Why the hell is it Species now? RACE is RACIST!

The new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D 2024, has swapped out the long standing and traditional term 'race' for 'species'. In my view this is to get around accusations of racism and the idea that people do not know what a fantasy race is, is rather stupid.
I find Wizards of the Coast to be more than a little patronising with such an assumption.

[@stanislaviliev6305]

"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because -- what with trolls and dwarfs and so on -- speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."

[@defnlife1683]

"You can be any species as long as it's humans. All others are dirty Xenos." - DM'ing Warhammer, probably.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@defnlife1683 sounds perfect.

[@starhalv2427]

The official answer they gave in one interview was "We end up having to explain the meaning of "race" in D&D with every new handbook, so we just moved to a term that doesn't need to be clarified"

[@LostLoreScholar]

Aye. And that official answer is, as I said, utterly silly.

[@starhalv2427]

​@@LostLoreScholar I think getting mad about it is equally silly. "Nooo, don't treat us like children, we'll get mad about it", or "You imply I'm racist by making that change". Seems kinda pointless to me, what exactly are you trying to accomplish by complaining about that change? Sure, something like "heritage" might've been closer to the flavor of fantasy, but it's not like dnd doesn't have concepts similiar to sci-fi

[@LostLoreScholar]

@@starhalv2427 Accomplish? I suppose I want to accomplish sharing my thoughts and getting some nice shiny internet points.

[@ArtIrae]

"We end up having to explain the meaning of race." - No you don´t... They could do what some of the indie writers do. You just let them know to "git gud" with one paragraph: "This is a fantasy roleplaying game you can play with your friends. We assume you already know the basics of roleplaying games. If not, there´s Google to help you find out more." BAM. Done! It´s been 50 years. Today CritRole streams singlehandedly keep Twitch alive. There is no more need to explain roleplaying to the rpg bubble like they´re 5 years old.

[@sybro9786]

@@ArtIraeThe entire point of the company is to market to people outside of the rpg bubble. They’re not explaining anything to the rpg bubble. The rpg bubble is not a customer that WotC is concerned about. Why would they be?

[@SunsteelAnorang]

"Spelled dwarves wrong" Lmao

[@mfsebcw]

Race seems more appropriate since they can interbreed. I always just took it as there is the homonid species, with magic drastically infecting and altering the phenotypes and features without fundamentally altering the DNA. The reason for strife is each race thinks they are the archetype from which the others derived.

[@PigOfGreed]

I mean Neanderthals and Humans also apparently were capable of breeding right? So it’s not inconceivable that they’re different species that are all just magical evolutionary cousins.

[@ElfangorQ7N]

@@PigOfGreed except that the agreed upon definition of species is that individuals can produce non-sterile offspring; therefore, any two creatures that can interbreed and have fertile children are by definition the same species.

[@PigOfGreed]

@@ElfangorQ7N that is fair, and the Neanderthals and human hybrids weren’t necessarily fertile. Although don’t dragons also breed with humanoids to produce Draconic bloodline sorcerers who - presumably - are fertile?

[@ElfangorQ7N]

@@PigOfGreed I believe you're right. If we're being scientifically accurate, most DnD races should be classified as the same species, which further advances the point that no longer calling them races is dumb and unnecessary.

[@PigOfGreed]

@@ElfangorQ7N yeah I see your point.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

D&D simply continues to homogenize, and I personally can't stand it. To this day I still and always will prefer a modified 3.5e ruleset wherein you simply just 'ignore' some of the sillier mechanics, or appropriate others that work well from more recent incarnations. That said, you are correct in that this is politically motivated; this is WOTC's MO these days. The fiasco with the most recent release of the Player's Handbook is quite telling as to whom they are attempting to market their product to. Even if by the grace of God for some reason I opted to play a gay dwarven baker, he would still be of the mighty Dwarven race; not the mighty Dwarven 'species.' I'm tired of real-world politics infecting my hobbies, be it this, gaming, any media really. Bending the knee to individuals with such a deterministic approach to blurring the lines between fantasy and reality--tourists, more ofen than not, to any hobby--always culminates in an inferior product. Luckily and as you point out at the end of this video, it's very easy to remedy this by just saying "no." The players these new iterations are built for are not the kind of players I want at my table anyway.

