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.

 

[Clint_L]

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 haven't quoted your whole post, but you repeatedly conflate simple, minimalist, or "least design" with "lazy." That's not accurate. At all. Achieving the desired outcome in the simplest, most direct, and most easily understood way possible takes a ton of design effort, is a massive feature rather than a flaw, and should be the aspiration of all rules systems. Shorthanding it to "lazy" is absurd.

To the contrary, keeping a complex system rather than trying to figure out how to make it more elegant is, in fact, lazy. Failing to apply Occam's Razor is lazy thinking. Properly applying it takes a lot of rigour; it's what we aspire to in critical thinking lessons. I'm just starting my unit on pseudo-science, and the first thing we look at is the way that pseudo-sciences typically use a lot of complicated systems and verbiage that amount to basically nothing.

One of the great features of the 5e system, in many opinions, is that it preserved the essence of D&D while significantly simplifying the design. My favourite RPG, Dread, could not have simpler design, and that is what makes it great: it does exactly what it is designed to do, and I can explain it to newbies in literally less than a minute. That is not lazy, it's ingenious.

If the outcome isn't what you preferred, that's a valid criticism. Explain why the outcome doesn't satisfy your vision of D&D - if your argument is that a more complex system is, in fact, necessary, then make that case. But simply writing off their efforts as "lazy" is, well, a lazy argument.

 

[Oofta]

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

There are always going to be conflicting design goals. It's not a question about whether more or less design goals is inherently good or bad. It's about personal preferences and the fact that just because the more simplistic approach was taken that it's "lazy".

There are a ton of significant simplifications in games because we can't replicate reality even if we wanted to do so. We could always increase the detail and complexity like how the Fallout series lets you damage specific body parts. An interesting twist for a video game, but would it be worth it for a TTRPG? Some people might think so and, for them, it might. But the developers are constantly doing a balancing act and there's never going to be a perfect answer.

 

[Dire Bare]

I haven't quoted your whole post, but you repeatedly conflate simple, minimalist, or "least design" with "lazy." That's not accurate. At all. Achieving the desired outcome in the simplest, most direct, and most easily understood way possible takes a ton of design effort, is a massive feature rather than a flaw, and should be the aspiration of all rules systems. Shorthanding it to "lazy" is absurd.

To the contrary, keeping a complex system rather than trying to figure out how to make it more elegant is, in fact, lazy. Failing to apply Occam's Razor is lazy thinking. Properly applying it takes a lot of rigour; it's what we aspire to in critical thinking lessons. I'm just starting my unit on pseudo-science, and the first thing we look at is the way that pseudo-sciences typically use a lot of complicated systems and verbiage that amount to basically nothing.

One of the great features of the 5e system, in many opinions, is that it preserved the essence of D&D while significantly simplifying the design. My favourite RPG, Dread, could not have simpler design, and that is what makes it great: it does exactly what it is designed to do, and I can explain it to newbies in literally less than a minute. That is not lazy, it's ingenious.

If the outcome isn't what you preferred, that's a valid criticism. Explain why the outcome doesn't satisfy your vision of D&D - if your argument is that a more complex system is, in fact, necessary, then make that case. But simply writing off their efforts as "lazy" is, well, a lazy argument.

This.

When I first started paying attention to fan and 3rd-party hacks of the D&D 5E race/species subsystem . . . a lot of the solutions were a lot more complicated and granular than the core rules (2014 or 2024) . . . and that turned me off to most of those solutions. They weren't lazy, poorly designed, or even overly complicated, just more granular than meets my personal preferences.

Too many humans conflate "I don't care for this" with "This is objectively bad/lazy/terrible/whatever". It's tiresome.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There are always going to be conflicting design goals. It's not a question about whether more or less design goals is inherently good or bad. It's about personal preferences and the fact that just because the more simplistic approach was taken that it's "lazy".

There are a ton of significant simplifications in games because we can't replicate reality even if we wanted to do so. We could always increase the detail and complexity like how the Fallout series lets you damage specific body parts. An interesting twist for a video game, but would it be worth it for a TTRPG? Some people might think so and, for them, it might. But the developers are constantly doing a balancing act and there's never going to be a perfect answer.

The designers at WotC always seem to "balance" towards simplistic, broad appeal choices. That may look like a game for "everyone" to some, but believe me it is not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This.

When I first started paying attention to fan and 3rd-party hacks of the D&D 5E race/species subsystem . . . a lot of the solutions were a lot more complicated and granular than the core rules (2014 or 2024) . . . and that turned me off to most of those solutions. They weren't lazy, poorly designed, or even overly complicated, just more granular than meets my personal preferences.

Too many humans conflate "I don't care for this" with "This is objectively bad/lazy/terrible/whatever". It's tiresome.

I think plenty of humans conflate "I don't care for this" with "This is objectively too complicated/complex/tedious/terrible/whatever" too. That is also tiresome.

 

[Remathilis]

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

Hmm. Perhaps strength score could be determined by height, weight, bone structure, conditioning, diet, climate, elevation and environment? Or intelligence scores a factor of education, social standing, family genetics, environment and luck? We could certainly use a far more complex system to determine how strong, smart, agile or social someone is, but in the end, is all the extra work actually better then just letting the PC add a +2 to whatever score they want?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hmm. Perhaps strength score could be determined by height, weight, bone structure, conditioning, diet, climate, elevation and environment? Or intelligence scores a factor of education, social standing, family genetics, environment and luck? We could certainly use a far more complex system to determine how strong, smart, agile or social someone is, but in the end, is all the extra work actually better then just letting the PC add a +2 to whatever score they want?

It can be, if you want the world to make more sense. You also don't have to use a "far" more complex system, just somewhat more complex.

Like I've said many times before, it isn't all or nothing. It just isn't. There are more than two points.

 

[Oofta]

The designers at WotC always seem to "balance" towards simplistic, broad appeal choices. That may look like a game for "everyone" to some, but believe me it is not.

I don't think anyone has said the game is for everyone, I don't think can't be. They're attempting to make it the best for the broadest audience, which means targeting a lot of casual players because that's where their market opportunity lies. Other companies are going for a narrower niche.

That does make D&D the Corolla of TTRPGs for some people, kind of boring but gets the job done for a lot of people.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think anyone has said the game is for everyone, I don't think can't be. They're attempting to make it the best for the broadest audience, which means targeting a lot of casual players because that's where their market opportunity lies. Other companies are going for a narrower niche.

That does make D&D the Corolla of TTRPGs for some people, kind of boring but gets the job done for a lot of people.

Well, all I can say is it used to be less boring from my point of view, and that makes me sad.

 

[soviet]

I don't think anyone has said the game is for everyone, I don't think can't be. They're attempting to make it the best for the broadest audience, which means targeting a lot of casual players because that's where their market opportunity lies. Other companies are going for a narrower niche.

That does make D&D the Corolla of TTRPGs for some people, kind of boring but gets the job done for a lot of people.

This is what 'everyone's second favourite game' means.