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.

 

[Eltab]

And if humans and elves can breed and humans and orcs can breed, logically elves and orcs can breed so WTF do we do with that knowledge?

And why is half-dwarf so rarely accounted for?

In reverse order...

Muls (Dark Sun) are the first place I've seen a half-dwarf addressed. The 4e incarnation, more so than other half-races, says "you get half of the cool things each parent has".

Unwritten* Human Racial Trait:
Good Breeding. You can have children with almost anything you care to try. Conversely, almost anything that cares to try can have children with you.
* because only Rated-M and Rated-X campaigns will have cause to use this explicitly

 

[Eltab]

...so my guess would be that ['Shasarak'] is simply CE.

It sound from here like he is employing the phrases that yank peoples' chains, but applying them to a non-issue.

 

[Riley37]

I show people courtesy, yes. Respect doesn't mean what you think it means.

Inigo Montoya's response to Vizzini was more humbly phrased that your bold assertion, right there... perhaps you are practicing courtesy by your own standards; mine do not prevail in this venue, as I am not a moderator.

Anyways, you and I hold assumptions so divergent, that it seems only natural we'd disagree on Pathfinder's terminology. You see only one possible meaning of "respect". I allow for the possibility of words having *different usages* in British English than in American English, and I take Neil Gaiman's saying about treating people with "respect", with the nuance and connotation you assign, always-and-only, to "courtesy".

How many bytes in a kilobyte? Always-and-only 1000; always-and-only 1024; varies by usage; or something else?

If you chose either of the always-and-only answers, then of course we disagree on race and ancestry. You might as well tell me that race doesn't mean what I think it means. From that divergence on race *in general*, we're not going to ever agree on race and ancestry *in TRPGs*.

But that's not just you and me. I see this thread, as far as I've read it - wading through page 20 or so, jumping ahead at the moment to direct responses - as revealing such strong disagreements about race *in real life*, among so many of the participants, that of course that spills over into disagreements about race and ancestry *in D&D*.

Same thing happens when there's a question about whether the D&D world is round or flat. Those who think the real world is round, disagree about whether their D&D world must follow suit, or *can* be different, or *must* be as flat as Tolkien's Arda was, until Númenor was removed from the Circles of the World. Those who think the real world is flat, however... are even less flexible in their position.

 

[Shasarak]

Do you genuinely think that these two situations are comparable? Or is this false equivalence masked in fake outrage?

There are several advantages of the change:

You get rid of the problematic terminology.
You get rid of problematic historical baggage associated with the class
You open design space.

But I guess if you just want to ignore the advantages with claims of "fake outrage" then that is your prerogative.

 

[Riley37]

I find the first question much more interesting than the second as well, but I don't find the move from 'race' to 'ancestry' strange because - to pick on myself - I've done similar things for similar reasons. For example, in my game the servitor races of the lower planes are called 'fiends' and never 'demons' or 'devils'. Yet they are basically still the same servitor races of the lower planes and occasionally on the rare occasion that they show up in the story I'll even for convenience employ the same stat block. On some level that seems like a purely irrational and purely cosmetic change, until you consider that I consider the words 'demon' or 'devil' problematic for religious reasons. If you share the same religious convictions as I do, then the change seems rational and reasonable; but, it is rational and reasonable only if you have the same religious convictions I do and thus consider the words problematic. The same sort of thing is going on with Paizo.

What if, even though I don't *share* your religion, I still *respect* religion enough to write a Creature Book which chooses not to use the terminology of any religion? I don't *believe* the Muslim conception of Shaitan, but I'm still not gonna assign a specific number of HP, because in some theologies, that's a foe which no human can vanquish by violence alone, not with *any* number of sword hits. I leave that sort of thing to individual tables, and thus I intentionally omit it from my Creature Book. (TBH, I think Gygax's write-up of Asmodeus in Monster Manual was unhumble and unwise.)

Is that compassion (I gather that your religion values compassion, somewhat as mine does), and appropriate, or is it weakness, cowardice, foolishness? Or something else?

 

[MNblockhead]

How many bytes in a kilobyte? Always-and-only 1000; always-and-only 1024; varies by usage; or something else

A kilobyte is 1000 bytes

1024 bytes is a kibibyte

Maybe I'm a prescriptive a-hole, but I'd like to think words mean something.

 

[Celebrim]

What if, even though I don't *share* your religion, I still *respect* religion enough to write a Creature Book which chooses not to use the terminology of any religion? I don't *believe* the Muslim conception of Shaitan, but I'm still not gonna assign a specific number of HP, because in some theologies, that's a foe which no human can vanquish by violence alone, not with *any* number of sword hits. I leave that sort of thing to individual tables, and thus I intentionally omit it from my Creature Book. (TBH, I think Gygax's write-up of Asmodeus in Monster Manual was unhumble and unwise.)

