they intend to include.
I havent counted, but they said the book will include 30 races. Is that just a collection of the races from other books compiled together or will they be introducing new ones?
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Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
With the announcement of the new monster book, which will reprint alot of stuff with changes, I wonder if we will soon see UA for the new/changed races that they intend to include.
I havent counted, but they said the book will include 30 races. Is that just a collection of the races from other books compiled together or will they be introducing new ones?
They said it was races from other books, but updated to be in line with Tasha's.
With the announcement of the new monster book, which will reprint alot of stuff with changes, I wonder if we will soon see UA for the new/changed races that they intend to include.
I havent counted, but they said the book will include 30 races. Is that just a collection of the races from other books compiled together or will they be introducing new ones?
They said it was races from other books, but updated to be in line with Tasha's.
Yes the races in the Mordenkanian's Multiverse will all be "updates" of previously playable races, and they were very emphatic on "setting agnostic" so I'm guessing all published races (maybe excluding PHB) except Eberon, Ravinica and Theros (and Acquisitions?)... I think if you tally them all up, to include elf sub races and maybe the tiefling variants, you'll get to 30 (and if you think about it a lot of those races appear in Volos or Mord's anyway and this book is basically a "revision" of those two books' bestiaries). Monsters will also be updates, no "new" content there.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
We're in a weird world, where (for Strixhaven and the next book at least) books are being announced before relevant UA is.
Better than the other way, which would be releasing the books without UA because you don't want to spoil the book (like they did with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount).
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
We're in a weird world, where (for Strixhaven and the next book at least) books are being announced before relevant UA is.
Better than the other way, which would be releasing the books without UA because you don't want to spoil the book (like they did with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount).
I guess, but in EGtW's defense, it has some of the best non-core book subclasses in it of any 5E book.
I was wrong when I said that we wouldn't be getting any new Unearthed Arcana until after Strixhaven was released. And I'm glad that I was wrong, too. I love Spelljammer, and can't wait to give feedback on these races.
(It's a bit strange that there weren't Scro in this UA, though. They're a classic Spelljammer race.)
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I was wrong when I said that we wouldn't be getting any new Unearthed Arcana until after Strixhaven was released. And I'm glad that I was wrong, too. I love Spelljammer, and can't wait to give feedback on these races.
(It's a bit strange that there weren't Scro in this UA, though. They're a classic Spelljammer race.)
Now I have gotten over my unmanly (or womanly or unholy or impious or insert gender, alignment free clause here, technically maybe I should use unpersonable) grief, I must admit that there is some comedic relevance to Spelljammer. While I dislike the setting in comparison to any other setting, I really like the fact that this means we might get space subclasses!
I’m VERY excited about the prospect of making an Autognome.
The Astral Elf race is…odd.
I like it, I mean…but it’s going to take some thought on how to roleplay them in a fun way.
The autognome could be interesting, but it's pretty much an overpowered, less flavorful (in my opinion) warforged at the moment.
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This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco. No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
I’m VERY excited about the prospect of making an Autognome.
The Astral Elf race is…odd.
I like it, I mean…but it’s going to take some thought on how to roleplay them in a fun way.
Astral elf is just elf² from the way they are described, even more long-lived, even more disspassionate, even more snobbish
The fact that giff, who are associated with firearms, don't get firearms or any features that benefit firearms buggs me. Yes they are doing away with racial proficiencies, and i appreciate how they manage to portray "incredible physical strength" with features rather than ASI's becuase that's probably the future of making orcs, half-orcs and what have you feel physically strong without tying it to that stat, but there should be something included. Even if they are unwilling to tire firearms directly to the "reroll 1's" mechanic, we should at least see some variant of the soldier background for giff mercenary bands (available to everyone) who can replace the tool or language with proficiency in either the musket or pistol, and whose background feature ties less to their ties with their former mercenary band and more towards them simply being familliar with the use of gunpowder? Like maybe that is not a feature tied closely enough to the game world, maybe it is, i don't know.
