The modern approach to races in D&D is what I like to call "Human in a Hat." Taking away the specific differences within each species means missing some great opportunities to roleplay something that is alien to a regular human mindset. But instead, people play a "human" with a grab bag of minor abilities rather than something different. Earthdawn's "Denizens of Barsaive" books do an excellent job of portraying races as not just ideologically different, but mentally and phisiologically different, and how that shapes the culture and behaviour of a fantasy race. The irony is that, canonically, all the other races were human long before the rise in magic, but they still do a vastly superior job to D&D. Lifespan is a big one: a race that lives for even 200 years has a different approach to reality than one that only lives for 40. They can find commonality, but cannot be the same in fundamental psychological ways. It's the same with morality. Putting human morality onto non human things is silly. It's like calling a shark evil for acting like a shark. Let's assume Orcs were not made by some Dark Lord or Evil God to be their footsoldiers, but are a species that,as you suggested, physiologically cannot feel mercy, value strength and establish hierarchy through combat. Their raiding of defenceless farmsteads is not evil to them. It is, in fact, morally right from an orcish perspective; if the farmers are not strong enough to stop the orcs taking their resources, then they morally do not deserve to keep them. If they are strong enough, the orcs would not begrudge them the defeat as the strong should win. To a human mindset, orcs encouraging their children to viciously fight amongst themselves, even to injury or death, would be abhorrent, but to the orcs this is an expression of love, as they want their children to be strong and conflict will make them so. It would be right to weed out the weak ones early so the strong may flourish. And the orcs would be just as confused and repulsed by the human methods of childrearing. "You stop your children from fighting? Don't you love them?" It's funny that in sci-fi games different species are allowed to be alien, but in fantasy people want them to all be variant humans. But sci-fi proves that despite alien perspectives we can still find commonality whilst still being vastly different, and that is what we should focus on in roleplaying, as far as I'm concerned.
I often propose that base character creations should have 3 components: race, culture, and background. The first establishes biology and can even inform possible cultures. Though it would be best that for the sake of setting agnosticism that such issues of psychology and worldview be folded into culture more so than race but this can be remedied with a tagging system where the “merciless” cultures can be taken by x y and z races, etc. Then background does what it says on the tin. Let’s take elves as an example. You pick elf as a race (subraces can and should still be a thing for the sake of biological differences like aquatic elves) and possible subrace to inform biology; age, any innate magical talents, senses, limbs, affinities to elements or natural phenomenon, immune systems, etc. Then pick a culture: cosmopolitan which can be a generalist culture, elven seclusion (stealth and subterfuge) elvish supremacy (negatives to interacting with other races but bonuses to elven communication), natural mages (more spell training and perhaps even expansions to available spell selection for classes like letting wizards pick some Druid spells), magical society (more spell selection in general and perhaps small bonuses to casting or acquiring new spells or expanded spells known), elven artisan (with all that extra time or natural talent you acquire extra skills or even some expertise), etc. Humans should have a more baseline stat and ability spread (perhaps they should get 2 +2s to compensate for having no special abilities) but they can instead get to pick up extra cultures (if only to balance feat economy) and let them grab from other race’s exclusive or selective cultures. Humans who find themselves raised by elves get access to elven traditions (and class options if WotC weren’t cowards) due to their natural propensity to easily absorb and assimilate different cultures. It would let you make an Orcish human that was also raised in a city before he lost his family and was adopted, etc. Perhaps even humans raised by drow gain a connection to Lolth and her shared powers. Plus you can then write cultures that are unique to different setting while not having to rewrite the actual races while also not having to shoehorn in random abilities that you would prefer your setting didn’t have. Like drow magic, have it connected to culture so in one setting they get the magic from Lolth, in the same setting a drow can instead be raised as an assassin and get more roguish skills, or a priestly drow gets more divine or warlock spells, and in a different setting they can get a completely different array of spells their cultures or circumstances leave them, like more Druidic spells for the Eberron kin. Hell you can even bring back light sensitivity for those raised in the under dark and different culture options can be written around the separatist drow. Plus you can even have dark elves and drow as properly separate elves in the FR by having drow be dark elves that take drow culture options and the (now redeemed) dark elves take other options!! Basically by making the character creation more modular by taking culture and setting differences into account you pretty much solve every side’s problems with the current state of fantasy races and character creation and portrayal.
This would make sense if D&D races were not regularly slotted in earthen human stereotypes, throughout the entirety of D&D's existence. Whatever a player or a GM or a writer feels, overall, D&D races were always Humans in Hats - elves have the Pure and Enlightened hat, hobbits have the Hearty and Folksy hat, dwarves have the Stout and Sturdy hat, orcs have the Savage Barbarian hat. That's not ideas of what alien creatures could be - it is human perception of other human beings, but instead of Indians to be battled by Cowboys, its Orcs to be battled by Adventurers. Nothing about D&D races is something humans did not believe about themselves or each other. They are not dictated by speculative biology worldbuilding, else dwarves in D&D would have had sensitive hairs and orcs would have had prescribed hunting and scavenging tactics - its all just humans with a little extra. And yes, this is a setup that can lead to very awful ideas about culture and psychology. Does the coat of green/gray paint and tusks make you comfortable enough saying that orcs are evil because they are inherently merciless? I am not sure how that works with orcs being a social species as opposed to solitary predators - and even Earth's solitary predators can display restraint, respect, patience and even kindness. Each individual animal displays own habits - D&D's combat system does not work well to represent scores of individual, but then D&D lore should stress that this is not logic of the world itself. Relying on "common sense" forgets how varied people's perceptions are. Sci-fi is not about Earthen environments, even if it still ends up being Humans in Hats quite often. Note how no one wants to say Klingons are inherently merciless - they are about as rubber-foreheaded as orcs are, and are a culture with a lot of emphasis on military, but they are not internalised slaughter fodder for a tabletop combat game like orcs are. Neither are Cardassians, Romulans (good comparison to drow!), hell, even Borg get some human traits. The idea that orcs "biologically are merciless", without any biological logic to it, can only happen if you dismiss them as merely pawns - something that real life sees its own share, too. And many D&D players think that's crass, so that's why the hats of Humans in Hats do not prescribe their whole behaviour anymore and people are mad when it does.
@@TenositSergeich you claim that D&D races are humans in hats yet your presentation of them is a complete strawman that ignores the actual writings. Elves are ancient beings, and many writers actually write them with the longevity of age in mind. Orcs have a variety of ticks based on setting, frequently its divine intervention from their creator god(s) that bring about their feral nature. This leaves them open to conversion where they can suppress and ignore the savageness instilled by their god. Other times they’re generally chaotic that ranges from good to evil and their savageness comes down to their brutish physiques and clan life. You invoke “humans in hats” while dismissing the actual writings from over the decades. Even recent editions manage to articulate what can make these races more or less alien. Plus this is fantasy, not Sci-fi. Its not expected for the different races to exist on a completely alien paradigm if not written to be so like Aberrations, etc. So your conclusions fall flat when talking about fantasy, which also can focus on what can bind disparate groups of people who share the same world while also acknowledging the differences. So let fantasy races have their differences at any range from near-human to far-out alien. But in terms of a game, it is in a dev’s best interest to not make the options just shitty window dressing since mechanical differences are a tool to help communicate information about a race. If this is too tangential at points, know that it is late. Only hack writers fall into the “humans in hats” critique.
@@jemm113 All you can tell me is that "books say it makes sense". You point at a hundred justifications written after orcs were already made cannon fodder - by Arneson and Gygax, before first D&D orc lore was written. It literally does not matter how much writing was made if the function it serves is shit - I've seen Gruumsh being made evil for desire to create place for his people after he was tricked by other gods, I've seen orcs being treated as insane, I saw orcs being promised the world by evil deities after they kill all of the Good People. Read my point again or get lost and read up on so-called "thermian argument" - you are either unable or unwilling to ask WHY did books need to say that.
I grew up playing separate Race and Class and played that way for 25 years. Just recently I've tried B/X (OSE) and I thought I would not like Race-as-Class. I was afraid it would diminish the non-humans. When I actually played, the opposite was true. Non-Human classes became special because they were a class that no one else could be. I like that a lot and it's a good way to make them feel special and different. Separate Race and Class tends to boil down non-humans to a few visual traits (big beard or pointy ears, etc), and maybe a few special abilities (dark vision), but there's nothing special about being an elf or dwarf or whatever. I find the term "species" to be too scientific/modern, but I would support a term like "Kin" instead. I don't think "race" is a good word to keep because it will just continue to be construed with "race" as it is used outside of D&D.
The word "race" has certain social/political implications -- especially in the U.S. That's why WotC and others have switched to "ancestry" or "species" or "heritage" or "lineage". In the end, all of these terms can be used to describe the same thing -- which is always going to be a generalization, since inter-species (there, I've done it, WotC) cross-breeding is a thing in fantasy gaming. With all of that being said, the main point of this video is exactly on point: an orc is not a human, and a human is not an elf, and we shouldn't expect these things to equate. These species (damn, I've done it again!) are ALIEN to each other, and they should feel that way. That is not to say that a PLAYER should feel compelled to play their CHARACTER a given way. A player can make any damn kind of character they want to. But as game masters, we should try to represent the world in all of its wonder and mystery, and so we should embrace the differences that these different... PEOPLES (there's a good word!) present us with in our game.
Since many people here seem to already have expressed points I agree with (this being a non-issue and the term fitting fantasy setting circumstances the best), I'll just include how this is dealt in other IP's. In many japanese and other asian fantasy settings, the term used to describe different kinds of people is something akin to the word "Family" or "group" (-族 or "zoku" in japanese). Usually, this ends up being localized as "Tribe" (Dragon Quest X) or "Clan" (Wuxia novels, and some anime like Naruto or even Dragon Ball). This is used to describe both humans with ethnic, culture and even physical differences (in and some asian fantasy, different clans may develop special abilities or traits like having higher reserves of magical energy to being able grow in size or control ice, this being enough to count as different "Clans") to describe beings with entirely different origins or physical composition (Humans, Ogres, Wetlings, Poppets, Dwarves and Elves in Dragon Quest X, or the literally blue-blooded Darklings from Dragon Quest - Dai's Adventure). Calling them the equivalent of "families" kinda gives it a different, more personal feel to them as groups. All this reminds how Dragon Ball just takes all fantasy races, from humans monsters (vampires, mummies and werewolves) to anthropomorphic or just plain talking animals and lump them together as "Earthlings". I enjoy using Tribe in my personal settings, but I'll stick with Race when playing D&D out of convenience. In the end guys, just choose whatever sounds or looks cooler for your setting and have fun!
I’m so pleased to have found your channel. You remind me of all things I have enjoyed about D&D (and now Dungeon Crawl Classics). Keep up the good work.
It's not such a big deal what word we end up using. In Finnish, the word "lajit" (species) has been used as a translation of the D&D races for years, at least since e3, because this has been seen as more logical because they are more like humanoid species and it describes them better. Of course, the old name is nostalgic because it has been in use for a long time and giving it up is sad and feels bad.
I don't think anyone would have a problem if it was just about the word race. But we see how activists are trying to change more here. I don't know why, but apparently some political activists associate orcs with people of color, which is absolutely not true, or the Na'vi from Avatar. That's one of the reasons why they change races to make it sound more politically correct. Basically I don't care because I only play a little D&D but because I like fantasy I can already see how political correctness is slowly finding its way into the genre and with it the negative aspects. I'm just saying Rings of Power, wheel of time series, The Witcher, Star Wars, Marvel etc. I even agree with some aspects, e.g. the bikini armor goes or that women get more sane characters too [although Hollywood is pretty inept when it comes to writing female characters for whatever reason] but they overdo it and because they see themselves as morally superior they get a god complex.
What's really funny, is at the same time, they're changing the rules so all these "species" can crossbreed, bringing them more inline with common usage of 'race' than 'species'
Another well thought out video, and another topic that appears quite wonderful to talk about. Love the content, keep it up. Thank you for the time you spend making these videos
I dunno... I liked the implications of the word "race" in regards to the phrase "the human race" in dnd. As for "species", now we're mixing species and stuff in dnd, thats kinda weird. If race is an arbitration to distinguish people irl, I feel like the concept of "race" fits better in a fantasy game than it does irl. Does anyone else understand what Im saying?
I agree. All humans are the same race even though our ethnicities may differ. Just blame the woke atheist Marxists. They're cause of all this nonsense to begin with.
Well, consider this - Are an elephant and a mouse different races? No, they are different species. The same logic can be applied to say, an elf and a tortle. But if you like race, then nobody will stop you from using the term.
@@beancounter2185 That's such a valid argument. I actually agree. Here's my thoughful contribition; I think the issue is that in fantasy the Tortle looks like a humanoid turtle with an intellect comparitive to a humans (spoken language, writing presumably, tool making). Philosophically, that makes the Tortle a human but NOT a Homo Sapian. Homo Sapian is our species and human is our race. I feel like we conflate race and species so often that we confuse the two. Turtles and mice are different species, but their both animals. I don't have a clean answer to any of this because it requires us to understand what it means to be human (one of my favorite scifi subjects), and that's the debate here. A sentient A.I., a gorilla using sign language, it starts to get confusing. Is human only reserved for homo sapian or is it an intangeable experience that sentient beings accend to?
You make a good point in stating that using archaic terms adds to the flavor of a historic fantasy game! Language evolves naturally, but if you're playing in a historical setting, you're going to want that kind of atmosphere. On the other hand, I've never had a player in Call of Cthulhu (in full segregation 1920s) go as deep into character as using what are now considered to be racial slurs, which was actually quite socially accepted for white people back then. I'm going to add this one to the list "things racists have ruined for the rest of us", like the swastika being a benign symbol for most of history, or nordic runes being used by white supremacists ("I just want to play a cool viking without being associated with those people!" ;) )...
I live close to a Hindu community, and frequently see swastikas painted on doorways etc. It of course means something religious and completely different to them than what people might assume from nazi appropriation.
@@becmiberserker yeah, but let's face it - if I walked around town with a T-shirt sporting a swastika on it, the first thought of people who saw me wouldn't be "he's probably a Hindu" ;)
@@becmiberserker Funny thing there... the oldest known uses of that symbol... are so old that some anthropologists had previously believed no Humans lived in that area so long ago. :D The usage that so many people hate... is less than 100 years old. One of the oldest symbols in Human history.... and people don't care about anything but one single modern usage. Fun fact: the character Gi in Captain Planet(the wind Planeteer) was ambiguously Asian... and her originally aired character design has a round metal disk with a simple symbol etched into it. Why? Enh... probably Hindu/Buddhist reasons, it never touched on her religious leanings other than showing her wear that pendant.
@@marhawkman303 Turns out if you hate loud enough it doesn't matter how peacably your words have been used before. If you don't like that, stop the hate.
I don't necessarily care about Race vs Species (although I prefer Race in a 'medieval' setting, and 'species' in a fantasy setting). However, when it comes to Intelligent beings, you can assume that all intelligent creatures have the ability to feel the range of emotions that Humans feel (as this is the only example we have), unless there is something particular to their physiology that affects how they think. That's why I like how, in 'canon' D&D, the "All Drow are Evil" thing is explained by the meddling of their Goddess, Lolth, in their lives pretty much from the moment of their birth. Very rare individuals can escape this meddling and learn emotions other than hatred/fear/lust for power, etc. On the other hand, Mind Flayers can feel no other emotion that humans would call 'Good', entirely because of how their physiology forces them to think (they literally have 'alien mindsets' that we can't understand). Any 'good' illithids that exist are 'mistakes' in their birthing process (retaining some of the thought patterns of the being the flayer parasite was implanted in), or exposed to some supernatural force that changed their alignment, but its not 'natural' to them.
I like Race in fantasy RPGs rather than Species or any other word. I think the latter word (Species) definitely reflects more negatively or at least should relate more to science fiction settings, etc. And... if you make everyone the same then no-one is special or interesting/different/unique.
I largely agree with your take on the diversity (and the necessity thereof) of "races" in D&D... and I think it's interesting that the people who are dying on the hill to keep the word "race" are the people treating them most like separate species, while the ones demanding the use of the word "species" (or some other alternative) are also the ones most determined to treat them like mere human ethnic groups. I want every "race", by whatever name we call them, to be meaningfully different in my fantasy settings-- or else, what is even the point of having them? But I take except to the damnable _selectivity_ with which people apply that principle, between the "free-willed" demihumans who only have _alignment tendencies_ and the "always evil" humanoids. It's an amusing exercise to read the monster descriptions of CG (suspicious and clever) elves versus LE (bigoted and cowardly) hobgoblins. Fundamentally, the differences in alignment and races/monsters between D&D and AD&D are responsible for the current discourse, just as they've been responsible for irreconcilable table conflicts and angry editorials for the last forty-five years.
I does not matter much wheter using species or race, but species is more technically correct for most of the use. Species would be elf or dwarf. Race would be shield dwarf or wood elf. Using spieces underlines that these are inded quite different from one another, physically and psychologically. So it is weird they change the nomenclature in a direction that undelsines their differences while erasing the differences. Almost like there was to internal factions, and one won out in the game mechanics rework and the other won out in naming conventions.
One of the most boring things that happen quite often when playing fantasy is other races are just humans with pointy ears or bigger arms and an accent. I know some genres of low-er fantasy do this, put I much prefer the Tolkien-esque approach where races are very different. Sometimes to the extent that elves are not a playable race, because they are so different from us (but I like playable races so I'd use this when playing some more greek/roman/norse mythology style). I loved Tolkien's depiction of elves in Hobbit. So other-worldly when they were dancing in the forest at night and whenever someone came close to them, they disappeared.
This frustrates me so much. I've tried making this argument on D&D Beyond forums, and as a result I have literally been accused of being racist. I am so tired of people projecting onto make-believe, and trying to argue that fantasy races are analogues for the real world. It is driving me away from the new edition(s) of D&D and back to older play types.
I liked that Tolkien was a fan of the terms "Peoples" and "Men" ... What a can of worms the latter is now ;) I use Ancestry and Lineage in Bastard Sword, keeps things nice and simple. ;) Great video mate!
@Lind Morn While I appreciate the vitriol and such, not exactly sure what my comment contained that required you to celebrate my eventual death... you must be a lot of fun at parties mate. Le sigh...
The word "ancestry" and "lineage" already have specific meanings and uses. i.e. my ancestry is a mix of Scottish and German, and my lineage is Northern European...? But these words are all referring to the same species. Does using them to refer to different species in your game leave a vacuum when trying to distinguish between different groups of humans?
I'm reminded with what Neil Gaiman said regarding political correctness: "I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.” Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile. You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening. I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!” Happy Valentine’s Day."
@@becmiberserker Yup! "The phrase politically correct first appeared in the 1930s, when was used to describe dogmatic adherence to ideology in authoritarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Early usage of the term politically correct by leftists in the 1970s and 1980s was as self-critical satire; usage was ironic, rather than a name for a serious political movement. It was considered an in-joke among leftists used to satirise those who were too rigid in their adherence to political orthodoxy. The modern pejorative usage of the term emerged from conservative criticism of the New Left in the late 20th century, with many describing it as a form of censorship" But yeah, it started as a term for authoritarian regime, used as a joke among leftist and then claimed by conservatives who use it to deflect from issues... while also gleefully avoiding their own hypocrisies with their own form of censorship.
