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.

 

[Corinnguard]

Maybe, but IMO thats a quite tiny flaw against the overall most accurate word choice

True. Accurate for now.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

Three thoughts for "culture warriors"...
(1) If you don't play the game, your opinion is irrelevant.
(2) If you don't understand the correct usage of the words "race" and "species," your opinion is meaningless.
(3) So mind your own business.

 

[Dire Bare]

Three thoughts for "culture warriors"...
(1) If you don't play the game, your opinion is irrelevant.
(2) If you don't understand the correct usage of the words "race" and "species," your opinion is meaningless.
(3) So mind your own business.

No.

You don't have to participate in an activity or community, like D&D, to have an opinion.

Both "race" and "species" are terms with varied meanings . . . so what the "correct usage" is can certainly be argued.

While there are definitely folks, like Elon Musk, wading into these culture war debates with intent to stir up trouble rather than honestly expressing an opinion . . . the mainstream news is just reporting on changes to the game, which is a lot more popular today than ever before.

And in this thread, while we differ in our opinions, I'm confident we are all engaging honestly.

 

[Honorable Intent]

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.

Interesting! I'll have to look into Level Up: A5e.

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...

Yes, it was! Alongside the decision to change attributes to be their bonuses. It was an attempt to use occam's razor to find the simplest (ergo laziest) solution. Would it have been better to find a way to use the non-bonus increasing stats (11, 13, 15, etc) rather than axe them entirely? I don't know. Perhaps they attempted to. But by axing them, they chose the "path of least design", which I shorthand to lazy here.

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".



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.

You seem to attribute greater malice to my use of lazy here. As I state above, it is lazy because it is the "path of least design", the path where they were required to put the least effort into it possible to design a feature/naming convention. Changing a name without changing the actual feature much to fit the name (after all, species are known for having distinctly different musculatures, capacities for intellect (dolphins versus snails), and other distinguishing factors that one might call "ability score modifiers", so the primary change to Species versus the prior was not in line with the implicit meaning of "species" versus the explicit meaning. When you pick a word, that word carries implicit meaning with it. That means you should pick words with specific implicit meaning for a rules function.

Another good example of poor naming convention in 5e (both 2014 and 2024) was "action" versus "bonus action". Originally, bonus actions were intended to be less common, evidently, but given their actual usage in the final version of the game, a different name would have been significantly less confusing to new players. I cannot tell you how many new players I've taught have thought they could use every single bonus action available to them because, after all, it was a bonus action.

Except that they did change the mechanics of race/species. Not by a lot, but they did.

Lazy? No. A design choice? Yes.

The 2024 rules are designed to push the game forward, but without leaving the existing 5E game behind. So changes overall were on the level of "tweaks" rather than full on revisions.

Personally, I would have liked a more thorough redesign of race/species, but I understand why WotC didn't go that route.

See above.

I would like to unequivocally state also that I do not condemn the devs and their work; I don't think the end result of certain aspects of the design being lazy (read also: underdesigned, minimally designed, however you particularly want to phrase it) is their fault. I believe the fault lies higher up in the hands of WotC's administration and management, given their history of trying to make as much money as possible while investing minimally into it. I think the dev team was instructed to keep such changes simple, even when creating 5e, because they wanted to make something with broad appeal rather than deep appeal to maximize profit margins.

The choice to continue doing so and making some fairly significant rules changes while claiming that 2014 and 2024 are "both 5e" (despite 2024 being effectively 5.5e; yes, you can use 3e material in 3.5e most of the time and nothing changes, but that doesn't make it not a revised edition) and saying you can keep your things from 2014, so long as they haven't been reprinted, as well as their goals of profiting from external work (3rd party supplements on DriveThruRPG and DM's Guild, the attempt to change the OGL to harvest the profits of others) indicates that their top goal as a company is to make money, not to make a good, well-thought out, well-designed product. Those two often coincide, but where they don't, WotC will choose profit every time.

 

[Corinnguard]

Interesting! I'll have to look into Level Up: A5e.

Home | Level Up

a5e.tools

A5ESRD — Advanced 5E System Reference Document

a5esrd.com

Both of these websites contain info on Level Up.

 

[Oofta]

Interesting! I'll have to look into Level Up: A5e.

Yes, it was! Alongside the decision to change attributes to be their bonuses. It was an attempt to use occam's razor to find the simplest (ergo laziest) solution. Would it have been better to find a way to use the non-bonus increasing stats (11, 13, 15, etc) rather than axe them entirely? I don't know. Perhaps they attempted to. But by axing them, they chose the "path of least design", which I shorthand to lazy here.

