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'.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

But I don't even think that argument is necessary here. I don't think the problem is that it's an intentional metaphor as much as that it perpetuates a theme: "those who look like us are the good guys; those who look different should be eradicated."

In this case I'm sorry but you need to put your monster manual to the garbage. Aside from jokes, I like very much the way the witcher solves the problem.
The author telling us that it is impossible for the witcher to kill intelligent beings, despite their looking or their behaviour against humans. In this moral rule there is a great wisdom: intelligent beings cannot be categorized as evil and so they cannot be a target acceptable for a witcher.
In the world of the witcher humans are good and evil, but humanity is destroying elves and the other races for merely resource control and demographic reasons. The Witcher is a very good example of a mature and modern way of resolving the moral conflict you are talking about.
In my campaigns I avoid carefully to stereotipize monsters and opponents. I try to give a depth even to goblins. And no, I don't like adventures in which my players have to kill without remorse the opponents. I put them against the doubt if what they are doing is ultimately good.
BUT
I try to respect those who see the drow black skin as a thing to correct as those who believes that Orcs are Afroamerican and want the -2 INT to be removed, but it makes me bleed from the ears, sincerely. There is somebody there that believes that the drow white hair is a sheer reference to the moral inferiority of old people? For me is the same.

 

[Guest 6801328]

those who believes that Orcs are Afroamerican

You keep coming back to statements like this. Who exactly is saying that orcs are meant to represent African-americans? Are you simply not understanding the argument, or are you intentionally misconstruing it?

 

[Zardnaar]

I get very tired of the smug assertion that people today are "more enlightened" than they were in the past. Look at all the slapfighting that happens on Twitter, and it should quickly become obvious that we're just as viciously tribalistic as we ever have been. The only thing which has really improved is that we've invented a bunch of useful tools that give us access to better solutions - and our inherent human weakness frequently results in us choosing not to make optimal use of these anyway.



Going by 3E lore since that's the only version I know, psionics is tied to all three mental ability scores depending on your chosen class. Orcs in 3E have penalties to both Intelligence and Charisma, so they can't be effective as psions, lurks, or wilders. But they are just as competent as humans at being ardents or psychic warriors, because those are based on Wisdom. (And very few races get a natural Wisdom bonus or penalty.)

Wasn't that long ago we killed 65 million people in a war.

Proportionally outside perhaps the Mongols our ancestors didn't pull that feat off.

There's just under 8 billion people in the world. Of which less than a billion live in live in a liberal democracy of which less than half would align with "enlightened" values.

Top 10 "nice" countries are basically Scandinavia, NZ, Australia and Canada, combined population not a lot.

 

[Olrox17]

the common theme of the evil bad guys having dark skins in 19th and 20th century fiction.

Wait, are you sure about that? In my experience, the overwhelming majority of villains in fiction are white. The tropey moustache twirling villain is a white guy with a top hat. Citation needed?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Wait, are you sure about that? In my experience, the overwhelming majority of villains in fiction are white. The tropey moustache twirling villain is a white guy with a top hat. Citation needed?

Inferior populations, not individual villains.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Wait, are you sure about that? In my experience, the overwhelming majority of villains in fiction are white. The tropey moustache twirling villain is a white guy with a top hat. Citation needed?

Perhaps if you take into account the relative races of the heroes, this would seem more clear.

If it is unclear, this may assist:

If 99% of heroes are white, and 75% of villains are white, is that an issue?

How much do you have to play with the numbers to make it an issue?

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

You keep coming back to statements like this. Who exactly is saying that orcs are meant to represent African-americans? Are you simply not understanding the argument, or are you intentionally misconstruing it?

Why remove -2INT from Orc race? Because it is not correct, in general terms, to describe a race as genetically less intelligent than other? In this case, it is not correct to describe a race as genetically different than others. It would be absurd. Want WoTC abandon the concept of race itself? No more elves, no more gnomes, dwarfs? Or wants to create a revision of the game in which the difference is only somatic, without reflection to the game mechanics? Help me understand and remember the language barrier (it's my fault, I know).

 

[Olrox17]

Inferior populations, not individual villains.

Right, right. Got it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Perhaps if you take into account the relative races of the heroes, this would seem more clear.

If it is unclear, this may assist:

If 99% of heroes are white, and 75% of villains are white, is that an issue?

How much do you have to play with the numbers to make it an issue?

I once got stopped in a roadblock checking for seatbelt use. (Yes, I'm serious.). I explained that I was two blocks from my house, and usually put on my seatbelt as I get on the parkway on-ramp that was one block further on. He said, "90% of accidents happen within a mile of home." I replied, "Sure, but what percentage of driving happens within a mile of the home?"

It didn't go over well. And I don't think he understood.

 

[TheSword]

You don't think that if you take all the humanoid races, and analyze three variables: how often they appear in RPGs, what they look like, and how good/evil they are, a pattern emerges?

Svirfneblin might be an example of dark-skinned good guys, but...really...is that enough to negate all the evidence pointing the other way?

(It would actually make a great data visualization, if I had the data.)

People keep defaulting to the assumption that skin colour is homogenous across races in the game.

Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and tieflings have all be depicted as having dark skin at the same time as being heroic and good. I’d go so far as to say it seems to be a key editorial decision in commissioning art in 5e.

I genuinely think you are barking up the wrong tree by saying that.

i used the examples not relating to skin colour but to make it clear that ‘Good‘ does not equal ‘Same‘. I could use any number of examples of good creatures in the MM. Those were just featured as major NPC communities in the last three campaigns I read.