Deconstructing Dungeons and Dragons 50-Year Evolution of Race (p. 2)
Part 2 of 3 by AffectorOfChange
Over its 50-year history, Dungeons & Dragons has both mirrored, and at times challenged, the real world’s attitudes towards race and identity. Focusing on the evolution of character creation and its mechanics around race reveals some interesting shifts and patterns that both align with and challenge the foundational tenets of white supremacy.
When a player decides that they would like to make a new character in D&D, a critical decision often involves choosing that character’s Race. This decision, as well as choices such as which Class to play, will impact what that player’s character can do. This decision also informs them about who that character is so that the player can engage in immersive roleplay.
Let’s continue our walk through the 50-year history of D&D and deconstruct how the choice of Race in character creation has evolved and its impacts on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in this series.
Part 1 of this series takes a look at the Foundational Years of D&D’s history, reviewing materials that were foundational to this tabletop hobby, starting with Chainmail in 1971 up to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition in 1989. Analysis will be presented on how these foundational years appear to reinforce a racial hierarchy and collude with biological determinism.
In Part 2, let’s take a look at some of the more modern D&D mechanics from third (2000), fourth (2008), and fifth (2014) editions, analyzing the incremental shift towards diversity.
In Part 3, we will focus on the most up to date mechanics that have been released since D&D 5e came out in 2014, including the new revised Player’s Handbook that was released in 2024, discussing the growth and change, while also providing feedback opinions on future implementation of mechanics that may increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in Dungeons & Dragons.
The Modernization Era (2000-2014): Incremental Shifts Towards Diversity
D&D 3e (2000) -> 4e (2008) -> 5e (2014)
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition (2000)
In 1997, TSR was acquired by Wizards of the Coast, and they chose to publish a third edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000. Three years later, a revised edit of this version of D&D known as D&D 3.5e was the first system of D&D that I ever played back in 2007. Some of my friends consider this to be a golden age of D&D. The revised 3.5 ruleset served as a major inspiration for what later became the TTRPG Pathfinder, published by Paizo, which is now flourishing into its second edition.
Half-Orcs make a return in D&D 3e, with players choosing between Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Halfling for Race. Humans and Half-Elves do not receive any kind of penalty or bonus affecting their Ability Scores, while other Races receive both a penalty and a bonus when creating their character. Rather than presenting all the Races in alphabetical order, there is a shift putting Human as the first option.
The choice of Race impacts Size, Speed, and Language. There is a table that indicates each individual Race’s favored Class, with classes no longer having Race limitations. Selecting a specific Race continues to provide various advantages and disadvantages, such as Half-Orcs being able to see it in the dark.
Age returns with mechanics in the third edition of D&D. All Races are still presented with a different life expectancy. Players have the option of either choosing their character’s age or randomly generating it. The starting age for generating one is the base adulthood for their specific Race, and they will add the hit die for each level they have attained in each Class (so a level 2 Bard would add +2d6 to this base number).
As characters age, Physical Abilities are reduced, while Mental Abilities are increased. Once PCs reach the status of Venerable, the DM rolls that character’s maximum age in secret. Once the character reaches this maximum, they will die some time in the following year from old age.
Players are encouraged to make tweaks for their characters that differ from the rules as written, with the example of a Dwarf outcast who lives amongst Humans who may possess more human-like abilities, since they were exposed to that culture. However, the PHB does state that some abilities like a Dwarf’s sturdy Constitution are “inborn” and thus would not be able to be changed.
Each entry on the various Races in D&D 3e discuss “racial preferences,” which is coded in this edition as “relations.”
Another change in D&D 3e is that when creating a character, there is a choice on a specific Deity, with each Race or Class having certain preferences. Player’s are encouraged to choose a Gender for their character, although they only have the binary options of male or female in the Player’s Handbook.
For Class choices, players pick from Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard in D&D 3e. There are no longer any Race limitations on selecting a Class.
In regards to Alignment in this edition, typical or common Alignment is specified for each Race, but it is left up to the player to choose one of the 9 alignments for their character. The Player’s Handbook specifies that characters can choose an alignment different from their chosen Race’s preference, as it is based on that character’s life experiences. Alignment is not hard-locked, so long as it is mutually agreeable with the Dungeon Master. Certain Classes and creatures are still locked into a specific alignment, such as Paladins, Eladrins, or Devils.
Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008)
I’ve never played this edition, but I have been told that the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons made some radical changes from previous ones. Released by Wizards of the Coast in 2008, this edition included three Player Handbooks, two Dungeon Master Guides, and three Monster Manuals.
The first Player’s Handbook (PHB) for D&D 4e was released in 2008. Playable Races included Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Humans, and Tieflings. Playable Classes included Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, and Wizard.
A second PHB for D&D 4e was published in 2009 and a third in 2010, together adding 9 more playable Races and 14 additional Classes.
Creating a character in D&D 4e involves choosing the character’s Race, Class, and one of four basic Roles: Controller, Defender, Leader, and Striker, which correlate to certain Classes.
Choice of Race does still impact Ability Scores, Speed, Vision, Languages, and Racial Bonuses/Powers. Unlike previous editions, Races other than human no longer receive a penalty to Ability Scores, and instead have the option of giving a bonus to two specified Abilities by +2. In the fourth edition, Humans get to add +2 to any one Ability Score.
Age and Gender (again, reinforcing the binary) are both cosmetic, with no mechanics tied to them in this edition and are listed under the section titled “Appearance.” Each Race has a narrative section outlining typical lifespan and development, but there are no mechanics around aging or old age.
In Player’s Handbook 1 in fourth edition D&D, players are given a short series of questions to help them flesh out their character’s Background. This is later expanded on in Player’s Handbook 2. Chosen Background can provide a bonus, such as a +2 Bonus on a Skill, a new trained skill, a regional benefit, or a new language. Each Race also is given various Backgrounds to choose from that set them apart from other members of their Race, like Dragonborn characters who hatched from a Rare Egg or Drow characters who are orphaned and survived some way on their own.
In an effort to assist players in roleplaying their characters, the Player’s Handbook discusses Alignment, pared down to only 5 options: Good, Lawful Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Unaligned. Alignment is no longer correlated to specific Races. Another option is to select a Deity, each corresponding with the Alignment system.
Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (2014)
The fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the system that I am most familiar with, owning just about every module and core rulebook that has been published. This edition draws on the previous ones, while also streamlining a lot of mechanics. As someone who has been a player in campaigns using both D&D 3.5e rules and D&D 5e rules, I much prefer this system.
Playable Races in the original Player’s Handbook include Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Human, Dragonborn, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Tiefling. Other published books include all sorts of playable races in D&D 5e such as Genasi, Centaur, or Harengon. The choice of Race in this edition impacts Ability Scores, Age, Size, Speed, Languages, and unlocks Race-specific Feats. Many Races in the base game also outline Subraces that give players more choices for flavoring their character to their preferences, similar to the Race-based backgrounds in the fourth edition.
Age is again a cosmetic choice made by players in this edition with no mechanics tied to them. Each Race entry does have information about the typical life span of that Race. Players are prompted to retcon the Age of their character to narratively help explain some of their Ability Scores.
In the Personality and Background section, the Player’s Handbook for fifth edition states on page 121 under the headline Sex: “You choose your character’s sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Think about how your character interacts with the broader culture’s expectations about these characteristics. For example, many genderfluid worshipers of Corellon see themselves as embodying their deity’s transcendence of sex and gender, and some elves’ connection to that deity allows them to change their sex.” This is a major positive shift in terms of inclusivity language embedded in the text. As a queer person I resonated a lot with that simple paragraph when I first cracked open my 2014 PHB.
This edition refines Backgrounds when making a new character, which further flavors their origins, provides Skill and Tool Proficiencies, starter Equipment, and a related Feat.
Base Classes that are available in D&D 5e include Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard, though other materials include rules for playing classes like Artificer. Just as in both the third and fourth editions of D&D, classes are not locked to specific Races and characters of all types are permitted to max level in each of them.
The nine Alignments return to D&D 5e, however the Player’s Handbook does not have a chart or specifics on common alignments for each specific Race, giving the prompt that all characters have free will to choose their own moral paths. There is an appendix in this edition's PHB that informs players of the varied cosmologies and religious pantheons found in D&D settings like the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance. A reference to religious pantheons in the real world, such as the Greek or Norse gods, is also found in this appendix.
