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

[Yaarel]

D&D races have always been abstract packages of traits many of which are easily interpreted as cultural if not outright stated to be so, and the idea that race in D&D only represents biology is revisionist.

The above quote is the part that coheres with reallife racism. The "revisionism" is to intentionally prevent racism.

When biological traits and cultural traits are confused together, then the perception is that cultural traits are inherently biological. (Some forumers refer to this as making culture bioessential.) When this happens, value systems such as patriotism become actual racism. The perception is, the other cultures are less human, and to mix with them makes ones own biology less pure. All of this worldview is hatespeech translated into a pseudoscience.

Tolkien is riddled with this kind of racist way of thinking. As are some parts of D&D traditions. − Because of the failure to distinguish what is inherent with what is learned.

Modern genetics has shown that the what separates one humans appearance and an other humans appearance is genetically trivial. We all come from the same ancestors − recently. (Our ancestral Homo sapiens probably resemble Ethiopians today.)

The important distinctions are cultural − and there are many styles of being human.

We are both a community and a people. "A people" to quote Wikipedia "is any plurality of persons considered as a whole."

There seems to be confusion between different meanings of the English word "people".

1. "people" (plural) = persons, the nonstandard plural of "person": one person, two people.
2. "the people" (plural) = the citizens of a government.
3. "a people" (singular) = an autonomous ethnicity: one people, two peoples.

(Note, the citizens of the US are both plural "the people" in contrast to the government, and singular "a people" as a melting-pot ethnicity.)



The quote from Wikipedia is definition 1: "any plurality of persons considered as a whole". It even says, the plural of person.
Examples of taking a group of persons "as a whole":

The joke: "There are two kinds of people. Those who divide the world into two kinds of people. And those who dont."
= two kinds of "persons"
≠ two kinds of "peoples"

"I'll have my people call your people."
= my persons and your persons
≠ my ethnicity and your ethnicity

D&D people versus Pathfinder people.
= persons who prefer D&D versus persons who prefer Pathfinder
≠ an ethnicity of D&D versus an ethnicity of Pathfinder

For the English word "people": definition 1 ("persons") is common and normal. But definition 3 ("an ethnicity") is rare, and seems to be causing confusion.



Even definition 2 ("the citizens" versus the government) is uncommon − and often misleading since it is unlikely every citizen participates in the generalization. For example, to say, During the French Revolution the people overthrew the aristocracy, wrongly implies that every French nonaristocrat stopped supporting the aristocracy.



All in all, the term "a people" seems to confuse, and worse, seems able to cohere with a racist worldview.

 

[Hriston]

Its certainly not this difficult, take it easy.

Um, yeah, have a good one.

 

[Yaarel]

I would say not so much revisionist as subject to refactoring. A certain tool (race) has been accumulating stuff for a long time, and is currently a bucket of traits that are a mix of inherent/biological and social/cultural. There are a lot of reasons to want to make use of those trait categories separately, so you want to refactor the system to isolate the concepts and provide a proper separation of concerns. It's just an easier system to use and expand on, as seen in Level Up's Heritage and Culture building blocks.

Also, the new editions of D&D have new mechanics that didnt exist the in earlier editions.

For example, features that used to get lumped into race as if biological, now clearly belong in cultural Background and its Skills. A reorganization is helpful.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think the whole monoculture thing is just a simplification. And that varies a lot by setting. A lot of settings will have multiple elven cultures for example. With dwarves and elves, it can sometimes be easier to talk of them broadly. But I also think creatures that different from humans would probably have different cultural tendencies. Not every dwarven culture would be the same, but being able to see in the dark, would probably lead to big differences (like having an easier time building underground cities). I also think culture can be linked to a species biology. The problem is when people try to link different human cultures to different ethnicities or races as a matter of some kind of inherent quality. That isn't the case because humans are basically the same physically. But humans have cultural tendencies as a species. And we are different from other species. I imagine other species of hominids that are distant enough from us would also have cultural tendencies. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. The logical leap of humans have cultural tendencies as a species, so fictional species like dwarves and elves might also have cultural tendencies is fairly reasonable I think. Obviously some abilities would be more rooted in culture, some more in biology (infra vision for example). Some are on the line (a dwarves affinity for stone work could be explained as cultural, but in another setting it might be an innate affinity due to their origins: if they were created by a stone god for example).

