Race-as-Class vs. Race-as-Race, And a Proposed Synthesis

In D&D-like games, is it better to have Race-as-Class (the idea that non-human races each have their own character class that defines their abilities) or Race-as-Race (where Race is a separate axis to Class)?
Here I will lay out some arguments in favour of either approach and then propose a hybrid.

THE QUESTION OF RACE

Ok, so first of all - the phrase "Race as Class" just makes me cringe every time I write it. It sounds like something you would read about on Stormfront. Most of my IRL players are not familiar with the history of D&D like I am, and I'm pretty sure that if I started talking to them about Race-as-Class then their first reaction would be: "Umm. What?"

Their second reaction probably wouldn't be that much better. The whole concept of Race-as-Class is basically a mechanically codified way of stereotyping the Other: Humans are a diverse group who can choose all kinds of different professions. Non-humans, on the other hand, are all fundamentally homogeneous. The fact that we're talking about wholly fictional 'races' softens the blow a bit, but it still feels wrong to me. And that's assuming your non-human races are wholly fictional and not just thin paint-overs of real world cultures.

Now, I think I can present a logically sound argument why Race-as-Class isn't (or doesn't have to be) stereotyping an entire race. It's like this: character generation is an inherently metafictional mechanic, and its primary concern is not realism but game balance. Race-as-Class is saying "All playable Dwarves are fundamentally the same", not "All Dwarves in this game world are fundamentally the same". If you think it's saying the latter, then by the same logic you would have to conclude that all humans in the game world are either Fighters, Clerics, Thieves or Magic-Users, which obviously isn't true.

So I can make a case for why it isn't racially insensitive, but that won't get rid of the initial gut reaction people are going to have.

THEME: THE SELF AND OTHER

However, there are a few arguments in favour of Race-as-Class which can explain why it has stuck around for so long.

Some people argue that it's necessary to ensure that most of the adventuring party is made up of humans, which is desirable for thematic reasons. I totally get this. D&D to me is fundamentally a game about journeying from the Normal World to a mythic Otherworld. That journey has less weight if all of your player characters are already natives of the Otherworld. But, people still want to play as Dwarves or Elves. Trying to limit the number of non-humans in the party is an attempt at compromise, but ultimately it's a pretty clunky one. A better solution is to make sure your playable non-humans are coded as native to the Normal World. Give them more human-like cultures and psychology. Limit their knowledge of, and power over, the Otherworld: playable Dwarves should have only a small understanding of the Underdark, playable Elves should have little connection to the Fae, and so on.

Also, it's totally fine to say a hard No to a character concept that is definitely going to impinge upon your game's Otherworld. "Can I play as a dragon?" "No - for the same reason you can't play as Yog-Sothoth in a Call of Cthulhu game."

CHARACTER BALANCE

Another reason to use Race-as-Class is for the sake of player character balance. Here's why:
When someone chooses to be a Elf, there's a good chance that they want 'Elf Stuff' to be a major part of their character. So you, as the GM/game designer, want to give them a mechanical package of Elf Stuff to enable that.

If Race is separate from Class in your game, then the Elf Stuff package will have to be balanced against the Human Stuff package. And Human Stuff tends to be fairly weak because humans are the baseline.

If you're using Race-as-Class, though, the Elf Stuff is balanced against Fighter Stuff and Magic-User Stuff. Now you can put a lot of mechanical juice into the role of Elf.

I think this is the clearest reason why Race-as-Class remains popular, and in particular why OSR bloggers have written approximately 10,000 homebrew Racial Classes but barely any homebrew Races-Separate-From-Class. It's a framework that gives the designer more room to play around.

THE GRID

But - there's also a class design reason to prefer Race-as-Race. Having two axes of character choice is a really smooth and easy way to create space for creativity. Four classes and three races creates a grid with twelve boxes to fill, some of them obvious (everyone can picture a Dwarf Fighter) some more mysterious (what exactly does an Elf Cleric look like?)

One of my earliest roleplaying memories is of fiddling around with the character builder app for D&D 4th edition, slotting together combinations of races and classes and trying to come up with a backstory that made sense. (The grid was a lot bigger in that game - probably 20x20 or larger.) There is something inherently appealing about the formula of "X + Y", and it's particularly desirable for OSR play because it makes the characters more distinct without adding very much time to the chargen process.

SYNTHESIS

So those are the major arguments for and against Race-as-Class. With them in mind, I propose a synthesis that will hopefully provide the best of both worlds:
- At chargen, players choose their Race and then their Class.
- Certain Races, if they have powerful innate abilities, can be chosen as both a Race and a Class. Their Class features will then expand upon their racial abilities. In the fiction, this represents a character who has chosen to train their natural powers at the expense of learning any particular adventuring trade.
- If multiclassing is available in your game, then characters can potentially mix and match between a Class-Class and a Race-Class.
This means that PCs are not wholly defined by their race, but they can specialise into it if they want.

Here's a basic example:

1. Choose a race.
Human: You get +10% XP
Dwarf: You have darkvision.
Halfling: You can reroll one die per session.
Elf: You have one spell (from Wonder & Wickedness) that you can cast once per day.

2. Choose a class.
Fighter, Cleric, Specialist, Magic-User: Refer to LotFP corebook (or whatever text you're using)
Elf-as-Class: You may only choose this if your race is Elf. In addition to the spell you get for being an Elf, you gain one extra spell per level and one spell point per level, which you can spend to cast any of your known spells.

The whole 'casting with spell points' thing is untested and would need to be refined, but my aim is just to show how race and class interact mechanically. You can be an Elf Fighter, in which case your main thing is fighting but you also get one unique Elf spell. Or, if you want to lean harder into the Elf part of your character, you can level up as an Elf and get more Elf magic.

Lastly... I've typed the word 'Race' about fifty times in this blog post and it's made me realise that it rubs me the wrong way. In future I might try using a word like 'Kin' or 'Lineage' instead, even though they both sound somewhat clunky.