RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

The term "race" is a staple of fantasy that is now out of sync with modern usage. With Pathfinder shifting from "race" to "ancestry" in its latest edition, it raises the question: should fantasy games still use it?

“Race” and Modern Parlance​

We previously discussed the challenges of representing real-life cultures in a fantasy world, with African and Asian countries being just two examples. The discussion becomes more complicated with fantasy "races"—historically, race was believed to be determined by the geographic arrangement of populations. Fantasy gaming, which has its roots in fantasy literature, still uses the term “race” this way.

Co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax cited R.E. Howard's Conan series as an influence on D&D, which combines Lovecraftian elements with sword and sorcery. Howard's perceptions may have been a sign of the times he lived in, but it seems likely they influenced his stories. Robert B. Marks explains just how these stereotypes manifested in Conan's world:

The young, vibrant civilizations of the Hyborian Age, like Aquilonia and Nemedia, are white - the equivalent of Medieval Europe. Around them are older Asiatic civilizations like Stygia and Vendhya, ancient, decrepit, and living on borrowed time. To the northwest and the south are the barbarian lands - but only Asgard and Vanaheim are in any way Viking. The Black Kingdoms are filled with tribesmen evoking the early 20th century vision of darkest Africa, and the Cimmerians and Picts are a strange cross between the ancient Celts and Native Americans - and it is very clear that the barbarians and savages, and not any of the civilized people or races, will be the last ones standing.

Which leads us to the other major fantasy influence, author J.R.R. Tolkien. David M. Perry explains in an interview with Helen Young:

In Middle Earth, unlike reality, race is objectively real rather than socially constructed. There are species (elves, men, dwarves, etc.), but within those species there are races that conform to 19th-century race theory, in that their physical attributes (hair color, etc.) are associated with non-physical attributes that are both personal and cultural. There is also an explicit racial hierarchy which is, again, real in the world of the story.

The Angry GM elaborates on why race and culture were blended in Tolkien's works:

The thing is, in the Tolkienverse, at least, in the Lord of the Rings version of the Tolkienverse (because I can’t speak for what happened in the Cinnabon or whatever that other book was called), the races were all very insular and isolated. They didn’t deal with one another. Race and culture went hand in hand. If you were a wood elf, you were raised by wood elves and lived a thoroughly wood elf lifestyle until that whole One Ring issue made you hang out with humans and dwarves and halflings. That isolation was constantly thrust into the spotlight. Hell, it was a major issue in The Hobbit.

Given the prominence of race in fantasy, it's not surprising that D&D has continued the trend. That trend now seems out of sync with modern parlance; in 1951, the United Nations officially declared that the differences among humans were "insignificant in relation to the anthropological sameness among the peoples who are the human race."

“Race” and Game Design​

Chris Van Dyke's essay on race back in 2008 explains how pervasive "race" is in D&D:

Anyone who has played D&D has spent a lot of time talking about race – “Racial Attributes,” “Racial Restrictions,” “Racial Bonuses.” Everyone knows that different races don’t get along – thanks to Tolkien, Dwarves and Elves tend to distrust each other, and even non-gamers know that Orcs and Goblins are, by their very nature, evil creatures. Race is one of the most important aspects of any fantasy role-playing game, and the belief that there are certain inherent genetic and social distinctions between different races is built into every level of most (if not all) Fantasy Role-Playing Games.

Racial characteristics in D&D have changed over time. Basic Dungeons & Dragons didn't distinguish between race and class for non-humans, such that one played a dwarf, elf, or halfling -- or a human fighter or cleric. The characteristics of race were so tightly intertwined that race and profession were considered one.

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the changes became more nuanced, but not without some downsides on character advancement, particularly in allowing “demihumans” to multiclass but with level limits preventing them from exceeding humanity, who had unlimited potential (but could only dual-class).

With Fifth Edition, ability penalties and level caps have been removed, but racial bonuses and proficiencies still apply. The Angry GM explains why this is a problem:

In 5E, you choose a race and a class, but you also choose a background. And the background represents your formative education and socio-economic standing and all that other stuff that basically represents the environment in which you were raised. The racial abilities still haven’t changed even though there is now a really good place for “cultural racial abilities” to live. So, here’s where the oddity arises. An elf urchin will automatically be proficient with a longsword and longbow, two weapons that requires years of training to even become remotely talent with, but a human soldier does not get any automatic martial training. Obviously, in both cases, class will modify that. But in the life of your character, race happens first, then background, and only later on do you end up a member of a class. It’s very quirky.

