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.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I joined a gaming group in which it was clear to me there was one person who didn’t care for my particular skin tone. He didn’t express this to the rest of the group. They had no clue.

But I didn’t let him drive me out- by that time I’d been gaming for @16 years, and had already developed a certain social armor against attitudes like his in other contexts. While he had a problem with me, nobody else did, and I didn’t reciprocate against him. After all, he was their friend before they ever met me. Zero percentages in making them choose between us.

Don’t know if my willingness to treat him like everyone else changed his attitude. Hopefully it did.

Thing is, I have no idea how someone like me but with a “thinner skin” might have handled the situation.

I would never deny that racism (and sexism) exists. I think it is rare to be so overt, but there are bad people pretty much everywhere and the D&D table has no immunity spell cast on it. I think it is particularly devestating when someone from a group that has been underrepresented since the dawn of the game tries it for the first time and runs into it. You had 16 years of experience before you ran into that jerk, at once month you may have just said “screw this” and never came back.

It is not unusual in a table of 7 people including the DM to have one of two you are not fond of. I played a bunch of AL games at GaryCon this year with random strangers at the table and there certainly were people I did not have a good first impression of.

I also admit that my family and close friends don’t tolerate racism so we have long since removed ourselves from chosen social interaction with that type of people, so my sample of personal stories has dropped over the years. Except for people I met overseas in Asia that wear racial thoughts on their sleeves in a way that is not usual in North America.

What I do know is that the direction that Pathfinder is moving towards looks worse. By using the word race, you accept certain constraints and the design philosophy of 5e is that race is bonuses only and all humans are the same. The blog entries for Pathfinder look to be leading towards those Cimmerians get this and those guys from Koth get that. I really don’t buy the story they are telling of why they changed the word and I am betting they get into more trouble by seeming to be progressive but actually opening the system up for more abuse. I am pretty cynical and I see more room for abuse in what they are doing rather than less.

Mechanicaly, 5e has Race, Class, and Background and Backgrounds are carefully neutral as well. I think there is a big design space open and by moving stat changes into Race only, it is better controlled.

I also read the few posts about some of the monsters hewing too closely to specific racial / cultural stereotypes. I think everyone will see something different (I see hobgoblins as Japanese or Mongol themed but I have a friend that swears they are Romans). This is where D&D is traditional and has alignment as well. Evil exists and there are not so many shades of grey and some creatures are evil in nature. What we would identify as evil are some pretty broad themes and war stories tend to paint the other side heavily in stereotypes. I would suggest that making changes to any of the monsters that step too far is a good idea. Even there, as noted above, D&D got rid of Demon and Devil and Angel (just renamed it, creatures were all there) and then switched back.

At a certain point, people are going to get offended at something. I draw the line based on my personal experience. If you think it needs changing, then my point of view says we both get to make our case but that Habro/WoTC makes the call.

I do know that several of the posters disagreeing with me have been good at contesting what I say instead of attacking me, which I appreciate, I certainly hope that I would be welcome at your table and I would welcome you at mine. And that is not just to game for me, that is to eat and drink and meet my family and friends.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

race is bonuses only and all humans are the same.

No, race is average variance from humans. Humans are the zero-point from which all other races are distinguished. All members of other species are likewise “the same” with each other.

That- and all other stuff said- it did come to me that there is one thing substituting “species” or another word for “race” does: it gives room for the worldbuilding DM to reintroduce it as a word used in in exactly the same way as it is in the real word.

IOW, if “species” is being the term used in the gamebook text means that a character or NPC talking about the ”Orcish race” might in fact be revealing himself as the in-world equivalent of a Klansman.

 

[Aldarc]

Please do tell me what my intentions and the seed of my real discomfort are.

Thankfully for you then, I refrained from that.

 

[Celebrim]

IOW, if “species” is being the term used in the gamebook text means that a character or NPC talking about the ”Orcish race” might in fact be revealing himself as the in-world equivalent of a Klansman.

