I always prefered "kin."  As in, Beastkin.  It carries the connotation as a group of family and sounds more fantasy-ish than species.

3.) Most of my characters like having skin.  All of them, in fact.

Why does your Warforged have skin Yurei? Where did it get the skin from? WHERE DID IT GET THE SKIN FROM?!

Quote from Crawling_Chaos >>

I still for the life of me don't get the controversy behind "species" being used.

I don't feel like the issue is actually the word. it's the reason behind the word. For a lot of people who have played games where you could make custom characters, or even just settings in which multiple species existed, calling that sort of thing 'race' is just, well, the norm. It's so mundane, and, frankly, unimportant that it may as well be the off-white wall paint color in an office. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't, but for most people it just... IS. They work at that 'office' all the time and the color of the wall (or the term used) is, well, not even background. It's the background to the background. Then they have some people coming in and basically saying that they're bad people, discriminatory, exclusionary, and just all the worst things around... because of the color of the office wall. Some of these people you're pretty sure don't work in the office (play D&D), work in that building (play tabletop games), or even live in that city (have any involvement in geek/fantasy culture). You're pretty sure that at least some of them just saw someone else complaining about the color of the office walls on social media and that's the complete extent of their knowledge. This group of complainers is then, depending on your perspective, is either saying your 'Winter Snow' white walls are horrible offenses but their 'Paper White' white walls aren't; or are insisting you paint the entire office over in sparkly pink. And you also know one of your co-workers (whom your pretty sure has joined in the protestors) has a sibling who runs the local paint supply shop with a suspiciously large supply of both colors.

Now, maybe to some people this matters a lot. Maybe the particular shade of color was giving them headaches, or the guy who rented out the office beforehand really was a bad person and decided to paint the office the particular shade of white that matches a particular outfit in his closet, or something else. Or maybe they just walked down the aisle at the paint store and yanked off the first can of paint that was there. On the one hand, it's just office walls. You probably wouldn't have even noticed or cared had it been handled differently or at least felt like an internal change. But you now have people who are heavily implying you're a bad person over office wall paint colors. Some people might feel it's actually worth changing, some people might opt to change it to avoid the negative association, but some will dig in their heels because the office walls were always like that or simply because they feel the change is disingenuous and being manipulated by outsiders, outsiders who may not even be from that office (D&D), building (Tabletop games), or even city (geek culture).

At the end of the day, it's just office walls.

When I go to D&Dbeyond and look at it's tab, it's still got race instead of species. I don't know if D&D beyond is keeping it around because 1DD isn't out yet and they'll change it once they do, or if it will always remain up there so long as it supports 5e. When I flip through my Pathfinder/Starfinder character sheet it lists a race section. When I make a character in WoW, it says 'races of the alliance'. When I try to make a character in FFXIV, it asks for my race and class. Dragon Age? Race. I can't even think of some mod I've seen that changes it from race to... whatever... Then again I haven't even looked because... it's something that, to me, has historically been as important as the color of the office wall.

Honestly, I feel this whole attempt to change will end in one of three ways. No one will actually change and possibly not even notice, the whole thing will happen quietly and just result in a blending of the two terms and no one will care, or you'll get tables full of people screaming at each other because one of them used the wrong word and kicking people from their tables. It's just office wall paint. If someone has an issue with using one word or the other, just say so and I'll at least try to change... but... it's just office wall paint.

Quote from Mephista >>

I always prefered "kin."  As in, Beastkin.  It carries the connotation as a group of family and sounds more fantasy-ish than species.

 Kin would also be my recommendation as an apt alternative to species.

Unfortunately it's so apt that several existing TTRPG systems already use it.

Quote from Snowtworf>>

Then they have some people coming in and basically saying that they're bad people, discriminatory, exclusionary, and just all the worst things around... because of the color of the office wall.

Let me help you with this one. Use of the term "race" is painful for people who have experienced racism, like me. But for most of us the word itself is not hugely traumatic, but rather just constantly irritating. You have to understand that racism is pervasive in society to varying levels and that includes ever present and small pain points. This doesn't mean that we should be subject to painful things all the time just because they are minor. See, thinking of racism as "just the worst things all around" makes it easy for people to react defensively like they've just been accused of murder when really it should be much more commonplace, like being accused of not having shoveled your walk and it's annoying for people. Everyone is racist, because everyone has been socialized that way. I, too, am racist probably in ways I am not even aware of.

