Your Race is Not Your Culture

The topic of how D&Done (yes, we know it's called 'one D&D' but it is supposed to be the final edition) is handling "race" has come up a few times lately, and there is a lot of mixed reactions about how it's being done. We compare this to the new Advanced 5th Edition, which we feel is not a bad way of doing things.

To wit - your race is not your culture, or nation, or anything of the sort. It's a heritage and should deal only with your genetic traits, and nothing else.  In A5e you choose your heritage, and then you choose your origin - your background, what you've done and where you've done it. Essentially, your homeland. This is what give you skills and ability score modifiers.

And honestly, we feel this is a much better way to do it.
Consider.  You're playing a dwarf. You were raised among, say, halflings. Let's look at dwarves in basic 5e.

Dwarven Combat Training: You have proficiency with the battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer, and warhammer.

Tool Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the artisan’s tools of your choice: smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools.

Stonecunning: Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.

So, from that list, which parts do you consider to be "genetic"? Does our halfling-raised dwarf just wake up one day knowing how to swing a battleaxe, know how to craft alcohol, and know the history of stonework?

Or is that more of a cultural thing?
In A5e, they give tool proficiency a new name: creator's blessing:

You were born with the gift of creation. You gain proficiency with one set of artisans’ tools (either brewer’s supplies, mason’s tools) or smith’s tools. During a long rest , you can use these tools for crafting instead of sleeping and still receive the full benefits of the long rest. 

We don't quite agree with this being part of the lineage, but removing the other aspects and tying them to the character's origin / background works much better in our books. Now let's see how they look so far in D&Done:

Forge Wise. Your divine creator gave you an uncanny affinity for working with stone or metal. You gain Tool Proficiency with two of the following options of your choice: Jeweler’s Tools, Mason’s Tools, Smith’s Tools, or Tinker’s Tools.

Stonecunning. As a Bonus Action, you gain Tremorsense with a range of 60 feet for 10 minutes. You must be on a stone surface or touching such a surface to use this Tremorsense. The stone can be natural or worked. You can use this Bonus Action a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

They completely altered how stonecutting works, and it feels more natural - more connected to something organic than something learned. They also gave a reason for the dwarf's craftsmanship, but we still feel like that's not genetic, and perhaps should be an option for dwarves - something they can pick rather than automatic. Another nice touch is that ability score modifiers are now tied to Background, and are not inherently genetic.

What this does however, which we agree with, is allow for cultures to be less homogenous and more diverse. In A5e, there are 'racial cultures' as optional origins, but they're not restricted to any specific heritage, and there's plenty of cultures which specifically do not tie into any given bloodline. So, you can have a dwarf, elf, and orc all from the same city.  They'll have different lineages, of course, but can have the same culture if they wish and will have the same option for ability score modifiers if they do, and can choose different backgrounds that reflect the character's walk of life.

The next thing to consider is how to do mixed heritages.  Half-Elves and Half-Orcs - but also things like Aasimar and Tieflings. In 5e, they were a 'fixed' race, and in D&Done, Tiefling are given three "planes" they can be connected to, while aasimar are once again, missing - though it is said that this is because they were recently rebuilt and put into a sourcebook.  Fine.

Half-blooded characters in D&Done are given a 'mix and match' option between the two lineages the character's descended from, and A5e does similar, where you draw some from one parent and some from another.  A5e takes this a step further however, allowing "planetouched", where you can be aasimar or tiefling 'straight', or of course now can blend it with any other heritage. Neither D&Done or A5e have really addressed genasi yet, but you can see how they would go about it. And again, of course, these are now divorced from cultural traits and are more or less strictly genetic.

For those who like to construct their own game worlds, this separation of lineage and culture is a godsend. You don't need to tear apart the race to tailor it to your own setting quite as much. The lineages are now more 'bare bones', and there's now a lot less that you may be required to tweak to make something new, and most backgrounds and origins are generic or archetypal enough that they can fit into most game worlds. We see this as a step forward.

Ah, but let's talk about one more thing.
Alignment.

A5e pretty much removed alignment from the game. There are some ways to pick up alignments, or of course the game master can simply use alignments as part and parcel of the game world. But D&Done (and to some extent later D&D 5e) have divorced alignment from race.

And boy, was there a stink about that. But here's the thing - is alignment genetic? Is a goblin born among halflings going to still be chaotic evil? We like to think this would be a setting choice, not hard-wired into the mechanics. It isn't genetic unless the game master explicitly makes it genetic in their campaign (and has at least some sort of logic behind it). It could be cultural, but even then that shouldn't be a rigidly enforced thing, either.  "Everyone from this city here is Chaotic Evil. Every single last one of them."

Yeah, that might not sight right with a lot of people.

Alignment should, we feel, be a personal choice. The way the character views the world and how they weigh social responsibilities and personal desires. Can there be races with more ... inflexible ... alignments?  Certainly.

Just ... you know ... remove free will.  We do this with some setting specifically where it deals with outsiders. Creatures hand-crafted by the divine to enforce a specific ethos, and thus (usually) incapable of acting outside that ethos. In such a case, alignment is, in fact, a straightjacket - because it's supposed to be. These beings may have minds, emotions, etc, but what they don't have is free will - they will act a certain way, because it is hard-wired into their very existence.

Then again, these aren't normal life forms, either.  So there's that. You could apply this to, say, elementals or other creatures which are not flesh and blood, and say that in your game world, only mortal races have free will. This would make sense, and add an interesting element to the setting.

And then throw in a twist ... a fallen angel.  How the hell did that happen?  Or even more interesting, a redeemed demon.  And that dryad that's hitting on you - can it actually feel love, or is it just mirroring what it thinks love is?

Divorcing cultural traits and alignment from lineage, we feel, makes for a stronger product overall, because it explicitly tells new game masters that there can be more variance in setting than the editions before did. Experienced game masters, of course, throw stuff out the window and tweak things all the time - which is great, but new game masters and players should be told up front that there's leeway to make things different.