RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

The term "race" is a staple of fantasy that is now out of sync with modern usage. With Pathfinder shifting from "race" to "ancestry" in its latest edition, it raises the question: should fantasy games still use it?

“Race” and Modern Parlance​

We previously discussed the challenges of representing real-life cultures in a fantasy world, with African and Asian countries being just two examples. The discussion becomes more complicated with fantasy "races"—historically, race was believed to be determined by the geographic arrangement of populations. Fantasy gaming, which has its roots in fantasy literature, still uses the term “race” this way.

Co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax cited R.E. Howard's Conan series as an influence on D&D, which combines Lovecraftian elements with sword and sorcery. Howard's perceptions may have been a sign of the times he lived in, but it seems likely they influenced his stories. Robert B. Marks explains just how these stereotypes manifested in Conan's world:

The young, vibrant civilizations of the Hyborian Age, like Aquilonia and Nemedia, are white - the equivalent of Medieval Europe. Around them are older Asiatic civilizations like Stygia and Vendhya, ancient, decrepit, and living on borrowed time. To the northwest and the south are the barbarian lands - but only Asgard and Vanaheim are in any way Viking. The Black Kingdoms are filled with tribesmen evoking the early 20th century vision of darkest Africa, and the Cimmerians and Picts are a strange cross between the ancient Celts and Native Americans - and it is very clear that the barbarians and savages, and not any of the civilized people or races, will be the last ones standing.

Which leads us to the other major fantasy influence, author J.R.R. Tolkien. David M. Perry explains in an interview with Helen Young:

In Middle Earth, unlike reality, race is objectively real rather than socially constructed. There are species (elves, men, dwarves, etc.), but within those species there are races that conform to 19th-century race theory, in that their physical attributes (hair color, etc.) are associated with non-physical attributes that are both personal and cultural. There is also an explicit racial hierarchy which is, again, real in the world of the story.

The Angry GM elaborates on why race and culture were blended in Tolkien's works:

The thing is, in the Tolkienverse, at least, in the Lord of the Rings version of the Tolkienverse (because I can’t speak for what happened in the Cinnabon or whatever that other book was called), the races were all very insular and isolated. They didn’t deal with one another. Race and culture went hand in hand. If you were a wood elf, you were raised by wood elves and lived a thoroughly wood elf lifestyle until that whole One Ring issue made you hang out with humans and dwarves and halflings. That isolation was constantly thrust into the spotlight. Hell, it was a major issue in The Hobbit.

Given the prominence of race in fantasy, it's not surprising that D&D has continued the trend. That trend now seems out of sync with modern parlance; in 1951, the United Nations officially declared that the differences among humans were "insignificant in relation to the anthropological sameness among the peoples who are the human race."

“Race” and Game Design​

Chris Van Dyke's essay on race back in 2008 explains how pervasive "race" is in D&D:

Anyone who has played D&D has spent a lot of time talking about race – “Racial Attributes,” “Racial Restrictions,” “Racial Bonuses.” Everyone knows that different races don’t get along – thanks to Tolkien, Dwarves and Elves tend to distrust each other, and even non-gamers know that Orcs and Goblins are, by their very nature, evil creatures. Race is one of the most important aspects of any fantasy role-playing game, and the belief that there are certain inherent genetic and social distinctions between different races is built into every level of most (if not all) Fantasy Role-Playing Games.

Racial characteristics in D&D have changed over time. Basic Dungeons & Dragons didn't distinguish between race and class for non-humans, such that one played a dwarf, elf, or halfling -- or a human fighter or cleric. The characteristics of race were so tightly intertwined that race and profession were considered one.

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the changes became more nuanced, but not without some downsides on character advancement, particularly in allowing “demihumans” to multiclass but with level limits preventing them from exceeding humanity, who had unlimited potential (but could only dual-class).

