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

[Bedrockgames]

... But the more these "hominids" resemble the species sapiens, the more Tolkien relies on the pseudoscience of his era to characterize these "hominids" as if human "races".

Again I don't want to get into Tolkien. But to clarify this point, no, that isn't what I meant by Hominid. My point was another hominid species akin to neanderthals or one of the various intelligent hominids who existed around the time of homosapiens. I think that is categorically different from something like the ideas surrounding race (which has posited human subspecies, this isn't meant as a category similar to that level of narrow distinction)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Nordic traditions color my view here.

In the Norse animistic traditions, mountains, lakes, rivers, sky, sun, sunlight, and daylight, are all conscious living persons.

Elves are the army of sunlight. Literally.

So when this sunlight takes the form of a human of flesh-and-blood, the sunlight is using the same magic that human shamans use to take the form of a wolf or falcon.

While in human form, the sunlight actually is a human, and can reproduce offspring genetically with a human, albeit typically exhibits some telltale evidence of the true form being the sunlight.

Likewise, when a human takes the form of an other animal, the animal typically evidences the true human form, such as human eyes in an otherwise normal animal.

Fair enough, but you are drawing on beliefs that aren't informing my understanding and I think a lot of peoples understanding of this issue.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Your fear of nationalism doesn't trump the need to remove racism from D&D. Peoples have the right to exist in all their diversity and to be recognized as such.

I don't what connection you are making here. Or what broader argument you are trying to make. No one is saying people don't have a right to exist as groups, but I am saying once you start referring to something as different from a human, as a say an elf, as a people then you are getting into territory that can start to sound a lot of the kind of ethnonationlism you saw in the 20th century (which resulted in genocide). If you want to have a debate about ethnonationalism, I don't think this is the thread or forum for that conversation.

 

[Yaarel]

Fair enough, but you are drawing on beliefs that aren't informing my understanding and I think a lot of peoples understanding of this issue.

Sure. At the same time, these Norse folkbeliefs relate to the mythic material that D&D draws from − including Tolkiens reinvention of the earlier British folklore about Elves.

For example, there is a reason why the Elves are both Nonhuman and able to reproduce children with Humans normally.

While manifesting in a Human form, the Elf is humanlike flesh-and-blood.

D&D 5e characterizes this as a shift from immaterial Fey to flesh-and-blood Material. Yet there is still a telltale evidence of their Nonhuman origin − their "Fey Ancestry", their innate magic, and their Trance.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure. At the same time, these Norse folkbeliefs relate to the mythic material that D&D draws from − including Tolkiens reinvention of the earlier British folklore about Elves.

For example, there is a reason why the Elves are both Nonhuman and able to reproduce children with Humans normally.

While manifesting in a Human form, the Elf is humanlike flesh-and-blood.

D&D 5e characterizes this as a shift from immaterial Fey to flesh-and-blood Material. Yet there is still a telltale evidence of their Nonhuman origin − their "Fey Ancestry", their innate magic, and their Trance.

Sure, but I think with D&D the origins, one vary by edition, and two tend to be vaguely mythic but with an assumption of variations of explanation from campaign to campaign. A lot of GMs just do the "Elves were created by god Y, Gnomes were created by god Z" sort of thing. I think how this gets handled with depend very much on the campaign cosmology.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The fantasy Elf is a thought experiment that invites gamers to explore what impact a long lifespan might have on us.

While I think we do have to use our own experience as a baseline or analog (since none of us have lived as an elf), I don't see this as a thought experiment on what humans would do with long life spans (a much more appropriate approach to that thought experiment would be a science fiction setting where humans achieve longer life spans and you play out what that leads to). I've done immortal elves in my own campaigns, and for me, it definitely wasn't a thought experiment of what would humans do with long life spans (though as I said I obviously had to draw on human experience). It was very much what would happen if you had a race of beings who didn't die, and whose lives only ended if they were infected with a terrible disease or violently killed. I found that interesting and figured maybe there are three basic cultural answers that emerged to that, and played out those answers in different elven groups. Obviously there can be more than three answers, but just for simplicity I kept it to the three that I was able to see clearly.

Can something like that be an exploration of human psychology and culture? Yes. Star Trek does this a lot (where it answers very human problems by positing alien races, often to deal with issues in the real world). That is one way to approach these thought experiments. But the re are other approaches where you take a more 'lets see how far away from human' this can get psychologically. I think both are fine, both are enjoyable. Both have their purpose.