[@LostLoreScholar]

Well said. An advantage we have as older players from previous editions is that we still own our books. The text is still un-changed. Newer players for this new edition will be at the mercy of 'live service'. It will be like having their mods break with every update to Skyrim. If you hate politics in your hobby then we share a common enemy. You may want to look out for an essay being published in issue #2 of 'Tales from the Tavern' which will be on Amazon and DriveThru RPG. The essay itself deals with the need to purge political poison from fantasy.

[@PigOfGreed]

I don’t think it’s racist to have them as races, but, I struggle to imagine aarakocras and dwarves being the same species. To me it always made more sense that elves and humans were like what Neanderthals were to humans, just in more interesting and exaggerated ways. Also you can still call it the dwarven race same way you can call it the human race I’d think, since “the mighty dwarven race” does have a better ring to it.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@PigOfGreed It's not just about what I want to 'call' them, as a matter of semantics. It's about the inherent stat bonuses, gendered differences between male and female, etc. This goes sooooo far beyond the removal of the term 'race.' Modern iterations of this game are unrecognizable and absurd to me, honestly.

[@dylanb2990]

“Not the kind of players I want at my table” you mean kind ones who want to be inclusive? What’s wrong with that?

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@dylanb2990 may i be honest with you? Everything. Consider the setting, and consider the high fantasy of it. That kind of nonsense doesn't have a place within the content. It can, I suppose, if you want to run that kind of campaign, and if so then go for it. But my table will never have diversity/social justice political freaks at it, and that just is how it is.

[@isayaragnes8066]

Just replace race with peoples. Both solves confusion with the term and sounds nicer in my opinion.

[@marcforrester7738]

Peoples are more of a cultural thing and will exist in character creation as part of your background. Species is intended to be purely about physical makeup.

[@AnarchySystem]

Peoples means they are from the same race. Not different species. Like a dog or cat. It is more confusing. You also have to consider some of the races are aliens, and an alien is not a race, but a species.

[@Koellenburg]

I believe the term race is appropriate for dwarf, elf, orc , sized difference.... Skin colour on the other hand .. black , asian , Hispanic, Caucasian.. These are no races for me... These are ethnicities.

[@Alorand]

Role-playing is downstream from culture, and we have been in a Culture War for at least a decade. People's worldviews are not matching up, so the same words mean and imply subtly different things. It's a problem that TVTropes calls "Broken Base" where companies can't satisfy their whole audience because they want contradictory things.

[@Hihepux]

If they can reproduce together, they aren't different species. It makes sense that Elves humans and orcs are the same species but different races

[@weezerfan1232]

tigers and lions can produce offspring are you going to tell me that they are the same species?

[@0miniq]

Yeah ligers are fertile too, but I guess they're actually the same species ​@weezerfan1232

[@Hihepux]

@weezerfan1232 Look it up yourself. Biological Taxonomy determines species by reproduction. Tigers and lions only in specific parentage create fertile offspring and otherwise create sterile hybrids (tigons vs. ligers)

[@thehornyscatman8223]

Neanderthals and homosapiens produced fertile offspring who's DNA is present in many European and middle eastern genes , and are scientifically different species

[@weezerfan1232]

@@0miniq only female ligers are fertile because the chromosomes don't match. because lions and tigers are different species.

