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'.

 

[Envisioner]

Elves have a base lifespan of roughly a thousand years, and they never sleep. They're not human. Period.

 

[Dire Bare]

And black people frequently commit crimes; that's a simple statistical fact. Knowing whether they have an inherent "tendency" to do it, or are doing it for legitimate reasons (eg lack of other ways to escape poverty) which can be addressed through social policy, is kind of important. (For the record, I do think the truth is mostly the latter, so don't try and accuse me of arguing in favor of the "inherent" view. You can acknowledge the possibility that a thing might be true without endorsing the belief that it is.)

If it's offensive to some people in real life to say that orcs have an inherent tendency for evil (because those people for some reason conflate "orcs" with "black people"), then it's almost equally offensive to just say that orcs "frequently" choose evil when they had other choices. It's almost more sympathetic to say that it's in their blood and they can't help it, rather than to just say that they often make the wrong choice of their own free will. The latter makes them a race of unrepentant dicks; the former at least leaves open the possibility that their inherent tendencies could be cured through some sort of medicine or divine intervention or something.

Oh my god, no it's not. That idea that black people commit more crimes statistically than other groups is a myth not actually supported by intelligent analysis of statistics, a very racist myth. Not calling you out as racist yourself, but drop that idea from your head.

 

[Zaukrie]

You're right, we probably agree more than we disagree. It's a tough conversation within our community, and even with ourselves as individuals. Then add on the difficulty of internet forum conversation . . . . . but it's a good conversation to have, if hard.

I did misunderstand your post, and I apologize.

We do tend to conflate the term "race" with "species" in D&D . . . . but that is part of the problem. IRL, humans are the only intelligent, sapient species we've (knowingly) stumbled across. Mythic stories of elves, dwarves, and trolls spring from how ancient peoples tried to make sense out of their environment, nature, and . . . . other differing tribal groups. Our fantasy concept of elves and orcs (etc) very much spring from how we view other cultures and ethnicities IRL . . . . and a lot of that is racist (if unintentionally so) and carried over into the game.

Are elves a different species all together from humans? That's debatable, both in terms of "fantasy evolution" and in how the races interact and view each other in-universe, and how we view them from a meta-perspective.

Even with mechanical differences, the complaint that elves are just sexy humans with pointy ears is a not uncommon complaint! So what really differentiates elves from humans in your campaign? A +2 to dexterity and a +1 to intelligence? I would argue that defining a strong elven culture makes the elves in my campaign truly different from their human neighbors, regardless if I use stat adjustments at character creation.

And, most of us aren't talking about removing all mechanical game differences from the fantasy races leaving only descriptions of culture and ethnicity. Of course that begs the question, where do we draw that line? Which mechanical differences are okay and which are not? I'm still wrestling with that one myself, I don't have an answer for it yet. I'm definitely becoming less and less a fan of stat adjustments based on race. We've already ditched them for gender, let's keep going!

no need to apologize, but I appreciate it. It is hard to be clear on the internet sometimes.....and it was my posting that needed clarifying.

 

[Envisioner]

Oh my god, no it's not. That idea that black people commit more crimes statistically than other groups is a myth not actually supported by intelligent analysis of statistics, a very racist myth. Not calling you out as racist yourself, but drop that idea from your head.

I did not say "more frequent", I just said "frequent". It might well simply be a question of urban population density, since a larger proportion of POC live in urban areas. I made no statement or speculation about causation, I'm simply talking about number of incidents full stop.

 

[billd91]

Its quite rare that I say this but you are just wrong on pretty much every count here.

Culture is about ideas, customs, values and social behaviour. It is totally independent of ethnicity - though some ethnicities may have specific cultures.

No - that's really not true at all. There are some ethnicities that are defined separately from culture while others aren't. Ultimately, that just enhances the evidence that ethnicities are fundamentally social constructions.

 

[Haldrik]

As a gay man, with at least one of my weekly groups being composed entirely of gay men and women I'm pretty comfortable with the inclusion of a gay NPC in every campaign.

There are dozens of NPCs in every book that arent determined either way and you are free to bump up the numbers to something more representational if you want.

The problem is, these gay characters are completely invisible unless they are kissing each other in front of the adventuring party.

There needs to be more ways to make gay characters visible − such as two kings running a realm together.

Maybe marriage rings are worn on a different finger if a samesex couple?

Sheer visibility during a game.

As it is now, the assumption that all D&D characters are straight is totalitarian.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I didn’t read the whole thread, but I’m going to say this.
I’m not American. I don’t like when current American political debate ends up interfering with the game. I didn’t like it with the satanic panic, I don’t like it now.
Please, let fantasy be fantasy.

All art is created in the context of its times.

Even "apolitical" art is inherently political, by choosing to be intentionally retrograde in its views.

 

[Envisioner]

Personally I have never even heard of that stereotype. I think you might be projecting just a little there Haldrik.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

You are wishing for characters in D&D world to have gender dysphoria, when D&D world does not have the medical technology to be capable of performing SRS and HRT? (Sure, you might be able to track down a high-level druid who can cast Polymorph Other on you to permanently change you into your preferred gender, but that's going to be a lot more uncommon an outcome than in our reality.) Why do you want your characters to suffer?

Real quick, this has been bugging me: Does anywhere in D&D explicitly state that the technology to perform a gender reassignment operation doesn't exist? I know that in our world, we use specific tools to accomplish this and while those specific tools may not be found in, say, Greyhawk or FR due to the lack of electricity, I didnt know that the ability to have a gender reassignment surgery was outside of the possibility in D&D. Can anyone verify that for me? It just seems odd to me that we would hinge our idea of whats possible based on a list of items in the PHB

 

[Envisioner]

All art is created in the context of its times.

Even "apolitical" art is inherently political, by choosing to be intentionally retrograde in its views.

A person can paint a picture they think is pretty, without making any sort of political statement whatsoever. Maybe you should stop overanalyzing everything, looking for super-subtle hidden symbolism when there probably isn't any. We don't live in "The DaVinci Code". Let people make the art that they want to make.