Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e

The idea of Player Characters (and NPCs) in D&D and other RPGs and Races of those characters has been a subject of hot debate for years and just a few days ago Wizards of the Coast announced they would be revisiting and revising how the mechanics of Races work in the game and how they are presented in the narrative of the worlds/lore.

Fittingly, I was recently given a review copy of Ancestry & Culture by Arcanist Press which takes the various mechanic traits granted by your choice of Race for characters in D&D 5e, breaks them into two distinct categories (Ancestry and Culture) and offers guidelines on how to implement them without veering into an area of thought where some races are inherently stronger/weaker smarter/less intelligent than others or Evil by nature (alignment).

One of the more interesting modifications it makes is having Ability Score modifications come from the cultural side and not ancestry. While this may seem initially counter-intuitive, the rule-set make the case that the driving force between why (for example). Orcs are stronger than humans isn’t biological and offers, “Cultures do sometimes promote certain behaviors and lifestyles, however, which can increase one or more of a character’s ability scores.”  So Orcs get a bonus to strength because Orc society tends to value strength.

The rules give guidance on Ancestry and Culture for Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome,  Halfing, Human, Orc and Tiefling characters and most interestingly allows for Mixed Ancestry and Diverse Culture combinations.  so, for example, a  Dwarf raised in elven society would retain traits from their Dwarven Ancestry (Size, Speed, Darkvision, Dwarven Resilience and Dwarven Toughness) but may have a mixture of Elven and Dwarven Cultural traits (such as taking Elven Weapon Training instead of Dwarven. And knowing a Cantrip rather than a tool proficiency).

If all that wasn’t enough the rule set includes two adventures to help get a newly created set of characters into a campaign.

For myself, I really enjoy the option these rules offer and plan on adding them into any future 5e Campaigns I run.

I hope you’ll check them out. And if you supported the recent Black Lives Matter Humble RPG Bundle you may already have it as it was included.

If you’d like to pick up a copy and support the RPG Academy please use this link to purchase it  from DriveThruRPG Ancestry and Culture.  If you want even more options you can also pick up the additional options available by Custom Ancestry and cultures.

Highly recommended.

Additional links:

WotC’s statement about Diversity and Dungeons and Dragons

Thanks!

Michael