So as not to derail the Fireside thread starting a new thread so we can discuss how they without fanfare confirmed Race is replaced with Species. Now I agree with the removal of Race, though the word and it's current use is not problematic, it has been in the past used poorly by D&D and even today there are people in the hobby that use Race as a way to insert real world racism.
So to use the quote as the Jumping off point for this Discussion, and remember Race is out for a good reason Even Paizo removed it in favor of Ancestry.
How exactly is species wrong, particularly in spec-fic parlance as opposed to strict scientific terminology? Stuff like ancestry and lineage honestly implies that everyone shares a common root far enough back, which is objectively not how the origins have been framed as recently as the UAs for the race/species updates.
This is a complicated concept.
1st: When P2E went with Ancestry no one noticed, because it fits, it actually fits better than Race IMO. so it flew under the radar for most.
2nd: Species is used to define something scientifically. It has a specific definition, on that doesn't fit for D&D, not elegantly anyway. Sure Gnomes are a unique species, same with Lizardmen, and Kobolds. But Humans, Elves, Dwarves and other Humans with a twist, are just that, and they can all have kids together, even Orcs. At best you can call them all Subspecies, ring species, or other high scientific concepts.
3rd: Science and tech hatred within the D&D community. The reason Artificer is banned from many games, and many people hate the inclusion of things not fitting of high fantasy. Species is to most people considered a Science term. Now if they were using it in the middle English form, it wouldn't be a problem for anything but spell checker, as back then it was a word used for the look of a thing. But then Wine and Bread would be considered species. Basically used in context it's a science term and a significant portion of the community dislike the inclusion of science in their fantasy.
4: Species was used for racism just as much if not more so as the word it's replacing. Esp when dealing with humans. POC and people of my ancestry were called another species by eugenicist, (fancy word for bigots).
5: Lots of great words that work, Ancestry, Forebearer, Lineage... and others. Hells Clan would be better.
List of Human with a Twist:
PHB: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf (Not in 5.5e), Halfling, Orc/Half-Orc (No halves in 5.5e), tiefling.
Tieflings are Humans with fiendish blood, aka an ancestor took an deal with a devil.
Note I can go further, as with each player choice in the PHB, other books include variations of these core options, plus they add more humans with a twist... ie Kender, Lineages, Kalashtar, and Shifters. Also with the deep lore on the Gith (Githyanki & Githzerai) it is possible they were once humans before the ancient Ithilids altered them.
Well, based on the UA, everyone can have kids with everyone. I'm not sure just where that puts your arguments, but it's a factor if you're going use that as a defining characteristic.
I'm not sure that pf2e's use of lineage not getting a lot of flack can be attributed to broad acceptance of the term. Pf2e is a much, much smaller game, and there's just not as many people who might be upset. It kind of just flew under the radar.
I'm not really for or against any of the different words they might use, tbh. I'm not saying you're wrong to have a strong opinion, certainly that's anyone's prerogative. Just that I'm not necessarily arguing for (or against) using species. Just hoping to clarify a couple points.
Pretty sure they've done their own research on switching to Species. I'm sure they received ample feedback for, and against, and a lot of folks who never brought it up, during the feedback process over One D&D, social media attention, etc. I see, in forums like this, species already being used instead of race and ... it doesn't provoke much of a response in me. I don't think I'm in the minority on that.
As to your point 5, aside from not wanting to be accused of aping other games innovations, "ancestry, forebears, etc" all of those imply not just the physical manifestation of the character, but an implication of bloodline and family, which are things the game wants to represent through backgrounds (and I'm guessing 'lineage' will be maintained in whatever form the gothic lineages may take, and perhaps expanded to creatures like Tieflings and other plane touched).
In many senses, it's already happened, and I don't see the world, or the game ending over it.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
1) Ancestry flew under the radar because no-one in the broader media cares about Pathfinder.
2) Ancestry also has a scientific meaning. Which is significantly less appropriate than species, because it's not a group identifier, it's a parent identifier, and if used for a group, refers to a parent group (it would be accurate to say that tieflings have fiendish ancestry or dragonborn have dragon ancestry; it's not accurate to say that tiefling is an ancestry).
3) Eh, whatever. Perhaps we're talking about Aristotle's definition of species.
4) No, really, it wasn't. Any historical term you might use has been used by racists at some point, but there's a reason it's called "racism" and not "speciesism".
5) There are no words that work, because there's nothing historically similar to D&D (and other rpg) species (forebearer and lineage have essentially the same problem as ancestry).
The actual problem with race in D&D was never the word "race", it was the way the races are treated in the text. I haven't kept up closely with the proposed changes for 5.5e, but here's how the game stands as of the currently official material: drow, goblinoids, orcs, and duergar are categories in the Monster Manual. Bugbear and Goblin (no job descriptions) are Monster Manual entries. There are, to be clear, also stat blocks for other types of humanoids; these are grouped under "NPCs" instead of "Monsters". There are instructions for adding racial traits to these NPCs, but they don't have any by default, which leads the reader to assume they're human. Humans are described as uniquely varied and versatile; they are not ascribed a monoculture the way other races are. A popular variant rule made humans the only race able to freely assign their Ability Score Increases at character creation for the majority of 5e's life span, and it still makes humans the only race that can have a starting feat that is relevant to their actual life experience rather than their alleged biological features. Humans are the default; all other races are deviant. Some are so deviant they get to be monsters.
