I have been following the latest diversity changes that WOTC has implemented and I applaud their attempt to address this issue in their products. This is a worthwhile effort that needs to be supported. On the other hand, I would have preferred a different implementation. In my opinion, if WOTC wants to have a meaningful impact on real life racism, they can just eliminate the term "Race" from the game and replace it with the term "Species". A Dwarf is not the same race as an Elf. They are different SPECIES. Their physiology and genetics (and assuredly their DNA) is quite different. The genetic commonality would be akin to that between a Human and a Dolphin - which nobody would label as being of the same race.
From a business perspective, renaming the term "Race" to "Species" has several benefits:
1- It will appeal to members of the existing player base that do not like the current direction taken with orcs and drow.
2- Will have a greater impact, long term, on the fight against discrimination.
3- Will prevent controversy with existing species and/or future species being labelled as "Evil" -- i.e. Gnolls and Flinds would not need to be labelled as fiends, and why are Fire Giants evil when they are basically larger humans.
It's not going to prevent controversy to call them "species" instead of "race" because tons of people have already decided "what Orcs represent" and no amount of relabeling it is going to change that decision.
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It's not going to prevent controversy to call them "species" instead of "race" because tons of people have already decided "what Orcs represent" and no amount of relabeling it is going to change that decision.
The solution to that problem would be to retire the existing setting(s) where a given race has a given "average Alignment" and forge a new one where it does not.
If two different yet similar “species” mate, like a horse and a donkey, or a tiger and a lion, then their offspring will always be born sterile. That’s why mules and ligers cannot have babies. Since Humans and Elves and Humans and Orcs can make fertile offspring, they must both be the same “species.”
The issue is not how D&D uses the word “race” but instead how people use it. A Saint Bernard and a French Poodle are the same “species” but different “races,” except people don’t call them “races,” they call them “breeds.” But an all white French Poodle, and an all black French Poodle are not different “races,” just different colors. Black people and white people are also not different “races.” We are all of the “human race,” only different colors. Just like those two Poodles.
If two different yet similar “species” mate, like a horse and a donkey, or a tiger and a lion, then their offspring will always be born sterile. That’s why mules and ligers cannot have babies. Since Humans and Elves and Humans and Orcs can make fertile offspring, they must both be the same “species.”
The issue is not how D&D uses the word “race” but instead how people use it. A Saint Bernard and a French Poodle are the same “species” but different “races,” except people don’t call them “races,” they call them “breeds.” But an all white French Poodle, and an all black French Poodle are not different “races,” just different colors. Black people and white people are also not different “races.” We are all of the “human race,” only different colors. Just like those two Poodles.
Biologically speaking, this is correct. I agree. Orcs and Elves are distinctly modified ( often by outside forces) but it is a fact that they can reproduce steadily in most worlds with baseline humans, and theoretically with each other. the only one of the common races that could truly be a species is the Gnome- it is directly stated that they cannot interbreed with other races. Depending on the setting...maybe dwarves as well. So, the vast majority are one species, of differing breeds.
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"La luz del Sol brilla mas al que no esté acostumbrado a su furor."
The D&D world is magical. It doesn't follow the normal rules of our world's biology. For example, most races in D&D did not evolve like everything in our world did. Instead, they were specially created by gods. Therefore, hybridization (when 2 species mate) would not follow the rules of biology, but of magic. An orc and a human producing a half-orc who can mate doesn't happen because they are genetically compatible (i.e., the same species) but because the world is magical, and magic breaks all the normal rules of physics, biology, and chemistry.
That's why a sorcerer can shoot fire out of his hands, dragons can exist, and dead corpses can be raised from the earth and walk again to serve an evil necromancer.
It is biologically impossible that orcs and humans could be members of the same species, as we understand the term species. They don't reproduce successfully because they are the same species, but rather, because the writers of D&D did not design it to respect the normal rules of biological evolution. Nor should they have, since the world is magical.
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If two different yet similar “species” mate, like a horse and a donkey, or a tiger and a lion, then their offspring will always be born sterile. That’s why mules and ligers cannot have babies. Since Humans and Elves and Humans and Orcs can make fertile offspring, they must both be the same “species.”
The issue is not how D&D uses the word “race” but instead how people use it. A Saint Bernard and a French Poodle are the same “species” but different “races,” except people don’t call them “races,” they call them “breeds.” But an all white French Poodle, and an all black French Poodle are not different “races,” just different colors. Black people and white people are also not different “races.” We are all of the “human race,” only different colors. Just like those two Poodles.
So, currently in the real world, the most accepted definition of species is a set of creatures that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. There are a lot of exceptions to this rule, though:
Humans (Homo Sapiens), Neanderthals, and Denisovans could all interbreed and produce fertile offspring. They did do this, and you most likely have between 2-5% of Neanderthal DNA.
Grizzly Bears and Polar Bears can breed and produce fertile offspring. These are called Pizzly or Grolar Bears, based on their parentage.
Ligers, Mules, and other species crossbreeds can occasionally be fertile.
