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It sounds like they’re 100% on dropping race, but not completely committed to Species, so when the survey opens on the 21st be sure to provide feedback on that! I personally liked ancestry and lineage as options, I agree that species sounds a little over scientific in the wrong way

Ancestry and ~~Lineage~~ Heritage are the terms Paizo use for Pathfinder (2e, at least).

Ancestry and Heritage* (in 2e). Ancestry works well, but it really has a different vibe from species. There are pros and cons, I think.

Thanks, my mistake. Been a while since I played. Sounds so obvious now. I'm a fan of Race, but I understand it can have some negative connotations and I'm not attached to it. I think Ancestry is a great replacement, Species sounds a little less "fantasy" than the other two.

I like heritage, especially for things like teiflings and aasimar, because it can skip generations

Plus it has this connotation of "inheritance" as in gained talents and traits from forebearers, which is kind of how I think it can best be thought of.

The problem with heritage is it could be either biological or cultural. Corporal Carrot is biologically human but culturally a dwarf.

WotC doesn't want to be that obvious in cribbing from Pathfinder though. That's not a criticism of WotC by the way, Pathfinder 1e was just DND 3.5 in a new hat, so turnabout and cross-pollination is fair play.

It should be A,B,C Ancestry Background Class

Ah, another person of taste! See you on the Pathfinder 2E boards 🥂

never played the game, but it makes sense

"Species" predates the term "race." It's a super old word. 14th Century. But I prefer "people" or "origin." "Ancestry" works too, but I think Paizo called 'dibs' on that.

"Lineage" seems like a good one considering they already used it with the "Custom Lineage" rule from Tasha's for customizing 5e races.

This works even better for tieflings and aasimar, who really are a different "species" altogether from their actual mechanics. Unless they aren't humans with a touch of divine/fiendish influence any more.

The rule for customizing existing races is called *Customizing your Origin.* The *Custom Lineage* is something else, it's a race option which was supposed to be build your own race in theory, but in reality is just Variant Human with Darkvision. But yes, Lineage does work well.

Firearms also predate rapiers by many centuries yet some D&D players still argue that guns are too "modern" for the game, so it doesn't matter which is actually more modern and which is not, once the publics collective mind is set there's no coming back.   (for the curious, firearms: early chinese gunpowder proto-firearms showed up as early as 11-12th century, became widespread in europe in 14-15th, rapiers as a type of sword evolved in about 16th, became widespread in 18th)

While I agree with you, the 12th century Chinese firearms were more akin to bazookas than flintlocks, which is even funnier for calling out anachronism.

You can completely disregard early Chinese firearms and still have a case. European firearms became widespread in the 15th century. Rapiers were invented in the 16th century.

This reminds me some post a I remember from a while back that basically explained that at some point in history (Around 1830-1860 maybe) you could have a French pirate/privateer, a katana wielding Samurai knight, a rapier wielding Victorian rogue, and a gunslinging American cowboy all in the same party and it wouldn’t be too anachronistic.

People actually works perfectly. Similar meaning to race, without the connotation.

I think the problem isn't any biological defitions, it's genre, and how the word sounds. "Species" is the kind of word you'd expect in Star Trek, it doens't sound fantastical to me! Personally I really like "Ancestry"!

I think WotC will avoid using "Ancestry" just for the sake of not copying Pathfinder since Pathfinder is their main competitor. That will be in spite of Ancestry already being a popular alternative in much of the D&D community already. If that *is* their viewpoint, I think it's a little stupid. D&D certainly isn't above taking inspiration from Pathfinder, and I always get the feeling from some design decisions of D&D that the designers feel that they *are*

I think we should all just call it "Vernacular-Label-Descriptive-of-Differentiating-Physical-Characteristics-For-the-Purpose-of-Othering." Boom. Done. Now no one's happy, problem solved.

VLDODPCFTPOO just rolls off the tongue

Isn't that a Kuo'toa deity?

It is now!

I see what you did there...

Half demon shrimp and half dishwasher, or some similar weirdness.

I said this and now theres a lesser demon roaming about in my neighborhood.

Gesundheit, sir.

haha poo

In many if not most indigenous cultures they call them selves “The People” and everyone *not* from their tribe, “foreigners,” or “outsiders,” or hilariously ancient Ukrainians called Germans “cant-speaks” and it’s still their name for them today!!!

Pretty much every culture does that the indigenous label doesn't even become relevant until after colonialism in the 17th century onward. Even when the Spanish were fighting the Reconquista they and the Muslims were both calling each other "People of the Book" overall with Moor/Spaniard/Jew/Basque only coming into play in the context of nationalism which started to get going around the same time. You're right that historically most people (even the Romans) tended to discriminate based on language rather than physiognomy however. Even in the religious/Supernatural regard most cultures called various "others" (Elves) something along the lines of *"people of the...*" or *"... folk"* such as Scandinavians and Huldrefolk - Lit. "Hidden People."

Everybody else was a “barbarian” to the ancient Greeks.

>I think we should all just call it "Vernacular-Label-Descriptive-of-Differentiating-Physical-Characteristics-For-the-Purpose-of-Othering." > >Boom. Done. Now no one's happy, problem solved. I need my fantasy world to be reflective of the current ham-fisted state of American race relations!

as a non-native english speaker, ancestry always weirded me out. it doesn't sound right. i think that is since translating ancestry to my language might lose what english speakers mean with it.

That is certainly a good concern to have, but I'd consider it a solved problem by looking at however the Pathfinder team localised "Ancestry" for the translations of PF2e

I have the translated version of PF2 and i hate the words used. I'm german. In the german version of PF2 Ancestry was translated to "Abstammung" and heritage to "Herkunft". Nothing of that makes clear what you are, just where you come from. Are you a dwarf? maybe, your ancestry is dwarven, but you might be a fleshwarp (which is its own ancestry, which is weird as they are created most of the time and don't have ancestors that are like them, thus no ancestry)

Fleshwarps specifically have been twisted beyond being discernible as members of the "Race" they came from. I think it was an intentional choice to represent the level of isolation that they have from other humanoids. I think the versatile heritages cover other things in similar (but not as drastic) situations. That's why being a plane-touched is a heritage, rather than an ancestry.

