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'.

 

[Flamestrike]

The Conan who learns new languages faster than your typical teenager learns new video games? That one?

Dragon Warriors (based on medieval Europe of the late Dark Ages) actually had the Barbarian class be MORE likely to be literate in multiple languages.

The rationale being that as wandering Barbarians, they are more likely to have interacted with multiple cultures, compared to say your average Knight (who tends to remain in one location, serving under a lord).

 

[Haldrik]

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.

Yeah.

The loss of "racial" ability score bonuses is painful for me.

Then again, the hassle and baggage that comes with word "race" is also painful for me.

I would like an ethically nonproblematic way to stat cultures. But is this possible?

Giants should be stronger. But to make them so spills into problems about ethnic groups elsewhere. I am unsure what the optimal solution is.

And if every individual is unique, then there is no culture, no shared identity. In other words, there is only one race. Homogeneity is also racism.

I dont have a solution at this moment.

 

[Envisioner]

My last post on this thread for today.

Babies aren’t taught empathy, they gain it naturally as their brain develops.

False, if you leave a baby in predator-free woods near a source of food and they grow up as a feral child, they will not be naturally empathic. Feral children have actually happened IRL so we know this with pretty much total certainty.

You are equating politics meant to uplift with politics meant to denigrate, without considering the motives of either. To enforce cultural hegemony and to challenge that hegemony are not equivalent acts. Wanting to create a more inclusive game and world is not equivalent to seeking to destroy that game out of misguided moral outrage and panic.

While trying to change is not the same as trying to destroy, that's as far as I agree with you. You are asserting the existence of a hegemony, which is an inherently aggressive political stance right off the bat; that's not drastically different from Christians asserting the existence of Satanic messages in D&D. You are trying to purge D&D of elements that you don't like; that's only marginally better than trying to destroy it completely. Thought-policing is a slippery slope; if you start taking out anything that a few people don't like, then less and less will be acceptable, and someday they'll come for something that you cared about, and there will be no one left to speak up on your behalf. Extremism is just as possible with a progressive stance as with a fascistic one.

I cannot respect a person with a different perspective if that perspective means that they find it acceptable that two men can be charged and convicted for the same crime by the same judge but receive wildly different sentences on account of the colour of their skin.

But you're assuming that it's ONLY due to the color of their skin, when in fact it is due to a number of factors that may to some extent correlate to skin color, but are by no means directly caused by it.

I cannot respect a person who condones mass annexation of land by an imperialist power and the subsequent exploitation of that land's indigenous people.

And what patch of land do you live on which was NEVER conquered militarily and its existing population subjugated by your ancestors? Pretty much every culture on Earth since the dawn of time has either done this or had it done to them, and before human cultures did it to each other, animal and plant and microbe species did it to each other. Evolution's a bitch; the strong eat the weak because it's better than starving.

Too many people are being failed by society because they don't fit in well enough, by no fault of their own.

Sometimes it isn't their fault, but sometimes it is, and they just claim that it isn't so that they can get free naughty word.

I don't want to play a game that reminds me of their struggle and does nothing to condemn their oppressors.

Then there are plenty of other ways that you can go spend your time. But don't try to ruin the fun of other people who don't see these injustices that you believe are everywhere around you.

This is a fact of our racist/ sexist/ homophobic world."

Again, you are asserting that the world is all of those things, when in fact a small handful of influential people are those things, and the rest of the world is sick of you tarring them with the same brush just because they happen to look similar. I did not enslave Africans, I did not deny women the vote, I did not engage in violent hate crimes against gays or trans or anyone else, stop throwing me under the bus along with the entire culture I was born into. Go get into political power and fix an actual top-level social problem, and stop complaining that the game I play for fun is wrong because I'm not reading into it to imagine every way it could possibly be perceived as evil and wrong.

 

[TheSword]

They were going for a historical 'North African Islamic Moors' vibe there. Pre Crusades, those guys were the few regions that avoided the collapse of the Dark ages, and retained Roman and Greek Maths, astronomy and more. The Crusaders were blown away by discoveries of Islamic scholars (in particular the use of the number zero, the works of Ptolemy, Pythagoras and more).

Surely in light of the 'race and intelligence' crap sprouted by White nationalist groups, you can see why attributing racial bonuses to intelligence based on culture or race to be highly problematic, and best avoided?

You know in forty years I've never heard White nationalists claim to be more intelligent... particularly when its objectively and obviously not true.

[Edit: Not saying they havent, just that I've never heard it as a credible argument]

I don't really see why you've fixated on the Intelligence stat for the Vos rather than Wisdom or Charisma. I just took that to mean they didnt have much in the way of formal education or academic learning which is how I tend to view the Intelligence stat. I've had many Int 9-10 characters I dont think I played any of them as morons. Just not as good at Int based skills and languages.

I don't see it as a problem for high elves, just that they spend a large amount of their time in contemplation and learning in order to earn their +1 Int for which they give up being more attuned to nature like a Wood Elf or a more forceful personality as a Drow. I don't see how that demeans any one else.

