Mainstream News Discovers D&D's Species Terminology Change

Several mainstream news sites have discovered that Dungeons & Dragons now refers to a character's species instead of race. The New York Times ended 2024 with a profile on Dungeons & Dragons, with a specific focus on the 2024 Player's Handbook's changes on character creation, the in-game terminology change from race to species, and the removal of Ability Score Increases tied to a character's species. The article included quotes by Robert J. Kuntz and John Stavropoulos and also referenced Elon Musk's outrage over Jason Tondro's forward in The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons.

The piece sparked additional commentary on a variety of sites, including Fox News and The Telegraph, most of which focused on how the changes were "woke." Around the same time, Wargamer.com published a more nuanced piece about the presentation of orcs in the 2024 Player's Handbook, although its headline noted that the changes were "doomed" because players would inevitably replace the orc's traditional role as aggressor against civilization with some other monstrous group whose motivations and sentience would need to be ignored in order for adventurers to properly bash their heads in.

[Update--the Guardian has joined in also, now.]

Generally speaking, the mainstream news pieces failed to address the non-"culture war" reasons for many of these changes - namely that Dungeons & Dragons has gradually evolved from a game that promoted a specific traditional fantasy story to a more generalized system meant to capture any kind of fantasy story. Although some campaign settings and stories certainly have and still do lean into traditional fantasy roles, the kinds that work well with Ability Score Increases tied to a character's species/race, many other D&D campaigns lean away from these aspects or ignore them entirely. From a pragmatic standpoint, uncoupling Ability Score Increases from species not only removes the problematic bioessentialism from the game, it also makes the game more marketable to a wider variety of players.

Of course, the timing of many of these pieces is a bit odd, given that the 2024 Player's Handbook came out months ago and Wizards of the Coast announced plans to make these changes back in 2022. It's likely that mainstream news is slow to pick up on these types of stories. However, it's a bit surprising that some intrepid reporter didn't discover these changes for four months given the increased pervasiveness of Dungeons & Dragons in mainstream culture.

We'll add that EN World has covered the D&D species/race terminology changes as they developed and looks forward to covering new developments and news about Dungeons & Dragons in 2025 and beyond.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Neither giraffes nor rabbits are people.

Go on, then. Spell out your implications.

 

[KYRON45]

I have no problem with this in theory.

However, the root ideology from which this call for removal of ASIs from races does not present itself as preferring deeper mechanical representation of a given race's capabilities and drawbacks, but is instead arguing that it be done in the name of dubious ideals, and is therefore worthy of refutation and scorn.



A most pernicious lie, this.

Objective reality exists. Biological truth exists.

Rabbits are not foxes.

The truth that rabbits are not foxes is apparent by just looking at them. Someone said "hey a rabbit" and someone else then repeated the word so that they had common ground.
What we call them and how they are classified is the construct. What they are is what nature made them, what we call them was constructed by people and then agreed upon so that two people referring to the same animal knew what they were talking about.
Biology exists because a human called the study of life biology and then other humans agreed on using that word.

Before everyone starts tying themselves up in knots defining and redefining what "social construct" means we should all agree on the simple fact that I don't care that much about the topic. Its just that "social construct" is yet another term that divides people.
Happy New Year everyone. Hold the fish loosely. These articles are just people on the outside looking in and trying to make sense of our social construct.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Go on, then. Spell out your implications.

It wasn't my original post but...

Here's the problem. Throughout human history, people have long history of saying that people of certain ethnicities, "races," genders, etc are less than human, and therefore it's okay to kill them, enslave them, take their lands, etc guilt free.

This is not just history. This is still going on today.

In this history of D&D many monsters like orcs shared many similar characteristics to those dehumanized by western Europeans.

For some people, ASI's are reminiscent of this history of dehumanization, especially things like saying on race/species is inherently smarter than another.

For my part I agree with much of that, but more importantly, I think it's also not fun.

I like feeling like I can plane an orc wizard or halfling barbarian without feeling bad that I haven't min/maxed. (I dislike that ASIs are not part of background for similar reasons).

I also don't enjoy playing games where the bad guys are just a monolithic evil race. If you want some mindless slaughter guilt free, you've got zombies.

I'd rather tell a story about heroes. Last campaign I DM'd the heroes were fighting imperialists waging war to conquer their homeland. The heroes fought against these forces, but their ultimate target were the powers ruling the invaders. These powers were evil not because of how they were born, but the choices they made. The heroes wouldn't go around slaying farmers or children of the invading kingdom. It's not their fault the rulers were jerks.

 

[billd91]

But all those traits you mention would still be biological essentialism were they tied to the species.

But so would be an aaracocra’s wings and ability to fly, or a tortle’s shell. Or even the idea that a human is bipedal and walks erect rather that walking like a quadruped.

There are some uses of the bioessentiallism criticism that are pointless. Different creatures may have different characteristics. That’s not a real problem. Some of those differences may even be used to help differentiate how a creature with those characteristics might behave with respect to certain topics. At least, I would certainly hope an aaracocra might have some differing perspectives from a dwarf. The value of the bioessentialist criticism is in liberating characters from having their personalities and values shackled to those differences.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But so would be an aaracocra’s wings and ability to fly, or a tortle’s shell. Or even the idea that a human is bipedal and walks erect rather that walking like a quadruped.

