I wonder how long race will last in game. We spent a long time using thief and magic-user, but rogue and wizard have clearly taken over, and they did so pretty quickly. And there were definitely people upset about thief. Magic user was always kind of stupid and most were glad to see it gone, in my experience.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
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.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
I'd to have preferred ancestry or lineage or nation or people or something of the sort over species for the same 'it's too sci(-fi)' reasons.
I'm not quite as put out by species though as others seems to be as it does at least give a little more weight to arguments like "If Bears and Beavers don't have the same capacity for strength than you shouldn't expect Orcs and Gnomes to have the same capacity for strength either because, yes, they are 'essentially' that different from one another as beings.
So, really, I agree species was a bad choice for them to go with if they were trying to lean progressive by canceling use of the term race, and are instead seemingly making a concession to we grognards in this case.
Even so, as someone was wondering about how soon the term might phase out of common use relative to 'thief' and 'magic-user'; I think we at the time were not especially enamored by those terms and didn't mind an 'improvement' upon them. The majority of us old-schoolers in my opinion do however prefer the term race over other terms as the proper fantasy lexicon for 'creature-type' and will continue to enthusiastically maintain that term rather easily leaving it behind.
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I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
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.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
Frankly “parentage/ancestry” seems more problematic in the implications that relatively small derivations from what would be implied to be a common root have such large scale implications for innate traits. “Species”- at least in pop culture lexicon as opposed to actual taxonomy- better carries the implication we’re talking lions and cheetahs and linx as opposed to Anglo-Saxons and Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Americans.
Even so, as someone was wondering about how soon the term might phase out of common use relative to 'thief' and 'magic-user'; I think we at the time were not especially enamored by those terms and didn't mind an 'improvement' upon them. The majority of us old-schoolers in my opinion do however prefer the term race over other terms as the proper fantasy lexicon for 'creature-type' and will continue to enthusiastically maintain that term rather easily leaving it behind.
I’d love to know your source on what the “majority of old schoolers” prefer. As a 40+ year player, I qualify, along with several others in my group. We’re generally happy-to-indifferent about the change. Certainly not “enthusiastic”about continuing to use it.
Even so, as someone was wondering about how soon the term might phase out of common use relative to 'thief' and 'magic-user'; I think we at the time were not especially enamored by those terms and didn't mind an 'improvement' upon them. The majority of us old-schoolers in my opinion do however prefer the term race over other terms as the proper fantasy lexicon for 'creature-type' and will continue to enthusiastically maintain that term rather easily leaving it behind.
I’d love to know your source on what the “majority of old schoolers” prefer. As a 40+ year player, I qualify, along with several others in my group. We’re generally happy-to-indifferent about the change. Certainly not “enthusiastic”about continuing to use it.
40+ year player as in you've playing for 40 years or that you are a 40+ year old player? If you've been playing for 40 years, I'll admit you have me beat. I only really started playing in august 2K with the release of 3e. Someone I play with is a 2e person though. Perhaps I should call us mid-school instead of old school? Anyway, the crowd I hang with at the very least does tend to enjoy pre-4&5 content/style.
EDIT: Also, not sure if this matters, but if you want a larger sample size than just I and mine locals, I am subscribed to certain youtube channels such as BECMI Berserker and Greyhawk Grognard, etc. who have followings of folk in their communities. I also follow AJ Picket and Esper the Bard for lore among others, those two are my favorites for lore.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
'Bloodline' and 'Lineage' are both far too specific, they are conventionally used to refer to descendants of a single identifiable individual, and they're also non-unique, a person has as many bloodlines as they have ancestors. There's no actually good term because D&D inheritance does not follow real world rules, but species is at least as accurate as any of the other alternatives I've seen proposed.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
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.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
Frankly “parentage/ancestry” seems more problematic in the implications that relatively small derivations from what would be implied to be a common root have such large scale implications for innate traits. “Species”- at least in pop culture lexicon as opposed to actual taxonomy- better carries the implication we’re talking lions and cheetahs and linx as opposed to Anglo-Saxons and Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Americans.
