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...

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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?

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

Michael Tresca

Mike "Talien" Tresca is the managing editor of the EN World Columnists Program, author of The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, releases daily game-related content on his Patreon, and has over 50 D&D 5E products for sale on DriveThruRPG. He is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. If you like what we do here at EN World please consider supporting our Patreon.
M

Myrdin Potter

Hero
Riley37 said:
He did a translation of the book of Jonah from Hebrew to English. That's not enough for you to recognize him as a Hebrew scholar? Sure, it's not his *primary professional identity*, but he had proficiency with the language.

Why did you assert that Tolkien was not a Hebrew scholar? Were you trying to deny that Tolkien used Hebrew roots when he created Khuzdul, even though *he explicitly said so*? You're not trying to counter any and every point I make, just because we disagree on Paizo's plans for P2, are you? If that wasn't your goal... then what was?
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As much as it is annoying to answer posts like this, it did make me recheck my sources, so I guess that it is worth it.

He did not translate the book of Jonah from Hebrew to English. He translated it from French to English and double checked against the Hebrew (the Bible was also written in Greek and that is a language as a former classics scholar that he knew as well). He was a prodigy in languages, but I can’t find any particular mention of Hebrew as being anything he did scholarly work in when he was a professor (of a English with Germanic languages and Old Norse as a speciality).

If people wonder why D&D seems to have such a Tolkien stamp on it, he was obsessed about writing the background of the made up worlds he wrote in. That included mythology and language, much like a DM world creating today.

All the references i can I can easily find on the origin of Khuzdul (secret language of the dwarves) was [FONT=&quot]"their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic." Hebrew is not the only semetic language, it is actually not even the most spoken by a large factor (Arabic is). Tolkien liked inventing languages and liked grammar, semetic languages have their own structure and I have seen many others use it and their base sounds for new languages without really knowing the languages themselves all that well.

i personally am not super familiar with it. I am fluent in English and French and heard it often enough but the only “Jewish” language I heard much was badly accented Yiddish from my grandfather (was apprenticed to Jewish tailors and almost ended up in a concentration camp because he spoke German with a Yiddish accent. Ended up in a work camp and almost starved to death but was much better than the alternative). I heard lots of Slavic languages growing up (Ukrainian and Polish)but never learned them. I do decent with romance languages because I learned Latin in HS and my French is good. My tones are terrible so my Mandarin is poor (I lived in China, Japan was just a vacation trip).

The construct seems to be dwarves horde gold and have big noses and their language has semetic roots, therefore they are really reskinned Jews with the negative money stereotype. Look, Tolkien even translated a book in the Bible and the Bible was originally written in Hebrew.

Tolkien was obviously not perfect, but the evidence seems to be much better that the dwarves are more Norse based and those dwarves also have big noses and horde gold.

So, I stand by my statement that he was not a scholar of Hebrew, at least not of any note. He was a scholar of English and liked languages, but my grandfather I noted above spoke 9 or 10 languages pretty well and I don’t think it is as rare as it seems in the USA.[/FONT]
 

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LordNightwinter

LordNightwinter

Explorer
Celebrim said:
I can't really tell you exactly what is going on in the head of the poster you are quoting, but I will tell you what is basically going on in the thread. There is a fight going on between classical liberals and post-modernists that buy into critical race theory. Sometimes that fight is explicit, and sometimes that fight is going on without the participants in the fight actually knowing what viewpoints motivate them or having the terminology to labels those things. And basically that fight comes down to the classical liberals calling the post-modernists racists, and the critical race theory proponents calling the classical liberals racists because each side believes the others plan to fix racism actually perpetuates racism. Heck, both sides believe that a certain segment of the other side is deliberately trying to perpetuate racism.

So that's what this thread is about. Consequently, through the biases that may be obvious by this point, what I read out of the sentence you quote is: "The final word here is that your [critical race theory] has nothing to with a fictional game." And I suspect the poster you quote might add, "And not a lot to do with the real world either."

As for fictional games, again I don't know what he means why don't you ask him instead of me, but it is possible to set a game in what is nominally the real world.
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That's the part of my quote that was missed. The fact that somewhere (maybe not on that post) I asked what it has to do with real world views.
 

T

tomBitonti

Adventurer
Dannyalcatraz said:
And when Gygax used it in that quoted section, he was using it in the precise way in which a RW racist would, complete with the further use of contextual words like “mongrel” and “passing for” human.
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Additional text omitted.

I'm a little surprised that this line hasn't been pursued more vigorously.

I'm seeing three uses of "race" in D&D: One for very clear species differences. For example, the difference between a Human and a Troglodyte, an Awakened Golem, or a Beholder. For such differences, I'm preferring instead of "race" the term "creature type". Based on the lack of response to my previous posting to this point, I'm taking the response to be that this is entirely non-controversial.

The second usage is to differentiate humanoid types which are almost human: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, and Halfling.

A third use is for "blooded" ancestry. This has many examples: Angel, Devil, Dragon, Aberrant, or Elemental blooded. But also Hag, and perhaps, Grave Touched.

The third use factors off cleanly as an "ancestry" option, after which we can ignore this use.

The second usage is at the heart of the controversy.

For the second usage, the problem seen in the usual rules that Elves, Humans, and Orcs interbreed. And is seen through Elves' being enlightened and noble, while Orcs are evil, thuggish, uncivilized, brutes. Put together, this appears as a presentation of racial debasement.

A similar example appears in Golarian (Pathfinder), with the Azanti as being superior humans (by their statistics, although, not by their outlook).

I have two take aways from this.

One is to appreciate a modifications made in Eberron, which changed the outlook for Orcs.

