RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

The term "race" is a staple of fantasy that is now out of sync with modern usage. With Pathfinder shifting from "race" to "ancestry" in its latest edition, it raises the question: should fantasy games still use it?

“Race” and Modern Parlance​

We previously discussed the challenges of representing real-life cultures in a fantasy world, with African and Asian countries being just two examples. The discussion becomes more complicated with fantasy "races"—historically, race was believed to be determined by the geographic arrangement of populations. Fantasy gaming, which has its roots in fantasy literature, still uses the term “race” this way.

Co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax cited R.E. Howard's Conan series as an influence on D&D, which combines Lovecraftian elements with sword and sorcery. Howard's perceptions may have been a sign of the times he lived in, but it seems likely they influenced his stories. Robert B. Marks explains just how these stereotypes manifested in Conan's world:

The young, vibrant civilizations of the Hyborian Age, like Aquilonia and Nemedia, are white - the equivalent of Medieval Europe. Around them are older Asiatic civilizations like Stygia and Vendhya, ancient, decrepit, and living on borrowed time. To the northwest and the south are the barbarian lands - but only Asgard and Vanaheim are in any way Viking. The Black Kingdoms are filled with tribesmen evoking the early 20th century vision of darkest Africa, and the Cimmerians and Picts are a strange cross between the ancient Celts and Native Americans - and it is very clear that the barbarians and savages, and not any of the civilized people or races, will be the last ones standing.

Which leads us to the other major fantasy influence, author J.R.R. Tolkien. David M. Perry explains in an interview with Helen Young:

In Middle Earth, unlike reality, race is objectively real rather than socially constructed. There are species (elves, men, dwarves, etc.), but within those species there are races that conform to 19th-century race theory, in that their physical attributes (hair color, etc.) are associated with non-physical attributes that are both personal and cultural. There is also an explicit racial hierarchy which is, again, real in the world of the story.

The Angry GM elaborates on why race and culture were blended in Tolkien's works:

The thing is, in the Tolkienverse, at least, in the Lord of the Rings version of the Tolkienverse (because I can’t speak for what happened in the Cinnabon or whatever that other book was called), the races were all very insular and isolated. They didn’t deal with one another. Race and culture went hand in hand. If you were a wood elf, you were raised by wood elves and lived a thoroughly wood elf lifestyle until that whole One Ring issue made you hang out with humans and dwarves and halflings. That isolation was constantly thrust into the spotlight. Hell, it was a major issue in The Hobbit.

Given the prominence of race in fantasy, it's not surprising that D&D has continued the trend. That trend now seems out of sync with modern parlance; in 1951, the United Nations officially declared that the differences among humans were "insignificant in relation to the anthropological sameness among the peoples who are the human race."

“Race” and Game Design​

Chris Van Dyke's essay on race back in 2008 explains how pervasive "race" is in D&D:

Anyone who has played D&D has spent a lot of time talking about race – “Racial Attributes,” “Racial Restrictions,” “Racial Bonuses.” Everyone knows that different races don’t get along – thanks to Tolkien, Dwarves and Elves tend to distrust each other, and even non-gamers know that Orcs and Goblins are, by their very nature, evil creatures. Race is one of the most important aspects of any fantasy role-playing game, and the belief that there are certain inherent genetic and social distinctions between different races is built into every level of most (if not all) Fantasy Role-Playing Games.

Racial characteristics in D&D have changed over time. Basic Dungeons & Dragons didn't distinguish between race and class for non-humans, such that one played a dwarf, elf, or halfling -- or a human fighter or cleric. The characteristics of race were so tightly intertwined that race and profession were considered one.

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the changes became more nuanced, but not without some downsides on character advancement, particularly in allowing “demihumans” to multiclass but with level limits preventing them from exceeding humanity, who had unlimited potential (but could only dual-class).

