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.

 

[Oofta]

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

It's my favorite game and as far as I know it's the favorite TTRPG for all of my current players as well. For everyone I've ever played with? For a small percentage it wasn't their favorite.

But do we really need to dredge this up again? I disagree with the statement and there's a strong sense of condescending "If you were a real gamer you would know better" that comes with it.

 

[soviet]

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

D&D has definitely made an interesting journey here:

1. Niche game appealing to a niche audience
2. Niche game appealing to a broad audience
3. Broad game appealing to a broad audience

EDIT: And yes, I also miss the narrower game it used to be.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's my favorite game and as far as I know it's the favorite TTRPG for all of my current players as well. For everyone I've ever played with? For a small percentage it wasn't their favorite.

But do we really need to dredge this up again? I disagree with the statement and there's a strong sense of condescending "If you were a real gamer you would know better" that comes with it.

Nothing wrong with liking what you like. Lord knows my favorites games aren't the most popular. Who cares about that, really? Popularity means very little either way to personal preference, and personal preference is 80% or more of what we talk about here IMO.

 

[Oofta]

Nothing wrong with liking what you like. Lord knows my favorites games aren't the most popular. Who cares about that, really? Popularity means very little either way to personal preference, and personal preference is 80% or more of what we talk about here IMO.

I just find the phrase condescending. Say "It's not my favorite game" and I have no problem. But it's like a joke people tell that's not funny, it falls under the category of "If you have to explain it don't use it".

It always sounds like "If you knew better you'd agree." It fails as a statement. It's like saying something insulting and then claiming "It's just a joke".

 

[Cthulhugh]

Replacing 'race' is a good move. 'Species' was the wrong choice for something that includes creatures like Warforged, but I'm not sure there were any options that weren't wrong choices.

The article is probably correct about the move being doomed because of the need to insert another generic eeeevil species, though - I'd guess gnolls are about to become the new orcs.

In any case, whether it's a race, or a religion, or just a set of individuals, it's problematic to lazily label someone as 'evil' so that you can casually slaughter them. That sort of dehumanisation has been all too serious an issue historically. Not to mention that the PCs are very seldom acting in any sort of official capacity, meaning that they're meteing out vigilante justice at best, most of which should be more properly labelled 'murder'.

To an extent, that's an inherent problem with scratching the surface on these issues - underneath there's just another surface. At some point, you basically need to either wave the issues away, or stop playing. Which is not to argue for doing nothing, of course - some issues are more troubling than others.



Indeed. They don't seem to have considered, though, that if they are indeed just irl human ethnicities, then depicting them as anything other than human is itself a problem.



Half-orcs were a PC option right back in 1st edition.

Replacing Race was a stupid idea, who said D&D players wanted to move with the times? Killing orcs is by its nature a good act because they were and should be evil.
Actions in game should never be conflated with real life. It's all pretendies. The ridiculous changes to D&D will mean the majority of TTRPG players will abandon D&D in droves.

 

[Azzy]

Replacing Race was a stupid idea, who said D&D players wanted to move with the times? Killing orcs is by its nature a good act because they were and should be evil.
Actions in game should never be conflated with real life. It's all pretendies. The ridiculous changes to D&D will mean the majority of TTRPG players will abandon D&D in droves.

LOL, yeah I don't think your conclusion has any basis in reality.

 

[Corinnguard]

Replacing Race was a stupid idea, who said D&D players wanted to move with the times? Killing orcs is by its nature a good act because they were and should be evil.
Actions in game should never be conflated with real life. It's all pretendies. The ridiculous changes to D&D will mean the majority of TTRPG players will abandon D&D in droves.

Why are you working yourself up over a change in terms that really doesn't change how you role-play a character in D&D? If you don't want to use the term species, you are free to do so.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Replacing Race was a stupid idea, who said D&D players wanted to move with the times? Killing orcs is by its nature a good act because they were and should be evil.
Actions in game should never be conflated with real life. It's all pretendies. The ridiculous changes to D&D will mean the majority of TTRPG players will abandon D&D in droves.

When I see a post like this, I can’t help thinking it has everything to do with real life!

 

[Mecheon]

Replacing Race was a stupid idea, who said D&D players wanted to move with the times?

Race is the wrong term ever since Tieflings came along back in original Planescape in 1994, who are pointedly not a race. The term has been wrong for over 30 years. Generally speaking any time "Random feature table" comes out you're more "Random by-product of your history" and not a race by any definition therein

Killing orcs is by its nature a good act because they were and should be evil.

mate i am in recovery from gallbladder surgery and this take is making me think I'm still on the heavy stuff they gave me before I went under. Or maybe you're on 'em.

I'd recommend just, editing that one out of your post before, y'know, we get to the regular counterarguments on this. The fact orcs haven't had to be evil for at least 30 years, the Tolkein scholarship, the existsence of Warcraft showing that orcs as nuanced people is popular and strong enough that World of Warcraft has repeatably just crushed the two D&D MMO attempts at rising to its level. Y'know, the usual counter arguments because 'orcs are eivl!1!' is such a piss-weak and miserable argument it ain't even woth my time. Its so piss-weak if you tried to sell it as alcohol you'd be written up for selling a non-alcoholic drink. No edge. No spice.

Actions in game should never be conflated with real life. It's all pretendies. The ridiculous changes to D&D will mean the majority of TTRPG players will abandon D&D in droves.

Words have meanings and the correct ones should be used to explain what someone is talking about. If you go and tell me "Oh no this is my magical land of Fantasalia where we call Tigers 'Wolves'" then I'm going to say "Yeah nah mate its a bloody tiger"

 

[Remathilis]

Replacing Race was a stupid idea, who said D&D players wanted to move with the times? Killing orcs is by its nature a good act because they were and should be evil.
Actions in game should never be conflated with real life. It's all pretendies. The ridiculous changes to D&D will mean the majority of TTRPG players will abandon D&D in droves.

See, when I read stuff like this, I can't help but think of the DM who put his female player's PC into a hobgoblin breeding pit.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

I think it's the mix of "we don't want to be politically correct" and "RPGs aren't realz" that just strikes me as icky. Very "I don't care about your feelings" type bravado.

Anyway, I guess keep having fun doing whatever you do as long as no one is hurt by it. The rest of us will move on.