D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?

[dragoner]

Monster.
Like "what kind of Monster are you?"
"The best kind."
Actually people works good too, that is what I use.

 

[Lojaan]

The thing I like about species is that it's for the player, not the character.

A character would use the term that makes cultural sense to them, be it race, or kin, or parentage or blubberhenal or whatever, but for the player it is explicitly called out that these terms refer to species.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Can I change my vote to Schmorp as well? It will ease to job of translators.

 

[Clint_L]

Do you think we can make schmorp a thing?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

5 of us mentionned it in this thread, making it a second tier contender... but it wasn't a proposed choice, so, it's a pretty strong performance. It won't bear any bad connotation even if language evolves to make future unfortunate associations with words we use. Nobody can really say he's against Schmorp. It might not win in straight vote, but might the least-disliked option.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Do you think we can make schmorp a thing?

WotC: "We accidentally changed 'species' to 'schmorp' on the latest playtest and it got 80% approval..."

 

[schneeland]

My preference would be (in descending order):

• Ancestry
• Folk
• Kin

 

[MarkB]

I don’t want to drag the thread down, so I won’t belabor the issue, but I just want to say that this is far from an uncontested position. What [the character element formerly known as race] is in D&D is very different than what Species means in real life.

"Very" is putting it strongly. There are real-life species that can interbreed. And substitute "Species" in your above statement with any of the other poll terms - which of them is it not true of?

 

[Charlaquin]

"Very" is putting it strongly. There are real-life species that can interbreed.

That there are, but they are exceptional, whereas in 1D&D all of the PC schmorps can. More importantly though, there are no real-life species that don’t share a common ancestor, whereas there are many shmorps in D&D that don’t. But they can still interbreed despite having absolutely zero genetic connections. Also, genes probably don’t exist.

And substitute "Species" in your above statement with any of the other poll terms - which of them is it not true of?

Parentage, ancestry, lineage, folk, kindred, descent… take your pick, honestly.

 

[Lojaan]

That there are, but they are exceptional, whereas in 1D&D all of the PC schmorps can. More importantly though, there are no real-life species that don’t share a common ancestor, whereas there are many shmorps in D&D that don’t. But they can still interbreed despite having absolutely zero genetic connections. Also, genes probably don’t exist.

Parentage, ancestry, lineage, folk, kindred, descent… take your pick, honestly.

You know that they're not real yeah? Your science magic doesn't work here witch!