D&D General WotC’s Official Announcement About Diversity, Races, and D&D

Following up on recent discussions on social media, WotC has made an official announcement about diversity and the treatment of ‘race’ in D&D. Notably, the word ‘race’ is not used; in its place are the words ‘people’ and 'folk'.

 PRESS RELEASE

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Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, making D&D as welcoming and inclusive as possible has moved to the forefront of our priorities over the last six years. We’d like to share with you what we’ve been doing, and what we plan to do in the future to address legacy D&D content that does not reflect who we are today. We recognize that doing this isn’t about getting to a place where we can rest on our laurels but continuing to head in the right direction. We feel that being transparent about it is the best way to let our community help us to continue to calibrate our efforts.

One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs. We want everyone to feel at home around the game table and to see positive reflections of themselves within our products. “Human” in D&D means everyone, not just fantasy versions of northern Europeans, and the D&D community is now more diverse than it’s ever been.

Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right.

Here’s what we’re doing to improve:

• We present orcs and drow in a new light in two of our most recent books, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do.
• When every D&D book is reprinted, we have an opportunity to correct errors that we or the broader D&D community discovered in that book. Each year, we use those opportunities to fix a variety of things, including errors in judgment. In recent reprintings of Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, for example, we changed text that was racially insensitive. Those reprints have already been printed and will be available in the months ahead. We will continue this process, reviewing each book as it comes up for a reprint and fixing such errors where they are present.
• Later this year, we will release a product (not yet announced) that offers a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases that come from being an elf, a dwarf, or one of D&D's many other playable folk. This option emphasizes that each person in the game is an individual with capabilities all their own.
• Curse of Strahd included a people known as the Vistani and featured the Vistani heroine Ezmerelda. Regrettably, their depiction echoes some stereotypes associated with the Romani people in the real world. To rectify that, we’ve not only made changes to Curse of Strahd, but in two upcoming books, we will also show—working with a Romani consultant—the Vistani in a way that doesn’t rely on reductive tropes.
• We've received valuable insights from sensitivity readers on two of our recent books. We are incorporating sensitivity readers into our creative process, and we will continue to reach out to experts in various fields to help us identify our blind spots.
• We're proactively seeking new, diverse talent to join our staff and our pool of freelance writers and artists. We’ve brought in contributors who reflect the beautiful diversity of the D&D community to work on books coming out in 2021. We're going to invest even more in this approach and add a broad range of new voices to join the chorus of D&D storytelling.

And we will continue to listen to you all. We created 5th edition in conversation with the D&D community. It's a conversation that continues to this day. That's at the heart of our work—listening to the community, learning what brings you joy, and doing everything we can to provide it in every one of our books.

This part of our work will never end. We know that every day someone finds the courage to voice their truth, and we’re here to listen. We are eternally grateful for the ongoing dialog with the D&D community, and we look forward to continuing to improve D&D for generations to come.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Take a look at some of my posts on the other thread ... I've explained my opinion and why I run it that way ad nauseum.

Short version: if an orc raised in the "correct" environment is good then I think it's worse. It's akin to when the US shipped all native Americans off to boarding school to "civilize" them, it's something we've seen time and time again when colonialist powers trying to strip away all cultural identity and heritage in order to "fix" the indigenous peoples.

No offense, I'm done with this conversation. It's pointless.

No response expected....

It sounds to me, then, that you agree with most here that its possible to have a non-evil orc, and that the evilness of the orcs is determined by their Nurture and Nature, just like real world humans, so the proposed change to the description of orcs wouldn't really affect your game in any way.

In 5e "evil" has already been defined mechanically (at least as it interacts with spells) to not interact with an orc, so a good idea might be to change the alignment system once again to bring "good" and "evil" back to referring to an origin or source of power and not just ethics/morality and drop the alignment from every race that doesn't have that hook.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Keep on the Borderlands is freaking disgusting if the residents of the Caves of Chaos aren't, um, "forces of Chaos," as described in the setting, and are instead just people. Now, instead of heroes defending the Realm from the forces of Chaos that press upon its borders, you're conquistadors. Have fun with that.

Even in the original version, it's pretty clear that all these groups are being brought together by the evil cultists to turn them against the titular keep and then, after that, the settled lands beyond.

It doesn't otherwise make any sense to have them all packed into the Caves of Chaos, since there's tons of room they could spread out to instead.

 

[Professor Murder]

That is a very good summary of the Celts, from a Roman popular perspective.

Ah. I think I grasp some of the issue.
Your point highlights how tropes of otherness are not new, that all sorts of historical cultures have used some of these signifiers when describing other cultures, that such traits were used a pejoratives, and that they are not unique to a given cultures bigotry. All true.

What I think some are glossing over is this: These stereotypes are alive with us now. "Orcs are not stand ins for black people." A fair argument. However, Orcs are given traits that bigots use today. We aren't speaking merely to historic racism. We are talking about right now.

Lets say you had a fictional race that is highlighted for being greedy. Are they meant to be a stand in for Jews? You could claim no. That is fine. What if they are also cowardly, sneaky, practice an odd religion in defiance of their neighbors prevalent faith? Are they now Jews? Still one might say no. This is also fine.

However, when a Jewish person sees a Ferengi on an episode of Star Trek and sees all these traits used to define them, and notice how many of them check boxes for how bigots depicts them in the real world, in their own lives, is it unreasonable for them to ask, "Are these aliens meant to be us?"

