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'.

 

[Warren Ellis]

I'm talking real life with that question.......and I'd guess that cultures in D&D average neutral, but most of the people in those cultures don't really care about what the leaders think/do, they just want to live and help their family and friends live.

But most real life cultures are like that. And real life societies as well.

 

[Minigiant]

That's an interesting line to draw.......if Orcs were labeled as beasts, not humanoids, would people not find them offensive? I can't imagine changing that one line in the rule book would matter.

They would not be people but beasts or giants.
To me, it's more offensive to make ahumaniod people have a bestial mind.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In the original Norse Eddas, Heimdall was very specifically described as "the whitest of the gods". I don't overwhelmingly care, Idris is an amazing actor and I'm always glad to see him, but it is ironic that they specifically picked Heimdall as the role for him to play, showing that they either didn't know about the mythlore or intentionally wanted to ignore/subvert/override it.

I am unclear on how closely the Marvel Universe adhered to the Norse Eddas; certainly, I do not remember that time when Thor lost mjolnir and was replaced by the alien who was just as worthy as him, Beta Ray Bill, but I admit that others have a better recall of the Eddas than I do.

 

[LazarusKane]

Citation needed. Historical evidence would appear to disagree.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf

TLDR: "Babies show concern at others’ pain and sorrow, make spontaneous efforts to console others, and spontaneously help others even at external costs to themselves, suggesting that helping others is intrinsically rewarding."

 

[Dire Bare]

I agree, there are HUGE issues with how good/evil and free will and cultures are handled in games. But I'm not sure removing good and evil and making every race the same (and only their culture makes them different) is the answer. Like I said, it is complicated.....

Straw man (perhaps unintentionally). No one is talking about making each race or culture the same . . . . we're just talking about removing problematic racial thinking from how we view fantasy races.

In the real world, is a human from a European country the same as a person from an African country? In some ways, yes. In many ways, no. Are the differences between these two peoples interesting and worth exploring? Yes! But are these differences based in "race" (biological determinism) or culture (learned beliefs and behaviors)? Is one culture "better" at certain things than the other?

I would argue that applying attribute modifiers based on race in-game leads to racialized thinking, which is problematic. Any time you replace the words "orc" or "drow" with "black person", if the concept gets icky, then perhaps it needs to go. When "races" that aren't physically all that different from humans (elves, orcs, etc) get a +2 or -1 to something, it's very much like saying, "African Americans are naturally gifted athletes", which while positive (on the face of it), is untrue and problematic. Yes, we're talking fantasy races here, or maybe even fantasy species (the terms don't quite mean the same thing) . . . but as these fantasy races spring from the real world mythologies and follow the same problematic thinking that racism does IRL . . . .

Another discussed change is inherent personality traits tied to races, like "orcs are naturally evil". This effectively makes a race of people into not-quite-people who are okay to kill without remorse, thought, or regret. And this is VERY problematic. But even things like "Race X" is naturally savage, bestial, smart, wise, cannibalistic . . . . .

Trying to remove this problematic elements of fantasy race does not equate to "making all races the same", not even close. Just as trying to eliminate racist thinking IRL makes a European person the same in every way to an African person.

 

[delericho]

I completely agree the Vistani are problematic - they're a real-world stereotype with the serial numbers filed off, badly. The same goes for things like Maztica, the Tuigan Horde, etc. They need either major revision, or probably outright removal from the game.

As for orcs, drow, etc: my preference is very much that non-human races (species, ancestries, or whatever term you use) be non-human, and the more non-human the better. But it is just that - my preference.

And I'm afraid that's all I have to say on this topic.

 

[Remathilis]

The obvious solution to the "stupid, evil orc" issue is to remove ability scores, alignment, and races from D&D.

Toss classes on the bonfire too to fix the "paladin and assassin" problem as well.

 

[Zaukrie]

The evidence that I have compiled throughout my lifetime of experience suggests that human nature is inherently selfish, greedy, duplicitous, vain, shallow, narcissistic, hypocritical, and reflexively violent toward any perceived threat. People who have the capacity for forgiveness, humility, temperance, patience, and genuine compassion towards strangers are extremely rare as far as I can tell. Granted, my perception is probably skewed somewhat by the sort of media I have access to; I can never be sure, but IMO the evidence that human beings are inherently good would have to be overwhelming, before the evidence that they were not could be outweighed (it's one of those 2/11 ratio kinds of things; even if only a few of the M&Ms are poisoned, do you really want to grab a handful and take your chances?).

that's not what the data shows at all.........google is your friend. Study after study shows we are good, generally. And data about homicide rates, other violent and non-violent crimes, food we eat, how we eat, etc.......is clear. Humans tend to be good.

 

[Oofta]

Isn't there a more fundamental question or two? What purpose does good and evil serve in the game and why do we need evil monsters?

Personally I don't really care whether there is clear good and evil in the real world. There are no real world evil species that we know of. But I do think that evil monsters serve a purpose in a game if you want them to.

Want everything to be moral gray with no right or wrong? Go for it. Personally? I'd rather know that vampires are blood-sucking monsters that need to have a stake put through their heart. That the only reason they sparkle in the sun is because they're about to explode.

Because end of the day the world is stressful enough and as a player and DM I don't want to worry about whether monster X is really just misunderstood innocent defending their home.

Sometimes I just want to play a game where I'm the good guy kicking the ass of the bad guy and I play Doom. Most of the time I want my D&D game to be the same way. If I want moral quandaries it will come about because of opposing human/"non-monster" races goals and desires.

Is that realistic? Maybe not. It's a game, it doesn't need to be realistic.

 

[Envisioner]

I am unclear on how closely the Marvel Universe adhered to the Norse Eddas; certainly, I do not remember that time when Thor lost mjolnir and was replaced by the alien who was just as worthy as him, Beta Ray Bill, but I admit that others have a better recall of the Eddas than I do.

In the context of the MCU, the Eddas are a human description of the historical past; there was a time when Thor and company genuinely did visit Earth and left an impression on the humans of the time, and since then they've gone elsewhere in the universe and did other stuff which Earth never heard about until now. The MCU version of the Beta Ray Bill incident could easily have taken place in 1500 AD, 400 years removed from either of Thor's visits to Earth, so he just never mentioned it to anyone in Norway nor New Mexico. (And, of course, the MCU often varies from comics continuity anyway.)

The best explanation for this particular gaffe is that Heimdall never left Asgard back in the day, and the Asgardians who visited Earth specifically described Heimdall to Snorri Sturllson or whoever as being "the whitest of the gods" as some sort of practical joke. Though you would think pranking a guy who routinely watches the entire multiverse would be a risky business; maybe Loki had to perform this act under cover of illusion in order to get away with it.