[@Sentheath]

Ah yes my favorite sociological study of the intersection of "race" and "class" Dungeon and Dragons. A bit of thought, or even some reading of other fantasy roleplaying games I would expect most people to come to the same conclusion as me, race is obviously an archaic and inaccurate term. Using your own example if we use D&D's own language and refer to Elves as a race and High Elves as a subrace we've already reached a taxonomic identification which I would argue is just as or more "sci-fi" or what most people would refer to as "modern". Now since we're under the charade that D&D is still a fantasy game I would make the argument that species IS a pretty weird way to describe the "races" of D&D. There are plenty of examples of better names for it such as Kin (Forbidden Lands), Ancestry (Shadow of the Demonlord), Origin (Fabula Ultima), Stock (Burning Wheel) and my personal favorite, and by extension what I would imagine Tolkien would approve being the linguaphile he is is Peoples (Talislanta).

[@nikolaybelousov1070]

Race is hardly a scientific term - it has always been nonsense. Read what kind of human races Spengler thought there are, for instance. Using the term [fantasy] race is par for the course in the context it is (was) used.

[@albertonishiyama1980]

Let's be real... Pathfinder pulled the best option ("ancestry" for "race" and "heritage" for "subrace") just years before Wizards pulled DnD One and, as such, Wizards had to pull something improvised. They couldnt use the same words, it would seem like they're copying PF2e, but they also couldnt just keep "race" (being the ones to popularize this whole discution) or use words that would've seem as "retrograde" (like "kin") even if it fits well, since they sell themselves as modern, progressist and what not.

[@LastDarkBlade11]

If you use any of your examples and you have a descriptor of a specific category of that creature (say high elf being a specific type of elf) you would still run into the same issue though. What would you call a subcategory of "Ancestry" or would you just call high elves, dark elves and wood elves there own ancestry? If so there is no reason for you to do the same for race. This doesn't help with your argument of the term itself being archaic and inaccurate, farther more one of your "better examples" is outright insulting. When I think of a large number of creatures being a "stock" I think of cattle at a farm.

[@Sentheath]

@@LastDarkBlade11 You don't run into the same problem, when his issue is with the "sci-fi" nature of species as a term. Even if you have a problem with the loss of the "subrace" descriptor, you just make up a new one. If you play any DnD you should be pretty good at making things up. I don't really care about insulting or abusing fictional characters, and the only cattle I care about are the sacred cows that belong on the butcher's block.

[@peopleperson323]

I do think it very interesting to see videos such as this. It highlights a very real problem that the context in which something exists is largely ignored and is instead substituted for personal context instead. I was always taught that context always matters so it saddens me to see people give one context greater import instead of observing and appreciating both contexts equally.

[@seanmurphy7011]

Vote with your wallet. Save your money.

[@dragonmaster613]

I've been doing that since 4e by finding PDFs for free or buying books from Goodwill/Thriftbooks (or other secondhand places)

[@theodorepinnock1517]

You're very right about 'species' sounding more sci-fi; species is a more scientific, technical register of speech, whereas race is a more colloquial, ordinary register.

[@kazekagekid]

This is actually MORE racist, since species are defined as distinct by not producing fertile offspring, like a horse and a donkey making a mule. All this change in term achieves is implying that either half-elves and other fantasy cross-breeds are sterile or there are more species of human than the one we're told exists in real life. You cannot have it both ways, and we already consider some animals like the white rhino to be a different species from standard rhinos when they're more similar than african people and east asian people in terms of features.

[@JimMonsanto]

I prefer Lineage. It "feels" fantasy--more so than "race" does, actually--though I wouldn't mind "kind", either. But you're right. "species" sounds like a sci-fi term, and should remain there.

[@zidaneffixexe]

We don't like your kind around here?

[@TeutonicViking]

Have had "Ancestries" and "heritages" to replace "Races" and "sub-races" in pathfinder 2e for a long time. works perfectly. Species was used in starfinder first edition. is getting phased out for the same thing that pathfinder 2e has with starfinder 2nd edition.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@TeutonicViking race sounds better.

[@TeutonicViking]

@@TheSpiritBeaver that's subjective

[@azraelvrykolakas157]

The root cause of the confusion is how much orcs have changed to look like humans... in earnest these species should hardly be able to hybridize with eachother but likely concessions have been made for the more home economics inclined of us. Now far be it from me to say some divine and/or eldrich mojo couldn't bridge the gap and make you successful in monster on human husbandry the same way that loki was able to conceive slepnir. But such unions should not be the natural state of things. Anymore than a Scotsman and his goat haveing a kid together is the natural state of things.