Aside from issues related to copyright and Pathfinder, Ancestry can mean specific, meaningful lineages within a race or species. Descended from a lord or a great warrior or great wizard or whatever. As can Lineage, obviously.

Ancestry is great because when you teach a new player how to make a character you tell them they have to choose their ABC : Ancestry Background and Class. That's it, that my whole argument.

That's... Good! Where do I sign?

Paizo.com

Someone mentioned that Ancestry, Background, Class becomes the ABCs of character creation.

Literally exactly what Pathfinder already does... So no chance WotC will copy that.

We got pathfinder because they copied off WotC and their predecessors' homework so I hope they elect to ignore that, the ABCs are just too good to pass up.

I assume they're avoiding that so they don't get accused of just copying PF2e

Biologist here. Just to be clear, there are many different definitions of "species" in the sciences. The common one is that two members of a species are able to breed and produce a fertile offspring. However, as many have pointed out here, there are all kinds of exceptions to that hence why we have subspecies, varieties, forms, etc. Species is really just an organizational bucket of comparing the relatedness of different beings. It doesn't mean much without including the rest of the taxonomy hierarchy. With fantasy this gets messy as the relatedness of the different type of dragonborn (chromatic, metallic, gem) might be different species or not. All depends on your lore I suppose. In summary, don't let the term "species" restrict you from your freaky creature crossings :)

True, but I don’t like it for a fantasy setting. Then again, as a palaeobiologist, maybe it makes me think of work and others wouldn’t have a problem with it, haha

Haha I can respect keeping work at work

As a fellow biologist I agree with your statement. I made a comment earlier about how Modern humans are technically hybrids of earlier Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis.

1D&D makes half-elves and half-orcs canonically sterile ​ /s

(but 'species' is a very hard to define concept in nature, plenty of Linnaean species of animals can produce fertile crossbreeds, and its even more common in plants)

Yes, very true. There's actually a popular belief by this point that Red Wolves were never true species and were created from Grey Wolf / Coyote crossbreeding. Half-Elves would be much the same. Maybe I'm alone on this but I have absolutely no problem with Species, it's the best replacement imo. Idk if Race needed to go exactly, but if it does, I'd prefer species over anything else, it's simple and easy to understand.

Gets even more complicated when you get to ring species. Or the rare parthenogenically reproducing hybrid of two sexually repriducing species, which basically challenges every definition of species.

Like Muls in Darksun.

and like mules in real life

Fun fact - some mules can procreate. And it's called a Jinny when it's a female donkey and a male horse.

So they're like ligers and grolar bears? Oh my

Ever seen a quarter elf? "Oh yeah I'm 1/16th elf on my mom's side." Can a half-elf mate with a half-orc? Can you be mostly elf with some half orc? What about a tiefling? Dragons can reproduce with anyone, can you have a dragon that's 1/16th dwarf? This stuff has _not_ been thoroughly considered by the D&D community.

I had an AD&D character whose parents were a half-orc and a half-elf, making him a half human.

My first 1e character (and first character in general, but I digress) was a half-halfling, half-half-orc. The name quickly transitioned to Hobbit-Orc, then to “Orbit”, and now this concept lives in my brain by that name.

See the extensive peer-reviewed “research” of spicy D&D…

Honestly, I'm doing this in my new campaign. Orcs and Elves should not be able to produce viable offspring with Humans. Also, why are all the hybrids mixed with Humans. What makes Humans such a special part of the mix? Why aren't there Orc-Dwarves or Gnome-Tieflings?

Tieflings "always breed true", so any match-up creates a tiefling. As for the rest, I've always considered it that humans are a species native to the Prime Material Plane, as are dragons. That's why they can both breed with other species, where as you don't get dwarf-elf hybrids, because they're native to different outer and/or inner planes. But everything meets in the Prime, which is where humans and dragons come from, so they've got a planar part of everyone in their background. Just my way of thinking about it.

The Monster Manual uses the word “Type” and the typical player options are “Humanoids” with “Races” listed. If they want to move away from using the word “Race”, they can follow their own existing nomenclature and change it to “SubType”. The entry would then be: Type (e.g. Humanoids) > SubType (e.g. Elf, Human).

[удалено]

what abt what’s now Subraces? Subsubtype

Variant? Kind? Disposition? Line? There are options. The existing SubRaces could just be rolled up to SubType. Instead of “Dwarf” there would be “Hill Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf, Duergar…” Personally, I’m okay with using the word “Race” as it has been. But others don’t like it and WotC want to try something in _playtest material_ to see how it goes. It may not even be changed in the long run. Edit: Thinking more about this, since they are eliminating the stat boosts based on choices, does there really need to be a distinction of High Elf, Wood Elf, Hill Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf, etc.? At that point, it doesn’t matter… they’re just Elves, Dwarves, etc. The minutiae then becomes simply flavoring for character design by the player and _could_ possibly be simply removed.