On separating abilities that come from culture and race/species, I think there are so many games that do that well, because they aren't built around the level of abstractions of class, race and levels as D&D is. I actually tend to prefer games like that. But I've also found the more D&D messes with character creation in this respect, and the more it tries to achieve that kind of simulation of reality, the less it seems to work as a game (I just don't think it is built for that kind of complexity). A big strength of D&D in may view is a very simple character creation process of rolling attributes, picking your race, your class, etc. The more D&D has added other things to that process, the more it tries to do what other games do, I think the less interest I have in it (simply because I can find a game that emulates cultural effects ten times better than D&D since those games are built around doing that from the ground up).

 

[Yaarel]

Humans are basically the same physically. But humans have cultural tendencies as a species. And we are different from other species.

The most significant genetic feature of the human species is the brain evolving the capacity of speech and the ability to learn and teach new things.

This human reliance on speech, whence clothing and jewelry and their symbolic uniforms to artificially create new self-identities, is so radical, many humans cease to even self-identify with other species of animals. Even bonobo and chimpanzee who are genetically similar to us can seem unrelated.

Speech is also why culture matters more than instinct. Different human groups learn and teach different ways of adapting, surviving, and flourishing. These artificial differences are of more consequence than any trivial genetic difference. Humans evolve by means of evolving cultures far more rapidly and dramatically than by means of mutating genetics.

The logical leap of humans have cultural tendencies as a species, so fictional species like dwarves and elves might also have cultural tendencies is fairly reasonable I think.

The problem is. Elves and Dwarves understood as separate species are still TOO HUMAN.

Consider how many D&D gamers characterize Dwarves as if vikings with Scottish accents. Reallife ethnicities.

And to declare reallife ethnicities as if inborn traits of a separate species, is actual racism. (Also, to culturally appropriate an others ethnicity, such as misrepresenting vikings, is problematic.)



And even if the D&D game was no longer about Humans, but rather about Cats and Dogs and other animals: gamers seem likely to declare Nigerians are Cats and Russians are Dogs, or whatever, and the worst kinds of racism become endemic to the game.



I can see no other solution for the future of the D&D traditions.

1. There must be a clean separation between biology and culture: biological Species versus cultural Background.

2. The biological traits must be strictly nonhuman, such as wings and firebreathing.

3. The cultural traits are strictly human. Any reallife human can participate and self-identify with the fantasy culture.

Any biological Trait that is plausibly human, such as being slightly higher Intelligence or slightly higher Strength is historical racism and eugenics. D&D must end this kind of racist thinking, as soon as possible.



The Dwarf can have inborn Traits but only ones that are clearly nonhuman. No reallife human has Darkvision. So Dwarves adapting underground can have Darkvision. But things like being miners is cultural. The setting will have have innate Humans who happen to be members of the dwarven-founded ethnicities. They too will be miners like other members of their respective community. Perhaps these Human-born miners will routinely wear a magic ring of Darkvision, or learn the Darkvision cantrip, in order to work in their mines. It is similar to how some Humans where contact lenses in order to drive cars, in order to participate in a culture that builds cars and travels distances to work.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The problem is. Elves and Dwarves understood as separate species are still TOO HUMAN.

Consider how many D&D gamers characterize Dwarves as if vikings with Scottish accents. Reallife ethnicities.