Stop being defensive and realize that removing pain points for people is more important than your office walls.

Some of these people you're pretty sure don't work in the office (play D&D), work in that building (play tabletop games), or even live in that city (have any involvement in geek/fantasy culture). You're pretty sure that at least some of them just saw someone else complaining about the color of the office walls on social media and that's the complete extent of their knowledge. This group of complainers is then, depending on your perspective, is either saying your 'Winter Snow' white walls are horrible offenses but their 'Paper White' white walls aren't; or are insisting you paint the entire office over in sparkly pink. And you also know one of your co-workers (whom your pretty sure has joined in the protestors) has a sibling who runs the local paint supply shop with a suspiciously large supply of both colors.

This feels like you're dismissing the issue as something that has been brought in by outsiders, invalidating it as a valid claim. Stop doing that. A moderator has already explained that this is a real and valid issue and that to minimize or belittle it will not be tolerated.

Now, maybe to some people this matters a lot. Maybe the particular shade of color was giving them headaches, or the guy who rented out the office beforehand really was a bad person and decided to paint the office the particular shade of white that matches a particular outfit in his closet, or something else. Or maybe they just walked down the aisle at the paint store and yanked off the first can of paint that was there. On the one hand, it's just office walls.

Again, please stop minimizing other people's pain

You probably wouldn't have even noticed or cared had it been handled differently or at least felt like an internal change. But you now have people who are heavily implying you're a bad person over office wall paint colors.

Back to the first point, if you are advocating for the maintenance of something that is hurting people through racism, you are advocating racism. You are also a racist, but again, we all are racists. Everyone who was raised in modern society is racist because the underpinnings of modern society are rife with racism that we must all work constantly to uproot. Stop taking offense at this, it is just a fact of life. We all need to shovel our walk and being reminded that of that fact is not an accusation of murder.

Some people might feel it's actually worth changing, some people might opt to change it to avoid the negative association, but some will dig in their heels because the office walls were always like that or simply because they feel the change is disingenuous and being manipulated by outsiders, outsiders who may not even be from that office (D&D), building (Tabletop games), or even city (geek culture).

At the end of the day, it's just office walls.

It's just office wall paint. If someone has an issue with using one word or the other, just say so and I'll at least try to change... but... it's just office wall paint.

"I'll try to work with you, but in the end your issue really isn't very big" is that it?

Quote from Snowtworf >>

3.) Most of my characters like having skin.  All of them, in fact.

 

Why does your Warforged have skin Yurei? Where did it get the skin from? WHERE DID IT GET THE SKIN FROM?!

 


Synthskin.  Because she used to be a half-drow in the setting I was playing her in, and when she was given the warforged cyberframe to cure her lifelong frailty she decided she wanted to keep her face.  Not literally because that's sus and creepy ay-eff, but a synthetic replica of her face updated to fit her new body.

Man, that game was wild.  I'm sad it ended as early as it did.

As to the office paint analogy?  A'ight.  I get it.  You don't think it's important.  I agree - the issue isn't nearly so critical as people are making it out to be.  I just disagree that the answer is to ignore the issue entirely and leave the office walls the same old color they've always been.  Because as cute and carefully constructed as the analogy is, we're not necessarily talking about office paint.  People who've never experienced these issues can treat it as background-to-the-background, but while I am as white as your theoretical office walls?  My little buttons down below here indicate I'm not as male as most would assume, and every time someone blindly, unthinkingly "sir"-s me because they hear a male voice over the phone or see a male face over the counter, it's a little stab of heartache.  I hate that wretched word and everything it stands for, in a way that would absolutely baffle any cisgender person I really discussed it with.