And again, every thought experiment is limited by the fact that a human mind is conducting it. But I don't think that means all thought experiments come back to human. Sometimes the fun is trying to imagine beyond those limitations to the best of your ability.

 

[Scott Christian]

I would say the question of balance, as it relates to classes and overall combat performance, is something that greatly propels this argument over semantics.

 

[Yaarel]

With D&D the origins, one vary by edition, and two tend to be vaguely mythic but with an assumption of variations of explanation from campaign to campaign. ... I think how this gets handled with depend very much on the campaign cosmology.

Regardless of the cosmology of a particular D&D setting, for the gaming mechanics to separate the inborn species Traits from learned cultural Background helps avoid problems. The setting creators still need to be charitable when describing an in-setting culture. But at least the existences of several cultures that any species can choose from helps relativize any particular unfortunate reallife stereotype.

While I think we do have to use our own experience as a baseline or analog (since none of us have lived as an elf), I don't see this as a thought experiment on what humans would do with long life spans (a much more appropriate approach to that thought experiment would be a science fiction setting where humans achieve longer life spans and you play out what that leads to). I've done immortal elves in my own campaigns, and for me, it definitely wasn't a thought experiment of what would humans do with long life spans (though as I said I obviously had to draw on human experience). It was very much what would happen if you had a race of beings who didn't die, and whose lives only ended if they were infected with a terrible disease or violently killed. I found that interesting and figured maybe there are three basic cultural answers that emerged to that, and played out those answers in different elven groups. Obviously there can be more than three answers, but just for simplicity I kept it to the three that I was able to see clearly.

Can something like that be an exploration of human psychology and culture? Yes. Star Trek does this a lot (where it answers very human problems by positing alien races, often to deal with issues in the real world). That is one way to approach these thought experiments. But the re are other approaches where you take a more 'lets see how far away from human' this can get psychologically. I think both are fine, both are enjoyable. Both have their purpose.

And again, every thought experiment is limited by the fact that a human mind is conducting it. But I don't think that means all thought experiments come back to human. Sometimes the fun is trying to imagine beyond those limitations to the best of your ability.

Heh, not really seeing how it is even possible for the Elf to be anything other than: what if a human was in such-and-such a situation. As you say, "we" humans "have to use our own experience as a baseline".

For example, here in the ENWorld threads there was an interesting discussion about Elf cultures. To what degree did their lifespans impact their culture? I found intriguing the suggestion, that with eternity ahead of them, it makes sense to require a century of self-exploration to discover who oneself is, before "growing up". It is sorta like spending some years in college for self-exploration to decide what one wants to do with ones life. But it isnt just what to do for the next few decades, one has to decide moreorless for eternity to come. (Meanwhile, there is probably a kind of going back to school later on in life, to choose a different course.)

Obviously, all of this is human psychology that we project (consciously or unconsciously) onto the concept of an Elf.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Heh, not really seeing how it is even possible for the Elf to be anything other than: what if a human was in such-and-such a situation. As you say, "we" humans "have to use our own experience as a baseline".

For example, here in the ENWorld threads there was an interesting discussion about Elf cultures. To what degree did their lifespans impact their culture? I found intriguing the suggestion, that with eternity ahead of them, it makes sense to require a century of self-exploration to discover who oneself is, before "growing up". It is sorta like spending some years in college for self-exploration to decide what one wants to do with ones life. But it isnt just what to do for the next few decades, one has to decide moreorless for eternity to come. (Meanwhile, there is probably a kind of going back to school later on in life, to choose a different course.)

Obviously, all of this is human psychology that we project (consciously or unconsciously) onto the concept of an Elf.

sure some of this is inescapable. My point is there is a big difference between endeavoring to imagine different races of beings with the aim of exploring humanity and doing so with the aim of exploring something outside humanity. We are limited by the fact we are human but you are doing as well as you can to imagine beyond that (and the striving, rather than succeeding at it, is what I think makes it rewarding)

 

[Hriston]

I don't what connection you are making here. Or what broader argument you are trying to make. No one is saying people don't have a right to exist as groups, but I am saying once you start referring to something as different from a human, as a say an elf, as a people then you are getting into territory that can start to sound a lot of the kind of ethnonationlism you saw in the 20th century (which resulted in genocide). If you want to have a debate about ethnonationalism, I don't think this is the thread or forum for that conversation.

You're the one bringing up these concerns. I agree they don't contribute to the conversation. Nothing about the existence of many peoples around the globe suggests the inevitability of the kind of extreme ethnic nationalism to which you keep alluding. Why all the handwringing about a word that humanizes rather than others fantasy races?