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

[Micah Sweet]

Notice "Strength" and "Dexterity" are now cultural (like Ability Score Improvements while leveling) − no longer biological.

Precisely to avoid reallife historical racism.

Color-coding gaming options is unethical when it perpetuates reallife racism.

I think the main reason ASIs were de-coupled from race was to allow people to have the stats they want with any race. Avoiding racism at the time was at most a secondary concern.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think it is healthy for the hobby, or beneficial to peoples creativity, to be this afraid of setting flavors. Again our bar is probably different, I tend to take an approach of we should trust the audience to read things charitably enough and have enough of a nuanced material that they aren't taking offense at something that merely has the optics of potentially being offensive, versus something that is genuinely offensive. That bar is going to be subjective of course, but I would say it needs to be set at a reasonable place, so designers, writers, etc can still be creative and it doesn't feel like they have trope police looking over their shoulder all the time (I think that is a pretty impossible situation to be truly creative).

Also I don't think shifting those choices away from the core book, if they are still objectionable to people, really does much. If people are going to object to something, they will object to it. In your spelljammer example, which I haven't really followed closely so I am not especially suited for weighing in on the specifics, seems to have gained tremendous traction on forums and on twitter, yet it has nothing to do with he core book.

Yeah, this approach seems unnecessarily fear-based, where the absolute highest priority is avoiding the slightest hint of potential offense. Not the way I want to play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure but you can just include a nice selection of classic and new races, with the statement that particular options may not be available depending on the setting being used.

Which is, of course, what the 2014 PH already says.

 

[codo]

I don't think it is healthy for the hobby, or beneficial to peoples creativity, to be this afraid of setting flavors. Again our bar is probably different, I tend to take an approach of we should trust the audience to read things charitably enough and have enough of a nuanced material that they aren't taking offense at something that merely has the optics of potentially being offensive, versus something that is genuinely offensive. That bar is going to be subjective of course, but I would say it needs to be set at a reasonable place, so designers, writers, etc can still be creative and it doesn't feel like they have trope police looking over their shoulder all the time (I think that is a pretty impossible situation to be truly creative).

Also I don't think shifting those choices away from the core book, if they are still objectionable to people, really does much. If people are going to object to something, they will object to it. In your spelljammer example, which I haven't really followed closely so I am not especially suited for weighing in on the specifics, seems to have gained tremendous traction on forums and on twitter, yet it has nothing to do with he core book.

I am sorry but people should not have to give a Game the benefit of the doubt, about whether it is being racist or not. It's a game people are playing for fun. They last thing you want when introducing new players to the game, is for them to see langue that could be racist dog whistles and have to explain to them that, yes, it might look a bit racist, but trust me, it isn't.

People are dealing with enough crap in their real lives right now. You can't expect new players to take the time, effort and research necessary to decide is something that looks like a racist dog whistle, is actually intended to be racist or not. If at first glance something looks like it might raise a read flag, you can't blame an audience for not looking into it further and just dropping a product completely. No one owes you an audience or the benefit of the doubt. First impressions matter. There are lots of different entertainment options out there right now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am sorry but people should not have to give a Game the benefit of the doubt, about whether it is being racist or not. It's a game people are playing for fun. They last thing you want when introducing new players to the game, is for them to see langue that could be racist dog whistles and have to explain to them that, yes, it might look a bit racist, but trust me, it isn't.

People are dealing with enough crap in their real lives right now. You can't expect new players to take the time, effort and research necessary to decide is something that looks like a racist dog whistle, is actually intended to be racist or not. If at first glance something looks like it might raise a read flag, you can't blame an audience for not looking into it further and just dropping a product completely. No one owes you an audience or the benefit of the doubt. First impressions matter. There are lots of different entertainment options out there right now.

Do you believe that avoiding any possibility of potential offense should be WotC's highest priority then?

And in any case, I will again cite 5e's current unprecedented popularity. Are people reading 5e and abandoning it in significant numbers? I don't think so.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am sorry but people should not have to give a Game the benefit of the doubt, about whether it is being racist or not. It's a game people are playing for fun. They last thing you want when introducing new players to the game, is for them to see langue that could be racist dog whistles and have to explain to them that, yes, it might look a bit racist, but trust me, it isn't.

The problem is you start closing off any interesting or flavorful language when you perceive a dog whistle in everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and I think that is how most people engage media. I mean, obviously if someone is writing something that is blatantly offensive, that is one thing. But I do think we lose out on interesting material, even in RPGs, when we are overly vigilant for hidden meanings. I just don't agree with the idea that if something could possibly mean bad thing X, we should leap to the conclusion that that is what it means in every instant. You have to apply some amount of discernment, putting the work in its context and what the writer appears to be attempting to convey. Otherwise you aren't really communicating with the text in my opinion.

People are dealing with enough crap in their real lives right now. You can't expect new players to take the time, effort and research necessary to decide is something that looks like a racist dog whistle, is actually intended to be racist or not.

I'm not talking about taking time to research. I am talking about reading something with an open mind, with a certain amount of charitableness, and prepared to deal in nuance rather than black and white absolutes. It is about not looking at something at first glance and reaching the worst possible conclusion about it. I think communication is a two way street. On the one hand the author needs to work to convey what they mean, but the reader also needs to be prepared to discern intent.