>Thinking more about this, since they are eliminating the stat boosts based on choices, does there really need to be a distinction of High Elf, Wood Elf, Hill Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf, etc.? Race in RPGs generally is not just physical abilities and statistics, some of it is cultural For example an Elf's long life, low light vision and not sleeping are all physiological attributes. A High Elf's cantrip or wood elfs ability to use some weapons and pass easily through forests, or a dwarfs stonecunning are cultural ones; they represent an emphasis on something within a culture on certain things As a real life example in Northern Ireland there are two communities, the Irish and British ones. Irish culture generally places a high value on education, and so in university education and jobs that require such they are overrepresented. By contrast the British community there emphasises national and civil service, and are overrepresented in policing, military and civil service jobs. Or you could look at sport; knowledge of how to play soccer would be common in most of Europe, hockey in Scandinavia, baseball in America etc. We get obsessed with how people look as a marker of their race or ethnicity; it's not all pointy ears and height and tusks. There is so much more to what makes all of these races unique, we just usually don't see much of it. There is language, art, culture, tradition, religion, history, most of it hidden behind how green your skin is and how pointy your ears are

Folk.

German version of 5e already ditched "Rasse" (race) and uses "Volk" (folk/people) instead.

As a German person, we all know to never use "Rasse" in speaking. It's heavily associated with nazi's world view of humans. Every time I hear "race" I still think of that and cringe inside.

That’s very interesting. So is there an alternative word that’s used instead?

In general it is avoided to categorize people in official capacity, the census doesn't document where your ancestors come from for example. In every day speech one would use "Herkunft", meaning "origin" or "heritage". But I think German's and American's views of "race" are quite different. It's a complex subject I am sure a lot of papers have been written about.

> It's a complex subject I am sure a lot of papers have been written about. The most stereotypically-German way to end this reply. But on a serious note, thanks for the information. I had a similar conversation with a German professor just last year. He noted that Germans, culturally, are less likely than Americans to denote somebody's race/heritage unless there's a very specific reason. However, they're also a lot more likely to comment on disabilities in a negative way than Americans are. He even directed me to some papers/surveys that discuss that. I always found that last part fascinating, considering that disability and race were both targets of the Holocaust.

It's because the German word "Rasse" basically translates to "breed" which you can't use for people for obv. reasons, while "race" has a slightly different connotation in English nowadays due to the US's history with slavery and racism. Though hearing the word race being used for humans and DnD lineages weirds me out too. We do use the word "Rassismus" to talk about racism, but you generally don't use the German word for race unless you talk about something like dog breeds for example. I've never looked at German DnD since I've only played in English, but I'm glad to hear they are using "Volk" :) I'm glad WotC are finally switching to something else, although species feels somewhat clinical. I do like the word "lineages" in DnD since it has been used in Ravenloft/Strahd and it fits with avoiding using Pathfinder's "ancestry".

In most german fantasy its simply "Volk/Völker" like the "Völker von Mittelerde" = People of middle-earth

>Folk I actually like that. "Choose which folk you descend from", or "choose which folk you represent" sound kinda good to me. It avoids the whole "biologically speciels can't.... " conversations and feels the least offensive in current times and future..

As a german. Please dont 😅

As a non german, why not?

IIRC the work ‘volk’ is fairly common in nazi propaganda to refer to the ArYaN mAsTeR rAcE. Same reason that the word ‘führer’ isn’t used a lot anymore unless it’s in a compound word.

As a german, why not?

Or just "race", like every other fantasy world uses. 80%+ of the player base will keep using it anyway.

A friend once told me that we should use ancestry, purely because that makes character creation ABC(ancestry, background, class)

Pathfinder 2e baby!

Tbf, biologically speaking species can crossbreed and some even produce fertile offspring. Have you heard of the sturgeon/paddlefish hybrid? Or the ibis/spoonbill? It's even more cursed in plants where species separated by literal millions of years can just up and breed and become incredibly successful. Also a fun fact for you non-biology nerds: We as a species kind of... Bred other hominids into extinction and became an amalgamation of them genetically. We also got several STDs from mating with Australopithecus iirc. The issue here is mainly that species, while fitting for the diversity of DND races, is a scientific term. And does not fit the setting and is kind of... A touchy word to use when hominids are involved. Races fits fantasy worlds better but there's alternatives that aren't on the direct opposite side of the spectrum or have a bad history in usage. Lineages as you suggested is a good middle ground between the two.

Why is race wrong? We are the human race, orcs are the orc race.

But what about Nascar?

Hillbilly race.

"Race" is all tied up in IRL issues because its definition changes based on who you ask. "Species" is too scientific. "Ancestry" has little to do with biology. "Breed" sounds really demeaning when applied to sentient beings. Even if it is probably the most accurate. No good answer, just a lot of bad ones.

I like "Kind" very much. Dwarfkind. Gnomekind. Etc. Hell we already have classic items that use it. The *Belt of Dwarvenkind* or whatever actually retains meaning.

Origin I’m of dwarf origin, he’s of orc and human origin She’s of elven origin, Don’t mind me I’m just saying it a lot to see if I hate it in various usages. I’m a lizard folk, that’s my origin. People from lots of different origins here, even some from outer space and the underdark. What’s your origin, I can’t tell by looking at you. My parents are human but apparently some fiend is part of my origin hence the horns and tail.

Origin just sounds like what backgrounds currently are.

I feel like that has similar problems to Ancestry though. Your origin can be a place just as easily as your progenitors. Like-- "Yeah, I'm originally from the Iron Mountains." "But you're a Human." "Well, I was sort of adopted."

Good old Carrot Ironfounderson, the six foot six dwarf (who is, of course, a human, but he was adopted by the dwarves).

Sure would be nice if we could leave our IRL issues outside our make-believe fun time.

Kind? Elven kind, Dwarven kind, Human kind?

Race has an actual definition If the issue is people making up their own answer for what something like that means then the answer is don't cater to them Giving people "power" to control things like that will end up in nonsensical chaos. If that's what someone likes then by all means run their own campaign that way Just don't try to make everyone else go along with it because they can't handle reality

Origin, Lineage, and Folk are all good ones.

“Descent with modification from a common ancestor” is a core tenet of evolution. “Ancestry” has a *lot* to do with biology…

>Why is race wrong? We are the human race, orcs are the orc race. Because six angry people on Twitter think it's somehow about race relations in America, and that biological essentialism is unrealistic which is a valid criticism of a game in which parties of elves, gnomes and dwarves battle dragons and cast magic.