I feel like your points are valid and contribute to why they should be called species. You're right, we aren't similar to Orcs which is why they're a different species.
We have always referred to ourselves as the “Human Race”, would elves and dwarves not refer to themselves as the “elven race” and “dwarven race”? Species usually refers to different types of creatures within the same family. Like there are multiple species of rhinos, or a vast number of species of spiders. The modern “sensibilities” are so confused on the meaning of words…
No, race is a word for a subcategory of a species, as applied to humans. While it could be retained in this sense to talk of shield dwarves vs gold dwarves or the like, it’s best to move past race and use species and cultures.
@@lberghaus race literally is a group of people that share physical characteristics and cultures. It is the perfect word to distinguish dwarves from humans, elves, orcs, etc. and was perfectly fine for decades before sensitive types like you were offended by everything. “Race” as a word isn’t scary or hurtful, it’s going to be ok.
@@djn6962 whatever, clearly the D&D people don’t agree, and I don’t agree and I’m writing my own game so I won’t follow the racist ideologies of the 1800’s either.
Very well said and in a much calmer demeanor, than I would have. This is a ridiculous argument. The Dwarf vs. Goblin racial animosity is a great example of why these angry people don't really understand the game they profess to play. They tend to label current, human conflicts onto a fantasy game analogous of medieval Europe, and that is awfully silly. Dwarves and Goblins are natural enemies, because they tend to live in the same environment and vie for the same resources. When you consider the long lives of Dwarves it is not hard to imagine, that every Dwarf has probably had a human's lifetime of clashes with Goblins. Certainly, you could expect even the most mildly cantankerous Dwarf to turn flush with anger at the sight of the little, green buggers. Relate it to the animal world. Lions and hyenas don't really hate each other in terms of the human emotion of hate, but they are natural enemies because they compete for the same resources. Let's not forget that Goblins and Kobolds are also natural enemies for the same reason. Ever since BECMI and 1e, this has been the understanding of what racial tensions derived from...that, and in some cases a multi-century spanning feud as with Elves and Dwarves and humans. Orcs are Orcs, and they have always been Orcs. They are not and never have been a racist's interpretation of modern human groups (the same point applies to the Drow). This idea that Orcs and Drow represent modern human in some sort of demeaning light is ridiculous and seems to be a blatant an attempt to stir up a fight where none exist. It would seem, the people stirring up this mess are in fact the actual racists by the modern interpretation. I've played D&D since the late 70's (BECMI, 1e), and I've never heard an inkling of racism among players or in the game material. Hell, even during the Satanic Panic deliberate racism was not even mentioned as a culprit. This has all come about in just these past few years. This new age of spineless whelps hiding securely behind the monitor of their computer. Free to spew filth and dissidence to the world without consequence. I think they would be better served using the game as an escape from the woes of their world, rather than dragging all that baggage into an activity that is supposed to fun.
@@becmiberserker Personally, my take is that race and species are not synonyms. For one way to look at it, Humans are a species, Dwarves are a species, Elves are a species. Drow are a race, Wood Elf is a race, etc.... Eves are still elves... whether or not they have purple skin. Drow and Wood Elves are not different species.
I see what you are saying, but I get why they want to swap out the term race. In English vernacular "races" are variations on the same species so Orcs or or Aarokocra just being a different race doesn't really make sense. As far as character options go there are some choices that don't have to do with parentage, like the "lineages". Something like "ancestry", or maybe even "ilk" would be more accurate. Unforturnatly, the best term for something like this is probably background...
I agree completely that different genetic lines of humanoids, reproductively compatible or not, would view life very differently from humans, by definition. I mean, an aquatic half-fish, half-humanoid, of any lifespan, simply won't think like a human. (Even if there may be similarities such as "I like my children" and "shark fins taste good.") Unfortunately, all the players are human, so eventually even the beholders and mind flayers behave like humans, especially when made into player characters. On top of all that, humans have baggage that ultimately gets projected onto any definition of non-human intelligence. It's actually that baggage (well-intentioned or complete rubbish or both) that creates misunderstanding and conflict. Is the solution to homogenize every intelligent species? Well, if your market is a few hundred million people across 160 countries, then, yeah, I expect as a business decision that will be the way to appeal to the most while offending the least. Is that a good thing? M'eh. Lack flavor? Yep. Thank goodness for fantasy writers we can poach cultures from for those home games where we want to introduce whatever level of "bloody well doesn't think like a human" we want to. In my stuffed shirt opinion, of course 😀
I have to say I don’t care for the term race. It doesn’t make sense because as you said they’re different creatures inherently. The word race has meaning in our language and to people not so immersed in the hobby it can be a point of confusion or distaste because of its meaning. Plenty of other systems have used different words so I don’t see the problem with WOTC (all other of their problems aside) doing the same. See ancestry, kin, clan, species. I think species can feel too scientific as well so I’m fine with ancestry. Also I love detaching stats from ancestry. Because it’s flexible imo. I’m a big believer that society as it is shapes people, so if society values physical might then that culture of people might have bonuses to that regardless of anatomy. If you don’t believe that though, you can still feel free to have a fixed ancestry with bonuses and it’s fine. We both get to enjoy our game. I think that’s what it’s about imo.
Another excellent video. Maybe you're more like Bruce Banner/the Hulk? Mild manner until the wrong button is pushed? You don't start the fight, but you damn well finish it? (One of my fav 5e chars was a Noble who in a fight went into "no thought, all action" mode - a Barbarian with "all emotions shutdown" SFX instead of frothing at the mouth.)
I like how in traditional D&D all humans, regardless of color or ethnicity, are part of the same human race. That's kind of beautiful and progressive actually.
I couldn't agree more! The WotC view that it's "racist" in the modern sense of the word to fight Orcs for being Orcs is patently absurd. Great video from one of the best newer channels, I hope you keep it up for years to come.
Your opinions here more or less match my own. The name change just feels wrong in a fantasy context, and the stripping of racial modifiers and mentalities just makes them humans with rubber foreheads. Verisimilitude is king with RPGs (or any form of fiction, really) and WOTC's current approach just doesn't create it.
But none of the players can play an elf if they are so alien to human minds. Its like trying to roleplay an eldritch horror you can't you couldn't possibly actually play the character as anything more than a human pretending to be this race and so your just a human with a fancy skin. So thats kinda the point. Elves live for a long time true, but we never really experience that most elves starting ages are basically out of school ages. We are playing teen elves while we play young adult humans. So their mentalities would all be fairly the same (of course going off the generic starting ages not based on a character specific).
The racial modifiers were removed because that starts getting into racial bio essentialism especially when you have things like negative intelligence modifiers, that can easily lead to not great stuff. Then you get in alignment and things like darker skin races like drow are always evil compared to their good aligned brethren. Honestly I can understand why WotC might decide it might not be worth keeping those concepts in their official material while there is nothing stopping you from keeping orcs low intelligence always chaotic evil.
@@TheLastSane1 That's like saying you can't play a wizard because you can't really cast spells. The point of Taranchule's comment, and the video, is the other races have qualities that can be observed (that's what you role play) that define them. A dwarf's opinion of goblins and giants is more than a mere social construct, it is their nature. An Elf's affinity with bows is not an elective course the elf takes at elf school, but an instinctual skill. These represent strange and magical beings that are interesting BECAUSE they are different.
@@SevenWondersProd Quite correct. My screenname is based on Lizardman character I had as a kid and subsequently brought into some unpublished fiction I wrote. I spent time trying to understand how a creature with cold blood, hard skin and alien mind would view a world where he is surrounded by various breeds of mammals. It's stuff like that which breaths life into a character, either at the table or on a page. To go off on a slight tangent, the purpose of the Non-Human in fiction always represents something, a specific aspect of the human condition writ large across biology, psychology and an entire society. They are incomplete Humans that are bound to a specific archetype for that very reason. What makes Humans special in an RPG context is that they have none of those restrictions. They are complete beings.
Species has the same problem infra vision had. It's not sci-fi, it's best practice to avoid explaining how things work in the world of the game in a pseudoscientific manner. I don't like the baggage race has. Makes me uncomfy. People treating folk different for their kin is too common in the real world. I've used kin instead for a long time now. Just one of a half dozen ways to describe folk, facial features, body type, the style of clothes you wear, and I usually have NPC's react to characters based on that.
In the one DnD survey they did not even include race as an option to survey preferred terms, they included, Species, Kind and Subtype, pick your favorite.
i have no idea what they even, try to infer with "Subtype". i just wrote down i prefer to be an Elf if i was an Elf, and a Goblin if i was a Goblin. i even tried to spin it as it being they who were racist for Homogenizing races since apparently it's wrong to be different
@@theprinceofawesomeness I actually used species in game recently, Mind flayers referring to the lesser species... really struck home the vile and alien nature of the mind flayers because the PC's would never refer to themselves as species. And thats the problem. I also inferred in the survey that the best way to fight racism is to have members of other races come together in cooporation. By removing race they are causing more harm than good.
"We're making a change. We're not calling it 'Race' anymore. That's the call. To throw a bone to anyone who may be a little sore about it, we're letting you vote on what the new term will be." I don't see the problem.
Lineage would have been a better choice, as well as ancestry, which Pathfinder uses. I don’t know that anyone was “calling” for “race” to be changed. But i agree that it's a problematic term today, & there's no need for it. “Lineage” could have been the beginning of a more interesting approach to character backgrounds, with family lines of varying importance. As it is, the game has always been pretty numb to social class, which is silly, given the time setting.
Your point seems to be that this is a non-issue that didn't need to be addressed, and yet you felt the need to make a video addressing it. If it doesn't matter, why are people upset about the change? I suggest that the backlash against this particular change demonstrates that the term "race" does indeed contain political weight, and that the change is a positive one.
ive used species for years now victorian race theory and taxonomy was very influential over fantasy lit and people like Michael Moorcock have complained about it since 1960s the debate isn't new - race as a term is not scientific and harmful and outmoded - I'm fine with it being removed - most of the "races" in modern dnd are not human "races" but non human. Half races in 5th ed are full of cringy tropes i was taught not to use 30 years ago.
It is reassuring to hear others express the same attitudes I have. Great examples on all your key points. The split in D&D players has been growing for a few years now. BX, DCC, and such are growing in popularity for a reason. The more products WoTC produces the wider the split gets. 6th edition will complete the divide and this is good. Those who don't want a politically correct infected game experience will be compelled to find another option and the modern sensibility crowd can run with 6th edition until it burns like it failed a save vs a fireball.
Orrrr, how about some players bring their politically correct terms for "Species" and ideas about gender norms over to their OSR game (lots of us are already there) and enjoy it all the same? It's still very silly to me, how many people are reacting to the "woke" word changes way more than they've EVER complained about the crap rules changes in every new edition past 2nd.
@@VanDavis Exactly! There is nothing inherently in the language of OSR that prevents players from bringing in terms or ideas of any kind. The game can be whatever vibe you like. The complaints about the rules are plenty. Everyone I know has a criticism about 5E, though its fundamentally a good system underneath. However, people (me included) are more vocal about the 'silly' woke changes because it invokes an emotional response. We are that old guy that yells at the kids 'get outta my yard!' Futile, I know. But we are free to do so.
@@theprinceofawesomeness I get that! It took me a little time to sway my 5E players. However, I told them I needed some time to set up the next adventure. In the meanwhile I wanted to run about 3 session of Dungeon Crawl Classics to fill the sessions. The whacky system took hold and we've finally switched.
I feel the term race suits any RPG really true species makes sense in scifi settings. but even races can still apply in that setting to. i look at race as way to describe humanoid type beings such as elves, humans, halflings etc. species describes things like canine, feline, dragon, reptile etc ...
The differences between fantasy races have become extremely superficial over the years which is something I lament. I’m fascinated by the way authors such as Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock are able to write their elves as otherworldly aliens.
Oh I think we do know that and I think WotC has known that for years. The culture is changing and the market follows. Simple as that. We can rail against it in our own way to influence things, even if a little. I mean, it’s better than sitting on your hands. 🙂 I think we’re going to see a generational split in D&D like we’ve never seen before, but I also think the gaming companies are not going to care too much. It’s the youngsters who are more willing to dispense of their cash. Anyway, thanks for commenting.
@@becmiberserker well at the same point you can’t blame the next generation for doing the same. Especially when there’s so many products in the OSR space that caters to us old folk.
But species makes more sense even in the context of D&D. Elves are a species. High elves would be a race within the elven species. Damaran, Rashemi, and Turami are races within the Human species. Elves and Humans however are separate species, they are not members of the same race they are totally separate species.
I've used the term "species" since the 80s. Probably because of my background in biology and my ready mixing of sci-fi elements into our fantasy setting. I wholly endorse the change.
I never liked species but just because the different races can and do interbreed. And produce fully viable offspring. They also are largely just products of divine creation and not evolution. Like, elves were spontaneously created when a god bled on the battlefield. How are you ascribing biological taxonomy to that? I think they all share the same species. Humanoid. And then each have different origins and ancestry. My vote would to be calling them Ancestries.
@@remyb6854 Yeah but Homo Sapian, Neaderthal, and Denosovians were all different independent species, and yet they could all create viable offspring. So should modern humans be renamed? Should we use the name of our last ancestor who broke off to form those three branches? I mean we could. Or we could except that species doesn't mean can't breed. It means that they need to be genetically closely related to breed. So Elves and Orcs have to be genetically close to Humans to have Half-Elf and Half-Orc children.
@@nathanieljernigan1147 Not really, we had close genetic relatives on earth with us, we could cross breed with them and they were not the same species as us. This flawed understanding that species means you can't reproduce is just a failure of American Education. Hell we have a perfect analogy here. Denisovans could be seen as the elves, the Neanderthal as the orcs and us as the humans. We are all genetically related but independent species with our own traits and so forth but able to breed due to close genetic similarities. And given humans can not longer breed with the chimp genetic line with 99.6% dna in common they had to be only a .1 or even less different but were different species. So no species is the proper term. race would be used for things like Stout Halfling, Mountain Dwarf, Wood Elf. Variations within a species.
The removal of ability bonuses from races is a good thing in my opinion. As I DM, I saw how my players were basically forced by the game mechanics to pick certain race/class combinations to perform better in the game. I think that narrows the potential of roleplaying and character identity.
to be fair ability bonuses show how physically different a race is to that of humans. elves normally have +2 to dex which shows that they more agile than humans. which is to me a sense of what makes elves elves. in addition to culture and there way of thinking. my problem is when they started to make humans have ability bonuses. i always thought of human as balanced compared to other races. which makes humans more unique.
@@SolarStrikeMolecularDragon I understand what you're saying and how it makes logical sense to have them. But sometimes, the illogical thing is better for game design.
@@ravador which why i will never play later versions of the game. plus all the races are now just in name only. an elf is no different than a orc or a human. the name of each race is just a skin to be worn nothing more. Plus it doesn't make for a better game design it just makes it a different game which is why i don't consider D&D 5e D&D anymore it's a different game. Oh i never found the race ability adjustments a forced mechanic. plus you could argue having no race ability adjustments as being forced too. but in the end to each there own
Personal opinion: It's race. Why? I've been doing this for over 30 years and that's what it's always been. It's probably going to be that way, for me, until I die. It's not something that warrants any energy on my part to change for my own self, and besides, it's "race" in all of my 2E books. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter anyway. Nobody roleplays their race. It's sad. I had one guy, ONE, that did. He played a kenku, and he spoke only in mimicry for the three hours that our sessions lasted. The best part was my Sailor Ranger, who spoke only in profanity. Our table got a "content warning" real quick. It was awesome. Anyway, I digress. "Race" or "Species" isn't even reduced to just reskinned humans, they're reduced to what numbers get added to what ability score with no thoughts on how your party consisting of a goblin rogue, hobgoblin fighter, bugbear ranger, orc cleric, and kobold sorcerer are going to get past the GATES of a human town in any fantasy game, if you're playing straight. It doesn't mean anything at all, really. Until your kenku player runs afoul of Baba Lysaga's "Hate all ravens and everything that looks like ravens" personal vendetta and your player wants to know why they feel like they're being targeted and nuked. Of course, my answer would be "Because you are". Race. That's what it's going to be for me forever. And it doesn't matter anyway because every race is nothing but a number added to a score to make you better when you roll a die. They're changing "roleplaying" to "rollplaying". To hell with them.
I believe you hit the nail on the head with your observation of how Humanist, thereby demeaning as well as diminishing, it is to consider all races the same. This is brought up in Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered Country, as the Klingons find offense with the primarily Human Federation and their notions of equality. Other places can be sourced where this theme time and time again rears its ugly head. To cite The Incredibles, "If Everyone is the Same, then No One is Special". Your commentary about the overall Maturity of your players also has a heavy-handed impact on this premise as well. My reaction to this is that if a person cannot handle tensions or strife between entirely alien races cohabiting a fantasy world in a made up setting, then that person should highly consider seeking professional help for much deeper rooted issues and problems. I really do think that some people have become tainted by the poisonous thoughts that in America "White People" are the root cause of all of the evils and misfortunes plaguing modern society - this corruption leads them to overcompensate and lash out with righteous indignation over the most petty of imperceptible issues as a deflection of their own self loathing in order to set themselves apart... in order to be 'Special'. Its infectious and plays off of the social common decency of tolerance in order to take root and flourish. It finds ways to manifest its symptoms in all sorts of daily occurrences too numerous to count anymore. WOTC and through them D&D is moving forward along these perverted lines in order to avoid being perceived as any hateful label such as Racist/Bigoted/Fascist/Insert Dehumanizing Term of Choice. They overcorrect and are mindful of the gnashing of teeth by a percentage of a percentage of the population online who suffer from this mental affliction you could commonly refer to as the Woke Church. Anything can be done in its name, and if you speak out against it you are the Heretic who is worthy of their scorn, condemnation, vitriol and hatred. These notions, if you dwell on them for too long or in too much depth, are more than a little terrifying with the permanent scars they perpetrate on society at large in the long run. I personally try to avoid it like the plague, and consider something like Dungeons & Dragons to be an escape from reality. A safe space in order for my friends and I to be ourselves and collaborate in order to tell some truly memorable stories with a goodly sprinkling of humor thrown into the mix. Anymore I already know that any new books or content coming out of WOTC is going to be laced with the aforementioned foolish notions, and represents one more thing that I have to ignore or hotfix at the table in order to make it comfortable for myself and my group. I enjoyed your video perspective, BECMI Berserker, and look forward to more in the future. Peace to any and all who read this.
Well said. You could go a step further and extend Imperceptible issues to non-existent issues. The use of the term race being changed due to perceived racist connotations, was a non-existent issue until WotC made it an issue. I've been lurking around D&D for a while and no one had an issue with the term in 5th edition or prior as far as I understand it. Its an issue that was created from came from seemingly no where. Things get changed now if they have ANY perceived offence, it doesn't matter if the intent behind the words wasn't offensive at all. The people comprising these groups see what they want to see, not the way things actually are. We're moving into a world where freedom of expression is actively being destroyed, you can't write what you want or say what you want(within reason of course, people should still think about what their saying and always use common sense). With One D&D, I think that will happen to any DM who goes into the virtual space, if you say or write something that is "wrong", you could face this retribution or get censored. You won't be able to have the freedom to run the game the way you want like you would on Roll20(I fear that its days could be numbered depending on what WotC does) or in person.
one of the species of species is that they can not produce fertile offsprings with other species. and in DnD you have half elfs and half orcs and what not.