[@HalIOfFamer]

It's a political move. Wizards of the woke are trying to get that DEI bread. The game has been getting worse and worse with every "update".

[@dragonmaster613]

They claim "wokeness" to get the money from people that will never touch the game or are already touching the game. It's Rainbow Capitalism, pretending to be inclusive means more idiots buying the product.

[@nomoturtle1788]

To the authoritarian mind, no obscure hobby corner of the world is too small to escape their vision and avoid stamping their ideologies all over it, anything short is an unacceptable opportunity for rebellion. Tolerance, plurality, and even "good" become evil when weighed against utopia.

[@marcforrester7738]

But these hobby corners arrive on the scene pre-stamped with the ideologies of whatever cultures they originally grew out of. There is no pure tabula rasa state to be corrupted by politics, politics are always built in. Modern players who deal with racially charged language every day in real life just want a version of the hobby that isn't a funhouse mirror reflection.

[@nomoturtle1788]

​@@marcforrester7738 Fair point, that's probably true, but that doesn't render them arbitrary or worthless nor legitimise their conquest and subversion. Nobody has any right to plaster over them, and damn everyone that tries. Make your own culture if you for whatever reason can't accept the one you grew up in. If people agree with you you'll literally be the next Tolkien.

[@marcforrester7738]

So it's cultural appropriation then?

[@nomoturtle1788]

@@marcforrester7738 More like iconoclasm.

[@marcforrester7738]

I guess I just don't see TTRPG systems as cultural icons. I'd rather have players than purity.

[@nikolaybelousov1070]

Who would've thought that Gen X stem nerds could accept the necessary vagueness of the term "fantasy race", while it's utterly inconcievable for later gen art graduates to understand that there's no dna (or, for that matter, anything scientific) in DnD so they have to completely misapply a well-defined scientific term instead.

[@Melantrist]

The peculiar thing is that while Species is a more technically more correct term YET now species are way more alike than the races of yesteryear!

[@legofanguyvid]

If you want to come from a creationist angle, kinds is free real estate, especially since Gods and Magic exists

[@vitriolicAmaranth]

I mean, "race" never made sense in the context of D&D's classic settings if taken at face value, and was kind of grandfathered into RPGs as a whole because the definitely-racist creators of D&D used "Drow" as a gloss for "Black American" and so on so they could have their over-the-top real-life racist caricatures in their game without addressing a whole group of people in the game as the N word with the hard R. Over time, those caricatures in the games were also softened up and had complexity added, plus the real-life negative stereotypes drifted to other things (eg the trope of the angry dominant black woman and dull submissive black man is a lot less prevalent now, and now racists are paranoid that black men are going to steal their wives instead, and I think the concept of Anansi the spider-god is less pop-cultural at the moment as well than it was in the 70s), so the Drow no longer seem like real-life racist caricatures, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that "race" was used for racist reasons to begin with- The elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc were presented in-setting as different species, not races of human, but were called races because that is what they represented, human "races" that the creators wanted to make fun of. "Race" itself is a tricky word, the meaning of which has changed radically over time. The way it is used today is seldom actually synonymous with "ethnicity" as it appears to be intended; The way it was used in the past was to refer to a family, not an ethnicity at all. It has never referred to species; We even call neanderthals, for instance, another "human species." This shift, in other words, is simply in-line with correct word usage, and the statement that the use of the word "race" in D&D was "racist" is accurate given the game's history. I would find something better to complain about, like the progressively worse rulesets since 3.5E, the more general dilution of the game to make it more mass-marketable, the perpetually overpriced books and supplements despite its increasing mass-marketing meaning the company can definitely support itself without price-gouging (at least it isn't 40K!), the active introduction of "alternative" themes like LGBTQ overrepresentation (if you really want to complain about social issues and progressive values in D&D; The difference is that the "race" thing is eliminating an agenda, while the LGBTQ thing is introducing one, and I don't think there should be heavy-handed modern agendas officially pushed into a fantasy game system either way), etc. Or, have you tried not playing D&D?