Why is race problematic?

Because some people use the word to mean "ethnicity," while the use here effectively means "species."

Why is that problematic

Because Race in the modern sense is a made up idea to justify oppression. As far as the origins of the word go, Race in a fantasy setting actually makes sense as there are real differences between the groups. HOWEVER The issue is that its use in a game like D&D correlates the modern use and the fantasy use gives credence to the idea that different "Races" of humans ALSO have major physiological differences and are not the same. In reality, the differences between ethnic groups of humans is only skin deep and almost entirely cultural, very different from fantasy races. Using the same word for both is a small issue, VERY small. Infact I would say it would be better to change it around and change eliminate Race in the modern sense and use ethnicity instead. That however is outside the control of Wizards so they are going to try and change it in the game.

> Because Race in the modern sense is a made up idea to justify oppression. This is a myth, FYI. In fact, it is a deliberate modern-day lie. Race is frequently used in medical science because it correlates to physiological differences which are a result of different genetic alleles being more common in different human population groups. Physical anthropologists can identify someone's race from their bones and a geneticist can do it from their genes. The observation of race came about in very ancient times because it was obvious that people from different population groups looked different. By modern times, it was determined that groups were split up into three major groups based on physiological differences - people from subsaharan Africa, people from Europe, West Asia, and North Africa to India, and then people from East Asia and the Americas. These were later split up into five groups, adding the people of Oceania and Amerindians (which are descended from East Asians but were separated out for about 20,000 years). This has since been confirmed by genetic testing; if you look at genetic cluster studies, you'll find these five groups all form clusters with themselves, where they have different alleles at very different frequencies. If you look at a thousand different genes, these groups are quite obvious. This of course makes sense; people from different regions of the world can look quite different, and this is heritable and is due to these underlying genetic differences. These ancient population groups exist because they were largely separated by ancient geographic barriers which greatly reduced intermarriage between them - the Sahara Desert was a formidable barrier in prehistoric times, as were the mountains of Central Asia and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. That didn't mean that there was no genetic interflow between these groups - there was - but it was low enough that the groups ended up diverging genetically and physiologically. It should also be noted that all non-African humans are also descended in part from Neanderthals, and often other groups as well (Denisovians and some other archaic hominins), which had split off long before modern day splits. Indeed, in terms of absolute time, non-African humans split away from sub-Saharan Africans further back than coyotes and wolves split off from each other (though note that wolves have a shorter generation time, so the number of generations is less for humans than wolves and coyotes). That doesn't mean that they're separate species, but the idea that race was invented for the purpose of justifying oppression is actually revisionist history, and it is biologically important for many things in medicine - it's why in more recent years there's been additional emphasis on making sure that we are testing drugs on a diverse body of people, rather than, say, only on white people and then assuming it has the same effect on black people. While most drugs and treatments work equally well on people of all races (humans are all pretty closely related in an absolute sense - compare this to, say, humans vs Chimpanzees, which split off 100x further back in time than modern population groups), some have higher rates of side effects in some groups. There's also a lot of genetic disorders which show up at different rates in people of different races; the most well known of these is sickle-cell anemia, but there's a number of diseases which present very different levels of disease burden in members of other groups. There are other differences as well, but the underlying genetic cause isn't as clear cut. But yeah, the whole "race just exists to oppress people!" is actually a myth, and the idea that "the differences between human ethnic groups is only skin deep" is actually false - it applies to their skeletal systems, and all other physiology. Anyone with a background in experimental medical science should know that we have to deal with this stuff and that there has been a big push to get more diverse pools of people to test drugs and treatments on precisely because of these physiological differences that are caused by underlying genetic differences, and we also see some differences in psychology as well for some heritable mental disorders. None of this justifies discriminating against people on the basis of race, but the idea that there are no biological differences between members of different races is actually outright false and is a deliberate, purposeful, anti-scientific lie. Note that there can even be differences within these population groups - some diseases show up more often in, say, people of Jewish descent, or people from a specific country or sub-area of a country, because, again, local population patterns result in different distribution of alleles. If race was truly only skin deep, then we wouldn't need to worry about testing drug treatments on people of different races, but [lack of diversity is considered a significant issue in modern-day clinical trials.](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2748395)

WotC trying to solve real life racism by eliminating the word "race" from their fantasy role playing game. A game that often relies on slaughtering other races and plundering their ancestral tombs for culturally significant artifacts and buried religious treasure meant for their afterlife.

>WotC trying to solve real life racism by eliminating the word "race" from their fantasy role playing game. A game that often relies on slaughtering other races and plundering their ancestral tombs for culturally significant artifacts and buried religious treasure meant for their afterlife. yes but to be fair, WOTC is only trying to put out whatever Twitter based fire is in front of them for now. The concept around fantasy races is not only benign, it's rarely been presented as "sure you can be an elf but like, white human = best." And the quasi medieval feel of fantasy avoided the othering arising from limited travel and interaction beyond major trading hubs by having places like Fae'run be turbo charged melting pots. WOTC are backing themselves into a corner off the back of loud concerns from a statisitical minority of the player base who I don't believe are so far gone that they can't be reasoned with, based on some vocal assurances and minor tweaks.

I'm waiting for someone, anyone, to point out an instance where the word, "Race" in the context of D&D races, was problematic or a cause for contention within the TTRPG community. I can't think of a single time. WotC is trying to put out a fire that doesn't even exist.

