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'.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Gonna take a moment to plug James Mendez Hodes, a cultural consultant who has associated with Wizards in the past. Dan Dillon gave him a shoutout in the recent Twitter discussion referenced in the OP. James also done RPG design work, his most notable work I believe being the PbtA RPG Thousand Arrows.

On the orc matter, he has written two pretty lengthy articles about the tropes used in regards to orcs on his site, so if anybody here hasn't already read that, feel free to do so. Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I; and Part II. But I feel a later and shorter statement of his says it a lot louder and clearer:

If we play a game, and how you or the game talk about orcs reminds me how racists talk about me, memories of racism distract me and I cannot enjoy the game. If you like, call it a me problem, not a you problem. If you want that kinda game, cool—I just won’t join you.

You’ll be better off without me. I’ll be better off without you. Not calling you racist or evil—just stating a preference. But it’s better we discuss this now rather than midway through the game, yeah?

Never mind Tolkien, history, or theory. That's the most important point.

Of course I have other thoughts, explained in the articles, about depicting orcs in a way which tells people who fight racism daily you care more about our experience than consistency or balance.

But if your interlocutor can't or won't respect a creative preference based on an inalienable experience of oppression? Block 'em. They haven’t reached a level of empathy we would expect from most children, and that you’re not getting paid enough to teach.

Incidentally, James was on Morrus' podcast just yesterday. Go have a listen if you like.

EDIT: I'm also gonna recommend this Twitter thread (collated in Thread Reader), which I also think is good though it's a lot shorter. The most important point in that thread IMO is as follows:

You have to understand that language that minimises the humanity of another is one of the most common tools of bigots who seek to justify their actions by treating the oppressed group as “less than.” This is a fact of our racist/ sexist/ homophobic world.

The language used here is that language. Orcs, sentient beings, can be “domesticated.” They have an underlying, inherent rage and blood lust that’s just part of their biology. This is harmful because of the real world parallels to a ton of racist tropes.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think everyone involved in this discussion means well. But I'm pretty sure the people protesting right now have far bigger concerns besides the terminology in D&D. People of Color and Black People are getting murdered in the street by Police and the systemic racism that has impacted their daily lives for 400 years.

People can care about multiple things at once. Also, get on a social media platform with some diversity and ask about this in the dnd community. Many gamers of color, not just Black gamers but gamers of all races, are uncomfortable with race in dnd for the reasons being discussed in this thread. Yes, including the gamers who are also marching in the street.

My personal opinion is that if you look at a fantasy race or heritage or ancestry and see a Human Ethnic Group you probably have some issues to work out.

There is a gap in your understanding of the situation and what is being discussed, then. Review the twitter conversation in the community about orcs, recently, for a primer.

And on the Gnoll thing, our rules lawyers upset that Gnolls are created by their god and a Ranger would get bonuses from it if they select Humanoid?

Can you restate this in a way that isn't difficult to parse? Not sure what you're even asking.

 

[Flamestrike]

I still recall it wasnt that long ago that DnD (and other games) had actual human races (as in, differing human ethnicities), and literally assigned ability score modifiers to each.

White skinned folk modelled on European peoples had bonuses to Wisdom and were depicted as being the good guys and civilised. Black skinned folk or Russians were invariably given bonuses to Strength and were depicted as being savage and the bad guys.

Birthright was a notable example of this.

And of course it wasnt that long ago that gender (in addition to race) also played a part in ability score modifiers (and by extension, class limits).

Personally I hate the term 'race'. Elves are not a different 'race' they're a different species. Even among humans, the term race is often used in a naive way, and ignorant of the fact that 'race' or 'ethnicity' is a social construct (and not a discrete biological distinction with inherent traits).

It's been problematic for years in the game, and Im glad its been moving in the right direction. I welcome this announcement.

 

[DEFCON 1]

We use Human morality because we are Humans who make the game. Nothing is stopping you from changing that, it is the beauty of RPGs.

Your PCs can be the exception because its a game. Some of us don't want to see from the Orcs POV because we hang out, blow off steam and roll dice to kill things and to take their stuff.

Do you think White Supremacists are evil or ignorant? If they are evil then how can it be hard to see Orcs or Gnolls as evil for the most part?

Run whatever game you want but there are Protagonists and Antagonists in these games.

Because White Supremacists are just one part of a greater type of culture (Caucasian people), not the entirety of the culture. And that's the point. Attributing a single monolithic identity to an entire culture isn't required, necessary, or even makes sense. Even if all you want to do is roll dice and kill things.