Tasha's "solved" this by removing most of the lore from most of the races but oops! There's still Drow, Goblinoids, Orcs, and Duergar as categories in Monsters of the Multiverse! Sure, their alignments are now listed as "usually" and occasionally some text is slapped together about how some of these people are good guys actually, but it all feels like an afterthought because it is an afterthought. We know it's an afterthought because this material was published already. There is also, notably, still no category for Humans among the monster stat blocks.
Here's the truth: "races" as discrete mechanical categories are outdated. They shouldn't exist. Any features ascribed to race should be ascribed to background instead, and everything about background should be customizable. I sense an indignant reply. "What, are you going to say that a human raised underground should be able to see in the dark?"
Look at me. Look into my eyes.
Yes. I am.
It's a fantasy game. Humans should be able to see in the dark, Dwarves should be able to leap great distances, and Elves should be able to breathe fire. If your suspension of disbelief relies on the rigorous application of eugenics to the fantasy creatures, something is wrong with you. This is the original sin of fantasy media; it's race science all the way down, as far back as Tolkien and certainly further, and changing the word to "species" fixes none of it. Maybe 5.5e will make some steps towards addressing these problems, but I doubt they'll have the spine to make the deep, tradition-shattering changes that are actually needed.
And if humans weren't apart of the world I would assume all the other species would become a lot more versatile and dynamic in the world they inhabit.
Besides humans are just animals, just like every other species, they all have the same potential however some animals are built differently to others and use different means to accomplish things, that diversity should be embraced. otherwise it would be a very bland world at least in my opinion but each to their own.
Anyone who hasn’t anticipated them switching from race specifically to the term “species” hasn’t been paying attention. They all but confirmed it months and months ago.
1. Per the Oxford English Dictionary, Species is an older term than Race in this usage. It is hardly a modern term, despite what the detractors want to think.
2. You are dead wrong about the science. Different species can, in fact, reproduce and produce viable offspring - the idea they cannot is a myth taught by bad science teachers and perpetuated by people like you on the internet who state this myth as fact. Mules are not infertile because all hybrids are infertile - they are infertile because horses and donkeys have different chromosome counts, so mules end up with an odd number of chromosomes and thus cannot reproduce.
Different species with the same number of chromosomes can, in fact, produce viable offspring, and there are countless examples of this. The most famous example? Humans. Modern humans contain genetic traces from inter species breeding with other types of human. If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix.
Wizards’ problem is not the word species. Their problem is a player base who are misguided on both etymology and biology, making a problem where none exists.
1. Per the Oxford English Dictionary, Species is an older term than Race in this usage.
It was used in Latin translations of Aristotle's biology (with a usage that doesn't entirely match modern usage); if you want to go super old school, replace creature type with γένος (génos) and species with εἶδος (eidos) and it will probably be more appropriate for D&D, which also uses uses Aristotle's elements (and, to the degree it's detectable, probably uses his physics as well, no real evidence that momentum exists in D&D).
If your suspension of disbelief relies on the rigorous application of eugenics to the fantasy creatures, something is wrong with you. This is the original sin of fantasy media; it's race science all the way down, as far back as Tolkien and certainly further, and changing the word to "species" fixes none of it. Maybe 5.5e will make some steps towards addressing these problems, but I doubt they'll have the spine to make the deep, tradition-shattering changes that are actually needed.
I generally agree with your whole post, and this quoted part is important. But there's one bit it's missing.
Most players and DMs of D&D (or consumers of fantasy media, in general) aren't really aware of that. Now, ignorance is no excuse for bad behavior, but "enjoying fantasy media without being aware of the origins of its tropes" is pretty low on the scale of "bad behavior." (Maybe low enough to not register at all.)
The problem is the "race science" take on fantasy (and other genres...) is traditional, especially for D&D. There are many people on the forums who'll say, with a straight face, that if you move all the features to backgrounds and just make backgrounds customizable, "it won't be D&D anymore." Right or wrong (I wouldn't ascribe authority over the brand to some folks on the internet...), they're often just not aware of all the connotations. And many just (for whatever reason) distrust customization systems, regardless. Not everyone is, strictly, all "men get to be men, and elves get to be elves" about it.
I felt like I was having déjà vu and did a quick Google search. I did actually have this discussion when the OP invoking the authority of science back in 2022, here and here. To summarize the discussion for those who do not want to click the clicky thing, what is being called a scientific definition is not actually the scientific definition. What is being called criteria to fit the definition of species is not the actual criteria to fit the definition of species. When presented with numerous examples in real life that defy the stated definition of species, a retreat is made, falling back to the statement that it is pseudo-scientific and therefore can be whatever the OP wants it to be.
I prefer just calling them races. It's quite annoying that nowadays folks don't understand that words can have multiple definitions/usages in different contexts. I don't like how science-y the term "species" sounds nor see the need for a word change. I'll just keep calling them races personally.
