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'.

 

[TheSword]

• Grugach Elf +1 Strength
• Half-Orc +1 Strength

I had no problem with this ... until I read this thread.

Now I cannot unsee the racial predeterminism − and its fantasy racism.

To escape the racism:

• Grugach (Barbarian +1 Strength)
• Half-Orc (Barbarian +1 Strength)

• Grugach (Rogue +1 Dexterity)
• Half-Orc (Rogue +1 Dexterity)

And so on.



Now say there is a wilderness region where a roaming clans of Grugach and Orcs prevail. There can even be Grugach Orc cooperative communities that share much in common. But at the same time, I might want to distinguish the more traditional communities from each other. Traditional Grugach tend to live near trees and leaping acrobatically across branches as Rogues (Dexterity) and whose spiritual leaders are Druids (Wisdom), while Orcs tend to be in the open plain chasing herds (Barbarian Constitution) whose spiritual leaders are Shamans (Bards Charisma).

In his case why attach a modifier at all? Just increase stat points, or not as points buy is a balance thing and that is relative mechanic.

Again I don’t have a problem with fantasy creatures being culturally and physiologically different, So I’m all for stat bonuses. I’m just interested what the point of generic bonuses are if they are the same for every race in the game?

 

[Todd Roybark]

Racists don’t get to own history. They can twist it however they like but they only win if you wash your hands and let them have it.

The Cleric and the Paladin are partly based on crusading knights Hospitler and Templar.

I agree..but MtG is not history. Neither is the D&D Paladin nor Cleric.
Remember Constantinople during the Crusade lead by Richard the LionHearted was a christian city, and part of Byzantium.

It was not sacked out of Paladin-like moral concern, it was a target of opportunity, for plunder.

As a matter of history I have great respect for the early Latin church interpretation of Poverty to mean not having a standing army. It was a position of extreme Non- Violence.
Material Wealth and widespread coinage just was not a thing in those early 3 digit AD days.

The Latin church ended that with the Crusades and the creation of the martial clerical orders.

So, The Crusades great for D&D Classes.

Not so great, for maintaining an ethical position of Non-Violence, in the Latin church.

That is, of course, just my hot take on history.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Gnomes are a magic race.

As a decade-plus as a gnome player, I have to correct you: They are the magic race, thank you.

 

[Zardnaar]

Was it Villains and Vigilantes that had the really detailed formulas for how much someone could lift based on weight and strength and the like?

Given all the other fudging we do for playability, I'm not sure I care if a gnome that goes all out in strength is as strong as a half-orc or dragonborn that doesn't, no matter what physics would say. But it does feel wrong to me that a half-orc that goes all out and picked the race so they could be a tank, isn't one anymore than the standard D&D gnome (where super strength isn't part of their magical nature). Now if it's a world where gnomes as a species can do anything, cuz magic, then that's fine, but then I'd expect that to be in the description of the default world.

The +1 bonus feels enough to let the min-maxer of the race who has it get that extra edge, but not so much that it makes the other races not almost as good as most other races would be in that class.

Yes. Not relevant, though. No Internet points awarded.

Greeks had slaves, so did Vikings.

Viking religion is popular with neo Nazis.

 

[Mecheon]

a halfling can never be as strong as a Minotaur, as the other is much bigger and it is physically better and geared to it.

Hugo Strongfoot, Halfling weightlifting champion, could easily have more strength than Clarence Greyhoof, minotaur city planner

(City planners being of dire importance to minotaurs given their preference to labyrinthine places to live)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Greeks had slaves, so did Vikings.

Viking religion is popular with neo Nazis.

Yes, and I explicitly said that they don't get to claim all of that for themselves.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm wondering if a bunch of folks asked Maro and the others if it was possible to ban problematic cards like Invoke Prejudice. (I know at least one person did, but I'm guessing they didn't put it all together and decide to ban them the next day).

It's corporate.
It takes a few days to manufacture a distraction. Corporate isn't as quick as TV protrays them.

 

[Haldrik]

In his case why attach a modifier at all? Just increase stat points, or not as points buy is a balance thing and that is relative mechanic.

Again I don’t have a problem with fantasy creatures being culturally and physiologically different, So I’m all for stat bonuses. I’m just interested what the point of generic bonuses are if they are the same for every race in the game?

Fair question.

I dislike number-porn anyway. Maybe just using the scores generated or bought at character creation − and advancing scores while leveling is fine. If your concept of Elf is dexterous, invest in Dexterity.

I will think more on it.

It makes a WotC solution simpler. Remove racist ability score adjustments. Maybe mention "typical" classes and skills. Done.



Originally, it was important to me, to make Nonhuman races "superhuman" for the sake of the flavor of otherworldly magical races.

But now that word "races" with all of its baggage just seems not worth it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Greeks had slaves, so did Vikings.

Viking religion is popular with neo Nazis.

I think a lot of people don’t realize just how popular anything Viking related is with neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups. Especially in America, most Viking reenactment and similar hobbyist groups have at least some white supremacist presence. When the museum I work at had a temporary Vikings exhibit open a few years back, all of us working in the exhibit had to be prepared for what to do if guests started trying to steer the conversation towards the subject of “racial purity” or the like. Almost all of us had at least one experience with a guest like this, some had several.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'm not advocating for or against the Crusade card. I can see the arguments for and against that.

Urriak stated that it's obvious the card should be banned because it's a symbol for white supremacists (which I've never once heard but let's go with it as being true). If it's true that it should be banned because of it being a white supremacy symbol, should we also then ban things that are even more strongly with white supremacists groups...like the cross itself or the swastika?

I ask this because a very big divide in the computer game world is the use of the swastika in historical based WW2 games. In America you can design, let's say a flight simulator, and have historically accurate markings on the planes. In Germany you cannot because of the symbol being banned.

So I am asking Urriak (or anyone that wants to respond) if they support a similar move with respect to crosses or swastikas vis-a-vis removing them from game art?

Yeah sure I'll respond. I don't think you need to ban swastikas from games about WW2; it's kind of integral to how the game is; remove them and replace it with something else, everyone should still recognize who the Nazis are so there's not much point. Plus in most games the Nazis are made as the villains, if there is a campaign or story.

I own a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2, where you can encounter KKK members. I don't think there is any option to befriend them, and they are very antagonistic. It's kind of assumed you'll get into conflict, and the KKK members are portrayed as stupid and cruel.

I find these examples very different from the MtG cards for two reasons;

1. There is no context in these cards that they are morally repugnant. The crusade card shows the crusaders triumphant; they are clean, pure and white without stains, the burning far off so you don't see the death. They are in effect treated as conquering heroes. It's not really an accurate depiction of the crusades at all. But we don't see what the crusaders did, so don't know whether they just fought a battle (where they should be dirty) or just massacred people (the burning is too far off).

2. These cards are not integral to MtG. I am utterly confused when people say that the crusades are a "part of history," so shouldn't be banned. MtG isn't a historically accurate card game, it's called MAGIC the Gathering. Removing the cards doesn't really affect gameplay of MtG, or its lore or anything really. This makes it very distinct from a game about WW2 which will obviously have a lot of Nazis.