With Fifth Edition, ability penalties and level caps have been removed, but racial bonuses and proficiencies still apply. The Angry GM explains why this is a problem:

In 5E, you choose a race and a class, but you also choose a background. And the background represents your formative education and socio-economic standing and all that other stuff that basically represents the environment in which you were raised. The racial abilities still haven’t changed even though there is now a really good place for “cultural racial abilities” to live. So, here’s where the oddity arises. An elf urchin will automatically be proficient with a longsword and longbow, two weapons that requires years of training to even become remotely talent with, but a human soldier does not get any automatic martial training. Obviously, in both cases, class will modify that. But in the life of your character, race happens first, then background, and only later on do you end up a member of a class. It’s very quirky.

Perhaps this is why Pathfinder decided to take a different approach to race by shifting to the term “ancestry”:

Beyond the narrative, there are many things that have changed, but mostly in the details of how the game works. You still pick a race, even though it is now called your ancestry. You still decide on your class—the rulebook includes all of the core classes from the First Edition Core Rulebook, plus the alchemist. You still select feats, but these now come from a greater variety of sources, such as your ancestry, your class, and your skills.

"Ancestry" is not just a replacement for the word “race.” It’s a fluid term that requires the player to make choices at character creation and as the character advances. This gives an opportunity to express human ethnicities in game terms, including half-elves and half-orcs, without forcing the “subrace” construct.

The Last Race​

It seems likely that, from both a modern parlance and game design perspective, “race” as it is used today will fall out of favor in fantasy games. It’s just going to take time. Indigo Boock sums up the challenge:

Fantasy is a doubled edged sword. Every human culture has some form of fantasy, we all have some sort of immortal ethereal realm where our elven creatures dwell. There’s always this realm that transcends culture. Tolkien said, distinct from science fiction (which looks to the future), fantasy is to feel like one with the entire universe. Fantasy is real, deep human yearning. We look to it as escapism, whether we play D&D, or Skyrim, or you are like myself and write fantasy. There are unfortunately some old cultural tropes that need to be discarded, and it can be frustratingly slow to see those things phased out.

Here's hoping other role-playing games will follow Pathfinder's lead in how treats its fantasy people in future editions.

 

[Lanefan]

We could use "People of Feyness", "People of Stoniness", "People of Wee-ness" and "People of Fangness", and just substitute the word "Race" with "People", maybe?

So does that make Dragons the "People of Halitosis"?

 

[the_redbeard]

Bingo.
The origin is irrelevant. All that matters is how it is used in RPGs, which is the above.

Even less relevant. This has absolutely nothing to do with RPGs and how race is used.

So what. This has nothing to do with RPGs.

Called race. Yes.

No. There is no need for clarity that doesn't actually clarify anything. Every single one of your examples that doesn't pertain to RPGs, causes no lack of clarity since they do not pertain to RPGs. We don't need to change a word that is already clearly defined and used in RPGs.

Assertion IS NOT argument. You can say 2+2=3 all you like.

Why is it relevant? I'll expand:
- People who are negatively stereotyped by race might be reminded of it. Many people on this thread have said they play games for escapism. I know I do. People who have been negatively stereotyped by race need escapism, too. Why remind them of an insult when they just want to game like us?
- People who still think of reality in terms of race might see justification in the continued use of the term in the same manner they use it (to describe groups with functional differences). RPGs should not give racists any justification. Think that's crazy? Read on below.

Here's a real life example of someone confusing the term. Clarity is important.

While doing research for this talk, I came across the Stormfront web-site. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this vile-corner of the internet, it is the world’s largest discussion forum for white-supremacists. One of the most popular topics is “Culture and Customs,” with one of the most active forums being “High Fantasy and Lord of the Rings.” …Others yield such laughably offensive as the thread: “Drizzt Do’Urden fans, do you find the books blatantly pro-Negro?”

…I came across “Learn All You Need to Know About Race from Dungeons & Dragons,” posted by Holy Roman Empire. I quote here liberally…

“I completely understood how there could be smart blacks and yet blacks be less intelligent than whites as a whole when I was a child. When was the first time I thought about an idea like that? When I got into Dungeons and Dragons at the age of nine or ten. I knew that elves were more agile than humans. I knew that because they had a +1 bonus (back when I started playing, now its +2) to Dexterity…

“And this point may seem a bit silly, but it introduces an important idea that most white people are conditioned not to believe in – racial essentialism…

“D&D also has a lot about racial loyalty. Elves band together in protection of their forests…

“…I think that some of those ideas I was exposed to as a child were good lessons that maybe helped me come to terms with ideas that are part of being a White Nationalist.”

