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'.

 

[Haldrik]

Reading this thread, some things I am certain about, and some things I am hesitant about. Things I am certain about.

- Every creature that is a player character is a human who simply looks different.

- The word "race" has way too much reallife baggage and must errata away as soon as possible. Its promenance is bad optics for business.

- Each player needs core rules to customize their own concept of an ethnicity, to roleplay it in whatever way that it means to them personally.

- Ability bonuses should come from activities/nurture (class, background, experience, feat, skill), not racial superiority/nature (race, subrace).

 

[Helldritch]

Feel free to do that; but, well, remember this?
View attachment 122908
That history might not be so important. The current fanbase is skewed towards younger players who don't have that firsthand experience of the old days. The game is perfectly capable of changing to fit a wider market consisting primarily of that younger demographic, preserving continuity with its past while not being trapped and bound by it.

And that is a good thing. I still believe that the concept of evil races/species is a solid and valid trope. I don't mind people playing with good drows, orcs or whatever. I did it myself. I might even do it again as some players want to play in Eberron now that it has a 5ed book (One player wants to play an orc paladin of the silver flame, again...). My trouble is with people denying the right of others in playing in world with unredeemable evil races and claiming them to be racists or morally dubious if not downright amoral. I am not a racist and I think that I am a reasonable if not downright good man. In my games, I personally prefer a world where evil is evil and in which the gray comes into play relatively rarely.

Mass Effect says hello.

I did play Mass effect and Dragon age. And I still own them. They were good video games but I doubt I would play such an RPG.

What unimaginative world building.

My imagination is quite fine thank you. Do not confound a lack of imagination with a counscious decision taken a long time ago. My players prefer to play in such a way. So do I. Who are you to judge what we like?

This doesn't make any sense at all.

There's literally no logical or rational argument here at all! It does not follow that having multiple races requires "evil races". That's not an argument. Having evil people from every race is much more interesting and effective than having "evil races".

Let me be clearer. I (and my players) prefer a black and white view of the gaming world. This removes a lot of the moral quandaries that are associated with grey areas. Back in the days, this could lead to endless debates of what is good or not. We, as a player community (and that was about 200 people back then) decided to end these endless debates with a black and white view of the game for our public games (and often, our private games). With clearly evil races with clear and evident motives, spectators watching us at our game store (or new players ) are not shocked by the actions taken at the table.

Yes we do fight vilains that come from "good" races. More often than not, death is not the solution as the vilains are usually taken back to prison or to the authorities. This is where our grey areas are. Most of the time (if not all the time), evil is clearly evil. I hope that I make more sense to you now.

This suggests you really don’t understand the problem.

I do understand it. Way too much to my taste. Again, I do not apply real world to a game. It is looking beyond what is written and this is purely a personal point of view. You want to see it this way. It is not written, it is not implied in the text. But you can interpret it the way you do if you stretch it enough. I do not do such a thing.

Magic overrides biology. Succubi can have children with humans and I don't hear anyone claiming fiends are a sub-species of human.

I prefer species to race. I think heritage or culture is possibly even worse than race.

Fully agree with you on that.

 

[Kannik]

Largely, my problem with them is that absent the race-as-class of Classic D&D and class restrictions of AD&D, the ability score adjustments for nonhuman PCs are the only mechanical incentive reinforcing "stereotypical" race/class combinations... and they reinforce the wrong goddamned ones. If I never see another Dwarf Wizard or Druid in my entire lifetime, it'll be too soon...

Not to get too deep into the weeds about this in this thread, but if you want to enforce rigid stereotypes and tropes and present a gameworld view that your place, role, competencies, and expected outcomes in the world are governed primarily by factors of your birth, then I would still invite that ability score adjustments are the least interesting way in achieving this.

There are plenty of ways of creating meaningful distinctions between different ancestries or species that allow for cool and unique and flavourful differences in the way they perform something, providing extra capabilities and options. My current Star Wars game has each player being a different species with nary an attribute modifier in sight, yet with their distinct talents and abilities (or feats or stunts if that illustrates things better), backed up by the mechanics and with the accompanying RP, each species feels very different, and how the players go about things feels equally suited and in-line for their species and associated culture. Two PCs may be equally capable in melee combat from a strict hit/damage (ie, attribute) perspective, but how they approach it and the advantages they get in doing so both is distinct. It's great.

To put it in D&D terms, the unique bits for an ancestry (breath weapon for a Dragonborn, the resistance to poison for a Dwarf, etc) is far more exciting, interesting, and important to me in crafting a unique feel for each ancestry than a +2 modifier to something.

(And as a brief aside to rope in something else bubbling across the rest of the pages in this discussion -- who we know ourselves as a person and as a collective people are thoroughly governed by story: the story we know about ourselves, the story we tell about our community, the stories we speak of about the world. As such, the stories we make up and tell each other for entertainment absolutely has an impact on how we view, interact with, and treat the real world and others within it. They are not separate.)

 

[Warren Ellis]

Regarding drow, those drow that worship that daughter of Lolth, they're still around right?

 

[Umbran]

I don't want to negate the influence of subconscious in writing stories or creating worlds.

Nobody is asking you to do so. Honestly, in this discussion, nobody is asking you to do anything.

But, let's be clear - all stories are products of their times. Times are changing. Stories will change to match. If you stand still, they will simply go around you, and move on without you.

We can analyze with tranquillity every written fiction...

This seems to be a hyperbolic, slippery slope fallacy argument.

Nobody is asking for a single retroactive action. WotC is looking to make some changes going forward. Nobody is coming with a bottle of white-out for your books. You want to keep using the old concepts, you are free to do so. They will simply cease to be in the default presentation gong forward. Kind of like THAC0.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Drow have BIG PROBLEMS. I mean big. And it's not like people didn't see this coming. They totally did.

You can't even post a screenshot of Señor Chang on Community cosplaying as a drow for people who don't know what it is without grinding the conversation to a dead halt.

Things are slightly better in 5E in that they've moved them into the PHB, with the implicit message that they're not unplayable ridiculous villains.

But still, look at Chang. That is so bad that it's impossible to believe it hasn't kept some people from playing (and buying) D&D.

 

[Charlaquin]

Personally I think “people” is the best term as an alternative to race.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Personally I think “people” is the best term as an alternative to race.

The 3Eism "folk" also works, while being nicely Ye Olde Fantasy Speeche.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

.

 

[Warren Ellis]

.

Apparently you quoted me? Was it an answer to a post or question of mine?