D&D (2024) One D&D Permanently Removes The Term 'Race'

In line with many other tabletop roleplaying games, such as Pathfinder or Level Up, One D&D is removing the term 'race'. Where Pathfinder uses 'Ancestry' and Level Up uses 'Heritage', One D&D will be using 'Species'.

Moving On From 'Race' in the 2024 Core Rulebooks

We understand "race" is a problematic term that has had prejudiced links between real world people and the fantasy peoples of D&D worlds.

www.dndbeyond.com

In a blog post, WotC announced that "We have made the decision to move on from using the term "race" everywhere in One D&D, and we do not intend to return to that term."

 

[codo]

Yes. But it feels like your argument might need some refinement? It's a family friendly game where a huge part of the rules and play are about weapons, armor, and killing things . And a lot of folks in the world currently live in places of horrific violence and killing (whether by war, or crime, or the state). Is there a way to phrase your concern without getting rid of that too? Or do you want that gone too?

Discussing racism in the game is an important issue that needs to be discussed, and I am not going to derail this thread with what-aboutism. If you really want to talk about violence in D&D start a new thread. I will say though that racism is not the same as violence. There are plenty of times the violence is justified or even good. Self defense or defending the lives of innocent people. Racism is never justified or a good thing.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Are you wanting them to be cursed in your one game world? Or are you wanting them to be cursed in the default D&D?

The thing is there needs to be an expected rough baseline, or 'default setting' as it were. With notes that the DM can make any changes they want when adapting things to their own setting. The reason being that there are infinite varieties of orcs in across every individuals settings.

Trying to make the core books truly setting agnostic means that you end up with this: Orcs are roughly human sized and human weight though they can be larger or small. And they have similar lifespans to humans but could be longer or shorter. Their skin colour can be anything including human skin colours. Mentally they are like humans, but may also differ from humans.

And at that point you're not describing orcs. You're describing a variant build-a-species system.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exploring the theme of "What if the the world was full of racists?", isn't exactly a strange, magical, fantasy realm, it's the real world. It's a world where lots of people spend the vast majority of their time struggling with the ramifications of it.

D&D is a family friendly game. People should be able to play without having the the harsh realities of real life racism thrown in their face. If you have a group a respectful, mature, adults who want to deal with that sort of issues in you game, as long as everyone is comfortable with it, knock your self out. The actual d&d books should never touch them.

This seems like classic Disneyfication to me. Is that what we're advocating?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Discussing racism in the game is an important issue that needs to be discussed, and I am not going to derail this thread with what-aboutism. If you really want to talk about violence in D&D start a new thread. I will say though that racism is not the same as violence. There are plenty of times the violence is justified or even good. Self defense or defending the lives of innocent people. Racism is never justified or a good thing.

So we can only have our fantasy villains and societies perpetrate acts of evil if those same acts, channeled in another way, could be used for good?

 

[Cadence]

Discussing racism in the game is an important issue that needs to be discussed, and I am not going to derail this thread with what-aboutism. If you really want to talk about violence in D&D start a new thread. I will say though that racism is not the same as violence. There are plenty of times the violence is justified or even good. Self defense or defending the lives of innocent people. Racism is never justified or a good thing.

I agreed with you about the racism. My point was that (as seen in countless of these threads that have been locked over the years) that a poorly phrased argument usually creates details.

Your further explanation here makes a great addenda to it and cuts a bunch of the objections off at the knees.

 

[Yaarel]

So much for fantasy fiction, then.

I take it you're saying that fantasy authors (and game designers) can't or shouldn't present ideas that don't pass the smell test of real world academic theory?

Let's say a fantasy author wants to write a story in a world in which an evil, demiurgic deity created people as a slave species. Are you saying that they shouldn't even posit such a world, because it is inherently a racist idea?

Or let's say a fantasy author creates a world in which different races are created in the image of their creator deity, and thus have different inborn traits reflecting the nature of their deity...that is a no-no?

Or to put it another way, what can we create and imagine? Must it all reflect real-world ideology, and whose real-world ideology?

Isn't a major aspect of fantasy to imagine different worlds and scenarios that are different from our own?

In the past, ethnicities lived farther away from each other. It was easier to think in racist ways. Today, all of the "races" grow up together in the same school classes, play in the same games, work together in the same jobs, and are each others neighbors, friends, and family members.

Today it is obvious that racist generalizations are wrong and toxic.

 

[Cadence]

The thing is there needs to be an expected rough baseline, or 'default setting' as it were. With notes that the DM can make any changes they want when adapting things to their own setting. The reason being that there are infinite varieties of orcs in across every individuals settings.

Trying to make the core books truly setting agnostic means that you end up with this: Orcs are roughly human sized and human weight though they can be larger or small. And they have similar lifespans to humans but could be longer or shorter. Their skin colour can be anything including human skin colours. Mentally they are like humans, but may also differ from humans.

And at that point you're not describing orcs. You're describing a variant build-a-species system.

Have many folks anywhere said they don't want to have any other traits at all?

It seems strange to me to liken saying a species/race are "always evil" to saying a species/race tusks and dark vision and being much larger on average andthus having greater strength (in terms of carrying capacity).

 

[Remathilis]

Yes. But it feels like your argument might need some refinement? It's a family friendly game where a huge part of the rules and play are about weapons, armor, and killing things . And a lot of folks in the world currently live in places of horrific violence and killing (whether by war, or crime, or the state). Is there a way to phrase your concern without getting rid of that too? Or do you want that gone too?

D&D combat is already sanitized. HP and AC are abstract methods of resolving combat. There are no rules for dismemberment, lingering wounds, infection, or death spirals. Opponents drop at 0 l
HP and are "dead" unless the DM rules otherwise. D&D combat is more like Breath of the Wild than God of War. It's Avenger's Endgame, not Saving Private Ryan. A DM might opt to add such things to the game, but he's intentionally adding more intensity than the base game assumes.

Which is exactly what people are advocating for when it comes to these inclusionary elements. Xenophobia, sexual content, slavery, and bigotry should be absent or only touched in the broadest terms unless the individual DM wants to add that in themselves.

 

[codo]

This seems like classic Disneyfication to me. Is that what we're advocating?

You can call it what every demeaning term you want. I want a game I can give to my 13 year old nephew to play with his friends without havening to worry the books are full of racist crap. The game should be the equivalent of a P-13 movie. I thinks that is what the designers want as well.

If in you home games if your party wants to be hardcore edgelords who deal with super serious, mature topics like racism, rape, and genocide, knock your self out. It's no skin off my nose, but don't expect the game to support it, or especially don't expect it to be the default.

 

[codo]

Double Post