"Race" - offensive? Alternate terms?

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I'm concerned that using "race" to refer to other speciies in games might be offensive to some people - but I'm not sure if it's really a thing, so I'd like to tap into the wisdom of the Playground!

In many fantasy and sci-fi games we use "race" to refer to other species - halflings, elves, vulcans, whatever.

In real-life, the term "race" has historical meanings to do with ethnicity. We still use the term "racism" to refer to discrimination on ethnic grounds.

Because I'm a liberal middle-class white bloke living in a conservative part of my country, I'm not sure if anyone is actually offended by that term, or if I'm just being too cautious.

So - please let me know if:

• You think "race" is offensive to use for other species
• You DON'T think "race" is offensive to use that way
• You never really thought about it before - but now you think it might be offensive
• You never really thought about it before - and now you think I'm being over-sensitive

Please also feel free to expand on the topic. But let's be careful and sensitive! It would be easy to stray into discussing genuinely offensive things with a topic like this!

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EDIT: I've never know a question to generate so much bile!

Here's a summary of the responses so far:

• Yes it is: 6
• No it isn't: 6
• No it isn't - but it is wrong: 9
• No it isn't - and I'm going to insult you for asking: 14
• No it isn't - and I'm going to use racist terminology to explain why I'm right: 16
• Dunno - but I'm not sure the term is right: 10
• I'm just going to talk about D&D examples: 11

Disclaimer: a subjective assessment of responses.

[Dappershire]

I mean, it never hurts to ask, but its a literal definition.


a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
c : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also a taxonomic category (such as a subspecies) representing such a group
d: a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits


So using it to speak of dwarves and trolls and fairies, etc, is proper.
Using it to describe a subset might be rude (Example: "I hate the whole Lincoln Tunnel Dwarven race!") because it denotes that they aren't real members of that race (in example, dwarves). But as that is what racism is, and given the reality of most RPGs as a whole, racism isn't something that has disappeared. I say just role (heh) with it.
Its not as if it isn't in our movies, video games, and comics. All the snotty remarks about elves and dwarves in LOTR. Ghouls in Fallout 4. Mutants in Marvel.

[hymer]

[*]You think "race" is offensive to use for other species

Potentially, but not generally. But using 'race' when talking about a different species is just a bad habit we need to drop, just like talking about 'the human race', which makes no sense.

You DON'T think "race" is offensive to use that way

As said above, it can be offensive, but needn't be. As for irritating, though....

You never really thought about it before - but now you think it might be offensive

What little I have thought about it is entirely overshadowed by how I don't like the term for its inaccuracy.

You never really thought about it before - and now you think I'm being over-sensitive

I guess you could oversensitive, but better to be a little too sensitive than a little too blunt. And while you're at it, get a better term, because it sucks unequivocally for a clear reason.

[Coidzor]

I'm concerned that using "race" to refer to other speciies in games might be offensive to some people

Who? Why? What?

Because I'm a liberal middle-class white bloke living in a conservative part of my country, I'm not sure if anyone is actually offended by that term, or if I'm just being too cautious.

You're being overly cautious and a bit alarmist, yes.

• You think "race" is offensive to use for other species
• You DON'T think "race" is offensive to use that way
• You never really thought about it before - but now you think it might be offensive
• You never really thought about it before - and now you think I'm being over-sensitive

No. Unless you're one of those kinds of people who find inaccuracy offensive.

Using the word "race" isn't inherently anything. Well, I guess it's inherently an English word so one has spoken English in order to say the word.

This has never come up before, and I've been in threads that devolved into mud-slinging over the coloration of Drow. Be more concerned with your attitude and how you actually treat people, rather than seeing potential controversy in innocuous terms.

Using it to describe a subset might be rude (Example: "I hate the whole Lincoln Tunnel Dwarven race!") because it denotes that they aren't real members of that race (in example, dwarves). But as that is what racism is, and given the reality of most RPGs as a whole, racism isn't something that has disappeared. I say just role (heh) with it.
Its not as if it isn't in our movies, video games, and comics. All the snotty remarks about elves and dwarves in LOTR. Ghouls in Fallout 4. Mutants in Marvel.

If someone makes a racist statement while referring to a race as a race, the offensive part isn't the use of the word "race," it's the actual sentiment expressed by the statement.

[Bogwoppit]

I never really thought about it before - but now I'm worried.

[Mastikator]

If you're talking about humans vs elves then race is the correct term, half elves are a thing. Humans and orcs are not different species either, because of half orcs. Humans and goblins are different species.

