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'.

 

[Olrox17]

You really can't see the difference?

Between the satanic panic and this? In both cases, I see people with strong beliefs, very determined to change global culture in accordance to what they think is right. I might personally agree with one movement's ideals more than the other, but that's irrelevant.
I want politics out of D&D, even politics I may potentially agree with.

Same card, IIRC. The Incite Prejudice card featured figures in pointed hoods, and stops the summoning of creatures whose color doesn't match a color of creatures you control. (so, not "destroys all black cards").

I've been over this with another poster. I agree with Incite Prejudice being banned.
My problem was with Cleanse being banned, a card that destroys "black" creatures, depicting an horde of demons and undead being fried. That's not a problematic card, unless you somehow make the jump that black mana is somehow connected to black people. Which is completely absurd, it's "black magic", we would call it necromancy in D&D. Nothing to do with race at all.

this is absolutely never, to any degree whatsoever, in any way related to people no knowing the difference between fictional races and real life peoples. Literally every single person understands that orcs aren't Black, Indigenous, Latin American, or any other group of real life people.

Other posters have said otherwise, in this very thread. A relevant poster said, and I quote:
"When you create a race that has too many points of similarity to how a group of real world people are also often depicted, then you do offend people".

So, there are people that disagree with you (and me) on this.

Now, that being said, the actual issue at hand is best exemplified by the orc discussion. The specific descriptions used in Volo's Guide uses the same language, ideas, and arguements that have been used against people of color for generations to justify their oppression. That is used to describe a people that the player might want to pretend to be. So, it is esseintally asking that player to roleplay being discriminated against justifiably, as if the terrible things people said about their people to dehumanize them were true. It's like asking them to roleplay a Black person in the Antebellum South and describing Black people in that setting using the terminology and ideas of the slave owners, rather than presenting Black people as fully realized people possessed of free will.

Not every nerd of color hates it, or agrees on it, but enough do that there is a public discussion about it, and wotc doesn't want to drive those individuals away from their game over it.

I just re-read Volo's chapter on orcs. I didn't see what you appear to see. If I really stretch it, I see a vague resemblance between orc customs and how some ancient pagan Germanic tribes lived. Or rather, how the contemporary Romans and Greeks described them from their perspective.

 

[Haffrung]

The following quotations are from the 1e AD&D Monster Manual:

"The skin of bugbears is light yellow to yellow brown — typically dull yellow."
"Hill giants have tan to reddish brown skins, brown to black hair, and red-rimmed eyes."
"There is a great resemblance between gnolls and hyenas."
"Goblins range from yellow through dull orange to brick red in skin color."
"The hairy hides of hobgoblins range from dark reddish-brown to gray black. Their faces are bright red-orange to red."
"The hide of kobolds runs from very dark rusty brown to a rusty black."
"The hide of ogres varies from dull blackish-brown to dead yellow. Rare specimens are a sickly violet in color."
"Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their coloration — brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen — highlights their pinkish snouts and ears."

"Elves are slim of build and pale complected."
"Dwarves are typically deep tan to light brown of skin, with ruddy cheeks and bright eyes (almost never blue)."
"Most gnomes are wood brown, a few range to gray brown, of skin. Their hair is medium to pure white, and their eyes are gray-blue to bright blue."

It can be seen that colours associated with real world non-white people are very common amongst evil humanoid races - yellow, red, brown, black. The least human-looking, the gnoll, resembles an African animal.

By contrast, elves are "pale", dwarves no darker than "light brown", and the "wood brown" gnomes have blue eyes.

Actually, my takeaway is that 90 per cent of the artists for D&D books never read those entries. When have you seen illustrations of hill giants with reddish-brown skin? Or dull orange goblins? Or ogres with blackish-brown skin? Or gnomes with wood brown skin? And contrary to the AD&D description, Dwarves are almost always depicted as having the complexion of Scots, rather than 'deep tan to light brown'.

But I'm not sure what you're hoping for. How much of the colour spectrum is available in the 'paler than Western Europeans' scale? Which skin colours do you think are under-represented in monsters?

 

[jasper]

I used this phrase tonight.

"The groups right to have fun outweighs your right to be a jackass".

CN Kender types that steal from PCs also fit in that.

There maybe be people out there who can't handle my PG13 with Swearing game but I can't guarantee I won't swear along with the rest so they're better off finding another game.

CN Kender types that steal from PCs also fit in that. There fixed it for you. No. Jasper loves kinder. Bake at 225 degrees for seven hours over an applewood coals.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Between the satanic panic and this? In both cases, I see people with strong beliefs, very determined to change global culture in accordance to what they think is right. I might personally agree with one movement's ideals more than the other, but that's irrelevant.
I want politics out of D&D, even politics I may potentially agree with.

But that's a nonsensical position, because there's no such thing as "politics" in the way you're describing them. You're simply taking a "fish doesn't know what water is" approach to politics. You assume that, because D&D, as you know it, largely conforms to the social norms of the society you've been living in, it's "not political". But that's not true. It may not be overtly political, but it still expresses a stance and an approach. What you're calling "politics" is essentially "change".

Comparing the satanic panic and people pushing for less racism is also a bit rich, frankly. If you can't see a difference that extends far beyond "I agree with one, but not the other", you're being very silly. The satanic panic wasn't about morality or behaviour, it was about belief in literally supernatural forces influencing people. Saying "Drow are deeply problematic" is a fundamentally different category of statement to "D&D makes people into satanists, and satanism gives people magical powers and opens the door to occult evil!".

 

[Umbran]

To be completely honest, I swear, I didn't know that word was a pejorative. I often read them calling themselves that way. If I knew it was considered a pejorative here I would not have used that word.

Mod Note:

When you join a site, it pays to read the Rules and Terms. It's all there.

This goes for everyone who created accounts for the purposes of posting in this thread. Learn the rules before you continue.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Which skin colours do you think are under-represented in monsters?

Purple.

I mean, if you squint, you can claim the Xvarts. But it's pretty slim pickings after that.

 

[Haffrung]

Grendel doesn't have to be born a monster for the story to be heroic fiction.

And I cna't speak for everyone, but my table has never had "defeat the monstrous 'other' that threatens the in-group" as part of the game. At all.

You've never had adventures where the PCs defeat a dragon (other) to defend the dwarven town (in-group)?

 

[Umbran]

Sweet Jesus, the campaign to make D&D as boring, ridiculous and emotion-free as possible continues apace.

... and other embarrassingly stupid crap.

Mental damned pablum.

Mod Note:

You create a new account just to be insulting to folks who prefer to do things differently than you? Please read the site Rules - linked at the bottom of every page. Abide by them - which generally entails showing a basic level of respect for everyone.

 

[auburn2]

A quick search on Google shows that racists love the Crusades (smiting darker people really is appealing to them, you know?), Sparta-by-way-of-300, Vikings (so much so that the new Kickstarter for the Beowulf RPG had to explicitly distance itself from them) and other stuff.

Racists love ice cream too, and vanilla ice cream is white, does that make ice cream a symbol of racism?

The crusades represent bigotry towards other religions and cultures specifically to Turks, Arabs and to Muslims in general. However Turks and Arabs are white and Muslim is not a race. Not all forms of bigotry constitute racism. The crusades are offensive and have no place in D&D but that does not make them "racist".

 

[Xenonnonex]

Purple.

I mean, if you squint, you can claim the Xvarts. But it's pretty slim pickings after that.

Drow. Can be purple. In official art.