Dogs, Wolves, and Coyotes can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring, and they're all different species. A new species is actually arising because of this, the Coywolf.
In summary, the most accepted definition is broken, and the examples that break them could easily apply to Humans, Orcs, Dwarves, and many other humanoids. Additionally, you can call them different species, and have them interbreed and produce fertile offspring because of the worldwide excuse in D&D: Because magic.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
OK not to get too scientific here but this is my area of expertise so... a species is defined as "all of the actually or potentially interbreeding organisms of a single kind, that are reproductively isolated from other such groups." This is called the "biological species concept," and it works for like 99% of all species out there, which considering there are about 1.8 million of those, means it works for an awful lot of species. The fact that you can find a few cases (most of which are force-bred by humans) in which, when you artificially break the natural reproductive isolation (as happens with, e.g., a horse and a donkey, which would never breed unless humans made them to do so) sometimes the definition doesn't work, is rather beside the point. Most of the time, one can get the right answer about whether 2 different-seeming organisms are members of the same species by applying the classical definition.
Regardless... it would not apply in a D&D world -- as you say, "because magic." And gods. And demons.
Remember in the world of "Toril", there was a time (Shadow Period, or something) during which the sun was destroyed, and then a new sun had to be created. Our world would be destroyed along with the sun if that happened, by all the rules of physics that we know. Yet Toril was not. And we know that somehow the FR world was split into 2 worlds, only one of which is Toril, another flat-out physical impossibility. Finally, from all that I could find, although the Shadow Times and the Blue Age pre-date "recorded history" in FR lore, the oldest actual dates I could find to anything only go back to -35,000 years before present (or so) in the FR. That's a teeny-tiny time period. Not enough for regular evolution to have occurred from unicellular life into elves and dwarves. That kind of thing takes millions of years. So unless the Blue Age was 100 million years long or more, there has not been enough time on Toril (or Abeir-Toril) for sentient races to arise by natural selection.
And without natural selection and evolution, the biological meaning of species would not be applicable.
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Just want to add my input to this argument as well because while everything BioWizard and IamSposta has said is true in the scientific world, I would like to add that their are plenty of species that can interbreed and make viable offspring too. Yet Science considers them different species when it comes to taxonomy. Science even goes as far as to make sub-species as well.
Examples: Macaws. There are lot of different macaw species yet they are all considered distinct and can also produce viable offspring (off spring can reporduce). If a Blue & Gold Macaw (Ara ararauna) and a Scarlet macaw (Ara macao) were to breed, you get what is called a Catalina Macaw (no scientific name). Catalina's are able to produce offspring. This is basically the Elf, Human, & Half-elf "races" in that has a real world counterpart. Yeah technically Catalina don't typically occur in the wild, but they still can occur naturally.
Example: African Grey. Once thought to all be the same, this bird was reclassified and now there are two distinct sub-species; the Timneh (never mind they got elevated to full species) and the Congo. The Congo also is divided into two sub-species, but not all consider them valid; you have the Ghana and the Cameroon. There are other birds as well where sub-species are more defined such as the Scarlet macaw up above (A.m. macao and A.m. cyanoptera) which again also reflect the sub-races that D&D has.
But agree with the other sentiments in this thread - Changing the world race to species isn't going to solve the "stigmas" given to certain groups of humanoids. Frankly not that there is a large issue with that. I mean there's an entire Conflicting going on around all Material planes of Good vs Evil and Law Vs Order. If we can have beings of pure chaos why can't there be beings on the material plane that are inherently evil or good. Yeah lets get rid of any stereotypes that link these fantasy beings to real world groups of people. Sure let's set up a way for people to pick ability score increases rather than the whole "race" getting bonuses. But at the same time these are beings created by gods; why are they meant to resemble the real world and how we work?
Remember in the world of "Toril", there was a time (Shadow Period, or something) during which the sun was destroyed, and then a new sun had to be created. Our world would be destroyed along with the sun if that happened, by all the rules of physics that we know. Yet Toril was not. And we know that somehow the FR world was split into 2 worlds, only one of which is Toril, another flat-out physical impossibility. Finally, from all that I could find, although the Shadow Times and the Blue Age pre-date "recorded history" in FR lore, the oldest actual dates I could find to anything only go back to -35,000 years before present (or so) in the FR. That's a teeny-tiny time period. Not enough for regular evolution to have occurred from unicellular life into elves and dwarves. That kind of thing takes millions of years. So unless the Blue Age was 100 million years long or more, there has not been enough time on Toril (or Abeir-Toril) for sentient races to arise by natural selection.
And without natural selection and evolution, the biological meaning of species would not be applicable.
This right here is all we need to look at. We don't need to use the terminology of Science correctly when we look at D&D because science did not create the material planes of D&D; gods did. Elves didn't evolve from some other being, because they were created by a god; a god those elves can physically visit too! I'd say 99% of things on a material plane in D&D was created by some god or goddess. Even the squirrels in trees. Melora probably sent them to the material plane to sow her seeds.
No need to apply science the way we all are - but I'll admit it is quite fun!
