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.

 

[KYRON45]

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.

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.

Aren't there already Shadowdark add ons? Don't those add ons now make it advanced Shadowdark?

 

[Sacrosanct]

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.

This is the truth. When I designed Bugbears&Borderlands, I clearly stated the goal was to strip the rules to their core, using only the essential mechanics, and to have the core classic archetypes. Immediately upon release I was inundated with emails asking when I'd put a druid class, a ranger class, a warlock, feats, etc. etc. In my head I was like, "That defeats the entire purpose....sigh. Just play 5e then..."

 

[mamba]

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

and my point is that I think the minimum argument is flawed as an argument, the average argument works however

 

[Paul Farquhar]

and my point is that I think the minimum argument is flawed as an argument, the average argument works however

And you are wrong on a great many counts.

By the same argument, Bob, with an IQ of 99, would be justified in eating Brian, with an IQ of 98.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The default way is standard array now, so nothing under 8. 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). So only a hero could possibly roll a 3 (by rolling 4 ones on 4d6, since it's 4d6-keep-highest). That's a very low % of heroes with cow-like intelligence. Even a 4 INT human wouldn't be in this case above animal level intelligence: in 5e, the baboon, the giant weasel and the octopus, have 4 INT.

Heroes are not typical, they are exceptions, we're told. Why not one with child-like intelligence? That's your Hans im Glück tale.

Did 5.5 change the default from rolling your stats?

 

[Micah Sweet]

And they very quickly backed off the fixed ability scores stat boosts when their customers complained about not being able to make Dwarf Bards or Sorcerers, or the Elf Constitution penalty limited a bunch of Elf characters.

Even before the revised edition came out, you could take the « two free stat boosts » on all ancestry options.

I should note again that since 3e nothing prevents anyone from making a dwarf bard or sorcerer, and a stat penalty doesn't actually limit elves.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My last PC was a dwarf sorcerer. I don’t see much point in creating an endless string of Tolkien knock-offs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I go back to what someone earlier said that this is an issue because Orc is a player species. I do not think it should be a core player species. I felt the same about the half-orc.

I do not see folks arguing about goblins, gnolls, kobolds, etc in the same way that they are making the arguments for the Orc.

And logically, if you believe in these arguments, they should apply to a lot more species than orcs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

Sounds good. I like race as class. Expand it with more options, certainly, but I think it works.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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


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.)

Yup. I will never accept the idea that any PC is more special than a comparable NPC in any way other than that the camera is generally pointed at them.