I mean homo sapian and Neaderthals were different species, they were just closely related and could cross breed. For orcs and elves to produce children they would have to be closely related.
Not to mention the fact that there are tons of animals from different species that can still produce offspring. It’s just that the offspring are sterile. For example, mules are the combination of a donkey and a horse. Pislybears are combination of grizzly, bear, and polar bear, and coy wolves are a mix of coyote and wolf.
Funny that I should come across this video after WotC announced that “Half-“ races will no longer be a thing… I’m now curious how long it will take them to realize how many of their named playable races are also technically “half-“ races that reached a population size to be self-replicating and distinct. Still rather happy that my one and only time playing D&D was as a Mul(half-dwarf).
I'm in the camp of actually liking the way they've separated ability scores from racial traits and instead having them be tied to background. When it comes to how these different races generally behave culturally, that's up to the DM, but player characters are always able to be the exception to the rule. They are, after all, meant to be exceptional individuals. I think when it comes to the portrayal of different sapient species/races, nurture plays more of a role in how they behave than nature does, and that's part of what separates sapient species from animals. For the most part I enjoy the mechanical changes, though not the changes in nomenclature, and for both I believe the changes being made are for the wrong reasons.
I like separating cultural traits from abilities in races due to setting discontinuity. This way you can have your demon-powered Drow in the FR and have the forest-dwelling hippies in Eberron and give them unique starting features that’s tied more closely to the setting lore. And by having more general or customizable backgrounds (sometimes I think it can be a three-part system with race, culture, and background to form the base of a character so you have cultural ties that more general backgrounds don’t accidentally erase or omit on characters that really should have them) you can make those characters that act against the mold and make it something the system can recognize mechanically.
You could argue as far as inherint behavior goes, a fantasy world can have a justifed reason for why a sapient species or race is"born evil" or tied to an evil aligenment for instance the kenku, as far as I know, is magically cursed to have No creative spark in terms of making stuff, that would Mean they cant make a house but they can "use" a house, i imagin this would breed a negative jealousy towards others not of their species, this ofc should not exclude exceptions that may occure, because what else is the player if not an exception? But the majority would still be nasty by default. Again i could make this argument, but as the creative brain behind your own setting and games its up to yourself how the kenku is or react to their predicement, maybe they aren't cursed at all, or maybe they are just evil enemies akin to goblins but with a bird theme. Ultimately i dont think its WOTC who should decide for us if a race or species should be good or bad, rather offer interesting Lore to justify both and allow the dms to pick which they desire for their game.
Ability scores aren't the mechanics for behaviours or anything acquired culturally, ability scores are the mechanics for the structure of the character's body. Cultural nurtured features would be knowledge, skills, feats. If a human were raised by Elves, how would they suddenly learn the ability to function without real sleep? Raised by Dwarves, would their growth stunt and would they get darkvision? Raised by dragons would they learn how to fly and breathe fire? Sapient species ARE biologically a part of the animal kingdom. Nurture plays a role in how they behave, nature plays a role in what they ARE. A change that blurs (annihilates) this distinction stops this from being a fantasy-themed game and just divorces it from a recognisable reality. When your character is a cross between Superman and Brainiac, NOBODY SANE CARES ANYMORE.
@@troffle i think calling ability scores "mechanics for the structure of the character's body" is a little disingenous. Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma are not tied to the structure of a character's body. And as for the physical stats of a character, sure, they may have some natural advantage over another race or races, but if that natural advantage isn't nurtured, and other traits are as a result of the character's upbringing and lifestyle, then it doesn't really mean anything. If an orc is raised by a family of schollarly elves, and never focuses on training their body but instead studies intensely, then it makes more sense that their starting ability scores would center around mental ability over physical. Of course, the orc would still be naturally stronger than their elven adoptive family, due to the structure of their body, but that is already represnted by the Powerful Build trait. Racial traits can sufficiently represent the natural advantages one race has in comparison to another, while ability scores more effectively capture how a character has lived their life and what they've focused on bettering, while also providing a more flexible framework for the player to experience the fantasy they're looking for.
@@jacobyullman5005 I took what you said into account and I have a response. RUclips is not letting me POST the response, keeps saying "unable to add". This is insane. The short of it is that nearly every point you have raised has a superficial truth but in most cases you're contradicting YOURSELF. It's not at all disingenuous, in fact I'm wondering if you're being so, because of the contradictions you make. I'll keep trying to post my original text, because it disproves what you say whether referring to reality or the game system, with detail and references.
I grew up on the BECMI books. I never played it in a group but loved reading the rules and the modules. Eventually I grew out of DnD and haven't followed it until I started hearing about the various "controversies" like racist Orcs lol. Now I hear the crap the WOTC is pulling with the 5e licensing stuff and I realized I probably didn't miss much after BECMI. Recently I discovered drivethrurpg and print on demand services, I've already ordered the BECMI and related books. I probably won't be playing but I should have some nostalgia reading the older stuff before all the woke nonsense started invading these games.
In the end we run our own games how we want with what rule set we want, I still run my Shadowrun Game with the 1st Editions rules with the odd tweak. Unlike Video Games, Comic, Films and TV, RPGs don't need a big company to produce stuff we have the rules books and make our own stories the extra stuff is nice but we don't need it.
I've been considering this at length, and while I agree this is mostly confected outrage, the widespread use of race and subrace has been heavily driven by dungeons and dragons. The concept of subraces aside, I'm not sure 'race' even really captures the desired meaning. A more generic version of 'humankind' or 'humanity' seems most suitable, though I haven't found any existing words to suit.
Whenever someone complains about evil races etc, I always remember the best question I have been asked in a game. “What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?” ~ Paarthurnax
I don't get what you're trying to invoke with that response. People aren't usually complaining when evil races exist when the "good" orc shows up, they complain about evil races when it's "there are no good orcs"
@@sam7559 Simply that saying there are no good [Insert race here] does not mean one cannot make one that have overcome their evil nature. An exception to a races inherent alignment does not invalidate the entire thing and makes for better stories compared to "everyone is just normal there is no evil" as the game now decided to say when it comes to alignment.
@@TrixyTrixter if the goal is to allow people to feel like it's an option to play [insert race here] it would make sense to not state that people of that race is always evil since a none zero amount of players are going to see that as a barrier unless the goal is to play a villain campaign. So in this situation if WotC wants to keep orc/half orc as a method to increase the likelihood of a player picking that race would be removing the barrier of "biologically always evil" to "typically evil" because that typically is an invitation to play against the grain of being that not evil orc and figuring out why your orc isn't evil.
@@sam7559 Heavy disagree. What is against the grain at all in todays dnd? Every race is a diferent flavor of human in stats and alignment. You just pick which ones features you like and your essentially a human with X features. Set API and a sugested alignment because thats what their culture builds had more character to the races than anything now. Every race boils down to the same things in official lore. You cannot play someone against the norm if there is no norm.
@@TrixyTrixter set ASIs and alignment for PC races because of culture? You do realize that just because you're a dwarf that does not mean you're born and raised in a dwarf society so it wouldn't make sense for you to get those if instead you were an orphan raised by gnomes, it wouldn't make sense to get the Dwarven culture bonuses because they were never touched by Dwarven culture.
I have been playing TTRPGs fro over 3 decades now. I have read many systems and worlds. Not only do I not care if they are using 'race', 'species' or 'people', I don't even notice it. If the setting is interesting or it's the rules that caught my interest, I'm far to busy to even think about that. It's not like I haven't stopped playing D&D when 4E came out or that I have seen a reason to return to 5E or One D&D. Same with Pathfinder 2 and beyond. Besides, we are talking about games where we safe countries, worlds and even universes from destruction (among other, less epic things). What are you going to to when you face an Orc army bent on killing everyone? Discuss if they are people too? Inside the game they want to kill your friends and family. And outside the game? I see no orcs in real life. I don't equal orcs to anyone in real life because orcs don't exist. And while everything can be an allegory, not everything has to be one. Let me finish with words from people far wiser than I am: “I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, "What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?" and gave the obvious answer: jailers.” ― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature "Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?... If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” - J.R.R. Tolkien “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” - Attributed to Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu
And here is another one over from someone wiser than me: "I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.” Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile. You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening. I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!” Happy Valentine’s Day."- Nei Gaiman
Humans can perfectly be hell-bent on killing everyone out of genocidal hatred - events of 19th, 20th, and now even 21st century provide ample examples that no one in the world has right to ignore. Are those humans not people in your eyes? Do these things happen because some humans just are "brutish" and "incapable of compassion"? Or is that something that happens due to long processes that make people grow up in flawed environments?
If only the people who buy in to the contrary point of view would listen and consider your views... Alas, I fear they would start wailing and furiously typing something barely recognizable as legible language, crying for blood and cancelation, instead of discussing the matter. You are making great points. Keep up the good work BECMI brother 🤘
Except his entire point goes out the window when you consider Half-Elf and Half-Orc are a standard starting option for DnD and have been for a very long time. If, as you all seem to want, Orcs are barely a step or so above animals with them being inhuman monsters, cannon fodder, sentient and sapient enough to gather together items for looting but not enough to actually be a person. Then Half-Orcs would have to be removed, because if you then take into account a world where Orcs are viewed as such, any half-orc would be killed immediately as a monster. Lets be clear, if a half-bigfoot child was announced tomorrow with proof that it is actually half bigfoot many of your guys would be screaming for its death "It goes against god's will" kind of thing. Half-elves would be kind of similar, it would have to be moved to a background setting where your elven parent is actually full elf, your other parent is actually human (no half-elves breeding true) and you are a magical conception to allow for your existence. So congrats your half-elf is now a special little snowflake. And your half-orc well they would have to be one too, something to explain why they would be alive. And all of them would have the same story "My momma was raped and somehow survived" So yeah we just need to remove the half-bloods from the game to make the game genetically pure.
Umm hi person with the viewpoint you're complaining about, I was about to watch the whole video and pretty sure I'm still able to type in what would be recognized as 21st century American English. No that does not mean they were able to convince me to change my views given that I don't think the appeal to tradition of it's always been called race is valid. While I will concede that species isn't the term I would use, that would use ancestry especially since that would make character creation pick your ABCs, Ancestry, Background, Class. When it comes to racial modifiers I also don't prefer that especially negative modifiers because that can lead to yikes territory, like elves being good aligned and described as always beautiful (often fair skinned), intelligent (+2 Int), and wise (+1 Wis), while always evil orcs are described as ugly, brutish (+2 Str), and dull (-2 Int). While obviously orcs and elves aren't real it can make people wonder what kind of statement the creators are attempting to make which WotC as a corporate entity might not want to risk people thinking those questions.
@@sam7559 I should probably have said in my original comment, that I neither agree or disagree with what is said in the video. My point was simply that, BECMI Berserker is civilly and calmly making his point known, even laying out the foundation for his point of view, and I would hope that someone would equally and calmly consider his viewpoint for a discussion. Nowhere did I say you have to agree with it, or be convinced or swayed to agree. I was not complaining in my opening statement, but rather lamenting the fact that more than half of the time, discussion is not the response, but rather a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived slight, and often because people stop reading or listening when they find something slightly offensive. A/B/C's are a great alternative. Ancestry sure beats Species, but that's my opinion. I think people will run things the way they want at their tables, unless they are forced to play within the constraints of a program.
@@TheLastSane1 Back when Half-Orcs were introduced, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings had prerequisites to their attributes to play. This was in part to make them more rare and enforce the concept of humans being predominant in the world. Drawing real world examples to illustrate a point in a world where there is magic, dragons, gods walking around, etc, doesn't really work. Sure, morals remain a functional parallel, but the fantasy worlds of D&D used to have less shades of gray, for the sake of making a distinction of Hero and Villain, Good and Evil, clearer. Granted, we ended up with a 9 point alignment system, but when the game started, there were only 3: Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic (chaotic being part of evil and likely heavily influenced by Michael Moorecock's writings). As for your Bigfoot-human example: your conclusion seems very medieval and dark to me, and your preconceived assumption of "you guys" really doesn't work in your favor. You know nothing about me, only what you think you perceived based on my comment. I never said I agree or disagree with what BECMI Berserker said. I made fun of easily offended knee-jerk reactionary comments and complimented BECMI Berserker on a good video, and well made points. I have seen a bunch of variations on how Half-Orcs came to be. Yes, the result of a brutal encounter has been one example, but there have been others, like: the result of foul sorcery, alchemical experiments, curses, divine intervention and more. Orcs were intended to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, the opposite to what's good and true. Remember, it's a fantasy setting, where there are more defined lines between good and evil. In The Lord of the Rings, they are there to end the forces of good, destroy Mankind, Elves, Ents, Halflings, all of them. They were created by the highest form of evil in Middle-Earth, Morgoth, who was part of singing the world of Middle-Earth into existence. Morgoth himself couldn't create new creatures, so he corrupted and twisted things into mockeries. A dark and evil reflection of the things they had once been. Orcs in D&D were based on that concept. The Orcs resembled Klingons from Star Trek, more than their Tolkien origins for a while, and who knows where they are headed. Half-Elves have their own baggage. Sometimes shunned by elven Society for their human half and shunned or mistrusted by humans for their elven heritage. Tanis Half-Elves from Dragonlance is a good example of that. Not following your "special snowflake" comment.
@@MarkGoldfine If you disagree with the awfully-falsely-named The Last Sane 1, and worse if you back up your points, he will assume you're some kind of racist and treat you as such. Regardless of there being no evidence of you being a racist. Or what your own race is. I already discovered this the hard way.
I suspect that if you've never been on the end of racial discrimination then you are more likely to be, either through deliberate choice or just ignorance, tone deaf to this issue and be one of those shouting "politically correct" or "woke". And if you have to ask yourself 'oh, is that racist?', then deep down, you already know the answer, otherwise you wouldn't have asked, sarcastically or otherwise. If, however, you are more considerate of the impact of 'just a word' on people of ALL backgrounds then you may be more aware & accepting of the issues behind certain words & phrases.. For my part, Elves are a distinct species. A wood elf is a race of elf. A drow is a difference race of elf. Both are a different species from humans.
Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. The term "race" is believed to have originated from the Latin word "radix," which means "root." It was first used to refer to a person's ancestry or descent, and it was later used to refer to the physical characteristics of a person. The word "race" continues to be used in modern language, but its use has been the subject of much debate and controversy. While the term is still used to describe physical characteristics and ancestry, it has also been used to perpetuate stereotypes as well as justify discrimination and inequality. Many people argue that the use of the word "race" reinforces the idea that there are biologically distinct and separate human groups, which is not supported by scientific evidence. Instead, it is now generally accepted that there is more genetic diversity within a "racial" group than between groups, and that the concept of race has more to do with social and cultural factors than with genetics. Instead of using the term "race," it has been suggested that one could use terms like ethnicity, culture, or ancestry to describe the background or heritage of a person or group of people. It's also important to be aware of the context in which you are using language and to consider whether certain terms may be seen as offensive or harmful. There are several red flags in how you attempt to present your ideas/arguments, not the least of which is the early attempt at trying to assert some self-centered boasting that others flee from you when you challenge their ideas. Not only is this unverifiable horse manure, but it also wreaks of cognitive dissonance. It is quite possible that others grow tired in engaging in fruitless debate with a stubborn person. I am reminded of the analogy of teaching a pigeon to play chess: in the end the pigeon will knock over the pieces, defecate on the board and strut around as though it has won. This is the third video I have watched on this channel and a theme remains: Old man rants about how the world is changing around him.
I think the majority do not care about using the word race, this was the overall opinion of my role playing group. I personally believe type and subtypes are best used and species used to describe non humanoids..the reason for this is better technical descriptions that to me are more relevant, the issue I have using the word "race" to describe a subtype of a species, speaking only technically here, is the word is made up and non descriptive. No one uses race to describe a tabby cat vs a siamese cat, nor any other plant or animal or mineral subtype. So to me it's always been a fake word while being used in improper context. I am a 50 yr old lifetime gamer myself been playing since the boardgames was released basically, played with many colors and kinds of people and never had I once heard a complaint of a session feeling "racist". If you've read this far then my last statement was made to reflect the fact that WotC is certainly doing this to avoid the major cancelation by a vocal minority, not for the reasons my personal opinion is based upon, for fantasy settings I am using pathfinder as it's not re-released in different clothing every other year. I prefer palladium systems best overall, but for fantasy settings I had to let go of keeping up with the expense of DnD, that's what they should curb...the cost of the books to play the game...digital copies for 9.99$ I would own them all.
The real meaning of "diversity" is valuing everyone as an individual - that means you recognise and accept the differences between everyone. That does not equate to homogenising everyone or variety or representation of everyone. Pretending everything and everyone is the same, is disrespectful of the differences.
Your argument here seems more in favor of using species. The extreme differences you speak about are due to speciation. Also, homo sapiens and Neanderthals were different species, not different races, so that example just furthers the point.
I believe the fact in 5e as it was released we have Half Elves and Half Orcs. Two races born from the mixing of blood of either race with (most likely) humans. Both from world views that conflict, and thus have to find one of their own depending on their genetic lottery. Species can't mix blood. You don't see dog cat hybrids, do you? They're completely different species. In a biological sense, race makes the existence of half races make more sense. To take this even further, some races in D&D 5e have subgroups! Take the Elves. There are three. High, Wood, and Dark (Drow). All three coming from the original Elf. Even these three, if given enough creativity, can mix with each other and produce an offspring depending on who the mother was. Hell, to go even further: Dragonborn. The only difference in D&D 5e on release is the color of each Dragonborn's Scales! The fact one races can have at least 10 variants shows you that all creatures with sentience of some manner are not individual species, they're individual races who can mix blood. Just on a pure biological sense of how each races is interpreted upon release in 5e, WoTC royally screwed themselves.
@@danielmalinen6337 not sure if Ligers (Tiger x Lion hybrids) are sterile like Mules (Horse x Donkey hybrids), but I think my point still stands on a genetic stand point. You could be the kid of a Red Dragonborn and a High Elf if the relationship worked out.
Homo Sapian and Homo neanderthalensis and Homo Sapian and Denisova hominins cross bred in the real world. They are three distinct species and yet we have humans walking around right now with a mix of all three genetics (more homo sapian obviously) Species does not mean cannot breed or even produce fertile offspring. It means a distinct species with distinct traits. But close genetic relation can allow for cross breeding. So a Half-Orc and Half-Elf would speak to Orcs and Elves being close genetic relatives of humans. Edit: To be clear, the argument from the video host and many of the other commenters are that Elves and Orcs are NOT related to humans and so should not act like them.
Been doing some pondering on this myself. First, with respect to the use of "Species". I just don't like it, I feel it'd work in a sci-fi environment, but for fantasy it just doesn't seem the right term. Next, we collectively get referred to as the "Human Race" do we not? So from that aspect it strikes me as fine to use the term race in fantasy games. And lastly, I think we could have a couple of terms, race for where different lines exist (so wood elf, high elf etc) or where interbreeding is possible, given half elf & half orc exist that would imply biologically that humans, elves and orcs at least are all different races of the same genetic branch. Then for anything that cannot interbreed, different genetic line. So Genus & Race maybe? Or something of this nature?
