D&D (2024) One D&D Permanently Removes The Term 'Race'

In line with many other tabletop roleplaying games, such as Pathfinder or Level Up, One D&D is removing the term 'race'. Where Pathfinder uses 'Ancestry' and Level Up uses 'Heritage', One D&D will be using 'Species'.

Moving On From 'Race' in the 2024 Core Rulebooks

We understand "race" is a problematic term that has had prejudiced links between real world people and the fantasy peoples of D&D worlds.

www.dndbeyond.com

In a blog post, WotC announced that "We have made the decision to move on from using the term "race" everywhere in One D&D, and we do not intend to return to that term."

 

[Azzy]

Vanara been round awhile. I recall in the PF1 Serpent Skull AP they appeared a bit. Dont remember much about them.

Heck, they've been around since 3.5's OA (and were some of the least problematic aspects of that book).

 

[Vaalingrade]

Right, just affirming that Vanara been around awhile and not been an issue...yet.

Hadozee themselves, when they were hyping them up for the Spelljammer release were pretty well received. It wasn't until the actual content came out that there were problems.

 

[glass]

No of course it isn’t meaningless in real life. It would be meaningless in a world where dragons freely interbreed with humans, elves with thri-kreen, and centaurs with tritons.

Does any such world exist? Even if it does, for those categories of beings to be able to interbreed, they must exist as distinct types of beings. Species is as good a word as any (and better than most) for those types.

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Anyway, most of the alternative suggestions in this thread (regardless of their merits otherwise) do not work as a question. "My lineage is elf" may be fine, but "what's you lineage?" is a bit dodgy (and "what's your parentage?" or "what your origin?" are even worse).

 

[Morrus]

I'm going to assume this is not a Pathfinder joke, but this is literally how PF2 does it, and is even how they order it in their Core Rulebook. I'm not sure if it is officially called the ABC system, but I see it called that a lot.

What I'd like to see?
Ancestry: things you're born with, your DNA. Hair color, eye color, etc. "Nature"
Background: things you were taught, your upbringing. Social aptitude, language, culture. "Nurture"
Class: what you do for a living, your expertise. Training, knowledge, practice. "Career."

Or indeed Level Up -- heritage, culture, (background), class, (destiny). Basically it's a mini-lifepath system and it already exists.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Origin is my vote too.

"What's your origin?" is much more likely to be answered by "I'm from Paris" than "I am human".
"What is your race?" is correctly answered by "I am human", with a roll of eyes, because IRL humans are generally pretty good at identifying other humans and differentiating them from chimps without asking for confirmation. (also, it can help identify a racist if he expects something like Asian or European).
"What is your ancestry" is much more likely to be answered by "I am thorin, son of thrain, 367th heir to the throne of the Undercity..." or "my dad was plumber but I can trace my family tree up to 1765."
"What is your species" is correcty answerede by "I am human" though "homo sapiens" would be better.
"What is your heritage" refers to one's stock portfolio in a trust fund, or maybe a +1 longsword.
"What is your ilk or breed?" is most likely to elicit a weird look because I wouldn't know what the question is...

At least they changed a word that described aptly what they wanted to describe, to another word that describes what they wanted to describe.

 

[Dire Bare]

No of course it isn’t meaningless in real life. It would be meaningless in a world where dragons freely interbreed with humans, elves with thri-kreen, and centaurs with tritons. It’s meaningless in a world where our understanding of biology can be freely overridden by magic. Taxonomy, as we use it, is simply not applicable in a world where these unbelievably diverse life forms did not evolve from common ancestors but were directly created by gods, or materialized from pure elemental energy, or migrated from other realities, and all of them can be freely hybridized “because magic.”

And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that as a setting conceit. It’s fantasy, it doesn’t need to (and in my opinion shouldn’t) be bound by real-life science. However, “species” isn’t a meaningful term in a setting with such conceits.

Sorry I misunderstood your point.

But still . . . not meaningless in the fantasy world either. In the D&D multiverse, anything can interbreed with just about anything if you involve a god, mad wizard, cataclysm or other magical macguffin . . . . but that doesn't mean it's common, that it happens all the time, or that separating people into different types, different species, still has meaning.

We can still meaningfully talk about elves, dwarves, genasi, dragonborn, etc being distinct types of peoples from each other . . . . despite the fact that, under the right circumstances, any of them could have a couple of kids with each other.

And whether we use the word race, species, lineage, heritage, or ancestry doesn't really impact that in any direction.

 

[Charlaquin]

Does any such world exist?

I mean… I’m describing D&D there…

Even if it does, for those categories of beings to be able to interbreed, they must exist as distinct types of beings. Species is as good a word as any (and better than most) for those types.

No, it isn’t a good word for it, that’s my entire point.

---

Anyway, most of the alternative suggestions in this thread (regardless of their merits otherwise) do not work as a question. "My lineage is elf" may be fine, but "what's you lineage?" is a bit dodgy (and "what's your parentage?" or "what your origin?" are even worse).

I don’t see the problem.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't understand how this gets to 15 pages. Everyone pretty much agrees that "race" has become an unfortunate term, some of us like "species," some of us dislike it, but pretty much everyone understands what it means. Pragmatically speaking it works, there won't be any word that is perfect for everyone...and it affects gameplay in no way whatsoever. So I am left with the question: who cares? Why are folks worked up about this? As long as we get away from accidentally offensive terms, then the actual choice doesn't matter.

I am reminded of a work meeting where people just keep arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

[dave2008]

Which is a problem for established settings like Eberron that make extensive use of them.

Well, in the recent UA video Crawford does imply that setting specific "species" will remain a thing. So perhaps the generic version in the PHB, and the setting specific species are in the setting books. That would work IMO.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't understand how this gets to 15 pages. Everyone pretty much agrees that "race" has become an unfortunate term, some of us like "species," some of us dislike it, but pretty much everyone understands what it means. Pragmatically speaking it works, there won't be any word that is perfect for everyone...and it affects gameplay in no way whatsoever. So I am left with the question: who cares? Why are folks worked up about this? As long as we get away from accidentally offensive terms, then the actual choice doesn't matter.

I am reminded of a work meeting where people just keep arguing for the sake of arguing.

At this point, I'm just wondering how the survey will handle it. If they just give a rating on "Do you like removal of race." without a follow-up to the replacement term, they may get a negative response that doesn't accurately represent how overwhelmingly people support removing the term "race."