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.

 

[Yaarel]

“Origin” would work too.

‘Origin’ is a great word.

4e used it mainly for ‘planar origin’, which was useful. It can expand to cover more possibilities.

It reminds me of superhero games where the character has notable powers, and the player often comes up with an origin to explain how they came to be.

 

[marcoasalazarm]

OK... "Descent" or "Origin" sound good.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

The word "race" has a lot of emotional baggage in our recent history. I think it would be great to remove it from the game. I'm just not sure what to replace it with.

The word "species" seems to be correct (at least for D&D where elves and orcs and dwarves can all interbreed) but it sounds too scientific for a fantasy game. The word "ethnicity" also seems to be correct, but also comes with its own baggage.

I favour "heredity".

I do like the idea of genetic traits for different groups. If Elves have something that Dwarves do not then it helps make them feel "fantastic". I feel strongly that these traits should inform society, something D&D does badly. If Elves are more agile than other races then this should be reflected in their architecture. If Faeries all have natural telepathy then they should have a very different political system to other races. If Humans cannot see in the dark then their mythology should be different to that of Orcs.

There should certainly be a difference between genetic traits and cultural traits. Just because a Gnome grew up in an Elvish town does not mean they get darkvision.

On the other hand, is it even possible to play as an alien species? We don't know what it is like to be an Elf or a Vargr or a Tau, so we pretty much always play them as just another human. Perhaps rules for species/race/whatever are unneeded?

 

[Hriston]

White person here.

I prefer people as a replacement term. It seems neutral and genre appropriate. JRRT uses it interchangeably with race, for example in the title of Appendix F to LotR, "The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age", where he lists several peoples, including Elves, Men, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs, Trolls, and Dwarves.

On the subject of the Half-Elf bonus to CHA, the half-elven brothers Elrond and Elros were leaders of elves and men respectively. Certain of Elros's descendants, including Aragorn, also seem to share a natural tendency towards leadership.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Right, but then it shouldn't be an issue, for as long as we constrain ourselves to Tolkien-esque worlds where each biological group has its own unified culture and there is no inter-mixing.

The interesting thing is that Tolkien's world, as opposed to many of the -esque versions, isn't one where each biological group has its own unified culture. There are numerous human cultures, the Dunedain, Dunlendings, Druedain, Rohirrim, Men of Dale and Laketown, Dorwinion, Haradim, Breemen, Woodmen, Easterlings, Wainriders, and so on. Not a lot is said about most of them due to the focus on the War of the Ring and Tolkien's own interest, but still, they're there, and many are present in Adventures in Middle Earth. For instance, there are descendants of the Wainriders in some of the AIME material.

Nor is it the case that in Tolkien's world there are inherently good races. Both the elves and Numenoreans/Dunedain have committed no small number of ill or tragically foolish deeds. As contemptuous as "Angry GM" is in the quoted article for "Cinnabon"---I just want to highlight how much of a ignorant jerk he seems with that comment, and he clearly knows little about Tolkien's work---the Silmarillion is filled with examples of exactly that: The Kinslaying, the Oath of Feanor, the turning of the Numenoreans from Iluvatar, Isildur keeping the One Ring, and the numerous civil wars fought in Gondor and Arnor being notable examples. Even the angels---the Valar and Maiar---can fall: Melkor turns, as does his various servants, most notably Sauron. Even hobbits are not immune.

He's also wrong about the culture issue. There is a good deal of intermixing, definitely among the humans, but also between the elves, dwarves, and humans. There's not much inter-breeding, but there's a TON of cultural exchange. The main languages humans and hobbits speak is derived from a mixture of elven and dwarven! The main thing is that in LotR things have fallen into a Dark Age and are separate, but the back history of the world is certainly not like this.

I'm not saying Tolkien is perfect on these issues in a modern sense, but by comparison to, say, Lovecraft or Howard, he's markedly more nuanced.

 

[BryonD]

Good grief, this is the whole Medusa argument all over again. ((For reference, a poster here [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] stated that seeing a medusa in D&D automatically turns you to stone and that the saving throw is reflecting being able to close your eyes. This is not true and has never been true in any edition of the game. I know this, because I had to quote every single Medusa writeup from every edition of the game before I could adequately prove my point))

Yeah, not following the thread, so I can't comment on context here. But point of clarification. I know first hand that BryonD never said that.
What was said is that the Medusa of myth turned you into stone if you looked at her, period. It was said that if you did a "person on the street" poll rather than a show of hands on a 4de message board, that this would be seen as stupidly obvious to anyone who knew who Medusa was. It was also said that pre-4E edition of D&D were completely compatible with modeling this.

The claim that you presented a cogent counter-point, much less "proved" said point would be a pretty screwed revision.

As you were.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

So why would China rather than France be "the Orient"?

The word "oriental" has had a lot of meanings over the years, but originally meant East. It didn't refer to China at all, but essentially east of the Mediterranean, or even the eastern Mediterranean. Even in the early 20th Century it might refer to North Africa.

 

[Maxperson]

It boils down to this. There is a certain vocal minority people who go out of their way to be offended by things. Right now some of them have set RPGs as their pet project. Such people not only need not be accommodated, they should be denied. There is no problem with race in D&D. There hasn't been for 40 years, and there won't be for the next 40.

 

[Darth Solo]

Each "race" has its own special contribution to a given realm. It's why we were given elves, dwarves and Halflings. They bring a level of "fantasy" that humanity can't even imagine. "Fantasy" akin to something non-hostile but even equally arcane.

They used to use the term "demi-human". That tags it. It's a cultural duality that impacts gameplay as defined as "fantasy".

Am I off-base here?

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

On the subject of the Half-Elf bonus to CHA, the half-elven brothers Elrond and Elros were leaders of elves and men respectively. Certain of Elros's descendants, including Aragorn, also seem to share a natural tendency towards leadership.

Half-elf bonus to Cha is a pretty late add to the game, actually. It's not even in 3E, although half-elves do get a fairly trivial bonus to Diplomacy. As far as I know, it first appeared in 4E. I doubt there's much direct Tolkien influence at that point.