Negative Racial Ability Score Modifiers Officially Removed

[tdenmark]

Dungeons & Dragons Officially Removes Negative Racial Ability Score Modifiers From Rules.
comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-negative-race-ability-score-modifiers/

Dungeons & Dragons players will no longer have a negative ability score modifier when building a character of a certain race. Last week, Dungeons & Dragons officially released updated errata for a number of their sourcebooks and adventures. The Volo's Guide to Monsters errata was particularly important in that it removed the negative ability score modifiers for playable kobolds and orcs. While kobolds originally had a -2 modifier to their Strength score, and orcs had a -2 modifier to their Intelligence, the updated rules remove those modifiers entirely from the game. Additionally, the errata also removes the orc's "Menacing" trait with the "Primal Intuition" trait, which grants players proficiency in two of the following options - Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, and Survival.

Does this make D&D a better game?

Be nice.

[christopher]

Seems like a neutral issue.

I like the concept of removing negative modifiers for the sake of simplicity. But, obviously, the change will change the 'flavor' of the game.

[tdenmark]

I could see it as part of overall consistency with the general mechanic where everything is based on addition not subtraction.

[captainjapan]

This topic would be invisible to non-members if it moved to the 5E sub-board.

[Red Baron]

I heard a story on NPR a week or two ago, where the newscaster spoke to a representative from WotC/Hasbro. The spokesman said that this was being done in response to current events rather than because of any game mechanic issue.

I'm not familiar enough with newer editions to know whether a mechanical improvement on the game. I do like the idea of more simplicity and less ability score crunch, but that's probably because there aren't ability score adjustments in OD&D (unless you interpret prime requisites as literally altering ability scores). A hobbit with a 16 strength is still considered a "weakling" and gets a -1 to open doors , which I think is quite silly and enjoy a lot.

If this is being done for reasons of "movement towards giving the player characters individualism as opposed to forcing them to fit within cultural stereotypes", as stated in the article you linked, then it is strange that that orcs and kobolds still get ability score increases in this new errata. Do you know if they also making this change to elfs, dwarfs, etc?

Oct 6, 2020 13:57:12 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

This topic would be invisible to non-members if it moved to the 5E sub-board.

That seems like it would be a prudent move.

[terrex]

Oct 6, 2020 13:57:12 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

This topic would be invisible to non-members if it moved to the 5E sub-board.

Agreed. This board should be a safe harbor from such nonsense.

[jeffb]

Oct 6, 2020 13:26:18 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

I could see it as part of overall consistency with the general mechanic where everything is based on addition not subtraction.

Which I'm pretty sure IIRC is the way things were done in 4E. Each race would get a bonus to one score, and then one bonus to a choice between 2 others.

[Deleted]

It doesn't affect my life or the way I run my games for better or worse. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

[Punkrabbitt]

Oct 6, 2020 14:19:37 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

The spokesman said that this was being done in response to current events rather than because of any game mechanic issue.

I think that might be the wrong reason to make this game change. It's not making a better game, it's just appeasing a group of people who probably have little to do with the game itself. I lived through the "D&D is Satanic" scare of the 1980s, and I'm still not 100% sure the changes they made to the game because of that made things better or worse.

[akooser]

It's good for 5E, 5E's target audience and those of us that run it. I can't say if it makes D&D as a brand any better or worse.

[Deleted]

I've moved the thread.

I've also just found out that we have a 5e subboard.


As to the overall issue, I think it makes for a fun variation. From the article quoted by tdenmark:

The updated rules reflect previous comments by the Dungeons & Dragons team that promised better representation and a movement towards giving the player characters individualism as opposed to forcing them to fit within cultural stereotypes within the game's lore. While players can still choose to use the cultural generalities of D&D's various campaign settings when creating a character, the updated rules allows for greater expression and also gives DMs more freedom to create their own worlds where the standard D&D cultural stereotypes aren't present.

Sounds consequential to me. Don't look at this from the OD&D/OSR bubble. Look at this from the perspective of teenagers who don't read much epic fantasy any more , who consider "Baldur's Gate" to be "pretty oldschool", and who have had to cope with a splatbook culture where you need to buy fifteen supplements just to find out how orcs work. They don't want to be Legolas, Gimli, and Holger Carlsen, any more. They want to be Thrall of the Frostwolves, Yennefer of Vengerberg, and the Knights of Hyrule. Depicting those characters with D&D remains difficult if you follow the cultural backgrounds for the races given in the core books. So, fixing this is probably smarter than it might seem, at first.

[talysman]

When I saw the news, I thought "Good. Now all they need to do is remove positive racial ability score modifiers, reduce the impact of ability score modifiers in general, and change all other modifiers to 'has advantage/disadvantage', and I might consider playing 5e."