With Fifth Edition, ability penalties and level caps have been removed, but racial bonuses and proficiencies still apply. The Angry GM explains why this is a problem:

In 5E, you choose a race and a class, but you also choose a background. And the background represents your formative education and socio-economic standing and all that other stuff that basically represents the environment in which you were raised. The racial abilities still haven’t changed even though there is now a really good place for “cultural racial abilities” to live. So, here’s where the oddity arises. An elf urchin will automatically be proficient with a longsword and longbow, two weapons that requires years of training to even become remotely talent with, but a human soldier does not get any automatic martial training. Obviously, in both cases, class will modify that. But in the life of your character, race happens first, then background, and only later on do you end up a member of a class. It’s very quirky.

Perhaps this is why Pathfinder decided to take a different approach to race by shifting to the term “ancestry”:

Beyond the narrative, there are many things that have changed, but mostly in the details of how the game works. You still pick a race, even though it is now called your ancestry. You still decide on your class—the rulebook includes all of the core classes from the First Edition Core Rulebook, plus the alchemist. You still select feats, but these now come from a greater variety of sources, such as your ancestry, your class, and your skills.

"Ancestry" is not just a replacement for the word “race.” It’s a fluid term that requires the player to make choices at character creation and as the character advances. This gives an opportunity to express human ethnicities in game terms, including half-elves and half-orcs, without forcing the “subrace” construct.

The Last Race​

It seems likely that, from both a modern parlance and game design perspective, “race” as it is used today will fall out of favor in fantasy games. It’s just going to take time. Indigo Boock sums up the challenge:

Fantasy is a doubled edged sword. Every human culture has some form of fantasy, we all have some sort of immortal ethereal realm where our elven creatures dwell. There’s always this realm that transcends culture. Tolkien said, distinct from science fiction (which looks to the future), fantasy is to feel like one with the entire universe. Fantasy is real, deep human yearning. We look to it as escapism, whether we play D&D, or Skyrim, or you are like myself and write fantasy. There are unfortunately some old cultural tropes that need to be discarded, and it can be frustratingly slow to see those things phased out.

Here's hoping other role-playing games will follow Pathfinder's lead in how treats its fantasy people in future editions.

 

[Mallus]

You can't force your views on people. Political correctness culture is getting way too out of hand.

Word usage changes over time. Terms fall in and out of favor. Cultural attitudes shift. Perhaps you have noticed this, yes?

No one is forcing anything on anyone. We’re discussing the continued utility of the word “race”. Feel free to keep participating. We can always use another ‘token white geek’!

(we’re probably down to 80% or 90% token white geeks around here)

 

[Morrus]

Stop this silliness. This has no place in a roll playing game. Each table will play how they please. We don't need social justice police dictating how this game should read or play. Just stop it.

Oops. Careless. Didn’t read the rules, huh? Or, really, the article? I mean, you just joined and all to say this. Don’t post in this thread again, and please read the rules about the use of derogatory terms like “social justice police”.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"While we're at it, I find the term "class" offensive. It implies a difference between people based on occupation. It's doubly offensive to place these classes at "levels" that can be quantified at higher or lower ranks than their fellows. I looks forward to class, level, and race being abolished from RPGs, so all of what I prefer to call "adventuring comrades" can be truly equal and judgment-free."

Control can be imposed only by force upon the high levels, by an adventuring party on the road to the moment of taking power from them, and then also ownership of the means of experience point production.
~Leon Troutsky, 3^rd Level Bard~

 

[DM Magic]

You're talking about fictional people. The term doesn't need changing.

Nope, not talking about fictional people. But at least this shows us that you don't understand the discussion or why it's being discussed. This is good! It means you have time to turn back and reread the thread. Hopefully when you come back out the other side, you'll be better equipped to join us in the 21st Century.

 

[Mercule]

Culture could include the elven knack with the bow but it's not required, and explicitly in my homebrew the elven knack with the bow has never been cultural, but explicitly racial. Elves know how to use a bow or a sword without being taught how, so that an adopted elf raised among goblins or dwarves or humans, will still get their racial bonus to bows and swords. The knowledge is built in and intuitive to them. Other campaigns could make different choices, but that's how it works in mine.

And, I'm totally good with that. Personally, I'd never even thought about skills being truly innate for the various genotypes, which is why I used it as an example. Now you've gone and really screwed up the deconstructing of race.

Likewise, there seems to be slots for language built into the brain and all the baby has to do is figure out which sounds to plug into the basic slots, and this automatically happens at a certain point in brain development.

