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<blockquote data-quote="Branduil" data-source="post: 8850917" data-attributes="member: 11617">I don't want to say species is as bad as the term race now, because it isn't. Removing the term was a necessary and good change because of the long, sordid history of the word race in our own world and how it was used by people, so this is a welcome change. I do still think there are problems with terms like species though, and the essentialism is a big part of it, or any similar term. And the rub is, essentialism is even MORE nonsensical than it is in our world, once you consider how ancestry and co-mingling of peoples actually works in D&amp;D worlds. You can have draconic parents! Members of multiple different &quot;species&quot; can marry and have children, who can also have children! There should be a MASSIVE amount of people with mixed and diverse heritage in any D&amp;D setting. Even if it nonsensically has a ton of strict ethnostates, just one big trading center would result in a massive amount of children of mixed heritage. So ideally, D&amp;D would allow you to mix and match a bunch of ancestral traits to actually match how their settings work. Unfortunately, we can't really expect that in a half-edition update, but that's what they should be working towards in the next true edition. As it is, we have a situation where half-elves and half-orcs have to pretend they are 100% just one of their parents, which is pretty nonsensical and shows the problems with the current design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Branduil, post: 8850917, member: 11617"] I don't want to say species is as bad as the term race now, because it isn't. Removing the term was a necessary and good change because of the long, sordid history of the word race in our own world and how it was used by people, so this is a welcome change. I do still think there are problems with terms like species though, and the essentialism is a big part of it, or any similar term. And the rub is, essentialism is even MORE nonsensical than it is in our world, once you consider how ancestry and co-mingling of peoples actually works in D&D worlds. You can have draconic parents! Members of multiple different "species" can marry and have children, who can also have children! There should be a MASSIVE amount of people with mixed and diverse heritage in any D&D setting. Even if it nonsensically has a ton of strict ethnostates, just one big trading center would result in a massive amount of children of mixed heritage. So ideally, D&D would allow you to mix and match a bunch of ancestral traits to actually match how their settings work. Unfortunately, we can't really expect that in a half-edition update, but that's what they should be working towards in the next true edition. As it is, we have a situation where half-elves and half-orcs have to pretend they are 100% just one of their parents, which is pretty nonsensical and shows the problems with the current design. [/QUOTE]

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