There are some uses of the bioessentiallism criticism that are pointless. Different creatures may have different characteristics. That’s not a real problem. Some of those differences may even be used to help differentiate how a creature with those characteristics might behave with respect to certain topics. At least, I would certainly hope an aaracocra might have some differing perspectives from a dwarf. The value of the bioessentialist criticism is in liberating characters from having their personalities and values shackled to those differences.

Indeed. The literal definition of different species is that they have essential biological differences. Thus complaining about bioessentialism in such a context is bizarre. To get rid of it would require removing every difference besides purely cosmetic ones.

There certainly has been a lot of problematic in how D&D has represented the species; I've been complaining about it for decades. I just don't think that this particular angle is quite coherent. And this is not to say that some specific things being biologically essential still isn't bad. Like species that are born evil is rather problematic. But I don't think that a species having different capabilities due differing physiology is the same thing at all.

 

[Azzy]

It wasn't my original post but...

Here's the problem. Throughout human history, people have long history of saying that people of certain ethnicities, "races," genders, etc are less than human, and therefore it's okay to kill them, enslave them, take their lands, etc guilt free.

This is not just history. This is still going on today.

In this history of D&D many monsters like orcs shared many similar characteristics to those dehumanized by western Europeans.

For some people, ASI's are reminiscent of this history of dehumanization, especially things like saying on race/species is inherently smarter than another.

For my part I agree with much of that, but more importantly, I think it's also not fun.

I like feeling like I can plane an orc wizard or halfling barbarian without feeling bad that I haven't min/maxed. (I dislike that ASIs are not part of background for similar reasons).

I also don't enjoy playing games where the bad guys are just a monolithic evil race. If you want some mindless slaughter guilt free, you've got zombies.

I'd rather tell a story about heroes. Last campaign I DM'd the heroes were fighting imperialists waging war to conquer their homeland. The heroes fought against these forces, but their ultimate target were the powers ruling the invaders. These powers were evil not because of how they were born, but the choices they made. The heroes wouldn't go around slaying farmers or children of the invading kingdom. It's not their fault the rulers were jerks.

All of this.

 

[Dausuul]

All of those might fit the mechanical needs, but I'm not convinced any of them fill the narrative/setting niche they're trying remove orcs and other sentient enemies from.

What is that niche, exactly?

I personally find undead make the perfect "kill on sight baddies," because they can fill almost any such role you need them to. They have a ton of mythic resonance, they can show up anywhere from the deep wilderness to the heart of a great city, and they span everything from mindless hordes (skeletons, zombies) to somewhat intelligent pack hunters (ghouls, vampire spawn, specters) to organized fighting forces (wights, wraiths, or vampires commanding lesser undead). They can lurk passively in dungeons; they can prowl the wilderness in search of victims; they can gather in the wastelands to menace the civilized world; they can muster to the call of a dark overlord. I have trouble thinking of a narrative/setting "perma-villain" niche they can't cover.

(As a bonus, you get to shrug off pesky questions like "How exactly does this army of carnivores with carnivorous mounts keep from starving to death?")

 

[Micah Sweet]

What is that niche, exactly?

I personally find undead make the perfect "kill on sight baddies," because they can fill almost any such role you need them to. They have a ton of mythic resonance, they can show up anywhere from the deep wilderness to the heart of a great city, and they span everything from mindless hordes (skeletons, zombies) to somewhat intelligent pack hunters (ghouls, vampire spawn, specters) to organized fighting forces (wights, wraiths, or vampires commanding lesser undead). They can lurk passively in dungeons; they can prowl the wilderness in search of victims; they can gather in the wastelands to menace the civilized world; they can muster to the call of a dark overlord. I have trouble thinking of a narrative/setting "perma-villain" niche they can't cover.

(As a bonus, you get to shrug off pesky questions like "How exactly does this army of carnivores with carnivorous mounts keep from starving to death?")

You for the most can't interact with them on any level other than avoid or kill? Demons and mind flayers are even worse about this. Enemies that you might have to fight or might be able to befriend (or even relate to) don't come from those sources.

 

[Bedrockgames]

no, but IMO a rabbit is far far better modeled with +10ft speed, +bonus action dash, +50% jump distance, +advantage on perception checks that rely on hearing, +30ft tremmorsense and no species ASI than anything +2 DEX +1 WIS can provide, ASI aren't necessary to model how certain species are meant to excell compared to each other,

These kinds of special abilities aren't mutually exclusive. A rabbit should not be breaking down doors that a 18 STR character can break down. Probably also want a pretty hefty STR penalty on that rabbit if you are going to make it a core race/species

 

[jasper]

....

This change was a long time coming. Those that complain about D&D no longer relying on the term "race" are either more ignorant than my fifth-grade self or simply jerks.

And this is why I have problems with "Species" is the correct word crowd. The either flat out insulting of a different view point or the hint of if you have problems with the changes you are having badwrongfun and need to leave the hobby.