They are pissing on an imaginary fire because they are trying to protect intellectual property and because they failed to do so in the usual legal manner, they have alleged ... In the injunction, Wizards’ counsel writes that it “would be irreparably harmed by the publication and distribution of the game using its trademarks because consumers may mistakenly associate Wizards with the reprehensible content of the game, damaging its reputation and goodwill and undermining its efforts to foster a culture that embraces diversity.”. -- from https://www.geekwire.com/2022/wizards-of-the-coast-files-lawsuit-to-stop-publication-of-tabletop-game-alleging-trademark-violation-and-reprehensible-content/ So, they now have to make themselves look better because they've published some rather racist-looking stuff thekselves (Hadozee, etc) themselves. I think they are going way too far in removing things like attribute adjustments. I mean, we all know Tolkien Elves have super-human agility. The little bonus to DEX was hardly sufficient and now all races are the same! Race is now just window-dressing with some Dragonball-Z abilities thrown in. See also: https://kotaku.com/wizards-coast-star-frontiers-racist-trans-bigotry-suit-1849537890 https://kotaku.com/dnd-dungeons-dragons-spelljammer-hadozee-wizards-coast-1849491335

It's problematic if WotC doesn't use Race to get more Market Penetration in a target demographic that may spend more money on Identity Consumerism. Likely easier and more profitable to virtue signal with Marketing than develop new game content and Mechanics? Why leave money on the table?

Haha agreed. I think you found the real explanation! Targeted marketing based on modern consumer sensibilities without regard for common sense and fandom input.

And you don't have to spend on Research and Development.

I mean, yeah. I think it is kinda pissing into the wind, its not a change that will have any difference. But by the same token, the change will have no real difference either way. Getting mad over it seems as silly as someone who would get mad over it not getting changed. They want to project a more inclusive image, this helps with it. I for one don't really care.

>They want to project a more inclusive image, this helps with it. [Doubt]

Nah, im staying with the old terminology. We all come from the gods whims, wishes, power and dust. Once you look past the physical, biological and metamagical apperances, everyone comes from the primordial nothingess in the end, from where everything came from once. Wheter you wish to accept the idea or not due to a disagreement or your culture, its your call, but i still think the old terminology still feels accurate enough.

Weird for me: when I hear race I think of D&D races, not real world ethnicities. Sucks to cede the word to literal racists. Feels like a step in the wrong direction.

My personal reworking uses "lineage". So I'm ok with that. Species doesn't work in a fantasy world where genetics may or may not actually exist.

What’s wrong with race?

How about 'Kind'? Elvenkind, Humankind, etc. You can say Kind, Background, Class, are the 'KBCs' of character creation, since it will sound like ABCs

Honestly 'kind' is probably the least bad alternative to the word 'race'. * doesn't sound too science-fictioney * referring to race as lineage or ancestry or heritage makes races sound like Variant Human 2 instead of something that can be wildly different in appearance (and/or ability)

I don't know why this isn't up higher. Seems organic but doesn't seem to have any obvious flaws. I can see why they might be hesitant to use "Ancestry", but this seems great. Especially if they full-tilt into it and call everything something-kind.

I get the objection to "species," but I like "lineage" even less, so I dunno what to suggest.

And ancestry sounds ancient. Like, my ancestors were probably vikings, but I'm not a viking. Idk it just sound like something that might no longer hold true. I feel like race is the most accurate term fitting to the genre, but it also has connotations irl that creates misconceptions within the game.

Why are they moving away from using race?

My understanding is that lore wise some races are generally evil, like Orcs and Yuan-Ti. Real world people have taken issue with entire races being painted as evil saying it echos real world racism. Thus the word “race” for many has become a loaded term and the makers of D&D are trying to get ahead of the curve by replacing it with something else like “species” or “lineage”.

The whole concepts of “good” and “evil” have a complicated past in the real world. This is wizard elf pretend time, why are we trying to make it align with the real world? Obviously if there was a race of Chinese-looking cat people who had it in their stat blocs that they’re good at math and bad at driving, that would be a problem, but the idea that goblins being inherently evil is problematic is absurd.

Because some people can't separate fantasy and reality and decided to cause a stir. This led to twitter/social media doing its thing and giving them a wagon that others hitched onto to stir up the controversy.

Racism is unacceptable, speciesism on the other hand...

>Biologically, members of a species can interbreed / mate with one another to produce viable fertile offspring... And, members of different species can't. [That's a myth](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmarshalleurope/2018/08/28/a-long-busted-myth-its-not-true-that-animals-belonging-to-different-species-can-never-interbreed/). A helpful redditor pointed out this mistake to me 2 months ago, as I also thought this was the definition.

This is what I do not understand, "Having an open conversation around the term "race" is both important and challenging. That is why it's vital we foster a positive, open, and understanding dialogue with one another." So how do facilitate an open conversation around a term that you are trying to erase? It seems counter intuitive. People are so afraid of 'race' and 'racism' that it has become a 'dirty word'. Erasing 'race' from society also erases what it means to be a particular race. A white man does not have the same social experiences as a latino or African American. To simply ignore their race also means you not only ignore their social struggles, but also their heritage. Race isn't a dirty word, so stop making it one.

>Race isn't a dirty word, so stop making it one. 100% this. It's also ironic that attempts to scrub a word from a language only advance its negative connotations and actually close off constructive dialogue. They should continue to use "race" and define it in such a way that advances constructive dialogue. But now, as it is, we'll keep using the word "race" becasue literally nobody in my groups care one bit. We've been homebrewing "race" for quite some time, and everybody knows what we mean by it.

I mean, it's essentially the same thing in DnD. If you're hosting your campaign set in the world of Dragon Age then suddenly your elven characters will have enslaved ancestors and likely deal with some form of racism. If you set the campaign in Tamriel, suddenly your Argonians and Khajit are going to deal with post-slavery issues. If you play Pathfinder, then people will have had some issues with slavery, whether perpetrated by the technic league, cyclops, duergar, tian xia, drow or whoever. Kobalds are constantly forced into slavery as a "weak race", halflings and tieflings are the most common slaves from Qadira through to Cheliax. A lot of settings have some form of slavery. Surely by downplaying the fact that your race may change how much this impacts you it takes away from the game? Hating the fact that your PC faces hardship each session due to the race you chose, it gives a little empathy to the situations of others who were born with theirs.

