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.

 

[Malmuria]

But D&D alignment is so much more simplistic and gamey. You are expected to hand wave so many more things than you would if we were having real world conversations about what is moral and what is ethical.

For some people, or for some campaigns, maybe. But a lot of people take world building more serious than that, or at least sometimes do, and would like a campaign world with characters that feel more than one dimensional "good" or "evil." Even Planescape, which relies upon alignment, is all about (ostensibly) interrogating the boundaries, limits, and contradictions of different moral positions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t mind the changes and understand why they are in place, but aren’t all the species abilities you get biologically based also?

For example, because of your Human biology, you are more Resourceful, Skillfull and Versatile than other species. Or because of your Halfling biology you are Brave, Nimble, Lucky and Stealthy. Because of your Orc biology you have a primal rage inside (Adrenaline Rush).

The species are still defined by their biology, it’s just a bit more hidden - not a broad sweep ability score adjustment.

Am I seeing that correctly? Sorry, I don’t own the 2024 books yet.

Somehow, not having "number go up" as a factor makes it different?

 

[dead]

Not sure. If you're a Storm giant Goliath, you can take a reaction to inflict thunder damage to an opponent that damages you within 60 feet, and if you're a Cloud giant, you're able to teleport. I can't see biology being responsible for these. Same with Luck: one can't be biologically lucky. If you wanted to say that abilities are still species-based, yes they do.

Species-based would work. I only said biology as the original article mentions bioessentialism.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I don’t mind the changes and understand why they are in place, but aren’t all the species abilities you get biologically based also?

For example, because of your Human biology, you are more Resourceful, Skillfull and Versatile than other species. Or because of your Halfling biology you are Brave, Nimble, Lucky and Stealthy. Because of your Orc biology you have a primal rage inside (Adrenaline Rush).

The species are still defined by their biology, it’s just a bit more hidden - not a broad sweep ability score adjustment.

Am I seeing that correctly? Sorry, I don’t own the 2024 books yet.

I think it’s because there was some conversation in the franchise at some point not too long ago about how it’s weird that cultural traits exist in species templates, that you could have an elf who’s never seen another elf in their life, raised by dwarves and they’d still somehow speak fluent elvish and have elven weapon proficiencies.

 

[Mecheon]

Didn't feel weird to me, but I got into Tolkien before I got into D&D (but, like, right before).

Completely fair, but I got into it around 3E or so, around the period of World of Warcraft's beta.

Given what a powerhouse Warcraft has been in pop culture, I suspect folks from around that same era are way more used to orcs just being a regular race

 

[AlViking]

No, your sources are any written records. Some of these might be classified as stories, depending on on how you define that (and obviously some sources will be literature as well). Some sources will be legal documents, contracts, accounting books, ship manifests, birth records, medical records, correspondence, etc. And some historians have more expansive ideas of what qualifies as textual sources. It is more of an examination than it is telling a story


How knowable it is does not change that it happened. You had a life. You lived. You did things. We may never be able to reconstruct based on what records you leave behind, but those records point to something that really occurred.



I would disagree with this. The autobiography is something you might produce looking back on your life. I think these can be classified in many different ways, some are more in the realm of history some in literature (most of the famous ones make up a lot of stuff for effect or tell things in a distorted way to fit a narrative). But the autobiography isn't what happened to you. It isn't your life, it is a later recollection, probably not very reliable either (I have read a lot of autobiographies and many of them had stuff you could verify: for example a person talking about something that happened to them and was captured on camera, then you look at the event and see they were dramatizing it significantly).

Biographies, and to some extent autobiographies, were generally frowned upon when I was a history student. But I always liked them because even if they aren't super reliable, they make history very human and approachable. I used to devour biographies

Since when does a story require fiction?

 

[Von Ether]

This seems to be the pattern. There is a group of minions for the bad guy. Either a GM or player decides to play said minion NPC against type for laughs, then more detail is added so the minions have a culture and details and become a full fledged species.

It seems to be the explanation of why gnolls are a 5e species and Lupin are not at this point, even though they have a longer history of being a species in other editions of D&D.

 

[Chaltab]

I get the sense that the powers that be aren't the biggest Mystara fans. It wasn't even listed among the settings in the 2024 books even though Dark Sun is.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

More D&D in the mainstream articles are appearing over this change and it is not flatting. UK Paper called the Telegraph is outright mocking the changes as well. I'm really only familiar with the Guardian, read online articles some times) and bit about the Sun (used to have nude women is pretty much all I know about the Sun, the Canadian versions never did, but the Sun Calendars did have nudity), but the Telegraph I'm unfamiliar beyond hearing it's mainstream, so I can't speak to the quality of its reporting.

I won't provide the link as I think most of the folks here will not take kindly to what is being said there. It's not flattering. Just giving a heads up.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This seems to be the pattern. There is a group of minions for the bad guy. Either a GM or player decides to play said minion NPC against type for laughs, then more detail is added so the minions have a culture and details and become a full fledged species.

It seems to be the explanation of why gnolls are a 5e species and Lupin are not at this point, even though they have a longer history of being a species in other editions of D&D.

What official product has Gnolls as a playable Species in 5e? Maybe your thinking of 4e?