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.

 

[Remathilis]

I continue to see value in it. Agree to disagree.

Then I'll ask, what does a dwarf class give you that a dwarf fighter does not?

 

[KYRON45]

Then I'll ask, what does a dwarf class give you that a dwarf fighter does not?

Hugs?

 

[Bedrockgames]

"We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one eh?"
The Doctor (Matt Smith)

I loved the Moffat and Matt Smith era, but this was one of my personal pet peeves in that period (you didn't just see it in Doctor Who, where where writers were making everything into stories). This isn't particularly relevant to gaming but I think saying people are just the stories they tell themselves about themselves, really is reductive and misses how much of an internal world people have

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then I'll ask, what does a dwarf class give you that a dwarf fighter does not?

A combination of traditionally class and traditionally species-based abilities combined using a (relatively) balanced point system, allowing for a wide variety of iterations and class variations. I prefer a toolbox approach to character creation (and the creation of the building blocks of character creation).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I loved the Moffat and Matt Smith era, but this was one of my personal pet peeves in that period (you didn't just see it in Doctor Who, where where writers were making everything into stories). This isn't particularly relevant to gaming but I think saying people are just the stories they tell themselves about themselves, really is reductive and misses how much of an internal world people have

I think you are missing the point. In the end, no one will remember our inner monologues, they will remember what we did.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think you are missing the point. In the end, no one will remember our inner monologues, they will remember what we did.

I don't think how people are remembered is all that matters though. But even if we limit it to that, I would still say we are in history, not story

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would still say we are in history, not story

What do you think the difference is?

 

[mamba]

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.

that was my point, it doesn’t work with average, as you just showed… and the argument using the minimum is flawed.

The argument using the average is not flawed, it simply does not get you to treating orcs as cattle

 

[Bedrockgames]

What do you think the difference is?

Probably too deep a topic for this thread. There are quite a few that come to mind but history really happened and it is part of our attempt to understand what, how and why. As I said earlier, it doesn't follow conventions like genre or literature. I think colloquially if you say to me I boy do I have a story for you, then go on to describe something that happened to you at the store, I would get what you mean. I get that you are using the term not to mean a work of fiction, and that you constructed a narrative of events to entertain me. If I had more time I would sit and think it through to give a more logical and thorough answer

I will say this, the important thing is history happened to people. My life isnt' a story I tell myself, they are things that happened to me, that I did: it is stuff I experienced. In my mind, that is very different from a story, which could be something people tell later. But as I walk around right now (or sit in this case) I am not just this endless stream of narratives in my mind, I am experiencing consciousness and awareness. I am thinking about things. I am feeling things. I am not a story in my view

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Did 5.5 change the default from rolling your stats?

The PHB does say to determine your stat using "any of the following three methods", and the methods are listed as:

1. Standard array
2. Roll
3. Point buy.

The Standard array is the first method explained, even if there is no "default" explicitly.