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'.

 

[Charlaquin]

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 giving 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.

While I think colonialism is just one example among many of how presenting races as always-evil can mirror real life racial injustice, you’ve hit the nail on the head here with the statement “it’s not about the orcs.” And this is a thing I think people often fail to understand about “PC culture” or whatever. It’s never about the individuals. These issues are systemic in nature, meaning it’s always about the systems, not the people who participate in them or are affected by them. And I think this can be very difficult for a lot of folks who have grown up in a fiercely individualistic culture to wrap their heads around.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's getting unfairly scrutinized and misjudged because everyone in the US is (understandably) upset, including tabletop gamers.

This is the entire problem you're having with this discussion, and if you're not going to explain your position, I think it's not really okay for you to keep bringing up the same dodgy point over and over.

There's nothing "unfair" or "misjudged", and it's not just people "in the US".

This is a moment, in history. I know everyone has had plenty of "living in interesting times" in the last few years, especially in 2020, but history is not letting up just yet. People are scrutinizing everything. That is not "unfair". It is not "misjudging". It is not "wrong". It is merely a reflection of the fact that such scrutiny has been avoided for a couple of decades, and is kind of overdue. The same scrutiny you're discussing now has happened before, repeatedly, through history. It tends to happen every so often, rather than steadily. The longer the time between re-appraisals, the stronger the re-appraisals tend to be, and the more in-depth.

D&D has some problematic elements. It's not a brutal racist oppressor, but it has soaked up and sort of reflected some racist or at least pretty problematic stuff over the years. Almost all of the sexism has gone, so that's good, though it left other games before D&D. Even there there are weird things like the super-evil Drow being the only major matriarchal race.

That it's being scrutinized isn't unfair, and it isn't a bad thing. For the long-term health of D&D, it's a very good thing. Not a huge amount needs to change, and it changing now, rather than D&D falling out of fashion with younger people because it continues to maintain problematic elements is good.

To claim it's being misjudged, requires it to be judged. I'm not seeing any real "judging", let alone misjudging. I'm see frank appraisal of certain elements, but it's by the game's own designers. It's by people who love D&D, and have played D&D or other RPGs for decades. There's no "Satanic Panic". There's no MADD here. There's no organised campaign by non-D&D/non-RPG people to change or delete D&D (and MADD wanted the latter, note).

And it's not just in the US that this sort of reappraisal is happening. It's happening all around the world, to greater or lesser degrees.

Heck, remember when people got mad because Rue was black in the Hunger Games movie, even though the text specifically mentioned her skin color?

Oh my god was that not the most insane thing?! Just blew my mind, because the actress they'd cast was exactly as I'd pictured her.

 

[Var]

We're kinda forgetting that humans generally find ways to mistrust strangers. We vs them is a common theme across all cultures and all scales.

"We in IT are clearly smarter than the Layer 8 problems waiting to happen in Sales"
"We're so much better than than the noisy neighbors we never bothered to talk to"
"Our rural village is the best one in the local area, we had some sort of feud going on with village x, we don't need to know why, but those guys suck, it is known"
"Sports club B fans are all losers, our sports club A is life!"
"You refuse to help us in our particular cause we are currently very invested in therefore we are better than you."

Racism is a symptom of a larger scale problem, herd thinking and the want to belong, together with the human condition that makes us want to be better and superior than our peers.
Focusing on a single symptom isn't going to fix the root cause. BLM is a tad bit problematic because it conveniently forgets to mention the Hispanic population and others facing pretty much the same problem. "Our problem over theirs" is not the brand I want to rally behind.
You'd be facing a disproportionate backlash if you went out there and posted something how you really don't care about the current topic the media likes to blow up while world hunger still exists.
How much coverage and public outcry is left for all the people that went missing in Hong Kong today on June 17th?

Another symptom would be prejudice against convicts is a big problem before demographics escalate it further. We should give everyone a chance, but associating with this particular group is statistically problematic and risky for your own safety. What to do?