Elves didn't evolve from some other being, because they were created by a god; a god those elves can physically visit too!
But see the other thing people are missing here is that if a god specially created a sentient D&D species (race) rather than it being descended from a common ancesto, this means that, whereas variability is the rule of the day on earth (caused by the consequences of natural selection and multiple speciation events over millions of years), a similar level of variability among specially created species on Toril (or any of the other D&D worlds with these gods) would be rather unlikely. If Gruumsh, who is chaotic evil, is the creator of orcs, then it stands to reason he would have made them "in his image" and caused them to be like him -- thus, chaotic evil. We know that humans in the real world, who evolved from earlier primates, are highly individualized, and even if you believe humans were specially created by a supreme being, in most earth-bound creation stories that supreme being is benevolent, and would thus be likely to allow humans to "be our own person." But there is no reason to assume Gruumsh, who is chaotic evil and described in the literature as being violent and nasty, would have taken such a kindly, fatherly approach to his creations. In fact there is every reason to assume that a god like Gruumsh or Lolth would demand strict observance of their tenets or else.
This is why it is a mistake to draw any equivalency between humans of the real world and the multiple, varied sentient "humanoids" in D&D. There is no Gruumsh or Lolth in our world, and there are no other sentient "humanoids" in our world -- only humans. We shouldn't assume the depth of human variety we see around us would exist in all sentient humanoid races on Toril, or any of the other worlds, because they were created differently, have had far less time (as far as we know) to evolve (if they even evolve at all, which from what evidence I have seen in the books I would say that I highly doubt), and again... there is magic in the world. And evil, highly involved gods to enforce conformity and punish (severely) those who stray.
If two different yet similar “species” mate, like a horse and a donkey, or a tiger and a lion, then their offspring will always be born sterile. That’s why mules and ligers cannot have babies. Since Humans and Elves and Humans and Orcs can make fertile offspring, they must both be the same “species.”
The issue is not how D&D uses the word “race” but instead how people use it. A Saint Bernard and a French Poodle are the same “species” but different “races,” except people don’t call them “races,” they call them “breeds.” But an all white French Poodle, and an all black French Poodle are not different “races,” just different colors. Black people and white people are also not different “races.” We are all of the “human race,” only different colors. Just like those two Poodles.
This is not exactly true. Wolves, Coyotes, Dingos and common household Dogs are all considered different "species", but they can all interbred just fine. In fact-- it has been theorized that the so-called "Red Wolf" that existed in North America and is now extinct was simply a stable pool of Gray Wolf/Coyote hybrids.
Ligers/Tigons are usually, but not always, born sterile because Lions and Tigers are further genetically divided. However, Lions & Leopards and Tigers & Snow Leopards can produce viable offspring, but the issue is that the mothers often don't know how to care for it properly and can maim or kill the offspring in the regular course of grooming or play. Leopards and Jaguars can also be bred despite living an entire ocean apart.
Mules are sterile, but Donkey/Zebra hybrids can be fertile.
And that's not even getting into how many species there can be within an animal we call by one label. There are dozens of "species" of "wolf" and "tiger" and they can all interbreed. Meanwhile there are thousands of species of "butterfly" and very few of them are able to.
The point is-- it just isn't necessarily a hard line. People have decided what does and does not count as different species without really testing whether they have actually become too genetically diverse to continue to interbreed. That would be quite a step to require before officially naming something a new species-- much less going back and revising the books so that two animals that have always been considered distinct species would no longer be so simply because we figured out that dingos are nothing more than just African dogs that the Aboriginees brought with them on their sea voyages and haven't yet become genetically distinct enough to become their own thing despite utterly ravaging the ecosystem of the continent and eliminating all local predatory competition. The main thing is that, even if they can technically breed, they usually do not-- whether that be because their habits mean they avoid each other or they simply have no ability to meet.
Also, there were roughly 3 distinct hominid species that interbred to create modern humans. But humans are the only animal that is known to have divided into different genetic lineages and then merged back into a single one (granted, one particular strain that came from Africa with knowledge of agriculture totally dominated the others and is the main contributor).
But that is all kind of besides the OP's point. And whatever word you use-- its just semantics. The thing people are having a debate over is the fundamental concept.
Some people want to continue to function at the level of "I iz stwong and I done keel all da bad guyz. I knowing dey'z da bad guy cuz he'z all red and gween."
And some people want it to become like Star Trek where everything has a political undertone and while the Klingons, Romulans, Ferangi, Cardassians, and so on are certainly not good societies, their societies are not entirely without positive values and you can have both villains and heroes from those societies, and the heroes can come in both the kind that rejects the negative aspects of their society and thus their entire kind-- or it can come as people who exemplify the positive values of their society while attempting to minimize the negative ones. And the good races like humans an Vulcans can also have negative aspects to their societies and produce terrible villains too, both in those who reject their entire society or those who double-down on the negative aspects.
Whether you call it race or species or whatever else-- its not going to matter.
Do you know why GoT is really better than the Witcher series?
