Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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you mean the 0 authority you have?
sure ill respect the lack of authority you command
but also, considering its moreso a companys free speech, you really dont have a say at all, and theyve expressely stated, including off dnd beyond, but also on it, that they have ****ed up, and are changing it, and are not taking anyone saying they didnt, seriously. No one has to convince you, or anyone else that disagrees, and its been made clear by the staff here, that we arent here to convince you, your opinion is just that, your opinion, and your welcome to have it. elsewhere, where no one that matters, cares because your wrong
This is honestly kind of a pointless argument in my opinion. We should be proud of WotC for changing the word race and getting rid of something that’s hurt so many people.
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms. My pronouns are she/they.
I like reading and writing, but I’m not much of an artist.
Agreed
Mx. Otter (They/them/theirs)
Terry Pratchett & Brian Jacques. Best authors of all time. Change my mind.
Extended Signiture
If WotC have made their minds up and its definitely changing to Species the Mods might should close the thread... Leaving it open implies that there is some debate to be had on the matter and just prolongs a pointless discussion. (for the record I don't care of they don't call it Race any more, I'd have prefered a more Fantasy word than Species).
I feel like I've said my piece. I'm responding because I think you've really misunderstood where I'm at.
First, I wasn't literally talking about my authority. It was an example of the attitude of others, so if you won't accept my lack of authority, would you also be willing to not accept others lack of authority?
Second, I expressly said that I am convinced. It seems as though you're attacking me for a position I don't actually hold. Or maybe I'm not understanding you and you're on the other side of the fence. You do think that I'm wrong that race should be changed to another word?
Third, if WotC really isn't open to any further discussion they should probably close this thread and any other thread that gets opened on the topic.
The most-recent feedback survey thing asked about a few alternatives to "species." So in theory it's an open question. ("Race" is definitely out, though, and "species" was not initially chosen as the replacement on a whim.)
no i was making a generalized statement with "you" sorry if that wasnt clear, kinda tired of seeing the whole "but not everyone thinks it is, or is convinced" when its been made very clear by the company and their property that this is their stance and that those that disagree with them are not being listened to and do not matter in this case
but ill be honest about the lack of authority thing, ill listen to some of the other folk here, that are way more active in the community and have shown via their posts in the past,that they are not racists or rude, rather then some random that either keeps making alts to post on this thread and troll it that have been happening quite repeatedly, or just made their first post here here and it was just to say everyone else is wrong (again, not you, but thats what keeps happening, like so many comments have been deleted from those types of accounts it isnt funny)
and thirdly, this thread wasnt made to discuss if race was a bad term or not, it was made recognizing that it was a bad term, and that we might want other options then species, thats why this hasnt been shut down yet, cuz the convos supposed to be about that
Different people, different experiences. I got exactly the opposite reaction from an African American player back 40 years ago in 1E AD&D. He had an issue both with the term race and the fact that dark skinned Elves were evil. He did not have an issue with evil Orcs. I have actually had less problems more recently, but then players arre more aware of these kinds of things recently too.
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..
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....why does every single hidebound over-traditionalist yaybo think Wizards is doing this shit on a whim specifically and solely to piss off Old Head players who cannot stand the idea that someone might have started playing AFTER the eighties?
They're not doing this for no reason. As has been explained MANY TIMES in the previous THIRTY-ONE PAGES of thread, they're doing this because D&D has a long sordid history of being racist and exclusionist. Wizards needs to go further than other companies do to show that they're committed to changing this fact, since other people's games don't have fifty years of exclusionism to live down.
You might think it's a stupid pointless nothingburger. Other people disagree. They've been disagreeing for years, in this thread and many others like it. You think ignoring those people, telling them they're a bunch of thin-skinned weenies who're bad for D&D and should just quit playing any and all games forever, is the solution. Wizards has officially decided to disagree with that solution.
You can get over your disgruntlement with Wizards deciding everybody deserves a chance to play D&D, or you can continue to make everybody's life miserable by fighting the decision every step of the way through sheer, undiluted, overwhelming spite.
Your call. Unfortunately.
Please do not contact or message me.
I don't care about what you do at your table. Never have. You want to keep calling critters by 'Race' in your play space with your group, be my guest. Your group knows what it wants and likes and I'm not going to say you nay. Again - never have. I know better, it's not my place.
What I DO care about, what IS my concern, is what goes into the official books everyone has to use. That is something that does affect me and my table, and furthermore it affects some of my friends on this board. I don't want Genetically Evil People in my game - if it's playable, it gets the same full range of choice and will as any other playable critter. I don't want outdated dismaying terminology in my books if I can help it. I think the books would be better if they reflected an attitude of mindful inclusion rather than an attitude of callous exclusionism. This change away from the word 'race' is one small but important piece of that attempt to reflect a mindfully inclusive attitude.
Yeah, the forums suck at being inclusive. Always have. I've never advocated trusting the forums to dictate what you do at your table within your group. We can answer questions or pose discussion, but we don't have seats at your table and have no right to impose upon it. The flip side of that is that you have no right to impose upon me and mine, either. My table's been using the word 'species' for many months prior to Wizards making the switch and we're not going to switch back to 'race' just because some forum yaybo tells me I'm not based enough to embrace my whiteness or whatever idiotic nonsense they're trying to feed me.
Don't ever let me tell you what to do at your table. Do not, in turn, tell me what to do at mine, or tell me I don't get my fair say in the official books we all have to use.
Please do not contact or message me.
I think you are fundamentally missing the point of this thread, and I don’t think Yueri’s posts are helping either, so wanted to provide a different voice.
