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'.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Independent of the real world, ime no one has played D&D "straight" with intrinsically evil races as a constant for decades. The game written to accommodate making your own world as morally and culturally diverse for the many species within is a good thing.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If the rule changed tomorrow that said "humanoid means having free will to choose alignment" I'd consider my options. Ignore it (most likely), change orcs to fiendish, get rid of orcs in my campaign. [edit: because they would no longer serve a real purpose and there are already too many humanoid species running around for my taste.]

"Humanoid" would be a very poor descriptor for "free-willed being". The common meaning of the word is "shaped like a human". I have already enough difficulties explaining players that they can't cast Suggestion on a mind flayer or a shield guardian despite both of them having a head, two arms and two legs. I don't want to have to explaing that orcs are not humanoids because they lack free will. "Playable" would be a better term, because I am not sure it would be interested to roleplay a being lacking free will. It would let elve and dwarves be "humans with pointy ears" and "humans with beards" as they are usually portrayed at my table (and selected mostly because darkvision) and still have everything else unchanged, including orcs being born evil because their god created them as such. I also agree that evil intelligent being serve a purpose : being intelligent (strategy, fun combat, yay!) and irremediately evil and having no rights (so you can kill them, fun combat, yay!)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Independent of the real world, ime no one has played D&D "straight" with intrinsically evil races as a constant for decades.

Um, I think that the existence and popularity of retroclones, OSR, and various revivals, including but not limited to the re-use of old material with Goodman Games and even WoTC might mean that there are probably some people still playing that way, even today.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Wait, I'll freely admit that I joined the game with 3.0, so everything before that I don't know much about, but Eilistraee is in my 3.0 FR setting book, I just checked. You may be thinking of something else.
My personal introduction to FR drow was through RA Salvatore's novels, and the lore in there perfectly aligned with the lore inside my third edition setting book.

Just to bring a different example, much of the plot of Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark revolves around a city of Eilistraee-worshiping drow. NWN is based on 3.0 rules.

Eilistraee was killed in 1379 DR, in 3.5E:

Eilistraee

Eilistraee (pronounced: /ˈaɪlɪsˌtraɪi/ EYEL-iss-TRY-ee listen[16]) was the chaotic good drow goddess of beauty, song, dance, freedom, moonlight, swordwork, and hunting, within the drow pantheon known as the Dark Seldarine. She was the patroness and protector of the few dark elves who longed to...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

So it was less instant than I thought, but they did kill her off. 5E brought her back.

Either way, it's objectively not a retcon to say the FR had plenty of non-Evil and non-Lolth worshipping Drow in canon back in 2E and earlier 3E.

This is absolutely right and is itself evidence that race don't real. In the early 20th century Anglo-Saxons would have usually been considered a different race to the French, for example.

Quite. My dad is Scots, and even in my lifetime I saw weird low-key racist things said about him by older people when they found out (usually implying he was miserly or untrustworthy). There was no force behind it, so it wasn't really oppressive racism, because to really view Scots as a "race" (not merely an ancestry/culture), you basically had to be of retirement age or older (therefore longer really able to enact your will on society much), but it was creepy. A couple of hundred years before, and English definitely considered the Scots an entirely separate race, with separate characteristics (and on the list of "martial races", which was a list of non-English races who were suitable for use in the British Empire's army - it didn't apply just to India as the Wikipedia entry rather confusingly appears to suggest, note, though that seems to be where it originated.). I got scornfully told I wasn't an Anglo-Saxon once when I was a kid, by some person in their 60s or 70s (which is true, I'm not, but he seemed to think this was a problem). It's not even that long ago that that stuff went away, and it was much less virulent than the hate directed at others.

 

[Warpiglet]

So there are several here who argue having an evil group of beings—-humanoids—-is unacceptable as this has too many parallels with real world marginalizing real groups of people.

Any skin tone of such a foe if not clearly “Caucasian” or “white” or whatever maps too closely to people that have been historically and in some cases currently mistreated.

The solution then is to show that there is no strong cultural tendency tied to species, race or folk.

All sentient beings are just people. You know, what the full gamut of good and bad and all really just average out in the end.