 

[Lanefan]

Trace, Mild, Strong and Extra Spicy Ancestry!

I think it would be most interesting to see blends of near-races, like Drow and Wood Elf.

I kind of already have that now, in a way.

Taking the idea of half-elves and half-orcs to its logical (if perhaps a bit ridiculous) conclusion, a long time ago I made up a chart of what, in a typical fantasy setting, could in theory breed with what; using the MM, MM2, FF, the "kindred races", and some ideas of my own as fodder. The game already had some of this built in - Giants could breed with Trolls, for example, to create the Giant Troll; and Centaur-Human action is a part of standard Greek mythology - I just wanted to see how far it could go:

- what bred with what to create the Tabaxi, for example, and what could a Tabaxi now breed with?
- if Dwarves and Giants are biologically related (as some posit they are) what are the intervening biological links and are they extinct?
- Dryads seem capable of breeding with various different lifeforms - Humans, Elves and (in a manner of speaking) trees to mention just a few - where does that lead?
- Humans can breed with both Elves and Orcs but can Elves and Orcs skip the link and breed with each other?
- Are Humans and Hobbits closely enough related to interbreed?
- etc.

And then you chuck in shapeshifters and deities (e.g. Zeus) and devils - yeah, it gets some kind of messy.

What I ended up with looked like a plate of spaghetti, there were so many lines connecting different things.

Lan-"this is the sort of thing I really hoped the Book of Erotic Fantasy would get into, along with resulting pregnancy chances and durations etc., but alas..."-efan

 

[the_redbeard]

I kind of already have that now, in a way.

Taking the idea of half-elves and half-orcs to its logical (if perhaps a bit ridiculous) conclusion, a long time ago I made up a chart of what, in a typical fantasy setting, could in theory breed with what; using the MM, MM2, FF, the "kindred races", and some ideas of my own as fodder. The game already had some of this built in - Giants could breed with Trolls, for example, to create the Giant Troll; and Centaur-Human action is a part of standard Greek mythology - I just wanted to see how far it could go:

- what bred with what to create the Tabaxi, for example, and what could a Tabaxi now breed with?
- if Dwarves and Giants are biologically related (as some posit they are) what are the intervening biological links and are they extinct?
- Dryads seem capable of breeding with various different lifeforms - Humans, Elves and (in a manner of speaking) trees to mention just a few - where does that lead?
- Humans can breed with both Elves and Orcs but can Elves and Orcs skip the link and breed with each other?
- Are Humans and Hobbits closely enough related to interbreed?
- etc.

And then you chuck in shapeshifters and deities (e.g. Zeus) and devils - yeah, it gets some kind of messy.

What I ended up with looked like a plate of spaghetti, there were so many lines connecting different things.

Lan-"this is the sort of thing I really hoped the Book of Erotic Fantasy would get into, along with resulting pregnancy chances and durations etc., but alas..."-efan

Yeah, the in-game consequences of sex would be a lot more game-able than in-game sex.

 

[Hussar]

Some interesting arguments here.

Personally, I like origin. It nicely encapsulates everything you want it to and doesn't carry any baggage. The origin of your character is elf or dwarf or whatever. Having that origin carries these mechanical implications. Easy peasy and done.

Although I can certainly live with ancestry. That works as well. It's a pretty rare game where your PC was created from clay and breathed to life by a god. By and large, your PC has parentage of some sort or fashion. And that parentage is your origin/ancestry.

Not sure why this is generating so much noise. But, unfortunately, the cynic in me is very sure why it does and it makes me sad.

 

[Lanefan]

We've had at least a few posters that didn't like the association. Why wouldn't we try to make rpgs more inclusive?

No issues with making RPGs more inclusive.

