D&D 5E The word ‘Race’

[Hussar]

Pressed for time, so this will ramble a bit:

/snip

I am firmly of the opinion that "race" itself is a non-discriminatory term. I mean we openly talk about "race-relations" in politics. Health issues can be racial in nature. There are many other examples. I think people looking for things to be offended by will always find something. As has been pointed out on this thread, no matter what word you use in place of race would be vulnerable to the same connotations. The problem isn't with the word, but rather the attitude of those reading it. Some people won't be happy until you remove all distinctions whatsoever and everyone gets to play a completely non-descript character completely undifferentiated from everyone else in the game world. Not wanting that is not racism, it's variety. Some people don't understand the difference.

This is a slippery slope argument that really doesn't work.

So what if it has traditionally been mostly white male? The so called "barriers" to other groups are illusory and always have been. My current group is over 50% female. Even in the 80's my groups typically had a few girls. Were they freaks that were not bothered by all the "exclusionary" stuff in D&D, or is it perhaps that the exclusionary nature of D&D is a bunch of BS that never really existed, except in some peoples' minds. Sure there were people who behaved in an exclusionary way. There still are. They will always be there. The solution is "don't play with s", not "make the wording of the rules less exclusionary", because they never were.

You sure about that? We've had at least one poster talk about chain mail bikinis and depictions of slavery. The 1e rules actually differentiated between male and female character strengths. Up until about 4e and Pathfinder and now 5e, pretty much every "demi-human" depiction has been caucasian. And, if various PHB races are actually shown having colour, then, every depiction of them is that colour. No differentiation.

Not exclusionary? Are you kidding me? In the 90's, JK Rowling was actually TOLD by her publisher to use JK and not her real name because the public wouldn't buy as many fantasy books from a female author as a male author.

Look at the recent pictures from Gen Con and the gaming rooms. I've seen Klan meetings with more diversity.

Oh, and last I checked, women aren't considered an ethnicity or race. Just because your group has girls in it doesn't really change anything.

I'm not saying that this specific case has a lot of merit. To be honest, I don't really see the issue with using the term "race" to mean "species". It's pretty obvious what it means and isn't meant in any way to connect to real world issues. But, hey, if people do make that connection, that doesn't mean that I'm right and they're wrong. it means that I should change my words so that I'm not a douchebag.

 

[Hriston]

Every one of the OP's issues with the word race would apply to the word people as well. *shrugs* Its all basically a question of Political Correctness. Which I find to be odd, considering that PC terms are half the time more offensive than the term they replace.

*shrug*
I'm not concerned with the political correctness of this issue. I know what 'race' means, and its use in the game doesn't bother me at all. I believe there is one race, one people, and everything that goes along with it.

My suggestion of the word 'people' as a substitute was for the OP who does seem to have a problem with it. You might be right in that the OP could just as easily have a problem with using 'people'.

I think the real issue here is that we use 'race' in the real world to refer to the one undivided human race, but we use it in fantasy to ask, "What if there was more than one race of people?" The dissonance in usage, however, doesn't bother me in the slightest. 'Race' obviously has a long history of such usage, but I think its better to acknowledge the history for what it is than to avoid bringing it up, if that's what's making the OP uncomfortable.

The original point of Politically Correct terms was to avoid giving offense. However, more than half the time, the PC term was jsut as bad, if not worse, than the original. No one I know of is really offended by the term used in terms of fantasy racism, and its not attempting to insult anyone. Its more that some people are apparently unhappy with the connotations of race in D&D terms and in real life.* That said, however, "people" is often already charged with the same meaning and connotations as racism in reality. "We don't want your kind of people here!" "Ever since the bus route changed, there's more black people down at the store, and I'm scared to go there now!" Race and people are too intertwined to work.

Just wanted to point out here that those aren't usages of 'people' as a singular, and so are not adequate substitutes for 'race'.

* I think that, since different fantasy races are used as a stand in for different racial groups in real life / real world history, its actually more offensive to remove the term, as if its okay to think of the other races as less-than-human, and thus okay to slaughter. Part of the whole thing with fantasy is that most everything is a metaphor for something in reality, and we're talking about the human condition in some way. So, trying to distance yourself from that metaphor is a way to distance yourself from the actual bad things you do as a character in the game.

On the one hand, that's fine for those who are actually just there to play a mindless game to relieve stress as long as you don't associate. On the other, for something that's modeling the real world, it can have negative messages and unfortunate implications associated with it, as well as push away potential new gamers of various backgrounds. Toxic white-masculinity is harmful to the hobby in this age, especially for the younger kids who seem to be showing interest in the games.