And if humans weren't apart of the world I would assume all the other species would become a lot more versatile and dynamic in the world they inhabit.
Besides humans are just animals, just like every other species, they all have the same potential however some animals are built differently to others and use different means to accomplish things, that diversity should be embraced. otherwise it would be a very bland world at least in my opinion but each to their own.
You're talking about D&D races like someone didn't just make them up in a room somewhere. D&D humans aren't animals and we know this because "Beast" is a creature category in the rules and humans aren't in it. Humans are "humanoids", and even that category name assumes they're the default. But it's worse than that. All the races don't have the same potential in D&D as written now.
Humans aren't as sturdy as Dwarves or Orcs, aren't as crafty as Gnomes, aren't as graceful as Elves, but they're adaptable; they're individually unique in a way that the other races mechanically are not. You can throw around the word "diversity" but it won't let Orcs take a Feat at character creation; no, they get "when you would die, Don't" instead. All of them. That's not diversity, it's stereotyping. Actually it's not even stereotyping when it's literally, mechanically true. D&D imagines a world where the bigots are right about inherent racial traits. They can dress it up as much as they want, but there's no ideological difference between all Orcs getting "when you would die, Don't" and all Orcs taking -2 to Intelligence.
I prefer just calling them races. It's quite annoying that nowadays folks don't understand that words can have multiple definitions/usages in different contexts. I don't like how science-y the term "species" sounds nor see the need for a word change. I'll just keep calling them races personally.
You do know your post is simultaneously complaining about people who do not understand that words can have different usages… and you complaining about a word for one specific usage while you ignore other, older usages of the word?
Here is the thing, folks would have been upset regardless. Fifty years of usage is hard to overcome. Wizards decided they would rather abandon a word used by the incredibly racist Gary Gygax, and used by Gygax in furtherance of his active attempts to inject his small-minded bigotry into the game. They could have acknowledged the game’s racist history and tried to rehabilitate the word; that would have been fine. They could do what they did and choose a different word - also fine. It really is not something worth getting all worked up over - though, I personally suspect most of the folks getting worked up about the language change are doing so less because they care about linguistics and more to dog whistle.
I generally agree with your whole post, and this quoted part is important. But there's one bit it's missing.
Most players and DMs of D&D (or consumers of fantasy media, in general) aren't really aware of that. Now, ignorance is no excuse for bad behavior, but "enjoying fantasy media without being aware of the origins of its tropes" is pretty low on the scale of "bad behavior." (Maybe low enough to not register at all.)
The problem is the "race science" take on fantasy (and other genres...) is traditional, especially for D&D. There are many people on the forums who'll say, with a straight face, that if you move all the features to backgrounds and just make backgrounds customizable, "it won't be D&D anymore." Right or wrong (I wouldn't ascribe authority over the brand to some folks on the internet...), they're often just not aware of all the connotations. And many just (for whatever reason) distrust customization systems, regardless. Not everyone is, strictly, all "men get to be men, and elves get to be elves" about it.
You're right, of course, I'm just deeply jaded about the whole business. It's the year of our common era 2024 and I just don't have the wherewithal left to coddle people about this.
Folks who don't understand the problems with racial mechanics aren't bad people for not getting it, but they are unwittingly replicating a bad system. I think the day is coming when we'll look back at fantasy racial traits the same way we look back on the racial traits D&D used to apply to different types of human. We'll cringe, we'll say how we're so glad it's better now, and hopefully we'll remember that someone had to break tradition to make that happen.
humanoid is more a physical form hence why you can have a humanoid robot - a machine in humanoid form (but thats just how i think of things, you could see it different)
orcs dont have a -2 intelligence (or any species, atleast based of monsters of the multiverse) and considering ability scores are moving to background rather then species (personally disagree with but still looking forward to) also since im led to believe everyone can get a starter feat at creation if the player/DM wills it, or from their background once the upcoming changes are made (based of the playtests for one d&d)
the above seems to remove that "stereotyping" you mentioned, so personally think its the players/dms xenophobic attitudes rather then game itself restricting the potential of the other species of the d&d universe.
I mean, saying the scores come from background rather than race is just window dressing as of Tasha's, since they shifted the boosts to wildcards anyways. As for the old setup of pre-set ability score boosts, it really shouldn't be a huge deal because the performance difference represented by a +2 to a stat is very marginal both in hard mechanical terms of how much influence it has over rolls and what is actually represented by a given stat, particularly in mental terms where it the "connotations" are supposed to be the most damning. Beholders who can- per their chapter in Volo's- "envision literally any possibility" have 17 INT, meaning any level 4 character that prioritized INT in point buy should be able to do the same if we assume INT is a hard reflection of IQ, and obviously few DMs would go for that kind of "my character is a super genius who can plan for anything and everything" characterization, nor is it the at all supported by any material describing ability scores for players. So clearly +2 INT does not mean "this whole race is inherently smarter and thus superior to everyone else". And given that- despite the fact people keep trying to conflate the two- the various races/species of D&D are not just different ethnicities of the same baseline form, but representative of wholly separate genetic backgrounds (insofar as that concept can even be applied when the default origin is "a god made them that way"), physical differences having trends based on race/species is pretty much to be expected. Your average greyhound is going to sprint notably faster than your average mastiff, who will in turn be able to drag more weight on average, and neither is likely to be able to cope with cold weather conditions as well as a husky.
