D&D 5E WotC's Jeremy Crawford on D&D Races Going Forward

On Twitter, Jeremy Crawford discussed the treatment of orcs, Vistani, drow and others in D&D, and how WotC plans to treat the idea of 'race' in D&D going forward. In recent products (Eberron and Wildemount), the mandatory evil alignment was dropped from orcs, as was the Intelligence penalty.

@ThinkingDM Look at the treatment orcs received in Eberron and Exandria. Dropped the Intelligence debuff and the evil alignment, with a more acceptable narrative. It's a start, but there's a fair argument for gutting the entire race system.

The orcs of Eberron and Wildemount reflect where our hearts are and indicate where we’re heading.

@vorpaldicepress I hate to be "that guy", but what about Drow, Vistani, and the other troublesome races and cultures in Forgotten Realms (like the Gur, another Roma-inspired race)? Things don't change over night, but are these on the radar?

The drow, Vistani, and many other folk in the game are on our radar. The same spirit that motivated our portrayal of orcs in Eberron is animating our work on all these peoples.

@MileyMan1066 Good. These problems need to be addressed. The variant features UA could have a sequel that includes notes that could rectify some of the problems and help move 5e in a better direction.

Addressing these issues is vital to us. Eberron and Wildemount are the first of multiple books that will face these issues head on and will do so from multiple angles.

@mbriddell I'm happy to hear that you are taking a serious look at this. Do you feel that you can achieve this within the context of Forgotten Realms, given how establised that world's lore is, or would you need to establish a new setting to do this?

Thankfully, the core setting of D&D is the multiverse, with its multitude of worlds. We can tell so many different stories, with different perspectives, in each world. And when we return to a world like FR, stories can evolve. In short, even the older worlds can improve.

@SlyFlourish I could see gnolls being treated differently in other worlds, particularly when they’re a playable race. The idea that they’re spawned hyenas who fed on demon-touched rotten meat feels like they’re in a different class than drow, orcs, goblins and the like. Same with minotaurs.

Internally, we feel that the gnolls in the MM are mistyped. Given their story, they should be fiends, not humanoids. In contrast, the gnolls of Eberron are humanoids, a people with moral and cultural expansiveness.

@MikeyMan1066 I agree. Any creature with the Humanoid type should have the full capacity to be any alignmnet, i.e., they should have free will and souls. Gnolls... the way they are described, do not. Having them be minor demons would clear a lot of this up.

You just described our team's perspective exactly.

As a side-note, the term 'race' is starting to fall out of favor in tabletop RPGs (Pathfinder has "ancestry", and other games use terms like "heritage"); while he doesn't comment on that specifically, he doesn't use the word 'race' and instead refers to 'folks' and 'peoples'.

 

[Zardnaar]

NO one is accusing you of being racist. That's on you.

What is being said, for the umpteenth time, is that orcs, as written, are based on a racist depiction of minorities. While the Tolkien issues are one thing, D&D orcs are pretty much word for word, (and if you don't believe me, there are examples of putting the D&D monster manual description of orcs beside various articles written not all that long ago where the two are virtually word for word) cribbed from racist descriptions of blacks.

Even if you don't see the connection, why are you insisting that no connection exists? Why is it not good enough for someone to tell you that THEY see the connection and that connection makes them uncomfortable? Why does it need to be "proven" to be true?



Ok, second verse, same as the first verse. Being cribbed from the real world or real world cultures isn't really a problem. Giants are among the most powerful beings in the game. They are a depiction of power, might, beauty, intelligence (at least some of the giants), magic, and wonder. They make flying castles. They have powerful magic. Some of them are practically godlike in intelligence. In what way is that a negative depiction? No one is taking offense.

See, @GameOgre, you are flat out wrong. And demonstrably wrong. Increasing inclusiveness has led (at least in part) to an EXPLOSION in the popularity of the game. By excising chainmail bikinis, being more inclusive, etc. we have seen our niche hobby go from the brink of being shelved to being larger than at any other point in history. D&D has never been this popular.