Perhaps this is why Pathfinder decided to take a different approach to race by shifting to the term “ancestry”:

Beyond the narrative, there are many things that have changed, but mostly in the details of how the game works. You still pick a race, even though it is now called your ancestry. You still decide on your class—the rulebook includes all of the core classes from the First Edition Core Rulebook, plus the alchemist. You still select feats, but these now come from a greater variety of sources, such as your ancestry, your class, and your skills.

"Ancestry" is not just a replacement for the word “race.” It’s a fluid term that requires the player to make choices at character creation and as the character advances. This gives an opportunity to express human ethnicities in game terms, including half-elves and half-orcs, without forcing the “subrace” construct.

The Last Race​

It seems likely that, from both a modern parlance and game design perspective, “race” as it is used today will fall out of favor in fantasy games. It’s just going to take time. Indigo Boock sums up the challenge:

Fantasy is a doubled edged sword. Every human culture has some form of fantasy, we all have some sort of immortal ethereal realm where our elven creatures dwell. There’s always this realm that transcends culture. Tolkien said, distinct from science fiction (which looks to the future), fantasy is to feel like one with the entire universe. Fantasy is real, deep human yearning. We look to it as escapism, whether we play D&D, or Skyrim, or you are like myself and write fantasy. There are unfortunately some old cultural tropes that need to be discarded, and it can be frustratingly slow to see those things phased out.

Here's hoping other role-playing games will follow Pathfinder's lead in how treats its fantasy people in future editions.

 

[Yaarel]

I skipped over like twenty pages of comments, but can it really be the case that nobody has mentioned yet that these are all definitionally the same species, in the scientific sense that they are cross-fertile? Or that the physical differences between an halfling and an ogre are less significant than those within the singular sub-species of canis lupus familiaris?

If the terminology doesn't work for fey or golems, then that's fine, because the main book doesn't need to concern itself with playable fey or golems. And even if it did, calling golems their own race is significantly less weird than saying that some particular individual has a golem ancestry.

Technically. Elves are ‘fey ancestry’. They are spirits from a spirit world.

The word ‘species’ is wrong to describe elves.

With elves, and half-dragons, and cambions, and golems, and undead, and lycanthope, and ... on ... species is unhelpful.

Personally, I like ‘heritage’, or ‘origin’.

When I think of Old Norse terms for the various ‘kinds’ of natures spirits, including elves, humans, and giants, they are understood as different ‘clans’, in the sense of a family of beings. Likewise, it was possible to be adopted into an other ‘clan’. For example, a giant that married into or grew up among humans would be considered a human, a member of the human family. Depending on context, he could be called a human (such as the ancestor of a human family) or a giant. When you look for them, there are actually many examples of a member of one clan of nature spirits becoming a member of an other clan of nature spirits.

For D&D, ‘heritage’ recognizes there is a recognizably distinctive tradition, from which the character inherits many of the abilities.

 

[MNblockhead]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Come on, really?

Can you elaborate?

My first reaction to reading the post you are responding to is that that sometimes you need to put doing what is right over maximizing profit. I'm not saying that replacing "race" with "ancestry" is a "right action" worth risking your business over, but simply warning that you may lose business should not be dispositive in making this decision.

Still, Rygar is correct in so far that if there is a risk of losing business, the company executives have a duty to determine whether the change warrants the hit to the bottom line.

Yet I find his waving the bogeyman of lost-profits specious. First, using "ancestry" instead of "race" is not a fundamental change to the game. I doubt that a significant number of fans will abandon the game because of this one change. Nor do I see the change bringing in a signifcant number of new customers.

Perhaps the concern is that this is another step in moving the game "to the left", another step down the slippery slope towards a socially-liberal rewriting of the game. Rygar didn't articulate exactly what some of the specific effects of his claimed "left-wing push" were, but I'll assume he is referring to attempts to make games more inclusive and to avoid content that may be offensive to certain demographics.

The problems with that is 5e has already made a push to be far more inclusive and it seems to have had positive, not negative effects on the brand and the bottom line. From the news reports I've read, 5e has been one of the most successful editions of D&D and seems to be on the road to becoming the most successful version of the game. I don't know if the examples Rygar cites accurately support his position or if he is cherry picking or innaccurately reporting examples to support his narrative. But even if I accept his examples at face value, the same does not seem to be true for D&D.

