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'.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It is. Its called colorblind racism. Its great that some of us don't see people differently, but we are vast minority.

Just so long as you realize that, since the rest of the world doesn't see things your way, they can set things up to harm minorities, sometimes even without consciously setting out to do so. ("We only hire people who graduate from these four universities, refuse to acknowledge that they have some serious issues about who are students there, and claim it's not our problem to do anything about it, even though we take having a more diverse workforce very seriously.")

 

[grimslade]

While I love my traditional 1E worlds like Greyhawk, this is a good change for the base game of D&D. The use of alignment as a replacement for culture, in-game, limits the scope and diversity of games. D&D is forged from real-world history, real-world myth and pulp fiction. There is a lot of good from those sources, but all are tied up in colonial viewpoints and they reverberate in weird ways through the game. If I run a game that draws heavily from Howards 'Beyond the Black River', but replace the Picts for Goblinoids, is it any different from running a historical campaign set in the French and Indian War in the Ohio valley with all the inherent colonialism and racism? We use humanoid as a stand-in for peoples we can safely kill because the rules say they are lesser/evil. We are translating real-world racial stereotypes into the game. Maybe it is time to remove that.

 

[Sunsword]

You're kind of missing the point of good fantasy and science fiction stories. You can't watch Star Trek and pretend that an episode about removing an alien population from their planet, against their will, has nothing to do with European-descended Americans removing Native Americans from their land.

It's totally valid to have a hack and slash D&D game with no commentary about real world tensions. But there's no valid argument to be made that D&D must exclude the possibility of a game with that kind of commentary.

No, I'm not missing the point. These subtleties may be applied to your game. Star Trek has had Evil with a captial E, the Borg, for instance.

RPGs are a collaborative story and not a film or a book.

There is a valid argument because I firmly believe that vast majority of players don't even know about this discussion. The first time I watched TOS Star Trek I didn't see those subtleties and part of the reason I preferred Star Wars to Trek in that age group is that I preferred the basic Archetypes of Good vs Evil.
Most D&D players aren't even aware of this site or this discussion.

I can make white pieces in Chess represent the Axis powers and black pieces in the same game the Allies, but that doesn't mean Chess has to address that option.

What is even more wonderful is that with DMsGuild YOU can right those options and get paid to do it.

Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they are ignorant. It just means that I think we need to stand with people who are getting shot before we worry about this issue. We need to let them know we aren't going to be silent anymore and their lives are as valuable as ours. Our Privilege lets us make this particular issue on this site important when it's not.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's totally valid to have a hack and slash D&D game with no commentary about real world tensions. But there's no valid argument to be made that D&D must exclude the possibility of a game with that kind of commentary.

I run a game that certainly has had plenty of hacking and slashing. But we've also confronted, in-game, that residents of the world who decide that kobolds or orcs (in our specific case) are automatically evil are wrong and often evil in their own way. That hasn't meant that there aren't plenty of evil kobolds and orcs running around, though.

It hasn't been a drag at all -- in fact, it's helping making a murder mystery in my game now a lot richer, since the player characters are trying to figure out whether jumping to conclusions about orcs is making finding the real murderer harder. (It is definitely making it harder.)

 

[Sunsword]

Just so long as you realize that, since the rest of the world doesn't see things your way, they can set things up to harm minorities, sometimes even without consciously setting out to do so.

Of course, I see that but this isn't the time to worry about that because black people are getting murdered and it IS a conscious decision. Our systemic racism here in the U.S. makes their achievement that more important because of the challenges we've put in their way in the last 400 years. Getting murdered, intentionally killing or imprisoning young black men, a poverty of words, and black women being far more impacted by abortion are real, intentionally crimes the U.S. has committed and continue to commit. Right now, don't you think the U.S. President having a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth isn't more pressing than D&D?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I never thought of the association between Gnomes and certain antisemitic stereotypes until they were pointed out to me.

The Rankin-Bass Hobbit cartoon is like someone said "let's take anti-Semitic cartoons and make these guys the heroes." Once you've seen those cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s, it really makes you wonder what was going on when that cartoon was created.

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.

There's a subset of World of Warcraft characters who have lost their minds over having dark skin options added to blood and void elves in the game in an upcoming patch.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Then what is the difference between species? If it isn't mechanical, and it isn't cultural, is there an actual difference? I don't know the answer, btw. This is a genuine question.

Well, some of them can see in the dark and some of them have horns or wings.

And proponents of Harn -- or George R. R. Martin -- would tell you that you can go a long way with just humans in your stories.

 

[Parmandur]

And it's just coincidence then that the absolute and cosmic Greet Wheel just happens to lay out all the moralities of good and evil exactly how we human beings that created the game do? What are the odds?!?