And I disagree on the basis of the origin of the word species is all about how things are seen or appear, in other words it doesn't really care about how things differ, only how they appear to differ, to human perception. As such I think that the word really undoes any progressiveness the name change is meant to achieve and I am certainly not familiar with this lexicon you seem to be referring too. Most the time I ever see pop culture refer to species it is generally in a more scientific way as the word has become more synonymous with the works of Charles Darwin, and I've certainly never seen anybody refer to Anglo-Saxons, Pacific Islands and Indigenous Americans as separate species, I've never seen anybody do that.
Parentage refers directly to one's parents, so parent could be Human / Elf to show somebody's parentage is a mixture of human and elf, it's actually a more elegant method to put it down. As for Ancestry, this is already a heavily developed concept within D&D to begin with, for example a Dragonic Sorcerer is somebody who has Dragonic power in their bloodline
Dragon Ancestor
At 1st level, you choose one type of dragon as your ancestor. The damage type associated with each dragon is used by features you gain later.
People have been using this concept for a decade and it has too date, not been an issue. So I really highly disagree, this is merely one example of it.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
'Bloodline' and 'Lineage' are both far too specific, they are conventionally used to refer to descendants of a single identifiable individual, and they're also non-unique, a person has as many bloodlines as they have ancestors. There's no actually good term because D&D inheritance does not follow real world rules, but species is at least as accurate as any of the other alternatives I've seen proposed.
Depends on the specific definitions you're referring too.
a set of animals or plants in which the members have similar characteristics to each other and can breed with each other
This actually creates an issue in the usage in D&D, since how do you determine that Elves are a different species to Humans, at which point are you saying characterises are different enough to consider humans and elves different; in a way that can avoid actual real world implications that won't create the very same issues as the word Race does.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
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.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
Frankly “parentage/ancestry” seems more problematic in the implications that relatively small derivations from what would be implied to be a common root have such large scale implications for innate traits. “Species”- at least in pop culture lexicon as opposed to actual taxonomy- better carries the implication we’re talking lions and cheetahs and linx as opposed to Anglo-Saxons and Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Americans.
And I disagree on the basis of the origin of the word species is all about how things are seen or appear, in other words it doesn't really care about how things differ, only how they appear to differ, to human perception. As such I think that the word really undoes any progressiveness the name change is meant to achieve and I am certainly not familiar with this lexicon you seem to be referring too. Most the time I ever see pop culture refer to species it is generally in a more scientific way as the word has become more synonymous with the works of Charles Darwin, and I've certainly never seen anybody refer to Anglo-Saxons, Pacific Islands and Indigenous Americans as separate species, I've never seen anybody do that.
Parentage refers directly to one's parents, so parent could be Human / Elf to show somebody's parentage is a mixture of human and elf, it's actually elegant method to put it down. As for Ancestry, this is already a heavily developed concept within D&D to begin with, for example a Dragonic Sorcerer is somebody who has Dragonic power in their bloodline
Dragon Ancestor
At 1st level, you choose one type of dragon as your ancestor. The damage type associated with each dragon is used by features you gain later.
People have been using this concept for a decade and it has too date, not been an issue. So I really highly disagree, this is merely one example of it.
My point was that species is incorrect when applied to human ethnic groups, whereas when we’re talking elves and humans and centaurs and dragonborn who are both at a glance and other concrete and measurable ways far more disparate than anything you’ll find in IRL human populations the term correctly describes the distinctions.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
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.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
Frankly “parentage/ancestry” seems more problematic in the implications that relatively small derivations from what would be implied to be a common root have such large scale implications for innate traits. “Species”- at least in pop culture lexicon as opposed to actual taxonomy- better carries the implication we’re talking lions and cheetahs and linx as opposed to Anglo-Saxons and Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Americans.
And I disagree on the basis of the origin of the word species is all about how things are seen or appear, in other words it doesn't really care about how things differ, only how they appear to differ, to human perception. As such I think that the word really undoes any progressiveness the name change is meant to achieve and I am certainly not familiar with this lexicon you seem to be referring too. Most the time I ever see pop culture refer to species it is generally in a more scientific way as the word has become more synonymous with the works of Charles Darwin, and I've certainly never seen anybody refer to Anglo-Saxons, Pacific Islands and Indigenous Americans as separate species, I've never seen anybody do that.
