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.

 

[Oofta]

It is simple, odd at times and gamey. But D&D is a game. I am of two kinds on it. I find it not great when thinking in terms of real world moral system, but I think it has its uses and can be fun (I am inclined to use it half the time and to either not use it or modify it the other half of the time).

And while most of the time my campaigns run more in terms of individual motives, I don’t see anything wrong or lesser with wanting more Lord of the rings style clashing of cosmic evil and good

Pretty much everything in D&D is oversimplified and doesn't really work when applied to the real world. Alignment is no exception. I don't know the alignments of any of my player's characters even though I tell them that I want to run a no-evil heroic campaign. Meanwhile alignment for monsters or NPCs that are only going to have at most 15 minutes of existence in the game can be a quick look into how they approach the world. I'm just glad we use it as a general descriptor now, not a straight jacket like it used to be. Along the same lines the 2014 MM shouldn't have had "evil" for a lot of monsters and should have had "typically [insert alignment]" even though they make it clear in the intro that it's just the default. But, much like the DMG, most people don't read the intro chapter of the MM.

 

[Oofta]

Mindflayers are equally strong, but they are more dextrous, more resistant and vastly more charismatic and wise as well as being intelligent beyond imagination. There is a point to be made that they should be the master race and we should go the way of the Neanderthal next to them as it would allow a more efficient use of natural resources. Surprisingly, we just label them evil instead of accepting that we lost the evolutionary race with them and we should fade to leave them their right place in the spotlight for the greater good...

Who's to say the aren't secretly the master race? What better way to ensure that the cattle humans with their tasty, tasty brains compliant and satisfied?

 

[Corinnguard]

Who's to say the aren't secretly the master race?

There are several contenders for this position. No jumping ahead of the line, please.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Who's to say the aren't secretly the master race? What better way to ensure that the cattle humans with their tasty, tasty brains compliant and satisfied?

Mindlayer 1: "The plan is going well. We've corralled them into a pen they call the Sword Coast. Look, the puny food is creating some kind of anthill they call Waterdeep..."
Mindflayer 2 : "Why are they building it there? Can't they see they are on a fault line, with a 18.3% more chance of being destroyed by an earthquake or a tsunami in the next 100 years than this other location?"
Mindflayer 1: "Don't make the error of mindflayerizing them. They aren't rational, most of their action is driven by instinct. They don't think, they're food. What is self-evident for us is a deepest secret of the universe to them. It's only because we raise them that there are so many of them"
Mindflayer 2 : "At least they taste good!"

 

[Remathilis]

As an orc, a species created by Gruumsh, who actually loved war, you get an innate ability to wield melee weapons. The voice of Gruumsh resonate in your mind and helps you wield them better. Get +1 to hit and +1 damage with melee weapon. Also, he built you with a strong frame, get +1 to any STR ability check.

On the other hand, Gruumsh's voice makes it harder to concentrate on complex, abstract problems as he's easily distracted and this constant noise gives a penalty of 1 to any INT ability check and spellcasting ability.

You have the exact same thing as +2 STR, an explanation that emphasize that raspeciancestries aren't biological as the Gods create life, not DNA -- that's how you can have cross-species or even cross-class (as in reptiles and mammals) children, and nothing that would evoke anything on our real world, and one can rate every species on a 3-18 scale -- An homebrew Hill giants PCs would get a +4 raspeciancestral ability to bash people's head. Is everyone happy with my vorcs ?

No.

Because you have recreated the issue that orcs are always going to be the best warrior class. Unless Moradin's blessing is giving dwarves +1 to hit and damage, Annam is giving goliaths+1 to hit and damage, Bahamut is giving dragonborn +1 to hit and damage, etc.

Which is the gamist problem with racial ASI: you create a BiS meta where if your going to be optimal*, if you're a warrior you pick orc and if you're an orc you pick a warrior. Orc rogues and casters need not apply.

Now if the intention is to have characters that are suboptimal, you will have your wish. But don't be surprised when you don't see anything but orc barbarians, elf wizards, and tiefling warlocks. The ability to make a bad choice is rarely better than no choice at all.

 

[beaumontsebos]

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.

"Species" may not be the correct word. But "race" is for sure the wrong one. I've known it since I was a kid and I find it confounding that some people either don't realize the many levels of why it is the wrong word for a major RPG publisher to use, or that some people do realize it's the wrong word but will still defend its use because of their conscious or unconscious racism.

Also I don't care how you play your RPGs. Use "race" all you want. Your games can be filled with all kinds of things that I personally object to but you consider goodcorrectfun. I'm not playing in your games so it doesn't matter to me at all.

And no need for anybody to leave the hobby. Disagreements happen when you participate in a community.

 

[mamba]

The default way is standard array now, so nothing under 8.

that applies equally to the Orcs then, making the whole ‘minimum INT of 2 means we can kill and eat your species’ moot…

Non-heroes don't roll, they use the NPC stat block (so they all have the same stats, the general variety within a species being contained mostly within that same point, so having a 12 is already much above average, borderly... superhuman).

no, that stat block represents an average orc, not all orcs but the player characters. There is as much variance between orcs represented by that stat block as you get when rolling 1000 orc characters. It’s an average, not the only possible set of values

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

No.

Because you have recreated the issue that orcs are always going to be the best warrior class.

Not everyone see this as an issue, with several people in this thread explaining that they actually want a species to have the best X (and a worst Y) so they can play an Y against type. If every species is equal, then there is no type.

Plus, whatever ability you make, it will always be more beneficial to a build, maybe though to a more focussed build than a whole class.

Now if the intention is to have characters that are suboptimal, you will have your wish. But don't be surprised when you don't see anything but orc barbarians, elf wizards, and tiefling warlocks. The ability to make a bad choice is rarely better than no choice at all.

I was addressing the real life problem of ability disparties, not the gamist one. Every ability in that case is certainly better for some use case than other. Unless you go the very strange way they went with, say Goliath, where you're supposed to be strong so you can make opponents prone when you hit them... apply also to ranged attack or magical attack. Because your blowgun making people prone, or a magic firebolt doing the same -- but not magic missile -- is suppose to reflect some innate strength... Adding a random 1d12 fire damage to weapon attack would be more useful to martial than wizards, for example.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

that applies equally to the Orcs then, making the whole ‘minimum INT of 2 means we can kill and eat your species’ moot…

Exactly. Elimination of one species by another is common. We're probably, as humans, one of the worst offenders: we remove around 150 species each day. We probably shouldn't but we don't care a lot, generally.

 

[ezo]

Is everyone happy with my vorcs ?

No, because you'll still have people whine about they are better in combat than other races, blah blah blah...

You made them better with weapons and checks in a way others can't match without similar features. Your STR 20 Orc gets +6 due to that change while everyone else (without it) is capped at +5 due to STR 20 alone.

Frankly, the racial ASIs work fine IMO and make sense. Regardless of the INITIAL bump (or penalty even) one race might have compared to another, they can always catch up as 20 is the max across the board.

"But, but, but... I have to use my ASI to level the field and they get to take a feat instead!!! How is that fair!?!"

Well, sure, but the race you chose gives you other features. Besides, you picked it to role-play, right? Not roll-play?

Honestly, we are only talking a -1 to +1 difference (for the modifier) on a d20-scale. It isn't a big difference. All other things the same, the creature with the penalty still WINS a contested roll 38.25% of the time and ties another 4.5% of the time.

Considering how few races even had a -2 penalty before, it is really +0 to +1, which brings the percentages to 42.75% and 4.75%, respectively.

We're probably, as humans, one of the worst offenders:

There is no "probably" about it.