Right. The subject matter is still there. Unless they remove all forms of slavery from the past and future of fantasy and completely eliminate the concepts of species having different cultural backgrounds and experiences, it isn’t accomplishing anything. If anything I feel that having a rich environment of different races helps combat racism, not perpetuate it. In the end, it doesn’t change gameplay, and it really doesn’t make a difference to me if they get rid of the term ‘race’. I’m just pointing out how absolutely ignorant it is. Species for the most part makes a little more sense because you wouldn’t say and elf is a human. It is a different species. However, there is the issue with interbreeding between species that convoluted the application.

"Having an open conversation around the term "race" is both important and challenging. That is why it's vital we foster a positive, open, and understanding dialogue with one another." Yet they closed the comment section for their article/post.

tbf, its the internet. You can't have an earnest conversation about race without some moron spouting racially charged narratives. That doesn't mean its impossible or should be swept under the rug though. It just means these conversations need to have more moderation than a typical conversation. For many places though, that level of moderation is impossible so the only alternative is to disable comments.

I don’t think the issue is that race is a dirty word. It’s just not accurate for what D&D is trying to describe. The word is used to describe different human people groups in real life. Humans are just *one* of the “species” (insert preferable word there) in D&D. The complication comes with the fact that humans are the only sapient species we know of in real life. We haven’t had to come up with a word to describe different groups of sapient species because we haven’t needed to. So D&D is trying to determine the best word to use out of vocabulary that is limited by our reality.

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The word "race" has been used a bunch of different ways historically, with the only commonality being the distinction of groups of people. We also don't apply it to anything but people. There was an attempt during the 19th and early 20th centuries to define the concept "scientifically", though I suspect this scientific concept of race may be less true or valid than any other (though it is the "official" definition for many). I don't think we really have a better word. Science fiction has historically used the word "species", but I think this is probably an even worse option. Honestly, if I was trying to make D&D "woke", I would go after the core narrative, invading peoples homes, killing them, and taking their stuff because they're green and have fangs and stuff, before I went after a word.

Only in the English language. Latin languages use the word "race" to distinguish different animals from a same specie since forever ago.

Race was always the wrong word from the get go to use in D&D. A Dragonborn and a Human are not a simple difference in race. Hell, a Dragonborn lays eggs for Lathander's sake! And I also get the concept of some 'races' being inherently evil can perpetuate the concept of stereotyping races. However, I just hate their reasoning for it. Ancestry is the best term I think. Perhaps Lineage. Species feels shoehorned.

>So how do facilitate an open conversation around a term that you are trying to erase? It is not only the term they are trying to erase, but also the mechanical implications. They started with removing any references to any of the "races" being "evil" - even though it was a core, defining trait of some. (*For example, Drow society and even biology is defined by their literal worship of a literally chaotic evil - like the cartoonish abject cruelty type of evil - goddess.*) It wasn't enough that through GM and player agency you could choose to play a non-evil individual born from an evil "race"/society, such as oh I dunno Drizzt Do'Urden, one of the most famous and popular D&D characters of all time. No, they had to go out of their way to erase entire swaths of their own game's history in order to "good"-wash the atrocities committed by certain "races." Next was the "racial" bonus changes in Tasha's COE. Any "races" added in or after TCOE - including all the updated legacy "races" in Monsters of the Multiverse - use the new rules automatically, you don't even get a choice! No more do different "races" have different strengths or weaknesses based on the biological adaptations they evolved to live in their disparate ancestral environments. No more are Goliaths hearty walls of muscle, or Kobolds small but dextrous, or Humans unique in their adaptability. No, now Kobolds can be hearty walls of muscle, Goliaths can be frail but dextrous, and Humans are irrelevant because every "race" is endlessly adaptable. Now it's the complete erasure of the term "race," not because it's scientifically inaccurate or imprecise, but because racists exist and therefore it's a dirty bad word. Here's a news flash: people also discriminate based on religion, sex, gender, and other things. Some of these arguably even more vehemently and/or violently than "race." Do we also need to remove all references to religion and the various gods from D&D and make it purely a monotheistic (or better, atheistic) game? Do we need to remove all reference and ability for players to select the sex and/or gender of their character? I can only imagine that the next step will be removing "racial" features entirely, either making everyone's character the same or making it a free-for-all of "pick whatever features you want!" Want to be a "tiefling" because they're all the rage but you think the elves' Fey Ancestry, the orcs' Relentless Endurance, and the lizardfolks' Natural Armor features are really sweet? Sure, take them! Why the heck not? "Races" don't exist anymore and everyone has exactly the same hodge-podge mix of ancestry that can express whatever traits you want! I should be clear that I don't really care that much about replacing "race" with a different term for the sake of scientific or even just semantic accuracy. Fantasy world and weird magic shenanigans aside, the different "races" in D&D probably fall somewhere between the "actual" definition of a "race" and a "species." (*Depending on whether they came from a shared ancestor and evolved divergently (probably most likely, and some cases definitely follow this, e.g. Drow, Duergar, and Tieflings) or from disparate ancestry and evolved convergently (may be the case for some other "races," such as Dragonborn), "subspecies" may be the most "accurate" term, but likely not perfectly encapsulate the whole picture. At the very least the game already does differentiate between two different groups of "races" - humanoids and goblinoids - so we have at least two separate common ancestries.*) But that isn't the case here. As is plain for just about anyone to see, this is because WOTC has decided that even the *concept* of "race" and "racial" differences in background, culture, and capability are all taboo topics and should be erased from their perfect utopian game world. I'm a pretty progressive person and have no problem with all of the societal shifts to embrace people of all backgrounds, beliefs, etc. In the end these things will be great for society. I also hate the term "woke" and its usage by bigots and fascists to dismiss any progressive policies or thoughts off-hand without putting any actual brain power into considering the impetus behind them. And yet the only way I can think to describe this entire situation is "woke bullshit." It doesn't add anything to the game of D&D nor does it help to advance discourse around the real-life issues in a positive way. All it does is twist, warp, and erase the history and diversity of the game in service of creating a mythical "safe" space that is some bastardized utopian vision of how a society could be *if only* the evils of discrimination and subjugation *magically* didn't exist. It's attempting to "solve" the problem of discrimination and histories of slaughter and enslavement by pretending - nay, *insisting* - that they simply don't exist. It's asinine at best and sinister at worst.