Because they had not fallen into the excesses of diversity and the representation of minorities and the politically correct. A fantasy world inspired by medieval cultures (LotR) should not resemble contemporary American society.
That is an interesting opinion. I believe that The Witcher is a much better series than Game of Thrones but to each their own.
However, that is not the topic of this thread.
I have to agree with BioWizard, but I am not really opposed to the idea that, if given opportunity, a large number of Orcs, Drow and other Races that have cultures with questionable morals could and would splinter off and start a new life for themselves. I don't see Gruumsh or Lolth being pleased about it, but the struggle is what makes epic stories.
That is an interesting opinion. I believe that The Witcher is a much better series than Game of Thrones but to each their own.
However, that is not the topic of this thread.
I have to agree with BioWizard, but I am not really opposed to the idea that, if given opportunity, a large number of Orcs, Drow and other Races that have cultures with questionable morals could and would splinter off and start a new life for themselves. I don't see Gruumsh or Lolth being pleased about it, but the struggle is what makes epic stories.
Totally agree with the last paragraph. Just because your culture is “supposed” to be evil doesn’t mean you’re gonna follow that assumption. Also, I like both GoT and The Witcher.
That is an interesting opinion. I believe that The Witcher is a much better series than Game of Thrones but to each their own.
However, that is not the topic of this thread.
I have to agree with BioWizard, but I am not really opposed to the idea that, if given opportunity, a large number of Orcs, Drow and other Races that have cultures with questionable morals could and would splinter off and start a new life for themselves. I don't see Gruumsh or Lolth being pleased about it, but the struggle is what makes epic stories.
The only way I see that happening for the Orcs is if the.... mother bear goddess whose name escapes me atm... breaks away from Gruumsh, within the pantheon. Orcish society is extremely spiritual, which is why Orcs are described as brutish smash-n-grab raiders in the first place -- that's what Gruumsh has dictated it means to be a "proper" Orc. The den mother has a different view, but she can't break away from Gruumsh while the divine conflict of the Orcish pantheon continues, as it would leave Gruumsh outnumbered and he'd be overwhelmed.
As for the Drow, I'm pretty sure that's no possible in any realm where the gods take a role in daily life, even a distant and passive one. As far as I'm aware, Lolth is the only god of the Drow. And Lolth is decidedly evil, and has purposefully structured the Drow society in a way that prevents any House from dissenting without also drawing the wrath of every other House. Having not read the story of Drizzet, I'm genuinely curious how he as an individual could have lived long enough to even escape Drow society, being not-evil, and also being male in an overwhelming matriarchy.
It is a mistake to view orcs, drow, elves, dwarves, as "real world analogs" of human cultures. They are not. They are fantastical species (or races if you wish) that have been, for ages, directly influenced by particular gods. They wouldn't likely feel they have the same "choose who you want to be" freedom that real-world humans have been taught we have in recent history.
Furthermore, not only is their world much more directly influenced by the gods, but if we are going to keep talking about biology, it is not canon that the sentient species (or races, if you wish) in the D&D universes have descended from a common ancestor as scientists have come to believe happened with similar species on earth. If a wolf and a coyote can interbreed, that's because their genetics are similar due to common ancestry. They have similar reproductive organs or behaviors because they inherited those from the same ancestor, and so interbreeding is possible. But the D&D world, as I said above, does not appear to have what one would call "normal evolution" or natural selection occurring. The history is too short (I could find no timeline before about 40,000 years "ago" but it's pretty clear the history does not extend billions of years, which is what you'd need it to do for normal evolution to have occurred). And even if evolution kind-of has occurred, it's been monkeyed with in dramatic supernatural ways by the presence of magic and dozens of interfering gods. Consequently, one cannot assume the sort of real-world genetic relationships or the real-world variability among the D&D species that one sees in our world. After all, as far as Monster Manual is concerned, it's possible to have a world in which humans coexist with dinosaurs -- yet another example of how evolution cannot possibly have occurred in the "normal" way on Toril or Oerth or any of those other D&D worlds.
That's why I say it is a mistake to try and analogize any of the D&D "demi-human" races with humans of the real world. It makes some sense to assume humans are as variable on Toril or Oerth or Eberron as we are in real life because, well, that variability is what we know, and if you're going to have humans, they should be pretty much exactly like real world humans. But none of the other races needs to, or in my opinion should, be exactly like humans. Elves are not "humans with pointed ears." They are not just physically different, the way humans are from each other in the real world. They are magical. They come (according to MTF) from Corellon Larethian's blood, for crying out loud, and they reincarnate, and they cavorted among the various planes before some of them settled in the PM plane on Toril or Oerth or wherever. Not only shouldn't one assume that a race such as this would be exactly like humans in its motivations or variability, but it is utterly unthinkable that it would be. Rather, the only reasonable assumption one could make is that elvish culture would be utterly alien and completely different from ours. And there is no reason to assume it would be just as variable or that all the types of variations of human behavior and culture would exist in a race that reincarnates, and whose progenitors sprang from droplets of a god's blood.
