As the title says, they have "progressed" from race to species:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1393-moving-on-from-race-in-one-d-d

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on December 01, 2022, 01:06:39 PM
As the title says, they have "progressed" from race to species:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1393-moving-on-from-race-in-one-d-d

How specieist. This is a game with half-dragons and centaurs and half-drow and half-orcs and etc and etc. Species does not work at all as a descriptor of the various critters and people.

Don't care; wouldn't play.

I'm ok with having the Race and species be different and follow more in line with how they break down animals Genus: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, etc. etc.

Species=Half-Dragon
Race=Red, Blue, Gold, Green, etc.

Species=Elf
Race=Drow, Forest, Aqua, etc.

Basically it's a BASE and then an ADD-ON.

It's going to be be a bunch of logical hoop jumping to get the fee fee's "right". 

All in all it doesn't matter jack shit when you can click "Custom Lineage" and pick whatever the fuck you want to be if you think you are an elf with hooves and swim speed.

I've always thought that species was a better term than race for demihumans, the only problem being that it sounds to sciencey for a fantasy game.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 01, 2022, 03:14:39 PM
I've always thought that species was a better term than race for demihumans, the only problem being that it sounds to sciencey for a fantasy game.

Except humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs aren't separate species as they can all interbreed without issue. Race or Breed are the only accurate terms for what they are.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 01, 2022, 03:31:56 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on December 01, 2022, 03:14:39 PM
I've always thought that species was a better term than race for demihumans, the only problem being that it sounds to sciencey for a fantasy game.

Except humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs aren't separate species as they can all interbreed without issue. Race or Breed are the only accurate terms for what they are.

Genos? Ancestry?

First they fixed racism in advertising by removing a black lady from a pancake box, now they've fixed racism in roleplaying games by renaming races "species". Bravo, WotC!

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 01, 2022, 03:31:56 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on December 01, 2022, 03:14:39 PM
I've always thought that species was a better term than race for demihumans, the only problem being that it sounds to sciencey for a fantasy game.

Except humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs aren't separate species as they can all interbreed without issue. Race or Breed are the only accurate terms for what they are.

I don't really agree.  I have to go from 1E, which is what I remember best, but there were halforcs and halfelves and no other crossbreeds, implying that the other combinations don't work.  Also no quarter elves or orcs implying that the crossbreeds are sterile, which means the parents are separate species like horses and donkeys make sterile mules.

Of course it depends on which edition or what piece of fiction you're going from.  It isn't really possible to make a generalization over all the stories.

I was also on a really long discussion of this topic at enworld or rpgnet a long time ago, and someone pointed that species boundaries aren't as simple as the "can produce fertile offspring" rule.  There are a lot of weird cases with things like arctic birds.

(edited because I can't spel)

Quote from: Mishihari on December 01, 2022, 03:14:39 PM
I've always thought that species was a better term than race for demihumans, the only problem being that it sounds to sciencey for a fantasy game.

This is the main issue.  Why don't they go ahead and change to metric distances and weights while they are at it?  Maybe make up some kind of microbiology in the blood to explain how magic works, too.

That's sarcasm, in case someone was unsure.

okay good enough, i like this.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 01, 2022, 03:44:03 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 01, 2022, 03:31:56 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on December 01, 2022, 03:14:39 PM
I've always thought that species was a better term than race for demihumans, the only problem being that it sounds to sciencey for a fantasy game.

Except humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs aren't separate species as they can all interbreed without issue. Race or Breed are the only accurate terms for what they are.

I don't really agree.  I have to go from 1E, which is what I remember best, but there were halforcs and halfelves and no other crossbreeds, implying that the other combinations don't word.  Also no quarter elves or orcs implying that the crossbreeds are sterile, which means the parents are separate species like horses and donkeys make sterile mules.

Of course it depends on which edition or what piece of fiction you're going from.  It isn't really possible to make a generalization over all the stories.

I was also on a really long discussion of this topic at enworld or rpgnet a long time ago, and someone pointed that species boundaries aren't as simple as the "can produce fertile offspring" rule.  There are a lot of weird cases with things like arctic birds.

Ring species are a strange example. They look like one species, except when they look like two species. But who needs that complexity for an RPG?

My take on quarter elves and the like would be to vastly oversimplify it and have a single gene determine species. Everyone has two copies. If you are human, you get HH alleles. If you are an elf, it's EE. When babies are conceived, they get one copy from each parent, so if the parents are a human and an elf, they are HE, i.e. a half-elf. If that half-elf goes on to have a child with a human, there's a 50-50 chance of the child being HH (i.e. human) or HE (another half-elf).

But if they are separate species, as OneD&D appears to have decided, then none of that makes sense.

I wonder how long until someone tells them they're claustrophobic and so they have to remove the word "dungeons" from their game's name to avoid triggering them.

I like how they say they're never going back to the term "race" and then immediately say how important it is to have a free and open discussion about this.

Typical leftist bullshit: Let's have an open discussion about how wrong you are.

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 01, 2022, 04:23:11 PM
I like how they say they're never going back to the term "race" and then immediately say how important it is to have a free and open discussion about this.

Typical leftist bullshit: Let's have an open discussion about how wrong you correct we are.

Because it's all about them and how correct they are.

Just want to, once again, point out the superiority of B/X D&D. Your class is "Elf" so there is no need to choose between any problematic terms.

Oh wait, I just realized that "class" has racial overtones as in "lower class". Guess that's next to go.