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.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

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

What you find nonsensical is up to you, but the range 3-18 comes from the method of rolling characters. They are supposed to be heroes, not just regular people. The range isn't your regular human strength, it's the heroic human strength. With professional athlete capping at 12 and world record at 14... so there is some margin for gaining heroic strength, which encompasses heroes like Bhima (wrestles elephants), Beowulf, Samson or Herakles in the 18-20 range. World champion in archery are DEX 14, with DEX 18 you're wuxia heroes standing on leaves. Einstein would be INT 14, INT 16-18 is the province of Sherlock Holmes.

The actual maximum is 20 for fully leveled character, so if, according to your proposed interpretation, around 2 percents of random humans are STR 18, that means that the difference between a hero noted for his strength (Herakles) and them is a mere two points. I find that as nonsensical as you find my interpretation to be.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why is no one arguing that gnomes should be less intelligent? Halflings have disproportionately large heads (how do they survive childbirth?!), but gnomes don't, so with their smaller brains they should be less intelligent.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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

Whilst I don't want to go back to that, I have seriously considered that species should be splat that levels with similar impact than a subclass has. Humans could get feats and skills and other useful but generic stuff, but the other species could gain unique stuff that supports the archetype of their species. Currently the species "budget" is so small, that it is really hard to do anything interesting with it, and with a bigger budget it might be difficult to balance if it all was front loaded and gained at the first level. But with more powerful stuff activating on higher levels the issue would be avoided and the species choice would mechanically matter throughout the game.

 

[Remathilis]

Why is no one arguing that gnomes should be less intelligent? Halflings have disproportionately large heads (how do they survive childbirth?!), but gnomes don't, so with their smaller brains they should be less intelligent.

Gnomes don't take kindly to having their intelligence questioned. I'd say more, but I am bound by la cosa gnomstra

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Whilst I don't want to go back to that, I have seriously considered that species should be splat that levels with similar impact than a subclass has.

Yes. You can work on becoming the epitome of fighter, the epitome of wizard... why couldn't one cultivate their elfness or their humanity? Maybe not on a 1-20 scale. But a short, 5-level class that one could tack on their main class. It would be reserved for heroic characters meeting the prerequisite and be very prestigious. I think I am onto something new!!!

But seriously, I am with you on this. It would play into the heroes going against type by not cultivating his old dwarven ways enough...

Humans could get feats and skills and other useful but generic stuff, but the other species could gain unique stuff that supports the archetype of their species. Currently the species "budget" is so small, that it is really hard to do anything interesting with it, and with a bigger budget it might be difficult to balance if it all was front loaded and gained at the first level. But with more powerful stuff activating on higher levels the issue would be avoided and the species choice would mechanically matter throughout the game.

It might do half-race well.

 

[mamba]

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.

I understand that, but then your argument no longer is ‘the stupidest orc is as smart as a cow, so let’s treat all of them as cattle’ and it becomes ‘orcs are almost as smart as us, but not quite, so let’s treat them as cattle’.

Which kinda is what I wanted, since I wanted it to be based on the average (if on INT at all), but at that point to me at least the argument falls apart

 

[Remathilis]

Now you're talking.

BTW currently playing OSE and it's been wonderful.

Eh. Even Basic D&D couldn't keep that up. The Gazetteers kept introducing variant classes (dwarf cleric, elf mage) and by the time Princess Ark came around, lupin raskata and tortles were using human classes.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I understand that, but then your argument no longer is ‘the stupidest orc is as smart as a cow, so let’s treat all of them as cattle’

My point is, this would by wrong and horrible, not that I think it's true.

and it becomes ‘orcs are almost as smart as us, but not quite, so let’s treat them as cattle’.

See: wrong and horrible.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Eh. Even Basic D&D couldn't keep that up. The Gazetteers kept introducing variant classes (dwarf cleric, elf mage) and by the time Princess Ark came around, lupin raskata and tortles were using human classes.

Yeah, same with OSE. One player is playing an OSE version of the Dragonborn (Fighter with a breath weapon and extra AC).

Heck the only one playing a Basic era class is the Thief player.

Like Shadowdark, it's all about simplicity and cutting the fat.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, same with OSE. One player is playing an OSE version of the Dragonborn (Fighter with a breath weapon and extra AC).

Heck the only one playing a Basic era class is the Thief player.

Like Shadowdark, it's all about simplicity and cutting the fat.

My contention is that no matter how much you cut the fat, someone will come in wanting and creating the fat back. Fat sells splat.