 

[Yaarel]

Amazingly, our D&D debate about ‘race’ might eventually mirror a reallife scientific debate about ‘species’. When artificial life emerges, perhaps it will be strictly inorganic. Humans would be more genetically related to plants than to these new life forms. Yet technology might make it possible to fuse human and artificial features to form a single person. Sort of like an upgrade to the human organic origin. There might be fluidity between strictly natural human and strictly artificial lifeform, with any blend in between. At this point, the term ‘species’ would become less useful.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Technically. Elves are ‘fey ancestry’. They are spirits from a spirit world.

The word ‘species’ is wrong to describe elves.

If it can cross with humans and produce viable off-spring, then it's the exact same species, definitionally.

 

[Andor]

If it can cross with humans and produce viable off-spring, then it's the exact same species, definitionally.

I fully endorse your plan to use this logic to demand a seat at the Draconic council. Also can you hold this bag of unpopped corn when you do so?

 

[Yaarel]

If it can cross with humans and produce viable off-spring, then it's the exact same species, definitionally.

Ok, but that means, you are claiming that dragons are Homo sapiens.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not offended by worthless ideas. I'm also not in the minority here. Race is of absolutely no issue in the game as it stands. At least not to any appreciable number of people.

Then how do you explain the change in Pathfinder? If it is of absolutely no issue, then, why is the #2 game changing it and why have a number of other RPG's changed it as well?

And, frankly [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], how is it possible to have a conversation with you when you absolutely refuse to acknowledge the other side's point? Whether you agree or not, fair enough. But, you're starting the conversation with "anyone who complains about this is such a tiny minority who shouldn't even be acknowledged". That makes it pretty hard to have any sort of conversation.

And, as another point, I'd like to thank [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] for illustrating my point. Having internalized his own interpretations to such a degree that he cannot even consider that those interpretations aren't actually part of the game. Compare that to [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]'s elf example, that at least isn't counter-factual some of the time. In AD&D, since the rules were silent on the issue, any interpretation is equally valid. Of course, that means that the "nurture" interpretation is just as valid as the "nature" one. Now, after AD&D, the "nature" interpretation is flat out false since it actually contradicts what's written in the game.

Like I said, I'm not terribly fussed abou this. Just bemused that people who spend this much time thinking about the game are so blind to their own internalizations.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Ok, but that means, you are claiming that dragons are Homo sapiens.

I'm pretty sure that's just magic, and doesn't count. Elves can cross with humans without casting a spell first.

But really, if you want to say that dragons are the same species, the scientific community will back you up on that. My point was mostly that you can't use science to prove they aren't the same species. Elves and humans, I mean.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not saying Tolkien is perfect on these issues in a modern sense, but by comparison to, say, Lovecraft or Howard, he's markedly more nuanced.

I agree that JRRT is not in the same virulent camp as REH or HPL.

I prefer people as a replacement term. It seems neutral and genre appropriate. JRRT uses it interchangeably with race, for example in the title of Appendix F to LotR, "The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age", where he lists several peoples, including Elves, Men, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs, Trolls, and Dwarves.

A different possibility is that there is a generic category of "Heritage" or "Background" or "Origins", and then the game offers various ways to answer this: pick a people, pick an arpprenticeship or training, pick a nation, pick a blessing, etc.

Maybe choose two, and each gives some modest element of PC build (+1 or +2 to a stat, a vision boost, a proficiency boost, some other comparable perk).

A player who chooses (say) to be an acolyte (apprenticeship) from Veluna (nation) might still declare that his/her PC is a half-elf, or a dwarf, or whatever, but no mechanical benefit is received because the build slots have already been spent on other things. Being a half-elf is just colour for this particular character build.

If you want to build Aragorn, maybe you pick Elven and Dunedain (or if the game is straight D&D that doesn't use Tokien-esque categories, then the second slot could be wanderer or outcast or something else appropriate).

 

[Shasarak]

Like I said, I'm not terribly fussed abou this. Just bemused that people who spend this much time thinking about the game are so blind to their own internalizations.

Thats just normal human behaviour though. Turns out the smarter you are the faster you can reconcile conflicting information into data that actually supports your position.

Which is why Elven Weapon Training translates into supporting your opinion that Elves are biologically predisposed to using long swords.

Then how do you explain the change in Pathfinder? If it is of absolutely no issue, then, why is the #2 game changing it and why have a number of other RPG's changed it as well?

Maybe it is because they slipped to the #3 game so now they have to go all Indie Game Designer on the rules.