Just one more point...As a scientist with a background in biochemistry, I learned early on that members of different species are unable to interbreed. That's the definition of the word species (with a few rare exceptions leading to sterile crossbreeds such as mules and ligers.) If the term species is to be used in D&D, and retain its ACTUAL real world meaning, it would imply that elves and humans are the same species, as are humans and orcs, as their offspring are not stated by the game rules to be infertile. "But," one might say, "we can use the word species to mean something slightly different from its meaning in the real world, and the meaning in-game can be inferred." OK. So why can't we just do that with the word Race, and keep using the term that has 50 years of published material to back it up?
I got censored and banned for politely bringing these exact points up. Image a normy black mother walking in while, in character you call her child's PC "an odd species".
I personally prefer species (or ancestry). And just to be clear, i don't think your are racist, even though the term has a racist history. I really see your point that D&D has been inclusive, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't madea couple mistakes in the past. Your argument seems to focus one Human Vs Elf, for example, but I think a better example would be Sun Elf vs Wood Elf... and the most succinct examples would of course be Orc vs 'Yellow Orc'. But I totally see where you are coming from in regards to homogenization. I think most of that really comes down to Setting or maybe Genre. A great example is the Ebberon setting, which has two countries that really stand out; one being very segregated and antagonistic among different species, and the other being very integrated. So even within the same game it can vary depending upon where you are standing (or where you come from).
I think it's backwards. We, as humans, shouldn't be using the term 'race'. We're obviously divided by the act of classification, but I don't think we can evolve until that stops. Like how the people are in Star Trek.
Oh, but did you pick a bad choice. There was an episode of TNG that demonstrated humans, Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons were all descended from the engineering of a progenitor species. Not to mention: Human-cross half-Vulcan, half-Klingon, Vulcan-Romulan (although they're supposed to be biologically identical anyway)... and it's only in the EU of the books we discover Spock's birth required an *awful lot of deliberate Vulcan genetic engineering*. Otherwise in the intellectually bereft movies, it's just assumed a natural birth happened. And yet, still, look at all the damned stupid wars they have. Star Trek was always meant to be heavily humanist. Not even trans-humanist, because that too polluted the Humanism. The Borg are generally evil. Barclay the engineered-super-genius was mistrusted as hell until it was all taken away from him. And Spock was loved, but was still the butt of Kirk-McCoy jokes. Go human or go out of Sector 001. For that matter, even the post-scarcity human ideal future was wrecked for story's sake. They just *had* to have some form of economy, so introduce un-replicatable "Latinum" wrapped in mere replicatable gold envelopes. Star Trek is not a utopia. It almost was... but it never could be and now it never, ever, ever will be.
I respect the opinion and also think this race or species thing is kinda unnecessary However I think your reasoning is slightly flawed, I wont discount that with the way races have been written and described in the latest books has been a bit homogenous as it has been But I think that another factor here that you may be a bit blinded by the way we have always thought of Orc’s and Elves by the influence’s of Lord of the Ring’s and the Forgotten realms classic setting in D&D that is often used as the “Default” for lore and such at least around the beginning of 5e with things like the SCAG. Because of this influence I don’t think many are taking into account of what may be another reason WotC has been writing things a bit more generally, I remember the discourse about this happening around when Fizban’s came out and some people weren’t happy about them starting to insert “Typically” in front of a creatures Alignment. Some people saw this as them wanting to change decades of lore about chromatic dragon’s always being evil when really it’s very much not. From the interviews on the RUclips channel and all the talks I’ve seen with Jeremy Crawford and other writers it’s become very clear that they are no longer writing things assuming that the forgotten realms is the default setting for lore in the source books, and when you think of it from that prospective it makes a lot more sense why they started to be more general with lore and putting things like “Typically” in front of alignment Think about how many dms and players play in other worlds or mainly their own homebrew settings more often than not, I believe they realized this and started to stop assuming that every DM is gonna make a Red dragon evil (as example), thus not every world has elves like LotR or Orc’s like the forgotten realms, letting DM’s define that for themselves The unfortunate consequence of that is that lore and writings are getting more general and “safe” per say, maybe even seeming lazy in some ways Either way you want to look at it I think this is a point of view often left out of this kind of discussion and I’d appreciate it if more people would mention this way of thinking even in passing, even if it’s then discounted as unlikely or something If ya happen to see this I’d appreciate it if you have the idea some thought, maybe even mention this way of thinking in a future video if you think it’s worth anything.
I do see what you're saying, but I'm going to bring up another point that you didn't really seem to consider; this is the only way we're seeing the Forgotten Realms and its lore now. They haven't made a new novel in the setting in the past 6 years, they haven't done re-releases or re-prints grouping the "arcs" together for the old novels (at least as far as I'm aware), Baldur's Gate 3 is in perma-early access. I mean... I guess we have the Neverwinter and DnD Online MMOS? And there was that god-awful Dark Alliance game? All we have now are these sourcebooks and these adventures. Point being, I understand if that's what Crawford and the other writers are trying to do. It's not a bad idea. However, that's irritating as hell when you really haven't done much with your main setting in this edition, and when it's basically an impossible task to ask someone to run a "lore-accurate" game in the setting. You'd have to track down and read an assload of novels just to fill in the map, then read the adventures and order them too, and you'd have to construct a *much* more detailed timeline than what's on the Forgotten Realms wiki. You'd probably have to get sourcebooks from previous editions, too, and work on making those mesh together. This is why, personally, I don't want the info and details to be general and vague. Make it specific to the FR, please. I don't want to see words like "typically" in my sourcebooks, not because of a disagreement over the use of the word, but because I bought this sourcebook so that I could see the rules for how these creatures worked. I don't give a rats ass about the exceptions, I care about how the norm works so that way I can see how they fit into this world and run them properly. I can make the exceptions myself on a case-by-case basis. Making it fit into my world is my job as a DM, and I'd rather be lightly altering or deleting details from the FR than having to research blue dragons in God only knows how many other settings and mythologies and working those aspects in. So, on one hand, I get what they're going for. On the other, I think what they're doing is foolish, because they seem to have done fuck all except make the FR more vague and general, and it feels like they've made it a pain in the ass to actually run a lore-accurate FR game in 5E. While you make a good point about how many people play in a homebrew world or one of the many other settings, I raise you the question of how many more people would actually run accurate FR games in 5E if the lore was concisely ordered and didn't have nearly as high of a price tag and time investment (it takes a lot of time to read the 66 multi-book arcs of novels and all the standalones) buy-in as it does now to get access to all of it? I can say that I certainly would be, as this is literally the reason why I have not run a game set in the FR myself, and have instead run games in my own settings or in Eberron (speaking of, that's a good example. With the two Eberron books from WOTC, the Exploring Eberron, Morgrave Miscellany, Eberron Confidential & Chronicles of Eberron supplements on the DM's Guild, you now have an almost encyclopedic knowledge on the lore and the setting, can intricately tie your PCs into the world, and can make pretty much anything make sense in Eberron. I don't need to go get every previous Eberron book to understand the full context).
Yeah I getcha, honestly they are probably still trying to find the balance for how much concrete lore to make and how much wiggle room they want to give for DM’s to make there own assumptions. I’d imagine it’s a hard balancing act id imagine to provide enough lore for the people that really want it but still encouraging DM’s especially new ones with the idea that they can change and customize their own monsters and lore as well. I also can’t discount that I’m pretty biased and have a lot of faith in the book products that WotC has been putting out, I even didn’t mind spelljammer that much but it was a bit sad to see it be so small. I will admit that I’m a very very unpicky consumer and easily pleased Oh and Balders Gate 3 got a release date trailer at the game awards, could always get delayed again but that’s better than nothing
@@sonic25slash64 Entirely fair. I'm not a devout hater of WoTC either, and I enjoy most of the products I've gotten from them. There are obviously a few exceptions (for instance, picking up Strixhaven thinking it would be perfect to run my first campaign as a DM, but in actuality being one of the most lackluster books for that that they've published, but I digress), but I do enjoy the books for the most part. I actually really enjoyed the adventure in Spelljammer, my only real gripe was the ship combat rules. Valid point about some DMs needing a bit more of a "confidence boost" as it were to adapt things themselves; not everyone wants to go read a bunch of other folklore and myth to base things off of. Genuinely did not know BG3 got a release date. Good to know, hopefully they stick to it.
I know this is not strictly relevant to the video. According to various anthropological records human tribes had a tendency to describe neighboring tribes in the same manner as animals in the vicinity. Which means that a tribe of kobolds would not only treat orks as an animal specie, but other kobold tribes as if they are not of the same race. Even if kobolds trade with another tribe of their kind, they would view that tribe as Others despite the apparent visual similarities. Thus a blood relation is the most practical descriptor for a group. And it also requires to think about different ancestry and customs as a means to specify your own kin in the world. The rest is some ontological gibberish invented by human wizards up in their towers.
I think that you get one set of conceptual results from a spiritual origin, and another set of results from a biological origin. It's a fantasy game and playing a character created by the gods is different than playing a flatline extrapolation based upon downtown Los Angeles. What, orcs are hominids? It's been years since university, but my impression of modern understanding is that modern homosapien crossings with the Neanderthalis produced only female hybrids. I don't think the significance of this would have been missed by the modern humans in contact with Neanderthal populations. Race in the context of Homo Erectus, Habilis, Neanderthalis and Sapiens makes sense. It does not in the context of say modern humans from the Sonoran plain or Sub Saharan Africa. In the former, one references scientific taxonomy and in the latter one confuses ethnicity and taxonomy. Folk taxonomy is bad enough in ordinary life, but mixed with D&D? AD&D was bad enough with in it's first outing with the biological treatment of half elves/orcs and such. Idk, that's how it seems to me. The mythological basis vs the scientific, or biological basis for the game. "Dude, the powers of chaos itself are still active on this world of freaking myth and legend: the thing is a twisted gestalt of goat and man. It eats people lost in the woods. You are lost in the woods. Roll for initiative."
I agree with you, race is a term that we all know and implicitly understand in the context of D&D, using the term "species" just seems like a condescending term here. When you say "they are a different species" it almost sounds like you're talking down to that person or implying they are somehow beneath you. It's nothing more than virtue signalling meant to placate that vocal minority.
No its because its how english works. Many other languages already use a version of the term species in their own translations. Which means all this "We can't use that it lets the woke win" is just right wing assholes crying about something changing and thats it. Homo sapian and Neanderthal were different species. But if we had them alive today we would also call them another race in this context, but they were a different species. We have simply gotten use to the colloquial term of Race to mean another species of sentient life, but also variations within a single species (such as we called blacks, white, asians, latinos all different races.)
@@TheLastSane1 I'm left-wing and I'm crying about people screaming on the Internet without actually looking up any of the details. Like, for example, you. Homo Sapiens (please spell it right) and Homo Neanderthalensis interbred and produced fertile offspring. If you use THAT common definition of species and take into account that up to 4% of human DNA TODAY contains sequences known in Neanderthals, then they're SUBSPECIES or RACES, not different species. There are now the terms "Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis" and "Homo Sapiens Denisova" to take into account the modern DNA sequencing of those pre-us populations and the presence of their DNA in OUR sequences. So if you want to be a left-wing-asshole crying about something changing, then I'm going to take strong and bitter exception to you because A) you're making left-wing people look bad and B) you haven't kept up with the studies and therefore the changing borders which make a better sense of the situation. I don't think "Species" is a talking-down, but I recognise it feels that way because there are no other species on this planet that we can easily and meaningfully communicate with. But I grew up with fantasy and science-fiction so I'm okay with the term "Species". But not in THIS context - because in this context, we're talking about viable fertile breeding between them and that means "Subspecies" A.K.A. "Race". "Race" is a term known and implicitly understood in the context of "D&D", it's just normal non-D&D humans who aren't educated or smart enough to catch up with it. I don't like that kwith had to bring in the "talking down", but I don't like how you TheLastSane1 (yeah no, you're not) decided to complain against the labelling of "virtue signalling", while getting the Science (and for that matter, ironically, the English self-defeatingly) wrong. If you've gotten used to the colloquial term of Race to mean "another species of sentient life but also variations within a single species" then not only are you overloading the term, you're doing it WRONGLY. So STOP it. Use the right term. And if you don't know what the right term is, then go look up the dictionaries or the texts of the domain of human knowledge the term CAME from. Like, a biology textbook. I'm not even a biologist, I work in IT, but I did enough science at school and uni to know what things have to be looked up to get the right answers. And honestly, I just wish that's what everybody would do.
@@troffle @troffle No, you really do not understand biology. The three species of homo that you reference are DIFFERENT Distinct individual species. They DO however share a common ancestor and enough genetic material to cross breed. We know through genetic sequencing that our ancestors many many many branches back also used to be able to cross breed with the ancestors of modern chimp which is another feather in the cap for the fact we all descended from the same ancestors. That does not make them all Human though. They are in the same GENUS but they are not the same SPECIES which is a scientific term. Your idiocy of claiming that if a species can breed they must be the same species is childish and comes from right wing idiocy who shun education. For example, polar and grizzly bear share a common ancestor which was a species of brown bear. That happened over 300,000 years ago (some say 150,000) www.science.org/content/article/polar-bear-evolution-was-fast-and-furious They are NOT the same species, they are in the same GENUS but are individual species within that Genus. They can breed, and produce fertile offspring but are still different species. Ligers, the product of Lions and Tigers, are also fertile. Lions and Tigers are NOT the same species. So this argument is bunk. They are not subspecies they are races they are different species. You are missing that RACE has multiple definitions. The Human Race is the collective of Homo sapiens (modern humans only) so sure we might colloquially use the term Race to define the other species of Homo sapiens but they are individual species so its not entirely correct. One of the other uses is for defining differences between individuals of the Homo sapiens species. IE Caucasians, Latinos, etc. Now there are people like yourself who believe being within a specific one of these "races" makes them somehow special and superior to those around them. But there is nothing actually different between these "Races" but minor mostly cosmetic mutations. So no the correct term for Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Etc would be SPECIES because they are all different SPECIES even if they had the same GENUS they are not the same. So no Species is the correct term. You want race because its what was there and you lot hate change and cry anytime people don't treat you as special little snowflakes. And of course other languages have been using the term SPECIES for literally decades so its not even a real change its just correcting the language because its incorrect. Learn something sometime. And I know you lot would LOVE a Caucasian specialty bloodline in DND to make yourselves feel special.
"Species" organisms with similar physical characteristics. (see sub-species.) "Race" identifies groups of people with a kinship or group connection. What is a Goliath, a race or a sub-species? For D&D, race seems to fit much better.
It depends on which origin myth one believes, or which one is finally settled as their origin...are they related to Stone Giants, or were they a cursed human tribe? I'd say they were either a different species than humans, or they were a magically altered race of human.
@@VanDavis Yes, Goliath have stone ability and shrug off some minor damage as well as speak common and giant. In appearance they resemble stone giants. A cursed tribe possible or Goliath might be related to to Earth Genasi. Thank you for your answer.
Talking in game and not rl i think inner race conflicts make for a good story arc. Plenty of films where an elf hates the dwarf but over comes there differences for the greater good. Cant have that arc if we got along in some kind of utopia
No you would just have it be individualistic. So that kingdom of dwarves have an issue with elves and do not want to work with them because of some long forgotten (to them) sleight. Its still possible and very easy to set up. But making it that every elf and every dwarf have this instinctual hatred and animosity just seems stupid no one acts like that. Unless elves competed for resources against and killed dwarves across large chunks of history there would be no reason any species would have an innate instinctual hatred of another.
@@TheLastSane1 yeah, the dwarf kingdom/queendom/lady in lake handing out swordsdom not liking the elves in the nearby forest because they are always complaining when they cut down trees to fuel their smelters is much more interesting than just dwarves hating elves because of rock and stone compels them to.
Thank you for the well-reasoned argument. I fully agree that the changes appear to come from a fear of backlash rather a thoughtful update to the language used. RPGs are made by people and I think many modules and expansion books have made use of real-world cultures to paint a setting flavour with a bit too much caricature. The base game has (at least since 3rd edition) depicted humans as representing various distinct cultures based on their manner of dress without shying away from the word race. To tie this in to the theme from your previous video, this smacks of WOTC envisioning a game-space that is NOT a bunch of people around a table to talk this stuff out. If you're playing with friends and someone has a problem with the real life word use or the expression of racial animosities between fantasy peoples in the imaginative space, you make changes to make sure everyone is having fun.
I think this is a nothing burger. If the company wants to use a different word to mean the same thing I have no issues with it. The German translation uses the word got species anyway/
The modern approach to races in D&D is what I like to call "Human in a Hat." Taking away the specific differences within each species means missing some great opportunities to roleplay something that is alien to a regular human mindset. But instead, people play a "human" with a grab bag of minor abilities rather than something different. Earthdawn's "Denizens of Barsaive" books do an excellent job of portraying races as not just ideologically different, but mentally and phisiologically different, and how that shapes the culture and behaviour of a fantasy race. The irony is that, canonically, all the other races were human long before the rise in magic, but they still do a vastly superior job to D&D. Lifespan is a big one: a race that lives for even 200 years has a different approach to reality than one that only lives for 40. They can find commonality, but cannot be the same in fundamental psychological ways.
It's the same with morality. Putting human morality onto non human things is silly. It's like calling a shark evil for acting like a shark. Let's assume Orcs were not made by some Dark Lord or Evil God to be their footsoldiers, but are a species that,as you suggested, physiologically cannot feel mercy, value strength and establish hierarchy through combat. Their raiding of defenceless farmsteads is not evil to them. It is, in fact, morally right from an orcish perspective; if the farmers are not strong enough to stop the orcs taking their resources, then they morally do not deserve to keep them. If they are strong enough, the orcs would not begrudge them the defeat as the strong should win. To a human mindset, orcs encouraging their children to viciously fight amongst themselves, even to injury or death, would be abhorrent, but to the orcs this is an expression of love, as they want their children to be strong and conflict will make them so. It would be right to weed out the weak ones early so the strong may flourish. And the orcs would be just as confused and repulsed by the human methods of childrearing. "You stop your children from fighting? Don't you love them?"
It's funny that in sci-fi games different species are allowed to be alien, but in fantasy people want them to all be variant humans. But sci-fi proves that despite alien perspectives we can still find commonality whilst still being vastly different, and that is what we should focus on in roleplaying, as far as I'm concerned.
I often propose that base character creations should have 3 components: race, culture, and background. The first establishes biology and can even inform possible cultures. Though it would be best that for the sake of setting agnosticism that such issues of psychology and worldview be folded into culture more so than race but this can be remedied with a tagging system where the “merciless” cultures can be taken by x y and z races, etc. Then background does what it says on the tin.