But the concept is apparently irrevocably tainted for D&D because one person tried to use it as a vehicle for his bigotry and we the great masses of players are clearly incapable of recognizing that a game mechanic that most recently was meant only to provide variation of outcomes based on character creation choices is a fictional concept being applied to fictional beings in a fictional setting and instead this clearly is going to make us think it applies to real life because it's how it works for orcs and elves.
To be clear, I could take or leave the fixed racial ASI's; they did incentivize tying certain races to certain classes for optimized builds, but arguably the wildcard approach just does that from a different direction, shifting the focus to what race has the best features to support the build. Personally I have trouble understanding how one would think there is any deeper context to the options than to choosing your starting Pokemon, but I'm aware there's enough noise and enough bad history that the safe play is to make sure the game is publicly seen moving away from it.
Honestly, I prefer to hope that one day when people look back on this they'll just wonder why people attached so much real world significance to a fantasy game, as opposed to just recognizing that "real world" and "fantasy game" exclude each other by definition.
humanoid is more a physical form hence why you can have a humanoid robot - a machine in humanoid form (but thats just how i think of things, you could see it different)
orcs dont have a -2 intelligence (or any species, atleast based of monsters of the multiverse) and considering ability scores are moving to background rather then species (personally disagree with but still looking forward to) also since im led to believe everyone can get a starter feat at creation if the player/DM wills it, or from their background once the upcoming changes are made (based of the playtests for one d&d)
the above seems to remove that "stereotyping" you mentioned, so personally think its the players/dms xenophobic attitudes rather then game itself restricting the potential of the other species of the d&d universe
I mean, saying the scores come from background rather than race is just window dressing as of Tasha's, since they shifted the boosts to wildcards anyways. As for the old setup of pre-set ability score boosts, it really shouldn't be a huge deal because the performance difference represented by a +2 to a stat is very marginal both in hard mechanical terms of how much influence it has over rolls and what is actually represented by a given stat, particularly in mental terms where it the "connotations" are supposed to be the most damning. Beholders who can- per their chapter in Volo's- "envision literally any possibility" have 17 INT, meaning any level 4 character that prioritized INT in point buy should be able to do the same if we assume INT is a hard reflection of IQ, and obviously few DMs would go for that kind of "my character is a super genius who can plan for anything and everything" characterization, nor is it the at all supported by any material describing ability scores for players. So clearly +2 INT does not mean "this whole race is inherently smarter and thus superior to everyone else". And given that- despite the fact people keep trying to conflate the two- the various races/species of D&D are not just different ethnicities of the same baseline form, but representative of wholly separate genetic backgrounds (insofar as that concept can even be applied when the default origin is "a god made them that way"), physical differences having trends based on race/species is pretty much to be expected. Your average greyhound is going to sprint notably faster than your average mastiff, who will in turn be able to drag more weight on average, and neither is likely to be able to cope with cold weather conditions as well as a husky.
But the concept is apparently irrevocably tainted for D&D because one person tried to use it as a vehicle for his bigotry and we the great masses of players are clearly incapable of recognizing that a game mechanic that most recently was meant only to provide variation of outcomes based on character creation choices is a fictional concept being applied to fictional beings in a fictional setting and instead this clearly is going to make us think it applies to real life because it's how it works for orcs and elves.
To be clear, I could take or leave the fixed racial ASI's; they did incentivize tying certain races to certain classes for optimized builds, but arguably the wildcard approach just does that from a different direction, shifting the focus to what race has the best features to support the build. Personally I have trouble understanding how one would think there is any deeper context to the options than to choosing your starting Pokemon, but I'm aware there's enough noise and enough bad history that the safe play is to make sure the game is publicly seen moving away from it.
Honestly, I prefer to hope that one day when people look back on this they'll just wonder why people attached so much real world significance to a fantasy game, as opposed to just recognizing that "real world" and "fantasy game" exclude each other by definition.
These two posts are really best responded to together, because they explore the same idea from different angles.
It makes sense to talk about a "humanoid" robot in the real world because in the real world, humans are the only things that look like humans. In a fantasy world where all these species allegedly evolved next to each other, why should "human" be privileged above the other "oids"? The obvious answer is that humans exist in the real world and all these other species don't, but to accept that answer, you have to accept that none of these species actually "evolved"; they were designed by a group of mostly white mostly men, mostly in the late 1970s.This seems obvious, but it's critical that we accept this.
Once we accept that fact--that D&D is a game designed by people--then we have to reckon with some other facts about the way it is designed. Why do all of the "usually evil" races have dark or sallow skin? Why are so many "usually evil" races former slaves? Why do so many former slave races in D&D have fantastic powers as an explicit result of their slavery?
"Well, in the setting..."