So, yes, it leads to a better game. Full stop. Making the game more inclusive isn't about "social justice ideology" (I'm not even sure what that is to be honest, and I'm betting dollars to donuts you don't either), it's about making the game accessable and acceptable to the broadest range possible and making the hobby grow for the first time in decades.

You're feeding sock puppet account 5 or 6.

 

[GameOgre]

I disagree with most of the above. I don't find orcs racist at all.

I do find it bad to comb through the game remaking it to suit social justice.

I do think going down this road will be bad for D&D.

BUT.....this is a thread on a messageboard. I can see i'm not going to get through to any of you. You guys don't seem to be able to move me either.

We can agree to disagree.

WOTC agrees with you guys.

I hope you guys are 100% right and im 100% wrong.

I would be happy with that.

If it doesn't work out that way and Ten years from now D&D is gone well. It had a god run.

 

[Xenonnonex]

It's because we are not racist. We don't see your point at all. Orcs are bad. Orcs are violent brutish psychotic monsters who are fun to kill and fun to be killed by.

Minorities are real life human beings that we are. They are the heroes playing the game. Our DM, our fellow players,ourselves.

We don't see the connection you insist is there. We don't see the (as you put it) so obvious racism because that sounds like us. It doesn't......at all.

"We are not racist. But."
Okay.

 

[Bagpuss]

Orcs are violent brutish psychotic monsters. If based on racist stereotypes goddamn is that a goddamn problem.

If being the important part there.

Here's Tolkien talking about orcs...

Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in 'realistic' fiction: your vigorous words well describe the tribe; only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For 'romance' has grown out of 'allegory', and its wars are still derived from the 'inner war' of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels. But it does make some difference who are your captains and whether they are orc-like per se! And what it is all about (or thought to be). It is even in this world possible to be (more or less) in the wrong or in the right.

To him orcs are an allegory for some "mode of badness" in mankind, not a particular race. He talks about how in stories good and bad are on separate sides, but in real life you have orcs, angels and demons on boths sides. He has experiences war, and has clearly seen "orcs" among the officers he fought alongside.

Orcs represent "might makes right", a lack of compassion, and other "modes of badness", that all men can exhibit. The fact racists have accused whole ethnic groups of being savage, doesn't mean because orcs are savage they are racists stereotype of them.

Orcs are savage because it is that aspect of mankind they are representing in a story not because they are an allegory a particular ethnic group. The fact and ethnic group is painted as that particular negative stereotype is racist.

That is also why it is fine for all orcs to be evil, because that is the role they are playing in the story. It's also why it is fine to fight against them as you are fighting against the idea that "might makes right", against brutishness, destructive forces.

 

[Hussar]

Sigh. You don't think it's problematic that he gave them physical traits pulled straight out of bigoted writing of the time?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I would refer you, again, back to @Galandris 's important point, that it is a bad solution--in some ways more damaging and perpetuating of racism--to strengthen the hypothetical connection of orcs to black people. Why not just strengthen the idea that orcs are orcs and have absolutely nothing to do with black people? They're an aggressive and generally evil humanoid race in a fantasy world. That's it.

It's too late for that. That's the problem. If that had been done twenty or thirty years ago, that might have worked. Instead the same tropes have been repeated, and Orcs themselves have been worked upon and made more nuanced and so on for decades.

You want to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.

You basically just proved my point: the "dark skin = cursed" thing has been played down and written out. We can recognize and agree that this was problematic in the past--and I agree that it is problematic--but also recognize that it has already been addressed, that there has been progress. I'm in the process of moving so don't have all my books handy, but would be very surprised if SCAG still included that, or at least the equivalency of "dark = cursed." If it does, I agree that it is problematic and should be changed, with the caveat that the problem isn't the cursing or even necessarily the dark skin; it is that the cursing darkened their skin.

