The new Gothic Lineages UA is the sort of ambitious rules shake-up I get super excited for. Additionally, it has the hallmark of any good D&D supplement - it gets my mind racing with possibilities.
To jump over to the other most commonly written-about game on this blog, in World of Warcraft, two of my favorite playable races are the Undead and the Worgen. For those who are unfamiliar, Worgen are basically Warcraft's werewolves (though unlike werewolves, their wolf-hybrid form is their default, and which they cannot stay out of when in dangerous situations - i.e. combat.)
Both of these races are, in a way, human (there are actually now two "human" races, as they recently added "Kul Tirans" as a playable race, which is just another nation, though there's some hints that the big, burly Kul Tirans might have mixed ancestry with the ancient human ancestors known as the vrykul - I'm getting off topic here). Indeed, the two races' struggles with their humanity and to what extent they wish to retain it (generally the Worgen, being part of the Alliance, are more pro-human, while the Undead, being in the Horde, are more about leaving it behind).
Of course, in WoW's mechanics, all four of the "human" races are just mechanically separate options you pick at character creation.
Up until now, I've sort of wondered how I could, say, re-create my Undead Rogue in D&D. The class is pretty simple (I think Mastermind would be the most appropriate subclass for his personality) but the race is tricky outside of homebrew.
But then, how would you do a playable undead race?
Well, they just did: Reborn.
Therefore, Darsino Aligheri, could easily inherit the human cultural (and in one case physiological) traits associated with humans (which, to be fair, are not many). He'd be medium in size and then get the various things that Reborn get, and indeed, the "used to be the undead minion of a necromancer" fits pretty well with the concept of the Undead in World of Warcraft - that they are former members of the Undead Scourge who regained their free will after an attack on the Lich King.
WotC has been talking about how they're changing the approach to race in their games. I think in part this is a response to some of the problematic implications of things like Orcs having a penalty to intelligence (even though there are no real Orcs to be offended, there are plenty of peoples who have been historically disparaged as being less intelligent, which is often used as an excuse to treat said peoples inhumanely.)
There is also an argument to be made from a gameplay perspective, though: with the older rules in the PHB, you'd be suboptimal playing an Elf Barbarian, Paladin, or Strength-based Fighter, given that they don't get any bonuses to Strength. While I think that people who are willing to play a character based purely on the concept and just roll (literally) with whatever implications that has for the mechanics are great, I've certainly found myself torn a bit between a race I want to play for the flavor and one that would fit the mechanics best.
With the new changes to how ability score bonuses work, I'm eager to see more Half Orc Wizards and Gnome Barbarians.
But I think what I really enjoy about the new changes is the recognition that race has always carried two connected by separate ideas: physiology and cultural identity. One of the differences between our world and a fantasy world like those found in D&D is that in our world, there's only one humanoid race: humans. While we have many different cultures, and some of us look different from one another, humans are, at a physiological level, basically all the same. But in a D&D world, there are creatures like tieflings, who have horns, and lizardfolk, who have reptillian scales and teeth. There is a level at which this would fundamentally change your capabilities and experience of the world.
And so, these are the things that are preserved in "race" moving forward.
But there are other things that tend to come under that umbrella that are now gaining some nuance. For example, Elves know the Elvish language, which makes sense if we assume they were born into an elvish society surrounded by elves whose connections to their culture go back many generations.
If your elf was orphaned on the road and taken in by a family of dwarves, though, why the hell would you just happen to know Elvish? Surely it would make more sense for you to have learned to speak Dwarvish. There's nothing inherent to being an elf that lets you speak the language, for the same reason that the fact that my dad was born in Hungary doesn't mean I was born able to speak Hungarian (I've tried to learn some, but dear lord it's hard to learn a language with basically no cognates in English.)
Likewise, there are traits like "Elvish Weapon Training" that, just in the name, suggest that this is a cultural practice in which young elves are trained in, well, those sorts of weapons. If you didn't grow up in that culture, you probably didn't learn those. Indeed, maybe your elf-raised-by-dwarves is a lot more comfortable with a war hammer than a longbow, because that's the sort of weapon that you were expected to learn how to use as a teenager.
What's so appealing about tabletop RPGs is the freedom they allow the players and GMs to make the game the one they want to play. Rules create important boundaries for those games, but this sort of expansion doesn't break those in any serious way.
What's interesting, then, about the Gothic Lineages is that they represent something that is neither really culture nor... race, in the classic way. This is something that happens to a person during (or after) their life. And in this case, the change is purely physiological, rather than cultural.
I do wonder if, perhaps in a 6th Edition, we might see beings like Aasimar represented as a kind of "alternate lineage," which means they could be of any racial origin, but touched by this angelic guide to become Aasimar.
The other thing I think is huge is that this introduces the idea of having multiple creature types. Looking to something like Eberron, it's clear that the Warforged ought to be Constructs. There are two problems, though, that come with this notion, and those are the reasons I assume they are, instead, humanoid. The first is that Constructs tend to represent something that is unthinking, with no inner consciousness, whereas Warforged are clearly meant to be sentient and have souls. Mechanically, most healing spells do not function on Constructs or Undead. And because you definitely want to be able to cast Cure Wounds on your Warforged paladin, that would be a real dealbreaker.
By making the rule that a player character can have two creature types - and also by ruling that they can be affected by things that affect either type - opens up a world of possibilities. Warforged could be both Construct and Humanoid - allowing things like Cure Wounds to affect the Humanoid part. But Aasimar could also be both Celestial and Humanoid. Genasi could be Elemental and Humanoid.
And this, I think, opens the door to some really unexpected results (that can be both in the player's favor and against them.) Consider, for example, that a Reborn character can be turned by a Cleric. But they're also going to be immune to some effects that harm non-undead (like Negative Energy Flood - which will actually heal them instead!)
Even setting aside the fact that this entry suggests pretty strongly to me that, along with the Gothic Subclasses, we're going to be getting a Ravenloft Campaign Setting book, I'm already thinking of new characters I'd love to roll up (I've already told the DM of my Curse of Strahd game that if my paladin dies - though I really hope she doesn't because I love playing her - my next character might claw his way out of a grave somewhere in Barovia, his memory missing.
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