Mainstream News Discovers D&D's Species Terminology Change

orcs dnd.jpg


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.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

Up until I read the Anita Blake novel Narcissus In Chains, the series came off more like a supernatural detective story. 😋
As I recall, the series was more about implication and innuendo through the first three books (which makes me wonder if it was originally meant to be a trilogy, particularly given the way the third book ended), and after that it rapidly veered into being smut.
 

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Up until I read the Anita Blake novel Narcissus In Chains, the series came off more like a supernatural detective story. 😋
I understand that that's where the wheels came off, but she lost me with the previous book, set in Albuquerque and feeling absolutely nothing like the real ABQ.
 

Race, species, or ethnicity?

In the lore of the game world, the D&D races are fantasy species. But in practical terms, we tend to treat them as super-ethnicities, or to use a more pejorative term, rubber-forehead aliens. Simply because it's hard to roleplay something completely alien or outside of our experience.

Elves may or may not be an offshoot of humanity, they may or may not be able to have kids with humans (all setting dependent) . . . but elves are people . . . are orcs people? Gnolls? Vampires?

All this sturm-and-drang over what specific term is best . . . race, species, ethnicity, ancestry, heritage, lineage, origin . . . it's a super nerd-battle that misses what's important. How do we view and treat other people in our games? Both mechanically and how the mechanics drive the narrative and our thought processes.

Those pushing for positive change certainly have opinions on which term is best for D&D, but their focus is (or should be) on the mechanics and how that drives narrative. And designing the perfect race/species rules module for D&D is a tough nut to crack, as it is tricky, complicated territory. The best attempts I've seen are from community content designers, my favorite so far being Ancestry & Culture from Arcanist Press. Still doesn't quite hit the mark for me, so like a good D&D nerd, I'm slowly working on my own solution . . .
 

The level of misinformation on this particular thread, from repeated misunderstandings of how "species" is defined, to misstatements about what's in 2024 D&D, is getting to be a lot.

The Acrobatics and Athletics skills were introduced into the D&D tradition by 4th Edition D&D, playtested and published prior to Pathfinder 1e. And 4e epic destinies all had capstone features at 30th level.

Apologies on the skills, I completely forgot 4e made that change as well. I know that Pathfinder consolidated others as well in the variant, but I didn't have the time to look into those skills at the time. However, I'm not sure I'd call Epic Destiny capstones really equivalent. They tend to be a lot more generic than the specifically class-based capstones of PF1e.

I love how folks confuse "lazy design" with "design choices I don't like".

Sigh.

There is nothing lazy about changing the term "race" to "species" in 2024 D&D . . . it's a choice. One that some don't like. Shrug.

Yes, there are other terms WotC could have used . . . I fail to see how using "ancestry", "heritage", or "lineage" is any more or less "lazy" than going with "species". None of the words work perfectly.

WotC could have gone farther with the mechanical changes to race/species . . . sure. But that again, isn't lazy design, it's a choice. Change things too much, and fans bitch. Don't change things enough, fans bitch. If you follow WotC's playtests over the years, they often go with smaller changes . . . not out of laziness, but from a conservative design perspective of trying to push the game forward without alienating existing fans. It's a deliberate choice.

You should set up a poll on whether or not a huge proportion of the D&D community views it like this to see if this is true or not. ;) 'Are Species the same as human ethnicities?' I don't think so. One's a biological term; the other is a sociological term. Not quite the same thing. ;) They're from two different fields of science. However, you are right about how duct taping a new label on top won't change anything. Players will continue to play as a member of the same race/species regardless of the label.

I prefer some crunch to come along with the new label. ;)
Yeah, so, I called it lazy design and then also have other examples of lazy design. I hoped that context would be enough, but to further clarify, basically I was evoking a similar point to Corinnguard. The change to Species from Race is one with no mechanical difference; ergo, the laziest way to solve the problem (take the label off, stick a new one on, call it good).

By comparison, in PF2e, Paizo made a change from Race to Ancestry. When they did so, they evaluated the mechanics and made the change fit by adjusting them and designing them around the new name; it feels like your Ancestry and Lineage aren't just called that because the names were pulled out of a hat to offend the minimum number of people, but because they were a better way to evoke the feelings Paizo wanted from their playable critters while also respecting that "Race" is a charged term that deserved the axe it got.

Similarly, the change in TCoE to "pick whatever attributes you want" was lazy design. Actually, to call it that would be too kind. It wasn't design. It was saying, "you can do whatever you want," and not providing any actual mechanical rules or anything. By comparison, the shift of attributes to Backgrounds is a much more interesting mechanical solution, and one that actually has a mechanical solution. The space in TCoE was essentially wasted, because telling DMs that they can handwave and DM fiat things is not providing rules and options to players or DMs, it's just padding the word count in your splatbook.
 