I only have that much time to spend aside from maintaining a reasonably comfortable existence. Am I going to be a bad guy if I pick my project, stick with it and don't want to participate in BLM since I'm preoccupied working on saving the rain forest?
Is it bad to not support a cause or not wanting to associate with something in favor of other priorities? Your elderly neighbor might be homophobic down to the core, but he helps out at the local soup kitchen and saved 5 stray cats from getting euthanized. You wouldn't defend his stance on BLM, but can't you still like the guy as a human being for the other things he does with his life?

The human brain is great at finding patterns literally anywhere, which btw leads to things like true RNG being perceived as unfair.
Our brain's default setting doesn't care about sample sizes, it cares about the most recent events or last 10 rolls. We tend to be programmed to participate in some sort of group activity to belong.
Not everything is an immediate massive problem that demands being combated in all aspects of life, because it's not quite alright with where each of us stands as an individual.


Drinking too much water can kill you the same way as drinking too little. Staking the claim that DnD races are a direct analogy to IRL racial issues might need some toning down. Don't think the DnD community is a cesspool of rejects who project their ideologies into a game. But I do think these have to exist given the size of the DnD community. The vast majority of just want to live our fantasy of being heroes and villians without the IRL repercussions for the most part. Is playing as an evil party a problem?
Playing the axe murderer in a game is a thing I'm generally alright with existing, beats living out that fantasy for real. If someone really wanted to play a campaign where you crusade in the name of [select deity X] against the infidels of [deity Y], sure why not I'm in. Doesn't mean I was planning to beat up people on the streets for wearing a scarf.

If someone wanted to insist that a DnD campaign set during the Crusades is an order of magnitude more problematic than playing the Hitman series - well, free country, nice knowing you and good luck on your further endeavors.
We can't all be expected to end world hunger, racism, gender inequality and free Hong Kong.

5E is a big sandbox, if you want your Orcs to be evil that's up to you. If you're a DM in need of a convenient horde of villains and you just doesn't want to take the planning any further, done. If you're a player you don't have to put up with a DM who adds obviously racist traits to his depiction of the DnD world. Outside of that - just play the game and enjoy yourself.

Don't do nothing, participate in what matters to you. But do whatever you do within a reasonable scope.

 

[TheSword]

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.

The War of Spider Queen series (one of my favourites) shows a nuanced version of Menzoberranzan and drow once Lolth is removed from the picture even temporarily. It features at least 2 main characters wrestling with what it means to be good after being removed from a facist, society ruled by insitutions that use brainwashing, gas lighting, and fear to control their own priestesses let alone the general population. It pretty much sets as canon the fact that drow are not essentially evil, but are rather forced to be that way by the institutions that control their society.

Incidentally that series started in 2002 and finished 2005 (half way through 3.5 edition) and the church of Elistraee and a commnity of her followers featured heavily in the series. The storyline wasnt fully concluded until 2008 with the conclusion of the Lady Penitent trilogy and after dominating the fiction for almost all of 3rd edition it was probably time to tell some other stories. You can't say that Elistraee and good drow havent had some good representation.

 

[Minigiant]

Personally I don't think it matters what classification they have, it's just changing a label. If they created a label something along the line of "Created" as in "creature created to serve a specific purpose" and applied that to orcs who were specifically created by Gruumsh to wage eternal war would it really change anything?

And I think that's all it is.
Crawford and therest of the team want the "always evil,, weird brained, human-shaped monsters" to be not humaniods any more as the default.

All they aredoing is choosing we ones state human and which ones don't

 

[Aldarc]

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.

Fairly certain that revisions to canon for the sake of cultural, sexual, and racial sensitivity and inclusivity has happened numerous times since the Satanic Panic as well. This has been a continuous conversation about the political shape of D&D for decades.

Pretty sure they were the majority, a mere few months ago. That's my point.

As others pointed out to you, this is not true. Like Rip van Winkle, some people are just now noticing that the game change around them has changed while they were sleeping, so now they are waking up to entire decades of conversation about racism and demographic changes that they apparently missed out on. A lot of people in this forum as well have discussed these issues for at least a decade or more. My friends have as well. I remember my friends discussing this back in 2000 when I first entered the hobby.

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.

Apparently quoting your own words back at you is an ad hominem attack now? Who'd have thunk it? If you are done deflecting with more feigned outrage, would you like to contest your exact words about this situation or are you good with that?

Disagreement is not ignorance.

