Gizmodo: With D&D’s Next Rulebook, Character Creation Will Never Be the Same

In Cauldron of Everything, players are given the framework to throw all those mandated traits and benefits out the window and build their own benefits, regardless of the race they want to choose for their character. “We provide a new rules option that allows you to take some of the traits in your character’s race — Elf, Dwarf, Half-Orc, or something else — and modify those traits so that you can better reflect the story you have in mind for your character,” Crawford said of the new process. “We even include in this book a template for creating a lineage for your character that is completely disconnected from any of the race options in the game. It’s basically just us saying ‘fill in the blanks.’”