I have thought of this before, if race should really be used so much for every thing, but not from the angle of "is this offensive to someone?". Words can't be objectively offensive, it all matters on the context and to whom, you just have to be ever vigilant and ever thoughtful. There are no easy answers.

[Lazymancer]

I'm concerned that using "race" to refer to other speciies in games might be offensive to some people - but I'm not sure if it's really a thing, so I'd like to tap into the wisdom of the Playground!

This is EU speaking. Since we've gone all Nazi here and IRL race is somehow relevant: white EU.

What I find offensive is the crypto-Fascist pandering to the "political correctness". If you don't like the term "race", change it to "species" (as Fantasy Craft did, for example). Why turn this into witch-hunt/circus?

[Satinavian]

If you're talking about humans vs elves then race is the correct term, half elves are a thing. Humans and orcs are not different species either, because of half orcs. Humans and goblins are different species.

I have thought of this before, if race should really be used so much for every thing, but not from the angle of "is this offensive to someone?". Words can't be objectively offensive, it all matters on the context and to whom, you just have to be ever vigilant and ever thoughtful. There are no easy answers.

Superficially that might work, but if both Orcs and Elvves are just human races, where are the Elf/Orc-Hybrids ?

Also, half-Anything existing might not be enough considering that Fantasy authors like to introduce halfs without regard for biology. Halfogres, Halfgiants, Halfdragons, Halffiends, Halffeys, Halfvampires, even Halfelementals. To declare Elemantas, Humans and dragons the same species because of that might be a tatd too far.

Finally as real life Lion-Tiger-Offspring shows, capability to have offspring, even fertile offspring is not neccessarily enough to be considered subspecies or races instead of species.

[Frozen_Feet]

Race is neither offensive nor incorrect for most fantastic species - both because they technically are races of a larger species, or because of archaic language conventions using it as a synonym for species (see: human race). The word "race" in fantasy games rarely refers to different human races.

However, at many occasions it's just as correct or more to refer to fantastic humanoids as different species. Breeds is another possible term, as is kin.

[Eldan]

Superficially that might work, but if both Orcs and Elvves are just human races, where are the Elf/Orc-Hybrids ?

Humanoids are a ring species, duh.

Anyway, regardless of correctness, if you don't want to use race... kind? Folk? People? Elvenfolk, halfling kind, dwarven people?

[Millstone85]

If you replace race with species or whatever, you will just have changed the word to add -ism after.

What people really complain about is the premise that certain creatures have a population that is entirely evil, predominantly evil or just generally more evil than humans, because their ancestors were created by an evil god, or because they have inherited a demonic taint, or some such.

It means that fantasy characters are very much right to distrust their neighbors on the basis of their birth. Accepting an orc in our village? That would be unwise. Accepting an illithid? You must be out of your freaking mind!

And as adventurers, it is often the job of the PCs to, well, cleanse an area.

[Millstone85]

Millstone85: Illithids literally feed on human brains. Wouldn't hating all illithids would be closer to hating all mosquitos?

This kind of biological imperative falls under the "or some such" of my previous post.

It does challenge the notion of moral responsibility, and thus of evil. But, paradoxically, so does bearing the taint of an embodiment of evil, as 5e gnolls do. Not much free will there.

That changes nothing to the problem. Your character meets a man-sized mosquito. This is a sentient sapient creature with interesting theories on the nature of gravity. And your character must kill it on sight, or s/he is too dumb to live.

It sends all kind of weird messages when the players try to make a parallel with the real world.

...

And your message disappeared while I was typing the answer. I would complain but I have done it too. Anyway, I will still post this because it is guaranteed someone else will say that about illithids.

[Lazymancer]

And as adventurers, it is often the job of the PCs to, well, cleanse an area.

Yeah. One of the more recent run-ins I had was the first part of Jade Regent AP - it should've been called die Endlösung die Goblinfrage: sheriff restores "goblin bounty" of 10 gp per sufficiently fresh goblin ear, since some goblins attacked merchants. I was slightly perplexed by this, since goblins are practically PC race (not even dumb: dwarf-level penalty to Charisma) and sheriff was Chaotic Good.

At least it wasn't scalping.

[JNAProductions]

I'd use specie instead of race, just because it's more technically accurate. Race would be a subset of species (for instance, there's the species Givfunen, but they have three major races-the blue, green, and purple Givfunens).

Overall, I'm sure SOMEONE would be offended by it, but someone else will be offended by you specifically AVOIDING the word race. So long as you aren't actually being a jerk about it (for instance, making a weak and stupid species a racial stereotype-or, honestly, making ANY species a racial stereotype) you should be fine.