I don't like these sorts of characterizations of non-humans. I don't use non-human types as stand-ins for any real-world ethnic groups. If you meet a bugbear in one of my games, he's much more likely to resemble, in terms of speech and behaviour, a member of the dominant human society to which he lives in proximity, albeit a rather boorish and aggressive one, than he is a member of a foreign human culture. This sort of thing smacks horribly of the Jar Jar Binks and Trade Federation stereotypes that marred the Star Wars prequels. It's just a lazy way to characterize non-humans that's both offensive and, ironically, dehumanizing of both the character and the real-world culture that is thus being exploited.

 

[MG.0]

This is a slippery slope argument that really doesn't work.

Not buying it. Some people are not happy until everyone bends to their coercion. They will use anything convenient: religion, racism, sexism, anything, to drive their viewpoint forward, to everyone's detriment.

You sure about that? We've had at least one poster talk about chain mail bikinis and depictions of slavery.

So what? I won't defend chainmail bikinis. Not because I have anything against them, but because they are pretty darn silly.

Slavery is a real thing. Depicting it in a fantasy world is not wrong. Trying to remove everything from a fantasy world that might bother people in the real world IS wrong. It's the same as whitewashing: "Ooh, if we never say the word slavery, then it never happened!" My game world has lots of things that are mean, dirty, and nasty that you wouldn't want to see happen in real life, like orcs getting disembowled, people thrown into slavery, and dragons roasting innnocent townspeople. If those things bother you, then fine, don't play in such games. But to suggest there is anything wrong with MY game for including them is several steps too far.

The 1e rules actually differentiated between male and female character strengths.

Yes they did. So what? I always thought it was a bit pointless, but there is real-world reasoning behind it. Namely that on average, male humans are stronger than females. This is fact, not some kind of exclusionary tactic.

Up until about 4e and Pathfinder and now 5e, pretty much every "demi-human" depiction has been caucasian. And, if various PHB races are actually shown having colour, then, every depiction of them is that colour. No differentiation.

You are reaching here. Most demi-human depictions (and there actually aren't very many) in the various PHB's are not what I would call 'caucasian'. Elves are pale and fair, yes. Drow are dark, yes. Dwarves, halflings, and gnomes all have dubious ethnicities. Dragonborn and tieflings are...dragonborn and tieflings.

Not exclusionary? Are you kidding me? In the 90's, JK Rowling was actually TOLD by her publisher to use JK and not her real name because the public wouldn't buy as many fantasy books from a female author as a male author. Look at the recent pictures from Gen Con and the gaming rooms. I've seen Klan meetings with more diversity. Oh, and last I checked, women aren't considered an ethnicity or race. Just because your group has girls in it doesn't really change anything.

From your point of view: Girls playing D&D doesn't make fantasy like D&D more inclusive, yet JK Rowling's publisher suggesting she not use her name is evidence of being exclusionary. Bull.

But, hey, if people do make that connection, that doesn't mean that I'm right and they're wrong. it means that I should change my words so that I'm not a douchebag.

It is not my job to censor my thought or words until no one can take offense. I take reasonable steps to not offend, like saying someone or some group is not as good or deserving as someone else. Beyond that, the problem lies not with me, but them.

 

[epithet]

...
I'm not saying that this specific case has a lot of merit. To be honest, I don't really see the issue with using the term "race" to mean "species". It's pretty obvious what it means and isn't meant in any way to connect to real world issues. But, hey, if people do make that connection, that doesn't mean that I'm right and they're wrong. it means that I should change my words so that I'm not a douchebag.

That, right there, is the big goddamn problem.

If you choose your words with the intention of offending someone, then yeah... you might be a douchebag. If you use words that are basic and carry no inherent bias or prejudice, and someone still gets upset about it, that's on them, man. No sin upon your head. We need to get over this idea that we're morally obligated to actively indulge and accommodate everyone's feelings about everything.

There is no negative connotation to the word "race" as used in D&D other than what someone projects onto it from elsewhere. That's no reason to go changing our terminology.

 

[nomotog]

I kind of feel odd thinking about D&D and the way it handles it's races and I think of think most other people have too because we keep changing how they work. It went from your race literally defining who you are to racial subversion being so common that we consider them the norm. It kind of reflects our changing thoughts on the topic. I kind of play with the concept here and there too. Like I make the mechanics of a race not match up with the perceptions the world has of the race. It gives off a different vibe and is something to play with.

