Race is a social construct. So what’s an elf?

Example of the elf “race” in the Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook. Artist not directly credited with the image.

Wizards of the Coast has announced that they are - finally - retiring the word “race” to refer elves, dwarves, humans, and so on. It’s the end of an era - specifically, the 1970’s. Better 40 years late than never. Read the announcement at DnDBeyond.com.

So what does that make your Astral Elf Rogue/Hexblade, besides awesome?

If your immediate response is, “There’s nothing wrong with the word race,” then I challenge you to think of one time in history that “race” was invoked without it immediately being terrible. You could also research why race was originally put on legal documents in the USA (spoiler: slavery). I would also point out that race is not a biological term (nor a biological fact) here on Earth. Ultimately, my position is that D&D is better off without the word “race.”

D&D is definitely not the first to drop the term - they are practically the last. Tiny Dungeon uses heritage. Forbidden Lands uses kin. Pathfinder 2e uses ancestry. Dungeons and Dragons is proposing to use species, although they are soliciting feedback on this decision at this time.

Species is better than race, but it’s not great.

What’s wrong with race? Mainly that we’re taking a word for a made-up thing - the arbitrary lines we draw around groups of people - and pretending they’re real in a game. Since “pretending race is real” here on earth has given us slavery, racism, and genocide, that’s not ideal, and we can do better. Species has one big advantage: it describes a biological distinction, like the one between cats and dogs, or between Klingons and Vulcans. Saying that elves and dwarves are different species has a certain logical elegance to it.

But it’s also a bit… essentialist. D&D isn’t a science fiction: the people in it don’t come from different planets. There are half-elves and half-orcs, and other races - excuse me, species - like the shifters and the genasi, all of whom are the product of (presumably) multiple genetic inheritances . The worlds of D&D give us a mythology, where people come in all shapes and sizes, influenced by environment and culture and magic and the gods. I don’t think it makes for better stories to imagine that the differences between gnomes and goblins are simply in the DNA.

I called species essentialist because it makes it easy to hang on to one of the creepiest features of race: it validates stereotypes. I realize we’re talking about fantasy stereotypes, like “orcs are violent” and “dwarves are greedy.” The word species implies that dwarves are genetically greedy, and that half-orcs are fundamentally “short-tempered and inclined to be sullen” (PHB, p. 40). The word species doubles down on “pretending race is real,” even as it jettisons a lot of the baggage that word brings with it. Yes, the game is fantasy, but that fantasy shouldn’t be “what if racist assumptions were real?”

This is a great place to stop and read N. K. Jemesin’s The Unbearable Baggage of Orcing, her 2013 column on race in fantasy. It’s by no means her final word; more recently she talks about creating fantasy races here. Unsurprisingly, she’s deep and brilliant.

Species, like race, makes it easy to “other.”

“Othering” is treating a person or group as intrinsically different from yourself. There are countless books and articles written about our (humanity’s) tendency to show total compassion towards “us” while inflicting cruelty on “them”. Race is a powerful tool for othering, and species does the same thing in a fantasy setting. You don’t have to treat somebody as human when they’re… not.

Which is… the point? Almost every creature in the D&D game was originally designed to be an enemy. This is, after all, a game of heroic combat against evil monsters. The othering of orcs is a deliberate feature of the game! Like the faceless stormtroopers in Star Wars, you’re not supposed to feel bad when you kill them. They’re just… bad.

More on this later. There’s a place for Elemental Evil (TM) in the game, but “race” isn’t it.

I’ve been considering “lineage” as a replacement in my games.

Why lineage? For one thing, it’s not explicitly genetic - it can also be cultural. My lineage might be human, or New England Puritans, but can’t it also be social activists, or New Jerseyans? Lineage means line, and you can trace a line through a religion or a language just as easily as through a bloodline.

At least, that’s what I am insisting. I like that lineage has a nicely mythical feel to it, of teachings and talents passed down through time. It doesn’t define you, it informs you. It’s a starting point, not an endpoint.

Arcanist Press does better with Ancestory & Culture.

In one of those moves that seems obvious once somebody makes it, Ancestry and Culture from Arcanist Press replaces “race” with ancestry - your character’s “genetics” - and culture - the history and customs by which you were raised.

This is much better. Conflating culture with “race” was a huge problem to begin with, only obscured by the fact that, in fantasy literature and games, elves and dwarves and orcs are usually presented as each having their own, semi-homogenous culture.

The mix-and-match approach offered in this book by Gwendolyn Marshall is flexible, dramatic, realistic, and very true to the spirit of D&D in general and 5e specifically.

There are legions of gamers willing to complain about “woke D&D” every time the game exceeds the biases baked into the game’s roots. In the meantime, RPGs continue to expand and grow with their audience. D&D is not leading the pack, but they are no longer in last place. It’s a step.