This thread has nothing to do with what you do at your own table. If you want to keep using Race out of habit, that’s fine - I know my tables probably will be for quite a while, simply because that is the word engrained in our minds. And, if one has never personally used Race within the context of D&D in a derogatory manner, that is fine. Using the term race is not, in and of itself, racist—that line is crossed when one purposefully uses the term in a racist manner, uses the term to dog whistle, or to specifically to mock Wizards’ language change because they are wilfully blind to the terminology’s history within the game.
Ans that history is fairly dark - and hardly a “revisionist interpretation of the history of the game”. There is ample evidence that founding members of TSR were, in fact, racist. Heck, one of them is very much alive and very much dedicating their entire life to complaining about how Wizards removed racism from the game (including his trying to publish a new rulebook for a TSR game that refers to the black race as a certain N-word and specifically defines them as being less intelligent than white races). There’s also the fact that Gary was an outspoken supporter of eugenics decades after eugenics was debunked. The fact he was fairly overt in his adding racial stereotypes (particularly his negative views on tribal cultures) into the game. Etc.
Wizards does not have the same benefit many players have—most players can honestly say “we never used Race in an offensive way at our table,” but Wizards has to say “We bought a company that used Race offensively and, admittedly, we have made some mistakes on that front as well since our purchase.”
And that is what this thread is about. Wizards has already determined “we do not want to use a term that we used offensively, for our future books we will be using a different term.” That’s fine—there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. What you and your table do is irrelevant, this is about what Wizards is doing.
I have my players reference them them as
Genus
> Species
i.e.
Elf
Wood Elf
High Elf
Glitter Elf
I agree 100% on the Hobgoblin and Minotaur artwork designs being terrible. They took what could be awesome, unique creatures and turned them into awkward anthropomorphized generic characters with different heads.
The minotaur's hooves look straight out of World of Warcraft's cartoonish designs.
DnD needs to take a lesson from MtG and bring over some of the more realistic fantasy artists to drive their character/creature art.
100% agreed. their MtG style is in most cases on point and far better then D&D. I'm still advocating for a total blend of D&D and MtG with using MtGs setting as the baseline. But i'm a minority for that.
Btw:
I think i found my issue with species/heritage/ancestry as a replacement for race. The words are too long and to many syllables. Race is just 4 letters. So any replacement should be similarly short.
But "species" isn't more inclusive, in fact, it is less inclusive. This notion that they're completely different species parallels some of the more screwed racist ideologies far closer than simply saying they're different races. I'm all for changing the terminology, but not if it makes it worse than it already is. They should change it to something that isn't as divisive. Ancestry is fairly neutral. That'd be my vote.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Gary died in 2008. You seem to be confusing some of the actions and beliefs of his son, Ernest, with a dead man.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Ernie Gygax is who I was referencing - he was also a founding member of the game. He was a player character in the very first set of campaigns, making him one of the. Dry first playtesters and individuals who provided feedback. Tenser (an anagram for Ernest), his character, plays a major role in the lore. He continued to help with the game during its humble early beginnings.
And he very clearly is a racist who has spent the past few years effectively arguing “I was there from the beginning, and I think Wizards is just downright awful because they’re trying to remove the racism that we intended the game have.”
So there is much disinformation in the thread and topic.
The Scientific definition, no politics; Species - a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring.
Questions that at some level need to be answered;
Does the game or my game need fertile gene flow between species? Why?
Other terms proposed still do not answer the genetics question...are all the choices essentially human or not?
The issue; I want Half-whatevers. Keeping that above definition strict, I cannot have Half-whatevers. (not everything is human)
Now I want Half-whatevers, I need to know more about genetics. (maybe not everything is human)
I can get fertile Half-whatevers if the species are Ring Species or through Hybridisation (gene flow between populations)(not misspelled) -- (this means roughly everything is human but close to a speciation event)
This means I need to consider what is going on in my game world, are the populations at the start of speciation? are they ring species (essentially separated by geography and miss classified)?
Did the "God(s) or something else keep everything apart breeding their favorite phenotypes like dogs, then something allowed the different breeds back together.
Definition of Breed - a stock of animals or plants within a species having a distinctive appearance and typically having been developed by deliberate selection.
I don't mean to kick more discussion off, I just wanted to bring up what the term is and when using it what it actually means.
Game over man... Game over! -- Pvt. Hudson
This has been heavily discussed over many of the previous thirty-two pages of thread. In short: the common layman's understanding of the "scientific definition" of the term species is hotly contested, and even if it wasn't the term is not being used in its scientific sense here.
I recommend spending some time reading through the thread and catching up. All the discussion is there.
Please do not contact or message me.
The scientific definition argument has been refuted in three ways on this thread:
1. This definition is not actually the scientific definition of species - it is the definition one scientist proposed in the 40s which has become the norm in high school science classes. It is also wrong. There are a number of different species which can engage in cross-species reproduction and produce viable offspring. You, yourself, are the product of this mixing - Neanderthals and early humans cross bred and contributed to modern humans. For this to occur, there has to be a sufficiently similar genetic makeup (such as across multiple species of primate) in a way that doesn’t exist in the classic example of a mule (horses and donkeys have widely different numbers of chromosomes). The reality is that scientists are still hotly debating what exactly a “species” is, and the question is very much unsettled.
2. Even if it were an accurate definition, it is irrelevant in a world where magic is very much real. You can simply hand wave things away as saying “there is something about the magic of the world and the magic in their blood that supersedes biology.”
3. This is the exact same silly argument pedantic sociologists have been making against “race” for years—trying to apply a singular and modern definition to a word centuries old. Just as most players of D&D have dismissed “but race actually means X” arguments because they have the common sense to realise “yeah, but we’re using an older, fantasy-time-period appropriate definition of the word”, players will be able to do the same with the word species (which linguistically can be traced back to Ancient Rome).