The problem is, though, that it's rather sadly becoming less and less possible to include everybody as it seems more and more people (of ALL political/religious/social persuasions without exception) are finding more and more things to take offense to. Then someone gets offended by the fact of someone else taking offense to something, and the spiral is on.

I agree that 'type' is vague. I was reaching. What I'm not doing is critiquing without offering alternatives.

Props to ya for that!

I've been trying to think of other options and really haven't got any yet. Ancestry might be the best (though still not great) if only because of all that have been presented it's still the only one that covers characters with more than one 'race' in their genetic makeup e.g. half elves, half orcs, dragonborn, etc. as well as it covers those with just one. Better for accuracy would be "genetic background" but that's some kind of ugly for parsing and use, and in something like 5e would also get confused with "character background".

"People", "kin" don't have near the baggage of usage that "race" does. Certainly not now and not in what I've read of the history of race theory (theory of race as a social construct). I'm not a sociologist or a historian, but I have read more than a couple of books of the history of racism as an activist.

When I hear the term 'people' in this context I think of it as a direct synonym for the real-world use of race, except more often applied to smaller groups within a race (e.g. the Caucasian race, the Gaelic people), which if my interpretation is at all common means it won't help much. "Kin" makes me think of Scottish clans.

Lanefan

 

[TrippyHippy]

Just on a slightly irreverent tangent: where do Half Elves actually inherit their +2 Charisma from? Elves don't get it (Dark Elves only get a +1) and Humans don't have it either. So why do Half Elves?

 

[Lanefan]

Just on a slightly irreverent tangent: where do Half Elves actually inherit their +2 Charisma from? Elves don't get it (Dark Elves only get a +1) and Humans don't have it either. So why do Half Elves?

Yeah, that's one I'd file under the need-to-fix category. If Humans are +0 and Elves are made to be +2 then Half-Elves should logically be +1.

But, they gave enough other stuff to Elves and didn't give much to the Half-Elves, so this is what they did to compensate and logic goes out the window...

 

[the_redbeard]

No issues with making RPGs more inclusive.

The problem is, though, that it's rather sadly becoming less and less possible to include everybody as it seems more and more people (of ALL political/religious/social persuasions without exception) are finding more and more things to take offense to. Then someone gets offended by the fact of someone else taking offense to something, and the spiral is on.

You really think it is that hard to not be insulting? What's amazing to me is that we have a single, concrete term with an acknowledged history of being insulting and people are resisting changing it for no other reason than "it's what's been done." Nobody is going to take away your elfs, alright?

If somebody hadn't already posted the Neil Gaiman quote about political correctness, I'd post it here.

I've been trying to think of other options and really haven't got any yet. Ancestry might be the best (though still not great) if only because of all that have been presented it's still the only one that covers characters with more than one 'race' in their genetic makeup e.g. half elves, half orcs, dragonborn, etc. as well as it covers those with just one. Better for accuracy would be "genetic background" but that's some kind of ugly for parsing and use, and in something like 5e would also get confused with "character background".

When I hear the term 'people' in this context I think of it as a direct synonym for the real-world use of race, except more often applied to smaller groups within a race (e.g. the Caucasian race, the Gaelic people), which if my interpretation is at all common means it won't help much. "Kin" makes me think of Scottish clans.

Lanefan

Yeah, I was just listening to a podcast about the death of Martin Luther King and heard LBJ describe him as a "leader of his people." So, yeah. Not typically with pejorative connotations, but still.

So, why not look at the actual taxonomy system? Species and genus feel out of genre. But what about "family", the next step in classification? That at least would also fit with D&D's sub-speciation propensity, especially for elves. Wood elves, Sea Elves, Grey Elves, High Elves, Eladrin, would all be in the "Elven family."

 

[the_redbeard]

Yeah, that's one I'd file under the need-to-fix category. If Humans are +0 and Elves are made to be +2 then Half-Elves should logically be +1.

But, they gave enough other stuff to Elves and didn't give much to the Half-Elves, so this is what they did to compensate and logic goes out the window...

Having to pass in both worlds gave them the practice so they could lie in both cultures.

Edit: but then that should be a nurture trait and not a nature, right?