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.

 

[Zarithar]

a bit late off the mark for this topic mainstream news...

Typical in my opinion

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

yes, but the original argument was the -1 INT of orcs justified humans to treat orcs like cattle.

I have no problems with the mindflayers doing that to humans, there the average distance is big enough to ‘justify’ it. Notice that I said ‘slightly less intelligent’, mindflayers are drastically more intelligent

This wasn't my argument, so I can't tell. The -1 int isn't enough to be distinctive enough -- and in most case it wouldn't even cause a roll modifier (10 vs 11).

 

[mamba]

This wasn't my argument, so I can't tell.

you jumped into this two posts or so in, it started with

At the beginning of 5e orcs had a penalty to intelligence, which meant that with rolled stats they could have an intelligence of 2 - equal to a cow. So clearly nothing morally wrong in enslaving them. Or eating them.

The -1 int isn't enough to be distinctive enough -- and in most case it wouldn't even cause a roll modifier (10 vs 11).

I agree, that was my point, it would not be based on the minimum but the average, if we want to use INT for this at all

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

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

I am not certain. Rolling, or point-buy, or standard array, is for PCs. They are by definition exceptional. There is no hint in 5e, contrary to 3.5e, that NPCs abide by the same building rules than heroes.

I read it as the area covered by the 11 is wide enough to cover most peasants, merchants, artisans, hermits... as per the stat block, with exceptionally educated people (Druid, Noble, Priest) reaching 12-13. If it was simply "human are on a range of 4d6-drop-lowest, it would mean that 1% of the human people would have an intelligence level below of equal that of an average weasel, and nearly one in thirty (ie, one in each classroom) as an intelligence equal to the average ape. I am not convinced it's how we're supposed to treat characteristics -- even though apes are pretty smart for animals.

Edit: which is why I concur with your view that the extreme value can't be used to determine that orcs=cows. Because then we'd need to accept that humans=weasels.

 

[mamba]

I am not convinced it's how we're supposed to treat characteristics.

whether you are convinced is up to you, but according to your logic any noble has 13, any merchant 11 and any commoner 10 or whatever, and just the characters can fall within the full range of the species and be either the dumbest or the smartest human alive. I find that nonsensical

 

[Remathilis]

Edit: which is why I concur with your view that the extreme value can't be used to determine that orcs=cows. Because then we'd need to accept that humans=weasels.

Easy enough

 

[Crimson Longinus]

giants however, are not a player character species, their balance does not need to be tied to how players stats are scaled.

It is unacceptable to me that ability scores would arbitrarily mean different things for NPCs than to the PCs.

this is partially what size is meant to impose but i don't especially care to make a halfling 'worse' at strength than a human so long as the orc is better than either of the other two, which their species traits should be providing bonuses to make them better at those things.

The size should matter more, but it matters less and less. in 5.0 there at least used to be some restrictions on weapons, now a three foot halfling can wield a five foot great sword, no problem. (Disadvantage for heavy is now linked to strength score, and that does not differentiate between your size or species. The same score means the same thing for everyone.)

 

[DarkCrisis]

Cut the middleman and bring back the elf, dwarf and halfling classes then.

Now you're talking.

BTW currently playing OSE and it's been wonderful.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

it would not be based on the minimum but the average, if we want to use INT for this at all

If it follows a normal distribution, lowering the mean also lowers the minimum (or 2 standard deviations below the means for statisticians). Or, if you reduce the deviation, then you significantly lower the maximum.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

whether you are convinced is up to you, but according to your logic any noble has 13, any merchant 11 and any commoner 10 or whatever, and just the characters can fall within the full range of the species and be either the dumbest or the smartest human alive. I find that nonsensical

Right. The NPC statblock are just average examples. Individuals might vary. (And as a GM, I change the stablocks often.)