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.

 

[Corinnguard]

You know, I think I prefer Ancestry as a replacement.

Because Character Creation is as simple as:

Ancestry.

Background.

Class.

Sorry, this thread felt like it needed some levity...

Nothing wrong with injecting some levity in what is turning out to be another serious discussion. Level Up has something similar to what you were suggesting here. H- Heritage, B-Background, C-Culture and D-Destiny for its' Character origin. I know, they could have had everyone doing their ABCD's... But Pathfinder had already taken Ancestry for their own ABCs.

 

[Michael Blackett]

Saying that, I like The approach in A5E to races/species/heritage.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I was going off the comparison of a giraffe and rabbit so I assumed neither were especially comparable to humans, but if they are humanoid, why take attribute modifiers off the table? Not only do those have a substantial impact on make the differences mechanically clear, but players actually feel modifiers (both the pain and the joy of them)

i was originally talking about modeling a regular rabbit too but i think i got wires crossed when you started talking about them being played in the game.

but my reason for taking ASI off the table and leave them as part of stat generation is that having them tied to either species or background just seems to cause problems upon problems, they ARE impactful and that's the root of the issue, if they're fixed to a character creation option you get complaints about how you need to pick the right choice for 'optimisation' or sacrifice character capability for concept, then you also get conversations like this thread how it means that option is typecast in one way or another and proves bioessentialism or classism, that 'you cant have an agile dwarf' or that 'a farmer can't be educated', my final reason is that ASI are just too vague, each stat covers so many things about your character and improves a whole host of only vaguely interrelated capabilities, i might have +2 DEX because my species is agile, but that also improves my ability to sneak, my sleight of hand, my capability with ranged and finesse weapons, things that realistically have nothing to do with being agile.

 

[Remathilis]

You know, I think I prefer Ancestry as a replacement.

Because Character Creation is as simple as:

Ancestry.

Background.

Class.

Sorry, this thread felt like it needed some levity...

To be fair, WotC has opted for CBS (class, background, species). So we just need a third company to use Nationality, Background and Class so we can have ABC, CBS, and NBC.

 

[Corinnguard]

MSNBC, I got Species, Nationality, Background and Class. Just need to figure out what the M stands for.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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

You're correct. People who started to use it to complain about literal different species having different capabilities due differing physiology use it wrong.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

MSNBC, I got Species, Nationality, Background and Class. Just need to figure out what the M stands for.

Manliness, with a value of 1 if you identify with the male gender.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Assuming this is a rabbit humanoid species and not just literally a real rabbit as a PC, no i would not want STR penalties to it, everybody can exist on the same 3-20 stat scale and nobody needs any additional species ASI modifiers as their traits should be doing all the work differentiating them already, then ASI exist purely as an internal species scaling, 11 STR is average strength equally amongst halflings humans and goliaths but goliaths are still ‘stronger’ due to having traits that play into representing that strength like outsized might and bend bars, break crates.

That doesn't make sense with how the game actually functions. Giants actually have higher strength than smaller species in the game, they don't just have 11, as an average giant strength. Same applies to basically everything.

Nor do mechanics reflect your idea. Strength gives similar bonus to ability checks and damage regardless of your species. If strength 14 halfling is actually weaker than a strength 14 human or orc, certainly they would not hit as hard, would not be as good at breaking doors, etc.

Sorry, the idea simply does not work.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

FWIW, I don't have a problem with a species being able to breathe a cone of acid (yellow ants and dragonborn), or a species being able to fly (birds and aaracroka). I also don't have a problem imagining a species stronger than the maximum human possible.

I would find clunky, but not impossible if it makes people happy, to replace:

"You've giant blood in your vein. Get +2 STR" by

You've Giant blood in your vein. Get a +1 bonus to any Strength ability check, a +1 to hit and damage with melee weapons.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

I think it is problematic when we are talking about biological species with culture, societies etc. We get into all sorts of nasty stuff about evil orc babies and stuff, and Gygax himself demonstrated that this goes into something quite similar to the darkest chapters of human history really quickly.

Now I am not fan of simplistic "good and evil" labelling even for other types of creatures either, but it is probably more understandable when we are talking about demons and such, which can be seen as spiritual manifestations of evil. But personally I would not treat even them that way. Creatures can have desires, impulses, beliefs and behaviours that bring them into conflict with other creatures. Like if a mind flayer needs to eat my brains to survive, it is unlikely we reach an amicable compromise on the matter. Is the mind flayer evil? Am I evil for eating cows? (Not that I usually do these days.) That is a philosophical question without an objective answer, and it doesn't really change the nature of the conflict.