Two is that the problem that D&D has with race won't be simply solved by changing the term "race". There are deeper structural issues which are present and which should be addressed.

Thx!
TomB
 
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M

Myrdin Potter

Hero
Elves and Orcs being as they are portrayed does not originate with D&D. As a game construct, since you cannot write a novel for every NPC and where you have an alignment system, what exactly is the deeper structural issue?
 

Aldarc

Aldarc

Legend
Myrdin Potter said:
All the references i can I can easily find on the origin of Khuzdul (secret language of the dwarves) was [FONT=&quot]"their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic." Hebrew is not the only semetic language, it is actually not even the most spoken by a large factor (Arabic is). Tolkien liked inventing languages and liked grammar, semetic languages have their own structure and I have seen many others use it and their base sounds for new languages without really knowing the languages themselves all that well.
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Hebrew is not the only Semitic language, but JRRT's quote that you found is immediately preceded with JRRT saying "The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews?" So his use of "Semitic" in this context appears equated with "Hebrew," regardless of whether that is a misuse of the term "Semitic." I also found a book online - Arda Philology - that compares Khuzul grammar to Hebrew. I don't think, however, that this makes Tolkien well-versed in Hebrew. For a linguist, he likely only needed a smattering of familiarity with how the grammar works.

i personally am not super familiar with it. I am fluent in English and French and heard it often enough but the only “Jewish” language I heard much was badly accented Yiddish from my grandfather (was apprenticed to Jewish tailors and almost ended up in a concentration camp because he spoke German with a Yiddish accent.
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Yiddish is a Germanic language, though I suspect you know this.

The construct seems to be dwarves horde gold and have big noses and their language has semetic roots, therefore they are really reskinned Jews with the negative money stereotype. Look, Tolkien even translated a book in the Bible and the Bible was originally written in Hebrew.
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And likely the fact that Tolkien admitted that he drew unintended inspiration from the Jewish people:
“I didn’t intend it, but when you’ve got these people on your hands, you’ve got to make them different, haven’t you?” said Tolkien during the 1971 interview. “The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic. The hobbits are just rustic English people,” he said.
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Even JRRT connected his own dots.
 

Flexor the Mighty!

Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!
Riley37 said:
Asserting which exact thing, is the primary cause of a widespread dynamic or pattern, is one of the trickiest assertions one can make, in any field which includes controversy. LordNightWinter says it *was* true, ShinHakkaider says it *still is* true. Without agreement on whether the D&D player community *is* mostly white, then I don't see any chance of success of this particular forum exploring *why* it's mostly white.

That said, when I played AL at a game store, there was a player new to 5E, making his first character. When he turned to the page in the 5E PHB about different kinds of humans, and saw illustrations which matched his appearance, he smiled, and chose to play a Rashemi cleric of Lathander. This is an anecdote, a sample size of one, not enough to make a broad statement about causality; but it IS enough to make me glad that 5E has a more intentionally inclusive depiction of what "humans" look like, than I saw in 1E.
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Well part of the problem was the art in the 1e PH was in black and white.
 

Gradine

Gradine

The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
Lanefan said:
One concern: as it seems PF2 will allow one descent (e.g. Human) to poach abilities previously exclusive to another descent (e.g. Dwarven stonecunning), isn't that just going to open up a whole new set of tools for the munchkinizers and optimizers to break the game with?
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Isn't that the appeal of PF in the first place?

Honestly, someone a few posts before this one started saying that the change to "ancestry" adds "unnecessary complexity" and while many can (and have) quibbled on the "unnecessary" part, I rather thought that "complexity" was Pathfinder's raison de vivre.
 

TheCosmicKid

TheCosmicKid

Hero
Aldarc said:
It may be helpful for you to answer this question as well. Where do you think that the word "race" falls, and why?
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Close to "evolution". Its usage extends well beyond supremacist discourse. People often talk or write about race without claiming that some races are superior to others, just as people often talk or write about gender and religion without claiming that one of those things are superior to the others. When I see objections to "race" used in a non-supremacist context, my reaction is the same as when I see creationists tying any mention of "evolution" to Nazism.

Aldarc said:
That asked, I would wager, as you likely would as well, that the term "race" is probably more central to racial supremacist discourse than the word "evolution."
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Centrality doesn't seem like it establishes your point here. "Race" and "class" and "sex" and "gender" and "religion" and "god" are all central to various strains of hateful discourse, but the rest of us use them too, both in real life and on D&D character sheets.

Aldarc said:
Though the term "evolution" predates Darwin, Darwinian notions of "evolution" were later misappropriated by "social Darwinists" and racist ideologies as a means to justify pre-existing racial supremacist ideologies.
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I might say that the notion of "race" was misappropriated by imperialists and slavers as a means to justify their activities.

Aldarc said:
And you don't think that Biblical scholars, priests, theologians, etc. are not persistently grappling with the portrayals of race and ethnicity in the Bible in a post-Holocaust world, particularly because of your listed reason?
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You focused on the first sentence of that paragraph, but my point was in the second. Pick anything. Show it to Stormfront. Watch them twist it into their worldview. Does that make the thing you picked suddenly more problematic, or is it Stormfront that's "problematic"?
 

TheCosmicKid

TheCosmicKid

Hero
Riley37 said:
But if you are *defaulting* to the assumption that because you don't see how "race" is loaded, *therefore it isn't*, not until he *proves* to you that it's loaded...

...then please don't apply the same behavior to firearms. Just sayin'.
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If we're dealing in metaphors, I've already put forward the "innocent until proven guilty" principle which leads us to the exact opposite conclusion.
 

Dannyalcatraz

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
In fairness, the problematic connotations of “race” predate Stormfront by, ohhhh...a century or more? Arguably as far back as the word’s origins.
 

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