Parentage refers directly to one's parents, so parent could be Human / Elf to show somebody's parentage is a mixture of human and elf, it's actually elegant method to put it down. As for Ancestry, this is already a heavily developed concept within D&D to begin with, for example a Dragonic Sorcerer is somebody who has Dragonic power in their bloodline
Dragon Ancestor
At 1st level, you choose one type of dragon as your ancestor. The damage type associated with each dragon is used by features you gain later.
People have been using this concept for a decade and it has too date, not been an issue. So I really highly disagree, this is merely one example of it.
My point was that species is incorrect when applied to human ethnic groups, whereas when we’re talking elves and humans and centaurs and dragonborn who are both at a glance and other concrete and measurable ways far more disparate than anything you’ll find in IRL human populations the term correctly describes the distinctions.
When have people applied species incorrectly to human ethnic groups? Perhaps historically there were people that did that hundreds of years ago with things like slavery, but I certain don't see it in modern times, however if that were the case then it only makes my case of species being a bad choice of words stronger, not weaker.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups. Not all ethnic groups have the same life expectancy (and there are many reasons beyond ethnicity behind that), sure Elves live significantly longer but with how systems like D&D work, there is always exceptions where a Human wizard becomes literally as old as Elves can get... so it's not a strong point there. So does a Human Wizard that lives to be 300 years old suddenly become not a human just because they managed to sustain their life for longer? If not that, then what is it, Ears? Ethnic groups can have differing ears, noses, hair, etc. On an appearance level, the characteristic differences of a Human and an Elf are just not significant enough here, they are actually in the realm of difference between as you could infer exists between ethnic groups.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups.
Really... no, not even close. Human 'races' do not map reliably to any non-cosmetic features, because they're defined by cosmetic features.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups.
Really... no, not even close. Human 'races' do not map reliably to any non-cosmetic features, because they're defined by cosmetic features.
The traits are about the only unique thing left, so I won't entirely disagree with that but again the historical meanings of the words species have been either the scientific or the historical which borrows from latin and would only be concerned with cosmetic features. From the scientific, Humans and Elves live together and can breed together, so in either instance, the word isn't applicable.
Edit: I'd say, if you can "disguise self" as another race with just a disguise kit, you're generally familiar enough from an appearance point of view that it's going to border on the same differences are are used for Ethnicity or Race, which means the change in words hasn't really fixed anything since the connotations of what constitutes the difference hasn't really changed.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups.
Really... no, not even close. Human 'races' do not map reliably to any non-cosmetic features, because they're defined by cosmetic features.
More to the point, I am not familiar with any ethnicity that outlives the rest of us by an order of magnitude and doesn’t need sleep.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
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.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
Frankly “parentage/ancestry” seems more problematic in the implications that relatively small derivations from what would be implied to be a common root have such large scale implications for innate traits. “Species”- at least in pop culture lexicon as opposed to actual taxonomy- better carries the implication we’re talking lions and cheetahs and linx as opposed to Anglo-Saxons and Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Americans.
And I disagree on the basis of the origin of the word species is all about how things are seen or appear, in other words it doesn't really care about how things differ, only how they appear to differ, to human perception. As such I think that the word really undoes any progressiveness the name change is meant to achieve and I am certainly not familiar with this lexicon you seem to be referring too. Most the time I ever see pop culture refer to species it is generally in a more scientific way as the word has become more synonymous with the works of Charles Darwin, and I've certainly never seen anybody refer to Anglo-Saxons, Pacific Islands and Indigenous Americans as separate species, I've never seen anybody do that.
Parentage refers directly to one's parents, so parent could be Human / Elf to show somebody's parentage is a mixture of human and elf, it's actually elegant method to put it down. As for Ancestry, this is already a heavily developed concept within D&D to begin with, for example a Dragonic Sorcerer is somebody who has Dragonic power in their bloodline
Dragon Ancestor
At 1st level, you choose one type of dragon as your ancestor. The damage type associated with each dragon is used by features you gain later.
People have been using this concept for a decade and it has too date, not been an issue. So I really highly disagree, this is merely one example of it.
My point was that species is incorrect when applied to human ethnic groups, whereas when we’re talking elves and humans and centaurs and dragonborn who are both at a glance and other concrete and measurable ways far more disparate than anything you’ll find in IRL human populations the term correctly describes the distinctions.
