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]

I've always thought the same, why did they chose the term "race" in the first place?

Probably because that was the word that Tolkien used, and D&D mostly started out as a giant LOTR fanfiction. (Remember when the halflings were literally called Hobbits in print? Good times.)

 

[Flamestrike]

No, I really don't. This is a party line that several cultures used to justify their imperialism; in real life it is a myth, but in Birthright's setting it's factually true.

Its also 'factually true' In RaHoWa.

See the problem yet?

 

[Envisioner]

What's rahowa?

 

[billd91]

Incorrect. There is extensive medical data indicating that there are significant, but small, differences among the races, mostly in terms of reactions to certain medications. Doctors account for race because it does have an actual measurable effect. That doesn't mean that they treat some races better than others, just that they have to have specific treatment based on what race the person is, in order to have the proper curative effect. Melanin is a biological compound, levels of it have measurable effect, and it is genetically connected to certain other biochemical changes. There's no judgment in that, it's just a fact.

They may or may not take race into account - that's one of the reasons there's a lot of criticism of US health care among African-Americans. There's a history of treating Black people differently for really poor reasons, and not for appropriate reasons. But that's still thin evidence for suggesting that there are distinct races beyond what is socially constructed.

There are a variety of genetic differences that show up among certain communities that tend to follow racial or ethnic lines that can affect the prevalence of various diseases, vulnerability to diseases, efficacy of medications, and so on. But as diversity spreads and traditional racial and ethnic groups mix and blend in modern, mobile society, those variations can be expected to diffuse and individualize and approaches to medicine will have to follow suit. But ultimately, those racial differences are all relatively minor variations, legacies of ancestors living in specific geographic conditions and climes - and not the socially devised racial hierarchies, pseudo-science, and assumptions that have plagued human existence for the last several centuries.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

It seems pretty simple to me: in the 6e MM, throw in some evil human bandits, dwarf mercenaries, elf necromancers, etc. Then the orc raiders won't stand out.

The MM gnolls could be "demon-touched gnolls" (ditto the large minotaurs), and they could be fiends. Sure in some places all the gnolls are demon-touched.

 

[Haldrik]

Honestly, with NPCs we encounter, I am more concerned about whether the individual is someone I can trust, isn't lying to me, and who won't try to kill my PC when they get the chance, than whether that NPC is gay or not.

So then you have no problem if the NPC and his boyfriend are together, running their inn.

 

[Dire Bare]

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.

Culture is a large part of ethnicity, and culture is, well, a cultural construct. But ethnicities do have physical differences, albeit minor without clear demarcation between groups. There are differences in skin color, hair, eyes, body shape, predisposition to certain medical conditions . . . . but all of that is pretty minor stuff really, we all have way more in common that we have in difference.

EDIT: In looking at some of your other responses, I think we agree more than we disagree on the terms race, culture, and ethnicity.

 

[commandercrud]

D&D isn't real life and real life doesn't have to be reflected in D&D.

 

[Zarithar]

I say just use "species" instead of "race" and you solve many of the problems. Vistani are clearly modeled after the Roma people - but it definitely does fit in with the lore of the Ravenloft setting. I'm not Roma myself, so can't say for sure - but D&D human cultures are all modeled to some extent or another after real human cultures, so I am wondering why Vistani would be any more problematic than Sembians or Thayans. FR, like many fantasy settings (Golarion jumps to mind) are clearly drawing from real world cultural analogues. The older editions sometimes referred to the Vistani as gypsies, which has at least been removed as a descriptor (yes I also agree that Pradesh Gypsies in MTG needed to go).

Side note on gnolls - I hate the way 5e gnolls were changed lore-wise from 4e. I much prefer their portrayal in Eberron and previous editions as a humanoid race which lean towards evil and chaos, but are capable of free thought and going against type (playable gnolls).

 

[Cadence]

There are several places above where shifting attributes and/or skills from race to heritage and/or culture has been recommended. Does that fix anything? WotC justifying their lack of representativeness on staff being due to differences in heritage or culture (and not race!) doesn't seem like it would help...

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My own current vote would be to avoid giving humanoids mental attribute modifiers, and to make the mental attribute modifiers and skills based on the individual's particular immediate background. For actual different species, the physical attribute differences and thing like dark vision sometimes seem like they follow pretty well from from basic physics in some cases (Half-orc and Dragonborn vs. Halfling). The ones in the sub-races not so much. Those seem like more immediate background things or variation due to parts of the characters personal background in the story. (I'm not sure how you balance Gnomes then).

A Dwarf raised by elves probably doesn't have Dwarven combat training or tool proficiency, might have Elf weapon training, wouldn't have Fey ancestry or trance, but would have a constitution bonus, darkvision and stone cunning. They might choose to put a mental modifier point on Int or Wis based on how much they idolized (or hated) what their adoptive parents specialized in.

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I kind of want Goblinoids to be separate from Humanoids now.