The word it'self always felt odd too. Like shouldn't a elf and orc be different species? That doesn't fit though because you define species by who can breed with who and D&D everyone breeds with everyone. That is more of a dictionary thing though.

I have thought about getting rid of races or disconnecting the mechanics, but it feels so different. You change something like that and your basically playing a whole new game.

 

[epithet]

...
You sure about that? We've had at least one poster talk about chain mail bikinis and depictions of slavery. The 1e rules actually differentiated between male and female character strengths. Up until about 4e and Pathfinder and now 5e, pretty much every "demi-human" depiction has been caucasian. And, if various PHB races are actually shown having colour, then, every depiction of them is that colour. No differentiation.
...

The game is about heroes and villains. Villains do bad stuff--it's part of their thing. Are you suggesting that the rampaging orcs are fine as long as the stick to murder, but capturing the villagers as slaves so that the party can rescue them is somehow over the line?

And what's wrong with a chainmail bikini? I dated a girl in college that was really into belly dancing, and she had a costume that featured a chainmail bikini. It was a really cool 6-in-1 pattern, too--she had spent a lot of money to have it custom made. Point is, it was awesome.

The guy that introduced me to D&D back when we were both in grade school was hispanic, as were many-maybe most-of the kids I played D&D with. I've played D&D with people of numerous ethnicities over the years, none of whom ever expressed that they felt excluded in any way. It seems to me that those arguments come mainly from white people who are after impressing themselves with their own modern sensibilities.

 

[epithet]

...
I don't like these sorts of characterizations of non-humans. I don't use non-human types as stand-ins for any real-world ethnic groups. If you meet a bugbear in one of my games, he's much more likely to resemble, in terms of speech and behaviour, a member of the dominant human society to which he lives in proximity, albeit a rather boorish and aggressive one, than he is a member of a foreign human culture. This sort of thing smacks horribly of the Jar Jar Binks and Trade Federation stereotypes that marred the Star Wars prequels. It's just a lazy way to characterize non-humans that's both offensive and, ironically, dehumanizing of both the character and the real-world culture that is thus being exploited.

Yeah, well, my dwarves have Scottish accents and my lizardmen speak draconic with a Cajun accent. If I could do a French accent worth a damn, I'd probably have the elves speak that way.

People like my accents.

 

[Hussar]

The fact that someone seriously asks "what's wrong with chain mail bikinis" pretty much proves my point.

But let me ask this. If there is nothing in D&D that is exclusionary, and we've had forty ish years and millions of players, why are D&D players still overwhelmingly white males?

 

[Celtavian]

The fact that someone seriously asks "what's wrong with chain mail bikinis" pretty much proves my point.

But let me ask this. If there is nothing in D&D that is exclusionary, and we've had forty ish years and millions of players, why are D&D players still overwhelmingly white males?

There is plenty that is exclusionary. Gaming (video, TTRPG, or the like) is the equivalent of poker night or working on cars or any other traditionally male activity. For a long time it's been a chance for males to congregate without any of the concerns that occur when females enter the arena (flirting, having to change your language, feeling the need to impress the girl, etc.) It's one of those activities where you get together with a group of like-minded gamer nerds with no holds barred.

No one bothers males that like to get together to work on cars, drink and play poker, or play some sport together. Not sure why people are surprised that males like going into the cave when gaming with each other.

Not everyone does this. As noted on this thread, quite a few game with women. I gamed with a lot of people from different ethnic backgrounds. I usually let buddies from different ethnic backgrounds play a character that fits their sense of self be it skin color or location. I work it into the campaign. I don't know if guys like Gygax or Arneson were ever trying to exclude anyone. They were basing the game on Medieval Europe which was mostly European in ancestry. They often included other cultures in later materials. Forgotten Realms has always had a ton of powerful female archetypes to draw from as well as different ethnic types.

I don't think D&D in and of itself was exclusionary. For whatever reason nerdy white guys were the primary audience for many years and I imagine still are. I always chocked that up to gaming being one of the many outlet males choose for creative, competitive, and social interaction for people maybe not so inclined to poker nights, sports, or other traditionally male activities.

 

[Hussar]

I've been in enough casinos to know that lots of women play poker. And lots of women watch sports as well. And neither activity is particularly leaning in any direction when it comes to ethnicity.

Would you say that sports fans are predominantly white males?