When have people applied species incorrectly to human ethnic groups? Perhaps historically there were people that did that hundreds of years ago with things like slavery, but I certain don't see it in modern times, however if that were the case then it only makes my case of species being a bad choice of words stronger, not weaker.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups. Not all ethnic groups have the same life expectancy (and there are many reasons beyond ethnicity behind that), sure Elves live significantly longer but with how systems like D&D work, there is always exceptions where a Human wizard becomes literally as old as Elves can get... so it's not a strong point there. So does a Human Wizard that lives to be 300 years old suddenly become not a human just because they managed to sustain their life for longer? If not that, then what is it, Ears? Ethnic groups can have differing ears, noses, hair, etc. On an appearance level, the characteristic differences of a Human and an Elf are just not significant enough here, they are actually in the realm of difference between as you could infer exists between ethnic groups.
Strong disagree here. From a biological point of view average lifespan is hugely important the all kinds of characteristics of organisms, from the genetics & molecular level to reproduction & parenting behaviours. Similarly the fact that Elves don't need to sleep whereas Humans do is a very significant difference that would affect their psychology & culture. A human wizard that expects to live to be 300+ years old would absolutely behave differently to a normal human that expects to die within 80 years. Elves also perceive the world in a fundamentally different way from humans: they can see through charms, see through the darkest nights, and are just generally more perceptive. Gosh even the only change was night vision that would massively affect human society & psychology - no more torches everywhere and fear of the dark, no more activity governed by the cycles of the sun,.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups.
Really... no, not even close. Human 'races' do not map reliably to any non-cosmetic features, because they're defined by cosmetic features.
More to the point, I am not familiar with any ethnicity that outlives the rest of us by an order of magnitude and doesn’t need sleep.
I have already pointed out that there are many Humans older than most elves, so this is a nonsensical point, you're comparing fantasy elves to real life humans, not fantasy elves to fantasy humans. Elminster for example is over 1,200 years old. Volo is also quiet old, these characters are still considered to be human and yet live magnitudes older than others. Druids get a class feature that literally slows down aging by a factor of 1/10th, Timeless Body, that is increasing life expectancy by orders of magnitude.
Also there are character builds which do not need sleep, mostly involving warlock, there is aspect of the moon or the coffeelock build, using greater restoration to remove levels of exhaustion and recovering expended spell slots using a mixture of pact slots and sorcerer's metamagic, go sacred soul to get access to greater restoration. Now people may say the latter is magic but the former is an eldritch invocation and eldritch invocations are more like alterations made to the warlock themself.
Strong disagree here. From a biological point of view average lifespan is hugely important the all kinds of characteristics of organisms, from the genetics & molecular level to reproduction & parenting behaviours. Similarly the fact that Elves don't need to sleep whereas Humans do is a very significant difference that would affect their psychology & culture. A human wizard that expects to live to be 300+ years old would absolutely behave differently to a normal human that expects to die within 80 years. Elves also perceive the world in a fundamentally different way from humans: they can see through charms, see through the darkest nights, and are just generally more perceptive. Gosh even the only change was night vision that would massively affect human society & psychology - no more torches everywhere and fear of the dark, no more activity governed by the cycles of the sun,.
If you're going with Biology then you are going with science and from a scientific point of view, even if Elves have these abilities and humans do not, Elves and Humans must be genetically compatible in the setting and are not geographically isolated groups from each other, so there is no scientific or biological reason here to say they are separate species.
Also culture is a completely separate issue here, culture does not fall under "species" but arguable would have fallen under race. If you're going to insist culture does, then you really are just switching the word race for species, which again, goes back to my criticism that switching the words does not redress the actual issue, it's just renaming it and hoping nobody complains that it literally still has all the same issues. But as the famous quote goes, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Calling a rose a different name doesn't stop it being a rose.
A human wizard acting different is irrelevant, how a person acts is irrelevant, A human can get in a drinking contest against a Dwarf, it might be ill-advised but a human can act the same way. A human brought up by adoptive Dwarf parents thus may inherit Dwarf culture instead of Human but they are still a Human.
Also Dark vision does not work the way you infer, Darkvision is very limited in range, most races with Darkvision would still want light sources because they can not see anything past their darkvision range, additionally dark vision is limited like dim light when in complete darkness, which really isn't ideal on a pitch black night. There are also some humans that have Darkvision. Originally back in early days much more limited options for a human to get dark vision but there are more ways now.