No. Someone made the setting like this. Why? Because the writers had racist ideas about how different "races" are, and they applied that to the setting. Some of this has been rolled back over the years, but the core ideas are still there: orcs no longer take -2 Intelligence, but they are still stronger, more enduring, with a higher pain tolerance than average. They're still naturally suited to some classes more than others. That might not feel as pernicious as outright saying orcs are brutish savages, but it's the same thing in a different coat of paint. I use orcs as my example because it's easy to see the parallels to real-world bigotry in their features, but any race that deviates from the default, humans, is being othered in a way that is intrinsically racist.
Moving some features out of racial traits and on to backgrounds is good, but it's not enough. It doesn't matter if we're just being "a little bit" reliant on a racist worldview for game mechanics. The idea that the races are irrevocably, biologically different in a way that matters to game design is rotten to its core. Any fragment that is allowed to remain will poison everything around it.
"Ah, but surely no one would apply this to real life!"
D&D is a game; we play it in real life. Do you think that marginalized people who play D&D don't notice that the same racist tropes they deal with every day are used to describe races in the game? Do you think bilingual players don't notice that the "Common" language is associated with humans, while all other languages are associated with non-humans? I don't think the way D&D handles race is a problem because it will turn D&D players into bigots. I think it's a problem because it makes the game more comfortable for bigots, and less comfortable for everyone else.
I'm playing a game of Fabula Ultima right now, and that game... has an interesting take on Backgrounds / Species. Everyone starts with quirk, which can be anything from "I start the game with a book of forbidden lore" to "I'm someone other PC's servant" to "I have a Destiny!"
A few of the quirks do represent "fantasy race" but here's the thing. The races in question are things like being a robot, plant-person, a four legged Beast with no hands, undead, a sapient magic sword, a swarm of lesser creatures working together as a single character, a six inch fairy. Massive biological differences. There is no elf, dwarf, halfling, orc, etc.
Nothing is stopping you from playing an elf. You can be pointy eared and long lived, and you can be the best archer in the world with a talent for nature magic. Or a powerful spellcaster. Or shadowy spider-assassin. You can be a stout scottsman with a perchance for blacksmithing and digging a hole. Diggy diggy hole. Want to be a dragon? Tis simplicity within itself to pull off as a starting character - you even have the option of being actual dragon shaped instead of humanoid shaped, or shapeshift 'tween them.
Its a really fun game. Its just not a Lord of the Rings clone.
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So as not to derail the Fireside thread starting a new thread so we can discuss how they without fanfare confirmed Race is replaced with Species. Now I agree with the removal of Race, though the word and it's current use is not problematic, it has been in the past used poorly by D&D and even today there are people in the hobby that use Race as a way to insert real world racism.
So to use the quote as the Jumping off point for this Discussion, and remember Race is out for a good reason Even Paizo removed it in favor of Ancestry.
This is a complicated concept.
1st: When P2E went with Ancestry no one noticed, because it fits, it actually fits better than Race IMO. so it flew under the radar for most.
2nd: Species is used to define something scientifically. It has a specific definition, on that doesn't fit for D&D, not elegantly anyway. Sure Gnomes are a unique species, same with Lizardmen, and Kobolds. But Humans, Elves, Dwarves and other Humans with a twist, are just that, and they can all have kids together, even Orcs. At best you can call them all Subspecies, ring species, or other high scientific concepts.
3rd: Science and tech hatred within the D&D community. The reason Artificer is banned from many games, and many people hate the inclusion of things not fitting of high fantasy. Species is to most people considered a Science term. Now if they were using it in the middle English form, it wouldn't be a problem for anything but spell checker, as back then it was a word used for the look of a thing. But then Wine and Bread would be considered species. Basically used in context it's a science term and a significant portion of the community dislike the inclusion of science in their fantasy.
4: Species was used for racism just as much if not more so as the word it's replacing. Esp when dealing with humans. POC and people of my ancestry were called another species by eugenicist, (fancy word for bigots).
5: Lots of great words that work, Ancestry, Forebearer, Lineage... and others. Hells Clan would be better.
List of Human with a Twist:
PHB: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf (Not in 5.5e), Halfling, Orc/Half-Orc (No halves in 5.5e), tiefling.
Tieflings are Humans with fiendish blood, aka an ancestor took an deal with a devil.
Note I can go further, as with each player choice in the PHB, other books include variations of these core options, plus they add more humans with a twist... ie Kender, Lineages, Kalashtar, and Shifters. Also with the deep lore on the Gith (Githyanki & Githzerai) it is possible they were once humans before the ancient Ithilids altered them.
Well, based on the UA, everyone can have kids with everyone. I'm not sure just where that puts your arguments, but it's a factor if you're going use that as a defining characteristic.
I'm not sure that pf2e's use of lineage not getting a lot of flack can be attributed to broad acceptance of the term. Pf2e is a much, much smaller game, and there's just not as many people who might be upset. It kind of just flew under the radar.
I'm not really for or against any of the different words they might use, tbh. I'm not saying you're wrong to have a strong opinion, certainly that's anyone's prerogative. Just that I'm not necessarily arguing for (or against) using species. Just hoping to clarify a couple points.