 

[Bawylie]

I like it.

I’d like to revise the humanoid type to “homini” and let the character’s description/physical appearance include any variations. Like dwarf, or orc would be part of the description along with height, hair color, sex and gender, and all other characteristics that don’t and shouldn’t have any game-mechanic changes but serve to address the character’s identity in the game world.

And then drop some heritages in the background section. Raised by Elves and all that. For the proficiencies and whatnot. Probably need to rewrite backgrounds a bit for stat bonuses if I do that, though. Hm.

Edit to add - stat bonuses make more sense in classes than backgrounds. Duh, brad.

 

[Fenris447]

I like having racial stereotypes in my games, because it provides opportunities for the players to examine their own prejudices when their characters find their stereotyping subverted by individuals that challenge the expected norm. I guess my fear here is that everything will be whitewashed (pardon the expression) in D&D, for the sake of presenting a system that is 100% open to interpretation without any guidance.

Reading the thread, I can see a valid argument for removing racial stat bonuses altogether, and replacing them with cultural ones. I can dig that. But I would hope to see guidelines on a setting-by-setting basis. So a book would say "pick any culture for your orc character. In the Forgotten Realms, most orc cultures tend towards evil, chaos, and strength, like cultures x, y, and z."

Make sure that the "standard" cultures for these races are preserved for DMs to build on if they wish, while allowing full freedom for characters who wish to depart from those cultures. The neat side effect would be an easy way for DMs to homebrew their own worlds and the cultures therein. You can build around cultures, which will already be codified with lots of examples.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And at the end of the day, it doesn't even matter. People will continue to call all of these things whatever they want, regardless of what the folks at WotC decide to print. So what difference does it make if they change things in their books? A new book says 'ancestry' rather than 'race'. You continue to call them all difference 'races'. No one's going to stop you. No one can stop you.

All they can do is look at you funny when you do so and you then have to decide if that matters to you or not.

 

[Kinematics]

I would be inclined to have racial stat bonuses primarily physical (Str/Dex/Con). While the mental stats correlate with magical talent, since they vary by class, it's too dispersed to be able to say that a given race is naturally talented at magic.

Cultures (what would currently be considered subraces, mainly) would then affect the mental stats. A culture heavily invested in living in harmony with nature might have a higher Wis; a Vulcan-like culture could have a higher Int; stereotypical halfling villages likely foster a high Cha.

I can't really see race impacting the mental stats meaningfully, though I could see culture affecting physical stats. Hunter-gatherers likely have a higher Str or Con, while a mercantile culture might have lower physical stats, for example.


Basically, ever since I saw the PF2 approach to ancestry, I've really liked the idea of a departure from the D&D version of race, instead focusing on the two separate choices of ancestry and culture, with the culture being completely unrestricted to the player (and different from the background, which is more occupation-specific than the general environment one is raised in). A human raised by dwarves (ie: Carrot from Discworld) should not be a difficult thing to create.

I poked around at building the player's race by choosing your parents' races, eliminating the need for any of the half-races as independent choices, but mechanically it got rather fussy. I might poke at that again, but I'm not sure how much value it has as a mechanic.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I never thought of the association between Gnomes and certain antisemitic stereotypes until they were pointed out to me. But Orcs and Goblins often get painted with that "Mongrel Savages" stereotype that was very common. And by some extent I have seen Elves pointed out as some Aryan ideal on humans.

There was also for the longest time when only Humans were depicted as being ethnically diverse, but other races like Dwarves and Elves weren't.

 

[Zaukrie]

Gonna take a moment to plug James Mendez Hodes, a cultural consultant who has associated with Wizards in the past. Dan Dillon gave him a shoutout in the recent Twitter discussion referenced in the OP. James also done RPG design work, his most notable work I believe being the PbtA RPG Thousand Arrows.

On the orc matter, he has written two pretty lengthy articles about the tropes used in regards to orcs on his site, so if anybody here hasn't already read that, feel free to do so. Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I; and Part II. But I feel a later and shorter statement of his says it a lot louder and clearer:



Incidentally, James was on Morrus' podcast just yesterday. Go have a listen if you like.

EDIT: I'm also gonna recommend this Twitter thread (collated in Thread Reader), which I also think is good though it's a lot shorter. The most important point in that thread IMO is as follows:

Lots to digest here, thank you.