Overall, this really isn't describing different species. For example ants, ants have queens/princesses, they also have workers, they also have soldiers, in real-life. What a worker is capable of is vastly different to what a soldier is capable of, or what a queen is. Different members of the same any colony develop differently with different life expectancies, purposes and abilities.
I have already pointed out that there are many Humans older than most elves, so this is a nonsensical point
The fact that there are alternative ways of achieving extended life does not mean extended life is not a distinctive feature of elves. The reality is, there are no differences between human races that would have any effect on a D&D character sheet beyond physical description.
I can't tell if someone is trolling or what over the last few posts; but elves are as alien to human beings as the grey aliens with the big black eyes are.
It doesn't matter that they may appear to be similar or share some similar traits. Ictheosaurs and dolphins look very similar and have some similar traits, but are not only not the same species but not even the same class.
Not only are elves physically different, in the sense of having a fae origin vs an origin on the material plane; but elves are also metaphysically different on account of that same origin and do not share the same afterlife experience that humans do. They are different body & Soul. Just because they don't 'seem' so different at first glance is not enough to characterize them as sharing of common ancestry without a deeper look.
Similarly there are quite a few creatures in D&D that don't look nearly as much like humans as elves do at all, but who do actually share a common ancestry with humans. You can't tell just from similar appearances or some potentially convergent traits who is related to whom.
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re: species vs ethnicity in real life.
No one I know is applying the term to modern ethnicities, but there is debate as to whether neanderthals and cromagnons (now called early modern humans), and possibly also the Denisovans really should be classified as different species; and if not, what would they be? While they have some morphological difference, they all interbred. Their morphological difference may a bit more pronounced than those of modern humans due to the bottleneck effect of the toba catastrophe on modern humans, but it is possible that all the pleistocene members of the genus might potentially be a single species just as we are today according to certain definitions thus making the populations within need to be known by another term. Perhaps ethnicity? I wouldn't know.
Even so, as someone was wondering about how soon the term might phase out of common use relative to 'thief' and 'magic-user'; I think we at the time were not especially enamored by those terms and didn't mind an 'improvement' upon them. The majority of us old-schoolers in my opinion do however prefer the term race over other terms as the proper fantasy lexicon for 'creature-type' and will continue to enthusiastically maintain that term rather easily leaving it behind.
I’d love to know your source on what the “majority of old schoolers” prefer. As a 40+ year player, I qualify, along with several others in my group. We’re generally happy-to-indifferent about the change. Certainly not “enthusiastic”about continuing to use it.
40+ year player as in you've playing for 40 years or that you are a 40+ year old player? If you've been playing for 40 years, I'll admit you have me beat. I only really started playing in august 2K with the release of 3e. Someone I play with is a 2e person though. Perhaps I should call us mid-school instead of old school? Anyway, the crowd I hang with at the very least does tend to enjoy pre-4&5 content/style.
EDIT: Also, not sure if this matters, but if you want a larger sample size than just I and mine locals, I am subscribed to certain youtube channels such as BECMI Berserker and Greyhawk Grognard, etc. who have followings of folk in their communities. I also follow AJ Picket and Esper the Bard for lore among others, those two are my favorites for lore.
I am both over 40 and have been playing for more than 40 years. My point was more to mean, none of us (myself included) can say what “most” people want or will do. My comment you were responding to was kind of idly wondering what will happen as time goes on.
I honestly don’t get why this whole terminology thing was important enough to change in the first place. I understand it but I don’t get it. But whatever. If it’s important enough to some people to drive them to change it then so what? So they change it. I don’t understand at all why anyone would care enough to make a fuss against changing it though. I mean it. This whole thing seems silly to me in the first place. It’s a word to describe a variation among different made up people. Who really cares enough about it to be upset that they changed it? Why? Legitimately. Why? That’s not a rhetorical question either. I really do want to know why anyone on earth would care enough about it to be upset about this change in terminology. What possible difference could it make? Like I said I understand why people cared enough tho change it. I may not think it mattered but at least I can understand their reasoning for why it mattered to them. But why should it matter to anyone the other way? Who cares?
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I wonder how long race will last in game. We spent a long time using thief and magic-user, but rogue and wizard have clearly taken over, and they did so pretty quickly. And there were definitely people upset about thief. Magic user was always kind of stupid and most were glad to see it gone, in my experience.