Pretty sure they've done their own research on switching to Species. I'm sure they received ample feedback for, and against, and a lot of folks who never brought it up, during the feedback process over One D&D, social media attention, etc. I see, in forums like this, species already being used instead of race and ... it doesn't provoke much of a response in me. I don't think I'm in the minority on that.
As to your point 5, aside from not wanting to be accused of aping other games innovations, "ancestry, forebears, etc" all of those imply not just the physical manifestation of the character, but an implication of bloodline and family, which are things the game wants to represent through backgrounds (and I'm guessing 'lineage' will be maintained in whatever form the gothic lineages may take, and perhaps expanded to creatures like Tieflings and other plane touched).
In many senses, it's already happened, and I don't see the world, or the game ending over it.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
1) Ancestry flew under the radar because no-one in the broader media cares about Pathfinder.
2) Ancestry also has a scientific meaning. Which is significantly less appropriate than species, because it's not a group identifier, it's a parent identifier, and if used for a group, refers to a parent group (it would be accurate to say that tieflings have fiendish ancestry or dragonborn have dragon ancestry; it's not accurate to say that tiefling is an ancestry).
3) Eh, whatever. Perhaps we're talking about Aristotle's definition of species.
4) No, really, it wasn't. Any historical term you might use has been used by racists at some point, but there's a reason it's called "racism" and not "speciesism".
5) There are no words that work, because there's nothing historically similar to D&D (and other rpg) species (forebearer and lineage have essentially the same problem as ancestry).
Race, species and any other arrangements of letters are just words, why care which is used, it's just a word...
With diversity comes adversity which leads to great adventures.
As for people being against science in fantasy, why? It's already apart of everything.
The actual problem with race in D&D was never the word "race", it was the way the races are treated in the text. I haven't kept up closely with the proposed changes for 5.5e, but here's how the game stands as of the currently official material: drow, goblinoids, orcs, and duergar are categories in the Monster Manual. Bugbear and Goblin (no job descriptions) are Monster Manual entries. There are, to be clear, also stat blocks for other types of humanoids; these are grouped under "NPCs" instead of "Monsters". There are instructions for adding racial traits to these NPCs, but they don't have any by default, which leads the reader to assume they're human. Humans are described as uniquely varied and versatile; they are not ascribed a monoculture the way other races are. A popular variant rule made humans the only race able to freely assign their Ability Score Increases at character creation for the majority of 5e's life span, and it still makes humans the only race that can have a starting feat that is relevant to their actual life experience rather than their alleged biological features. Humans are the default; all other races are deviant. Some are so deviant they get to be monsters.
Tasha's "solved" this by removing most of the lore from most of the races but oops! There's still Drow, Goblinoids, Orcs, and Duergar as categories in Monsters of the Multiverse! Sure, their alignments are now listed as "usually" and occasionally some text is slapped together about how some of these people are good guys actually, but it all feels like an afterthought because it is an afterthought. We know it's an afterthought because this material was published already. There is also, notably, still no category for Humans among the monster stat blocks.
Here's the truth: "races" as discrete mechanical categories are outdated. They shouldn't exist. Any features ascribed to race should be ascribed to background instead, and everything about background should be customizable. I sense an indignant reply. "What, are you going to say that a human raised underground should be able to see in the dark?"
Look at me. Look into my eyes.
Yes. I am.
It's a fantasy game. Humans should be able to see in the dark, Dwarves should be able to leap great distances, and Elves should be able to breathe fire. If your suspension of disbelief relies on the rigorous application of eugenics to the fantasy creatures, something is wrong with you. This is the original sin of fantasy media; it's race science all the way down, as far back as Tolkien and certainly further, and changing the word to "species" fixes none of it. Maybe 5.5e will make some steps towards addressing these problems, but I doubt they'll have the spine to make the deep, tradition-shattering changes that are actually needed.
I'd be happy to be surprised, though.
And if humans weren't apart of the world I would assume all the other species would become a lot more versatile and dynamic in the world they inhabit.
Besides humans are just animals, just like every other species, they all have the same potential however some animals are built differently to others and use different means to accomplish things, that diversity should be embraced. otherwise it would be a very bland world at least in my opinion but each to their own.
Anyone who hasn’t anticipated them switching from race specifically to the term “species” hasn’t been paying attention. They all but confirmed it months and months ago.
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1. Per the Oxford English Dictionary, Species is an older term than Race in this usage. It is hardly a modern term, despite what the detractors want to think.
2. You are dead wrong about the science. Different species can, in fact, reproduce and produce viable offspring - the idea they cannot is a myth taught by bad science teachers and perpetuated by people like you on the internet who state this myth as fact. Mules are not infertile because all hybrids are infertile - they are infertile because horses and donkeys have different chromosome counts, so mules end up with an odd number of chromosomes and thus cannot reproduce.
Different species with the same number of chromosomes can, in fact, produce viable offspring, and there are countless examples of this. The most famous example? Humans. Modern humans contain genetic traces from inter species breeding with other types of human. If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix.
