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A review by chrisshorb
Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e by Camille Kuo, Eugene Marshall, Bien Flores, badmoon Art Studio, Talon Dunning
4.0
This book arrived on my doorstep in late June 2020, on the heels of Black Lives Matter protests and announcements by Wizards of the Coast (publishers of Dungeons and Dragons aka D and D) that they will be addressing problematic aspects of the concept of “race” in the game. That said, this book was the outcome of a Kickstarter I backed in February; so the conversation has been going on for quite a while before this moment.
The book 100% matched my thinking on the idea of “race” in D and D (hereafter I’ll use the less loaded term of “folk”). Split racial feats up into inherited and learned. Ie, nature and nurture. They only did one sub-folk per main folk - there are only Hill Dwarves, no Mountain Dwarves. But it’s all hackable.
I already have removed ability scores as having anything to do with a character’s folk.
I might also go one step further and allow players to roll or choose cultural feats to create an actual culture in the world. That could be fun. Even things like Tiefling fiendish origins could become cults or something.
Last thing on Darkvision and mixed-folk ancestries. If a player decides to NOT take Darkvision, I might give them an extra cultural feat or skill proficiency that they have learned to “keep up”.
There are also 2 adventures in the book which I will read later today. The adventures give you a way to introduce and normalize the multi-cultural ideas in this book. I think that’s a great call.
Overall a solid book. But for me still a bit more work to be done before I’m satisfied with how folk are handled in D and D.
The book 100% matched my thinking on the idea of “race” in D and D (hereafter I’ll use the less loaded term of “folk”). Split racial feats up into inherited and learned. Ie, nature and nurture. They only did one sub-folk per main folk - there are only Hill Dwarves, no Mountain Dwarves. But it’s all hackable.
I already have removed ability scores as having anything to do with a character’s folk.
I might also go one step further and allow players to roll or choose cultural feats to create an actual culture in the world. That could be fun. Even things like Tiefling fiendish origins could become cults or something.
Last thing on Darkvision and mixed-folk ancestries. If a player decides to NOT take Darkvision, I might give them an extra cultural feat or skill proficiency that they have learned to “keep up”.
There are also 2 adventures in the book which I will read later today. The adventures give you a way to introduce and normalize the multi-cultural ideas in this book. I think that’s a great call.
Overall a solid book. But for me still a bit more work to be done before I’m satisfied with how folk are handled in D and D.