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.

 

[Hussar]

What irony?

The irony of taking an extreme position (anyone who discusses this is an extremist and thus should be ignored) and then claiming you can't converse with extremists.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Your post is good, but this is factually, objectively and verifiably incorrect. We share common ancestors and are the same species, not race. In this thread that's an important distinction. Human races are not 100% the same as any medical expert will happily tell you. That's why we can see based on bones and skeletons whether someone was male, female, black/asian/white etc.

I don't want to dive into the swamp of race discussion outside of D&D. This wiki entry is informative enough, right down to the statement that the use of the word race is problematic with the fact that this is not proven with any citation indicated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)

Race is a protected class in US law (and many other countries) and laws exist that require classification or counting by it, which is why it is still used broadly in government. Otherwise, the scientific consensus is that there are so few actual differences between "races" that it really does not exist in a meaningful way.

The D&D rules follow that. Humans are a race. Within Humans, there are many variations, including language and skin color, but all have exactly the same package for stats and skills.

I do not think that it is even close to a given that the word race is problematic, and even in the cases where it is argued that it is, those argument do not apply to the fantasy rule constructs that races are in D&D.

I am fine with change, have been playing since 0D&D and happily play 5e now. I just see no reason for a change here and it almost looks like concern trolling to suggest it. People in this thread express their concern, but there still is not a clear explanation of why this is a real concern held by a significant number of people or even by the people here saying there is.

Racism and Sexism are problems in the D&D community, but I don't think the use of race for the fantasy races in the rules book is an issue. I can easily admit and discuss the issue with racism and not believe that the use of race as a term is a problem. They are not the same.

 

[Hriston]

A different possibility is that there is a generic category of "Heritage" or "Background" or "Origins", and then the game offers various ways to answer this: pick a people, pick an arpprenticeship or training, pick a nation, pick a blessing, etc.

Maybe choose two, and each gives some modest element of PC build (+1 or +2 to a stat, a vision boost, a proficiency boost, some other comparable perk).

A player who chooses (say) to be an acolyte (apprenticeship) from Veluna (nation) might still declare that his/her PC is a half-elf, or a dwarf, or whatever, but no mechanical benefit is received because the build slots have already been spent on other things. Being a half-elf is just colour for this particular character build.

If you want to build Aragorn, maybe you pick Elven and Dunedain (or if the game is straight D&D that doesn't use Tokien-esque categories, then the second slot could be wanderer or outcast or something else appropriate).

Replacing "race" with something like this (maybe call it "backstory") seems promising. In 5e, the races could be broken down into their particular elements allowing an "a la carte" selection of features, and this is already pretty much the default approach to backgrounds.

 

[pemerton]

Replacing "race" with something like this (maybe call it "backstory") seems promising. In 5e, the races could be broken down into their particular elements allowing an "a la carte" selection of features, and this is already pretty much the default approach to backgrounds.

Yes, I was thinking of 5e backgrounds when I made my post. I think that's the strongest mechanical innovation in 5e. 13th Age uses something similar. 4e struggled towards it with the "theme" idea part way through the life of the edition, but it's harder to do in 4e because everything in 4e has to be mechanically as well as narratively loaded (it's the way 4e works), and that means that desiging new elements is a chore. Whereas the 5e approach to both race and background is mechanically much ligther, and so makes it easier to come up with lists of interesting options.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Otherwise, the scientific consensus is that there are so few actual differences between "races" that it really does not exist in a meaningful way.

The D&D rules follow that. Humans are a race. Within Humans, there are many variations, including language and skin color, but all have exactly the same package for stats and skills.

Yes.

 

[pemerton]

People in this thread express their concern, but there still is not a clear explanation of why this is a real concern held by a significant number of people or even by the people here saying there is.

I have not purported to speak for a significant number of people. I have spoken for me. And I think my posts have done a reasonable job of explaining what my concern is. Did you read them?

 

[Hriston]

Well they could have but I find the notion that they'd take six steps away from "traditional" Tolkien-esque fantasy and one step towards it more than a little reach.

That assumes a more-or-less cohesive approach to the design of such elements. I don't know if such an approach is explicit in the presentation of 4e, but I don't see much evidence that it is in the editions with which I'm familiar. They mostly just pick and choose from various medieval fantasy tropes.

Even if they did, I don't really get the notion of how Elrond and Elros had particularly high Charisma---I'm not sure that's true about Elrond---would therefore translate to all half-elves having it.

It would just be a case of designing the race to resemble those characters, kind of like how halflings are lucky because Bilbo Baggins was lucky.

D&D half-elves have essentially never been particularly like Tolkien's half-elves anyway. They have always been decidedly mortal, for instance, and have no particular "choice of which kin" to make.

D&D's elves are mortal (and short), but that doesn't mean they aren't like Tolkien's elves in other ways. The mortality of elves also renders the idea of half-elves having a choice of whether to share the fate of elves or men meaningless. The absence of the choice from D&D's half-elves, however, doesn't mean they might not resemble Tolkien's half-elves in other ways.

I think the 4E designers mostly wanted to find some what to mechanically differentiate half-elves from elves and humans and settled on the notion of "well they live in both worlds and have to navigate them... sounds like a Charisma bonus!"

Sure, that sounds entirely plausible.

 

[BryonD]

Yup, absolutely. Totally agree that you've been doing the Medusa correct to myth for decades.

What you haven't done for decades though, is use the D&D Medusa the way it was and is written.

Like I said, thank you for providing such a perfect illustration of my point.

First you put words in my mouth, now you tell me you know more about how my game works than I do.
It used to be fun. But now it is just creepy and I feel sorry for you.

 

[Lanefan]

So that would be a human then, right?

Nope, as both the 1/4 orc part and 1/4 elf part have mechanical ramifications in my game (some of which would, admittedly, tend to cancel each other out).

And for a human it'd sure be odd-looking - probably show a bit of tusk, and some point to the ears...

Lan-"tusks instead of ears - now there's an idea"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I think the 4E designers mostly wanted to find some what to mechanically differentiate half-elves from elves and humans and settled on the notion of "well they live in both worlds and have to navigate them... sounds like a Charisma bonus!"

This matches my take on it as well - they ran out of bones to throw by the time they got to half-elves and this was all they had left to give 'em.