Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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It's been pointed out. The major problem with that argument is that it's straight up wrong -- biological essentialist arguments have never shied away from using the term 'race'.
I've mentioned the issue a few times, after all my own ancestors were murdered by 1930s & 1940s Germans for being of another species. It was so bad my Grand Father renounced his faith when he moved to Scotland in the 1940s.
That doesn't really demonstrate that the argument is wrong at all.
The claim 'even worse than' would require either that the use of species in bioessentialist arguments was worse than the use of the word race (it was basically identical), or that the use of species was more common (it was and is much less common). The reality is, bioessentialist arguments have go back pretty much forever, and using 'species' instead of 'race' was a fairly short lived fad within that long history.
(Apologies to anybody I've upset here. Some of my previous messages were a little, uh, rude. Gonna try and do better.)
Yurei said more or less what I was trying to say, in #382. Here's my version, for closure or whatever:
You'll get over it. I really think, all the criticisms I've heard about species so far, people are gonna get over it. Because it's small potatoes, and the trade-off is worth it. Even if you, like me, don't really have any ethnic diversity in your play group, and you, unlike me, don't feel weird about anything in the game as it is, so you don't think this change will do anything positive for you; but you think it'll do something negative for you in the form of [immersion/accuracy/inciting theological debates/etc], so it's a net loss for you, I think you're going to get over it. And not in a, "well I have to get over it because it's not like I can travel back in time and fix it" kind of way, but in a, "I haven't thought about it at all, I guess it didn't matter" kind of way.
Is that projection on my part? Do I only say it because I myself don't think it's a big deal even now? Yeah, probably. Maybe? I don't know. I mean, I've been that person before, nitpicking some change or other, only to discover I don't actually care. So yeah, probably projection. Still, it's what I think. Sometimes being aware of the reason you're thinking something doesn't stop you from thinking it.
It's dangerously cold out, where I am. I hope everybody's safe.
At the end of the day, race was a pretty bad word to use. Species is better, even if not perfect or ideal. However, I've yet to hear a word that would be better in the context of the game. I'd love a better word, but all the ones suggested either already have an in-game use, or aren't specific enough to the intent that we have.
I'm curious as to what adjective they'll use. That was about the only redeeming feature of the word "race"; we could easily adapt it to be an adjective (ie "racial"). I guess we'll see.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You seem to have misread my post. I'm saying that using the word "species" gives shitty people more legitimate-sounding ammunition for their bullshit. The historic prevalence of one word or the other has no bearing on anything I'm saying.
Then your problem isn't with the specific word, but with the actual mechanic itself. There's never going to be an agreement, because they want a more neutral s re, whereas you want a word that highlights the racism. The only solution, realistically, is to remove the current of having mechanics tied with your species/race/whatever.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Well that’s certainly not true. I may find it pretentious, but “ancestry” doesn’t have the baggage that both race and species do, and there are plenty of other words besides. I’m only pointing out that the word “species” does not seem to solve the problem I had thought it was trying to, and no one has yet articulated any way that it does. Maybe I’m wrong and the goal of the change wasn’t to be less offensive to people of color (a good and worthy goal), but in that case I guess I just don’t understand the need to change the word at all.
It bears repeating, yet again.
Ancestry, lineage, kin, kindred, or folk. There. Problem solved.
[REDACTED]
Ancestry doesn't have the same baggage for you. It does elsewhere, and where I'm from, it's worse, much worse. Species has purely scientific connotations (and judging from the many, many comments on this thread, that's true for a lot of people and seems to be predominant), whereas ancestry, her at least, is a dog whistle for racism. A rather broken one where even the racists avoid using it because it's too obvious.
Out of the 350+ posts on this thread, the vast majority of posts either side seem to think that the word "species" has significantly less baggage than "race", with only two posters saying that they're the same (even if the two sides disagree on whether the move is a positive one or not).
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I'm going to echo this, where I'm from ancestry and heritage come very close to race in terms to harmful baggage and usage. Species on the other hand doesn't come anywhere close to any of the three. Heritage and ancestry not only intersect with racism in my part of the world, but also general xenophobia and classism. I would much rather see species used than those terms.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
And yet it seems to be what most actual PoC would prefer.
“Purely” is patently false, but as I originally stated, the scientific connotations are why it’s worse. It lends legitimacy to the racist bullshit. “The word the majority of the affected people prefer and which is increasingly standard in the industry is also bad” doesn’t explain how “species” solves the problem.
Have you even read this thread? The vast majority of posts are arguing about biological definitions. If that doesn’t demonstrate the extremely obvious problems, I dunno what does.
If anyone sincerely believes that species is any less racist than race, I can only assume they don’t really have to deal with racism much in their day-to-day lives.
There I was thinking that it was going to link to a poll, or something, rather than just a Tweet discussion. I'm not wading through all of that hunting for what you're hoping I might pick up on.
Thanks for removing the explicatory context for using the word "purely" then calling it patently false.
You're welcome to your opinion.
You've not shown this.
Yes, I've read it all. If you think that people using an obviously poor definition for a word to argue it's the wrong word to use, then ancestry isn't a good substitute.
So...the racism and bigotry that I, and others, have faced, observed and experienced is lesser than yours because what we''ve experienced is different to yours?
You know what, I'm done. I'm not even going to bother coming back to this thread, and I think it's obvious why.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's a video link to a longer-form discussion. It's pretty interesting and does a better job of explaining the conversation than I'm capable of doing.
I didn't remove any context? Not sure what you're getting at here.
It's not really my job to show that you haven't shown something. You've said "Well I don't have a problem with species." That's great for you, but doesn't solve the problem.
What the hell, dude? That's nowhere near anything I've said. You're the one arguing that "species is fine" over the objections of the people who've been injured by it.
Welp, seems like it isn't long until this thread's locked. I don't understand why we can't just use kin, kind, kindred, lineage, or similar but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[REDACTED]
One thing of note: in the latest survey they have a question about word preference that has two alternatives and they ask you about your reasoning for ranking things in the order you did. So for those that prefer something other than species, you now have an opportunity to give that feedback officially.
The alternative options are:
- Species
- Subtype, with your “type” being your creature type (humanoid, ooze, etc.)
- Kind
Of these, I would rank species the highest - for reasons already discussed. Followed by Subtype, followed by Kind.
Subtype is a bit sterile and modern for my taste, starting to appear in English in the 1800s as a word, but type is a fairly old word and already has usage within D&D, so this isn’t the most egregious application of modernity. My biggest issue with type is how sterile it is - like with creature type, the word “type” does not really have any close connection to a classification of organisms, so you need to add the qualifier Creature at the front. That’s fine, but two-word solutions are hardly the most elegant of options.
Kind has a lot going for it - it linguistically makes sense and dates back to Old English, so it invokes an archaic feel. But I have a huge problem with the word - it has multiple inapplicable definitions (such as meaning “friendly”). A word that adds an unnecessary additional linguistic hurdle of figuring out the proper definition from multiple (something that most English speakers might do instantly, but could prove a bit awkward for non-native speakers) hardly seems like the best option.
Species is a far more accurate term than race in this context. I'm happy with the change.
I wound up putting subtype at the top, because it's reasonably clear what it means, has history in D&D already (monster entries in 3.5e had type and subtype -- and subtype for humanoids tended to be the same as their race), and doesn't have any extraneous meanings.