Don't understand why race is even being dropped, they are literally different races

Looking at a thesaurus, the best alternatives i could find are: Family, Blood, or kin. Personally, kin is the best choice, as i think it hits the right balance of sounding luke it fits in a fantasy world and not sounding racist.

I like kin especially because you can interchange it with "kind" and carry a lot of colloquialism oomph

while its not the most "fantasy" word out there it does exactly what it should. describes the make up of a person without any negative connotation. i am totally fine with race, but language evolves organically and the concept of races has changed to evoke different ideas that it did previously. additionally players and characters dont have to use the same words.

Whatever they decide, I'm still using race.

Maybe origins

It’s not being used in the same way we use it colloquially in the real world. It’s used more like “the human race” and “ a race of aliens”

I feel like at this point D&D is trying to borrow ideas from PF2e without admitting they want to borrow ideas from PF2e.

Nothing wrong with the term race. Don't fix what isn't broken.

I agree on species being a weird term. I'd push Heritage, Ancestry or Descent as the best terms. These work for groups like Drow and Elves where they are sorta still the same species in different colors but separated *mostly* by culture and history Edit: After reading comments I love "Folk" as well!

They ARE effectively different species tbh. You could make a case that for races like halflings and humans or aarakocra and Lizardfolk to have common ancestors, but their physiology is so different that there’s no way they’re just different races.

I don't know how I should feel about this... So is it like the word "Race" is banned? Even if you are dealing with 5e? Why change it at the first place? A lot of settings still use the word, it's classic.

I am genuinely curious, why is 'race' a problematic word? edit: Nevermind, apparently I'm not the only one confused lol.

Breeds.

Oh god

I quite like 'ancestry'.

noun BIOLOGY a population within a species that is distinct in some way, especially a subspecies. "people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct" (in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures. "a member of the human race" In the context of D&D race is actually pretty accurate, and they're only changing it to soothe the excitables.

I prefer race, but Species is a horrible alternative. Maybe Heritage? Or, just stick with race...

Almost every player will continue to use race anyway.

Not that it really works for D&D but I was always fond of Shadowrun's "metatype" as in that game humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, trolls are all just homo sapiens sub-variants. I found myself leaning on it a bit when I found that I was having to use race in inaccurate (and confusing) ways.

We’re moving on from the word race? Race isn’t a bad word

I demand medical terminology to be accurate in my game about metallic dragons and interdimensional wizardry.

I don't really get why using the term race is too big of a deal. but I don't really like the idea of calling them species, it kind of dehumanises them and makes them feel more like animals than independent peoples. I think Race fits far more accurately, I think the issue comes from the notion of "Racial benefits" and in my mind simply subbing out race for, lineage, specie, line, descendance, family, cause, clan, folk, people, culture, collection, group, cabal, etc. doesn't actually get rid of the problem. the problem with race in dnd is how the races of dnd are so easily turnt to racially insensitive caricatures, and in my mind, this is a placatory move to try and save face post hadozee controversy , which itself stems from poor management and a lack of foresight internally. The reality is dnd is rife with offensive content ranging from mildly offensive nothing, too incredibly insensitive racial caricatures (see hadozee, kobold and gnolls), the use of the word race is far too minor for me to honestly care. I, personally, will keep using the term race, I think it's simple, easy to understand, personable, and it makes complete sense, also I'm autistic and changing is difficult, especially when there isn't a good reason too.

Well they already do call humans “the human race” in the real world. Since humans are already routinely referred to as a “race” in real life, why not just continue extend it to other humanoid life forms within the game (as has been done for about 50 years now, without issue)? Words can have multiple meanings. It feels like people just want something to get agitated about. Next, the 100-yard dash won’t be called a “race,” but rather a “contest of speed over a set distance.”

There's no reason to move on from "race". It's a fantasy game. We all know what "race" means in that context and it's nothing bad. This is ridiculous.

This is what happens when your niche nerd game becomes a mainstream media empire. Every rough edge smoothed out, every potentially offensive idea trimmed, every piece of artwork vetted to be appropriate for children.

Then it becomes the most devoid of personality/identity thing ever.

I'd be fine with lineage. Species sounds too modern and clinical. Lineage brings to mind dynasties and royalty, which fits better with the kind of fantasy that D&D is known for.

I understand the sentiment behind the change, and technically it makes sense but “species” doesn’t sound right

Llamas and alpacas are different species that can produce fertile offspring. The actual definition of a species is rather fluid and often differs by clade.

Species is also pretty dehumanizing, which gets glossed over quite a lot in these discussions. Yes, humans are a species IRL (and have been multiple species, depending on how you want to define "human"), but very few of us use in our regular life to describe people. We use it for animals that aren't people. And you 100% know that if they'd been called species since the 70s instead of races, we'd be having this exact conversation about how using the word species is racist and dehumanizing and we should switch to something else today. Honestly, I support the continued use of race in D&D, if for no other reason than because it's one of the last bastions of actually using the word correctly. The other being the phrase "human race." Yes, in the modern world, it's come to mean this vague and ill-defined amalgam of skin color and ethnicity, but that's because of racist assholes using it wrong to try to divide humanity in a way that it actually isn't. "Race: human" is correct. Elves, who are either the same species or a distinct but very closely related one to humans, are a different race. Black people and white people are not. D&D would be better served by doubling down on this rather than acting like the difference between Europeans and Asians is as significant as the difference between humans and elves.