Let’s take elves as an example. You pick elf as a race (subraces can and should still be a thing for the sake of biological differences like aquatic elves) and possible subrace to inform biology; age, any innate magical talents, senses, limbs, affinities to elements or natural phenomenon, immune systems, etc. Then pick a culture: cosmopolitan which can be a generalist culture, elven seclusion (stealth and subterfuge) elvish supremacy (negatives to interacting with other races but bonuses to elven communication), natural mages (more spell training and perhaps even expansions to available spell selection for classes like letting wizards pick some Druid spells), magical society (more spell selection in general and perhaps small bonuses to casting or acquiring new spells or expanded spells known), elven artisan (with all that extra time or natural talent you acquire extra skills or even some expertise), etc.
Humans should have a more baseline stat and ability spread (perhaps they should get 2 +2s to compensate for having no special abilities) but they can instead get to pick up extra cultures (if only to balance feat economy) and let them grab from other race’s exclusive or selective cultures. Humans who find themselves raised by elves get access to elven traditions (and class options if WotC weren’t cowards) due to their natural propensity to easily absorb and assimilate different cultures. It would let you make an Orcish human that was also raised in a city before he lost his family and was adopted, etc. Perhaps even humans raised by drow gain a connection to Lolth and her shared powers.
Plus you can then write cultures that are unique to different setting while not having to rewrite the actual races while also not having to shoehorn in random abilities that you would prefer your setting didn’t have. Like drow magic, have it connected to culture so in one setting they get the magic from Lolth, in the same setting a drow can instead be raised as an assassin and get more roguish skills, or a priestly drow gets more divine or warlock spells, and in a different setting they can get a completely different array of spells their cultures or circumstances leave them, like more Druidic spells for the Eberron kin. Hell you can even bring back light sensitivity for those raised in the under dark and different culture options can be written around the separatist drow. Plus you can even have dark elves and drow as properly separate elves in the FR by having drow be dark elves that take drow culture options and the (now redeemed) dark elves take other options!!
Basically by making the character creation more modular by taking culture and setting differences into account you pretty much solve every side’s problems with the current state of fantasy races and character creation and portrayal.
This is why Glorantha is one of my favorite fantasy settings.
This would make sense if D&D races were not regularly slotted in earthen human stereotypes, throughout the entirety of D&D's existence. Whatever a player or a GM or a writer feels, overall, D&D races were always Humans in Hats - elves have the Pure and Enlightened hat, hobbits have the Hearty and Folksy hat, dwarves have the Stout and Sturdy hat, orcs have the Savage Barbarian hat. That's not ideas of what alien creatures could be - it is human perception of other human beings, but instead of Indians to be battled by Cowboys, its Orcs to be battled by Adventurers. Nothing about D&D races is something humans did not believe about themselves or each other. They are not dictated by speculative biology worldbuilding, else dwarves in D&D would have had sensitive hairs and orcs would have had prescribed hunting and scavenging tactics - its all just humans with a little extra.
And yes, this is a setup that can lead to very awful ideas about culture and psychology. Does the coat of green/gray paint and tusks make you comfortable enough saying that orcs are evil because they are inherently merciless? I am not sure how that works with orcs being a social species as opposed to solitary predators - and even Earth's solitary predators can display restraint, respect, patience and even kindness. Each individual animal displays own habits - D&D's combat system does not work well to represent scores of individual, but then D&D lore should stress that this is not logic of the world itself. Relying on "common sense" forgets how varied people's perceptions are.
Sci-fi is not about Earthen environments, even if it still ends up being Humans in Hats quite often. Note how no one wants to say Klingons are inherently merciless - they are about as rubber-foreheaded as orcs are, and are a culture with a lot of emphasis on military, but they are not internalised slaughter fodder for a tabletop combat game like orcs are. Neither are Cardassians, Romulans (good comparison to drow!), hell, even Borg get some human traits. The idea that orcs "biologically are merciless", without any biological logic to it, can only happen if you dismiss them as merely pawns - something that real life sees its own share, too. And many D&D players think that's crass, so that's why the hats of Humans in Hats do not prescribe their whole behaviour anymore and people are mad when it does.
@@TenositSergeich you claim that D&D races are humans in hats yet your presentation of them is a complete strawman that ignores the actual writings.
Elves are ancient beings, and many writers actually write them with the longevity of age in mind. Orcs have a variety of ticks based on setting, frequently its divine intervention from their creator god(s) that bring about their feral nature. This leaves them open to conversion where they can suppress and ignore the savageness instilled by their god. Other times they’re generally chaotic that ranges from good to evil and their savageness comes down to their brutish physiques and clan life.
You invoke “humans in hats” while dismissing the actual writings from over the decades. Even recent editions manage to articulate what can make these races more or less alien.
Plus this is fantasy, not Sci-fi. Its not expected for the different races to exist on a completely alien paradigm if not written to be so like Aberrations, etc. So your conclusions fall flat when talking about fantasy, which also can focus on what can bind disparate groups of people who share the same world while also acknowledging the differences.
So let fantasy races have their differences at any range from near-human to far-out alien. But in terms of a game, it is in a dev’s best interest to not make the options just shitty window dressing since mechanical differences are a tool to help communicate information about a race.
If this is too tangential at points, know that it is late.
Only hack writers fall into the “humans in hats” critique.
@@jemm113 All you can tell me is that "books say it makes sense". You point at a hundred justifications written after orcs were already made cannon fodder - by Arneson and Gygax, before first D&D orc lore was written. It literally does not matter how much writing was made if the function it serves is shit - I've seen Gruumsh being made evil for desire to create place for his people after he was tricked by other gods, I've seen orcs being treated as insane, I saw orcs being promised the world by evil deities after they kill all of the Good People. Read my point again or get lost and read up on so-called "thermian argument" - you are either unable or unwilling to ask WHY did books need to say that.
"Shadow dancing elven thing with daddy issues!" That's my new favorite subclass.
Just needing CHR 8 is a boon of the class.
I grew up playing separate Race and Class and played that way for 25 years. Just recently I've tried B/X (OSE) and I thought I would not like Race-as-Class. I was afraid it would diminish the non-humans. When I actually played, the opposite was true. Non-Human classes became special because they were a class that no one else could be. I like that a lot and it's a good way to make them feel special and different. Separate Race and Class tends to boil down non-humans to a few visual traits (big beard or pointy ears, etc), and maybe a few special abilities (dark vision), but there's nothing special about being an elf or dwarf or whatever.
I find the term "species" to be too scientific/modern, but I would support a term like "Kin" instead. I don't think "race" is a good word to keep because it will just continue to be construed with "race" as it is used outside of D&D.
By the way WoTC is handling things, soon I will be using the term "Ancestry"
The word "race" has certain social/political implications -- especially in the U.S. That's why WotC and others have switched to "ancestry" or "species" or "heritage" or "lineage". In the end, all of these terms can be used to describe the same thing -- which is always going to be a generalization, since inter-species (there, I've done it, WotC) cross-breeding is a thing in fantasy gaming. With all of that being said, the main point of this video is exactly on point: an orc is not a human, and a human is not an elf, and we shouldn't expect these things to equate. These species (damn, I've done it again!) are ALIEN to each other, and they should feel that way. That is not to say that a PLAYER should feel compelled to play their CHARACTER a given way. A player can make any damn kind of character they want to. But as game masters, we should try to represent the world in all of its wonder and mystery, and so we should embrace the differences that these different... PEOPLES (there's a good word!) present us with in our game.
Well thought out ideas and articulate comments. Thank you
I can see using species for SciFi games like Starfinder that has alien worlds but I prefer race for sword & sorcery games.
Since many people here seem to already have expressed points I agree with (this being a non-issue and the term fitting fantasy setting circumstances the best), I'll just include how this is dealt in other IP's.
In many japanese and other asian fantasy settings, the term used to describe different kinds of people is something akin to the word "Family" or "group" (-族 or "zoku" in japanese).
Usually, this ends up being localized as "Tribe" (Dragon Quest X) or "Clan" (Wuxia novels, and some anime like Naruto or even Dragon Ball). This is used to describe both humans with ethnic, culture and even physical differences (in and some asian fantasy, different clans may develop special abilities or traits like having higher reserves of magical energy to being able grow in size or control ice, this being enough to count as different "Clans") to describe beings with entirely different origins or physical composition (Humans, Ogres, Wetlings, Poppets, Dwarves and Elves in Dragon Quest X, or the literally blue-blooded Darklings from Dragon Quest - Dai's Adventure).
Calling them the equivalent of "families" kinda gives it a different, more personal feel to them as groups.
All this reminds how Dragon Ball just takes all fantasy races, from humans monsters (vampires, mummies and werewolves) to anthropomorphic or just plain talking animals and lump them together as "Earthlings".
I enjoy using Tribe in my personal settings, but I'll stick with Race when playing D&D out of convenience. In the end guys, just choose whatever sounds or looks cooler for your setting and have fun!
Ah, that does explain some things I'd wondered about as a very casual peruser of Japanese media. Thank you for the information.
I’m so pleased to have found your channel. You remind me of all things I have enjoyed about D&D (and now Dungeon Crawl Classics). Keep up the good work.
It's not such a big deal what word we end up using. In Finnish, the word "lajit" (species) has been used as a translation of the D&D races for years, at least since e3, because this has been seen as more logical because they are more like humanoid species and it describes them better. Of course, the old name is nostalgic because it has been in use for a long time and giving it up is sad and feels bad.
I don't think anyone would have a problem if it was just about the word race. But we see how activists are trying to change more here. I don't know why, but apparently some political activists associate orcs with people of color, which is absolutely not true, or the Na'vi from Avatar.
That's one of the reasons why they change races to make it sound more politically correct. Basically I don't care because I only play a little D&D but because I like fantasy I can already see how political correctness is slowly finding its way into the genre and with it the negative aspects. I'm just saying Rings of Power, wheel of time series, The Witcher, Star Wars, Marvel etc.
I even agree with some aspects, e.g. the bikini armor goes or that women get more sane characters too [although Hollywood is pretty inept when it comes to writing female characters for whatever reason] but they overdo it and because they see themselves as morally superior they get a god complex.
What's really funny, is at the same time, they're changing the rules so all these "species" can crossbreed, bringing them more inline with common usage of 'race' than 'species'
no, species makes everything but human, subhuman. which is pretty racist. LOL
@@gotpaladin9520 how are other species subhuman? Being a different species doesn’t imply their worse
@@bleddynwolf8463 explains his mindset, lol
Articulate, on point, polite, factual and well put together. Thanks for this video!
Another well thought out video, and another topic that appears quite wonderful to talk about. Love the content, keep it up.
Thank you for the time you spend making these videos
Monsters.
They're all monsters.
Even the humans.
...
Especially the humans.
This is a topic that could be thoroughly explored in a college seminar. I’d be surprised if such a course doesn’t exist already.
Call it Critical Race Theory. lol
Call it semantics
I dunno... I liked the implications of the word "race" in regards to the phrase "the human race" in dnd. As for "species", now we're mixing species and stuff in dnd, thats kinda weird. If race is an arbitration to distinguish people irl, I feel like the concept of "race" fits better in a fantasy game than it does irl. Does anyone else understand what Im saying?
I agree. All humans are the same race even though our ethnicities may differ. Just blame the woke atheist Marxists. They're cause of all this nonsense to begin with.
Well, consider this - Are an elephant and a mouse different races? No, they are different species. The same logic can be applied to say, an elf and a tortle. But if you like race, then nobody will stop you from using the term.
@@beancounter2185 That's such a valid argument. I actually agree. Here's my thoughful contribition; I think the issue is that in fantasy the Tortle looks like a humanoid turtle with an intellect comparitive to a humans (spoken language, writing presumably, tool making). Philosophically, that makes the Tortle a human but NOT a Homo Sapian. Homo Sapian is our species and human is our race. I feel like we conflate race and species so often that we confuse the two. Turtles and mice are different species, but their both animals. I don't have a clean answer to any of this because it requires us to understand what it means to be human (one of my favorite scifi subjects), and that's the debate here. A sentient A.I., a gorilla using sign language, it starts to get confusing. Is human only reserved for homo sapian or is it an intangeable experience that sentient beings accend to?
I think race implies sapience from what lot of people say.
@@lorekeeper685 "sapience", thats my first time hearing that but I understand it and it's pretty apt.
Just Temple of Elemental Evil background music alone is worth a like and subscription
I use species when playing/hosting a sci-fi themed ttrpg and race when playing/hosting a fantasy themed ttrpg. Simple.
You make a good point in stating that using archaic terms adds to the flavor of a historic fantasy game! Language evolves naturally, but if you're playing in a historical setting, you're going to want that kind of atmosphere. On the other hand, I've never had a player in Call of Cthulhu (in full segregation 1920s) go as deep into character as using what are now considered to be racial slurs, which was actually quite socially accepted for white people back then.
I'm going to add this one to the list "things racists have ruined for the rest of us", like the swastika being a benign symbol for most of history, or nordic runes being used by white supremacists ("I just want to play a cool viking without being associated with those people!" ;) )...
I live close to a Hindu community, and frequently see swastikas painted on doorways etc. It of course means something religious and completely different to them than what people might assume from nazi appropriation.
@@becmiberserker yeah, but let's face it - if I walked around town with a T-shirt sporting a swastika on it, the first thought of people who saw me wouldn't be "he's probably a Hindu" ;)
@@erlendvanderhaegen1670 🤣🤣 Love it!
@@becmiberserker Funny thing there... the oldest known uses of that symbol... are so old that some anthropologists had previously believed no Humans lived in that area so long ago. :D The usage that so many people hate... is less than 100 years old. One of the oldest symbols in Human history.... and people don't care about anything but one single modern usage.
Fun fact: the character Gi in Captain Planet(the wind Planeteer) was ambiguously Asian... and her originally aired character design has a round metal disk with a simple symbol etched into it. Why? Enh... probably Hindu/Buddhist reasons, it never touched on her religious leanings other than showing her wear that pendant.
@@marhawkman303 Turns out if you hate loud enough it doesn't matter how peacably your words have been used before. If you don't like that, stop the hate.
I don't necessarily care about Race vs Species (although I prefer Race in a 'medieval' setting, and 'species' in a fantasy setting).
However, when it comes to Intelligent beings, you can assume that all intelligent creatures have the ability to feel the range of emotions that Humans feel (as this is the only example we have), unless there is something particular to their physiology that affects how they think.
That's why I like how, in 'canon' D&D, the "All Drow are Evil" thing is explained by the meddling of their Goddess, Lolth, in their lives pretty much from the moment of their birth. Very rare individuals can escape this meddling and learn emotions other than hatred/fear/lust for power, etc.
On the other hand, Mind Flayers can feel no other emotion that humans would call 'Good', entirely because of how their physiology forces them to think (they literally have 'alien mindsets' that we can't understand). Any 'good' illithids that exist are 'mistakes' in their birthing process (retaining some of the thought patterns of the being the flayer parasite was implanted in), or exposed to some supernatural force that changed their alignment, but its not 'natural' to them.
I like Race in fantasy RPGs rather than Species or any other word. I think the latter word (Species) definitely reflects more negatively or at least should relate more to science fiction settings, etc.
And... if you make everyone the same then no-one is special or interesting/different/unique.
I largely agree with your take on the diversity (and the necessity thereof) of "races" in D&D... and I think it's interesting that the people who are dying on the hill to keep the word "race" are the people treating them most like separate species, while the ones demanding the use of the word "species" (or some other alternative) are also the ones most determined to treat them like mere human ethnic groups.
I want every "race", by whatever name we call them, to be meaningfully different in my fantasy settings-- or else, what is even the point of having them?
But I take except to the damnable _selectivity_ with which people apply that principle, between the "free-willed" demihumans who only have _alignment tendencies_ and the "always evil" humanoids. It's an amusing exercise to read the monster descriptions of CG (suspicious and clever) elves versus LE (bigoted and cowardly) hobgoblins. Fundamentally, the differences in alignment and races/monsters between D&D and AD&D are responsible for the current discourse, just as they've been responsible for irreconcilable table conflicts and angry editorials for the last forty-five years.
I does not matter much wheter using species or race, but species is more technically correct for most of the use. Species would be elf or dwarf. Race would be shield dwarf or wood elf. Using spieces underlines that these are inded quite different from one another, physically and psychologically. So it is weird they change the nomenclature in a direction that undelsines their differences while erasing the differences. Almost like there was to internal factions, and one won out in the game mechanics rework and the other won out in naming conventions.
One of the most boring things that happen quite often when playing fantasy is other races are just humans with pointy ears or bigger arms and an accent.
I know some genres of low-er fantasy do this, put I much prefer the Tolkien-esque approach where races are very different. Sometimes to the extent that elves are not a playable race, because they are so different from us (but I like playable races so I'd use this when playing some more greek/roman/norse mythology style).
I loved Tolkien's depiction of elves in Hobbit. So other-worldly when they were dancing in the forest at night and whenever someone came close to them, they disappeared.
This frustrates me so much. I've tried making this argument on D&D Beyond forums, and as a result I have literally been accused of being racist. I am so tired of people projecting onto make-believe, and trying to argue that fantasy races are analogues for the real world. It is driving me away from the new edition(s) of D&D and back to older play types.
I liked that Tolkien was a fan of the terms "Peoples" and "Men" ... What a can of worms the latter is now ;) I use Ancestry and Lineage in Bastard Sword, keeps things nice and simple. ;) Great video mate!
@Lind Morn While I appreciate the vitriol and such, not exactly sure what my comment contained that required you to celebrate my eventual death... you must be a lot of fun at parties mate. Le sigh...
The word "ancestry" and "lineage" already have specific meanings and uses. i.e. my ancestry is a mix of Scottish and German, and my lineage is Northern European...? But these words are all referring to the same species. Does using them to refer to different species in your game leave a vacuum when trying to distinguish between different groups of humans?
My thoughts exactly! Well done mate. Your articulation is spot on 🤙🏼
I'm reminded with what Neil Gaiman said regarding political correctness:
"I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.
You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”
Happy Valentine’s Day."
You might want to look into the origins of the term political correctness. Enlightening indeed.
@@becmiberserker Yup!
"The phrase politically correct first appeared in the 1930s, when was used to describe dogmatic adherence to ideology in authoritarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Early usage of the term politically correct by leftists in the 1970s and 1980s was as self-critical satire; usage was ironic, rather than a name for a serious political movement.
It was considered an in-joke among leftists used to satirise those who were too rigid in their adherence to political orthodoxy.
The modern pejorative usage of the term emerged from conservative criticism of the New Left in the late 20th century, with many describing it as a form of censorship"
But yeah, it started as a term for authoritarian regime, used as a joke among leftist and then claimed by conservatives who use it to deflect from issues... while also gleefully avoiding their own hypocrisies with their own form of censorship.
@@CountDVB Isn’t opinion wonderful? Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂
@@becmiberserker Thank you and honestly, I get the change, but there are other old terms and from lost languages they could probably pull from.
It’s fine. Round my table they will always be races. With the associated stat modifiers.
I feel like your points are valid and contribute to why they should be called species. You're right, we aren't similar to Orcs which is why they're a different species.
orcs cant be a different species .. they can breed with humans
Great channel and Great explanations. Could you post a link to the background music? I like it very much.
Here you go: ruclips.net/video/hnSVmJAhObk/видео.html
@@becmiberserker great stuff!
I like your commitment to polite discourse.