Wizards’ problem is not the word species. Their problem is a player base who are misguided on both etymology and biology, making a problem where none exists.
It was used in Latin translations of Aristotle's biology (with a usage that doesn't entirely match modern usage); if you want to go super old school, replace creature type with γένος (génos) and species with εἶδος (eidos) and it will probably be more appropriate for D&D, which also uses uses Aristotle's elements (and, to the degree it's detectable, probably uses his physics as well, no real evidence that momentum exists in D&D).
I generally agree with your whole post, and this quoted part is important. But there's one bit it's missing.
Most players and DMs of D&D (or consumers of fantasy media, in general) aren't really aware of that. Now, ignorance is no excuse for bad behavior, but "enjoying fantasy media without being aware of the origins of its tropes" is pretty low on the scale of "bad behavior." (Maybe low enough to not register at all.)
The problem is the "race science" take on fantasy (and other genres...) is traditional, especially for D&D. There are many people on the forums who'll say, with a straight face, that if you move all the features to backgrounds and just make backgrounds customizable, "it won't be D&D anymore." Right or wrong (I wouldn't ascribe authority over the brand to some folks on the internet...), they're often just not aware of all the connotations. And many just (for whatever reason) distrust customization systems, regardless. Not everyone is, strictly, all "men get to be men, and elves get to be elves" about it.
I felt like I was having déjà vu and did a quick Google search. I did actually have this discussion when the OP invoking the authority of science back in 2022, here and here. To summarize the discussion for those who do not want to click the clicky thing, what is being called a scientific definition is not actually the scientific definition. What is being called criteria to fit the definition of species is not the actual criteria to fit the definition of species. When presented with numerous examples in real life that defy the stated definition of species, a retreat is made, falling back to the statement that it is pseudo-scientific and therefore can be whatever the OP wants it to be.
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I prefer just calling them races. It's quite annoying that nowadays folks don't understand that words can have multiple definitions/usages in different contexts. I don't like how science-y the term "species" sounds nor see the need for a word change. I'll just keep calling them races personally.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
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You're talking about D&D races like someone didn't just make them up in a room somewhere. D&D humans aren't animals and we know this because "Beast" is a creature category in the rules and humans aren't in it. Humans are "humanoids", and even that category name assumes they're the default. But it's worse than that. All the races don't have the same potential in D&D as written now.
Humans aren't as sturdy as Dwarves or Orcs, aren't as crafty as Gnomes, aren't as graceful as Elves, but they're adaptable; they're individually unique in a way that the other races mechanically are not. You can throw around the word "diversity" but it won't let Orcs take a Feat at character creation; no, they get "when you would die, Don't" instead. All of them. That's not diversity, it's stereotyping. Actually it's not even stereotyping when it's literally, mechanically true. D&D imagines a world where the bigots are right about inherent racial traits. They can dress it up as much as they want, but there's no ideological difference between all Orcs getting "when you would die, Don't" and all Orcs taking -2 to Intelligence.
You do know your post is simultaneously complaining about people who do not understand that words can have different usages… and you complaining about a word for one specific usage while you ignore other, older usages of the word?
Here is the thing, folks would have been upset regardless. Fifty years of usage is hard to overcome. Wizards decided they would rather abandon a word used by the incredibly racist Gary Gygax, and used by Gygax in furtherance of his active attempts to inject his small-minded bigotry into the game. They could have acknowledged the game’s racist history and tried to rehabilitate the word; that would have been fine. They could do what they did and choose a different word - also fine. It really is not something worth getting all worked up over - though, I personally suspect most of the folks getting worked up about the language change are doing so less because they care about linguistics and more to dog whistle.
You're right, of course, I'm just deeply jaded about the whole business. It's the year of our common era 2024 and I just don't have the wherewithal left to coddle people about this.
Folks who don't understand the problems with racial mechanics aren't bad people for not getting it, but they are unwittingly replicating a bad system. I think the day is coming when we'll look back at fantasy racial traits the same way we look back on the racial traits D&D used to apply to different types of human. We'll cringe, we'll say how we're so glad it's better now, and hopefully we'll remember that someone had to break tradition to make that happen.
humanoid is more a physical form hence why you can have a humanoid robot - a machine in humanoid form (but thats just how i think of things, you could see it different)
orcs dont have a -2 intelligence (or any species, atleast based of monsters of the multiverse) and considering ability scores are moving to background rather then species (personally disagree with but still looking forward to) also since im led to believe everyone can get a starter feat at creation if the player/DM wills it, or from their background once the upcoming changes are made (based of the playtests for one d&d)
the above seems to remove that "stereotyping" you mentioned, so personally think its the players/dms xenophobic attitudes rather then game itself restricting the potential of the other species of the d&d universe.