As for doing it for social reasons: fine with me. Even in game terms rather than real world terms, I'd rather see races treated as modifiers to appearance and culture, rather than a source of bonuses and penalties.

[akooser]

Yeah like Rafael said! I run 5E for my kids and a bunch of lgbtq+ mid school, high school, and college age. Most of them ask smart questions about why race, among other things. None of them have heard of Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and only know vaguely something about the Forgotten Realms. I think it's great that their character inspirations are coming from Hollow Knight, Dragon Prince, and things like Kipo.

[hamurai]

Oct 6, 2020 13:26:18 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

I could see it as part of overall consistency with the general mechanic where everything is based on addition not subtraction.

You still get negative modifiers when your ability score is 8 or lower. With the point-buy character creation rules, 8 is the default score, you can't get lower than that, meaning you have a -1 modifier. If you create your characters buy rolling the scores like our group did, you can have lower ability scores (a score of 3 would be a -4 mod). Getting a -2 ability score modifier would result in a default score of 6 (-2 mod), which doesn't make a lot of difference in game-mechanical terms.

Side note: Natural ability scores can be as high as 20 in 5E (+5 mod), which means the overall power level is a little higher than in previous editions (not speaking of 4E, which I never played). If you point-buy your ability scores and max out your prime ability, you can start with a score of 17 (16) if your race gets a +2 (+1) score modifier and get to a score of 20 by 8th level (or 6th level if you play a Fighter). A 6th-level Fighter has a Proficiency Bonus of +3 which means we can have (for example) and attack modifier of +8 (or even +10 with the Archery Fighting Style) for a 6th-level Fighter.


My guess was that they wanted to remove bad racial stereotypes ("dwarves and orcs are ugly/grumpy/generally less likable", "elves are frail"...) and focus on the racial strengths. It's a way of thinking that probably influences how we treat the other races and cultures, even if unconsciously. It may even help to reduce racist ways of thinking in real life in that you unconsciously learn to look at the positive aspects of other "races"/cultures and not the negative.

[Deleted]

What hamurai and akooser have said: I'm thinking more in the following terms:

Look at the video below. How, do you think, could you reasonably "reenact" what you see here under D&D rules, even with 1e and 2e rules?

Like, don't get cute on me: Not with "mah houserulez", or with supplement XYZ. Just "by the book", with minimal tweaks? Don't judge too fast, it'll get tricky.






THAT's how far "our" way of D&D is from fantasy mainstream, even of fantasy with traditionalist tendencies.
WotC needs the game to adapt to these modern tastes, badly, or the youngsters will start playing other stuff.

[thegreyelf]

Meh. It's virtue signaling, completely politically motivated (and possibly mandated by Hasbro) because WotC got very publicly called out over their racist and sexist hiring and employment practices so they're trying to save face and do damage control...which appears to be working.

But if you really take the time to look at it, it's not even being done well.

Great, so as an orc I no longer get -2 to Intelligence because it's somehow insulting that one species (the term "race" has ALWAYS been problematic when what we're talking about are literal species) is less intelligent then others, but high elves are STILL smarter than me with their +1 to Intelligence, and that's not insulting...I guess because they're LESS smarter than me than they were before?

Funny how that works.

[asaki]

Humans get +1 to EVERY stat in 5E, so I don't feel much incentive to choose any other race.

[hamurai]

[Disclaimer: Power-Gaming Alert]
It's nice for those Jack of All Traders-characters maybe, but usually you'll focus on some stats and don't need a +1 in the others. Then, a +2 STR or DEX might be a better "build".

Some other races' abilities weigh that out easily, like weapon and armour proficiencies: Elf Wizards get longswords & longbows, Dwarf Wizards get to cast in medium armour and at 4th level may select a feat so they can cast in heavy armour while not even being slowed down and not needing minimum STR because they're a dwarf. Ever wanted a dwarf wizard in magical plate armour? 5E is your thing.

And if you're playing with Feats, starting with 2x +1, a bonus skill and a Feat is usually better than a +1 to every stat. Some feats even raise one stat by +1 and allow even more focus on your main stat.

[hamurai]

Oct 9, 2020 13:38:02 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Meh. It's virtue signaling, completely politically motivated (and possibly mandated by Hasbro) because WotC got very publicly called out over their racist and sexist hiring and employment practices so they're trying to save face and do damage control...which appears to be working.

But if you really take the time to look at it, it's not even being done well.

Great, so as an orc I no longer get -2 to Intelligence because it's somehow insulting that one species (the term "race" has ALWAYS been problematic when what we're talking about are literal species) is less intelligent then others, but high elves are STILL smarter than me with their +1 to Intelligence, and that's not insulting...I guess because they're LESS smarter than me than they were before?

Funny how that works.