Race is pretty well entrenched in the spec-fic lexicon though. I expect it'll hang around pretty well, though I don't really have a stake either way.
I personally would have preferred 'races' become bloodlines or lineages, with the choice/section on the character sheet changed to parentage or ancestry. Than going with species, which in my opinion is less progressive a choice and a more confusing term giving the two differing meanings, scientific or historical.
Were Neanderthals a different species to Homo Sapiens tho? There are strong arguments on both sides of that debate in the scientific community and no clear right answer.
Also saying " If you are, for example, European in heritage, you have an extremely high chance of having some Neanderthal DNA thrown into the mix." Is problematic, for a few reasons as it feels like it is inferring Europeans have more Neanderthal DNA than anybody else and that you not likely to have Neanderthal DNA if you're not European.
First off, East Asians tend to have more Neanderthal DNA than Western Europeans and the reasons of this are mostly well understood but essentially Neanderthals were still meeting and mixing with homo sapiens in the middle-east, going out from the middle-east into Asia, people were carrying some level of Neanderthal DNA. Following the fall of the Neanderthal's, Farmers and other migrants continued to flood into Europe, from areas where people had lower levels of Neanderthal DNA but these migrations were not so prolific going towards Asia. Thus today Asians can often have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.
Second off, nearly everybody has some level of Neanderthal DNA, while Africans might have the least, some of that DNA did still travel back into Africa and more than most people generally realise. Anyway, this is enough of a tangent on this matter.
My favorite would have been "creature-type".
I'd to have preferred ancestry or lineage or nation or people or something of the sort over species for the same 'it's too sci(-fi)' reasons.
I'm not quite as put out by species though as others seems to be as it does at least give a little more weight to arguments like "If Bears and Beavers don't have the same capacity for strength than you shouldn't expect Orcs and Gnomes to have the same capacity for strength either because, yes, they are 'essentially' that different from one another as beings.
So, really, I agree species was a bad choice for them to go with if they were trying to lean progressive by canceling use of the term race, and are instead seemingly making a concession to we grognards in this case.
Even so, as someone was wondering about how soon the term might phase out of common use relative to 'thief' and 'magic-user'; I think we at the time were not especially enamored by those terms and didn't mind an 'improvement' upon them. The majority of us old-schoolers in my opinion do however prefer the term race over other terms as the proper fantasy lexicon for 'creature-type' and will continue to enthusiastically maintain that term rather easily leaving it behind.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Frankly “parentage/ancestry” seems more problematic in the implications that relatively small derivations from what would be implied to be a common root have such large scale implications for innate traits. “Species”- at least in pop culture lexicon as opposed to actual taxonomy- better carries the implication we’re talking lions and cheetahs and linx as opposed to Anglo-Saxons and Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Americans.
I’d love to know your source on what the “majority of old schoolers” prefer. As a 40+ year player, I qualify, along with several others in my group. We’re generally happy-to-indifferent about the change. Certainly not “enthusiastic”about continuing to use it.
40+ year player as in you've playing for 40 years or that you are a 40+ year old player? If you've been playing for 40 years, I'll admit you have me beat. I only really started playing in august 2K with the release of 3e. Someone I play with is a 2e person though. Perhaps I should call us mid-school instead of old school? Anyway, the crowd I hang with at the very least does tend to enjoy pre-4&5 content/style.
EDIT: Also, not sure if this matters, but if you want a larger sample size than just I and mine locals, I am subscribed to certain youtube channels such as BECMI Berserker and Greyhawk Grognard, etc. who have followings of folk in their communities. I also follow AJ Picket and Esper the Bard for lore among others, those two are my favorites for lore.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
'Bloodline' and 'Lineage' are both far too specific, they are conventionally used to refer to descendants of a single identifiable individual, and they're also non-unique, a person has as many bloodlines as they have ancestors. There's no actually good term because D&D inheritance does not follow real world rules, but species is at least as accurate as any of the other alternatives I've seen proposed.