If at first glance something looks like it might raise a read flag, you can't blame an audience for not looking into it further and just dropping a product completely. No one owes you an audience or the benefit of the doubt. First impressions matter. There are lots of different entertainment options out there right now.

Ultimately this is up to the audience. I think if we are at a point where one can't even include flavor in the PHB because it is too dangerous (which is the point I was responding to), that isn't healthy for any of us. It certainly isn't going to produce the kinds of games I would like to see.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am sorry but people should not have to give a Game the benefit of the doubt, about whether it is being racist or not. It's a game people are playing for fun. They last thing you want when introducing new players to the game, is for them to see langue that could be racist dog whistles and have to explain to them that, yes, it might look a bit racist, but trust me, it isn't.

And that's why I didn't vote for Ancestry or Heritage, and especially not Kin.

 

[codo]

Do you believe that avoiding any possibility of potential offense should be WotC's highest priority then?

And in any case, I will again cite 5e's current unprecedented popularity. Are people reading 5e and abandoning it in significant numbers? I don't think so.

You keep trying to make everything an absolute. Everything must be exactly this or that, no in-between. Real life is complicated. I think it is important that WotC makes a good faith effort to avoid being racist, and that they should listen to their audience when they say they find thing offensive.

The problem is you start closing off any interesting or flavorful language when you perceive a dog whistle in everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and I think that is how most people engage media. I mean, obviously if someone is writing something that is blatantly offensive, that is one thing. But I do think we lose out on interesting material, even in RPGs, when we are overly vigilant for hidden meanings. I just don't agree with the idea that if something could possibly mean bad thing X, we should leap to the conclusion that that is what it means in every instant. You have to apply some amount of discernment, putting the work in its context and what the writer appears to be attempting to convey. Otherwise you aren't really communicating with the text in my opinion.

Again, no one owes you an audience. If you want to include things in your work that could be interpreted as racist dog whistles, go right ahead, no one will stop you, and it doesn't mean you are a racist. You can't be upset though, when people don't bother looking into it further, and just decide not to play you game.

Imagine a group of friends that are interested in starting to play tabletop RPGS. They are looking at 2 games. One uses the term "race" to refer to different types of people. It also has the big strong "noble savage" "race" that gets a bonus to strength and a penalty to intelligence. The other game goes out of its way to show that it isn't racist and won't use any racist troupes. You can't blame the group for being concerned that the first game might be racist, and rather spending their valuable playtime determining if it is or not, they just decide to play the second one instead.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You keep trying to make everything an absolute. Everything must be exactly this or that, no in-between. Real life is complicated. I think it is important that WotC makes a good faith effort to avoid being racist, and that they should listen to their audience when they say they find thing offensive.



Again, no one owes you an audience. If you want to include things in your work that could be interpreted as racist dog whistles, go right ahead, no one will stop you, and it doesn't mean you are a racist. You can't be upset though, when people don't bother looking into it further, and just decide not to play you game.

Imagine a group of friends that are interested in starting to play tabletop RPGS. They are looking at 2 games. One uses the term "race" to refer to different types of people. It also has the big strong "noble savage" "race" that gets a bonus to strength and a penalty to intelligence. The other game goes out of its way to show that it isn't racist and won't use any racist troupes. You can't blame the group for being concerned that the first game might be racist, and rather spending their valuable playtime determining if it is or not, they just decide to play the second one instead.

How big a deal is this second game making of their stance? I ask because if I see a product that is explicitly plastering how not racist they are all over it, I might begin to suspect that they prioritize that over making a good game.

I would rather choose the games I play based on their merits as fun games, and secondly over how importantly they value being inoffensive. Still important, but merit comes first for me.

 

[Scott Christian]

I was only responding to the quotes you provided which I've copied below, and I think we're in agreement that there's a mixture of biological and cultural attributes in D&D races and it's often not clear which is which. I didn't say that implications couldn't be made about whether a given trait is biological or not, only that it isn't outright stated to be so except in that one case. Something can be natural, inherent, or even inborn for your character without having to do with your biology, especially in a world of magic. Traits derived from your ancestors may have been passed down culturally, etc.

"As a forest gnome, you have a natural knack for illusion and inherent quickness and stealth."
"As a rock gnome, you have a natural inventiveness and hardiness..."
"Your half-orc character has certain traits deriving from your orc ancestry."
"As a stout halfling, you're hardier than average and have some resistance to poison. Some say that stouts have dwarven blood."
"Your elf character has a variety of natural abilities, the results of thousands of years of elven refinement."
"Your dwarf character has an assortment of inborn abilities, the part and parcel of dwarven nature."

Yeah, we both definitely agree it is a mixture of the two, and it doesn't help authors do not clarify. (As a side note, maybe it's better they don't?)

I think where we differ is the meaning of those words. Natural is written three times in three differnt races. Here is the very first definition of natural in Google:
1. existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.
Here is inherent's first definition:
1. existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.
Its major synonyms are inborn, intrinsic, and innate.
Here is the first definition of inborn:
1. existing from birth.

I think the evidence here weighs too much for this to be a passed down cultural influence. But I am happy to agree to disagree too. Thanks for the discussion, it is appreciated.