[Frozen_Feet]

It sends all kind of weird messages when the players try to make a parallel with the real world.

We had another entire thread about this topic, but to paraphrase: there is no real world parallel. It's a space whale aesop. Unless you can somehow prove fictional genocide of surreal creatures promotes real assholery, it's a useless thing to worry about.

[Millstone85]

We had another entire thread about this topic, but to paraphrase: there is no real world parallel. It's a space whale aesop. Unless you can somehow prove fictional genocide of surreal creatures promotes real assholery, it's a useless thing to worry about.

And I agree with that conclusion. Let monsters be monstrous. Do not systematically try to make humans the real monsters.

Yet that thread, or one of many similar ones, was longer and more divisive than I have seen "fantasy race / fantasy species" be.

So if the OP is worried about being offensive, I thought I would mention the bigger fish.

[VoxRationis]

I doubt it's really offensive, particularly within the gaming subculture. The thing with "species" is that it sounds too modern, too scientific, to use in most fantasy settings. If you want a different archaic term that's less loaded, you could say gens, although that can also mean "clan" or "noble house". You could go with English "kind," and by extension from that term, "sort" might work informally. Terms like "people" or "folk" probably aren't great except in contexts where you want to play up social/cultural differences rather than biological ones.

[Nifft]

I don't find the word "race" to be problematic for fantasy races.


Some fantasy races are NOT species, of course:
- Warforged
- Vampires
- 3.5e Dragonborn / Arcana Evolved Mojh
- etc.

... so just swapping the words around doesn't actually increase accuracy.

[Blackhawk748]

Superficially that might work, but if both Orcs and Elvves are just human races, where are the Elf/Orc-Hybrids ?

In Kingdoms of Kalamar: Dangerous Denizens, they are called the Tel-Amhothlen

[Koo Rehtorb]

I wouldn't say it's offensive so much as a little bit uncomfortable. But the term is so widely spread in the culture that I don't think it's a huge deal. Something a few games do that I really like is use the word "stock" instead.

[Malimar]

"Race" is not offensive, but it is confusing and incoherent and not very accurate.

I wrote a blog post about this question awhile back, let's see if I still agree with anything I said then...

Hm, yes, I think this blog post is mostly reasonable. Skip the last section, about the "fairly complete D&D taxonomy", that's muddled incoherent garbage. But the rest of it is mostly fair points.

tl;dr: drop "race" and "species" altogether as muddled and incoherent in a fantasy setting; instead use "ethnicity" for what we'd call "race" on Earth and use "kind" for the distinction between elves and orcs and humans and so on.

[Max_Killjoy]

If you're talking about humans vs elves then race is the correct term, half elves are a thing. Humans and orcs are not different species either, because of half orcs. Humans and goblins are different species.

So lions and tigers aren't different species?

[Yora]

Aparently they are not. Taxonomy is a complicated and somewhat arbitrary field. In botany we have to put up with new classifications of common plants all the time. It turned out that the geranium species is not actually a member of the geranium genus, which it gave its name, but belongs to pelargonium. Taxonomy is a spectrum and any lines you draw to separate individuals are based on arbitrarily chosen traits. And actual organisms tend to feel no compulsion to follow those arbitrary definitions.

For my fantasy humanoids, I tend to go with peoples.

[Max_Killjoy]

Aparently they are not. Taxonomy is a complicated and somewhat arbitrary field. In botany we have to put up with new classifications of common plants all the time. It turned out that the geranium species is not actually a member of the geranium genus, which it gave its name, but belongs to pelargonium. Taxonomy is a spectrum and any lines you draw to separate individuals are based on arbitrarily chosen traits. And actual organisms tend to feel no compulsion to follow those arbitrary definitions.

For my fantasy humanoids, I tend to go with peoples.

One of my fantasy settings specifically uses "people". Sun People. Moon People. Storm People. Star People. Earth People.


But when it comes to "species", I'd say that "can't interbreed at all" isn't a good working definition. Lions and tigers certainly aren't the same species, but they can interbreed (though the offspring are IIRC almost always themselves infertile).

[Kitten Champion]

I think where fantasy races and any form of Other in fiction or roleplaying games have their issues - though the Always Alignment concept is problematic to many on an existential level as well - is where fantasy race X is perceived to be an analogue for a real world peoples. Native American Elves, Mongolian Orcs, Japanese Dwarves, and so on. Doing so can invite criticism on oneself - fair or not - based on their depiction. More broadly speaking, there's also the basic idea of you literally alienating a peoples by making them genuinely non-human in your fantasy world.