We're not talking basic disagreement of positions here. You admitted that you were ignorant of the conversation around race in fantasy RP - aka "why now?" - and that most certainly is ignorance. You implied that Jeremy Crawford was not being authentic when he said what he said. That's ignorance. You have not really challenged me when I have said that you don't seem aware of who Jeremy Crawford is or what he has published, so should I chalk that up as us disagreeing or your ignorance?

I do not apply my modern moral sensibilities to a game that is meant to recreate pseudo-medieval fantasy tomb raiding and warmongering.

That's a privilege that you are able to exercise, but I am telling you that your "game that is meant to recreate pseudo-medieval fantasy tomb raiding and warmongering" has various problematic racist undertones that makes some of its player base, who lack that privilege you enjoy, feel excluded from enjoying the game as much as they could if those elements were removed or re-contextualized.

If you look hard enough for something (in this case, racism), you'll find even if it's not really there.

So how have you determined that racism is not there?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It was US slavery for less than 100 years of all the time it existed here in the Americas. Before that, it was British and French and Spanish and Dutch and Portugese slavery in their colonies, so don't go forgetting who started it in the first place and just blame the new country that inherited it and stupidly continued it. Only 5% of all transported slaves even ended up in the British colonies, so don't let rest of the European countries pretend like they had nothing to do with it.

I'm not ignoring the other countries. I acknowledged that they had slavery, and said that all slavery is bad. What we in America did was worse, though. We were keeping onto it, and had to fight a war against ourselves in order to abolish slavery. I don't know of any other country that fought against themselves in order to get rid of slavery.

We were more stubborn and our system of slavery was worse than the others. Our current system of slavery is terrible and still effects african americans and other minorities more than white people. We still haven't let go of it completely.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Exactly (more or less). We were young at the time and we live in a relatively strong religious area. It is not to say that religion permates everything but it does have influence and many parents will listen to their shepherd... If the game is not clear and seems dubious, it could lead to a few suspicious questions.

Wow, that is quite scary!

But perhaps you can appreciate how different your experiences were from those of a lot of other people, especially younger ones? For you, you needed this line to justify the game. Whereas for me, if I'd said that to my parents, they'd probably have taken the game away as a bad influence, because it was teaching me that killing intelligent, free-willed beings en masse was "okay" because they were "inherently evil", and they'd have seen that as horrifying and echoing Nazi ideology and so on (I'm not saying it necessarily does, but that is how it would have appeared to them).

But I never saw D&D that way. The D&D I was shown in 1989 didn't tend to have irredeemable intelligent humanoid races. It had ones with very bad cultures, or bad religions, but not who were "born that way" (and the idea of them being "born that way" was creepier than the alternative). Most orcs were evil, but orcs weren't born evil (ornery, perhaps, but not evil).

Now I understand your position, and I do understand it I think, they'd have taken away the game if you weren't effectively "slaying demons". Because slaying "bad people" was wrong, but demon-like beings was not. Whereas my parents didn't object so much to a medieval deal where we fought "bad people" (in fighting, people die), but the idea that we were "entitled" to slaughter an entire humanoid race just by default would have appalled them.

And I think the latter perspective is more common in society now.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Slavery exists even today, even all around us, because we dehumanise workers in some countries in giving them horrendously low pay and poor working conditions, and because we dehumanise prisoners and have them make items for horrendously little pay, not to mention absolutely disgusting sex trafficking. All because others want to profiteer, motivated by callousness and extremely despicable greed.

It exists in the US today. Watch the documentary "13th" if you haven't yet.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We still haven't let go of it completely.

Quite, and it's worth noting that even if someone waved a magic wand, and actual racist attitudes/structures/training disappeared overnight/instantly, the descendants of slaves in the US would still face a massive uphill struggled because of the poverty that has endured as a result of slavery (preventing people having anything) and then oppression (preventing people having very much at all, and preventing them from voting in people who would help, in many cases), and the latter didn't even arguably stop until the 1960s. This is because we're in a society where going to better schools/universities/etc. and being part of the right social networks and so on, which is massively made easier by having generations of money behind you, determines how far you get to a large degree (other stuff does matter, but in aggregate, money dominates).

Still, the attitudes going away would be a great start!