[@Cloud_Seeker]

Wow. Are you a bot or something? What you just said is bloody insane. You should get help.

[@dragonmaster613]

What you just Diatribed is why we're in this mess, people like you see Boogeymen where there isn't any thus convincing Crawford and pals to screw with the game. STFU!

[@vitriolicAmaranth]

@@Cloud_Seeker Amazing rebuttal. I strongly suspect that the only people who would be offended by a misnomer related to race being corrected, whether explicitly, implicitly or not at all because it is "racist," are racists and autistics. Which are you?

[@Cloud_Seeker]

@@vitriolicAmaranth Why should I rebut this? It is litreally just "politics, politics, BS, BS, something I made up". You need to take your meds bro.

[@0miniq]

Lineage is clearly the correct choice. Not that I actually care, I'm gonna call it what I call it, and I understand why they made the change. It must be exhausting to actually care about this

[@Cloud_Seeker]

It is about politics. It is newspeak. It is not about any reasons they say. It is about controlling your thoughts and opinions by controlling the language you have to express those thoughts and opinions with. Newspeak is never about making the language better, more understandable or more expressive. It is about the destruction of words so it can be controlled.

[@fearnomoshpit]

Technically speaking, "race" is more accurate (in addition to being more traditional within the scope of language used in the fantasy genre) as the different fantasy races can interbreed. This suggests significant underlying commonality in *what* they are despite their physiognomic differences; more so than the term "species" does. A human can't breed with a horse, nor a rat with a squirrel, but a black person can breed with a white person, as can an elf with an orc.

[@HienNguyenHMN]

"Species" is only sci-fi because you're used to reading it in a sci-fi context. It's just the proper word for what that concept is.

[@PAJ_L2001]

It's not really the proper word, e.g. elves and humans are fully capable of producing fertile offspring (half-elves). (The capacity to produce fertile offspring together is often taken as a part of the definition of species.) Humans, amongst the different ethicities (races) can interbreed (with fertile offspring as a result), while lions 🦁 and tigers 🐯 can interbreed (unlike, say, dogs and ladybugs) their offpring are often infertile (if I recall correctly, male tions and ligers are infertile, females of either variety are fertile). Species could be used to refer to two different groups that cannot reproduces together, but not between elves and humans, or elves and orcs. It's probably fair to use when referring to Grung and Aarakockra (I think I misspelled the last one, apologies for that).

[@dragonmaster613]

Race to Species is the least of the wrongs WotC is doing to the game. The mechanics changes are far worse (removingSubraces and ASIs from Race selection), or Blackfaceing characters to pretend diversity (Aragorn in the MtG LotR set) is more damning.

[@Basilmoment]

Better question: "why aren't elves and humans different species even though they obviously are?"

[@Cloud_Seeker]

Because they are not. Elves are magical creatures that are not human. They look human but they are not humans.

[@myname7937]

but different races can intermix and make children, wouldn't that make them the same species?

[@marcforrester7738]

That would be a Species Complex. Biology doesn't limit itself to neat categories.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

