D&D General Words which replaced "race" in fantasy games

[Corinnguard]

ah, i didn't realise, it just sounded like their proxy term for class to me, does it include or influence any mechanics or is it more nebulous?

From Level Up's Adventurer's Guide

The Narrator awards inspiration, a resource which grants you an edge in important moments, when your roleplay your character according to your destiny. Each destiny has a source of inspiration which describes acts of roleplaying that should be rewarded with inspiration (although it remains at the Narrator’s discretion). Additionally, the Narrator can award inspiration whenever they feel a character has been particularly clever, engaging, or heart felt in their roleplaying. Once you have inspiration, you can save it indefinitely. Whenever you or an ally you can see makes an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you may spend your inspiration to grant advantage to that roll. Alternatively, you can spend inspiration to use the inspiration feature unique to your chosen destiny
Coming of Age | Level Up

Officially Level Up has 20 destinies you can choose from. Destinies | Level Up There are several more in the various 3pp products for Level Up.

 

[CreamCloud0]

From Level Up's Adventurer's Guide

The Narrator awards inspiration, a resource which grants you an edge in important moments, when your roleplay your character according to your destiny. Each destiny has a source of inspiration which describes acts of roleplaying that should be rewarded with inspiration (although it remains at the Narrator’s discretion). Additionally, the Narrator can award inspiration whenever they feel a character has been particularly clever, engaging, or heart felt in their roleplaying. Once you have inspiration, you can save it indefinitely. Whenever you or an ally you can see makes an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you may spend your inspiration to grant advantage to that roll. Alternatively, you can spend inspiration to use the inspiration feature unique to your chosen destiny
Coming of Age | Level Up

Officially Level Up has 20 destinies you can choose from. Destinies | Level Up There are several more in the various 3pp products for Level Up.

ah, so more like how BTIF's are meant to function in conjunction with inspiration, and with a special feature attached.

 

[Corinnguard]

@CreamCloud0 As for Ancestry, I was joking about Level Up using it alongside Background, Culture and Destiny because then the players would be doing their ABCD's when creating their character. Level Up uses Heritage instead of Race. In fact, Level Up split Race up into Heritage and Culture. Think Nature vs Nurture. Heritage covers all of commonly held traits that your character is born with (age, size, speed, Darkvision and a signature trait). Culture, otoh, represents all of the stuff your character learned as they were growing up in particular society (proficiencies, spells, languages, etc.) Heritage and Culture are loosely tied together in Level Up. Your character can grow up in a Culture that doesn't match their Heritage.

 

[MoonSong]

Te more I think about it, the more I'm liking Origin as a term. Because it is more open that way. Maybe a character is one of a kind like an homunculus, a golem, an artificial construct, an awakened animal, a modified member of a living group - vampires anyone?- or a someone who has a people. No need to invoque real life baggage just to name a game construct.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Te more I think about it, the more I'm liking Origin as a term. Because it is more open that way. Maybe a character is one of a kind like an homunculus, a golem, an artificial construct, an awakened animal, a modified member of a living group - vampires anyone?- or a someone who has a people. No need to invoque real life baggage just to name a game construct.

In Level Up, the whole Heritage / Culture / Background / Destiny system is called Origin.

 

[Moving Pictures]

I think the terms should be species/race/culture in descending order.
If the creatures cannot interbreed, they should be considered separate species. My Dwerves can't interbreed. Neither can my Urks. Both are seperate species from humans and elves.
Humans have races with cultures. Elves have two different sub-species because the two different elves have different abilities/skills, although they can interbreed.
And half-elves are sterile.... which throws a nice little brake on the whole "but if you get half-elves, why not quarter-elves and 75% elves and ....."

 

[Marandahir]

I think the terms should be species/race/culture in descending order.
If the creatures cannot interbreed, they should be considered separate species. My Dwerves can't interbreed. Neither can my Urks. Both are seperate species from humans and elves.
Humans have races with cultures. Elves have two different sub-species because the two different elves have different abilities/skills, although they can interbreed.
And half-elves are sterile.... which throws a nice little brake on the whole "but if you get half-elves, why not quarter-elves and 75% elves and ....."

The problem with that is that race is a social construct, and even in real life, species is a construct that does not actually fit the "cannot interbreed" clause. Many are species that "do not normally interbreed." And then you have Oaks, where all the White/Swamp White/Chestnut/Swamp Chestnut/Bur/Post/English/etc Oaks interbreed and all the Red/Black/Pin/Scarlet/Willow/etc Oaks interbreed, naturally in the wild, to the confusion of botanists everywhere.

Species is a more useful term than Race, but both are constructs of our lack of nuance and desire to put things in boxes. Subspecies? 'Tis a silly concept, let's not go there. Life finds a way.

 

[Moving Pictures]

The problem with that is that race is a social construct, and even in real life, species is a construct that does not actually fit the "cannot interbreed" clause. Many are species that "do not normally interbreed." And then you have Oaks, where all the White/Swamp White/Chestnut/Swamp Chestnut/Bur/Post/English/etc Oaks interbreed and all the Red/Black/Pin/Scarlet/Willow/etc Oaks interbreed, naturally in the wild, to the confusion of botanists everywhere.

Species is a more useful term than Race, but both are constructs of our lack of nuance and desire to put things in boxes. Subspecies? 'Tis a silly concept, let's not go there. Life finds a way.

I think this also depends on how one views the origin of the different .... species. In my world, the deities are supposedly the creators of each; so the dwerves have a goddess/god; the urks a goddess/god, the gnomes a goddess/god, the elves a goddess/god and the humans ... well, they're sorta weird.

So I guess that also colours how you'd look at things...

 

[Staffan]

Anyway, the Swedish game Eon used to use the equivalent of race ("ras"), and had that apply both to species and tribal/ethnic/clan affiliations (e.g. you had six different types of elves, with some pretty serious physical and cultural differences), but now uses "folkslag" instead which would translate roughly to "people". Savage Worlds changed from "race" in previous editions (such as the Deluxe edition from 2011) to "ancestry" in the latest (2018).