They don't mean it, and I know they don't  It's a societal convention, the interpersonal communication equivalent of John Doe.  I.e. a term of address to use for a person for whom you have no other term of address.  I've never told someone off for "Sir"-ing me, and frankly I've only even mentioned how much it bothers me maybe three times in my life.  I'm bringing it up now only to demonstrate that I'm not speaking from a point of nonharm.  I know how much it absolutely ******* sucks to be hit with that sort of unthinking microaggression.  There's a reason they call it "micro aggression" - it's not a deliberate, heavy assault on a person.  But on a bad day I can get "sir"-d a hundred or more times over the course of my daily job, and there's days where I punch off my shift, sit in a tubful of hot water, and think real hard about crying because I'm so sick of it.

The office paint is shooting people with blowgun needles here, Snowtworf.  Yes, sometimes accusations get thrown around that shouldn't be, but that's because you're correct - this isn't a big issue.  It should be as simple as "this term kinda sucks, we're gonna switch to this new one instead, y'all okay with that?" and the office workers all saying "Oh yeah, sure, no worries."  But instead we've had close to thirty pages of people making it a giant freaking deal and calling anyone who wants to change out the paint all sorts of unsavory names.  For every time you've been accused of being a racist unfeeling bastard, I've been accused of being a thin-skinned offensemongering shitlord.  Both of those positions are incorrect, but people are invested in this whole thing now when there's really no god damned reason for them to be. 

This isn't a hill worth dying on.  It shouldn't have even been a hill in the first place.  It should have just been switching out a coat of paint and moving on with our lives, but nuh.  Somebody's always got to be friggin' intransigent, and then we get to have the Social Justice conversation on the forums.  Again.

Quote from ZealousBriand >>

The idea suggesting that people who may see it as pandering to a social agenda are cruel and insensitive to people's personal struggles is a bit on the extreme side of the debate. While there are some people who will be satisfied with this change, their reasons may absolutely differ from each other's. And the same goes for those who feel negatively about the subject.

 
The same could be said for people who see the move as "pandering to a social agenda".  That particular excuse has been given a thousand times by a host of bad actors on this very website for the last however-many-years-since-the-Tasha's-announcement.  Every single time Wizards does anything remotely related to reducing hate/pain in their game, a bunch of people accuse them of caving to SJWs in the media or some other "pandering to a social agenda" nonsense.  Anyone who propagates that idea earns the ire of the forum because we're sick of having to justify ourselves over and over and over and over again, having the same god damned fight in every new thread, and trying to prove that it's not "Pandering to a social agenda" from nameless faceless D&D-hatin' masses nobody's ever seen or heard of but which somehow have absolute control over the direction of the game.

Let me make this plain, if I may indulge for a moment: There.  Is.  No.  *******.  Social.  Agenda.  The notion that there is one and we're all pandering to it is actually offensive and insulting, as opposed to just being a pain/stress point like the term "race" over "species".  I may not be privy to this particular source of pain/stress, but I trust my friends - who have real names and real faces because they're actual people and not the nebulous, silent, yet highly blameable masses responsible for a "Social Agenda" - when they tell me this is a help.

Let me help you with this one. Use of the term "race" is painful for people who have experienced racism, like me.

I tried to maintain a neutral stance here. Someone asked why it was an issue and I explained, to the best of my ability, why some people saw it as an issue. I admit I do have my own stance which has, effectively, become 'I don't care I just want to play my half-elf maid girl so she can finally be a family with the four kids she's willing to fight through hell and killer GM alike. If you want to call it race, call it race. Want to call it species, call it species.'

I just want to play the game.

If I gave a bad analogy then that's all there is to it. I gave a bad one. I've been awake all night because I wanted to get Harbor Commission done before Christmas but some stupid jerkwad had to insist on a twenty five minute speech about an issue that is only vaguely remotely related to the Harbor Commission and I had to spend three hours doing what was almost effectively a transcript with the power flickering and even going out once and then pushing myself to stay up even later/earlier because a certain someone won't actually get the stuff I need when the shopping is done unless I go out with them so I may not have done the best analogy when I'm so tired and mentally frazzled I spent a good ten minutes zonked out staring at the walls before responding.

Because she used to be a half-drow in the setting I was playing her in, and when she was given the warforged cyberframe to cure her lifelong frailty she decided she wanted to keep her face. 

You actually have one? Wow. I was joking. I had no clue.