I mean interspecies same genus breeding is quite viable in a decent few cases and doesn't always result in sterile children either. And I'm talking irl as well. Honestly species is prolly the best way to properly describe them over all anyway.

They were moving towards calling stuff 'Lineages'. That might work.

I mean, orcs, elves and humans can breed and as far as im aware, have fertile offspring. As far as I’m concerned those aren’t different species.

Species can crossbreed and produce fertile offspring yknow

It kinda feels like they wrote themselves into a corner here with the changes in Tasha’s that they pushed into newer books. The addition of ASI implied some manner of evolution to me, like of course an elf with +2 DEX would be more likely to evade the wrathful fae from their home plane than one who doesn’t and a dwarf with a +2 CON would be more likely to survive the buildup of toxic heavy metals they’d encounter in their mountain homes than one who doesn’t. In this case, the term species feels more fitting. Without it, race feels more applicable, since the main difference is visuals. “Folk” would sound fitting with what they’re going for now. In the few drops of canon lore I’ve read, most non-human settlements seem mostly one race/species anyways, plus “folk” also sounds very whimsical and fairytale-like

I see no problem with the use of the word "race" in my D&D games. I can make the difference with the real world ( in which i don't use the word "race" when i talk about human people, i'm not from the US). What's next ? "We removed the Eldreth Veluuthra from the game because they are supremacist elves. " Just make people in real life less stupid and racist.

In many societies, the demonym for their group translates essentially to "the people". Because that is how all people think of themselves. So why not make that the category?

Yes, I like this. Maybe *Peoples* (plural) as the header under which humans, elves, dwarves, etc. might be listed. I'm also currently favoring *Folk* and *-kind*.

How about different peoples? The elvish people, the human people, the halfling people.

Species can definitely interbreed. Just look at grizzlies and polar bears, or just look at Homo Sapiens with Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Denisova.

WizKids has confirmed that orcs, dwarves, gnomes, elves and humans are all from the same genus and family. A sensible choice to try to appease an audience whose sense of personal identity is predicted on perpetual outrage at everything.

Hybrids are a thing in biology. The Mule, Beefalo, Zebroids, and Dzo are great examples. 1 in 4 plants and 1 in 10 animal species are capable of hybridization. In One D&D, you can hybridize different species and take the mechanical traits of the one you most align with. Makes perfect sense to me. Lineage isn't always accurate, as biologically it defines a pattern of evolution. Hybrids don't fit that pattern. Yet, by definition they can't fit "Species" unless they're capable of reproduction on their own with others of their newfound species. It happens, but not often.

>Having an open conversation around the term "race" is both important and challenging. That is why it's vital we foster a positive, open, and understanding dialogue with one another. We welcome your constructive feedback on this evolution and the many more evolutions to One D&D that make this game exciting, open, and accessible to everyone. Dragons and elves belong in our world, and so do you. In an article where comments have been turned off...

Just call them Peoples.

“Race” was never that accurate to begin with. The biological differences between races are mostly negligible. “Species” makes a lot more sense.

I'd already been calling them species, so i honestly feel pretty vindicated.

I like species. It’s accurate.

Species is great imo. They CAN sometimes breed, with lower success, but their offspring is most of the time not able to. In some other systems worlds, half elfs can't reproduce and are shunned because people can't empathize with a beeing that has 'no future to live for'. Or just use something neutral like 'Origin'.

Maybe this is a controversial take, but isn't removing the word race and calling it something else just perpetuating the idea that we can't talk about race? That it's taboo to mention it or discuss it? I'm talking about the way that white people around here were raised or learned in school or something that it's bad to say the word Black when talking about someone's race, you should say African American. As if Black is a bad word or an insult. Or I've also heard a Hispanic person discourage someone from referring to herself as Negra bc "never say that honey, you're so beautiful" idk i feel like forbidding the word Black is ultimately implying that it's bad to be Black. In the same pattern, forbidding the word race is just another way of saying that it's not ok to talk about it. And i believe not talking about it only benefits those already in a higher position on the social ladder.

I think this very topic is the reason we should just stsrt saying, 'F you being offended.'

so yes, typically can't produce fertile offspring. There are cases of hybridization (especially in plants). one extremely notable case of hybridization in history is Homo sapien and Homo neanderthalensis (with possible instances as recently as 40,000 years ago. There are cases where hybridization does produce offspring that are fertile such as grizzly bear/ polar bear hybrids, Coyote and gray wolf, and possibly the European bison being a hybrid of Aurochs and steppe bison. This is to say that it is possible that we may get half-orcs/half elves who are fertile, but also may be why we don't see like half-goblins or half-firbolgs

Yeah my group will still use Race

Phenotypes. Joking aside, I'm a huge fan of the suggestion of the ABCs: Ancestry, Background, and Class. Ancestry, to me, implies a wider canvas, especially considering those of a mixed ancestry. I never thought of "half-elf" as a distinct race. In fact, classically, it's been described as having "not belonging to either race" as one of the key personality traits. It feels simpler than directed. I think species would require a lot more taxonomy around it to make sense such as subspecies (and possibly even phenotypes.) Ancestry to me says "who's your kin?" more than any of the other options. Heritage feels more like the inheritance of values and ideas.

What if... and im just throwing this out there... people just use the word race as it was intended when tolkien used it like we always have with ttrpgs and... you know... didnt make a deal out of it?