Different species can also intermix and breed. Such as a mule or a liger. If you want to be "scientific" you are doing a fools errand. First of it isn't that simple since we create the categories because we find it easier. Nature do not actually follow our categories and definitions. Such as the idea that mammals do not lay eggs. That definition was disproved when we found the platypus which is a mammal that lay eggs. Second. You can't actually get any scientific understanding about how dwarfs, elfs, orc and halfings are like because they do not exist and are not real. They are magical creatures that exist in folk stories and fairy tales. You can decide whatever you want with them as whatever rule you make up makes as much sense for them as anything else. They are not real, so discussing what reality looks like will also bar you from using these creatures in the first place. You do not get the ability to talk about realism and not apply it to elfs as if elfs are realistic. This whole debate is only political. It is pushed by political activists that wants to control the hobby, your language, your opinions and thoughts by controlling what words you are allowed to think with. This is exactly what the dystopian novel 1984 described. These people are not interested in the hobby or anything around it. They are political infiltrators that wishes to create a hegemony under their control. They will lie to you about all manners of think in an attempt to make it seem reasonable, but they do it only for malicious reasons. I want to end this by giving you one of my favorite fables that describe exactly what is going on. There once was a young fox that loved to run around and play in the forest. All the other foxes told the young fox that he should be careful as he might get hurt as he doesn't pay attention. The young fox ignored the older foxes as "what do they know?". One day the young fox was out playing only to get his tail stuck in a trap as he didn't pay attention. There was no one to help him so the only choice he had to escape the trap was to bite his own tail off to free himself. After this the young fox became tailless and everyone teased him for losing his tail. However the young fox got an idea. He can't get his tail back, but maybe he can fool everyone else to also become tailless so he can't be teased for it anymore. The next day young fox gathered all other foxes to explain his idea. "Why do you all have your tails? Do you not know how much of a risk they are? They might get stuck in a trap. Maybe some predator catches it and pull you in. No my bothers and sisters. Tails are not healthy and safe for foxes to have. We should all get rid of these dangerous tails in order to protect everyone" After the speech, a wise old fox stepped up to question the young fox. "I understand your arguments, and your position. You make a few decent points and maybe everyone will be safer without our tails. I have noticed something however. Never once were you ever concerned about anyone's safety or health when you had your tail. You never argued against having as tail when you had yours as well. It seems you only make these arguments now once your lost yours. Isn't it so that you only wishes everyone else to mutilate ourselves so you can feel better? You are only saying all of this now because it suits your own personal goals and not for anyone else."

[@marcforrester7738]

@@Cloud_Seeker You need to seek medical assistance for actual paranoia, our games are not a vital institution for seizing political power, they're just guidelines for running a living hobby. Living things change over time. These changes are driven by players who want to be less exclusionary. Malicious poltitical infiltrators? Touch. Grass.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

@@marcforrester7738 Apart from that it is. It is literally the legacy of Antonio Gramsci. You clearly have no idea about political ideology and tactics. Also look up what the "long march through the institutions" is about. "These changes are driven by players who want to be less exclusionary." - The game was never exclusionary. The words you use is literally examples of doublespeak. They are "inclusive" by literally focusing on excluding other people that built the hobby in the first place.

[@plebiain]

I disagree that "species" is less clear. You see, the newer generation of TTRPG players think "ethnicity" when they think of race. To describe the difference between Lizardfolk (lizard people), Centaurs (horse people), Kenku (bird people), and Tortles (turtle people) etc. as being "ethnic" and not a matter of species is confusing to the newer generation of TTRPG players. You keep saying that "we" know what race means, but you're self-admittedly talking about _older_ players. I have seen new players get confused by the use of the term "race" in 5e first-hand. Also, when I think of species, I think of science, not sci-fi. I just hope that you can be open-minded about the idea that species is genuinely just clearer to some people.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

I disagree. The newer people know what race means and it isn't ethnicity. You must be thinking of toddlers that have yet learned that the word can have multiple meanings. At no point has anyone thought that "lizard people, "horse people" and "bird people" means ethnicity when you use the word race. At least no teen I have ever meet. The only people that will be confused are people who either have a problem with the English language (such as not being a native English speaker), or it is their first time even going into fantasy and never really heard the term before (which is resolved in maybe a minute or so after getting a explanation).

[@plebiain]

​@@Cloud_Seeker I'm not saying they thought Lizardfolk, Tortles etc. _meant_ ethnicity, just that because they understand race to be tied to ethnicity it seems like the wrong term to them, and that species would fit better. I won't deny that you have experienced new players not having this confusion. However, that doesn't mean it's cool for you to layer your reaction to my experience of the opposite with condescension (not unlike a toddler, if I may add).