Or is it more that the Objective reality of the Great Wheel was created by the Subjective reality of humans like Gary Gygax who had to imagine what all the other Outer Planes of the multiverse would be and he wrote what he knew?

Listen, this is all explained in Plato.

What are they teaching them in schools these days...

 

[DND_Reborn]

Making changes from "races" to "ancestry" or "species" or "cultures" or whatever is just terminology. Some people hate terminology like that but we have terms to define things. Otherwise might say "Why does the difference matter?" My answer is because it is descriptive. If someone says the creature is an orc, it gives me an idea for what it might look like. That Idea could certainly be wrong, but we have to start someplace. How often is someone described by hair color, for instance, so you can find them or get a mental picture?

Removing evil from a creature is fine. In our game orcs and other typically "evil" humanoids have settlements, etc., even if theirs isn't as advanced or robust or prevalent, while others are cruel and wicked and spiteful--but you know what? So are plenty of humans, dwarves, gnomes, and all the other races (or species, or whatever).

Also, as far as "evil", different cultures have different definitions. Look through the various cultures in our own histories. Some cultures had no word for ownership, and so there was no word for theft. In some cultures being a sacrifice was an honor and your family was well provided for if you were chosen. Even if our own times, some people see drug use (even marijuana where it is legal) as an evil to our future, while others consider ir progress.

Ability score modifiers should be the typical difference, but we all know you can play a strong halfling, weak minotaur, or whatever by putting the determined scores where you want and then applying the modifier. Now, I'm sorry but I am a firm believer in physical differences, however I think what ability scores represent should be adjusted to change some of the way those differences are portrayed. In general, for example, males of most species are stronger than females, but females do have greater flexibility and tolerance for pain. Now, that isn't to say there aren't exceptions, but if we are talking about ability modifiers we should be talking in general, not specific or exceptions. Yet it remains that is the difference so significant as to be represented by a modifier? No, IMO, and that is why even though I understand the physical difference is reality, it doesn't affect the game mechanics.

Personally, I am all for removing ability score modifier for race completely. If you want your character to be strong, but a high score there. Using 4d6k3 already makes you exceptional compared to the norm. If anything, I agree with some others that ability score modifiers should come from background and class. Your background might give you two ASI +1's, and your class another ASI +1. For example, I could see the Soldier background giving STR +1, CON +1, and the Fighter a choice of STR +1 or DEX +1. So, regardless of race, your Fighter/Soldier could start with a STR +2, CON +1 if you wanted.

I do like the idea of having a culture as well because who raises you does impact your development. Maybe have all three and each offers you two options? Culture, Background, and Class. Culture is because the environment that raises you, background is because of the life you've lived (chosen or not), and class because of the adventuring profession you've selected. If species (formally race) is an issue, maybe it affects your maximums instead of your current scores? Biologically, an Elf has greater potential in DEX for example, than a human, and so an Elf has a max DEX 20 while a human as 18. (FWIW, this is our houserule, current race affect ability score maximums, not the scores themselves).

Imagine (just throwing out options as an example...): and Elf (Max DEX 20) is raised by a culture of dwarves (STR +1 or CON +1), and served in the dwarven military as an crossbowman (soldier background, STR +1 or CON +1) but later learned to harness his innate tie to the feywild as a Warlock (CHA +1). During creation, the player might choose CON +2 (dwarf and soldier) and CHA +1 (warlock), but has a Max DEX 20 and Max 18 for all the rest?

Such a character might retain some of the base Elf Traits, but instead of High elf, Wood Elf, or Drow traits have Dwarven Combat Training, Tool Proficiency, and Stonecunning?

I think such a system with Species/ Culture/ Background/ Class would work very well and be extremely versatile and robust. I know many others have explored removing racial ASI and moving them to Background and Class before, so this isn't new at all, but I believe warrants exploration.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Of course, I see that but this isn't the time to worry about that because black people are getting murdered and it IS a conscious decision.

It is the time to worry about systemic racism, and many of the protestors are asking that be addressed as well. There are long-overdue conversations happening in many industries (including mine -- lots of stuff in my email inbox about it over the last two weeks) that don't have to wait in line for police violence to be fixed first.

Right now, don't you think the U.S. President having a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth isn't more pressing than D&D?

Did someone force you to post at ENWorld at gunpoint? Spend your time on that if you want to mono-task.

But folks in the game industry being prompted to address racial issues in the sphere they have the most power to effect change is a completely appropriate way to behave.

Jeremy Crawford joining a march isn't going to have as much impact on racism in this country (and globally) as him talking with his coworkers and making concrete steps to make sure the work they produce makes things better, rather than worse.