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.

 

[Celebrim]

Good design does not equate to a good game. You can have a game that is well designed, but if it isn't fun, it's a crappy game. 4e falls into that category

Since we have a side thread going, I opposed 4e and very vocally said that 4e was not a design I was going to adopt.

But I do think it was a good game. It just was not a game for me.

The relative failure of 4e was completely predictable. We've seen the same logic overtake industry leaders time and time again. If your are the industry leader, the question you are always asking is, "How can I get a bigger market share?" And almost invariably, someone decides the answer is, "Appeal to people who aren't our customers!" But invariably this result in losing more of your existing customers than it sways over from those people who are not your customers. Fourth Edition was D&D for people who didn't like D&D. And if you were one of those people, then it was probably the edition for you.

 

[Aldarc]

1) Regardless of the definition of the word, most of the suggestions fail a test of pragmatism.

When you presume they will fail and set up conditions to ensure they will fail, then they will fail. But your claim regarding these terms failing a "test of pragmatism" is demonstrably not true because there are plenty of other systems out there devoid of the term "race" (e.g., Shadow of the Demon Lord) that get along just fine without your sense of "pragmatism" that precludes anything but "race" as a term.

 

[Celebrim]

When you presume they will fail and set up conditions to ensure they will fail, then they will fail. But your claim regarding these terms failing a "test of pragmatism" is demonstrably not true because there are plenty of other systems out there devoid of the term "race" (e.g., Shadow of the Demon Lord) that get along just fine without your sense of "pragmatism" that precludes anything but "race" as a term.

I'm pretty sure I did say that Ancestry would work the best and be the least awkward.... Yeah, I did say that didn't I. And what term does "Shadow of the Demon Lord" actually use. Why it's "Ancestry", imagine that.

Seriously, if you are going to contradict, please at least be interesting about it. Also keep in mind that I'd never actually buy "Shadow of the Demon Lord", so your "getting along just fine" isn't my "getting along just fine".

 

[Aldarc]

Also keep in mind that I'd never actually buy "Shadow of the Demon Lord", so your "getting along just fine" isn't my "getting along just fine".

So if no one buys "D&D" then it's not getting along just fine? Kind of a solipsist approach to issues, isn't it?

 

[Celebrim]

So if no one buys "D&D" then it's not getting along just fine? Kind of a solipsist approach to issues, isn't it?

What? I don't even understand what you mean or how you got there.

No, I mean for various other reasons "Shadow of the Demon Lord" fails my test of what a moral leisure activity would be like. I believe it structurally encourages evil revelry and prioritizes and glamorizes evil. Thus, I refuse to be a customer in the same way that supposedly many posters in this thread refuse to be a customer of an RPG that includes the word "race" when referring to race.

 

[Aldarc]

What? I don't even understand what you mean or how you got there.

You appeared to adopt the perspective that reality of whether a system is "getting along just fine" was determined by whether you would buy it or not.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I agree that JRRT is not in the same virulent camp as REH or HPL.

As I recall, REH is less consistent about it than HPL. There are stories like "Queen of the Black Coast" that have the undifferentiated mass of "savages", absolutely. JRRT mostly just doesn't talk about "men of the east" not under the rule of Sauron, although he occasionally implies that such exist, for instance the slaves who live in the south of Mordor (Nurn), who are freed after Sauron's defeat. There doesn't appear to be anything inherently "evil" about the east, any more than there is about all fallen beings. It's more of an accident of geography that the axis of conflict in Middle Earth is oriented that way. So in his case it's more omission and the substantial obsessions of medievalist focused on Anglo-Saxon history and language.

It is certainly the case that anyone reading stories from nearly a century ago has to realize that, well, things were different with regards to racial attitudes than many modern readers would anticipate. Casual racism was endemic and in some cases there will be substantial amounts of virulent racism.

 

[pemerton]

I refer to the English terms specifically, not any possible language in the world.
In all my life I have never heard a native English speaker, when asking for ethnic idenity, asking "what people are you?"

No. The correct syntax would be "Who are your people?" or perhaps "What people do you belong to?"

Asking someone what "Race" they are would be redundant since most times it is obvious. You dont mistake an orc for a human or a dragonborn for an elf.

But it makes more sense in the case :

-"Aye, your companion that will join us shortly, what race is he/she?"
-"My race can breath underwater"
-" the dwarven race were created out of stone"
-"the dragon race were given the task of protecting the world by the Titans"
-"the night elven race descend from Dark Trolls" (last 3 from warcraft)

The following are all well-formed:

You companion who will join us shortly, who are her people? My people can breathe underwater. Dwarves were created out of stone. The dragons were given the task of protecting the world. The night elves are descended from dark trolls.

 

[Maxperson]

Since we have a side thread going, I opposed 4e and very vocally said that 4e was not a design I was going to adopt.

But I do think it was a good game. It just was not a game for me.

The relative failure of 4e was completely predictable. We've seen the same logic overtake industry leaders time and time again. If your are the industry leader, the question you are always asking is, "How can I get a bigger market share?" And almost invariably, someone decides the answer is, "Appeal to people who aren't our customers!" But invariably this result in losing more of your existing customers than it sways over from those people who are not your customers. Fourth Edition was D&D for people who didn't like D&D. And if you were one of those people, then it was probably the edition for you.

If you lose more people than you gain, then that still indicates a bad game. That some people enjoy it doesn't make it good. People enjoy some, I'll just call them "diverse" things. That doesn't make them good fun. A good game WOULD have picked up more people than it lost, or at least picked up as many as it lost. If it picks up fewer, then it is pretty much by definition a worse game than you had.

 

[Celebrim]

You appeared to adopt the perspective that reality of whether a system is "getting along just fine" was determined by whether you would buy it or not.

Well, at least that makes a bit of sense. But what I was actually doing was playing with the definition of "fine" - good, esteemable, worthy, healthy. Your definition of "fine" seems to merely "successful". How successful it is I can't really speak to. Robust production schedule? Large player base? I wouldn't know.