You seem to attribute greater malice to my use of lazy here. As I state above, it is lazy because it is the "path of least design", the path where they were required to put the least effort into it possible to design a feature/naming convention. Changing a name without changing the actual feature much to fit the name (after all, species are known for having distinctly different musculatures, capacities for intellect (dolphins versus snails), and other distinguishing factors that one might call "ability score modifiers", so the primary change to Species versus the prior was not in line with the implicit meaning of "species" versus the explicit meaning. When you pick a word, that word carries implicit meaning with it. That means you should pick words with specific implicit meaning for a rules function.

Another good example of poor naming convention in 5e (both 2014 and 2024) was "action" versus "bonus action". Originally, bonus actions were intended to be less common, evidently, but given their actual usage in the final version of the game, a different name would have been significantly less confusing to new players. I cannot tell you how many new players I've taught have thought they could use every single bonus action available to them because, after all, it was a bonus action.

See above.

I would like to unequivocally state also that I do not condemn the devs and their work; I don't think the end result of certain aspects of the design being lazy (read also: underdesigned, minimally designed, however you particularly want to phrase it) is their fault. I believe the fault lies higher up in the hands of WotC's administration and management, given their history of trying to make as much money as possible while investing minimally into it. I think the dev team was instructed to keep such changes simple, even when creating 5e, because they wanted to make something with broad appeal rather than deep appeal to maximize profit margins.

The choice to continue doing so and making some fairly significant rules changes while claiming that 2014 and 2024 are "both 5e" (despite 2024 being effectively 5.5e; yes, you can use 3e material in 3.5e most of the time and nothing changes, but that doesn't make it not a revised edition) and saying you can keep your things from 2014, so long as they haven't been reprinted, as well as their goals of profiting from external work (3rd party supplements on DriveThruRPG and DM's Guild, the attempt to change the OGL to harvest the profits of others) indicates that their top goal as a company is to make money, not to make a good, well-thought out, well-designed product. Those two often coincide, but where they don't, WotC will choose profit every time.

Making something more complex is not the same as making it better. Same that less complex is worse, or lazy. There was no design decision (including doing nothing) that would have made everyone happy, so if I don't like something I'll just say I don't like it. I dislike the use of terms like "lazy" because it's blaming someone else because I don't like it. By using "lazy" you are saying it's their fault that you personally don't like something.

Even if they satisfy 90% of the people with changes, 10% of the market is going to be dissatisfied. They can't win.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Making something more complex is not the same as making it better. Same that less complex is worse, or lazy. There was no design decision (including doing nothing) that would have made everyone happy, so if I don't like something I'll just say I don't like it. I dislike the use of terms like "lazy" because it's blaming someone else because I don't like it. By using "lazy" you are saying it's their fault that you personally don't like something.

Even if they satisfy 90% of the people with changes, 10% of the market is going to be dissatisfied. They can't win.

How about, "I think a more complete solution to a problem, that takes into account multiple aspects, is ultimately a better solution".

 

[occam]

Another good example of poor naming convention in 5e (both 2014 and 2024) was "action" versus "bonus action". Originally, bonus actions were intended to be less common, evidently, but given their actual usage in the final version of the game, a different name would have been significantly less confusing to new players. I cannot tell you how many new players I've taught have thought they could use every single bonus action available to them because, after all, it was a bonus action.

I'd never thought of it that way, but it's a good point.

I do miss the Minor Action and Standard Action of 4e. If I recall, the explanation given for the change during the D&D Next phase of 5e's development was that the designers wanted to streamline player decision-making to taking an Action and a Move on their character's turn. The criticism of 4e was that everyone was always looking for something to do with their Minor Action, and that slowed things down. But... aren't we still always looking for something to do with our Bonus Action in 5e? As you pointed out, in the final design I don't think anything was really fixed, and we ended up with slightly more confusing terminology.

 

[Corinnguard]

But... aren't we still always looking for something to do with our Bonus Action in 5e?

Pretty much. And when you do have several things that require use of a Bonus Action, you end up spending several minutes trying to figure out which thing is going to use it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Pretty much. And when you do have several things that require use of a Bonus Action, you end up spending several minutes trying to figure out which thing is going to use it.

In fact, having multiple things available that all take a bonus action is considered by some a poor character build.