Hadrozee seems like they are getting the "move up to 1000 feet per turn without spending movement by falling" of the simic hybrid as well as the shenanigans thief rogues get with their object interaction. Probably very fun to play and not nessesarily game-breaking
I want to know how radiant word/ thunderclap interact with shape self, do i get to suddenly extrend my AoE spells by several feet?
Frustrating that the yuan-ti and grung get immunity to poison and yet any attempt at a construct race does not, yes both of those are very poison-centric and both on the fringes of what is normally allowed, but still it feels weird. Probably makes sense for warforged lore-wise, i have no idea how they have been previously portrayed
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
I’m VERY excited about the prospect of making an Autognome.
The Astral Elf race is…odd.
I like it, I mean…but it’s going to take some thought on how to roleplay them in a fun way.
I want to know how radiant word/ thunderclap interact with shape self, do i get to suddenly extrend my AoE spells by several feet?
Nope. You might be able to convince your DM to let you use touch spells from it though
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This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco. No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
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While I would dearly like to disagree with you about the Greyhawk part I have to agree, there is a small group of people (compared to the other settings) who still uses it, and I'm part of it as a DM. There have been fan made adaptations to 5th. Lovingly done and of surprisingly high quality. But the Greyhawk fans are still fighting the edition wars like there is no tomorrow. (Me personally I adapt to 5th what I can or just change it completely.) That said even that mixed group of 1st, 2nd, 3.5, 5th, OSR, whatever the Gygax last edition was called is minuscule. Greyhawk fans got living Greyhawk in 3.5 and that's going to be it for a while. And then we have not spoken yet about the controversial figure of Gygax himself or what one of his sons is doing with the new TSR thing. Yeah I wouldn't touch the IP with a ten foot pole.
I'm not going to go over most of this, because it's been done hundreds of times now, and I agree with you on most of the points.
I, as an autistic person, love playing Lizardfolk. Not that I've actually ever played one, because I'm always the DM, but Lizardfolk are one of my favorite races because of their social quirks. To me, it's relatable, and I can understand how to roleplay someone that doesn't understand social cues or emotions because that's my life. The same applies to Gnomes and Warforged. I love these three races, they're my favorite races in the game, because they're so relatable to me. Roleplaying Gnomes brings out my hyper-fixations on things that I like (reading, D&D, music, video games, etc) and my ADHD side (where they're all frantic, disorganized, and twitchy), and Warforged help me tell stories about discovering your place in the world, being different from everyone else, and trying to be accepted by the world around you as a person, which are also incredibly relatable to me.
And this is the correct way to build races. Give them traits that people can relate to, give them a place and story in the world, and make them be important to some niche in your world. Don't make them caricatures, or 1 dimensional stereotypes, and definitely don't mock them or say that they're wrong for being the way they are. Embrace them and help the people that want to play them explore what it means to play that race. That's one of the major ways how you keep races from roleplaying exactly like humans do. When they embody negative tropes, that's when you get into the problematic area. Gnomes, Warforged, and Lizardfolk can embody specific aspects and personality traits similar to those that people with Autism, ADHD, or a vast swathe of different background experiences, and that's absolutely fine as long as it's done in the right way.
That's the difference between the concerns raised about Drow and Orcs and the traits that Gnomes, Warforged, Lizardfolk, (you said Tortles), and other races can embody.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I brought up Tortles because of their reproduction. They don't develop the urge to procreate until later in life, which WILL affect the developmental psychology of a species when that is the norm, and young tortles will usually have their parents die before they fully mature. This, for them, isn't a tragedy. It is normal, and if they never meet a human and live among humans, it is simply the natural order of things to not have parents when you reach adulthood.
So, this is more long term than related to the next Unearthed Arcana, but with the announcement of something big coming in 2024, any guesses on what that will be? I don't think it will be 6th Edition, as 5e is doing pretty good, and it has been promised to be backwards compatible.
