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.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

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.

I mostly agree with you and could care less about this change and most of this topic. But I am deeply troubled by the lack of consistency on this part;

Like species that are born evil is rather problematic.

This only applies sometimes in this game. You could, judging by WotC decisions, assume this should be worded, "playable species that are born evil are problematic." No one is advocating for full demons to not be "evil" in that way, or at least I've never seen that. No one is complaining about Mindflayers either. But Orcs, a species taken from Beowolf which are the corrupted spawn of Cain in that poem, are problematic. The source material is equally as damning to all species. But only one is ever labeled as "problematic" by WotC. This issue seems to be solely because Orcs are playable by a player, otherwise demons and Mindflayers should also be problematic.

So this all seems more like Hasbro just placating people on the internet, and not an actual attempt to correct any perceived oddities. They seemingly address the topic of the day on social media, in an attempt to gain favor, while ignoring both source material and consistency. It seems like virtue signalling when you draw your lines, coincidentally, at only the most front facing parts of your game while leaving everything else untouched.

 

[Azzy]

Go on, then. Spell out your implications.

Biological essentialism has a meaning, and it's a rather nasty one. You and several others are not using the term correctly.

 

[jasper]

Last time I checked tortles wew not related to humans in the slightest. Meanwhile myth has humans breeding with bulls, it's how we got minotaurs.

OOFTA HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM ZANTH'S LOVE SPRINGS!...

 

[Dausuul]

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.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the changes, the role of "foes who might become allies or friends" is exactly where NPC orcs are likely to end up when the Monster Manual comes out.

Now, if they take it to the point of excising any suggestion of orcs ever being hostile or evil, then I'll be on your side. (The PHB went a little farther than I would have; it makes Gruumsh sound like a benevolent patron deity. But the PHB is describing orcs as PCs, so it makes sense to focus on their heroic side.)

 

[Belen]

I mostly agree with you and could care less about this change and most of this topic. But I am deeply troubled by the lack of consistency on this part;



This only applies sometimes in this game. You could, judging by WotC decisions, assume this should be worded, "playable species that are born evil are problematic." No one is advocating for full demons to not be "evil" in that way, or at least I've never seen that. No one is complaining about Mindflayers either. But Orcs, a species taken from Beowolf which are the corrupted spawn of Cain in that poem, are problematic. The source material is equally as damning to all species. But only one is ever labeled as "problematic" by WotC. This issue seems to be solely because Orcs are playable by a player, otherwise demons and Mindflayers should also be problematic.

So this all seems more like Hasbro just placating people on the internet, and not an actual attempt to correct any perceived oddities. They seemingly address the topic of the day on social media, in an attempt to gain favor, while ignoring both source material and consistency. It seems like virtue signalling when you draw your lines, coincidentally, at only the most front facing parts of your game while leaving everything else untouched.

Orcs are not a playable species in my setting and remain evil.

I also decided against moving to 5.5.

I am happy if folks want non-evil Orcs in their settings. I’d play in one if someone else DM’d.

For me, Orcs will stay evil just like gnolls or goblins etc. I do not model them on real world cultures and never have.

 

[Remathilis]

Happy New year everyone...
Attaching RL labels to a fantasy roleplaying game is in itself somewhat counter-productive, and undermining.

No one I ever knew associated orcs with skin colour. Yet now Wizards have created a problem in sanitising the Orc into something more humane and 'latino' (?!?).

One wonders where they plan on going with the Drow/Dark Elves, seeing as they are 'problematic'.

Happy New Year! I'm glad you decided to ring in the new year with a debate we had in 2019!

 

[Malmuria]

If orcs etc in one's setting are demon-spawn monsters with no will or subjectivity, then posing them as inherently evil is consistent worldbuilding. However, as soon as your orcs (or goblins, kobolds, etc) have children, families, cultures, society, free will, and the like, questions about their supposed inherent morality come up. Some of you probably agree with Gygax's infamous "nits make lice" post.

And yes, this has come up in games I've been in. Not so much as a kid, where we just wandered into the dungeon and rolled dice (and sure, there's still room for that kind of game). But getting back into dnd as an adult, with other adults, we found that we took world building and setting construction more seriously, teasing out the implications of what it would mean to have Orc societies, whether it makes sense to have those societies be inherently evil and treated as fodder for combat/murder, and, yes, the real world parallels of treating foreign cultures as barbaric and evil.

The upshot is that once something like an Orc society stops being inherently evil, your game becomes more interesting, because now they are a faction with specific wants and needs, not monolithically evil (or simplistically good). And they can be put into a dynamic setting with other factions, each with wants and needs that go beyond one-dimensional morality.

 

[Remathilis]

Happy New Year! I'm glad you decided to ring in the new year with a debate we had in 2019!

Nevermind. We've all decided (I guess) to ring in the new year with the same tied arguments about ASI, racial alignment and representation that we've been having since 2019.

Checking off my Bingo card early this year...

 

[popuman]

And so, the new year started with total, utter crap.

 

[GnomeWorks]

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

In my setting, I have a "race" of sentient free-willed robots (using quotes on that because they're not biological, so the term doesn't really fit). They gain a bonus to INT because they are computers, so of course they are capable of processing information faster than humans.

If I can accept this -- and I do -- then I can also accept the possibility of a biological race with a similar capacity. I can also imagine the reverse.

This notion is not offensive. You either accept that bears are stronger than you, or you do not. One position aligns with reality. The other does not. That which the truth can kill should die.

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).

Letting you play against type like this goes against why we have fantasy races in the first place.

That said: I'm not opposed to these characters being an option, if preferably a rare one. I also don't mind providing interesting mechanics that let you play the character in a way that makes sense. Halflings becoming barbarians (in the class sense) are walking a road they should know is more difficult because they're not playing into their strengths. Having options available to halflings that let them operate in melee better to put them on par with races more built for it, but in ways that make their approach to it different to account for their disadvantages, is both good game design and good worldbuilding.

The value of the bioessentialist criticism is in liberating characters from having their personalities and values shackled to those differences.

Pigs are not dogs.

I hereby cite Babe as my rebuttal to this line of thinking.

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.

The concept is not intrinsically a bad one, but I will grant that it can have poor implementations.

Going into detail about how a naturally evil people, but one with a functional society, makes sense requires a number of prerequisite beliefs about the world and how it works. If you don't have those beliefs, then having a problem with this notion is sensible.

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.

The ones who push it the most do so because they have an agenda.

Biological essentialism has a meaning, and it's a rather nasty one. You and several others are not using the term correctly.

I have not, in fact, used the term at all. I will grant that I am obviously pointing at it, however.

That said, I find nothing in that definition to be particularly "nasty;" rather, the implication that those who believe in biological essentialism think biology is the only source of various qualities is rather narrow-minded.

Nevermind. We've all decided (I guess) to ring in the new year with the same tied arguments about ASI, racial alignment and representation that we've been having since 2019.

The culture war will continue until... well, until things get interesting, I suppose.