And I disagree on the basis of the origin of the word species is all about how things are seen or appear, in other words it doesn't really care about how things differ, only how they appear to differ, to human perception. As such I think that the word really undoes any progressiveness the name change is meant to achieve and I am certainly not familiar with this lexicon you seem to be referring too. Most the time I ever see pop culture refer to species it is generally in a more scientific way as the word has become more synonymous with the works of Charles Darwin, and I've certainly never seen anybody refer to Anglo-Saxons, Pacific Islands and Indigenous Americans as separate species, I've never seen anybody do that.
Parentage refers directly to one's parents, so parent could be Human / Elf to show somebody's parentage is a mixture of human and elf, it's actually a more elegant method to put it down. As for Ancestry, this is already a heavily developed concept within D&D to begin with, for example a Dragonic Sorcerer is somebody who has Dragonic power in their bloodline
People have been using this concept for a decade and it has too date, not been an issue. So I really highly disagree, this is merely one example of it.
Depends on the specific definitions you're referring too.
Cambridge Dictionary:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bloodline
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/lineage
There are multiple definitions of multiple words, including species:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/species
This actually creates an issue in the usage in D&D, since how do you determine that Elves are a different species to Humans, at which point are you saying characterises are different enough to consider humans and elves different; in a way that can avoid actual real world implications that won't create the very same issues as the word Race does.
My point was that species is incorrect when applied to human ethnic groups, whereas when we’re talking elves and humans and centaurs and dragonborn who are both at a glance and other concrete and measurable ways far more disparate than anything you’ll find in IRL human populations the term correctly describes the distinctions.
When have people applied species incorrectly to human ethnic groups? Perhaps historically there were people that did that hundreds of years ago with things like slavery, but I certain don't see it in modern times, however if that were the case then it only makes my case of species being a bad choice of words stronger, not weaker.
Humans and Centaurs, obviously have significant differences but Humans and Elves don't; not really. The differences between Humans and Elves borders on the level of differences between various ethnic groups. Not all ethnic groups have the same life expectancy (and there are many reasons beyond ethnicity behind that), sure Elves live significantly longer but with how systems like D&D work, there is always exceptions where a Human wizard becomes literally as old as Elves can get... so it's not a strong point there. So does a Human Wizard that lives to be 300 years old suddenly become not a human just because they managed to sustain their life for longer? If not that, then what is it, Ears? Ethnic groups can have differing ears, noses, hair, etc. On an appearance level, the characteristic differences of a Human and an Elf are just not significant enough here, they are actually in the realm of difference between as you could infer exists between ethnic groups.
Really... no, not even close. Human 'races' do not map reliably to any non-cosmetic features, because they're defined by cosmetic features.
The traits are about the only unique thing left, so I won't entirely disagree with that but again the historical meanings of the words species have been either the scientific or the historical which borrows from latin and would only be concerned with cosmetic features. From the scientific, Humans and Elves live together and can breed together, so in either instance, the word isn't applicable.
Edit: I'd say, if you can "disguise self" as another race with just a disguise kit, you're generally familiar enough from an appearance point of view that it's going to border on the same differences are are used for Ethnicity or Race, which means the change in words hasn't really fixed anything since the connotations of what constitutes the difference hasn't really changed.
More to the point, I am not familiar with any ethnicity that outlives the rest of us by an order of magnitude and doesn’t need sleep.
Strong disagree here. From a biological point of view average lifespan is hugely important the all kinds of characteristics of organisms, from the genetics & molecular level to reproduction & parenting behaviours. Similarly the fact that Elves don't need to sleep whereas Humans do is a very significant difference that would affect their psychology & culture. A human wizard that expects to live to be 300+ years old would absolutely behave differently to a normal human that expects to die within 80 years. Elves also perceive the world in a fundamentally different way from humans: they can see through charms, see through the darkest nights, and are just generally more perceptive. Gosh even the only change was night vision that would massively affect human society & psychology - no more torches everywhere and fear of the dark, no more activity governed by the cycles of the sun,.
I have already pointed out that there are many Humans older than most elves, so this is a nonsensical point, you're comparing fantasy elves to real life humans, not fantasy elves to fantasy humans. Elminster for example is over 1,200 years old. Volo is also quiet old, these characters are still considered to be human and yet live magnitudes older than others. Druids get a class feature that literally slows down aging by a factor of 1/10th, Timeless Body, that is increasing life expectancy by orders of magnitude.
