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'.

 

[Ash Mantle]

But this proves you have an advantage over other minorities. African Americans are all frightened of cops. The fact that you're not because of your skin color, and that I'm not, is proof enough that Asians and White people have an advantage over other minority groups in America.

In my example, it also proves some Asians are more frightened of other people than cops, because our cops also don't go about killing people for no reason, there's no reason to be frightened of them as they're generally motivated to do good for society. So it's not about my skin color, as other ethnic groups are also generally not frightened of them. I can't really say anything about systemic prejudice in America, as I'm not from there, but I do know that it's horrifically and utterly wrong, and structural changes in society need to happen.

Sure, I understand you being discriminated against because of your race. I've also been discriminated against because of being autistic. We don't choose who we are born as. The fact that you and I are discriminated against because of how we were born doesn't mean that other people don't have it worse.

Asians are definitely discriminated against, especially those from the middle east, but other people do have it worse.

Racism needs to be called out anywhere it exists, and needs to be worked on.

 

[Charlaquin]

For ability scores, would something like Knowledge and Awareness for Int and Wis (as per @AlexandraErin on twitter) be the kind of change you're talking about on ability scores? Would that actually affect the game mechanically at all? So, except for the fact that all changes will annoy someone, does it have any downside to counteract the plus of avoiding IQ like things?

It wouldn’t be nothing, but it wouldn’t be the change I’d like to see in abilities. Of course, my issues with abilities are more related to design philosophy than sociopolitics, and my preferences on the matter are a little niche.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Racism needs to be called out anywhere it exists, and needs to be worked on.

I agree, 100%.

 

[Charlaquin]

As not-great as the Vistani are, TSR never went quite as berserk as White Wolf did with Gypsy as a playable race/class in one of the most cringeworthy RPG books of all time. (White Wolf has gotten a lot of crap in recent years, but there's a long history of them with ethnic stereotypes and caricatures.)

The white wolf of recent years is entirely different people than the white wolf of said history of ethnic stereotypes, after the name and IPs under it changed hands a few times.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd like to see the scores used more, from a mechanical perspective. Like, I'd love an AC calculation system that just uses your Dex score as your AC, unless someting (armor, spell, magic bracers) is giving you a bonus.

Or, Speed as 2x the higher of Dex or Str score? Maybe Str+Dex+mods (as from race or class feature or feat)=Speed?

Anyway, scores could be fun.

 

[Charlaquin]

Just rereading the piece you've quoted, I wonder if they will be using origin or folk instead of race going forward. As much as I know they really don't want to re-release the PHB, I feel like if they are making sweeping changes to how you can customise your race/origin that they really should do a re-release to incorporate these changes.

I'm curious about the tomb of annihilation and curse of strahd changes as well. I know the vistani have apparently been problematic though I don't really know much if anything about romani culture to know what the problems are.

I’m not romani, so take my perspective on it as you will, but it’s bad. The Vistani are basically every romani stereotype played straight. The most obvious issue is of course the fact that they’re portrayed as typically being evil. Spoiler for Curse of Strahd:

Spoiler

CoS claims most of them aren’t, but then every group of them actually encountered in the adventure are in league with Strahd.

but there’s also less overt issues like their having an inborn ability to curse people, an inherent talent for divination magic, and the wanderlust thing (wanderlust is a particularly pernicious stereotype because it seems benign or even positive, but it erases the reality that romani displacement is largely a result of systemic oppression, poverty, and prejudice.)

 

[Zardnaar]

I’m not romani, so take my perspective on it as you will, but it’s bad. The Vistani are basically every romani stereotype played straight. The most obvious issue is of course the fact that they’re portrayed as being spies for Strahd (Curse of Strahd claims most of them aren’t, but then every group of them actually encountered in the adventure are), but there’s also less overt issues like their having an inborn ability to curse people, an inherent talent for divination magic, and the wanderlust thing (wanderlust is a particularly pernicious stereotype because it seems benign or even positive, but it erases the reality that romani displacement is largely a result of systemic oppression, poverty, and oppression.)

Vistani are bad. Even I picked up on it in 1996.

Think I was 17 or 18.

Subtle as brick in face.

 

[Coroc]

This is crap. Black Lives Matter doesn't mean that other lives don't matter. Go to this comment of mine in another thread to see why not to say exactly what you just said:

RPG Sales for Black Lives Matter

If you would like to give something to the Black Lives Matter movement, there are some great RPG-related options! DMs Guild has a Black Lives Matter spotlight. You can buy D&D material from people of color. There are 11 items in the spotlight, including a couple of bundles. One of them, a...

www.enworld.org

so basically my opinion - that better awareness of cops to the problem of blacks being endangered by their partially racist, partially caused by over nervous behaviour, which could be achieved by better training and education as well as sorting out those who are racist and unredeemable - will also reduce other cases of unnecessary police brutality is crap to you?
well that's my opinion, and i got several black people in my closest family. So i got first hand witnesses of everyday racism happening also in other countries.
you do not have to agree with my broader view of the topic, and your critics is welcome, but your wording is insulting which down values your intentions, think about that for a moment.

 

[Charlaquin]

Eh, nothing is illegal about hiring minorities. It's illegal to discriminate against people based on this, but there are a lot of companies that have to meet a quota of racial diversity. Hamilton didn't get sued because it hired more minorities.

Hiring quotas actually are illegal, at least in the US. Affirmative action policies encourage businesses to hire applicants from minority groups when otherwise similarly qualified for the position. Casting actors for a film or a play also works differently than hiring employees for a business.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m not romani, so take my perspective on it as you will, but it’s bad. The Vistani are basically every romani stereotype played straight. The most obvious issue is of course the fact that they’re portrayed as being spies for Strahd (Curse of Strahd claims most of them aren’t, but then every group of them actually encountered in the adventure are), but there’s also less overt issues like their having an inborn ability to curse people, an inherent talent for divination magic, and the wanderlust thing (wanderlust is a particularly pernicious stereotype because it seems benign or even positive, but it erases the reality that romani displacement is largely a result of systemic oppression, poverty, and oppression.)

Yeah it is pretty aweful, and would have been very easy to fix. Like...so easy that my respect for the people who wrote it is less than had they never made that adventure.

I know that creatives get into hyper-focus and sometimes can't see past their noses, but these guys are professional publishers of games. They know how to check eachothers' work for missteps.

But, beyond that, it's great that they're going to change it.

I don't really know what the Chult issues were, because I've never done more than use items and NPCs from that book because I don't use dungeons and the basic premise doesn't excite me. I know that it apprently amalgamizes cultural influences in a way that feels disrespectful to a lot of people, but that's it. I hope they hired consultants for that, as well.


And above all that, I hope that these reprints aren't all they hired diverse consultants for...that would be extremely disappointing.

It wouldn’t be nothing, but it wouldn’t be the change I’d like to see in abilities. Of course, my issues with abilities are more related to design philosophy than sociopolitics, and my preferences on the matter are a little niche.

I'd love to hear those ideas, if you feel like starting a thread