Incremental Shifts Towards Diversity
These three modern editions of Dungeons & Dragons demonstrate an incremental shift in the game’s design to align more with the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In regards to problematic concerns, the third edition of D&D has a section in each individual Race category titled “relations,” which are sweeping generalizations of entire Races of people, implying that all members of each Race are a bit of a monolith without much variation. It does show progress that the PHB encourages diversity in terms of culture, but continues to perpetuate the problematic belief in biological determinism, stating clearly that certain Racial traits are “inborn.”
The third edition of D&D also lists Humans first in the options for Race, implying that it is the default and desirable choice. The fourth edition shifts this order to being alphabetical, just like in the editions that came before the third. However, in the fifth edition of D&D, Humans are listed between Halfling and Dragonborn, with many of the Race options out of alphabetical order.
Both the fourth and fifth editions of D&D include a diverse range of options for Player Characters (PCs), including several Races, Backgrounds, and Alignments. The fourth edition of D&D introduced a variety of Racial Backgrounds that help set apart characters from the same Race as being different. This choice helps eliminate the concept that everyone of a particular Race is a monolith - they are each diverse characters despite having similar origins.
The fifth edition of D&D expanded on this concept by introducing a number of Subraces for many of the Races that are outlined in the PHB. These changes combined create unique gameplay and allow players to be more creative in their choices for making characters and how they may choose to roleplay them. Both of these editions seem to embrace the vision of a diverse world in D&D, despite previous editions favoring Human characters more over the other options.
Penalties on Ability Scores based on Race are no longer present in the fourth and fifth editions of D&D, instead bonuses on Ability Scores are awarded based on the player’s choice of Race. The rules in both of these systems demonstrate an increase in flexibility around player choice.
The scale still continues to be tipped in the favor of Human characters in terms of advantages and disadvantages in all three of these modern editions of D&D, but the choices do appear to be more equitable than they had been in the past in terms of the choice of Race in creating a character.
Aging has mechanics in both AD&D 2e and D&D 3e, demonstrating the effects of aging and its impacts, such as penalties for physical Abilities like Strength or Constitution, and bonuses on mental Abilities like Wisdom and Intelligence. While I do appreciate the realism that this offers, I’m glad to see that this was excluded in both the fourth and fifth editions of D&D mechanically. Not everyone who is “old” is necessarily going to degrade in physical attributes, similarly aging does not necessarily make every person more “wise.” Narrowing age mechanically makes broad assumptions about the aging process and treats all elderly as being infirm in some way, even athletic types like D&D adventurers.
In regards to the progression of inclusion around Gender, the third edition of D&D has a bolded heading for Gender, stating: “Your character can be either male or female” (D&D 3e, PHB, p.93). While it is a binary choice that is being offered, it is important that players are asked to consider this, as the gender of their character is thought to be an important part of who their character is and how they might roleplay them. There are no mechanics tied to sex or gender, as seen in Advanced D&D 1e, but it is nice to see the inclusion as its own standout point of consideration.
In the fourth edition, the only consideration related to the gender of PCs is listed under the heading “Appearance” on page 24 of Player’s Handbook 1, asking a few questions such as “Male or female? “Old or young?” This is a drift away from inclusion that was seen in the third edition.
I applaud the bold statement about sexuality and gender on page 121 of the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, which encourages players to choose characters that defy the broader cultural expectations around these topics. This statement even includes canonical D&D lore of both genderfluid and transgender characters, baking in the concept of gender and sexual minorities into the cosmology of D&D.
Although there are problems in regards to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in all three of these editions of D&D, it does demonstrate the evolving shift of growth in the mechanics adapting to a wider and more diverse player base. These incremental changes allow players to create more diverse characters that better fit them, or the particular types of stories they are motivated to tell with other players and their DMs.
In next week’s blog, we will take a look at the Contemporary Landscape of D&D, including the brand new material found in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, a fifth edition backwards compatible set of rules that made a dramatic shift away from “Race,” and instead highlighting “Species” as a choice for character creation.
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