We have always referred to ourselves as the “Human Race”, would elves and dwarves not refer to themselves as the “elven race” and “dwarven race”? Species usually refers to different types of creatures within the same family. Like there are multiple species of rhinos, or a vast number of species of spiders. The modern “sensibilities” are so confused on the meaning of words…
No, race is a word for a subcategory of a species, as applied to humans. While it could be retained in this sense to talk of shield dwarves vs gold dwarves or the like, it’s best to move past race and use species and cultures.
@@lberghaus race literally is a group of people that share physical characteristics and cultures. It is the perfect word to distinguish dwarves from humans, elves, orcs, etc. and was perfectly fine for decades before sensitive types like you were offended by everything. “Race” as a word isn’t scary or hurtful, it’s going to be ok.
@@djn6962 whatever, clearly the D&D people don’t agree, and I don’t agree and I’m writing my own game so I won’t follow the racist ideologies of the 1800’s either.
Hoping to hear more about BECMI and versions of the game that you are keen on. Like the BECMI Berserker name and appreciate the explanation.
Brilliant, well articulated and quite correct!
Very well said and in a much calmer demeanor, than I would have. This is a ridiculous argument. The Dwarf vs. Goblin racial animosity is a great example of why these angry people don't really understand the game they profess to play. They tend to label current, human conflicts onto a fantasy game analogous of medieval Europe, and that is awfully silly.
Dwarves and Goblins are natural enemies, because they tend to live in the same environment and vie for the same resources. When you consider the long lives of Dwarves it is not hard to imagine, that every Dwarf has probably had a human's lifetime of clashes with Goblins. Certainly, you could expect even the most mildly cantankerous Dwarf to turn flush with anger at the sight of the little, green buggers. Relate it to the animal world. Lions and hyenas don't really hate each other in terms of the human emotion of hate, but they are natural enemies because they compete for the same resources. Let's not forget that Goblins and Kobolds are also natural enemies for the same reason. Ever since BECMI and 1e, this has been the understanding of what racial tensions derived from...that, and in some cases a multi-century spanning feud as with Elves and Dwarves and humans.
Orcs are Orcs, and they have always been Orcs. They are not and never have been a racist's interpretation of modern human groups (the same point applies to the Drow). This idea that Orcs and Drow represent modern human in some sort of demeaning light is ridiculous and seems to be a blatant an attempt to stir up a fight where none exist. It would seem, the people stirring up this mess are in fact the actual racists by the modern interpretation. I've played D&D since the late 70's (BECMI, 1e), and I've never heard an inkling of racism among players or in the game material. Hell, even during the Satanic Panic deliberate racism was not even mentioned as a culprit. This has all come about in just these past few years. This new age of spineless whelps hiding securely behind the monitor of their computer. Free to spew filth and dissidence to the world without consequence. I think they would be better served using the game as an escape from the woes of their world, rather than dragging all that baggage into an activity that is supposed to fun.
Great video. I subscribed. You are correct about why changing the word to species is a foolish idea.
Thanks and welcome!
@@becmiberserker Personally, my take is that race and species are not synonyms.
For one way to look at it, Humans are a species, Dwarves are a species, Elves are a species. Drow are a race, Wood Elf is a race, etc....
Eves are still elves... whether or not they have purple skin. Drow and Wood Elves are not different species.
I see what you are saying, but I get why they want to swap out the term race. In English vernacular "races" are variations on the same species so Orcs or or Aarokocra just being a different race doesn't really make sense. As far as character options go there are some choices that don't have to do with parentage, like the "lineages". Something like "ancestry", or maybe even "ilk" would be more accurate.
Unforturnatly, the best term for something like this is probably background...
I agree completely that different genetic lines of humanoids, reproductively compatible or not, would view life very differently from humans, by definition. I mean, an aquatic half-fish, half-humanoid, of any lifespan, simply won't think like a human. (Even if there may be similarities such as "I like my children" and "shark fins taste good.")
Unfortunately, all the players are human, so eventually even the beholders and mind flayers behave like humans, especially when made into player characters.
On top of all that, humans have baggage that ultimately gets projected onto any definition of non-human intelligence.
It's actually that baggage (well-intentioned or complete rubbish or both) that creates misunderstanding and conflict.
Is the solution to homogenize every intelligent species? Well, if your market is a few hundred million people across 160 countries, then, yeah, I expect as a business decision that will be the way to appeal to the most while offending the least. Is that a good thing? M'eh.
Lack flavor? Yep. Thank goodness for fantasy writers we can poach cultures from for those home games where we want to introduce whatever level of "bloody well doesn't think like a human" we want to.
In my stuffed shirt opinion, of course 😀
Small new channel for now.
I have to say I don’t care for the term race. It doesn’t make sense because as you said they’re different creatures inherently.
The word race has meaning in our language and to people not so immersed in the hobby it can be a point of confusion or distaste because of its meaning. Plenty of other systems have used different words so I don’t see the problem with WOTC (all other of their problems aside) doing the same. See ancestry, kin, clan, species. I think species can feel too scientific as well so I’m fine with ancestry.
Also I love detaching stats from ancestry. Because it’s flexible imo. I’m a big believer that society as it is shapes people, so if society values physical might then that culture of people might have bonuses to that regardless of anatomy. If you don’t believe that though, you can still feel free to have a fixed ancestry with bonuses and it’s fine. We both get to enjoy our game. I think that’s what it’s about imo.
Perfectly reasonable take.
Another excellent video. Maybe you're more like Bruce Banner/the Hulk? Mild manner until the wrong button is pushed? You don't start the fight, but you damn well finish it? (One of my fav 5e chars was a Noble who in a fight went into "no thought, all action" mode - a Barbarian with "all emotions shutdown" SFX instead of frothing at the mouth.)
I like how in traditional D&D all humans, regardless of color or ethnicity, are part of the same human race. That's kind of beautiful and progressive actually.
I couldn't agree more! The WotC view that it's "racist" in the modern sense of the word to fight Orcs for being Orcs is patently absurd. Great video from one of the best newer channels, I hope you keep it up for years to come.
Your opinions here more or less match my own. The name change just feels wrong in a fantasy context, and the stripping of racial modifiers and mentalities just makes them humans with rubber foreheads. Verisimilitude is king with RPGs (or any form of fiction, really) and WOTC's current approach just doesn't create it.
But none of the players can play an elf if they are so alien to human minds. Its like trying to roleplay an eldritch horror you can't you couldn't possibly actually play the character as anything more than a human pretending to be this race and so your just a human with a fancy skin. So thats kinda the point. Elves live for a long time true, but we never really experience that most elves starting ages are basically out of school ages. We are playing teen elves while we play young adult humans. So their mentalities would all be fairly the same (of course going off the generic starting ages not based on a character specific).
-dOUBLE pOST-
The racial modifiers were removed because that starts getting into racial bio essentialism especially when you have things like negative intelligence modifiers, that can easily lead to not great stuff. Then you get in alignment and things like darker skin races like drow are always evil compared to their good aligned brethren. Honestly I can understand why WotC might decide it might not be worth keeping those concepts in their official material while there is nothing stopping you from keeping orcs low intelligence always chaotic evil.
@@TheLastSane1 That's like saying you can't play a wizard because you can't really cast spells.
The point of Taranchule's comment, and the video, is the other races have qualities that can be observed (that's what you role play) that define them.
A dwarf's opinion of goblins and giants is more than a mere social construct, it is their nature. An Elf's affinity with bows is not an elective course the elf takes at elf school, but an instinctual skill.
These represent strange and magical beings that are interesting BECAUSE they are different.
@@SevenWondersProd Quite correct. My screenname is based on Lizardman character I had as a kid and subsequently brought into some unpublished fiction I wrote. I spent time trying to understand how a creature with cold blood, hard skin and alien mind would view a world where he is surrounded by various breeds of mammals. It's stuff like that which breaths life into a character, either at the table or on a page.
To go off on a slight tangent, the purpose of the Non-Human in fiction always represents something, a specific aspect of the human condition writ large across biology, psychology and an entire society. They are incomplete Humans that are bound to a specific archetype for that very reason. What makes Humans special in an RPG context is that they have none of those restrictions. They are complete beings.
Species has the same problem infra vision had. It's not sci-fi, it's best practice to avoid explaining how things work in the world of the game in a pseudoscientific manner.
I don't like the baggage race has. Makes me uncomfy. People treating folk different for their kin is too common in the real world.
I've used kin instead for a long time now. Just one of a half dozen ways to describe folk, facial features, body type, the style of clothes you wear, and I usually have NPC's react to characters based on that.
In the one DnD survey they did not even include race as an option to survey preferred terms, they included, Species, Kind and Subtype, pick your favorite.
Like I suggested, steering towards a desired result.
i have no idea what they even, try to infer with "Subtype". i just wrote down i prefer to be an Elf if i was an Elf, and a Goblin if i was a Goblin. i even tried to spin it as it being they who were racist for Homogenizing races since apparently it's wrong to be different
@@theprinceofawesomeness I actually used species in game recently, Mind flayers referring to the lesser species... really struck home the vile and alien nature of the mind flayers because the PC's would never refer to themselves as species. And thats the problem. I also inferred in the survey that the best way to fight racism is to have members of other races come together in cooporation. By removing race they are causing more harm than good.
They said in a statement that they refused to use the term race
"We're making a change. We're not calling it 'Race' anymore. That's the call. To throw a bone to anyone who may be a little sore about it, we're letting you vote on what the new term will be."
I don't see the problem.
Lineage would have been a better choice, as well as ancestry, which Pathfinder uses. I don’t know that anyone was “calling” for “race” to be changed. But i agree that it's a problematic term today, & there's no need for it.
“Lineage” could have been the beginning of a more interesting approach to character backgrounds, with family lines of varying importance. As it is, the game has always been pretty numb to social class, which is silly, given the time setting.
Your point seems to be that this is a non-issue that didn't need to be addressed, and yet you felt the need to make a video addressing it. If it doesn't matter, why are people upset about the change? I suggest that the backlash against this particular change demonstrates that the term "race" does indeed contain political weight, and that the change is a positive one.
ive used species for years now
victorian race theory and taxonomy was very influential over fantasy lit and people like Michael Moorcock have complained about it since 1960s the debate isn't new - race as a term is not scientific and harmful and outmoded - I'm fine with it being removed - most of the "races" in modern dnd are not human "races" but non human. Half races in 5th ed are full of cringy tropes i was taught not to use 30 years ago.
You've definitely earned mine a while back, sir. 👊
It is reassuring to hear others express the same attitudes I have. Great examples on all your key points.
The split in D&D players has been growing for a few years now. BX, DCC, and such are growing in popularity for a reason. The more products WoTC produces the wider the split gets. 6th edition will complete the divide and this is good. Those who don't want a politically correct infected game experience will be compelled to find another option and the modern sensibility crowd can run with 6th edition until it burns like it failed a save vs a fireball.
it sucks when your entire group are 5e only stans while you just want to show them the light of 3.5
Orrrr, how about some players bring their politically correct terms for "Species" and ideas about gender norms over to their OSR game (lots of us are already there) and enjoy it all the same?
It's still very silly to me, how many people are reacting to the "woke" word changes way more than they've EVER complained about the crap rules changes in every new edition past 2nd.
@@VanDavis Exactly! There is nothing inherently in the language of OSR that prevents players from bringing in terms or ideas of any kind. The game can be whatever vibe you like.
The complaints about the rules are plenty. Everyone I know has a criticism about 5E, though its fundamentally a good system underneath. However, people (me included) are more vocal about the 'silly' woke changes because it invokes an emotional response. We are that old guy that yells at the kids 'get outta my yard!'
Futile, I know. But we are free to do so.
@@theprinceofawesomeness I get that! It took me a little time to sway my 5E players. However, I told them I needed some time to set up the next adventure. In the meanwhile I wanted to run about 3 session of Dungeon Crawl Classics to fill the sessions. The whacky system took hold and we've finally switched.
Best thing about it is, don't have to abide by what they want. Still playing 3.5E with some homebrew and will still use race.
I feel the term race suits any RPG really true species makes sense in scifi settings. but even races can still apply in that setting to. i look at race as way to describe humanoid type beings such as elves, humans, halflings etc. species describes things like canine, feline, dragon, reptile etc ...
The differences between fantasy races have become extremely superficial over the years which is something I lament. I’m fascinated by the way authors such as Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock are able to write their elves as otherworldly aliens.
I think this is a non issue. I also think us aging grognards need to realize we may be, in fact, a very very vocal minority ourselves.
Oh I think we do know that and I think WotC has known that for years. The culture is changing and the market follows. Simple as that. We can rail against it in our own way to influence things, even if a little. I mean, it’s better than sitting on your hands. 🙂 I think we’re going to see a generational split in D&D like we’ve never seen before, but I also think the gaming companies are not going to care too much. It’s the youngsters who are more willing to dispense of their cash. Anyway, thanks for commenting.
@@becmiberserker well at the same point you can’t blame the next generation for doing the same. Especially when there’s so many products in the OSR space that caters to us old folk.
But species makes more sense even in the context of D&D. Elves are a species. High elves would be a race within the elven species. Damaran, Rashemi, and Turami are races within the Human species. Elves and Humans however are separate species, they are not members of the same race they are totally separate species.
Are they though?
@@moodymac Yes, they are. Can you provide a reason to think otherwise?
@@VanDavis I can't provide anything scientific. Is a made up reason ok?
Elf RACE, Drow SPECIES
Problem solved! 🤣
It would be Elf Species, Drow Race
I mean like Human Species, Caucasian Race (white skinned people)
I've used the term "species" since the 80s. Probably because of my background in biology and my ready mixing of sci-fi elements into our fantasy setting. I wholly endorse the change.
Everyone's game is their game. Thanks for your comment.
I never liked species but just because the different races can and do interbreed. And produce fully viable offspring.
They also are largely just products of divine creation and not evolution. Like, elves were spontaneously created when a god bled on the battlefield.
How are you ascribing biological taxonomy to that?
I think they all share the same species. Humanoid. And then each have different origins and ancestry.
My vote would to be calling them Ancestries.
Well, maybe if you had a background in etymology, you'd understand why using the term race is completely valid and applicable in this context.
@@remyb6854 Yeah but Homo Sapian, Neaderthal, and Denosovians were all different independent species, and yet they could all create viable offspring. So should modern humans be renamed? Should we use the name of our last ancestor who broke off to form those three branches? I mean we could. Or we could except that species doesn't mean can't breed. It means that they need to be genetically closely related to breed. So Elves and Orcs have to be genetically close to Humans to have Half-Elf and Half-Orc children.
@@nathanieljernigan1147 Not really, we had close genetic relatives on earth with us, we could cross breed with them and they were not the same species as us. This flawed understanding that species means you can't reproduce is just a failure of American Education.
Hell we have a perfect analogy here.
Denisovans could be seen as the elves, the Neanderthal as the orcs and us as the humans. We are all genetically related but independent species with our own traits and so forth but able to breed due to close genetic similarities. And given humans can not longer breed with the chimp genetic line with 99.6% dna in common they had to be only a .1 or even less different but were different species.
So no species is the proper term. race would be used for things like Stout Halfling, Mountain Dwarf, Wood Elf. Variations within a species.
The removal of ability bonuses from races is a good thing in my opinion.
As I DM, I saw how my players were basically forced by the game mechanics to pick certain race/class combinations to perform better in the game. I think that narrows the potential of roleplaying and character identity.
to be fair ability bonuses show how physically different a race is to that of humans. elves normally have +2 to dex which shows that they more agile than humans. which is to me a sense of what makes elves elves. in addition to culture and there way of thinking. my problem is when they started to make humans have ability bonuses. i always thought of human as balanced compared to other races. which makes humans more unique.
@@SolarStrikeMolecularDragon I understand what you're saying and how it makes logical sense to have them. But sometimes, the illogical thing is better for game design.
@@ravador which why i will never play later versions of the game. plus all the races are now just in name only. an elf is no different than a orc or a human. the name of each race is just a skin to be worn nothing more. Plus it doesn't make for a better game design it just makes it a different game which is why i don't consider D&D 5e D&D anymore it's a different game. Oh i never found the race ability adjustments a forced mechanic. plus you could argue having no race ability adjustments as being forced too. but in the end to each there own
Personal opinion: It's race. Why? I've been doing this for over 30 years and that's what it's always been. It's probably going to be that way, for me, until I die. It's not something that warrants any energy on my part to change for my own self, and besides, it's "race" in all of my 2E books.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter anyway. Nobody roleplays their race. It's sad. I had one guy, ONE, that did. He played a kenku, and he spoke only in mimicry for the three hours that our sessions lasted. The best part was my Sailor Ranger, who spoke only in profanity. Our table got a "content warning" real quick. It was awesome. Anyway, I digress. "Race" or "Species" isn't even reduced to just reskinned humans, they're reduced to what numbers get added to what ability score with no thoughts on how your party consisting of a goblin rogue, hobgoblin fighter, bugbear ranger, orc cleric, and kobold sorcerer are going to get past the GATES of a human town in any fantasy game, if you're playing straight. It doesn't mean anything at all, really.
Until your kenku player runs afoul of Baba Lysaga's "Hate all ravens and everything that looks like ravens" personal vendetta and your player wants to know why they feel like they're being targeted and nuked. Of course, my answer would be "Because you are".
Race. That's what it's going to be for me forever. And it doesn't matter anyway because every race is nothing but a number added to a score to make you better when you roll a die. They're changing "roleplaying" to "rollplaying". To hell with them.
I believe you hit the nail on the head with your observation of how Humanist, thereby demeaning as well as diminishing, it is to consider all races the same. This is brought up in Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered Country, as the Klingons find offense with the primarily Human Federation and their notions of equality. Other places can be sourced where this theme time and time again rears its ugly head. To cite The Incredibles, "If Everyone is the Same, then No One is Special". Your commentary about the overall Maturity of your players also has a heavy-handed impact on this premise as well.
My reaction to this is that if a person cannot handle tensions or strife between entirely alien races cohabiting a fantasy world in a made up setting, then that person should highly consider seeking professional help for much deeper rooted issues and problems. I really do think that some people have become tainted by the poisonous thoughts that in America "White People" are the root cause of all of the evils and misfortunes plaguing modern society - this corruption leads them to overcompensate and lash out with righteous indignation over the most petty of imperceptible issues as a deflection of their own self loathing in order to set themselves apart... in order to be 'Special'. Its infectious and plays off of the social common decency of tolerance in order to take root and flourish. It finds ways to manifest its symptoms in all sorts of daily occurrences too numerous to count anymore.
WOTC and through them D&D is moving forward along these perverted lines in order to avoid being perceived as any hateful label such as Racist/Bigoted/Fascist/Insert Dehumanizing Term of Choice. They overcorrect and are mindful of the gnashing of teeth by a percentage of a percentage of the population online who suffer from this mental affliction you could commonly refer to as the Woke Church. Anything can be done in its name, and if you speak out against it you are the Heretic who is worthy of their scorn, condemnation, vitriol and hatred.
These notions, if you dwell on them for too long or in too much depth, are more than a little terrifying with the permanent scars they perpetrate on society at large in the long run. I personally try to avoid it like the plague, and consider something like Dungeons & Dragons to be an escape from reality. A safe space in order for my friends and I to be ourselves and collaborate in order to tell some truly memorable stories with a goodly sprinkling of humor thrown into the mix. Anymore I already know that any new books or content coming out of WOTC is going to be laced with the aforementioned foolish notions, and represents one more thing that I have to ignore or hotfix at the table in order to make it comfortable for myself and my group.
