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'.

 

[Morrus]

On a side note, the Supreme Court today just ruled that it is illegal to discriminate against gays and trandgenders anywhere in the USA.

Let’s keep it to D&D, please.

 

[Inchoroi]

I can't say that I'm interested in changing the name as a game term; it's never bothered me (as a white guy married to a black woman). I know a few people on the internet get salty about it, however, so it might be better to ditch it and go with Ancestry which I also have no issue with. I've always looked at it as a game term divorced from the idea of race in the real world.

I do like removing alignment requirements, but I always ignore those in favor of story. Sure, have your lawful good orc, I love it. I might torture your character with it in towns, but that just makes for a good story. However, I can't get any of my players, with one exception, to play anything other than half elf, elf, or human. But, one of my players made a tortle for my next campaign! I don't know what I'm going to do with myself!

 

[Haldrik]

All humans are shades of orange.

 

[TheSword]

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.

I would say that Birthright is probably an example of a post imperial, semi-historical setting done well actually.

Firstly the human variants are described as cultures not ethnicities or races. An Anuirean could have been raised in Khinasi and have the same statistics as any other Khinasi. The justifications for the ability score differences is based on cultural priorities, the khinasi for instance have +1 Int, -1 Con because their “culture values education and believes the study of magic to be the noblest of callings.” The Rjurik are influenced by the rugged surroundings, Brecht by trade and Anuireans by their gods and heavy armour.

Anuireans certainly are not depicted as ‘good’. They are expressly described as self interested and foolishly squabbling over power. Particularly Prince Avan and Baron Ghoere. They are no better or worse than any of the other cultures. In fact they are a great example of how there are heroes and villains in literally every culture - as it should be.

It also isn’t true to say the Vos are depicted as having black skin. I have no idea where you got this from as they are loosely based on Slavic Russia. Nor are they exclusively the bad guys. Their violent and barbaric culture is the product of living in the coldest, harshest part of Cerillia surrounded By monsters and as a result of being defeated in the Great War of the Gods. (Which only happened as a result of being first tricked into following the treacherous god, Azrai). There are positive qualities are ascribed to them - they are decent, understand compassion and treasure true friends. They also have a sense of honour but it isn’t described in the stereotypical way it is with samurai in RPGs. You can play at least three Vos kingdoms set in their lands with no alignment restrictions.

Notably in all these cases players get to play characters based in these cultures through the sourcebooks. Which puts a much more interesting spin on the post colonial campaign. There are many different player kingdoms in each culture allowing for subversion of typical stereotypes. For instance players can be the Khinasi Paladin Prince of Ariya and run a kingdom as a descendent of the Great King who threw off the shackles of Anuirean Imperialism. Or they can play a Vos Tsaravic trying to save his people from the Manticore.

Women are often in positions of authority as regents of many kingdoms without resorting to typical stereotypes about women in power.

Many of the monstrous humanoids, Goblins And Orogs are depicted as far more civilized than in typical campaigns with cities and kingdoms of their own... well before this became popularized in Eberron.

Birthright is a campaign setting that makes an NPCs choices (or PC’s) turn them into the chief bad guys in the game. For instance the Gorgon murdered his brother, Rhobhe Manslayer led geocidal wars against human settlers, The Spider murdered anyone who stood in his way. Some of the Awnshegh are also tragic victims of the curse of Azrai’s divinity meaning even a creature’s monstrous nature can’t be taken at face value.

The biggest criticism that can be leveled against Birthright is that it very classist and literally embodies the divine right of Kings... though I think any campaign setting based on pre 19th Century is going to struggle in this regard!

Secondly some of the language is problematic mainly because it has been co-opted to have other connotations, bloodline, blood enemies etc. however this has zero to do with race or racism in the game. I totally understand it would need to be changed and updated.

Just worth making my 2 pence pitch for the Birthright Setting as it is far more nuanced than it has been portrayed here. I too listened to James Mendez Hodes this week and found the podcast very interesting. My first Enworld podcast! I would be really interested on his take on Birthright as a campaign setting. I don’t think it’s the finished article, but I am interested to see if proper consultation and review took place if it could be adapted to a modern age based on the fact that it is more nuanced than most settings of its type.

 

[Haldrik]

Let’s keep it to D&D, please.

I am hoping to see more gay characters in D&D. Transgender characters are more visible because of clothing and ornament. Gay characters are only recognizable by their relationships, and only visible when a storyline takes place, making it very difficult for gay characters to be visible in D&D.

But for every 20 characters that exist in any world of D&D, two of these should be identifiably gay.

 

[Minigiant]

I find this interesting, thanks everyone.

But why is a gnoll being evil problematic? Why can't we have a species that walks upright be mostly or almost entirely evil?

We can.
They just should not be humaniods. They should have a "monster brain" and be a beast, fiend, or giant.

In one of my settings, gnolls are humans who worship the Hyena goddess. They act like humans and can be good or evil. The Blackspot gnolls are good. The Sandstripes are super evil.

In another of my settings, gnolls are created by evil magic and are all evil.

 

[Envisioner]

I forget who said it where earlier on the thread, but there was something about how a race having +2 to strength makes them brutish and having +2 to wisdom makes them civilized. I wanted to point out that this person has the causality backwards - a race which are naturally stronger therefore gravitates toward a culture which emphasizes the idea that the strong should oppress the weak, and a race which lacks that inherent strength therefore instead emphasizes traits of cooperation for mutual gain which lead to a civilization rising to prominence.

And I would go farther and say that the jury is still out on whether the latter is actually better than the former. We have what appears to be persuasive evidence that our way is working - human global population is at levels which our grandparents, nevermind their grandparents, would have thought absolutely unbelievable. But this rapid expansion might well prove unsustainable in the long term. Ultimately it's entirely possible that western culture, with all of its strip-mining the environment and its various forms of cultural strife, could eventually disintegrate into a global nuclear war that leaves some little Amazonian tribe as the only surviving humans on the planet, and the fact that that tribe has been surviving in an ultra-Darwinian fashion might end up being the only thing that makes them strong enough to endure the radiation sickness from the global fallout, the resulting food shortages, and so forth. Had missionaries from the outside managed to reach that culture, teach them ideals of compassion and gentleness and so forth, then they might have been doomed to die along with the rest of us.

In real life, we can't know what the answers are. In real life, we can decide them. If you want a universe where compassion is truly the best choice, then make it so. That's what I did in my CW; it's a wish-fulfillment fantasy about the angels and paladins literally being stronger than the forces of Evil. And it produces a really interesting set of redefinitions of the traditional fantasy format.

 

[Envisioner]

All humans are shades of orange.

Sacrelige! The only true morality is BLUE!

(Disclaimer: this is a joke.)

 

[Envisioner]

But for every 20 characters that exist in any world of D&D, two of these should be identifiably gay.

You're sure you don't mean every 100?

(Disclaimer: This is a sincere question.)

 

[Rikka66]

I find this interesting, thanks everyone.

But why is a gnoll being evil problematic? Why can't we have a species that walks upright be mostly or almost entirely evil?

So I'll leave explaining the broader cultural topic that is the entire reason we're discussing this in the first place to someone else. But 3e and 4e had both gone to some lengths to broadening gnolls and their culture, and really broke them out of the "always evil slaughter fodder" niche. Some find it disappointing they've abandoned all that with 5e, and have seemingly gone out of their way to use the revised lore to avoid giving them a PC write-up.