So, if someone in the real world uses the term "the human race", are they the real world equivalent of a Klansman? I'm seriously asking because I want to understand your perspective.

Let's say we adopt "species", and we employ it the way that Paizo wants to employ their term, are you happy with the idea of "Keleshite species"?

What I think my take away on this the more I see Paizo develop it's mechanics is that Paizo really needs two terms for what it is trying to accomplish, race (or some marker for 'nature') and culture (or some marker for 'nurture') and that no one term is going to work. They want to explicitly divorce those two concepts, which I don't have a big problem with, but no single term like 'ancestry' or 'species' is going to do that.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Indeed; I know a Paramount staffer who played a prank at a trade show, on that basis.

So now we can draw the links from Scottish to Dwarvish, because James Doohan was the initial author of the Klingon language. Scottish, to Klingon, to Hebrew, to Dwarvish!

But if you don't recognize Dunsany's influence on Tolkien, and the Hebrew phonetics in Dunsany's stories, then I have a wall to sell you.

Tolkien was not a Hebrew scholar. Hoarding gold/money is not a Jewish exclusive stereotype. It takes little effort to find similar stories of different peoples in pretty much every fantasy tradition of cultures globally (Norse dwarves as noted). He may have been influenced by previous writers but he brought his own experience and knowledge into it as well.

This ends up being my issue. The core regions of FR (Sword Coast) is very Euro-centric. If that as a lenses is considered to be bad, even if other regions and cultures can easily be presented in the rules as they stand (magic-users have three traditions Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock to work off of - study and knowledge, personal power and other world patron).

If you want a different world and worldview, the OGL allows it (and some companies are exploring that). Even the DMs Guild allows you to play in the FR if you want. There still needs to be a set of base rules.

 

[Celebrim]

Thankfully for you then, I refrained from that.

No, I'm quite serious. I'd like to have an honest discussion. Tell me what my intentions and the seed of my real discomfort are.

 

[Farealmer3]

IOW, if “species” is being the term used in the gamebook text means that a character or NPC talking about the ”Orcish race” might in fact be revealing himself as the in-world equivalent of a Klansman.

I don't know about that. The "Holy Grail" of "Race Realists" is to prove people of "african ancestry", like us, are a different species, not just race. Any bigot that could use the word species over race to refer to their hated group would probably do so without hesitation.

 

[Aldarc]

No, I'm quite serious. I'd like to have an honest discussion. Tell me what my intentions and the seed of my real discomfort are.

The floor is open for you to do that yourself. I don't know what your intentions are, though you presumably do, but whatever they are, you don't seem that open with them in this conversation. If you would like to have an honest conversation, then be honest.

 

[Celebrim]

The floor is open for you to do that yourself. I don't know what your intentions are, though you presumably do, but whatever they are, you don't seem that open with them in this conversation. If you would like to have an honest conversation, then be honest.

I think I was very explicit in summarizing my feelings on this back in the first post I made in the thread. I invite you to refresh your memory of what my position is in this thread, since it largely hasn't wavered from that. Please tell me what statements you think I've made that are dishonest.

 

[Aldarc]

What I do know is that the direction that Pathfinder is moving towards looks worse.

It looks like it is increasing complexity and admitting that culture is distinct from species.

By using the word race, you accept certain constraints and the design philosophy of 5e is that race is bonuses only and all humans are the same. The blog entries for Pathfinder look to be leading towards those Cimmerians get this and those guys from Koth get that. I really don’t buy the story they are telling of why they changed the word and I am betting they get into more trouble by seeming to be progressive but actually opening the system up for more abuse. I am pretty cynical and I see more room for abuse in what they are doing rather than less.

But it looks like elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, etc. can potentially pick up feats reflecting an upbringing in their Cimmerian culture rather being exclusive to a particular species. That affords more complex distinctions of culture and species. Or that humans could potentially pick up "Dwarven Weapon Fighting" if they were raised by dwarves, etc.