Almost like it was done on purpose....

Yes. Because if you are supporting darkvision similar physiological differences (like being a quadruped or not being a humanoid or even a demi-human at all) as part of a racial package, then suddenly the whole notion of a point buy race starts to seem really unreasonable. Beyond that, if you are really actually having a point buy race, then you are basically allowing a 'build your own' race and race starts to be really meaningless. What does it mean to be a member of a race of one, and to not share any features necessarily in common with anyone?

....

If race stops being a package, we are doing away with the alien. If we do away with the alien, we lose the ability to learn from our stories what it means to be human by comparing and contrasting humanity with things that are different than humanity. None of my races are merely human tropes. They are fantastic. I don't want to lose that, and I sure as heck don't want do it yourself races.

Oh, I think we're pretty close, on this one. I was definitely not suggesting "do it yourself" races. I'm fine with point-buy games (say, Hero) saying, "To heck with the weird side-effects of forcing stat points on players. We've already balanced the cost of Dexterity, and assume that you're either playing an elf to type or have a good reason to play against type, so pay for the stat, yourself." If the GM wants to allow a higher ceiling for stat by race, that's a bit different, but the stat itself already has a point cost. Even in Hero, I'd still want the biology stuck into some sort of package deal. I just don't see a need to include things like stats, where the player already has to distribute points and there's an expectation of natural variance, anyway.

D&D is an extremely large-grained system and tends to force you to packages of some sort, be they class, race, or background. It actually wouldn't be out of line for a UA article to propose a handful of specific "default arrays" like "focused specialist" (one high stat), "balanced specialist" (two moderately high stats), and "generalist" (as flat as you can get), rather than any sort of point buy. That might actually give them an option to have arrays that aren't mathematically in line with point buy, but are more balanced against each other in play. The only way to scrap racial stat bonuses would be to force something resembling point buy on everyone, which would frustrate many people and still not solve the whole darkvision (etc.) thing.

As an aside, related to the RAW conversation: The large grained D&D system is one of the things that always bugged me, which might seem odd when I'm fine with the hand-waviness of something like Fate. I think it's a matter of large-grain character generation and small-grain task resolution. If the +1/+2 difference matters, then give me better access to the levers. I'm still much better with the Fate level of detail than Hero, but that's more based on my time availability. Both are at least consistent in how they handle granularity.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Race is acceptable to me, but only in a fantasy setting that includes actual non-human races. We could use Human, Demi-Human, and non-Human without using the actual word "race", but that still feels a bit clunky.

As for ancestry, why don't we all just head over to ancestry .com and search for our long-lost elf, dwarf, or demonic ancestors.

 

[LordNightwinter]

Nope, not talking about fictional people. But at least this shows us that you don't understand the discussion or why it's being discussed. This is good! It means you have time to turn back and reread the thread. Hopefully when you come back out the other side, you'll be better equipped to join us in the 21st Century.

Wow. You really don't get it then. My apologies. You're talking about changing fictional rules because of a word that seems to offend people that are offended by every little thing that has nothing to do with them. There, spelled out for you. Hopefully that didn't occupy too many of your brain cells.

 

[DM Magic]

While we're at it, I find the term "class" offensive. It implies a difference between people based on occupation. It's doubly offensive to place these classes at "levels" that can be quantified at higher or lower ranks than their fellows. I looks forward to class, level, and race being abolished from RPGs, so all of what I prefer to call "adventuring comrades" can be truly equal and judgment-free.

Thanks for joining the discussion in good faith!

 

[DM Magic]

Wow. You really don't get it then. My apologies. You're talking about changing fictional rules because of a word that seems to offends people that are offended by every little thing that has nothing to do with them. There, spelled out for you. Hopefully that didn't occupy too many of your brain cells.

As I said farther back, there are people of color posting in this thread. Maybe go back and see what they had to say about this.

 

[Shadow Demon]

As for ancestry, why don't we all just head over to ancestry .com and search for our long-lost elf, dwarf, or demonic ancestors.

In 5e, ancestry would be good substitute for sub-race and human ethnicity. Otherwise...no not really.