And finally, the fact that this is entertainment is irrelevant. And really since all art is political, this applies to Star Trek etc where we should not have warlike Klingons (damn! They ARE brown!) or Romulans (they are not!) because it’s bad to have a group of people as a default villain.

I have seen reference to an author’s mention of Orcs and mongols as support that bias is throughout the game.

Conversely, that none of the monsters or humanoids in question have shades of skin tone in the natural range is overlooked. Tolkien did not describe the drow.

Gygax did and they have an unnatural skin color. Often painted in 1e with a purple or blue tint in fact, complementing the inky black of a moonless night.

Wow. OK? We are trying to have fun, right? I am against changes that do not allow for quickly identified bad guys that can easily be dropped in games without forcing a ton of debate and moral pontificating.

Bright blue Dragons eat people. It’s ok to kill ‘em. Orcs too. They almost universally kill and pillage because they worship and evil god who wants them to. That folk is raised that way.

As to Crawford’s direction, I think species or folk is fine if we want to be rid of an antiquated concept like race.

Species however seems a bit anachronistic to me so might not be my favorite.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I had an epiphany last night, not sure if this take is lukewarm or flaming hot:

It's not about the orcs.

The issues people are pointing out about D&D's treatment of race aren't about the orcs themselves. Or any other race that's being thrown in the "problematic" bin. Sure, those portrayals have questionable stuff in and of themselves, but that's the smaller problem.

The bigger problem is that these "monstrous" and "exotic" races are being used in the narrative role of the indigenous population that is being pushed out by a settler/colonizer population (usually humans, elves, sometimes dwarves). There is a narrative of the "common races" taming the frontier and expanding civilization, which is seen a "good" thing, while pushing the people who were already there, usually "monstrous races" like orcs and goblinoids, to the fringes of society. I will admit that this is less of a thing in 5e, which is part of the game's general move away from AD&D's humanocentrism, but that trope hasn't completely gone away. Probably won't go away until the playstyle of dungeon delving into abandoned ruins of a bygone or displaced culture and taking their stuff for fun and profit goes away.

So we have one group of people cast in the role of the "cowboys" off doing cowboy stuff, and another group of people playing the part of the "Indians" that get in their way. Not literally of course, and substitute in any settler/indigenous duo you prefer. In a morally neutral framing of this dynamic, you'd expect that both groups open dialogue with each other, try and stay out of each other's way, and for the "cowboys" to respect the fact that the "Indians" were here first and have more claim to the land, and thus not do anything to offend their gracious hosts. Certainly not do stuff like shooting up a whole herd of buffalo and then leaving them to rot.

Problem is, the narrative framing of D&D twists over itself to justify the "cowboys" as being in the right, no matter what they do, while telling the "Indians" that they need to GTFO. The writers of that narrative make in-universe excuses for that framing, painting the "Indians" as "inherently evil", "savage", "backwards", etc. Make stories of the "Indians" attacking the lands of "good folks" and making off with their crops and coin, before the heroic "cowboys" roll into town and save the day. As much sense as it might make within the fictional universe, in the real world, it's still being used as a carte blanche for the "cowboys" to do whatever whenever. It's being used to create a setup for a "clean colonialism", where a settler population is given absolute, unconditional moral justification for pushing out an indigenous population in ways that in real life we'd condemn as horrific atrocities.

To reiterate in case it wasn't clear, "cowboys" and "Indians" is being used as a framing device. I'm not trying to make a 1-1 equating of D&D's common races with Old West ranchhands and frontiersmen and the monstrous races with the American Indigenous peoples. You could swap any situation, real or fictional, where an indigenous population comes into conflict with a technologically superior settler population, go with James Cameron's Avatar if you like, I dunno.

But in the end, it's not about the orcs. Or about the humans that they're fighting against. They're all actors in a stage play, and it's the play and its playwright that are the root of the problem. And the problem is that "this game is encouraging play that echoes racist colonialist narratives, wittingly or unwittingly". Substitute in any race/species/people as the actors in both roles, but if the story remains the same, then there still is a problem.