Also there are character builds which do not need sleep, mostly involving warlock, there is aspect of the moon or the coffeelock build, using greater restoration to remove levels of exhaustion and recovering expended spell slots using a mixture of pact slots and sorcerer's metamagic, go sacred soul to get access to greater restoration. Now people may say the latter is magic but the former is an eldritch invocation and eldritch invocations are more like alterations made to the warlock themself.
If you're going with Biology then you are going with science and from a scientific point of view, even if Elves have these abilities and humans do not, Elves and Humans must be genetically compatible in the setting and are not geographically isolated groups from each other, so there is no scientific or biological reason here to say they are separate species.
Also culture is a completely separate issue here, culture does not fall under "species" but arguable would have fallen under race. If you're going to insist culture does, then you really are just switching the word race for species, which again, goes back to my criticism that switching the words does not redress the actual issue, it's just renaming it and hoping nobody complains that it literally still has all the same issues. But as the famous quote goes, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Calling a rose a different name doesn't stop it being a rose.
A human wizard acting different is irrelevant, how a person acts is irrelevant, A human can get in a drinking contest against a Dwarf, it might be ill-advised but a human can act the same way. A human brought up by adoptive Dwarf parents thus may inherit Dwarf culture instead of Human but they are still a Human.
Also Dark vision does not work the way you infer, Darkvision is very limited in range, most races with Darkvision would still want light sources because they can not see anything past their darkvision range, additionally dark vision is limited like dim light when in complete darkness, which really isn't ideal on a pitch black night. There are also some humans that have Darkvision. Originally back in early days much more limited options for a human to get dark vision but there are more ways now.
Overall, this really isn't describing different species. For example ants, ants have queens/princesses, they also have workers, they also have soldiers, in real-life. What a worker is capable of is vastly different to what a soldier is capable of, or what a queen is. Different members of the same any colony develop differently with different life expectancies, purposes and abilities.
The fact that there are alternative ways of achieving extended life does not mean extended life is not a distinctive feature of elves. The reality is, there are no differences between human races that would have any effect on a D&D character sheet beyond physical description.
I can't tell if someone is trolling or what over the last few posts; but elves are as alien to human beings as the grey aliens with the big black eyes are.
It doesn't matter that they may appear to be similar or share some similar traits. Ictheosaurs and dolphins look very similar and have some similar traits, but are not only not the same species but not even the same class.
Not only are elves physically different, in the sense of having a fae origin vs an origin on the material plane; but elves are also metaphysically different on account of that same origin and do not share the same afterlife experience that humans do. They are different body & Soul. Just because they don't 'seem' so different at first glance is not enough to characterize them as sharing of common ancestry without a deeper look.
Similarly there are quite a few creatures in D&D that don't look nearly as much like humans as elves do at all, but who do actually share a common ancestry with humans. You can't tell just from similar appearances or some potentially convergent traits who is related to whom.
----
re: species vs ethnicity in real life.
No one I know is applying the term to modern ethnicities, but there is debate as to whether neanderthals and cromagnons (now called early modern humans), and possibly also the Denisovans really should be classified as different species; and if not, what would they be? While they have some morphological difference, they all interbred. Their morphological difference may a bit more pronounced than those of modern humans due to the bottleneck effect of the toba catastrophe on modern humans, but it is possible that all the pleistocene members of the genus might potentially be a single species just as we are today according to certain definitions thus making the populations within need to be known by another term. Perhaps ethnicity? I wouldn't know.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I am both over 40 and have been playing for more than 40 years.
My point was more to mean, none of us (myself included) can say what “most” people want or will do. My comment you were responding to was kind of idly wondering what will happen as time goes on.
I honestly don’t get why this whole terminology thing was important enough to change in the first place. I understand it but I don’t get it. But whatever. If it’s important enough to some people to drive them to change it then so what? So they change it. I don’t understand at all why anyone would care enough to make a fuss against changing it though. I mean it. This whole thing seems silly to me in the first place. It’s a word to describe a variation among different made up people. Who really cares enough about it to be upset that they changed it? Why? Legitimately. Why? That’s not a rhetorical question either. I really do want to know why anyone on earth would care enough about it to be upset about this change in terminology. What possible difference could it make? Like I said I understand why people cared enough tho change it. I may not think it mattered but at least I can understand their reasoning for why it mattered to them. But why should it matter to anyone the other way? Who cares?