I mean, saying the scores come from background rather than race is just window dressing as of Tasha's, since they shifted the boosts to wildcards anyways. As for the old setup of pre-set ability score boosts, it really shouldn't be a huge deal because the performance difference represented by a +2 to a stat is very marginal both in hard mechanical terms of how much influence it has over rolls and what is actually represented by a given stat, particularly in mental terms where it the "connotations" are supposed to be the most damning. Beholders who can- per their chapter in Volo's- "envision literally any possibility" have 17 INT, meaning any level 4 character that prioritized INT in point buy should be able to do the same if we assume INT is a hard reflection of IQ, and obviously few DMs would go for that kind of "my character is a super genius who can plan for anything and everything" characterization, nor is it the at all supported by any material describing ability scores for players. So clearly +2 INT does not mean "this whole race is inherently smarter and thus superior to everyone else". And given that- despite the fact people keep trying to conflate the two- the various races/species of D&D are not just different ethnicities of the same baseline form, but representative of wholly separate genetic backgrounds (insofar as that concept can even be applied when the default origin is "a god made them that way"), physical differences having trends based on race/species is pretty much to be expected. Your average greyhound is going to sprint notably faster than your average mastiff, who will in turn be able to drag more weight on average, and neither is likely to be able to cope with cold weather conditions as well as a husky.
But the concept is apparently irrevocably tainted for D&D because one person tried to use it as a vehicle for his bigotry and we the great masses of players are clearly incapable of recognizing that a game mechanic that most recently was meant only to provide variation of outcomes based on character creation choices is a fictional concept being applied to fictional beings in a fictional setting and instead this clearly is going to make us think it applies to real life because it's how it works for orcs and elves.
To be clear, I could take or leave the fixed racial ASI's; they did incentivize tying certain races to certain classes for optimized builds, but arguably the wildcard approach just does that from a different direction, shifting the focus to what race has the best features to support the build. Personally I have trouble understanding how one would think there is any deeper context to the options than to choosing your starting Pokemon, but I'm aware there's enough noise and enough bad history that the safe play is to make sure the game is publicly seen moving away from it.
Honestly, I prefer to hope that one day when people look back on this they'll just wonder why people attached so much real world significance to a fantasy game, as opposed to just recognizing that "real world" and "fantasy game" exclude each other by definition.
These two posts are really best responded to together, because they explore the same idea from different angles.
It makes sense to talk about a "humanoid" robot in the real world because in the real world, humans are the only things that look like humans. In a fantasy world where all these species allegedly evolved next to each other, why should "human" be privileged above the other "oids"? The obvious answer is that humans exist in the real world and all these other species don't, but to accept that answer, you have to accept that none of these species actually "evolved"; they were designed by a group of mostly white mostly men, mostly in the late 1970s.This seems obvious, but it's critical that we accept this.
Once we accept that fact--that D&D is a game designed by people--then we have to reckon with some other facts about the way it is designed. Why do all of the "usually evil" races have dark or sallow skin? Why are so many "usually evil" races former slaves? Why do so many former slave races in D&D have fantastic powers as an explicit result of their slavery?
"Well, in the setting..."
No. Someone made the setting like this. Why? Because the writers had racist ideas about how different "races" are, and they applied that to the setting. Some of this has been rolled back over the years, but the core ideas are still there: orcs no longer take -2 Intelligence, but they are still stronger, more enduring, with a higher pain tolerance than average. They're still naturally suited to some classes more than others. That might not feel as pernicious as outright saying orcs are brutish savages, but it's the same thing in a different coat of paint. I use orcs as my example because it's easy to see the parallels to real-world bigotry in their features, but any race that deviates from the default, humans, is being othered in a way that is intrinsically racist.
Moving some features out of racial traits and on to backgrounds is good, but it's not enough. It doesn't matter if we're just being "a little bit" reliant on a racist worldview for game mechanics. The idea that the races are irrevocably, biologically different in a way that matters to game design is rotten to its core. Any fragment that is allowed to remain will poison everything around it.
"Ah, but surely no one would apply this to real life!"
D&D is a game; we play it in real life. Do you think that marginalized people who play D&D don't notice that the same racist tropes they deal with every day are used to describe races in the game? Do you think bilingual players don't notice that the "Common" language is associated with humans, while all other languages are associated with non-humans? I don't think the way D&D handles race is a problem because it will turn D&D players into bigots. I think it's a problem because it makes the game more comfortable for bigots, and less comfortable for everyone else.
I'm playing a game of Fabula Ultima right now, and that game... has an interesting take on Backgrounds / Species. Everyone starts with quirk, which can be anything from "I start the game with a book of forbidden lore" to "I'm someone other PC's servant" to "I have a Destiny!"
A few of the quirks do represent "fantasy race" but here's the thing. The races in question are things like being a robot, plant-person, a four legged Beast with no hands, undead, a sapient magic sword, a swarm of lesser creatures working together as a single character, a six inch fairy. Massive biological differences. There is no elf, dwarf, halfling, orc, etc.
Nothing is stopping you from playing an elf. You can be pointy eared and long lived, and you can be the best archer in the world with a talent for nature magic. Or a powerful spellcaster. Or shadowy spider-assassin. You can be a stout scottsman with a perchance for blacksmithing and digging a hole. Diggy diggy hole. Want to be a dragon? Tis simplicity within itself to pull off as a starting character - you even have the option of being actual dragon shaped instead of humanoid shaped, or shapeshift 'tween them.
Its a really fun game. Its just not a Lord of the Rings clone.