 

[Olrox17]

What you don't seem to get is that the canon has changed between and within editions for the entire history of the game. D&D is a game that has reformed, is reforming, and will reform again.

What you don't seem to get is that canon has changed many times, but not because of political pushback. Last time it happened, it was the satanic panic. A parallel that you don't like, but it's there.

Sure. I can even use the term in a sentence: "There is a vocal minority of posters in the 'WotC's Jeremy Crawford on D&D Races Going Forward' thread who are throwing an irrational tantrum that D&D designers are considering a more nuanced portrayal of orcs that potentially removes some of the overt undertones that parallel real life racist rhetoric so that the game more accurately reflects the inclusive sentiments of the designers and its growing playerbase."

Funny thing is, you're not entirely wrong. The opinions of massive amount of people was swayed by recent events, so those who want no political interference in D&D might be indeed part of a vocal minority now. Pretty sure they were the majority, a mere few months ago. That's my point.

But I also don't think that it's sheer coincidence either, but I also didn't say that it was.

Good.

Please note the singular use of "crime" here. Of course this ignores the other recent cases of black victimization and police brutality that are included in this most recent wave of protests. And then you have the audacity to say with a straight face that D&D was somehow an innocent bystander that is now a victim of anti-racist movements across Euro-America: I believe your exact words were "paying the price for a crime it didn't commit." So this to me suggests that you are also ignorant about larger movement of protests and what's going on despite claiming to be sympathetic to the cause as well as being ignorant of the larger discussion of race in fantasy RP. So if your job, degree, and natural disposition do nothing to educate you why your entire argument has been completely fallacious and tone deaf, then I'm afraid that they have failed you miserably at an incredibly inconvenient time.

You can't resist making ad hominem attacks, can you? How sad and disappointing. The overwhelming majority of people here are very civil and well mannered.

I'm honestly just gobsmacked by how little you seem to know about the people who design your fantasy elf game or the century-long arguments surrounding racist tropes in fantasy RP.

Disagreement is not ignorance.
I do not apply my modern moral sensibilities to a game that is meant to recreate pseudo-medieval fantasy tomb raiding and warmongering. If I did, I'd have to stop playing just for the absurd amount of violence this game demands, and how much that violence is rewarded, both in terms of personal power, and wealth. It's a game of make-believe, generally played in vaguely medieval fantasy worlds.
5e in particular is the most inclusive version of the game to date. If you look hard enough for something (in this case, racism), you'll find even if it's not really there.

 

[Olrox17]

Ah, another attempt at the Jordan Peterson/Phyllis Schlafly (sp?) debating technique. I’m always curious if this is intentional emulation, or just something that more subtly permeates certain sub-cultures. (For the uninitiated, it’s a method of provoking the other into increasing levels of anger, while maintaining a veneer of calm and rationality. Done well...and Jordan Peterson really is good at it...it has a powerful effect on undecided observers.)

In any event, are you NOT angry about racism? Do you not feel any emotion when confronted first with systemic racism, and then with weaselly excuses for ignoring it?

If so, that’s too bad.

I am angry about racism. Did you even read my entire post? Apparently not. Also, is debating calmly and rationally a political thing now, rather than an expected social standard? I am appalled.

Eilistraee was killed in 1379 DR, in 3.5E

Interesting. I thought she died because of the 4e Sundering event, like most other FR gods. Anyway, it was a good idea to bring her back.

 

[Morrus]

Oofta is channeling Don Jr.

Donald Trump Jr. Compares Syrian Refugees to Skittles That ‘Would Kill You’ (Published 2016)

The son of the Republican nominee tweeted an image of a bowl of Skittles as a metaphor for deciding whether refugees should be allow to enter the United States.

www.nytimes.com

Politics. What are you doing? Don't post again in this thread please.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Also, is debating calmly and rationally a political thing now, rather than an expected social standard?

No, it isn’t. But...please pay attention this time...the explicit drawing of attention to one’s own calmness, while trying to paint the other as angry/emotional/hysterical is not the same as plain old calm, rational debate. Nor is it new.

EDIT: @Morrus Doh, overlap. Sorry.