D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?

[Crimson Longinus]

And we've looped back round to: Are the DnD schmorps all just different ethnicities of human? Or are they completely different species?

And no one can agree on the answer.

Ultimately if you see them as just ethnicities, then you must remove all mechanical differences. Saying that different human ethnicities have essential differences is highly problematic. Though to me even the question is absurd. It seems pretty clear to me that a turtle person or a bird person are not just a different human ethnicity!

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Indeed but there is a continuum. Some people will be offended that a 8 ft half-orc had a STR bonus the 2 ft halfling lacked (and don't view the differences between orcs and humans and elfs wider than Italians and Chinese), some people are now offended that there is no mechanical difference between them with regard to strength. And there are nuances all the way for each mechanical distinction.

There is a strong possibility that D&D can't please everyone and is bound to offend.

Maybe they should leave handling of schlorps to setting books. But it would make character creation rules very difficult to follow.

my opinion is that each species is genetically distinct from each other and should have some sort of trait that grants a mechanical advantage corresponding to thier strengths in the fluff, they don't need fixed ASI but they should at least have the 'default ASI' listed as reference for those who want to know.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Ultimately if you see them as just ethnicities, then you must remove all mechanical differences. Saying that different human ethnicities have essential differences is highly problematic. Though to me even the question is absurd. It seems pretty clear to me that a turtle person or a bird person are not just a different human ethnicity!

Yep I totally agree with you. Each schmorp is a completely different species of organism (some being completely artificial beings). They're not all just human ethnicities.

A triton should be better in the water than an aarakocra, just like how a fish is better in the water than a bird.

(incoming person explaining how aarakocra are penguins in their setting, and therefore the traits should not be assigned to species).

 

[Vaalingrade]

I... I didn't know I needed penguinkkocras, but here we are.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Did anybody say Baatezu or Tanar'ri yet?

 

[Yaarel]

As for other terms, unfortunately we don't have a more generalized term in the English language that means the same thing as what 'race' is used for in D&D.

The problem with the word "race" is what this word means, and how it gets used.

1DD needs a term that means something different.

Note: I like Level Up's separation of race and culture into Heritage and Culture.

Yeah. As far as I can tell, the best solution for the gaming jargon is to separate the inborn traits from the cultural ways of doing things.

Of course, when describing the other cultures (and also when describing the inborn traits), it helps to try understand it and to characterize it from an insiders point of view, rather than whatever stereotypes from an outsiders point of view.

'Human' would probably be the best term if it didn't conflate with the specific species that it also refers to. Perhaps 'mortal'? Or 'mortal race', which may help distance it from real-world use of 'race'.

5e has the term Humanoid.

The helpful definition for this term is to describe characters that are comparable to the human species (Homo sapiens) in both mind (freewill, learning and cultures) and body (two hands, two legs, or close enough).

So even tho Warforged is strictly unrelated to the human species − indeed the warforged species descends from a different kingdom of life unrelated to cellular organisms! − it still is comparable to a human.

but D&D seems to be(?) keeping those components together,

It seems to me, 5e and 1DD can cleanly distinguish between:

• Species (Human, Elf, Warforged, etcetera)
• Culture (Background and Class)

Like a "deck" comprising an assemblage of "cards", a Culture comprises an assemblage of Backgrounds.

Different D&D cultures "typically" offer different Backgrounds.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding the size and strength of a species, I feel it should be the other way around.

Strength and Constitution should be the PREREQUISITE to determine Size.

For example, if a character has a +3 in both Strength and Constitution, the player can choose for the character to be Large size.

Meanwhile, there are no longer any sized weapons. Instead, each increment higher than Medium gains an additional +1d6 damage to one melee attack each round, that relies on Strength.

For a PC species that tends toward Large, this extra damage can be automatic for every member of the species, and calculated for balance as part of the species Traits.

A player character of a largish species that has high Strength and Constitution thus actually is Large also gains an additional 5-foot Reach for melee attacks.

 

[Yaarel]

The interesting thing here is I feel very much the opposite, as I do share a lot of the real world concerns people have expressed. But I think when you start turning elves and dwarves into people, in the sense of a people, like Italians, Germans, etc. That is when you start running into problems because the races in D&D are clearly not meant to be anything like the differences between people. In real life, as you say we are one race, we are one species. The difference between someone who is Italian and someone who is Chinese is cultural. And physical differences are superficial. But the physical differences between a dwarf and human are enormous, the difference between an elf and halfling equally so. I think using people to refer to beings in a setting that are visibly a different species from humans, actually opens the door more into that old racialist science and that old way of talking about peoples (which led to the kind of thinking that underpinned Nazi Germany). I am not saying that it would lead there, or that people advocating for peoples are consciously invoking that. But I don't have much issue with race or species in D&D, because I can make the distinction in my mind between a human and an elf, and they don't really compare to the difference between two different human groups in the real world (elves are visibly something way beyond normal human). But when I hear people talk about the elven people, that actually starts to make me much more uncomfortable (and not because it is humanizing elves but because they represent the kind of difference among people that racists used to believe in when they talked about difference races or different peoples in the world).

My impression is, when Tolkien describes the difference between Elf, Dwarf, and Hobbit, he means EXACTLY the difference between Italian, German, etcetera. Tolkien describes the difference between one Human ethnicity and an other Human ethnicity in the same way as Elf, Dwarf, etcetera. When Tolkien says "race", he means this word in its pseudoscience racist sense that confuses genetics with culture.

But D&D players − at the least the players who I know − mean "species" when describing Elf, Dwarf, and Dragonborn.

When I look back at Gygax and 1e, maybe he gets muddled like Tolkien did. But even if so, D&D normally keeps clear that the Human race is the entire human race comprising every human ethnicity. This sets the precedent that Elf, Dwarf, etcetera are Nonhuman and different species.

 

[Cadence]

My impression is, when Tolkien describes the difference between Elf, Dwarf, and Hobbit, he means EXACTLY the difference between Italian, German, etcetera. Tolkien describes the difference between one Human ethnicity and an other Human ethnicity in the same way as Elf, Dwarf, etcetera. When Tolkien says "race", he means this word in its pseudoscience racist sense that confuses genetics with culture.

Have you read the Silmarillion? I struggle to think of how anyone could think the difference between elves and men in Tolkien is akin to nationalities. The near infinite difference in lifespan, the differences in death...