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.

 

[pemerton]

I played it with my daughters (now 21 and 15) and we had a good discussion on the casual racism and how what is acceptable changed over time.

Out of curiosity, are your daughters Black?

 

[pemerton]

I really don't see how or why. This just seems odd to me.

Again, I can only speak for my situation.

Traditional racial theory - the idea of conjoining, in your conception of a person, ideas of biology and heredity and appearence and culture and capabilities and worth - is not just an abstract intellectual curiosity. At least, not for all people. It's a real thing that can have real effects, for instance, on how people think about themselves and their identity and other people they are connected to in various ways.

I would prefer it if my fantasy rolepalying books were more distant from traditional racial theory than they currently are.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Out of curiosity, are your daughters Black?

No. And, unlike me, they did not grow up as a minority and the type of language and general usage found in the REH stories is something they have never had to face. They did live overseas with me and have had their hair pulled to see if it was real and skin pinched in public on multiple occasions, to the point that they burst into tears, but I would never claim that it is equivalent to the systematic racism and remnants of slavery that blacks in the USA have had to live with and through.

I found it important for them to listen to the books so they could hear what REH wrote, both the stirring adventure tales and how racism was so prevalent and so openly written (and sexism which they keyed strongly on). I think it is important that they understand what is was like and considered to be socially acceptable in polite and mass market publication.

I will be honest, I have grown myself. I first read those books as a teenager and I did not remember just how racist REH was. It is quite jarring, pages of really well written adventure story and then casual references to the superiority of whites. The absolute most jarring story for me was one where Conan was in one of the Black kingdoms and perfectly happy until there was a possibility that a white woman captive might be raped (it was clear that happened to women captives in general). The story was written that it was obvious that no true white man could allow that to happen. Not the rape, the rape of a white woman by a black man.

Really weird as black characters were often portrayed as close companions and friends and it was part of the character that as a barbarian Conan was not so attached to the civilized prohibitions and then *click* a very racist paragraph or two appears. Personal letters show an attachment to Aryan and other racial theories but at least some questioning and a certain ignorance or lack of experience and exposure to non-whites. HPL has no such excuse and his personal letters are far worse.

I did ask some of my black "nerd" friends how they felt about Conan and they all said they find the original stories very hard to read and much prefer the modern comics and movies. They had all read many of the original stories and pastiches and even if they saw many things setting the foundations of sword and sorcery, none of them had a favorite story.

All of that above, and I still don't see how REH is setting the race foundation in D&D as Tolkien is clearly the wellspring for that.

I can also understand people facing real racism identifying with the negative portrayal of orcs and other evil races. Heck, even the recent movie Bright pounded you over the head with that. But none of that is modern, evil non-human races goes way way back and is not limited to European tales.

 

[Hussar]

I gotta admit. At the end of the day, I'm pretty selfish. I look at this and realize, I couldn't really care less which word is used. I frankly don't. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. However, I also recognize that at no cost to myself, I can make other people happier. Seems a no brainer to me. Why wouldn't I do it? Making other people happy is nice and I like making other people happy. So, sure, change to something else.

The argument against change seems to be grounded in the notion that the word race is the most accurate term we can use for the concept. And, yup, I can see that. It's a very well argued point and quite strong. Race, really, is probably the most technically accurate term we could use.

But, so what? This is D&D. It's not like D&D is shy about abusing words. Longsword anyone? A complete misnomer that has existed in the game since the very early days (replacing the "normal" sword, whatever that was). And, outside of a few quibbles, no one seems in any hurry to correct this inaccuracy in language use. Or, as was mentioned earlier, "cult". Again, technically, the term should apply to pretty much every priesthood in the game. But, it doesn't. D&D writers have decided that "cult" only applies to small groups of evil priesthoods (typically demon or devil worshipping) and for any of the dieties in the game, they get priesthoods, and temples, and faiths and churches.

And, funnily enough, outside of some specific tables, no one seems too terribly fussed about this either. I've never seen so much as the slightest quibble about this.

So, accuracy in language seems a rather strange hill to die on considering that it appears to be applied only when convenient. If lexical accuracy in the game was such an issue then why haven't we seen any complaints before? Or, at least, any real serious push (I have, like you, seen the odd quibble about longswords from time to time, but, never in a really urgent manner)?

It's a change that frankly costs nothing and makes people happy. Why wouldn't we do it?

 

[Maxperson]

Ultimately, I think we actually agree it's just the words you are using are really vague. I will say that I do not think it was a good business decision to publish 4e, however well designed, coherent, targeted to a specific audience, and fun it may have been for people who wanted a tighter more tactical game, it might have been. Fun is a very subjective quality. And while I agree in a since with your claim "If it picks up fewer, then it is pretty much by definition a worse game than you had.", that's true only if the metric you are using for "good" is a business metric. It's entirely possible for something to be "good" and not successful in the market, or for it to be "bad" and for it to fail in the market. "Good" and "bad" in themselves don't mark what they are measuring. What does it mean to be a "good car"? Well, it depends on what purpose the car has.

From the business side of things the primary purpose of an RPG is to make money, and new editions specifically to make more than the last one. To accomplish that, they need to make it enjoyable to as many people as possible. If an edition fails to reach as many as the last edition did, it was a failure(bad game) at the goal. From a player side the purpose of an RPG is to have fun, if it loses players than it was less fun than prior editions and is a failure(bad game). 4e failed on both fronts.