I will respond to your other points when I have more time but on this one I think we just have a fundamentally different point of view. I tend to regard the Scottish accents, the Viking workstation as pretty accidental qualities: flavors layered onto them so there is something to grab onto (creating a culture whole cloth is hard so we work by analogy). But the deeper things like dwarves tendency to live underground, like elves longevity impacting how they govern, those things I think make sense in terms of connecting their physical characteristics to their culture.

I don’t agree they are too human. I’ve never confused Vikings for dwarves or vice versa. Not have I confused dwarves for Scottish people.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The Dwarf can have inborn Traits but only ones that are clearly nonhuman. No reallife human has Darkvision. So Dwarves adapting underground can have Darkvision. But things like being miners is cultural. The setting will have have innate Humans who happen to be members of the dwarven-founded ethnicities. They too will be miners like other members of their respective community. Perhaps these Human-born miners will routinely wear a magic ring of Darkvision, or learn the Darkvision cantrip, in order to work in their mines. It is similar to how some Humans where contact lenses in order to drive cars, in order to participate in a culture that builds cars and travels distances to work.

Dwarves being miners is both cultural and related to their dark vision. Dark vision lends itself to living underground, living underground lends itself to mining. Now dwarves can have culture that goes against this, humans have created societies and experimented with things that go against our natural social tendencies. Dwarves can live above ground if they want and they don’t have to be miners.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The setting will have have innate Humans who happen to be members of the dwarven-founded ethnicities. They too will be miners like other members of their respective community. Perhaps these Human-born miners will routinely wear a magic ring of Darkvision, or learn the Darkvision cantrip, in order to work in their mines. It is similar to how some Humans where contact lenses in order to drive cars, in order to participate in a culture that builds cars and travels distances to work.

Sure but as you pony out they would require magic to be as adept as dwarves mining. And living underground would be much harder for a human

 

[Yaarel]

Dwarves being miners is both cultural and related to their dark vision. Dark vision lends itself to living underground, living underground lends itself to mining. Now dwarves can have culture that goes against this, humans have created societies and experimented with things that go against our natural social tendencies. Dwarves can live above ground if they want and they don’t have to be miners.

Dwarves will comprise various cultures. Some of these cultures might prominently feature mining, even value and celebrate mines, perhaps even transmit religious traditions using mines as analogies to attempt descriptions of abstract spiritual concepts.

Dwarves can have a Background relating to a particular culture who "prominently" (either frequently or prestigiously) employs a specific method of mining.

The D&D gaming rules MUST avoid confusing this cultural Background trait with a biologically inborn Species trait that is true for EVERY Dwarf.

 

[Hriston]

I would say not so much revisionist as subject to refactoring. A certain tool (race) has been accumulating stuff for a long time, and is currently a bucket of traits that are a mix of inherent/biological and social/cultural. There are a lot of reasons to want to make use of those trait categories separately, so you want to refactor the system to isolate the concepts and provide a proper separation of concerns. It's just an easier system to use and expand on, as seen in Level Up's Heritage and Culture building blocks.

Since the social/cultural side of things is easily identified using the Culture category, that leaves the biological side of things to be identified as 'race'. Except race has issues both with real-life hangups, and the historical baggage of being the identifying term that encompassed both biological and cultural aspects of one's development.

So it's not unreasonable to want another term that you can use to help people grasp what you're defining, and keep it separate from the old term. But one of many problems is changing the term used (such as species), but not changing the trait categorization (that is, leaving in cultural elements). Changing race to another word, but having it mean the same thing, would be revisionism. Changing it to mean only one aspect of the previous trait grouping would be refactoring, but with the possibility of some confusion over which version is meant at any given time if you don't change the term itself.

I was talking about the claim made by @MarkB that "Race as used in D&D is about biological identity" which I took to mean only about biological identity. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that, @MarkB.) That claim is revisionist (as in revsisionist history) because the use of race as a game element in D&D has included things other than biology in every edition of the game of which I can think. Another way of saying this is that it's a false claim.