However, I can recognise that I'm not like to be the one who would have a problem with it. So its quite possible this is all going over my head.

 

[Olrox17]

You are equating politics meant to uplift with politics meant to denigrate, without considering the motives of either. To enforce cultural hegemony and to challenge that hegemony are not equivalent acts. Wanting to create a more inclusive game and world is not equivalent to seeking to destroy that game out of misguided moral outrage and panic.

I cannot respect a person with a different perspective if that perspective means that they find it acceptable that two men can be charged and convicted for the same crime by the same judge but receive wildly different sentences on account of the colour of their skin. I cannot respect a person who finds it acceptable that a woman can be denied medical care and left to die by hospital staff because their gender expression does not match their assigned gender at birth. I cannot respect a person who finds it acceptable that a group of police officers can invade a home without a warrant based on faulty intel and shoot an innocent sleeping woman dead, and then all walk free without facing criminal charges. I cannot respect a person who condones mass annexation of land by an imperialist power and the subsequent exploitation of that land's indigenous people.

The pattern here is that I cannot respect "different perspectives" that abet or perpetuate systemic injustice. Too many people are being failed by society because they don't fit in well enough, by no fault of their own. Something has to change. To declare oneself "apolitical" means to turn a blind eye to all this. Some people have enough social cachet that they can do so successfully and not be affected by these systemic problems. Some people are less privileged and find the world's evils knocking on their door no matter how hard they try to ignore them.

It's not about the monsters themselves. It's that the monsters are being used as part of a story that echoes real life colonialism and imperialism, and justifies itself by painting the monsters as, well, monsters. The story seeks to exalt the imperialist by denigrating their victims as something worth less respect and dignity than a "proper human". Many BIPOC people, particularly people of African, American Indigenous, and Oceanic Indigenous descent have faced similar denigration. I don't want to play a game that reminds me of their struggle and does nothing to condemn their oppressors. To quote one of my sources that I previously posted in thread: "You have to understand that language that minimises the humanity of another is one of the most common tools of bigots who seek to justify their actions by treating the oppressed group as “less than.” This is a fact of our racist/ sexist/ homophobic world."

It's perfectly possible to build a fantasy world with many different sapient species coexisting without relying on the colonialist tropes of conquest and plundering. Because to BIPOC people who play games, games that rely on those old and tired tropes serve as an unwelcome reminder of the real life injustices that their ancestors faced and that they themselves might be facing today.

Yes, very well. You're clearly very passionate about your political ideals. Good for you, and I mean it unironically.

Let me share with you another possible problem with your logic, though.
You cannot respect some different perspectives, specifically those perspectives that perpetuate what you define as injustice. Here's the thing: what you define as injustice, is incredibly prevalent and common outside of the western world.
If you think America is bad, you must realize that 90% of the rest of the world is actually worse according to your moral standards. I'm sure I don't need to go into the details here, but there are places outside the US where VERY BAD things happen on a daily basis. Like killing people because of their sexual preference, or having laws against that.

So what's your opinion of those unjust countries, and of the people that live in there and live by those unjust rules? Your answer is very important, because depending on it, you might end up realizing you aren't that different than those colonizers you criticize.

 

[Flamestrike]

This isn't a hard question to answer. Xenomorphs are not evil.

Its a tough one for them. Some depictions certainly seem to see them act unnecessarily cruelly in hunting, killing and reproducing.

I think they go beyond mere animalistic tendencies also because of their design as a bioweapon. They certainly seem to engage in deliberate acts of terror or cruelty from time to time (although thats probably artistic silence). Taking time in killing prey by approaching slower than usual for no real reason, or the whole thing with the tail spike between the legs in the first movie (rather than just straight up rip and tear).

It's tough to place their alignment. Unaligned (evil tendencies) would be my best guess.

They're not far off Zombies or non intelligent undead. Evil alignments because they kill and eat babies, not because of any actual choice they get in the act.

 

[Haldrik]

There could be other reasons the group is full of wizards.

Maybe they live near a powerful magical resource that makes it easier for them to work magic.

Maybe they're the inheritors of a powerful magical legacy and their society is built to capitalize on magic.

Maybe they don't have access to good quality resources to pursue another path and magic is all they've got.

Maybe their religion is centered around a magical figure who wants their followers to embrace magic as well.

In recent editions of D&D, elves and dwarves aren't better with certain weapons, but they all have access to them so you'll see a dwarf wizard (what, they exist) with an axe, even though they're not technically better at using an axe than a proficient human.

If you wanted to encourage wizard player characters to be elves, you can use other incentives other than saying they're just inherently better. (Let the elves make that argument, since you know they will.)

Maybe elves don't need a magical focus or spell component, so it's easier for them to be wizards.

Maybe, as long as they're in elf-controlled territory, they can recover their spells after a short rest. (Lordy, stay out of Lothlorien!)