I mean think about it -- these elves, if they even have genes (who knows if gods have DNA?), would be genetically identical to Corellon, right? At least on earth, the process of taking someone's blood and growing a living person from it would be called cloning. So now we have a race that is essentially down-powered clones of a god -- and we're going to assume that it makes sense to RP them as if they are just pointy-eared humans?!? That, to me, makes no sense at all. And it destroys what is potentially so interesting about other races -- that they would have alien, almost impossible-to-understand, thought processes, motivations, and personalities. To simply copy-paste human culture onto them borders on being criminally wasteful of story-telling potential.
As a DM, my answer to any player who said, "I want to play race X but RP it as if I am basically just a typical human," would be, "Then play a human." If they're in it for the racial stat bonuses, I'll freaking GIVE them whatever bonus they want. But if you're going to play an Aarakocra who lives only 30 years and is an adult by 3, you should darn well play something that acts a lot differently from a human, and you should assume your culture is wildly different from, and nothing like, human society. And one of those ways it could be different is that it is not as variable.
In fact that is typically, in RPGs with multiple species (or races, if you prefer) what singles out humans. The other races are more monolithic, more "standardized," if you will, and tend to have a "racial personality", and they get some advantages for that (Dwarves are strong and tough; elves are clever and magical; halflings are small and agile -- and all of these, to a greater degree than humans tend to be). The other races are usually "specialists," and humans are "generalists" or "jacks of all trades." This makes humans not as good at any one thing than the specialist race, but but makes them "Ok at everything," whereas traditionally, the other races were great at one thing and terrible at everything else.
I guess a lot of people don't want to RP that way, though. They want their character to look like an orc, or a drow, or a halfling, but be human in every other way. And if that's how the majority of D&D players want to do it, then I guess WOTC has no choice but to go there. But to make all the races just be funny looking humans, to me, wastes so much story-telling and RP potential that it is, as I say, bordering on criminal negligence. After all, you can "just play a human" in any game. Only in D&D (or games like it) can you play a dwarf. Why not play a real one instead of a short, stocky human?
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I have been following the latest diversity changes that WOTC has implemented and I applaud their attempt to address this issue in their products. This is a worthwhile effort that needs to be supported. On the other hand, I would have preferred a different implementation. In my opinion, if WOTC wants to have a meaningful impact on real life racism, they can just eliminate the term "Race" from the game and replace it with the term "Species". A Dwarf is not the same race as an Elf. They are different SPECIES. Their physiology and genetics (and assuredly their DNA) is quite different. The genetic commonality would be akin to that between a Human and a Dolphin - which nobody would label as being of the same race.
From a business perspective, renaming the term "Race" to "Species" has several benefits:
1- It will appeal to members of the existing player base that do not like the current direction taken with orcs and drow.
2- Will have a greater impact, long term, on the fight against discrimination.
3- Will prevent controversy with existing species and/or future species being labelled as "Evil" -- i.e. Gnolls and Flinds would not need to be labelled as fiends, and why are Fire Giants evil when they are basically larger humans.
Respectfully,
Longetalos
It's not going to prevent controversy to call them "species" instead of "race" because tons of people have already decided "what Orcs represent" and no amount of relabeling it is going to change that decision.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The solution to that problem would be to retire the existing setting(s) where a given race has a given "average Alignment" and forge a new one where it does not.
If two different yet similar “species” mate, like a horse and a donkey, or a tiger and a lion, then their offspring will always be born sterile. That’s why mules and ligers cannot have babies. Since Humans and Elves and Humans and Orcs can make fertile offspring, they must both be the same “species.”
The issue is not how D&D uses the word “race” but instead how people use it. A Saint Bernard and a French Poodle are the same “species” but different “races,” except people don’t call them “races,” they call them “breeds.” But an all white French Poodle, and an all black French Poodle are not different “races,” just different colors. Black people and white people are also not different “races.” We are all of the “human race,” only different colors. Just like those two Poodles.
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Biologically speaking, this is correct. I agree. Orcs and Elves are distinctly modified ( often by outside forces) but it is a fact that they can reproduce steadily in most worlds with baseline humans, and theoretically with each other. the only one of the common races that could truly be a species is the Gnome- it is directly stated that they cannot interbreed with other races. Depending on the setting...maybe dwarves as well. So, the vast majority are one species, of differing breeds.
"La luz del Sol brilla mas al que no esté acostumbrado a su furor."
The D&D world is magical. It doesn't follow the normal rules of our world's biology. For example, most races in D&D did not evolve like everything in our world did. Instead, they were specially created by gods. Therefore, hybridization (when 2 species mate) would not follow the rules of biology, but of magic. An orc and a human producing a half-orc who can mate doesn't happen because they are genetically compatible (i.e., the same species) but because the world is magical, and magic breaks all the normal rules of physics, biology, and chemistry.
That's why a sorcerer can shoot fire out of his hands, dragons can exist, and dead corpses can be raised from the earth and walk again to serve an evil necromancer.
