I don’t understand this whole push to swap the term “race” with “ancestry” or “heritage”. They say it’s because “race” has too much real world baggage, but then replace it with synonyms.
It’s like how “colored people” is racist, but “people of color” isn’t. Then again, consistency has never been these people’s strength.
I think Ancestry is fine. But I have been playing Shadow of the Demon Lord more frequently than D&D for many years now and I believe it was the first RPG (well before Pathfinder 2E started popularizing it) to actively use that term.
Heritage seems to be too much of a conglomerated term to me.
SotDL is the first place I saw it as well, but it still made me scratch my head. A white guy from Sweden, a black guy from Botswana, and an Asian woman from Laos all have different ancestries, but they’re all still human. Now compare any three of those people to a goblin or a clockpunk robot powered by the souls of the damned, and that’s where the fuzziness starts.
I don’t think the term “race” should be replaced in ttrpgs, but it is has the be, something like “Species” would be more accurate.
For me, I want the term to describe what generally what it is, without getting hyper-pedantic about it. I don't mind "race" as a more general, archaic nod to "species" in a typical fantasy game. Historically, "race" is an imprecise term, and in something like D&D, it's tied to an imprecise concept.
"Ancestry" or "Heritage" or even "Blood Line" could more accurately portray the spirit of the game/setting if, for example, all the various entities are human variants put through the fantastical wringer. Say, elves are just humans that split off ages ago, and now seem that much different.
If the game is more precise about such things, it needs the terms to convey that. If it's not, then any term is going to be somewhat misleading. Switching one vague term for another vague term in a system with vague applications merely confuses the issue for no good reason.
Of course, when confusing the issue is your goal ...