Maybe every elf with a level of wizard automatically starts with double the starting cash, because someone is giving out wizard scholarships.

Stat bonuses aren't necessary, even if they're fun for the optimizers to play with.

Yeah, but if this group has been Wizards for centuries, they will select for Intelligence, as part of adaptation. Their kids will be raised with valuing Intelligence and developing it.

Not only that, they are Wizards! They will use magic to improve their Intelligence, and use magic to boost the Intelligence of their kids, like tiger moms to give them the best opportunity possible to succeed at wizardry.

It is impossible for an ethnic group of Wizards to have low Intelligence.

Conversely, a race that accidentally has high Intelligence will tend select for Wizardry, because its power is advantageous to the survival of the community.



The above is why I LIKE ability bonuses.

The problem is reallife implications and the lampshades being too transparent.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I don't think a lot of people want a great deal of energy spent on sex in-game. I'm not sure how many people really want to. The fact that we can count the number of D&D books that directly address the issue on the fingers of one hand suggests the market isn't there. If there were a huge untapped demand, those products would sell like gangbusters and more would have followed.

I agree, and I probably am less interested than most in exploring it. I cringe at the whole "Is the barmaid hot?" and "I want to roll to seduce the handmaiden" portion of adventures because, to me, its kind of gross for two middle aged gentlemen to be role or roll playing that out.

I'm not saying nobody should do it, i'm saying that I don't like it.

 

[Flamestrike]

I don't see it as a problem for high elves, just that they spend a large amount of their time in contemplation and learning. I don't see how that demeans any one else.

Elves are different species without a clear real world analogy (putting aside Arayan comparisons) so that is less problematic to me.

My issue with Birthright is that not only are the ethnic groups/ cultures human and relatively homogeneous, they are then given inherent traits and stat mods, but that theyre also directly and expressly modelled after actual real world human ethnicities.

When you do that, and start labelling those [not real world but basically real world] cultures as 'barbaric, stupid and evil' you run into some pretty serious problems.

Can you imagine if they had have included a [East Asian but not really] peoples, who were 'disciplined and good at math'? Or a [Semitic peoples but not really] who 'worshipped a God of Commerce and were good with money?'

Its basically the same thing, and its clearly something to be avoided.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

You are equating politics meant to uplift with politics meant to denigrate, without considering the motives of either. To enforce cultural hegemony and to challenge that hegemony are not equivalent acts. Wanting to create a more inclusive game and world is not equivalent to seeking to destroy that game out of misguided moral outrage and panic.

I cannot respect a person with a different perspective if that perspective means that they find it acceptable that two men can be charged and convicted for the same crime by the same judge but receive wildly different sentences on account of the colour of their skin. I cannot respect a person who finds it acceptable that a woman can be denied medical care and left to die by hospital staff because their gender expression does not match their assigned gender at birth. I cannot respect a person who finds it acceptable that a group of police officers can invade a home without a warrant based on faulty intel and shoot an innocent sleeping woman dead, and then all walk free without facing criminal charges. I cannot respect a person who condones mass annexation of land by an imperialist power and the subsequent exploitation of that land's indigenous people.

The pattern here is that I cannot respect "different perspectives" that abet or perpetuate systemic injustice. Too many people are being failed by society because they don't fit in well enough, by no fault of their own. Something has to change. To declare oneself "apolitical" means to turn a blind eye to all this. Some people have enough social cachet that they can do so successfully and not be affected by these systemic problems. Some people are less privileged and find the world's evils knocking on their door no matter how hard they try to ignore them.

I totally support this.

It's not about the monsters themselves. It's that the monsters are being used as part of a story that echoes real life colonialism and imperialism, and justifies itself by painting the monsters as, well, monsters. The story seeks to exalt the imperialist by denigrating their victims as something worth less respect and dignity than a "proper human". Many BIPOC people, particularly people of African, American Indigenous, and Oceanic Indigenous descent have faced similar denigration. I don't want to play a game that reminds me of their struggle and does nothing to condemn their oppressors. To quote one of my sources that I previously posted in thread: "You have to understand that language that minimises the humanity of another is one of the most common tools of bigots who seek to justify their actions by treating the oppressed group as “less than.” This is a fact of our racist/ sexist/ homophobic world."

It's perfectly possible to build a fantasy world with many different sapient species coexisting without relying on the colonialist tropes of conquest and plundering. Because to BIPOC people who play games, games that rely on those old and tired tropes serve as an unwelcome reminder of the real life injustices that their ancestors faced and that they themselves might be facing today.

This, on the other hand, is just bad/wrong fun: woke edition.

I'd rather remove all the other humanoid races from my setting and play human vs. demons/humans vs. zombies/humans vs. plants than having to remove any conflict that hurts modern sensibilities, until the game is devoid of any really threatening situations because, you know, people already face enough suffering in real life. This coming from a DM that keeps (and has kept) his campaigns PG 13+ for most of his life.