It is non non-offensive outside play either......so, yes, it would (and is).
D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?
- Thread starter Yaarel
- Start date
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Legend
I...think we agree? It's being replaced for out of play reasons?
Frozen_Heart
Hero
Hey we've had a gnome in our party for the last 6 months and she's been awesome!
Incenjucar
Legend
Gnomes are just too fun to draw.
Not getting to play the gnome lawyer bard I generated back in 3E still weighs on my mind.
Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
Tom Bosley probably played a role in peoples love for gnomes
Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
I always had a soft spot for the Gnome Illusionist and tinker gnomes. Gnomes seemed to me just as much a part of the game as halflings or dwarves. It wasn't until I got on the internet that I even became aware there were people who strongly disliked them
I guess so. Which is why I don't think the word matters, as long as it isn't offensive. heck, make up a word if they want for all care.
Frozen_Heart
Hero
I think that it's largely because they heavily lean into the 'steampunk' type of theme, just like artificers.
And so just like artificers, many people struggle to fit them into their settings, even though logically they can be themed in ways other than that.
Mecheon
Sacabambaspis
Its not setting neutral though, its Dungeons and Dragons. It always has an implied setting. Anything they produce is in that "Here's D&D's assumptions about things" flavour they have. No matter the setting, D&D elves have some shared assumptions, even as far off as Dark Sun ones
also like, aside from the INCREDIBLY POOR eyes on "You only get humans in the base game and everything else is a purchase" that new players would have on the game, you know the level of unhappy folks would be with a humans only book would be absolutely legendary
This is why I a pushing for species. It is kind of dry, sterile, and boring, but in the end I think that is a good thing. I think it is best to use a strictly out of game term, that is in no way connected to the in-game fiction.
The entire concept of "Fantasy Races" is at its core a potential minefield of issues. The very idea of using different "types" of "people" to examine different aspects of human nature and the human psyche, may be a useful literary device, and can create some excellent stories, it is dangerously interconnected with real world issues of racism, stereotyping, and eugenics.
It doesn't help that Tolkien, who is basically the creator of the modern fantasy genre, and a massive influence on everything that came after, was not just a man of his times, he was a man stuck centuries if not millennia in the past. His work is obsessed with sacred bloodlines, racial purity, and bio-essentialism. Lets not forget this is the man who described orcs as, "Squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
I love Tolkien's work. The sheer depth and breadth of his worldbuilding is unparalleled. Truthfully most other fantasy comes across as cheap knock offs of his work. However the more I really look at his work, and force my self to look past my instinctive fanboy love, I am forced to admit that the man had his issues.