Are Mages A Race?

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MonstaMunch wrote:

fwiw, my view is that a person can belong to more than one race, and that being of a particular species doesn't make you exclusive to that race. For example, elves (as you rightly pointed out) can be mages in pretty much any lore you read, so they can be of both races.

While accurate for differing real-world definitions of race, the problem with this in the context of a game is that in a game, you generally can't do that. In a situation like this:

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MonstaMunch wrote:

If you were playing a game and the playable races were listed as Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Mages

you're picking one from the list - you can't be both race A and race B in game mechanical terms in almost any game I can recall other than the card game Munchkin, and that only with a specific card for being a half-breed (which in other games might be it's own separate race - e.g. Half-elves in D&D aren't mechanically considered to be both elves and humans, but to be half-elves). So if you wanted a character which was both an elf and a mage, as you suggest should be possible (and I agree), then what would you chose, given this selection you posted?
Hence, games tend to use the term race in the context of exclusive groups - you can't be of multiple races. And since people will care about what species their character is, if the choice of race isn't specific to that, then there needs to be a separate choice for species (unless there's only one playable species).
Even if you're going to do a game where that's not the case, that's the default assumption of most gamers when asked to pick their race - that they pick one.
Add to that that the term race is commonly used to mean species in fantasy gaming and you're setting yourself up for extra confusion here, particularly when all the other listed options are like that, and mage is the odd one out.

So really, I think what it comes down to is that

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MonstaMunch wrote:

...playing a game and the playable races were listed as Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Mages

This seems so odd as to be almost comical, for the reasons listed above - the first four clearly seem to be using race to mean species and are priming me that that's how it's used here, and the last clearly doesn't fit. And unless there's a very clear thing saying "pick one or more of these races" for this hypothetical game, then I can't be an elf and a mage, which adds to the seeming silliness of this setup.

But, if instead a game promoted me to choose a race from a list more like:

• Desert Nomad Tribes
• People of the Forest
• The Coalition of Pirate Fleets
• Followers of The Sun
• Mages of the High Tower

then the "mage" option stands out less because it's not radically different in nature from the others. These are all racial groups in the same sense - none of them sound like species, and with no other info, I could easily assume that all of them are human, or some other single species - but they might not be. Perhaps all People of the forest are Elves, the desert tribes could be dwarves, orcs or humans, and similar species restrictions for each racial group, as a separate choice.