D&D General WotC’s Official Announcement About Diversity, Races, and D&D

Following up on recent discussions on social media, WotC has made an official announcement about diversity and the treatment of ‘race’ in D&D. Notably, the word ‘race’ is not used; in its place are the words ‘people’ and 'folk'.

 PRESS RELEASE

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Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, making D&D as welcoming and inclusive as possible has moved to the forefront of our priorities over the last six years. We’d like to share with you what we’ve been doing, and what we plan to do in the future to address legacy D&D content that does not reflect who we are today. We recognize that doing this isn’t about getting to a place where we can rest on our laurels but continuing to head in the right direction. We feel that being transparent about it is the best way to let our community help us to continue to calibrate our efforts.

One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs. We want everyone to feel at home around the game table and to see positive reflections of themselves within our products. “Human” in D&D means everyone, not just fantasy versions of northern Europeans, and the D&D community is now more diverse than it’s ever been.

Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right.

Here’s what we’re doing to improve:

• We present orcs and drow in a new light in two of our most recent books, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do.
• When every D&D book is reprinted, we have an opportunity to correct errors that we or the broader D&D community discovered in that book. Each year, we use those opportunities to fix a variety of things, including errors in judgment. In recent reprintings of Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, for example, we changed text that was racially insensitive. Those reprints have already been printed and will be available in the months ahead. We will continue this process, reviewing each book as it comes up for a reprint and fixing such errors where they are present.
• Later this year, we will release a product (not yet announced) that offers a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases that come from being an elf, a dwarf, or one of D&D's many other playable folk. This option emphasizes that each person in the game is an individual with capabilities all their own.
• Curse of Strahd included a people known as the Vistani and featured the Vistani heroine Ezmerelda. Regrettably, their depiction echoes some stereotypes associated with the Romani people in the real world. To rectify that, we’ve not only made changes to Curse of Strahd, but in two upcoming books, we will also show—working with a Romani consultant—the Vistani in a way that doesn’t rely on reductive tropes.
• We've received valuable insights from sensitivity readers on two of our recent books. We are incorporating sensitivity readers into our creative process, and we will continue to reach out to experts in various fields to help us identify our blind spots.
• We're proactively seeking new, diverse talent to join our staff and our pool of freelance writers and artists. We’ve brought in contributors who reflect the beautiful diversity of the D&D community to work on books coming out in 2021. We're going to invest even more in this approach and add a broad range of new voices to join the chorus of D&D storytelling.

And we will continue to listen to you all. We created 5th edition in conversation with the D&D community. It's a conversation that continues to this day. That's at the heart of our work—listening to the community, learning what brings you joy, and doing everything we can to provide it in every one of our books.

This part of our work will never end. We know that every day someone finds the courage to voice their truth, and we’re here to listen. We are eternally grateful for the ongoing dialog with the D&D community, and we look forward to continuing to improve D&D for generations to come.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I am not understanding what you’re trying to say here, I’m sorry. The problem is not that like elves and dwarves have different traits or that their cultures clash or what have you. The issue is that the game mechanically incentivizing certain race/class combinations over others plays into real-world racist narratives like the existence of “warlike races.”

Yes but, if a race is 9 meters tall, it would be a little bit more strong than an halfling... no? So it is normal that if you want a mighty fighter you choose a 9 meters tall guy... no? Where is the racism issue here? Fictional races are different in body and mind and this reflects on classes preferences. Anyway if we want to avoid every single and improbable hook to racism accusation, we can translate the bonus/malus on classes... but this doesn't help the suspension of disbelief.

 

[Remathilis]

I wonder is using a King and a medieval court will spread stereotype about France and England culture and should be avoid from now?

To be fair, D&D has been moving away from the classical depiction of Medieval Europe for a long time now. Not that it was ever all that accurate to begin with, but the dress, politics, technology and culture in default D&D is more 16th century than 12th.

Of course, D&D is hardly alone in this, fantasy in general has taken a more modernistic look and tone. Compare the Robin Hood movies that came out just a few years ago to the ones in the 90s or 50s for a good example of what I mean.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes but, if a race is 9 meters tall, it would be a little bit more strong than an halfling... no?

Maybe don't use nonsense-examples? They don't help. We don't even have any races that get proper size L advantages in 5E, and probably never will, and you're talking size H or size G?

