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

[Bagpuss]

Then you haven’t been paying attention to what the rest of the D&D playing community has been doing.

By rest you mean a small subset.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

people chanting Schmorp gather quietly in the background

You have a new convert to your cause!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Exactly my thought on reading that as well. And, while not ignoring the past of it, I do think it is telling that use of folk in this sense has not raised a issue in the playerbase in the way that the term race has so far.

Wait a second. I'm not hugely passionate about the change from Race to Species, and personally I don't particularly object to race because it has a much broader meaning and is clearly being used that way in D&D: but I get the complaint. Terms that are presently used by hate groups would seem to be much more prone to abuse to me personally, or at the very least pose the same issue that people are complaining about with race. I mean, maybe people don't know the history of Nazi Germany enough, modern hate movements enough, racialist science and eugenics, but maybe they are incorrect to not be bothered by these terms? Like I said, I don't wince at race because I understand its usage in this context, but I do wince seeing ancestry, ethnicity, people and folk proposed. And like others have said, the reasons for this are not exactly obscure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But it is extremely abstract and boring.

The only way to remove connotation is to remove flavor.

 

[Greg Benage]

I finally found one that wouldn't require a trigger warning, although the Youth is borderline.

 

[Yaarel]

I am unfamiliar with the "shmorp". Can someone explain this term, where it comes from, and how it is relevant to D&D?

 

[glass]

The ONE playtest rules for this allow the mixing.

"Mixing" != "mating". The latter was what I was asking for a citation on.

The Origins playtest packet.

I thought I had downloaded that, but it appears not, and it is too late now. Care to quote the part where it talks about sexual reproduction between gnomes (or was it halflings?) and dragonborn?

I thought the problem with race was the historical use of the term.

I am by no means an expert but AIUI it is more the current use of the term. The core of the problem is that "race" means both "species" and "ethnicity". D&D used it in the former sense (which is archaic), but the latter sense is much more prevalent now.

Of course, racist depictions over the years have not helped (orcs got the worst of it for some reason, and then there is drow of course). And then there was Gygax's quoting a genocidal muderer in approving tones. These would have been bad enough with other terminology, but compounded and were compounded by the word choice.

 

[glass]

I am unfamiliar with the "shmorp". Can someone explain this term, where it comes from, and how it is relevant to D&D?

It is a joke from earlier in this thread (or one of the others).

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I am unfamiliar with the "shmorp". Can someone explain this term, where it comes from, and how it is relevant to D&D?

Every possible term to replace the term 'race' has the issue of being used by nazis and racists at some point in history. Someone will always take offenses to any of them (some of those words for very good reason, others less so).

Shmorp is a completely made up term by people in this thread, and so has no negative history or uses. Therefore no one can be offended by it. Making it the perfect term to replace 'race' in DnD.

I was advocating for 'player entity' but 'shmorp' is funnier.

 

[Cadence]

It is a joke from earlier in this thread (or one of the others).

Shmorp is a completely made up term by people in this thread, and so has no negative history or uses. Therefore no one can be offended by it. Making it the perfect term to replace 'race' in DnD.

I was advocating for 'player entity' but 'shmorp' is funnier.

Ack. Just googled shmorp. Urban dictionary makes it sound like it would have trouble if it's actually used that way by anyone except the person who submitted it. (Although I sometimes wonder if every word has a meaning I don't know submitted to urban dictionary somewhere).