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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8439153" data-attributes="member: 58172">Various WotC documents have been describing designer intent for over a year.The designers considered deleting the term "race" from D&D. Terms like lineage, species, folk, people, kin, ancestry, origin, and so on, appeared interchangeably as a potential replacement. It seems the feedback was deeply divided and the designers sought compromise.The publication of Tashas in 2020 (November?) reflects the dust beginning to settle. This book introduced the new term, "lineage" in technical contexts but without a technical definition.Clarification of the designer intent came later in 2021 (January?) in a sidebar of UA 2021 Gothic Lineages.This UA clarifies the technical terms and the designer intent.• A "lineage" is a "species".• A "race" is specifically the "player character" of a "lineage".• A "lineage", such as dragonborn, includes "race", "monster and npc".(Note, the designers stop short of calling a human npc a "monster", thus referring to the phrase "monster and npc". But in the sense that the human npc uses the "monster statblock" format, I generalize the term monster for an npc too.)"UNEARTHED ARCANA 2021GOTHIC LINEAGESDesign Note: Changes to Racial TraitsIn 2020, the book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything introduced the option to customize several of your character’s racial traits, specifically the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, and traits that give skill, armor, weapon, or tool proficiencies.Following in that book’s footsteps, the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage. Finally, going forward, the term “race” in D&D refers only to the suite of game features used by player characters. Said features don’t have any bearing on monsters and NPCs who are members of the same species or lineage, since monsters and NPCs in D&D don’t rely on race or class to function.Moreover, DMs are empowered to customize the features of the creatures in their game as they wish."In sum:lineage = specieslineage = pc race + npc monsterrace ≠ cultureFurther confirmation came later in 2021 March, via two <a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1367593300497035275" target="_blank">tweets from Crawford</a>. Here, the term "lineage" is synonymous with "species"."Customizing your origin and choosing a custom lineage are two rules, addressing different needs. One is about making your elf/dwarf/etc. the way you want them. The other is about making a character who isn't mechanically attached to any particular species in the game.""<a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford</a>In Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the custom lineage option is chosen in lieu of a race, such as elf or dwarf. If you choose the custom lineage, you don't qualify for things in the game that require elf, dwarf, and the like.<a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford" target="_blank">"</a>The two statements by Crawford disappointed players because they made a custom lineage unable to qualify for the "race feats" in Xanathars, because the custom lineage was a different lineage, thereby not one of the prerequisite official lineages. The unpopular clarification nevertheless confirmed the meanings of the technical terms, lineage and race.lineage = species = elf/dwarf/etc.Recently, UA Draconic Options, UA Travelers Of The Multiverse, and Fizbans used the race format update instead of the subrace format. Notably, the astral elf uses the updated race format, instead of the expected elf subrace format. The term "subrace" and the format for one have fallen out of use. UA Draconic Options refers to chromatic, gem, and metallic as "variant dragonborn races", instead of dragonborn subraces. According to Fizbans, there are four dragonborn "races", the one in the Players Handbook, plus the three in Fizbans that are "variant dragonborn racial options". These four variants appear to be alternative ways for a player character to stat a dragonborn lineage.Note. Tashas also introduces the term "origin".origin = race + class + background + ability scoresNow inferably:culture = class + background + ability scoresorigin = race + cultureThe above disparate sources evidence well enough the overall designer intent.lineage = specieslineage = variant pc races + variant npc monsters</blockquote>

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