The problem you can't get around is that the only major dark-skinned race in the game is extremely evil

You haven't addressed that at all. Fiddling around with making them cursed or not-cursed is profoundly missing the point. Saying "Oh but it's ebon-black, not dark-brown-black!" is missing the point (and facile). The core problem is not that. The core problem is that only major dark-skinned race in the game is evil as hell, whilst their good-guy cousins are milky-white.

The problem only arises by a false equation of "pimp = black people."

Sigh. He's not ACTUALLY a pimp. He dresses like a stereotypical 1970s African-American pimp. So you just don't know the material and have had a pointless argument because you assumed, instead of reading carefully.

Again, this is a false equivalency: saying tha because the most frequently depicted matriarchy is evil means that the depiction itself and/or the writers of D&D are implying that all matriarchies are inherently evil, especially when they provide examples of matriarchies that aren't evil. As you say, it is based on spiders, not human women. Drow worship the spider goddess, therefore are matriarchal. Kind of makes sense to me. Matriarchies--as with all forms of government--can be oppressive, and some men (and not only misogynist men) have and do experience the "cruelty of women," who--being human--can be just as cruel as men.

The exact problem is that they don't provide examples of matriarchies that aren't evil. Saying they do is lying. There are no other major races in D&D which are matriarchal as a racial trait. Small setting-specific examples that 90% of players aren't aware of aren't counter-examples.

And re: cruelty, you're missing the point - it's more stereotypes for the pile. Obviously anyone can be cruel - but Drow are specifically obsessed with cruelty and torture, and this is directly linked to them being a matriarchy.

Personally I'd argue that a strictly matriarchal or patriarchal system is inherently problematic, so any such system is fair game to be considered evil.

Which would be fine if D&D operated that way, but it isn't. Instead patriarchies aren't even remarked on in most cases. It's simply clear

But again, I think you are making the error that Galandris pointed out: doubling-down on a tenuous connection, which only strengthens it, and then trying to rectify it. This, I think, only makes the matter worse. Better to de-couple drow (and orcs) from these tenuous real-world connections. Orcs are orcs, drow are drow. The good thing is that they've already done this to some extent. I'm not saying that more can't be done, but I don't agree with the direction that you're suggesting.

Okay, we'll get in the TARDIS, and go back in time, and fix both races so this never happens. Are you telling me you don't have a TARDIS? Well then why are you asserting a solution that requires TIME TRAVEL?!

This is obviously a ridiculous non-solution for the same reason I noted earlier. People have been noting these issues since the 1980s. Entire RPGs have been built around these issues.

Look, I get and agree with the underlying intention of reducing stereotypes and making the game more inclusive; I'm all for that. I just think there are better ways to go about it, and some of the commonly presented solutions only make the matter worse, and oftentimes throw the baby out with the bathwater. Saying that "orcs are brutish and evil, but not all of them!" or "drow are gray not black, and matriarchal and evil, but just a certain culture" not only carries subtle racist overtones but doesn't solve anything and actually re-inforces connections that we're probably better de-coupling.

You seem really confused here. De-coupling is part of it, but you're hostile to that (changing Drow to be grey, so they're clearly non-human, and also reflect most drawing of Drow, which have treated them as grey for like 2-3 editions now), and you're also hostile to other solutions. It's bizarre.

Do you really think that you can just keep going with "Yes, the only major race in the game with dark skin is super-evil, and it's close cousins with light skin are good guys!" and justify that? Because no amount of de-coupling alone is ever going to do that. You need to make actual changes as well. Two strong ones are reflecting the art in the description (i.e. grey) and making it so the main Drow culture is evil, not all Drow (which is already the case, but can be stressed a lot more). But you're opposed to those changes and offer zero suggestions of your own. Instead you seem to think if you just keep saying "It's just a game!!! They're not humans!!!!!!" it'll magically become fine? How's that been working out so far? It's been tried for like, thirty years. It's failed.