It is biologically impossible that orcs and humans could be members of the same species, as we understand the term species. They don't reproduce successfully because they are the same species, but rather, because the writers of D&D did not design it to respect the normal rules of biological evolution. Nor should they have, since the world is magical.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Hm. Valid point as well. :D Gods make things interesting. Especially rival gods with inherrently different moral views and ideologies.
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So, currently in the real world, the most accepted definition of species is a set of creatures that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. There are a lot of exceptions to this rule, though:
In summary, the most accepted definition is broken, and the examples that break them could easily apply to Humans, Orcs, Dwarves, and many other humanoids. Additionally, you can call them different species, and have them interbreed and produce fertile offspring because of the worldwide excuse in D&D: Because magic.
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OK not to get too scientific here but this is my area of expertise so... a species is defined as "all of the actually or potentially interbreeding organisms of a single kind, that are reproductively isolated from other such groups." This is called the "biological species concept," and it works for like 99% of all species out there, which considering there are about 1.8 million of those, means it works for an awful lot of species. The fact that you can find a few cases (most of which are force-bred by humans) in which, when you artificially break the natural reproductive isolation (as happens with, e.g., a horse and a donkey, which would never breed unless humans made them to do so) sometimes the definition doesn't work, is rather beside the point. Most of the time, one can get the right answer about whether 2 different-seeming organisms are members of the same species by applying the classical definition.
Regardless... it would not apply in a D&D world -- as you say, "because magic." And gods. And demons.
Remember in the world of "Toril", there was a time (Shadow Period, or something) during which the sun was destroyed, and then a new sun had to be created. Our world would be destroyed along with the sun if that happened, by all the rules of physics that we know. Yet Toril was not. And we know that somehow the FR world was split into 2 worlds, only one of which is Toril, another flat-out physical impossibility. Finally, from all that I could find, although the Shadow Times and the Blue Age pre-date "recorded history" in FR lore, the oldest actual dates I could find to anything only go back to -35,000 years before present (or so) in the FR. That's a teeny-tiny time period. Not enough for regular evolution to have occurred from unicellular life into elves and dwarves. That kind of thing takes millions of years. So unless the Blue Age was 100 million years long or more, there has not been enough time on Toril (or Abeir-Toril) for sentient races to arise by natural selection.
And without natural selection and evolution, the biological meaning of species would not be applicable.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Just want to add my input to this argument as well because while everything BioWizard and IamSposta has said is true in the scientific world, I would like to add that their are plenty of species that can interbreed and make viable offspring too. Yet Science considers them different species when it comes to taxonomy. Science even goes as far as to make sub-species as well.
Examples: Macaws. There are lot of different macaw species yet they are all considered distinct and can also produce viable offspring (off spring can reporduce). If a Blue & Gold Macaw (Ara ararauna) and a Scarlet macaw (Ara macao) were to breed, you get what is called a Catalina Macaw (no scientific name). Catalina's are able to produce offspring. This is basically the Elf, Human, & Half-elf "races" in that has a real world counterpart. Yeah technically Catalina don't typically occur in the wild, but they still can occur naturally.
Example: African Grey. Once thought to all be the same, this bird was reclassified and now there are two distinct sub-species; the
Timneh(never mind they got elevated to full species)and the Congo. The Congo also is divided into two sub-species, but not all consider them valid; you have the Ghana and the Cameroon. There are other birds as well where sub-species are more defined such as the Scarlet macaw up above (A.m. macao and A.m. cyanoptera) which again also reflect the sub-races that D&D has.But agree with the other sentiments in this thread - Changing the world race to species isn't going to solve the "stigmas" given to certain groups of humanoids. Frankly not that there is a large issue with that. I mean there's an entire Conflicting going on around all Material planes of Good vs Evil and Law Vs Order. If we can have beings of pure chaos why can't there be beings on the material plane that are inherently evil or good. Yeah lets get rid of any stereotypes that link these fantasy beings to real world groups of people. Sure let's set up a way for people to pick ability score increases rather than the whole "race" getting bonuses. But at the same time these are beings created by gods; why are they meant to resemble the real world and how we work?
This right here is all we need to look at. We don't need to use the terminology of Science correctly when we look at D&D because science did not create the material planes of D&D; gods did. Elves didn't evolve from some other being, because they were created by a god; a god those elves can physically visit too! I'd say 99% of things on a material plane in D&D was created by some god or goddess. Even the squirrels in trees. Melora probably sent them to the material plane to sow her seeds.
No need to apply science the way we all are - but I'll admit it is quite fun!
But see the other thing people are missing here is that if a god specially created a sentient D&D species (race) rather than it being descended from a common ancesto, this means that, whereas variability is the rule of the day on earth (caused by the consequences of natural selection and multiple speciation events over millions of years), a similar level of variability among specially created species on Toril (or any of the other D&D worlds with these gods) would be rather unlikely. If Gruumsh, who is chaotic evil, is the creator of orcs, then it stands to reason he would have made them "in his image" and caused them to be like him -- thus, chaotic evil. We know that humans in the real world, who evolved from earlier primates, are highly individualized, and even if you believe humans were specially created by a supreme being, in most earth-bound creation stories that supreme being is benevolent, and would thus be likely to allow humans to "be our own person." But there is no reason to assume Gruumsh, who is chaotic evil and described in the literature as being violent and nasty, would have taken such a kindly, fatherly approach to his creations. In fact there is every reason to assume that a god like Gruumsh or Lolth would demand strict observance of their tenets or else.
