Since I can't post on the list of woke companies thread but I really think this comment needs adressin I'm starting it's own thread, the comment below:

Quote from: Festus on June 07, 2024, 06:12:31 PMRace, Ancestry, Heritage, Ethnicity, yadda yadda - I couldn't care less. They're all synonyms referring to different variations within a species, or what would be breeds if we were talking about animals.

Species is a scientific term indicating a unique genome with implications for members of different species' ability to produce viable, fertile offspring. I hate when games misapply that scientific term as 2024 DnD appears poised to do.

Personally I find Race vs. Ancestry a strange hill to die on, but hey that's the beauty of America - to each their own.

So much wrong in a few words...

We're not talking about Teh Science, we're talking about elfgames, several people above this comment have said they don't mind the term "Species" in an Sci-Fi setting.

In D&D (and other fantasy games), up till 5 minutes ago the term was race, it wasn't used in a scientific way to signal differences between a given species, since Dwarves, Elfs, Halflings, Orcs, Goblins, etc were all called races.

Up till 5 minutes ago you had only a few races being able to crossbreed. Then the decay started to set in and the number increased until the point that I'm not even sure if warforged/human hybrids are possible or not in official D&D.

The change wasn't done out of some misguided "I love Teh Science" BS, it was made for ideological reasons, because the leftards can't read the description of an Orc without thinking about black people and project their own racism unto those of us who don't share that odious trait.

I fully understood what they were talking about. And I think it's overblown. Of course corporations will do whatever they think will help sales the most or hurt them the least, because that's exactly what corporations are designed to do. And individual creators are free to make the same calculations too, although they don't have to answer to shareholders if they decide their principles conflict with profit. Time always tells whether or not these sort of calculations are right or wrong.

But IMO the notion that using "ancestry" vs. "race" in a TTRPG ruleset is a harbinger of social decay is ridiculous. If our society is indeed that fragile, perhaps we should blow it up and start over. But I don't think it is. The change in terminology also doesn't hurt me or change how I play or think about my games. I run my games how I want, always have and always will. I feel free to change all sorts of things which require far more work and thought than swapping one synonym for another. The authors' motives for the change don't constrain me in any way.

But of course you're free to disagree. That's the cool part. We each get to decide for ourselves.

Greetings!

Yeah, I can see companies changing use of the term "Race" and swapping that for "Ancestry" simply because it is very popular right now--probably with most companies. Embracing such editorial policy does not necessarily mean that the company is entirely corrupted with Commie Woke scum--but it is definitely a sign to take a closer look, in my view. I think many companies specifically embrace such an editorial policy simply to pursue broader profitability and avoid any kind of negative publicity.

I can well imagine some Lawyer guy on staff saying,

"Yeah, just change it. It offends very few and will help us avoid being screeched at by the Woke animals. Conversely, using "Race" will please *some" but likely offend even more, and attract the attention of the Woke mob. So, yeah. Just change it to be on the safe side of things, and well, doing so also broadens that profitability net for the company. I'm looking forward to that trip next quarter with my wife to Cancun!"

There just is not any comparable downside to changing it, compared to the shitstorm that can potentially fly by not changing the term. Exposure and profitability. These are two key concepts that drive companies most of the time.

Still, I would closely look further at the company products to see if such was an isolated editorial move--with exposure and profitability in mind--or if it really demonstrates a "Red Flag" of other Woke BS being piped into the company's products.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I think that an old Bard said it best.

Quote from: ShakespeareA rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 07, 2024, 07:48:57 PMThe change wasn't done out of some misguided "I love Teh Science" BS, it was made for ideological reasons, because the leftards can't read the description of an Orc without thinking about black people and project their own racism unto those of us who don't share that odious trait.

"It was Gimli the dwarf who broke in suddenly. 'The words of this wizard stand on their heads,' he growled, gripping the handle of his axe. 'In the language of Orthanc help means ruin, and saving means slaying, that is plain. But we do not come here to beg.'"

I wouldn't mind the change so much if I didn't know the underlying rationality of why they are doing it, more or less new-speak type tactics.

In the transition of my homebrew and setting stuff from 3e to 5e, I started using the terms "peoples" or "Spoken" (with the implication that if you can communicate reasonably, you're probably people) for PC races.

"Species" feels a bit too sci-fi for me. My setting has sci-fi elements, but it's not sci-fi at its core.

But it felt a bit weird to refer to literal robots or spaceborne plant people as "races." It strikes me as an anthropocentric term, these days.

I was working on a design a few years back that had an unusual slant on races.  Other parts didn't work out, but I kind of liked where the racial part was going.  I was going to call it "Heritage" because it was a fairly accurate term.  But then I decided that "Bloodlines" was an even better term--with the bonus that anyone that freaked out about using "race" would be doubly offended, and thus I'd never need to deal with such people.

Ancestry would make a lot of sense in a fantasy game that was all one species, focused more on culture than biology. 

