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'.

 

[Xenonnonex]

As much as I like Eberron, it is WAY too weird to make a good core world.

Odd way to spell awesome.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Not only is that a strawman of the highest order (no one is proposing anything of the sort), it also clearly serves to highlight your own personal political leanings (in case this wasnt already clear from earlier posts).

I will not be engaging with you further on this topic, and I wish you all the best in coming to terms with those views.

My favorite was when they tried to argue about what doctors need race for (nope), when they claimed Babylonians were ammoral farmers with no policitical beliefs, and when they claimed that because D&D doesnt explicitly list gender reassignment surgery in their list of possibilities with a medicine check that Trans should be left out of the game because it's cruel otherwise. Like they are doing the game a favor. Jeeze.

Sorry I know that we need to walk back from a ledge here, but I mean....seriously. There's a pattern here.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

You never meet a married couple? Not even the King and Queen? A couple who run an inn? Somebody’s parents?

Married, yes...but their actual sexuality is never explored. I have even had same (or undefined)-sex marriages.

Like how Renly Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell were "married" but weren't necessarily having sexy time with each other.

 

[Flamestrike]

Regarding your poorly linked analogy with Hitler. The Anuireans never invaded Vosgaard.

Yes they did. Im pretty sure in the Novel 'the Iron Throne' Michael Roele (the last emperor of the Anuirian Reich... I mean 'empire') invaded Vosgaard.

After marching eastward into not Russia and encountering initial stunning successes, the wise, noble and civilised not Germans were pushed back to the West by the barbaric, evil and stupid not Russians, with the invasion largely foiled by the harsh not Russian winter.

No real world analogy there I can think of.

 

[Dire Bare]

FWIW, Gnolls were worshipping Demogorgon as a god all the way back in AD&D. So that demonic link has deeeeep roots.

Yeah, gnolls being demon-worshipers goes back to the early days of the game. I don't think that was really emphasized as a major defining trait until 3rd Edition, particularly with the Chainmail miniatures game. Gnolls became demon-summoners and some of them became half-demons, they really began to make the Yeenoghu-worship a huge part of gnoll identity. But I don't think it was until 5th Edition that gnolls themselves were made into demonic creatures spawning from hyenas under Yeenoghu's influence. In core D&D today, gnolls practically are demons. Well, other than in Eberron.

How demonic gnolls are has undergone quite a bit of evolution over the decades.

 

[Haldrik]

Giving a +1 Intelligence to a white race, is no different to giving a -1 penalty to the others and leaving the white race as standard. The end result is the white race is smarter.

Upto now, I want the D&D Nonhuman races to have ability bonuses. Because I want them to optimize with some classes and not others, because I want these classes to inform their cultures.

Because I want diverse cultures. That make sense. That are coherent. Race of Wizards should have higher Intelligence. A race of Non-Strength Elves should NOT be wielding longswords.



But maybe the statting of races is just too informed by reallife cultures.

Maybe statting ethnic groups is just not worth it − ethically.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Best terminology to use -> Call them all meatbags.

 

[TheSword]

And thats my problem with Birthright! The authors based the game cultures on real world cultures, then applied common real world stereotypes to those races and cultures.

Imagine being a Black guy, and you sit down at a table to play a Black hero from whatever the 'fantasy not Africa' exists in that game world, and your DM tells you that the 'fantasy not African people' have an 'inherent +1 to Strength, -1 to Intelligence and +5' movement speed, and your favoured class in Barbarian', based on that choice.

What is the author of that game telling you about their views on black people, African culture, and relative intelligence between the races?

Now imagine being a guy of Russian background that sits down at a table to play BIrthright and gets the same thing applying to him, because he wants to play a race and culture modelled after his own historical race and culture.

The 'fantasy not slavic peoples' of the Vos are 'barbaric, stupid and evil.' What is the author saying about the Slavic peoples they were expressly modelled on here? What real world stereotypes are being applied here?

Giving a +1 Intelligence to a white race, is no different to giving a -1 penalty to the others and leaving the white race as standard. The end result is the white race is smarter.

I'm going to ignore some of the weirder suggestions that are posted by others on here. Please don't think I sympathise with some of them.

Ironically the only culture in Anuire that gets +1 Intelligence is the one that isnt white caucasian.

I'm not defending negative modifiers in gaming. I have said in pretty much every post that I have made that negative modifiers have no place. However positive modifiers exist in every version of the game and I don't see that as a problem.

It is not a problem for me to recognise that a culture that puts a high value on learning and education should find it slightly easier to raise intelligence to its highest point.

Neither is it a problem to recognise that a warlike culture would be find it slightly easier to be better at fighting.

This is seen in many many games - including Seven Seas that also mimics real world cultures.

Varying benefits depending on culture is pretty much one of the key differentating features of the many excellent Civilisation games that have never struck me as particularly problematic, in fact I think it was fairly lauded as an educational and engaging series.

 

[Haldrik]

ALL ART IS POLITICAL

I would nuance it.

All art is self expression.

And politics is part of who each self is.

 

[Zaukrie]

The cultural advisor mentioned way up thread has a great point about that......there are some things that are not inherently wrong, but bad people did bad things with those, and now we can't really do them anymore. It is an interesting point, imo, that an action may not be inherently wrong, but become wrong over time due to people acting badly. Perhaps ability score adjustments are like that.....as Haldrik states.