Is that compassion (I gather that your religion values compassion, somewhat as mine does), and appropriate, or is it weakness, cowardice, foolishness? Or something else?

I respect following the sincere dictates of ones heart to treat others as one would wish to be treated. It's hard to go wrong with that as a motivation, and it's a pretty strong defense against evil.

But from my perspective, respecting me is largely irrelevant. If I warn against these things, it's not to save my feelings. Any interest that I have in your behavior, isn't out of a need to have my feelings protected. Any damage done when you insult me, isn't done to me - but to you. This is especially true with respect to insulting me for religious reasons. This is one of the ways that what I believe philosophically differs from other groups that feel they need to protect their icons from insult. If you were to mock what I believe in, I'd mostly feel sorry for you. But I'd have no cause to be angry with you.

Likewise, I really don't care if you respect "religion". Religion is a nebulous concept and I don't think respecting it will do you much good. Try to respect what you think is good, and true, and right. If that includes a religion, then alright, but since I believe in (what you would call) a religion, I generally don't think respecting just any religion is of much use to anyone.

As for my judging your motivation, I think it's pretty much impossible for me to say. It could be weakness, cowardice, or foolishness depending on if you did it just to go along with the flow and avoid scorn. It could be self-rightness because you want to feel you are good person, or in particular if you want to feel you are better than other people. I would hope it is compassion sometimes. If you are anything like me, you find it difficult to keep your motivations pure. You yourself know your own heart, and should inspect it for weakness. I'm surprised in this thread how many people asked the question rhetorically, "Do you find it hard to treat other people with respect?" Well, yes, I do. I mean, have you ever tried? It's not the easiest thing in the world, and I fail at it all the time. Maybe it's different for you, but one of the first things I discovered when I set myself to behave according to a high standard, is that it's pretty much impossible to do just that.

 

[Riley37]

Don’t you think this was a case where the neighboring lands were more concerned with the “sticks & stones” than the “words”?

If that's your interpretation of Thucydides... well, then you interpret his account of the Peloponnesian War very differently than I do.

If that's your interpretation of Cato the Elder, then I'm honestly baffled at how you reached that conclusion.

Could you say more about which specific sources inform your opinion?

 

[Riley37]

Is it mostly white due to what though? Racism of white people? European mythology and cultural trappings appealing mostly to white nerds? Some other reason?

Asserting which exact thing, is the primary cause of a widespread dynamic or pattern, is one of the trickiest assertions one can make, in any field which includes controversy. LordNightWinter says it *was* true, ShinHakkaider says it *still is* true. Without agreement on whether the D&D player community *is* mostly white, then I don't see any chance of success of this particular forum exploring *why* it's mostly white.

That said, when I played AL at a game store, there was a player new to 5E, making his first character. When he turned to the page in the 5E PHB about different kinds of humans, and saw illustrations which matched his appearance, he smiled, and chose to play a Rashemi cleric of Lathander. This is an anecdote, a sample size of one, not enough to make a broad statement about causality; but it IS enough to make me glad that 5E has a more intentionally inclusive depiction of what "humans" look like, than I saw in 1E.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I don’t think it is going out on much of a limb to say that the majority of the current 5e players are both white and male. Now, this is not absolute proof as maybe the subset of people who attend gaming conventions skew even more like that, but you can easily go online and see pictures of people attending conventions.

I did a quick check about a year ago and I saw many more women in the pictures today than from 10 years ago. Non-whites still are not that numerous in pictures and I would say more Asian looking people appear more in photos.

I don’t ascribe the difference from overt racism, and the majority of the US population is still white, so an evenly distributed population of players would still be that (it skews more than the population). I do think the effects of racism are a main cause of why it started and remains that way.

So I do not think that racists are refusing to allow non-whites to play, but segregation and different earnings levels separate both the ability (able to afford) and interest (shared cultural values).

There actually is a pretty rich history and tradition of fantasy story telling in about every culture, but the wargaming and SF and Fantasy con goers that spread the game in the very early days are very white.

I certainly think it does help for people to see art of people that looks like them and I think that one human race and no attempts to “expand design space” by giving people different stat adjustments due to ethnicity helps.

That does not immediately matter to me as I have more people wanting to play in games I DM than I have time to DM, but I warms my heart to see more people enjoy a hobby I have been at for close to 40 years.

I am mature enough to know that companies and small publishing houses making money means more new stories and ideas. If people from different backgrounds bring their stories in too, then more and different material for me to run.