Now, there are other possible reasons why a game would fail other than not being enjoyable to enough people. A failure at promotion is the primary culprit here. If people don't know the game is fun, it won't do well. D&D doesn't have that excuse, though. It has a wide audience due to its long lasting major market share which gives great word of mouth, as well as experience and money to advertise, and the ability to go to places like Gencon and host major events and promotions.

 

[pemerton]

The absolute most jarring story for me was one where Conan was in one of the Black kingdoms and perfectly happy until there was a possibility that a white woman captive might be raped (it was clear that happened to women captives in general). The story was written that it was obvious that no true white man could allow that to happen. Not the rape, the rape of a white woman by a black man.

Yes - this is Vale of the Lost Women. I agree that it is one of the worst in this respect. It's also a very mediocre story, and so doubly bad.

My favourite REH Conan story is Tower of the Elephant; but I also really like The Scarlet Citadel, which is a good story despite its strong racist elements.

Beyond the Black River is highly praised, but personally I found it hard to take. I found it to be a not-that-compelling western, with all that that entails.

 

[pemerton]

I gotta admit. At the end of the day, I'm pretty selfish. I look at this and realize, I couldn't really care less which word is used. I frankly don't. It doesn't bother me in the slightest.

My participation in this thread has also been on the selfish (or, at least, self-concerned) basis that this is a particular thing that concerns me in this particular way which is a result of these particular things about my situation.

If others aren't motivated by those reasons, well, that's often the case in this world!

However, I also recognize that at no cost to myself, I can make other people happier. Seems a no brainer to me. Why wouldn't I do it? Making other people happy is nice and I like making other people happy. So, sure, change to something else.

<snip>

It's a change that frankly costs nothing and makes people happy. Why wouldn't we do it?

But you are right about this. And even for those who don't care about making others happy, the cost of the change still seems to be pretty marginal. So even if those people see no reason to change, they don't really have a reason not to change either.

(Now maybe we're wrong about the cost. I've read all the posts in this thread except for a couple of posters who have me blocked, and I don't think anyone has analysed this issue, in a serious way, from the point of view of commercial publishing and marketing.)

The argument against change seems to be grounded in the notion that the word race is the most accurate term we can use for the concept. And, yup, I can see that. It's a very well argued point and quite strong. Race, really, is probably the most technically accurate term we could use.

This is where I disagree with you. I've already posted about this not too far upthread, so I won't go on too long about it.

The basic idea of traditional (ie 19th century through to WW2) racial theory is that, among people, there are these fundamental cleavages that reflect biology, heredity, culture, capability, appearance, worth, and hierarchy. The basic flaw in that theory isn't just that there are no such cleavages. It's ultimate flaw is that it is politically and morally vicious.

So the only way in which the idea of traditional racial theory could be accurate, in the context of fantasy fiction, would be if it suddenly became proper to engage in this activity of identifying and labelling these fundamental cleavages among people. And frankly I don't want to play in that fantasy world, and I don't think that's the fantasy world that D&D aspires to present to us (although it does have its continuing trouble with "usually evil hence slaughterable" goblins and orcs).

To the extent that D&Ders maintain that the word "race" as they use it brings the idea of clevages that reflect biology, heredity, culture, capability and apperance, but don't also bring ideas of worth and hierarchy, well they're claiming to have coined a new meaning of "race". Which means notions of "accuracy" have no work to do.

Personally I'm sceptical about this idea that a new meaning has been coined - it's often not that easy. (And D&D does have its continuing trouble with "usually evil hence slaughterable" goblins and orcs.) This is part of the reason why I take the view that I've taken in this thread.

 

[pemerton]

From a player side the purpose of an RPG is to have fun, if it loses players than it was less fun than prior editions and is a failure(bad game).

This is wrong on three counts.

First, there's no straightforward connection between "players retained" and "fun had", because a game can retain players for a range of reasons that don't pertain to fun (eg existing market penetration, with reputation as one significant factor in that respect).

Second, if 10 people each get 10 utiles of fun from a game, then it produced more fun - and so by your metric was more successful - then a game which gave 50 people each 1 utile of fun, even if it sold only 10 rather than 50 copies.

Third, as a player it is of no concern to me that a game is fun for others, except in the very abstract sense that I'm happy for them that they're having a good time doing whatever it is they're doing over there. The fun that matters to me is my fun. If a game produces 100 utiles of fun but none of them are mine, I'm not inclined to judge it a fun game (although obviously it's a game that others had fun playing).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ahhhh, “utiles.”

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Yes - this is Vale of the Lost Women. I agree that it is one of the worst in this respect. It's also a very mediocre story, and so doubly bad.

My favourite REH Conan story is Tower of the Elephant; but I also really like The Scarlet Citadel, which is a good story despite its strong racist elements.

Beyond the Black River is highly praised, but personally I found it hard to take. I found it to be a not-that-compelling western, with all that that entails.

Ironicly enough, in a thread about the word race and the connection to racism, Tower of the Elephant is one of the most Cthulhu mythos-like stories with the “elephant” at the end, and I have far more issue with the racism that HPL exhibited than I do REH. Both were racist, but I find HPL’s to be worse.