My little buttons down below here indicate I'm not as male as most would assume, and every time someone blindly, unthinkingly "sir"-s me because they hear a male voice over the phone or see a male face over the counter, it's a little stab of heartache.  I hate that wretched word and everything it stands for, in a way that would absolutely baffle any cisgender person I really discussed it with.

I realized that, until I can actually afford things, everyone is just going to see me as male. When I play online games I can pick a female avatar (and I avoid voice chat as much as possible already. Having to deal with people hearing my male voice was just another reason) and when I play D&D I can play female characters and other stuff... but there was nothing for it but to just let it all go and accept that people were going to use male pronouns for me. I don't think that matters though, because you and I are not the same people even if we may have a shared trait. We're different people with different experiences and neither is any more or less valid. I can only call you she/her/whosagoodkitty/pstpstpst here and, in the extremely unlikely chance we ever engage in actual voical communcation in any medium, try to continue doing so there as well.

Edit: When typing up this response I spent a good three minutes just staring at the white site margins and a fingerprint on my screen forgetting what I was even doing. I need sleep. Bad.

Quote from ZealousBriand >>

The idea suggesting that people who may see it as pandering to a social agenda are cruel and insensitive to people's personal struggles is a bit on the extreme side of the debate.

All due respect, but you're wrong.

First of all, it's not even a side in a debate, it's literally just expressing how I am feeling. I, and a few other people on this forum, have literally said that this change makes us, personally, feel more comfortable. We think it is a good change not because someone else has told us to say so, it literally makes me feel better to not have the books use the term "race" sometime in the future. And for someone to come along and say that this is all because of actions of outside groups who have no actual interest in the community is ignoring everything I've said and making me feel like my own lived experiences are being erased from the conversation.

There are no two sides to this. I wasn't even making an argument. I was just pointing out what someone was doing.

Quote from Snowtworf>>

Let me help you with this one. Use of the term "race" is painful for people who have experienced racism, like me.

I tried to maintain a neutral stance here. Someone asked why it was an issue and I explained, to the best of my ability, why some people saw it as an issue. I admit I do have my own stance which has, effectively, become 'I don't care I just want to play my half-elf maid girl so she can finally be a family with the four kids she's willing to fight through hell and killer GM alike. If you want to call it race, call it race. Want to call it species, call it species.'

If it matters so little to you, why do you keep coming in here and vaguely insinuating that the whole thing is a plot by outsiders when I'm telling you that I am personally affected by this and I am part of the community? If it doesn't affect you, personally, what makes you think you can invalidate the experiences of the people for whom it does affect them personally?

Edit: When typing up this response I spent a good three minutes just staring at the white site margins and a fingerprint on my screen forgetting what I was even doing. I need sleep. Bad.

Yes, go to sleep. Refrain from posting to a sensitive topic when you're in that state.

If it matters so little to you, why do you keep coming in here and vaguely insinuating that the whole thing is a plot by outsiders when I'm telling you that I am personally affected by this and I am part of the community? If it doesn't affect you, personally, what makes you think you can invalidate the experiences of the people for whom it does affect them personally?

I saw a little notice and saw someone asking why some people were against it. I offered an explanation as to how they saw the situation and how they felt about it, trying to remain neutral on the whole situation since it's something I stopped caring about. You are the one picking a fight here. 

Quote from Snowtworf >>

If it matters so little to you, why do you keep coming in here and vaguely insinuating that the whole thing is a plot by outsiders when I'm telling you that I am personally affected by this and I am part of the community? If it doesn't affect you, personally, what makes you think you can invalidate the experiences of the people for whom it does affect them personally?

 

I saw a little notice and saw someone asking why some people were against it. I offered an explanation as to how they saw the situation and how they felt about it, trying to remain neutral on the whole situation since it's something I stopped caring about. You are the one picking a fight here. 

How exactly is minimizing and belittling people who are expressing their hurt "staying neutral?" because I'm telling you, every time you call this issue "office paint" or any other synonym for a nothingburger, you are literally dismissing my own personal lived experience of pain and that doesn't feel good or at all like you're being "neutral." I'm not saying you need to care about the debate, but you could at least care about the people who are being affected by it.