Changing existing games from "Race" to "Ancestry" is a symptom of stupid because the term is less accurate for what is being portrayed, and obviously done for pandering reasons.  Anyone that will do that is likely to have other poorly chosen terminology for equally stupid reasons.  Games have enough flaws as it is even when authors aren't being deliberately stupid.

I wouldn't automatically avoid a new game that used another term--if the term made sense within the context of what the game was about.

Only reason I even pondered Ancestry was that it would let me refer to character creation as "The ABCs" (Ancestry, Background, Class, subclass).

That said, I ultimately settled on Race with a sidebar discussing the importance of clear terms and that Race has long been the settled RPG term for "options available for PCs" while the term "creature" (as the number of things in the game are too broad even for species) is used for NPC-only options in my system.

For purposes of a game, having a clear term for "you can pick this" and another for "you cannot pick this" is more useful than strict scientific accuracy.

So, serious question here.  I'm writing up the rules right now for a human-only scifi game (no intelligent xenos have ever been discovered... yet).  Some humans have adapted to their world (some naturally, some via bioengineering), so they have different groupings based on their homeworld or bioengineered design (some adapted to high-G worlds, etc.).  What should I call it?  "Race" doesn't really fit, nor does "ancestry" or "species."  Things like "lineage" imply that their parents were like that (which is not always the case).  I'm actually stumped here, because I'm not pandering, but "race" really doesn't work.  Any suggestions are welcome!

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 07, 2024, 10:50:58 PMI'm writing up the rules right now for a human-only scifi game (no intelligent xenos have ever been discovered... yet).  Some humans have adapted to their world (some naturally, some via bioengineering), so they have different groupings based on their homeworld or bioengineered design (some adapted to high-G worlds, etc.).  What should I call it? 

Off the cuff, I'd be tempted to call it something like "DNA/Bio strain", and then say that most people use "strain" for short.  You can bet in such a world that someone's got a technical term for it, and then a lot of non-tech people have some shorter variant of whatever that tech term is.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 07, 2024, 11:12:21 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 07, 2024, 10:50:58 PMI'm writing up the rules right now for a human-only scifi game (no intelligent xenos have ever been discovered... yet).  Some humans have adapted to their world (some naturally, some via bioengineering), so they have different groupings based on their homeworld or bioengineered design (some adapted to high-G worlds, etc.).  What should I call it? 

Off the cuff, I'd be tempted to call it something like "DNA/Bio strain", and then say that most people use "strain" for short.  You can bet in such a world that someone's got a technical term for it, and then a lot of non-tech people have some shorter variant of whatever that tech term is.

I think "strain" is fine. For a more technical term, you could use "phenotype" -- defined as "the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment". That could include things like being raised in a high-gravity world, which could change an individual even if they have the same DNA as others.

Quote from: Festus on June 07, 2024, 08:08:42 PMI fully understood what they were talking about. And I think it's overblown. Of course corporations will do whatever they think will help sales the most or hurt them the least, because that's exactly what corporations are designed to do. And individual creators are free to make the same calculations too, although they don't have to answer to shareholders if they decide their principles conflict with profit. Time always tells whether or not these sort of calculations are right or wrong.

But IMO the notion that using "ancestry" vs. "race" in a TTRPG ruleset is a harbinger of social decay is ridiculous. If our society is indeed that fragile, perhaps we should blow it up and start over. But I don't think it is. The change in terminology also doesn't hurt me or change how I play or think about my games. I run my games how I want, always have and always will. I feel free to change all sorts of things which require far more work and thought than swapping one synonym for another. The authors' motives for the change don't constrain me in any way.

But of course you're free to disagree. That's the cool part. We each get to decide for ourselves.

Care to point exactly where I talk about social decay?

I'm clearly talking about the games.

The rest is an appeal to irrelevance, it clearly matters enough to those who push for the change, it clearly is because of the reasons I cite, I fail to see why would you jump to defend the honor of the mega-corp (I could hazard a guess but I'd be making assumptions).

Quote from: GnomeWorks on June 07, 2024, 10:07:36 PMIn the transition of my homebrew and setting stuff from 3e to 5e, I started using the terms "peoples" or "Spoken" (with the implication that if you can communicate reasonably, you're probably people) for PC races.

"Species" feels a bit too sci-fi for me. My setting has sci-fi elements, but it's not sci-fi at its core.

But it felt a bit weird to refer to literal robots or spaceborne plant people as "races." It strikes me as an anthropocentric term, these days.

Well, to be precise, people means humans...

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 07, 2024, 10:44:28 PMOnly reason I even pondered Ancestry was that it would let me refer to character creation as "The ABCs" (Ancestry, Background, Class, subclass).

That said, I ultimately settled on Race with a sidebar discussing the importance of clear terms and that Race has long been the settled RPG term for "options available for PCs" while the term "creature" (as the number of things in the game are too broad even for species) is used for NPC-only options in my system.

For purposes of a game, having a clear term for "you can pick this" and another for "you cannot pick this" is more useful than strict scientific accuracy.

Also race is part of the RPG lingua franca, only sub-normals find it offensive.