So in a similar fashion, is a PoC sees how a given fantasy race is narrowly depicted in D&D, sees the negative traits used to show how the race is wicked, how they are meant to be killed by the PCs, and sees that many of these traits are ones which bigots uses to describe them in the real world, in their own lives, is it unreasonable for them to ask, "Are these monsters meant to be us?"

This is a discussion. Not a fiat from on high demanding the very notion of evil not exist to avoid hurting people. Instead, what we need to examine is how our hobby shows us that a people are evil.

 

[Doug McCrae]

@Libramarian Racism has taken many different forms. To find the closest comparisons with evil humanoids in D&D look to examples of genocidal racism in the colonial period (Africa, Australia, United States), and the attitude toward black people in the US after the end of slavery. There are also some parallels in anti-immigration writers such as Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant in the early 20th century. In every case non-white people are perceived as threatening, as dangerous.

Attitudes toward enslaved and conquered peoples tend to be more paternalistic. Non-white people are seen as childlike, in need of guidance.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That is a very good summary of the Celts, from a Roman popular perspective.

And the Romans were one of the ethically worst civilizations in European history. What’s your point?

if an orc raised in the "correct" environment is good then I think it's worse. It's akin to when the US shipped all native Americans off to boarding school to "civilize" them, it's something we've seen time and time again when colonialist powers trying to strip away all cultural identity and heritage in order to "fix" the indigenous peoples.

It absolutely isn’t, and you’re misrepresenting other peoples’ positions to boot.

A literally objectively present god is not analogous to anything IRL, first of all.
Second, people are talking about some orcs being evil, just like humans.
Lastly, real life Native Americans (and Canadian First Nations people, and Australian and New Zealand’s Indigenous population) didn’t have any cultures that demanded the eradication or subjugation of other peoples.

again, the better comparison is the Nazis. Humans don’t have power over Orcs, aren’t in a position to treat them as westerners treated Native Peoples, etc.

Your analogy is terrible, disengenuous, and consistently works to derail every discussion about race in D&D. I begin to be suspicious about why you keep doing this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It boggles my

We aren't? I've never said once that I have an issue with a change from MM assumption to FR, Eberron or any other campaign setting. So why so much push back when I explain my personal preference?

why do you keep derailing discussions about the D&D offical lore by insisting on talking about your own games and then getting defensive when people reply to your statements in the context of the official lore?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Attitudes toward enslaved and conquered peoples tend to be more paternalistic. Non-white people are seen as childlike, in need of guidance.

Rudyard Kipling made that pretty explicit in The White Man's Burden (which itself was used as the inspiration for a science fiction novel, Spaceman's Burden, that features the inspiration for the ewoks).

(Also: Ewoks are terrible. Always worth reiterating that.)

 

[Oofta]

It boggles my

why do you keep derailing discussions about the D&D offical lore by insisting on talking about your own games and then getting defensive when people reply to your statements in the context of the official lore?

I was responding to people who asked me questions. If you don't want me to respond, stop asking questions.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Another issue I found with this forum was often grouping Tieflings into "Evil" races, even if it was clear from their 2e debut that they were never a mostly evil race. It was really only their 3e Monster Manual entry that tried to label them as evil, before that their 2e monster stat block lists their alignment as CN and 2e PC writeup might have been "any alignment but LG".

As a race they've never strongly adhered to any particular ethnic stereotype, beyond a generalized "other", mixed-race or marginalized minority. But they might stick more to the "outcast based on subculture" archetype too. I think at least with them they got it better because they started out as a PC race first, even if there's a bunch of differences in how they are represented in appearance and origin across editions.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Ah. I think I grasp some of the issue.
Your point highlights how tropes of otherness are not new, that all sorts of historical cultures have used some of these signifiers when describing other cultures, that such traits were used a pejoratives, and that they are not unique to a given cultures bigotry. All true.

What I think some are glossing over is this: These stereotypes are alive with us now. "Orcs are not stand ins for black people." A fair argument. However, Orcs are given traits that bigots use today. We aren't speaking merely to historic racism. We are talking about right now.

Lets say you had a fictional race that is highlighted for being greedy. Are they meant to be a stand in for Jews? You could claim no. That is fine. What if they are also cowardly, sneaky, practice an odd religion in defiance of their neighbors prevalent faith? Are they now Jews? Still one might say no. This is also fine.

However, when a Jewish person sees a Ferengi on an episode of Star Trek and sees all these traits used to define them, and notice how many of them check boxes for how bigots depicts them in the real world, in their own lives, is it unreasonable for them to ask, "Are these aliens meant to be us?"

So in a similar fashion, is a PoC sees how a given fantasy race is narrowly depicted in D&D, sees the negative traits used to show how the race is wicked, how they are meant to be killed by the PCs, and sees that many of these traits are ones which bigots uses to describe them in the real world, in their own lives, is it unreasonable for them to ask, "Are these monsters meant to be us?"

This is a discussion. Not a fiat from on high demanding the very notion of evil not exist to avoid hurting people. Instead, what we need to examine is how our hobby shows us that a people are evil.

For anybody who keeps saying, "Orcs aren't real" or "Orcs aren't supposed to be black people" or whatever, read the above post.