I guess the point is, no one is stupider than humans    (I'll not point out RL examples, I'm sure you know where to look for examples.)

If you completely removed Racial Ability Score Modifiers (RASM), you'd have humans with masks (and maybe a small-/big-/fat-/slim-suit). RASMs still work as they did when there were positive and negative modifiers, they're enforcing racial stereotypes, but now only "good" ones, like "dwarves are tougher than humans" and "elves are more intelligent than humans".

Instead of RASMs you could use racial minimum ability scores and still enforce these stereotypes without the mechanical advantage, like a minimum INT for high elves, a minimum CON and STR for mountain dwarves. But point-buy character generation won't work well for this method as you'd have other races with all the same stats if they have to use at least a, say, 13 in these requisite abilities.

That said, most players I've seen choose the race because of the RASMs to get higher scores for their prime abilities, like elf wizards, dwarf fighters, halfling rogues... I guess the official term is "iconic characters"...

In the end, I guess as long as you have "races" in fantasy games you'll have racial stereotypes.

[tdenmark]

Oct 7, 2020 1:33:33 GMT -6 @rafael said:

What hamurai and akooser have said: I'm thinking more in the following terms:

Look at the video below. How, do you think, could you reasonably "reenact" what you see here under D&D rules, even with 1e and 2e rules?

Like, don't get cute on me: Not with "mah houserulez", or with supplement XYZ. Just "by the book", with minimal tweaks? Don't judge too fast, it'll get tricky.






THAT's how far "our" way of D&D is from fantasy mainstream, even of fantasy with traditionalist tendencies.
WotC needs the game to adapt to these modern tastes, badly, or the youngsters will start playing other stuff.

what? that's pretty much how I've been playing D&D since 1982. Deities & Demigods was our monster manual.

[asaki]

Oct 9, 2020 23:59:40 GMT -6 hamurai said:

It's nice for those Jack of All Traders-characters maybe, but usually you'll focus on some stats and don't need a +1 in the others. Then, a +2 STR or DEX might be a better "build".

In my experience, almost everything in 5E is handled with skill checks, so I like having those +1s since you never know what you'll need:

player: I'm going to look under the bed, I know that's where he keeps his treasure.

DM: Roll me an "investigation".

player: *rolls* Nevermind, I didn't find anything.

or

DM: Roll me an "arcana" check.

player: *rolls* I got a 24.

DM: Okay Mister Muggle, you know everything about this ancient magical artifact.

[hamurai]

To me you describe the wide randomness of the d20

In our group we have a player with a +8 in Perception and he has failed all three rolls in the last session. My character has a -2 in Medicine and succeeded two times out of three.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2020 3:55:22 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

what? that's pretty much how I've been playing D&D since 1982. Deities & Demigods was our monster manual.

Booh. That wasn't the question!

[tdenmark]

Oct 11, 2020 2:14:09 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Oct 10, 2020 3:55:22 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

what? that's pretty much how I've been playing D&D since 1982. Deities & Demigods was our monster manual.

Booh. That wasn't the question!

It was meant as a joke.
Humor falls flat online, incredibly hard to do unless you're a genuinely funny person. (I'm not very - though I try)

[Deleted]

Trick is, I was making a joke, too.

[tdenmark]

Oct 11, 2020 0:17:32 GMT -6 hamurai said:

To me you describe the wide randomness of the d20

In our group we have a player with a +8 in Perception and he has failed all three rolls in the last session. My character has a -2 in Medicine and succeeded two times out of three.

I'm really loving 5e the more I play it. I agree that it relies way too heavily on skill checks and players looking for solutions on their character sheet instead of using their wits. I have a simple formula to help mitigate this to some degree, a flow chart:

Is it possible? No = Failure. Yes? Is there a risk of consequences to failure? No = success. Yes? Resolve action.

When it comes to resolving the action, as DM I urge them to solve the situation themselves before making a random roll. Also, depending on how clever I judge their attempted solution to be I will give them a modifier, usually Advantage or Disadvantage roll.

[Finarvyn]

An interesting issue. A series of thoughts on the matter:

(1) I think that for game play one needs to decide if species (I agree with Jason on the "race" word, but I use it most of the time anyway) should have any impact on the game. I can imagine a game where you can pick any type and get zero bonus, but I can also imagine a game where the type matters. From a design perspective, this is a key decision.

(2) If one decides that the type of creature SHOULD matter, then the question turns into whether or not it should matter the same for everyone. Does each +1 on one stat mean that another has to be -1? Fairness seems to imply that the +/- numbers ought to balance out in some way, so if an ogre (for example) might be +4 strength and +4 constitution then you need to find -8 to distribute somewhere. Star Trek fans who have ever tried to stat out vulcans recognize this problem -- read the fan stories and vulcans are clearly superior in strength, constitution, dexterity, and intelligence so I guess they would have to get nuked in charisma and wisdom. Ugh.