[@Cloud_Seeker]

@@plebiain You litreally did say that however. And it is okay for you to do so instead? You are just making something up and then act as if what YOU say is the universal standard. Just because you have people that do not understand what the word means does not mean everyone else should be forced to reflect what you want.

[@plebiain]

@@Cloud_Seeker You are talking passed me and are not worth my time

[@Cloud_Seeker]

@@plebiain Whatever you say. Hypocrites and liars are also not worth my time.

[@garethmartin6522]

It always has been FFS. It has been a blight and embarrassment on the hobby for decades.

[@hippiecheapskate]

The word species was first used to describe separate organisms by john ray in the the mid 1600s. Thats pretty old, so the concept that species is too scifi is itself just as much an artificial social construct as the 'correctness' of using race. It has always been highly problematic to call them races - that they are only doing something about it now doesn't change that. Real races cant be defined by hard stats, because they exist only as social constructs. The only time people have done that is during the eugenics movement, where they attempted to justify discrimination through defining physical and mental characteristics of races. You just sound like the out of touch boomers who didnt like being told they cant call gay people fruits or fairies anymore. Welcome to the changing mores of society and how they continue to move beyond the ones that formed your personal worldviews.

[@TyJaff]

We're used to saying race, even though most of these groups have separate origins.

[@emberd-l795]

This really doesn’t seem like a big deal. You’re getting upset over something that really doesn’t matter.

[@LostLoreScholar]

If it does not matter why make the change in the first place? Or reply to my opinion?

[@emberd-l795]

@@LostLoreScholar Well, I wasted my time watching the video so I thought I may as well waste fifteen more seconds commenting my opinion. This change was clearly made to improve lexical semantic accuracy. As things stood, the word race in cannon meant a completely different thing to what the word race means in the real world. You argue that its fine because players know this already, and it's not difficult to teach this alternative meaning for the word to new players. And yes, that is true and it is a fair point. But at the same time, so what? Like sure, you can teach someone the new meaning of the word, but why bother when you could just exchange it for the real world word? At the end of the day, if you wanna keep using the term race, no one is going to barge into your play area and rip the book out of your hands because you ignore one of the words they wrote to insert your own. If you're GMing, you can run your game however you wish. But if the company wants to exchange a historically used word for a more semantically accurate one, that's fine, too. I mean, it doesn't really matter that much, but they can do it if they want. I also wouldn't really care if they didn't do it. At the end of the day, it really isn't a big deal. You are the only one who seems to be trying to turn this molehill into a mountain.

[@LostLoreScholar]

@@emberd-l795 So you came to the same conclusion I did at the end of a 7 minute video?

[@emberd-l795]

@@LostLoreScholar Well, I guess our conclusions are similar logically, but they definitely convey different moods. Your clearly unhappy and maybe a little spiteful that the books are changing the word, so you are instead choosing to use the old word. I think it's fine, and it makes more sense, so I mildly like the change, but not enough to staunchly defend it and advocate for its use. We both think that a GM can make anything they want of their own table. But we differ in the sense that I consider you to be a bit silly for caring so much about it that you would record a rant about this insignificant little detail. But we all have the freedom to be silly in our own ways, I suppose.

[@visperad541]

​@emberd-l795 Isn't there a whole set of lingo that D&D players learn in this community that isn't used in wider society? But you think they did this for "lexical semantic accuracy"? Not to mention that most campaigns will have the GM speaking as NPCs in archaic fantasy babble, and Wizard's of the Coast even does this for flare in their books, but for "lexical semantic accuracy" they're changing race to species? Seems silly there buddy

[@rayortiz313]

Dungeon Master since 1984 here. Who gives a flying rat's ass what it's called. This change doesn't hamper the game in any way, shape, or form. Race is a crappy term for it anyway since theres different "races" of human. WOTC sucks but Im fine with this one. Pick a better cause, brah.