Orcs are even more spectacular. The language that describes them, even in 5E, is literally the same language used to describe black people in racist history books. You can't just say "Oh yeah but it's okay because they're monsters even though they look like people and act like people and have children and raise them and so on...", but that's all you seem to be suggesting.

It's too late for that. Far too late. If they'd stopped using that language in, like, the 1990s, it might have worked, but they kept using it up until now.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Frankly. When posters keep insisting on justifying racism. I am out. Goddamn.

 

[Olrox17]

Which would be fine if D&D operated that way, but it isn't. Instead patriarchies aren't even remarked on in most cases. It's simply clear

A quote from the MM "Orc tribes are mostly patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or grotesque titles
as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf Ripper".
Just saying. This is the only instance of patriarchy I can find in the base manuals. Patriarchies and matriarchies seem to be depicted as both evil (and I agree with that).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I understood your post as following. You use the term "Roman" to mean moreso a specific ideology, a kind of brutal imperialistic ideology, that you resolutely object to. In that sense, I agree with you. I oppose that Roman ideology in the same way I oppose N*zi ideology.

I'm describing the Roman culture of extreme expansionism and imperialism that directly inspired so many other unpleasant cultures (including the British Empire and the Nazis). But it was a whole culture, and the imperialist elements weren't the only thing wrong with it - it was phenomenally obsessed with control and domination, particularly of anyone who didn't fit certain criteria (though it was also more flexible than is sometimes though in other ways).

I do see Romans as an ancient ethnic group.

Yeah, but you're using ethnic in the broadest possible way, one which whilst "technically correct" is not typically meaningful to discussions of racism or oppression unless they're incredibly nuanced and conducted in the utmost good faith by people who understand the full nuance (which is rare even in academic settings).

The idea that it is possible to "racist" against Americans, for example, is rather ludicrous, and not how racism works. Yet as soon as you start including "American" as an ethnicity (which in the most academic sense, it arguably is - arguably - I'd say it's nonsense myself as there are many American ethnicities and no unified one), people start claiming to have experienced "racism" on that basis, which is very dubious (in fact it is typically broader bigotry or xenophobia, if even that).

And if we see "Roman" as an ethnicity, rather than a number of ethnicities, despite the fact that the only thing Romans shared was a culture and language (not a common history, not common racial background, not a common nationality and so on), then I think we're in similarly questionable and broadly unhelpful territory.

Certainly these "Romans", whatever you call them by, perpetuated an ideology of domination, violence, enslavement and ruthless, merciless brutality beyond what the world had really seen up to that point. I mean, I think we can agree Roman was an "identity", but by 0 AD it had certainly become an identity associated with a whole lot of vile stuff.

A quote from the MM "Orc tribes are mostly patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or grotesque titles
as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf Ripper".
Just saying. This is the only instance of patriarchy I can find in the base manuals. Patriarchies and matriarchies seem to be depicted as both evil (and I agree with that).

Uh-huh, but as I pointed out, D&D often has patriarchies without even recognising them as such, because they're simply "normal". You see countless D&D settings where you have patriarchal societies, and almost none of them are ever identified as patriarchal in text. It's just that if you see a list of rulers for the last few hundred years, they're all dudes (or almost all, which still indicates a patriarchy, just with agnatic-cognatic succession). And there's no major society in D&D that's identified as patriarchal and bad, even though Gnomish and Dwarven societies are frequently portrayed with only male leaders and so on.

Also that orc thing is pretty unfortunate given the Many-Arrows are canon non-evil orcs, yet being treated the way as the rest are.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I just think people have a hard time accepting that the stuff they like is no longer liked by more people and they are trying their best to defend it as okay so they don't look like a bad person to everybody else because they still enjoy it. Like the people who defend Revenge of the Nerds as a perfectly fine comedy, despite all of the illustrations of casual misogyny and sexual assault played for laughs that are rampant through the film. Because to admit that stuff is to admit they are okay with those looks and it will make them look bad.

It's a defense mechanism is what it is. It's just that no one will let them get away with it anymore now that times have changed.