This is why it is a mistake to draw any equivalency between humans of the real world and the multiple, varied sentient "humanoids" in D&D. There is no Gruumsh or Lolth in our world, and there are no other sentient "humanoids" in our world -- only humans. We shouldn't assume the depth of human variety we see around us would exist in all sentient humanoid races on Toril, or any of the other worlds, because they were created differently, have had far less time (as far as we know) to evolve (if they even evolve at all, which from what evidence I have seen in the books I would say that I highly doubt), and again... there is magic in the world. And evil, highly involved gods to enforce conformity and punish (severely) those who stray.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
This is not exactly true. Wolves, Coyotes, Dingos and common household Dogs are all considered different "species", but they can all interbred just fine. In fact-- it has been theorized that the so-called "Red Wolf" that existed in North America and is now extinct was simply a stable pool of Gray Wolf/Coyote hybrids.
Ligers/Tigons are usually, but not always, born sterile because Lions and Tigers are further genetically divided. However, Lions & Leopards and Tigers & Snow Leopards can produce viable offspring, but the issue is that the mothers often don't know how to care for it properly and can maim or kill the offspring in the regular course of grooming or play. Leopards and Jaguars can also be bred despite living an entire ocean apart.
Mules are sterile, but Donkey/Zebra hybrids can be fertile.
And that's not even getting into how many species there can be within an animal we call by one label. There are dozens of "species" of "wolf" and "tiger" and they can all interbreed. Meanwhile there are thousands of species of "butterfly" and very few of them are able to.
The point is-- it just isn't necessarily a hard line. People have decided what does and does not count as different species without really testing whether they have actually become too genetically diverse to continue to interbreed. That would be quite a step to require before officially naming something a new species-- much less going back and revising the books so that two animals that have always been considered distinct species would no longer be so simply because we figured out that dingos are nothing more than just African dogs that the Aboriginees brought with them on their sea voyages and haven't yet become genetically distinct enough to become their own thing despite utterly ravaging the ecosystem of the continent and eliminating all local predatory competition. The main thing is that, even if they can technically breed, they usually do not-- whether that be because their habits mean they avoid each other or they simply have no ability to meet.
Also, there were roughly 3 distinct hominid species that interbred to create modern humans. But humans are the only animal that is known to have divided into different genetic lineages and then merged back into a single one (granted, one particular strain that came from Africa with knowledge of agriculture totally dominated the others and is the main contributor).
But that is all kind of besides the OP's point. And whatever word you use-- its just semantics. The thing people are having a debate over is the fundamental concept.
Some people want to continue to function at the level of "I iz stwong and I done keel all da bad guyz. I knowing dey'z da bad guy cuz he'z all red and gween."
And some people want it to become like Star Trek where everything has a political undertone and while the Klingons, Romulans, Ferangi, Cardassians, and so on are certainly not good societies, their societies are not entirely without positive values and you can have both villains and heroes from those societies, and the heroes can come in both the kind that rejects the negative aspects of their society and thus their entire kind-- or it can come as people who exemplify the positive values of their society while attempting to minimize the negative ones. And the good races like humans an Vulcans can also have negative aspects to their societies and produce terrible villains too, both in those who reject their entire society or those who double-down on the negative aspects.
Whether you call it race or species or whatever else-- its not going to matter.
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Aha! Figured it out just before you messaged me! Thank you, though, that was very helpful.
Most of this goes over my head, but I basically agree with @longetalos.
Do you know why GoT is really better than the Witcher series? Because they had not fallen into the excesses of diversity and the representation of minorities and the politically correct. A fantasy world inspired by medieval cultures (LotR) should not resemble contemporary American society.That is an interesting opinion. I believe that The Witcher is a much better series than Game of Thrones but to each their own.
However, that is not the topic of this thread.
I have to agree with BioWizard, but I am not really opposed to the idea that, if given opportunity, a large number of Orcs, Drow and other Races that have cultures with questionable morals could and would splinter off and start a new life for themselves. I don't see Gruumsh or Lolth being pleased about it, but the struggle is what makes epic stories.
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Totally agree with the last paragraph. Just because your culture is “supposed” to be evil doesn’t mean you’re gonna follow that assumption. Also, I like both GoT and The Witcher.
The only way I see that happening for the Orcs is if the.... mother bear goddess whose name escapes me atm... breaks away from Gruumsh, within the pantheon. Orcish society is extremely spiritual, which is why Orcs are described as brutish smash-n-grab raiders in the first place -- that's what Gruumsh has dictated it means to be a "proper" Orc. The den mother has a different view, but she can't break away from Gruumsh while the divine conflict of the Orcish pantheon continues, as it would leave Gruumsh outnumbered and he'd be overwhelmed.