Im expecting there to be alot of either variant/optional features for or reworks of certain classes/subclasses. Maybe making the way races work post-Tasha's a standard, idk. I dont expect them to change the core mechanics of how 5e works though, since they are suggesting it will backwards compatible
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
5.5 with the errata, the ranger changes, Tashas character creation as part of the core or on the same lvl as feats, and some other small updates to what went wrong with 5th. Clarifications of rules that needed sage advice. And a general revamping or scrapping or the alignment system and cultural system like we are already seeing with Drow and Vistani. That would be my guess.
With the announcement of the new monster book, which will reprint alot of stuff with changes, I wonder if we will soon see UA for the new/changed races that they intend to include.
I havent counted, but they said the book will include 30 races. Is that just a collection of the races from other books compiled together or will they be introducing new ones?
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
They said it was races from other books, but updated to be in line with Tasha's.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Yes the races in the Mordenkanian's Multiverse will all be "updates" of previously playable races, and they were very emphatic on "setting agnostic" so I'm guessing all published races (maybe excluding PHB) except Eberon, Ravinica and Theros (and Acquisitions?)... I think if you tally them all up, to include elf sub races and maybe the tiefling variants, you'll get to 30 (and if you think about it a lot of those races appear in Volos or Mord's anyway and this book is basically a "revision" of those two books' bestiaries). Monsters will also be updates, no "new" content there.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
We may have already gotten the UA for Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse: the Kobold, and maybe even the Hobgoblin of the Feywild.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
We're in a weird world, where (for Strixhaven and the next book at least) books are being announced before relevant UA is.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
Better than the other way, which would be releasing the books without UA because you don't want to spoil the book (like they did with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount).
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I guess, but in EGtW's defense, it has some of the best non-core book subclasses in it of any 5E book.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
I was wrong when I said that we wouldn't be getting any new Unearthed Arcana until after Strixhaven was released. And I'm glad that I was wrong, too. I love Spelljammer, and can't wait to give feedback on these races.
(It's a bit strange that there weren't Scro in this UA, though. They're a classic Spelljammer race.)
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Now I have gotten over my unmanly (or womanly or unholy or impious or insert gender, alignment free clause here, technically maybe I should use unpersonable) grief, I must admit that there is some comedic relevance to Spelljammer. While I dislike the setting in comparison to any other setting, I really like the fact that this means we might get space subclasses!
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
I just hope we get new rules for Jamming.
I’m VERY excited about the prospect of making an Autognome.
The Astral Elf race is…odd.
I like it, I mean…but it’s going to take some thought on how to roleplay them in a fun way.
The autognome could be interesting, but it's pretty much an overpowered, less flavorful (in my opinion) warforged at the moment.
This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco.
No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
Astral elf is just elf² from the way they are described, even more long-lived, even more disspassionate, even more snobbish
The fact that giff, who are associated with firearms, don't get firearms or any features that benefit firearms buggs me. Yes they are doing away with racial proficiencies, and i appreciate how they manage to portray "incredible physical strength" with features rather than ASI's becuase that's probably the future of making orcs, half-orcs and what have you feel physically strong without tying it to that stat, but there should be something included. Even if they are unwilling to tire firearms directly to the "reroll 1's" mechanic, we should at least see some variant of the soldier background for giff mercenary bands (available to everyone) who can replace the tool or language with proficiency in either the musket or pistol, and whose background feature ties less to their ties with their former mercenary band and more towards them simply being familliar with the use of gunpowder? Like maybe that is not a feature tied closely enough to the game world, maybe it is, i don't know.
Hadrozee seems like they are getting the "move up to 1000 feet per turn without spending movement by falling" of the simic hybrid as well as the shenanigans thief rogues get with their object interaction. Probably very fun to play and not nessesarily game-breaking
I want to know how radiant word/ thunderclap interact with shape self, do i get to suddenly extrend my AoE spells by several feet?
Frustrating that the yuan-ti and grung get immunity to poison and yet any attempt at a construct race does not, yes both of those are very poison-centric and both on the fringes of what is normally allowed, but still it feels weird. Probably makes sense for warforged lore-wise, i have no idea how they have been previously portrayed
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Nope. You might be able to convince your DM to let you use touch spells from it though
This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco.
No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.