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.

 

[Riley37]

I believe the current favorites are "Origin" or "Descent". Personally I like Heritage, but, hey, I'm pretty easy.

You're pretty easy? Is that why I meet so many young people with Hussar heritage?

I favor Origin, as the broadest term. Istari, such as Galdalf, don't have descent; each one is directly created. Same for Warforged. (Same for Elves, in one campaign I've played... well, actually, the world's first tree was directly created, and each elf grew out of a flower on that tree.)

 

[Remathilis]

One concern: as it seems PF2 will allow one descent (e.g. Human) to poach abilities previously exclusive to another descent (e.g. Dwarven stonecunning), isn't that just going to open up a whole new set of tools for the munchkinizers and optimizers to break the game with?

Welcome to Pathfinder, where munchinizing is a sub-game all in itself.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, the weirdest part of the whole discussion, to me, is that Paizo is getting rid of the word race so that they can engage in weird race shennanigans.

Well, kinda.

See, the argument that heritage or ancestry is opening things up to ethnic based mechanics isn't quite true. Race has already been used to do that in D&D. I have the Scarred Lands campaign books which list different bonuses and whatnot for different ethnicities of humans. Now, granted, that's a 3rd party book, but, I'm pretty sure if I started digging into my TSR and WOTC books I'd find the same thing. Races of Faerun, for example, gives various human ethnicities access to racial feats which are, more or less, culturally based but all under the rubric of "race".

So, it's not like using the term Race suddenly makes takes this sort of thing off the table.

IOW, the issue isn't terminology, in this case. It's a lack of awareness on the part of the writers. But, leaving the term race unchanged isn't going to change that problem.

 

[Riley37]

There is no problem with race in D&D. There hasn't been for 40 years, and there won't be for the next 40.

(From the 1978 AD&D PHB) "Orcs are fecund and create many cross-breeds, most of the offspring of such being typically orcish. However, some one-tenth of orc-human mongrels ore sufficiently non-orcish to pass for human... player characters which are of half-orc race are within the superior 10%...

According to Gygax in 1978, the "mongrels" who can "pass" are the "superior 10%".

Maxperson, *you* don't have a problem with that.
You and I have different opinions about counts as a problem with race.
Are you within the superior 10% who can pass? What about the rest of us, though?

 

[Maxperson]

According to Gygax in 1978, the "mongrels" who can "pass" are the "superior 10%".

Maxperson, *you* don't have a problem with that.
You and I have different opinions about counts as a problem with race.
Are you among the superior 10% who can pass? What about the rest of us, though?

You're claiming to be a half-orc now?

 

[Aldarc]

According to Gygax in 1978, the "mongrels" who can "pass" are the "superior 10%".

Maxperson, *you* don't have a problem with that.
You and I have different opinions about counts as a problem with race.
Are you within the superior 10% who can pass? What about the rest of us, though?

To be fair, he is a Max Person.

 

[Riley37]

No, I'm referring to the real-world dynamic which makes this passage in the PHB a problem for me.

Can you pass for white?

A personal question, of course; you need not answer, nothing to be ashamed of.

But for some people, it's how their grandparents survived the Holocaust.

 

[Maxperson]

According to Gygax in 1978, the "mongrels" who can "pass" are the "superior 10%".

Maxperson, *you* don't have a problem with that.
You and I have different opinions about counts as a problem with race.
Are you within the superior 10% who can pass? What about the rest of us, though?

On a more constructive note. 1e talks about some half-orcs being superior to other half-orcs. That's entirely contained within a single race, which means that it cannot be racism. Racism requires that one race believe that it is superior to another race which is believed to be inferior. 1e doesn't meet the definition.

In any case, it's irrelevant as 1e hasn't been widely played since.......1e. 2e didn't have half-orcs as a playable race, abd 3e, 4e and 5e had no such superiority statement within the half-orc race. The one 10 word blurb about racial superiority in D&D was removed in 1989. It's been very close to three DECADES without it being a problem(if it was really a problem waaaaay back then).

 

[Maxperson]

No, I'm referring to the real-world dynamic which makes this passage in the PHB a problem for me.

Can you pass for white?

A personal question, of course; you need not answer, nothing to be ashamed of.

But for some people, it's how their grandparents survived the Holocaust.

That doesn't have anything to do with D&D or that one 10 word blurb in 1e, though.

For the records, yes I can pass for white, being of Eastern European Jewish heritage. My great grandparents fled the U.S.S.R. after the revolution. That's one reason why I find all the people screaming about Trump being Hitler and a Nazi to be so offensive. Of course, those are real world issues and not a game. Were I playing a game set in the 30's and 40's and Nazis, along with the holocaust were a part of it, I wouldn't be offended at all. Pretend is pretend is pretend. D&D doesn't even pretend it's racist, though.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I don’t spend time thinking about racial theories and nature vs. nurture to the point that the correct use of the word race in an RPG (in a chapter that says species and peoples have the same meaning) will cause me to lose sleep.

I am surprised that the name of the book, Monster Manual, with the most races in it has not been subject to mention because it calls them all “monsters”.

I don’t think that Paizo’s decision to use anscestry is opening up design space that is not already open in 5e D&D and I found the blog explaining it clumsily written and excusing classifying different humans with different bonuses because of their culture.

Finally, it keeps being tossed into threads like this some idea that left-leaning movies or games or comics or other popular media does poorly because of being too left.

There are more than one reason for most things changing. I look at Marvel and comic shops selling less issues because a certain claimed narrative is pushed too much.

That ignores the fact that Marvel has always pushed those boundaries and not every Marvel series has been a success. That ignores comixology. That ignores that Marvel tried several writers without experience in the medium and that caused issues even though it did bring in new writers. Marvel has always tried to tell a story over anything else and has always been somewhat subversive (race and prejudice via X-men. Luke Cage having a white girl friend and then wife when that was not seen on TV or really discussed or allowed in mass media back then, etc.)

Even in the fondly remembered past, they went under and struggled to maintain a profitable business.