I enjoyed your video perspective, BECMI Berserker, and look forward to more in the future. Peace to any and all who read this.
Well said. You could go a step further and extend Imperceptible issues to non-existent issues. The use of the term race being changed due to perceived racist connotations, was a non-existent issue until WotC made it an issue. I've been lurking around D&D for a while and no one had an issue with the term in 5th edition or prior as far as I understand it. Its an issue that was created from came from seemingly no where. Things get changed now if they have ANY perceived offence, it doesn't matter if the intent behind the words wasn't offensive at all. The people comprising these groups see what they want to see, not the way things actually are.
We're moving into a world where freedom of expression is actively being destroyed, you can't write what you want or say what you want(within reason of course, people should still think about what their saying and always use common sense). With One D&D, I think that will happen to any DM who goes into the virtual space, if you say or write something that is "wrong", you could face this retribution or get censored. You won't be able to have the freedom to run the game the way you want like you would on Roll20(I fear that its days could be numbered depending on what WotC does) or in person.
one of the species of species is that they can not produce fertile offsprings with other species. and in DnD you have half elfs and half orcs and what not.
I mean homo sapian and Neaderthals were different species, they were just closely related and could cross breed. For orcs and elves to produce children they would have to be closely related.
Not to mention the fact that there are tons of animals from different species that can still produce offspring. It’s just that the offspring are sterile. For example, mules are the combination of a donkey and a horse. Pislybears are combination of grizzly, bear, and polar bear, and coy wolves are a mix of coyote and wolf.
@@jordanwhite8718 Pislybears seem to be able to breed with more Grizzly bears meaning they are a fertile hybrid species.
This is the best thing I ever saw.
Funny that I should come across this video after WotC announced that “Half-“ races will no longer be a thing… I’m now curious how long it will take them to realize how many of their named playable races are also technically “half-“ races that reached a population size to be self-replicating and distinct.
Still rather happy that my one and only time playing D&D was as a Mul(half-dwarf).
They are literally tripping over themselves, or tripping themselves up, to avoid being “problematic”, and it’s a problem!
I'm in the camp of actually liking the way they've separated ability scores from racial traits and instead having them be tied to background. When it comes to how these different races generally behave culturally, that's up to the DM, but player characters are always able to be the exception to the rule. They are, after all, meant to be exceptional individuals.
I think when it comes to the portrayal of different sapient species/races, nurture plays more of a role in how they behave than nature does, and that's part of what separates sapient species from animals.
For the most part I enjoy the mechanical changes, though not the changes in nomenclature, and for both I believe the changes being made are for the wrong reasons.
I like separating cultural traits from abilities in races due to setting discontinuity. This way you can have your demon-powered Drow in the FR and have the forest-dwelling hippies in Eberron and give them unique starting features that’s tied more closely to the setting lore. And by having more general or customizable backgrounds (sometimes I think it can be a three-part system with race, culture, and background to form the base of a character so you have cultural ties that more general backgrounds don’t accidentally erase or omit on characters that really should have them) you can make those characters that act against the mold and make it something the system can recognize mechanically.
You could argue as far as inherint behavior goes, a fantasy world can have a justifed reason for why a sapient species or race is"born evil" or tied to an evil aligenment for instance the kenku, as far as I know, is magically cursed to have No creative spark in terms of making stuff, that would Mean they cant make a house but they can "use" a house, i imagin this would breed a negative jealousy towards others not of their species, this ofc should not exclude exceptions that may occure, because what else is the player if not an exception?
But the majority would still be nasty by default. Again i could make this argument, but as the creative brain behind your own setting and games its up to yourself how the kenku is or react to their predicement, maybe they aren't cursed at all, or maybe they are just evil enemies akin to goblins but with a bird theme.
Ultimately i dont think its WOTC who should decide for us if a race or species should be good or bad, rather offer interesting Lore to justify both and allow the dms to pick which they desire for their game.
Ability scores aren't the mechanics for behaviours or anything acquired culturally, ability scores are the mechanics for the structure of the character's body. Cultural nurtured features would be knowledge, skills, feats. If a human were raised by Elves, how would they suddenly learn the ability to function without real sleep? Raised by Dwarves, would their growth stunt and would they get darkvision? Raised by dragons would they learn how to fly and breathe fire? Sapient species ARE biologically a part of the animal kingdom. Nurture plays a role in how they behave, nature plays a role in what they ARE. A change that blurs (annihilates) this distinction stops this from being a fantasy-themed game and just divorces it from a recognisable reality. When your character is a cross between Superman and Brainiac, NOBODY SANE CARES ANYMORE.
@@troffle i think calling ability scores "mechanics for the structure of the character's body" is a little disingenous. Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma are not tied to the structure of a character's body.
And as for the physical stats of a character, sure, they may have some natural advantage over another race or races, but if that natural advantage isn't nurtured, and other traits are as a result of the character's upbringing and lifestyle, then it doesn't really mean anything.
If an orc is raised by a family of schollarly elves, and never focuses on training their body but instead studies intensely, then it makes more sense that their starting ability scores would center around mental ability over physical.
Of course, the orc would still be naturally stronger than their elven adoptive family, due to the structure of their body, but that is already represnted by the Powerful Build trait.
Racial traits can sufficiently represent the natural advantages one race has in comparison to another, while ability scores more effectively capture how a character has lived their life and what they've focused on bettering, while also providing a more flexible framework for the player to experience the fantasy they're looking for.
@@jacobyullman5005 I took what you said into account and I have a response. RUclips is not letting me POST the response, keeps saying "unable to add". This is insane.
The short of it is that nearly every point you have raised has a superficial truth but in most cases you're contradicting YOURSELF. It's not at all disingenuous, in fact I'm wondering if you're being so, because of the contradictions you make.
I'll keep trying to post my original text, because it disproves what you say whether referring to reality or the game system, with detail and references.
I grew up on the BECMI books. I never played it in a group but loved reading the rules and the modules. Eventually I grew out of DnD and haven't followed it until I started hearing about the various "controversies" like racist Orcs lol. Now I hear the crap the WOTC is pulling with the 5e licensing stuff and I realized I probably didn't miss much after BECMI.
Recently I discovered drivethrurpg and print on demand services, I've already ordered the BECMI and related books. I probably won't be playing but I should have some nostalgia reading the older stuff before all the woke nonsense started invading these games.
May I quote this if I ever get my home-brewed fantasy heart-breaker off the ground?
AMEN!!!
>Called BECMI Berserker
>The mild mannered guy I've heard
......That's actually scarier than an angry man...
In the end we run our own games how we want with what rule set we want, I still run my Shadowrun Game with the 1st Editions rules with the odd tweak. Unlike Video Games, Comic, Films and TV, RPGs don't need a big company to produce stuff we have the rules books and make our own stories the extra stuff is nice but we don't need it.
Spot ON!
I've been considering this at length, and while I agree this is mostly confected outrage, the widespread use of race and subrace has been heavily driven by dungeons and dragons.
The concept of subraces aside, I'm not sure 'race' even really captures the desired meaning. A more generic version of 'humankind' or 'humanity' seems most suitable, though I haven't found any existing words to suit.
Whenever someone complains about evil races etc, I always remember the best question I have been asked in a game.
“What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”
~ Paarthurnax
I don't get what you're trying to invoke with that response. People aren't usually complaining when evil races exist when the "good" orc shows up, they complain about evil races when it's "there are no good orcs"
@@sam7559 Simply that saying there are no good [Insert race here] does not mean one cannot make one that have overcome their evil nature. An exception to a races inherent alignment does not invalidate the entire thing and makes for better stories compared to "everyone is just normal there is no evil" as the game now decided to say when it comes to alignment.
@@TrixyTrixter if the goal is to allow people to feel like it's an option to play [insert race here] it would make sense to not state that people of that race is always evil since a none zero amount of players are going to see that as a barrier unless the goal is to play a villain campaign. So in this situation if WotC wants to keep orc/half orc as a method to increase the likelihood of a player picking that race would be removing the barrier of "biologically always evil" to "typically evil" because that typically is an invitation to play against the grain of being that not evil orc and figuring out why your orc isn't evil.
@@sam7559 Heavy disagree. What is against the grain at all in todays dnd? Every race is a diferent flavor of human in stats and alignment. You just pick which ones features you like and your essentially a human with X features. Set API and a sugested alignment because thats what their culture builds had more character to the races than anything now. Every race boils down to the same things in official lore. You cannot play someone against the norm if there is no norm.
@@TrixyTrixter set ASIs and alignment for PC races because of culture? You do realize that just because you're a dwarf that does not mean you're born and raised in a dwarf society so it wouldn't make sense for you to get those if instead you were an orphan raised by gnomes, it wouldn't make sense to get the Dwarven culture bonuses because they were never touched by Dwarven culture.
I have been playing TTRPGs fro over 3 decades now. I have read many systems and worlds. Not only do I not care if they are using 'race', 'species' or 'people', I don't even notice it. If the setting is interesting or it's the rules that caught my interest, I'm far to busy to even think about that. It's not like I haven't stopped playing D&D when 4E came out or that I have seen a reason to return to 5E or One D&D. Same with Pathfinder 2 and beyond.
Besides, we are talking about games where we safe countries, worlds and even universes from destruction (among other, less epic things). What are you going to to when you face an Orc army bent on killing everyone? Discuss if they are people too? Inside the game they want to kill your friends and family.
And outside the game? I see no orcs in real life. I don't equal orcs to anyone in real life because orcs don't exist.
And while everything can be an allegory, not everything has to be one.
Let me finish with words from people far wiser than I am:
“I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, "What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?" and gave the obvious answer: jailers.”
― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
"Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?... If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
- J.R.R. Tolkien
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
- Attributed to Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu
And here is another one over from someone wiser than me:
"I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.
You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”
Happy Valentine’s Day."- Nei Gaiman
Humans can perfectly be hell-bent on killing everyone out of genocidal hatred - events of 19th, 20th, and now even 21st century provide ample examples that no one in the world has right to ignore. Are those humans not people in your eyes? Do these things happen because some humans just are "brutish" and "incapable of compassion"? Or is that something that happens due to long processes that make people grow up in flawed environments?
I always boil this conversation down to "So, the intent is to call all non vanilla humans a sub species, please explain how that's less 'racist'?"
If only the people who buy in to the contrary point of view would listen and consider your views... Alas, I fear they would start wailing and furiously typing something barely recognizable as legible language, crying for blood and cancelation, instead of discussing the matter.
You are making great points. Keep up the good work BECMI brother 🤘
Except his entire point goes out the window when you consider Half-Elf and Half-Orc are a standard starting option for DnD and have been for a very long time.
If, as you all seem to want, Orcs are barely a step or so above animals with them being inhuman monsters, cannon fodder, sentient and sapient enough to gather together items for looting but not enough to actually be a person. Then Half-Orcs would have to be removed, because if you then take into account a world where Orcs are viewed as such, any half-orc would be killed immediately as a monster.
Lets be clear, if a half-bigfoot child was announced tomorrow with proof that it is actually half bigfoot many of your guys would be screaming for its death "It goes against god's will" kind of thing.
Half-elves would be kind of similar, it would have to be moved to a background setting where your elven parent is actually full elf, your other parent is actually human (no half-elves breeding true) and you are a magical conception to allow for your existence. So congrats your half-elf is now a special little snowflake.
And your half-orc well they would have to be one too, something to explain why they would be alive. And all of them would have the same story "My momma was raped and somehow survived"
So yeah we just need to remove the half-bloods from the game to make the game genetically pure.
Umm hi person with the viewpoint you're complaining about, I was about to watch the whole video and pretty sure I'm still able to type in what would be recognized as 21st century American English. No that does not mean they were able to convince me to change my views given that I don't think the appeal to tradition of it's always been called race is valid. While I will concede that species isn't the term I would use, that would use ancestry especially since that would make character creation pick your ABCs, Ancestry, Background, Class. When it comes to racial modifiers I also don't prefer that especially negative modifiers because that can lead to yikes territory, like elves being good aligned and described as always beautiful (often fair skinned), intelligent (+2 Int), and wise (+1 Wis), while always evil orcs are described as ugly, brutish (+2 Str), and dull (-2 Int). While obviously orcs and elves aren't real it can make people wonder what kind of statement the creators are attempting to make which WotC as a corporate entity might not want to risk people thinking those questions.
@@sam7559 I should probably have said in my original comment, that I neither agree or disagree with what is said in the video.
My point was simply that, BECMI Berserker is civilly and calmly making his point known, even laying out the foundation for his point of view, and I would hope that someone would equally and calmly consider his viewpoint for a discussion.
Nowhere did I say you have to agree with it, or be convinced or swayed to agree.
I was not complaining in my opening statement, but rather lamenting the fact that more than half of the time, discussion is not the response, but rather a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived slight, and often because people stop reading or listening when they find something slightly offensive.
A/B/C's are a great alternative. Ancestry sure beats Species, but that's my opinion.
I think people will run things the way they want at their tables, unless they are forced to play within the constraints of a program.
@@TheLastSane1 Back when Half-Orcs were introduced, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings had prerequisites to their attributes to play. This was in part to make them more rare and enforce the concept of humans being predominant in the world.
Drawing real world examples to illustrate a point in a world where there is magic, dragons, gods walking around, etc, doesn't really work. Sure, morals remain a functional parallel, but the fantasy worlds of D&D used to have less shades of gray, for the sake of making a distinction of Hero and Villain, Good and Evil, clearer.
Granted, we ended up with a 9 point alignment system, but when the game started, there were only 3: Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic (chaotic being part of evil and likely heavily influenced by Michael Moorecock's writings).
As for your Bigfoot-human example: your conclusion seems very medieval and dark to me, and your preconceived assumption of "you guys" really doesn't work in your favor. You know nothing about me, only what you think you perceived based on my comment.
I never said I agree or disagree with what BECMI Berserker said. I made fun of easily offended knee-jerk reactionary comments and complimented BECMI Berserker on a good video, and well made points.
I have seen a bunch of variations on how Half-Orcs came to be. Yes, the result of a brutal encounter has been one example, but there have been others, like: the result of foul sorcery, alchemical experiments, curses, divine intervention and more.
Orcs were intended to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, the opposite to what's good and true. Remember, it's a fantasy setting, where there are more defined lines between good and evil. In The Lord of the Rings, they are there to end the forces of good, destroy Mankind, Elves, Ents, Halflings, all of them. They were created by the highest form of evil in Middle-Earth, Morgoth, who was part of singing the world of Middle-Earth into existence. Morgoth himself couldn't create new creatures, so he corrupted and twisted things into mockeries. A dark and evil reflection of the things they had once been. Orcs in D&D were based on that concept. The Orcs resembled Klingons from Star Trek, more than their Tolkien origins for a while, and who knows where they are headed.
Half-Elves have their own baggage. Sometimes shunned by elven Society for their human half and shunned or mistrusted by humans for their elven heritage. Tanis Half-Elves from Dragonlance is a good example of that.
Not following your "special snowflake" comment.
@@MarkGoldfine If you disagree with the awfully-falsely-named The Last Sane 1, and worse if you back up your points, he will assume you're some kind of racist and treat you as such. Regardless of there being no evidence of you being a racist. Or what your own race is. I already discovered this the hard way.
I suspect that if you've never been on the end of racial discrimination then you are more likely to be, either through deliberate choice or just ignorance, tone deaf to this issue and be one of those shouting "politically correct" or "woke". And if you have to ask yourself 'oh, is that racist?', then deep down, you already know the answer, otherwise you wouldn't have asked, sarcastically or otherwise.
If, however, you are more considerate of the impact of 'just a word' on people of ALL backgrounds then you may be more aware & accepting of the issues behind certain words & phrases..
For my part, Elves are a distinct species. A wood elf is a race of elf. A drow is a difference race of elf. Both are a different species from humans.
Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.
The term "race" is believed to have originated from the Latin word "radix," which means "root." It was first used to refer to a person's ancestry or descent, and it was later used to refer to the physical characteristics of a person.
The word "race" continues to be used in modern language, but its use has been the subject of much debate and controversy. While the term is still used to describe physical characteristics and ancestry, it has also been used to perpetuate stereotypes as well as justify discrimination and inequality.
Many people argue that the use of the word "race" reinforces the idea that there are biologically distinct and separate human groups, which is not supported by scientific evidence. Instead, it is now generally accepted that there is more genetic diversity within a "racial" group than between groups, and that the concept of race has more to do with social and cultural factors than with genetics.
Instead of using the term "race," it has been suggested that one could use terms like ethnicity, culture, or ancestry to describe the background or heritage of a person or group of people. It's also important to be aware of the context in which you are using language and to consider whether certain terms may be seen as offensive or harmful.
There are several red flags in how you attempt to present your ideas/arguments, not the least of which is the early attempt at trying to assert some self-centered boasting that others flee from you when you challenge their ideas. Not only is this unverifiable horse manure, but it also wreaks of cognitive dissonance. It is quite possible that others grow tired in engaging in fruitless debate with a stubborn person. I am reminded of the analogy of teaching a pigeon to play chess: in the end the pigeon will knock over the pieces, defecate on the board and strut around as though it has won.
This is the third video I have watched on this channel and a theme remains: Old man rants about how the world is changing around him.
planet of hats
I think the majority do not care about using the word race, this was the overall opinion of my role playing group. I personally believe type and subtypes are best used and species used to describe non humanoids..the reason for this is better technical descriptions that to me are more relevant, the issue I have using the word "race" to describe a subtype of a species, speaking only technically here, is the word is made up and non descriptive. No one uses race to describe a tabby cat vs a siamese cat, nor any other plant or animal or mineral subtype. So to me it's always been a fake word while being used in improper context. I am a 50 yr old lifetime gamer myself been playing since the boardgames was released basically, played with many colors and kinds of people and never had I once heard a complaint of a session feeling "racist".
If you've read this far then my last statement was made to reflect the fact that WotC is certainly doing this to avoid the major cancelation by a vocal minority, not for the reasons my personal opinion is based upon, for fantasy settings I am using pathfinder as it's not re-released in different clothing every other year. I prefer palladium systems best overall, but for fantasy settings I had to let go of keeping up with the expense of DnD, that's what they should curb...the cost of the books to play the game...digital copies for 9.99$ I would own them all.
The real meaning of "diversity" is valuing everyone as an individual - that means you recognise and accept the differences between everyone.
That does not equate to homogenising everyone or variety or representation of everyone.
Pretending everything and everyone is the same, is disrespectful of the differences.
How about Species+2, race+1, lineage free feat? Species is Human elf etc, Race is Mountain dwarf vs. Hill dwarf vs Gully dwarf.
Yeah, that's very similar to my take on it.
Your argument here seems more in favor of using species. The extreme differences you speak about are due to speciation. Also, homo sapiens and Neanderthals were different species, not different races, so that example just furthers the point.