By comparison, in PF2e, Paizo made a change from Race to Ancestry. When they did so, they evaluated the mechanics and made the change fit by adjusting them and designing them around the new name; it feels like your Ancestry and Lineage aren't just called that because the names were pulled out of a hat to offend the minimum number of people, but because they were a better way to evoke the feelings Paizo wanted from their playable critters while also respecting that "Race" is a charged term that deserved the axe it got.
Level Up: A5e, I think, did something similar when they decided to split race up into heritage and culture. Heritage covers the traits your character was born with while culture covers the traits you learn within a given society of individuals. The split was a pretty RL move because not every individual is born into the culture of their parents. Therefore, they ought to have learned the cultural traits of the culture they grew up in. A dwarf raised in an elven society is not going to have any dwarven cultural traits.
 

Level Up: A5e, I think, did something similar when they decided to split race up into heritage and culture. Heritage covers the traits your character was born with while culture covers the traits you learn within a given society of individuals. The split was a pretty RL move because not every individual is born into the culture of their parents. Therefore, they ought to have learned the cultural traits of the culture they grew up in. A dwarf raised in an elven society is not going to have any dwarven cultural traits.
No offense, but the terms heritage and culture are synonymous. Heritage is something you gain by the status of your birth like status or community. You inherit it. It's not who you are though. If I was born in Mississippi, I can talk about my southern heritage, but if I'm born in Minnesota, I can't despite having the same parents. An elf can't stop being an elf nor is his condition of being an elf reliant on where and when he was born, he's an elf biologically, and that is species, not heritage.

Don't get me wrong, I like the split A5e does, but of all the options for race that get bandied about, heritage is the worst.
 

Similarly, the change in TCoE to "pick whatever attributes you want" was lazy design. Actually, to call it that would be too kind. It wasn't design. It was saying, "you can do whatever you want," and not providing any actual mechanical rules or anything. By comparison, the shift of attributes to Backgrounds is a much more interesting mechanical solution, and one that actually has a mechanical solution. The space in TCoE was essentially wasted, because telling DMs that they can handwave and DM fiat things is not providing rules and options to players or DMs, it's just padding the word count in your splatbook.

So when pF2e added the option to "pick and two" for ancestral ASI and then added that to Remastered, was that "lazy" as well? They were, after all, just copying WotC's homework...
 

...
Yeah, so, I called it lazy design and then also have other examples of lazy design. I hoped that context would be enough, but to further clarify, basically I was evoking a similar point to Corinnguard. The change to Species from Race is one with no mechanical difference; ergo, the laziest way to solve the problem (take the label off, stick a new one on, call it good).

By comparison, in PF2e, Paizo made a change from Race to Ancestry. When they did so, they evaluated the mechanics and made the change fit by adjusting them and designing them around the new name; it feels like your Ancestry and Lineage aren't just called that because the names were pulled out of a hat to offend the minimum number of people, but because they were a better way to evoke the feelings Paizo wanted from their playable critters while also respecting that "Race" is a charged term that deserved the axe it got.

I disagree with ancestry. Humans have different ancestries, we're still humans. In addition, having the "correct" ancestry has probably been used just as often, if not more often, than race to justify bigotry and prejudice. Meanwhile dogs and cats do not share a common ancestry any more than a halfling and a tabaxi.

Say that it's "not fantasy enough" for you and I disagree but I understand. But all you've done is say "it's lazy because I don't like it".

Similarly, the change in TCoE to "pick whatever attributes you want" was lazy design. Actually, to call it that would be too kind. It wasn't design. It was saying, "you can do whatever you want," and not providing any actual mechanical rules or anything. By comparison, the shift of attributes to Backgrounds is a much more interesting mechanical solution, and one that actually hasa mechanical solution. The space in TCoE was essentially wasted, because telling DMs that they can handwave and DM fiat things is not providing rules and options to players or DMs, it's just padding the word count in your splatbook.

I didn't see a need to change where the attribute bonuses came from either. But I freely admit that I personally don't care for it, even if I understand why they did it. I'm not trying to shift responsibility from my personal preference to a insulting the authors.
 

No offense, but the terms heritage and culture are synonymous. Heritage is something you gain by the status of your birth like status or community. You inherit it. It's not who you are though. If I was born in Mississippi, I can talk about my southern heritage, but if I'm born in Minnesota, I can't despite having the same parents. An elf can't stop being an elf nor is his condition of being an elf reliant on where and when he was born, he's an elf biologically, and that is species, not heritage.

Don't get me wrong, I like the split A5e does, but of all the options for race that get bandied about, heritage is the worst.
They are both game terms in A5e, and easy enough to understand as game terms.
 

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