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]

I'm pretty sure that's just magic, and doesn't count. Elves can cross with humans without casting a spell first.

But really, if you want to say that dragons are the same species, the scientific community will back you up on that. My point was mostly that you can't use science to prove they aren't the same species. Elves and humans, I mean.

Elves are magic, inherently.

In reallife British tradition, elves are magic, itself, the source of magic. The word ‘faerie’ is the Middle English word meaning magic.

In Norse tradition, all nature spirits can do magic, including humans. That said, elves are instinctively good at it. There is a story about a half-elf woman who grew up with her human father as a human. But her elven origins gave her tremendous mastery over all forms of magic.

 

[Yaarel]

This is a reasonable D&D scenario.

A human translates into the spirit realm of the feywild. At this point, the human is a discorporeated spirit. There is no physical body. There is no DNA. There is only spirit.

In the feywild, the spirit of the human has ‘sex’ with the spirit of an elf.

There a baby spirit forms and grows up in the spirit realm.

This half-elf never had a physical body. There is no DNA. There is no species.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Elves are magic, inherently.

In reallife British tradition, elves are magic, itself, the source of magic. The word ‘faerie’ is the Middle English word meaning magic.

That has very little to do with elves in D&D or Pathfinder, though, except in that it inspired Tolkien which then inspired Gygax and so on. PC elves are mostly just humans with pointy ears.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm not offended by worthless ideas. I'm also not in the minority here. Race is of absolutely no issue in the game as it stands. At least not to any appreciable number of people.

If it wasn't an issue, then why is there more than 500 posts on the matter on this thread alone? Stop conflating your individual opinion as some sort of majority accepted truth. And stop taking offence that people may want to discuss change, regardless of your individual opinion.

 

[Yaarel]

That has very little to do with elves in D&D or Pathfinder, though, except in that it inspired Tolkien which then inspired Gygax and so on. PC elves are mostly just humans with pointy ears.

In 5e, there are elves that are ‘native’ to feywild. These elves are spirits without a physical body. There is no DNA.

The spirit world is a more dreamlike mode of existence. It sometimes seems as if physical, like a dream can. But it can sometimes be impossible physically. Often it is a weird blend of both mundane and impossible.

 

[pemerton]

Perhaps the concern is that this is another step in moving the game "to the left", another step down the slippery slope towards a socially-liberal rewriting of the game. Rygar didn't articulate exactly what some of the specific effects of his claimed "left-wing push" were, but I'll assume he is referring to attempts to make games more inclusive and to avoid content that may be offensive to certain demographics.

The problems with that is 5e has already made a push to be far more inclusive and it seems to have had positive, not negative effects on the brand and the bottom line.

The reason I XPed [MENTION=6816042]Arilyn[/MENTION]'s reply to Rygar is this: I don't see how including women, or people of colour, in RPGing is a "left-wing push". It's not a socialist conspiracy to have created a world with people in it who aren't white men.

 

[pemerton]

This is a reasonable D&D scenario.

A human translates into the spirit realm of the feywild. At this point, the human is a discorporeated spirit. There is no physical body. There is no DNA. There is only spirit.

In the feywild, the spirit of the human has ‘sex’ with the spirit of an elf.

There a baby spirit forms and grows up in the spirit realm.

This half-elf never had a physical body. There is no DNA. There is no species.

In 5e, there are elves that are ‘native’ to feywild. These elves are spirits without a physical body. There is no DNA.

Like I said upthread, I see it as a secondary theme rather than the primary one in this thread. But these are good examples within the scope of that secondary theme. If some PCs are the children of humans and devils ie incarnate spirits of evil, how can we possibly be talking about biology when - in the fiction - we think about a creature's "race"?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This is a reasonable D&D scenario.

A human translates into the spirit realm of the feywild. At this point, the human is a discorporeated spirit.

If that's your idea of reasonable, then I don't know that we have enough common ground to hold a meaningful discussion. Your example is so far out of left field as to be nearly incomprehensible. That's not just high fantasy or sky high fantasy, so much as it's left the concept of fantasy entirely and moved into fairy tales.

 

[DRF]

The problems with that is 5e has already made a push to be far more inclusive and it seems to have had positive, not negative effects on the brand and the bottom line. .

I do think we really quickly need to establish that 5e is doing well because it's a good game, not because of any significant changes relating to it being more inclusive.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

500+ responses...

A few comments from me.

I saw a statistic on 91% drop in revenue for comics. One publisher (IDW) saw net income drop that much, sales did not go down much at all. That was a function of the previous sales and gross margin level having already covered all other expenses, but not by that much, so a smaller revenue drop had a big effect on the bottom line.

D&D is pretty small inside of WoTC, and they have just started layering on permanent staff again after the big sales drop from 4e decimated permNent staffing (so 5e had a ton of consultants and crowd sourced testing.

The number of posts does not, as a poster right above says, mean that many people want a change and therefore should not be ignored. A significant portion of the posts is by a small minority arguing their sides quite strongly.

After reading the original article, the posts in the thread, and doing so,e research to refresh myself why race has fallen out of favor in many traditional uses, I do not think the proponents for not using it for D&D have made a good case. it basically fell out of use as it could not really be well defined and there’s too much variation within the supposed races. As dna synthesis and testing got better, a lot of the early race theories have been dropped. Especially as there is pretty good evidence that we all come from common ancestors and thus are one race.

In the case of D&D, there is a decided different use of the word race and it should be non-controversial. Humans are said to have a wide variation of skin color and cultures but are all one race in D&D as it much more specific. It is essentially the culmination of the movement to eliminate level limits and class limits by equalizing everyone. That grew out of more and more campaigns and materials written and played for higher levels and the old race as a class structure had artificial limits.

I am not saying that some people don’t find offense in it, but as I grow older I realize that there is a difference between offense and harm. As the term is clearly not used in the same way as harmful race theory was used in the past outsider tne game and because it is clear and understood, I do not think it needs to be changed.

Finally, the additional inclusiveness in 5e allowed a good game (that came first) to really shine and sell well by removing barriers and increasing the target audience while not alienating the existing audience. It does that by being honest and yet subtle. Since gender, sexuality and skin color (traditional use of race) does not matter in game mechanics, the rules make it clear that players are free to do whatever they want to.