[@Cloud_Seeker]

It matters because it is political. WotC has been infiltrated by political ideologues that wage a war on culture. They have no real interest in the game or the hobby itself. Their real interest is controlig culture, thoughts, opinions and how people are allowed to express themselves. If they can change the words we use, they can control your thoughts. If you can't express something that goes against their politics, you can't even think of ways that goes against the politics.

[@tiazoh]

They changed it because people were being racist. Stop being a whiney grifter

[@gasterblaster9817]

It really goes to show how brainrotted people have gotten over your silly little culture war that they can't comprehend the term "race" being used in any other context than ethic tension. Fantasy racism is just that: fantasy. I'd recommend going outside and engaging in some serious grass touching, because you clearly can't tell the difference.

[@niccosalonga9009]

People were being racist?

[@KarlKapo]

It's this homogenization I don't like. Typical of North Americant's. Change lore to keep up with todays standard rather than let it be.

[@shamurai7]

race has always been the word used in fantasy... species is a biology term. sure, its accurate, but it takes you out of the game in a bad way. also, this is pathetic virtue signaling

[@niccosalonga9009]

Funny part is, it's not even accurate, considering that species aren't supposed to be able to reproduce with other species, except maybe to make infertile mule-like offspring.

[@MutoKei]

Actually its less scientific. Hybrid species tend to be infertile. Unless all half elves cant have chilren race would make more sense as a descriptor. So the argument of it being more scientfically accurate holds no weight. I'd also argue that calling dwarves another species, i.e. not human, is far more problematic.

[@Haduuna_Wrur]

Its problematic to call the group that isn't humans (because you can play a human) non-human?

[@johnkonstantin4277]

Fantasy with magic and stuff is unscientific by default.

[@MutoKei]

@@Haduuna_Wrur I'm pointing out how dumb and arbitrary it is.

[@Haduuna_Wrur]

@@MutoKei I mean I suppose it is arbitrary, yes, if fantasy is unscientific then scientific words don't mean the same things. ...Like the word species. I honestly don't think it matters nearly as much as folk make it matter. Just as much as them all being one species could be the fantasy element, them being able to produce offspring despite being different species could also be the fantasy element (and that's been the bard logic for eons)

[@MutoKei]

​@@Haduuna_Wrur I don't think it really matters ultimately, but words always mean the same thing, even in fantasy (you wouldn't start using sky to mean the ground). Just seems silly to move to a word that is less correct, when they were already using a perfectly correct word for like 40 years.

[@marccountry]

It is interesting to note that, while RPGs like D&D are moving towards more accurate, coherent terms like 'species', while the real world more and more embraces the 'reality' of 'race'. Of course, if you use the term 'race' then you are, in fact, by definition, engaging in 'racism'. Now, in game, could you talk about race, and could your character be a racist? Of course they can. They don't have to use the word species. But, the rulebooks exist in our real world, not in the world of fantasy.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@marccountry real world rules need to remain firmly outside of fantasy. Actually, they can leave the real world, too.

[@bremcurt9514]

I can't believe how much people keep whining over the smallest of changes.

[@niccosalonga9009]

This is the internet. It's a geek hobby. Of course people will glorify or vilify the littlest parts of it. That's normal fan behavior, especially on the internet.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@bremcurt9514 it's a fundamental change to the game. Racial abilities/stat differences etc were a huge choice in character creation. Now it's this lame ass 'be who you want to be' bullshit. The rules were there for a reason.

[@Dylan-od9eu]

If you don't like it because it sounds sci-fi fine. But clinging to traditional words because tradition demands it seems silly. It doesn't really matter in a game where people can run their individual tables however they like, unless you are dead set on using WotC's VTT.

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@Dylan-od9eu nah it sounds great. Minorities should be required to modify rulesets, and the game should be left in tact.

[@lumek4513]

cry about it

[@TheSpiritBeaver]

@@lumek4513 there are only two genders and within D&D, these are all races and have differentiated stat distributions. You fucking cry about it bro.