Whether you use the term "Race" or something else to describe your different fantasy peoples however is in and of itself rather... insignificant, I suppose. They're the same whatever label you put on them, and in my experience the term "Race" is only used within the mechanical discourse of the RPG. Ya'know, when filling out the character sheet or describing racial skills.

[Beleriphon]

One of my fantasy settings specifically uses "people". Sun People. Moon People. Storm People. Star People. Earth People.


But when it comes to "species", I'd say that "can't interbreed at all" isn't a good working definition. Lions and tigers certainly aren't the same species, but they can interbreed (though the offspring are IIRC almost always themselves infertile).

I think the more useful definition of species are the offspring of breeding in themselves fertile. Which lions and tigers producing offspring are not, just like mules aren't fertile but horse and donkey's can breed. Keep in mind as well that lions and tigers aren't that different at a chromosome level, but good luck breeding a cheetah and a lion. Incidentally, house cats and big cats like tigers can produce offspring so anybody want a tabby the size of a tiger?

At any rate I'll use race to denote to different kinds of humanoids, but not two different variants of the same humanoid. From a straight up biology perspective humans with different skin colours aren't different enough from each other to qualify as a biological race, socially that's a different issue entirely.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'd say just use race. I don't think it is a good idea to change things because you think they might be well, racist. If you are really worried about the topic, become informed. Read articles. Do some research. It's good to be mindful of these things, but I wouldn't say it is racist or fine without at least considering some arguments for and against.

Don't assume what people will and will not be offended by. I don't think you're being over-sensitive (the weirdest **** can be seen as offensive in hindsight). I just think you're going about it the wrong way. Yes, you are gathering opinions, but we're crazy internet people. That's not the best way to often tackle these issues.

Or just plain ask anyone at the table if they are offended by the term and offer to change it if they are if you are feeling particularly lazy.

Potentially, but not generally. But using 'race' when talking about a different species is just a bad habit we need to drop, just like talking about 'the human race', which makes no sense.

Well, it kinda does when you realize that not all of us have 100% homo sapiens DNA. The definition of a species tend to crash and burn when you consider the human tendency to try to screw neighboring people...

[Vinyadan]

"Race" is a pretty weird word. It has a lot of different meanings and a lot of synonyms. It means something like "kind", but it has been loaded with first a rather neutral ethnological overtone, then with openly racist philosophies with practical results.
While I think that especially the scientific or pseudoscientific use it has received makes it ill-suited for medieval fantasy (the word itself didn't exist in the middle ages, and its origin is unknown), it's also true that its meaning per se isn't insulting or endorsing racism. I also think that swapping it with species is just a fig leaf and an equally ill-suited word. Ethnicity doesn't overlap with race, and is also imho ill suited (I think it breaks character when a middle ages man talks like an xviii century ethnologist, a xvii century naturalist or a xxi century social studies student). I think that people is the best option.

[Beleriphon]

I think you can with a few options: homotypes or anthrotypes for anything humanish (elves, dwarves, goblins, etc.) works well for modernish/sci-fi inspired games. Fantasy the Races of X works as well, in that you're basically lumping all elves, all dwarves, humans and what not into separate groups.

[Mastikator]

Superficially that might work, but if both Orcs and Elvves are just human races, where are the Elf/Orc-Hybrids ?

Also, half-Anything existing might not be enough considering that Fantasy authors like to introduce halfs without regard for biology. Halfogres, Halfgiants, Halfdragons, Halffiends, Halffeys, Halfvampires, even Halfelementals. To declare Elemantas, Humans and dragons the same species because of that might be a tatd too far.

Finally as real life Lion-Tiger-Offspring shows, capability to have offspring, even fertile offspring is not neccessarily enough to be considered subspecies or races instead of species.

Dragons and demons can mate with anything because they are shape shifters, so that says absolutely nothing about whether something is biologically related.
Vampirism is not a species or a race, it's a condition, a disease. It also says absolutely nothing about relation.
Half elementals is the result of magic, not natural procreation, so again, it says nothing about biological relation.

Also +1 to Eldan for the ring species comment. It explains everything. Humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, hobbits, gnomes are all the same species, but only along a certain line.
Hell you could even go further, orc -> bugbear -> hobgoblin -> goblin
also orc -> bugbear -> ogre -> giant

All part of the same genus but not necessarily the same species across the entire length.