As for the Drow, I'm pretty sure that's no possible in any realm where the gods take a role in daily life, even a distant and passive one. As far as I'm aware, Lolth is the only god of the Drow. And Lolth is decidedly evil, and has purposefully structured the Drow society in a way that prevents any House from dissenting without also drawing the wrath of every other House. Having not read the story of Drizzet, I'm genuinely curious how he as an individual could have lived long enough to even escape Drow society, being not-evil, and also being male in an overwhelming matriarchy.
And this ^^^^ is my point.
It is a mistake to view orcs, drow, elves, dwarves, as "real world analogs" of human cultures. They are not. They are fantastical species (or races if you wish) that have been, for ages, directly influenced by particular gods. They wouldn't likely feel they have the same "choose who you want to be" freedom that real-world humans have been taught we have in recent history.
Furthermore, not only is their world much more directly influenced by the gods, but if we are going to keep talking about biology, it is not canon that the sentient species (or races, if you wish) in the D&D universes have descended from a common ancestor as scientists have come to believe happened with similar species on earth. If a wolf and a coyote can interbreed, that's because their genetics are similar due to common ancestry. They have similar reproductive organs or behaviors because they inherited those from the same ancestor, and so interbreeding is possible. But the D&D world, as I said above, does not appear to have what one would call "normal evolution" or natural selection occurring. The history is too short (I could find no timeline before about 40,000 years "ago" but it's pretty clear the history does not extend billions of years, which is what you'd need it to do for normal evolution to have occurred). And even if evolution kind-of has occurred, it's been monkeyed with in dramatic supernatural ways by the presence of magic and dozens of interfering gods. Consequently, one cannot assume the sort of real-world genetic relationships or the real-world variability among the D&D species that one sees in our world. After all, as far as Monster Manual is concerned, it's possible to have a world in which humans coexist with dinosaurs -- yet another example of how evolution cannot possibly have occurred in the "normal" way on Toril or Oerth or any of those other D&D worlds.
That's why I say it is a mistake to try and analogize any of the D&D "demi-human" races with humans of the real world. It makes some sense to assume humans are as variable on Toril or Oerth or Eberron as we are in real life because, well, that variability is what we know, and if you're going to have humans, they should be pretty much exactly like real world humans. But none of the other races needs to, or in my opinion should, be exactly like humans. Elves are not "humans with pointed ears." They are not just physically different, the way humans are from each other in the real world. They are magical. They come (according to MTF) from Corellon Larethian's blood, for crying out loud, and they reincarnate, and they cavorted among the various planes before some of them settled in the PM plane on Toril or Oerth or wherever. Not only shouldn't one assume that a race such as this would be exactly like humans in its motivations or variability, but it is utterly unthinkable that it would be. Rather, the only reasonable assumption one could make is that elvish culture would be utterly alien and completely different from ours. And there is no reason to assume it would be just as variable or that all the types of variations of human behavior and culture would exist in a race that reincarnates, and whose progenitors sprang from droplets of a god's blood.
I mean think about it -- these elves, if they even have genes (who knows if gods have DNA?), would be genetically identical to Corellon, right? At least on earth, the process of taking someone's blood and growing a living person from it would be called cloning. So now we have a race that is essentially down-powered clones of a god -- and we're going to assume that it makes sense to RP them as if they are just pointy-eared humans?!? That, to me, makes no sense at all. And it destroys what is potentially so interesting about other races -- that they would have alien, almost impossible-to-understand, thought processes, motivations, and personalities. To simply copy-paste human culture onto them borders on being criminally wasteful of story-telling potential.
As a DM, my answer to any player who said, "I want to play race X but RP it as if I am basically just a typical human," would be, "Then play a human." If they're in it for the racial stat bonuses, I'll freaking GIVE them whatever bonus they want. But if you're going to play an Aarakocra who lives only 30 years and is an adult by 3, you should darn well play something that acts a lot differently from a human, and you should assume your culture is wildly different from, and nothing like, human society. And one of those ways it could be different is that it is not as variable.
In fact that is typically, in RPGs with multiple species (or races, if you prefer) what singles out humans. The other races are more monolithic, more "standardized," if you will, and tend to have a "racial personality", and they get some advantages for that (Dwarves are strong and tough; elves are clever and magical; halflings are small and agile -- and all of these, to a greater degree than humans tend to be). The other races are usually "specialists," and humans are "generalists" or "jacks of all trades." This makes humans not as good at any one thing than the specialist race, but but makes them "Ok at everything," whereas traditionally, the other races were great at one thing and terrible at everything else.
I guess a lot of people don't want to RP that way, though. They want their character to look like an orc, or a drow, or a halfling, but be human in every other way. And if that's how the majority of D&D players want to do it, then I guess WOTC has no choice but to go there. But to make all the races just be funny looking humans, to me, wastes so much story-telling and RP potential that it is, as I say, bordering on criminal negligence. After all, you can "just play a human" in any game. Only in D&D (or games like it) can you play a dwarf. Why not play a real one instead of a short, stocky human?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.