(3) I think that with time I have drifted to where I prefer fairness in character creation. I like the fact that 5E stresses point build for stats over rolling, because why shouldn't we all get to start out with the same cool factor for characters? Hit points are done by an algorithm, and I like that. So with those parameters I like the fact that all race/type/species give the same basic value, but to do that you NEED the occasional minus to offset the plusses that are awarded. (And, yes, I know that giving humans a feat or +1 everywhere unbalances that, but I like the idea that humans have some advantage somewhere. In my home game I offer humans the feat AND the +1 everywhere and still hardly anyone wants to be a human.) So in that view I'm a little disappointed that WotC would consider removing the minuses. Every choice should have BOTH good and bad (You can fight better, but you can't throw spells. That kind of thing.) because the bad makes a player think about how to play the character.

(4) I guess that the solution would be to redefine "average" and give zero to larger bonuses. In other words, suppose an orc gets +2 to one stat and -2 to another. Redefine things so that the -2 is the zero and so the stat bonuses become +4 to one stat and +0 to the other. By moving the scale two points in order to zero-out the orc, the human would get +3 to every stat (the old +1 and an additional +2 to move the zero). I'm not sure we gain anything but stat inflation, but the orc might not "feel bad" anymore.

(5) Should we care if orcs "feel bad" or not? They are imaginary creatures, after all. If a play can't handle playing with a minus to a stat, maybe that player shouldn't play orcs. Personally, I find that having a minus to a stat somewhere helps build personality. I remember flawed characters years later but hardly ever remember the godlike ones. One of my favorite characters in the last decade or so was a wizard named Bane who was adventuring in 5E Ravenloft and was blinded by Jenny Greentooth, so he had some sort of radar or something so he could function but his eyes had melted out. Elric is an awesome literary character, and one thing that makes him great is his unnaturally bad health so that he has to use Stormbringer to stay healthy and this challenges his ethics because of the way Stormbringer keeps him alive. Even Superman has his kryptonite, which keeps him from being invincible and helps to make him an interesting character.

Like @ampleframework said, none of this will affect my home game anyway.

[Finarvyn]

Oct 11, 2020 4:53:31 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

I'm really loving 5e the more I play it. I agree that it relies way too heavily on skill checks and players looking for solutions on their character sheet instead of using their wits.

I pretty much only run 5E with my current group nowadays. They like it a lot because of the options (lots of classes, lots of races, etc) and the rules are pretty well written overall.

The thing that everyone seems to forget is that skills can be totally optional, even thought the official character sheets all have spots for skills. I've run some sessions where I disregard skills altogether and if I need a roll I can ask for a "dex check" or "wisdom check" or whatever. I think that messes with the thief a little, so when the thief player wants to do something sneaky I usually offer advantage in the dex roll.

In the same way, if you don't want players counting squares then take away the battlemat. You can (1) do a game totally "theater of the mind" so they can't count squares, or (2) play with minis on a blank table without squares or hexes and ignore exact measurements. The point is that a clever DM can nudge the players to use or ignore distances as the DM likes.

5E doesn't HAVE to be complex, if you don't want it to be that way.

[Deleted]

I do have one more very brief thing to say about this book - I suppose the response to it ways more about the culture and expectations with modern D&D as contrast to old school D&D.

This is a splat book/expansion/supplement or whatever you want to call it. That's my reading of the situation, anyway. It's like saying Eldritch Wizardry changed D&D's core three booklets. It did but it didn't. It did if the group adopted it. My understanding is that the Tasha's Cauldron book is an expansion on the 5e core rules in the exact same vein as the previously aforementioned Eldritch Wizardry for OD&D, or Unearthed Arcana for AD&D. It's a book of campaign options for DMs and players that add onto the core rules and it's meant for a specific campaign setting and style.

Which, like I said before, wouldn't affect my game even if I were still using 5e, because I'd simply say "well, that's not the campaign I run". Now, if they changed the core rules and no longer printed the main books as they currently exist I could see why some people might have stronger opinions on that. Especially people who have invested copious amounts of time or money in the current edition. I got news for ya, though. There's gonna be a sixth edition someday. Hasbro is a massive business organ. They exist to generate profits. It's something we never have to concern ourselves with in the OD&D fandom or wider OSR because ours is a perpetual labor of love, but it is what it is.

Now, I'm really done.

[tdenmark]

Oct 11, 2020 5:23:46 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

You can (1) do a game totally "theater of the mind" so they can't count squares,

5E doesn't HAVE to be complex, if you don't want it to be that way.

Exactly. 90% of the game is in the mind's eye. 10% on the game table with a few props as needed at times. That's why D&D is better than any movie, rivaled only by books.