I believe the fact in 5e as it was released we have Half Elves and Half Orcs. Two races born from the mixing of blood of either race with (most likely) humans. Both from world views that conflict, and thus have to find one of their own depending on their genetic lottery. Species can't mix blood. You don't see dog cat hybrids, do you? They're completely different species. In a biological sense, race makes the existence of half races make more sense. To take this even further, some races in D&D 5e have subgroups! Take the Elves. There are three. High, Wood, and Dark (Drow). All three coming from the original Elf. Even these three, if given enough creativity, can mix with each other and produce an offspring depending on who the mother was. Hell, to go even further: Dragonborn. The only difference in D&D 5e on release is the color of each Dragonborn's Scales! The fact one races can have at least 10 variants shows you that all creatures with sentience of some manner are not individual species, they're individual races who can mix blood. Just on a pure biological sense of how each races is interpreted upon release in 5e, WoTC royally screwed themselves.
However, we have horse and donkey hybrids and lion and tiger hybrids, even though they are different species.
@@danielmalinen6337 not sure if Ligers (Tiger x Lion hybrids) are sterile like Mules (Horse x Donkey hybrids), but I think my point still stands on a genetic stand point. You could be the kid of a Red Dragonborn and a High Elf if the relationship worked out.
Homo Sapian and Homo neanderthalensis and Homo Sapian and Denisova hominins cross bred in the real world. They are three distinct species and yet we have humans walking around right now with a mix of all three genetics (more homo sapian obviously) Species does not mean cannot breed or even produce fertile offspring. It means a distinct species with distinct traits. But close genetic relation can allow for cross breeding. So a Half-Orc and Half-Elf would speak to Orcs and Elves being close genetic relatives of humans.
Edit: To be clear, the argument from the video host and many of the other commenters are that Elves and Orcs are NOT related to humans and so should not act like them.
Been doing some pondering on this myself.
First, with respect to the use of "Species". I just don't like it, I feel it'd work in a sci-fi environment, but for fantasy it just doesn't seem the right term.
Next, we collectively get referred to as the "Human Race" do we not? So from that aspect it strikes me as fine to use the term race in fantasy games.
And lastly, I think we could have a couple of terms, race for where different lines exist (so wood elf, high elf etc) or where interbreeding is possible, given half elf & half orc exist that would imply biologically that humans, elves and orcs at least are all different races of the same genetic branch. Then for anything that cannot interbreed, different genetic line. So Genus & Race maybe? Or something of this nature?
Just one more point...As a scientist with a background in biochemistry, I learned early on that members of different species are unable to interbreed. That's the definition of the word species (with a few rare exceptions leading to sterile crossbreeds such as mules and ligers.) If the term species is to be used in D&D, and retain its ACTUAL real world meaning, it would imply that elves and humans are the same species, as are humans and orcs, as their offspring are not stated by the game rules to be infertile. "But," one might say, "we can use the word species to mean something slightly different from its meaning in the real world, and the meaning in-game can be inferred." OK. So why can't we just do that with the word Race, and keep using the term that has 50 years of published material to back it up?
I got censored and banned for politely bringing these exact points up. Image a normy black mother walking in while, in character you call her child's PC "an odd species".
I personally prefer species (or ancestry). And just to be clear, i don't think your are racist, even though the term has a racist history. I really see your point that D&D has been inclusive, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't madea couple mistakes in the past. Your argument seems to focus one Human Vs Elf, for example, but I think a better example would be Sun Elf vs Wood Elf... and the most succinct examples would of course be Orc vs 'Yellow Orc'. But I totally see where you are coming from in regards to homogenization. I think most of that really comes down to Setting or maybe Genre. A great example is the Ebberon setting, which has two countries that really stand out; one being very segregated and antagonistic among different species, and the other being very integrated. So even within the same game it can vary depending upon where you are standing (or where you come from).
I think it's backwards. We, as humans, shouldn't be using the term 'race'. We're obviously divided by the act of classification, but I don't think we can evolve until that stops. Like how the people are in Star Trek.
Oh, but did you pick a bad choice. There was an episode of TNG that demonstrated humans, Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons were all descended from the engineering of a progenitor species. Not to mention: Human-cross half-Vulcan, half-Klingon, Vulcan-Romulan (although they're supposed to be biologically identical anyway)... and it's only in the EU of the books we discover Spock's birth required an *awful lot of deliberate Vulcan genetic engineering*. Otherwise in the intellectually bereft movies, it's just assumed a natural birth happened.
And yet, still, look at all the damned stupid wars they have.
Star Trek was always meant to be heavily humanist. Not even trans-humanist, because that too polluted the Humanism. The Borg are generally evil. Barclay the engineered-super-genius was mistrusted as hell until it was all taken away from him. And Spock was loved, but was still the butt of Kirk-McCoy jokes. Go human or go out of Sector 001.
For that matter, even the post-scarcity human ideal future was wrecked for story's sake. They just *had* to have some form of economy, so introduce un-replicatable "Latinum" wrapped in mere replicatable gold envelopes. Star Trek is not a utopia. It almost was... but it never could be and now it never, ever, ever will be.
I respect the opinion and also think this race or species thing is kinda unnecessary
However I think your reasoning is slightly flawed, I wont discount that with the way races have been written and described in the latest books has been a bit homogenous as it has been
But I think that another factor here that you may be a bit blinded by the way we have always thought of Orc’s and Elves by the influence’s of Lord of the Ring’s and the Forgotten realms classic setting in D&D that is often used as the “Default” for lore and such at least around the beginning of 5e with things like the SCAG.
Because of this influence I don’t think many are taking into account of what may be another reason WotC has been writing things a bit more generally, I remember the discourse about this happening around when Fizban’s came out and some people weren’t happy about them starting to insert “Typically” in front of a creatures Alignment. Some people saw this as them wanting to change decades of lore about chromatic dragon’s always being evil when really it’s very much not.
From the interviews on the RUclips channel and all the talks I’ve seen with Jeremy Crawford and other writers it’s become very clear that they are no longer writing things assuming that the forgotten realms is the default setting for lore in the source books, and when you think of it from that prospective it makes a lot more sense why they started to be more general with lore and putting things like “Typically” in front of alignment
Think about how many dms and players play in other worlds or mainly their own homebrew settings more often than not, I believe they realized this and started to stop assuming that every DM is gonna make a Red dragon evil (as example), thus not every world has elves like LotR or Orc’s like the forgotten realms, letting DM’s define that for themselves
The unfortunate consequence of that is that lore and writings are getting more general and “safe” per say, maybe even seeming lazy in some ways
Either way you want to look at it I think this is a point of view often left out of this kind of discussion and I’d appreciate it if more people would mention this way of thinking even in passing, even if it’s then discounted as unlikely or something
If ya happen to see this I’d appreciate it if you have the idea some thought, maybe even mention this way of thinking in a future video if you think it’s worth anything.
This was really thought provoking. Especially the issue of being anchored (my word) to lore. Thank you. I’ll certainly make a note of this.
I do see what you're saying, but I'm going to bring up another point that you didn't really seem to consider; this is the only way we're seeing the Forgotten Realms and its lore now. They haven't made a new novel in the setting in the past 6 years, they haven't done re-releases or re-prints grouping the "arcs" together for the old novels (at least as far as I'm aware), Baldur's Gate 3 is in perma-early access. I mean... I guess we have the Neverwinter and DnD Online MMOS? And there was that god-awful Dark Alliance game? All we have now are these sourcebooks and these adventures.
Point being, I understand if that's what Crawford and the other writers are trying to do. It's not a bad idea. However, that's irritating as hell when you really haven't done much with your main setting in this edition, and when it's basically an impossible task to ask someone to run a "lore-accurate" game in the setting. You'd have to track down and read an assload of novels just to fill in the map, then read the adventures and order them too, and you'd have to construct a *much* more detailed timeline than what's on the Forgotten Realms wiki. You'd probably have to get sourcebooks from previous editions, too, and work on making those mesh together.
This is why, personally, I don't want the info and details to be general and vague. Make it specific to the FR, please. I don't want to see words like "typically" in my sourcebooks, not because of a disagreement over the use of the word, but because I bought this sourcebook so that I could see the rules for how these creatures worked. I don't give a rats ass about the exceptions, I care about how the norm works so that way I can see how they fit into this world and run them properly. I can make the exceptions myself on a case-by-case basis. Making it fit into my world is my job as a DM, and I'd rather be lightly altering or deleting details from the FR than having to research blue dragons in God only knows how many other settings and mythologies and working those aspects in.
So, on one hand, I get what they're going for. On the other, I think what they're doing is foolish, because they seem to have done fuck all except make the FR more vague and general, and it feels like they've made it a pain in the ass to actually run a lore-accurate FR game in 5E. While you make a good point about how many people play in a homebrew world or one of the many other settings, I raise you the question of how many more people would actually run accurate FR games in 5E if the lore was concisely ordered and didn't have nearly as high of a price tag and time investment (it takes a lot of time to read the 66 multi-book arcs of novels and all the standalones) buy-in as it does now to get access to all of it? I can say that I certainly would be, as this is literally the reason why I have not run a game set in the FR myself, and have instead run games in my own settings or in Eberron (speaking of, that's a good example. With the two Eberron books from WOTC, the Exploring Eberron, Morgrave Miscellany, Eberron Confidential & Chronicles of Eberron supplements on the DM's Guild, you now have an almost encyclopedic knowledge on the lore and the setting, can intricately tie your PCs into the world, and can make pretty much anything make sense in Eberron. I don't need to go get every previous Eberron book to understand the full context).
Yeah I getcha, honestly they are probably still trying to find the balance for how much concrete lore to make and how much wiggle room they want to give for DM’s to make there own assumptions.
I’d imagine it’s a hard balancing act id imagine to provide enough lore for the people that really want it but still encouraging DM’s especially new ones with the idea that they can change and customize their own monsters and lore as well.
I also can’t discount that I’m pretty biased and have a lot of faith in the book products that WotC has been putting out, I even didn’t mind spelljammer that much but it was a bit sad to see it be so small. I will admit that I’m a very very unpicky consumer and easily pleased
Oh and Balders Gate 3 got a release date trailer at the game awards, could always get delayed again but that’s better than nothing
Mind that my grammar can be really really bad
@@sonic25slash64 Entirely fair. I'm not a devout hater of WoTC either, and I enjoy most of the products I've gotten from them. There are obviously a few exceptions (for instance, picking up Strixhaven thinking it would be perfect to run my first campaign as a DM, but in actuality being one of the most lackluster books for that that they've published, but I digress), but I do enjoy the books for the most part. I actually really enjoyed the adventure in Spelljammer, my only real gripe was the ship combat rules.
Valid point about some DMs needing a bit more of a "confidence boost" as it were to adapt things themselves; not everyone wants to go read a bunch of other folklore and myth to base things off of.
Genuinely did not know BG3 got a release date. Good to know, hopefully they stick to it.
I know this is not strictly relevant to the video. According to various anthropological records human tribes had a tendency to describe neighboring tribes in the same manner as animals in the vicinity. Which means that a tribe of kobolds would not only treat orks as an animal specie, but other kobold tribes as if they are not of the same race. Even if kobolds trade with another tribe of their kind, they would view that tribe as Others despite the apparent visual similarities. Thus a blood relation is the most practical descriptor for a group. And it also requires to think about different ancestry and customs as a means to specify your own kin in the world. The rest is some ontological gibberish invented by human wizards up in their towers.
I'm in the camp I think 90% of players don't care what word is used and they skip to the min-maxing.
I think that you get one set of conceptual results from a spiritual origin, and another set of results from a biological origin. It's a fantasy game and playing a character created by the gods is different than playing a flatline extrapolation based upon downtown Los Angeles.
What, orcs are hominids? It's been years since university, but my impression of modern understanding is that modern homosapien crossings with the Neanderthalis produced only female hybrids. I don't think the significance of this would have been missed by the modern humans in contact with Neanderthal populations. Race in the context of Homo Erectus, Habilis, Neanderthalis and Sapiens makes sense. It does not in the context of say modern humans from the Sonoran plain or Sub Saharan Africa. In the former, one references scientific taxonomy and in the latter one confuses ethnicity and taxonomy.
Folk taxonomy is bad enough in ordinary life, but mixed with D&D? AD&D was bad enough with in it's first outing with the biological treatment of half elves/orcs and such. Idk, that's how it seems to me. The mythological basis vs the scientific, or biological basis for the game. "Dude, the powers of chaos itself are still active on this world of freaking myth and legend: the thing is a twisted gestalt of goat and man. It eats people lost in the woods. You are lost in the woods. Roll for initiative."
I agree with you, race is a term that we all know and implicitly understand in the context of D&D, using the term "species" just seems like a condescending term here. When you say "they are a different species" it almost sounds like you're talking down to that person or implying they are somehow beneath you.
It's nothing more than virtue signalling meant to placate that vocal minority.
No its because its how english works. Many other languages already use a version of the term species in their own translations. Which means all this "We can't use that it lets the woke win" is just right wing assholes crying about something changing and thats it. Homo sapian and Neanderthal were different species. But if we had them alive today we would also call them another race in this context, but they were a different species. We have simply gotten use to the colloquial term of Race to mean another species of sentient life, but also variations within a single species (such as we called blacks, white, asians, latinos all different races.)
@@TheLastSane1
I'm left-wing and I'm crying about people screaming on the Internet without actually looking up any of the details. Like, for example, you.
Homo Sapiens (please spell it right) and Homo Neanderthalensis interbred and produced fertile offspring. If you use THAT common definition of species and take into account that up to 4% of human DNA TODAY contains sequences known in Neanderthals, then they're SUBSPECIES or RACES, not different species.
There are now the terms "Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis" and "Homo Sapiens Denisova" to take into account the modern DNA sequencing of those pre-us populations and the presence of their DNA in OUR sequences. So if you want to be a left-wing-asshole crying about something changing, then I'm going to take strong and bitter exception to you because A) you're making left-wing people look bad and B) you haven't kept up with the studies and therefore the changing borders which make a better sense of the situation.
I don't think "Species" is a talking-down, but I recognise it feels that way because there are no other species on this planet that we can easily and meaningfully communicate with. But I grew up with fantasy and science-fiction so I'm okay with the term "Species". But not in THIS context - because in this context, we're talking about viable fertile breeding between them and that means "Subspecies" A.K.A. "Race". "Race" is a term known and implicitly understood in the context of "D&D", it's just normal non-D&D humans who aren't educated or smart enough to catch up with it.
I don't like that kwith had to bring in the "talking down", but I don't like how you TheLastSane1 (yeah no, you're not) decided to complain against the labelling of "virtue signalling", while getting the Science (and for that matter, ironically, the English self-defeatingly) wrong. If you've gotten used to the colloquial term of Race to mean "another species of sentient life but also variations within a single species" then not only are you overloading the term, you're doing it WRONGLY. So STOP it. Use the right term. And if you don't know what the right term is, then go look up the dictionaries or the texts of the domain of human knowledge the term CAME from. Like, a biology textbook. I'm not even a biologist, I work in IT, but I did enough science at school and uni to know what things have to be looked up to get the right answers. And honestly, I just wish that's what everybody would do.
@@troffle @troffle No, you really do not understand biology.
The three species of homo that you reference are DIFFERENT Distinct individual species. They DO however share a common ancestor and enough genetic material to cross breed. We know through genetic sequencing that our ancestors many many many branches back also used to be able to cross breed with the ancestors of modern chimp which is another feather in the cap for the fact we all descended from the same ancestors.
That does not make them all Human though. They are in the same GENUS but they are not the same SPECIES which is a scientific term. Your idiocy of claiming that if a species can breed they must be the same species is childish and comes from right wing idiocy who shun education.
For example, polar and grizzly bear share a common ancestor which was a species of brown bear. That happened over 300,000 years ago (some say 150,000)
www.science.org/content/article/polar-bear-evolution-was-fast-and-furious
They are NOT the same species, they are in the same GENUS but are individual species within that Genus. They can breed, and produce fertile offspring but are still different species.
Ligers, the product of Lions and Tigers, are also fertile. Lions and Tigers are NOT the same species. So this argument is bunk. They are not subspecies they are races they are different species.
You are missing that RACE has multiple definitions. The Human Race is the collective of Homo sapiens (modern humans only) so sure we might colloquially use the term Race to define the other species of Homo sapiens but they are individual species so its not entirely correct.
One of the other uses is for defining differences between individuals of the Homo sapiens species. IE Caucasians, Latinos, etc. Now there are people like yourself who believe being within a specific one of these "races" makes them somehow special and superior to those around them. But there is nothing actually different between these "Races" but minor mostly cosmetic mutations.
So no the correct term for Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Etc would be SPECIES because they are all different SPECIES even if they had the same GENUS they are not the same. So no Species is the correct term. You want race because its what was there and you lot hate change and cry anytime people don't treat you as special little snowflakes.
And of course other languages have been using the term SPECIES for literally decades so its not even a real change its just correcting the language because its incorrect. Learn something sometime.
And I know you lot would LOVE a Caucasian specialty bloodline in DND to make yourselves feel special.
"Species" organisms with similar physical characteristics. (see sub-species.)
"Race" identifies groups of people with a kinship or group connection.
What is a Goliath, a race or a sub-species?
For D&D, race seems to fit much better.
It depends on which origin myth one believes, or which one is finally settled as their origin...are they related to Stone Giants, or were they a cursed human tribe?
I'd say they were either a different species than humans, or they were a magically altered race of human.
@@VanDavis Yes, Goliath have stone ability and shrug off some minor damage as well as speak common and giant. In appearance they resemble stone giants. A cursed tribe possible or Goliath might be related to to Earth Genasi. Thank you for your answer.
For a good time my friend -- post this on twitter and reddit and watch it go lol. Oh the comment section on this topic.
I might just duck back under the parapet. 🙂
Talking in game and not rl i think inner race conflicts make for a good story arc. Plenty of films where an elf hates the dwarf but over comes there differences for the greater good. Cant have that arc if we got along in some kind of utopia
No you would just have it be individualistic. So that kingdom of dwarves have an issue with elves and do not want to work with them because of some long forgotten (to them) sleight. Its still possible and very easy to set up. But making it that every elf and every dwarf have this instinctual hatred and animosity just seems stupid no one acts like that. Unless elves competed for resources against and killed dwarves across large chunks of history there would be no reason any species would have an innate instinctual hatred of another.
@@TheLastSane1 yeah, the dwarf kingdom/queendom/lady in lake handing out swordsdom not liking the elves in the nearby forest because they are always complaining when they cut down trees to fuel their smelters is much more interesting than just dwarves hating elves because of rock and stone compels them to.
Thank you for the well-reasoned argument. I fully agree that the changes appear to come from a fear of backlash rather a thoughtful update to the language used. RPGs are made by people and I think many modules and expansion books have made use of real-world cultures to paint a setting flavour with a bit too much caricature. The base game has (at least since 3rd edition) depicted humans as representing various distinct cultures based on their manner of dress without shying away from the word race.
To tie this in to the theme from your previous video, this smacks of WOTC envisioning a game-space that is NOT a bunch of people around a table to talk this stuff out. If you're playing with friends and someone has a problem with the real life word use or the expression of racial animosities between fantasy peoples in the imaginative space, you make changes to make sure everyone is having fun.
I think this is a nothing burger. If the company wants to use a different word to mean the same thing I have no issues with it. The German translation uses the word got species anyway/