If we look at real examples, D&D 5E is extremely inconsistent about whether being "big" gets you much in the way of STR bonuses, if at all, and being small definitely doesn't get you penalties to STR in what, all but one case? And they're not even the smallest, so it's clearly more than size doing that.

 

[Burnside]

I’m not an expert, but I suspect because the indigenous people of color seem to have a less advanced society than those from across the sea that have begun colonizing with nearby forts.

I can sort of see that, but Port Nyanzaru actually seemed quite advanced as far as technology, economy, and arts. There are very serious social problems there, but no worse than some of the Sword Coast and Sea of Fallen Stars cities (Baldur's Gate, Hillsfar, etc). The majority of the "Sword Coast colonist" types we met seem to be deeply misguided, foolish, crazy, or some combination of the three and weren't, as far as I can recall, depicted as wielding any power over the Chultans. But having played and not read it, it's impossible for me to say what came from the book and what was my DMs. Also, my perspective might not be the one that matters in this case, which I totally get.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not that it was ever all that accurate to begin with, but the dress, politics, technology and culture in default D&D is more 16th century than 12th.

This was already true in the FR by like, 1989/1990, note. Aurora's was 1992 and it's verging on the 1800s in some areas there.

 

[Remathilis]

This was already true in the FR by like, 1989/1990, note. Aurora's was 1992 and it's verging on the 1800s in some areas there.

True, though there was still some attempts, such as the art in the 2e PHB or breeches and hose in the equipment section. Today, PCs wear dusters and have access to smokepowder weapons and rapiers.

My point is that D&D has mostly abandoned any attempt to resemble Medieval Europe long ago.

 

[Sadras]

If we look at real examples, D&D 5E is extremely inconsistent about whether being "big" gets you much in the way of STR bonuses, if at all, and being small definitely doesn't get you penalties to STR in what, all but one case? And they're not even the smallest, so it's clearly more than size doing that.

And yet despite all that you'd expect an orc to be stronger than a goblin and a goblin to be stronger than a cat.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Maybe don't use nonsense-examples? They don't help. We don't even have any races that get proper size L advantages in 5E, and probably never will, and you're talking size H or size G?

If we look at real examples, D&D 5E is extremely inconsistent about whether being "big" gets you much in the way of STR bonuses, if at all, and being small definitely doesn't get you penalties to STR in what, all but one case? And they're not even the smallest, so it's clearly more than size doing that.

It is call an hyperbole, a rethoric figure to let a concept be more clear.

 

[jgsugden]

I have read a lot of recent advice on sensitivity that asks us to focus on the impact, not the intent, of our actions or statements. That creates a much broader range of content considered ill advised.

What attributes do you want to assign to a people or folk? It seems like ability score bonuses are not a good idea. What about things tied to the size of a people or folk, like the goliath's advantage on athletics checks, a speed reduction from small people, etc... Vision? Is the idea that a human variant gets a feat inherently giving them a superiority over other folk or people?

 

[Ibrandul]

One practical question I have is, will the CoS and ToA changes be minor, or major? In other words, will I, an owner of both books who hasn't gotten around to reading, DMing, or playing through either adventure, be able to write the errata into my copies, or will the changes be extensive enough to render this impractical, thus necessitating a re-purchase in order to get the corrected versions?

And, if the latter, will WotC provide any help to those of us who already bought a product that's now being extensively revised? I, for one, as a racial non-minority, would feel uncomfortable DMing the "more racist" version of an adventure instead of a "less racist" revision, but I'm also not excited about repurchasing material at full price. Presumably those who've purchased digital versions on Fantasy Grounds, etc., will automatically receive the updates at no cost. But what about dead-tree purchasers?

Ditto for any such changes they make to Volo's or the PHB.

Incidentally, so far, to my knowledge, the only 5e book I'm aware of to receive errata for anything other than mechanical/clarification reasons is SCAG. The lore section on the Uthgardt in SCAG was altered quite a bit, for reasons I don't fully understand. But any changes to ToA or CoS would have to be more extensive than that change, I expect.

(Note: I'm not saying this is the most important or urgent question to ask about this announcement, of which I'm overall very supportive. But I do think it's worth asking, and my other views and questions are already well represented by other voices in this and the other thread on the topic.)