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'.

 

[Zardnaar]

Egyptian DNA testing has already been done. They are mix now, and were a mix then.

Still it should be noted that the most powerful (and scientifically advanced) dynasties 12, 13, 17, 18 originate from the south from black Africa.

Reading the article:

"From 1400 to 400 ... a cluster of ancient non-African populations based east of the Mediterranean Sea."

This is to be expected because we know from Egyptians records, there were massive influxes from "Amu" (East Mediterranean) associating with the "Hyksos" dynasty, and that many of these Nonafricans became slaves belonging to the Egyptians.

They went slaving to the south so it would be impossible to not have DNA from Kush in Egypt.

 

[Hoffmand]

He's not really a reporter just a YouTuber.

He just goes to places most YouTubers don't. Mostly in the former USSR but he's been to South America and Africa briefly.

He doesn't go to tourist hotspots generally.

He speaks Russian so he will go to Moldova or whatever and then head for a city or town you've never heard of.

I don’t know this “YouTuber”, but that kind of deflection I don’t like. Would prefer more information than just Derivatively referring to something like that. Since YouTube has the best News out there these days, providing they stop banning and demonetizing them.

 

[Gradine]

I'm genuinely curious as a I don't understand this concept very well, can you give an example?

Speaking as a transgender individual, I can say that the very common older comedy trope of a "man dressing in women's clothing" being inherently funny is extremely frustrating basically every time I see it crop up.

Blackface would be another example that still seemingly crops up from time to time (how many university frats and sororities are going to get shut down this year for hosting blackface parties, I wonder? They never do seem to learn...)

e: It occurs to me that a lot of the tropes associated with "gypsies" also qualifies

 

[Mirtek]

I find it a problem that people assume that because Goliaths are tall that they're strong. I mean, that's not true in real life. You're not born strong, you have to exercise a ton to become strong. I'm personally fairly tall, and God knows that I couldn't beat a 10 year old at arm wrestling.

I mean, this isn't racist really, it's just strange that people have been justifying Goliath's strength by their size.

But you're a human, not a goliath. E.g. a gorilla will be stronger than a human no matter how much or little both exercise. We can not beat that genetic difference between us

 

[Zardnaar]

I find it a problem that people assume that because Goliaths are tall that they're strong. I mean, that's not true in real life. You're not born strong, you have to exercise a ton to become strong. I'm personally fairly tall, and God knows that I couldn't beat a 10 year old at arm wrestling.

I mean, this isn't racist really, it's just strange that people have been justifying Goliath's strength by their size.

Kind of is up to a point.

Without working out I could lift my own body weight of around 100kg.

Without working out I've thrown 75000kg in a day's work.

When I was fit it was closer to 170kg.

I hit my height age 14/15 or so and worked on a farm at that age. I could play rugby (and fight) the older kids (violent school).

When you play no holds barred rugby (called Scrag) height, mass and reach were very useful.

Now I don't like over 60kg or so. Might be able to do more than that not gonna risk it though.

 

[Haldrik]

Even by the standards of the time, the Romans were outstandingly evil in terms of mass slaughter, mass slavery, violent conquest, and so on. I did an archaeology and ancient history degree, so I'm not a random civilian here, note. Nobody was lovely, sure, but they stood out from the crowd, even back then.

More importantly, today's standards aren't what we're judging by. D&D's alignment standards are. In any edition, from 1E onwards, it would be very fair to say Rome, as a culture, was broadly Lawful Evil, in the AD&D/D&D sense (in BD&D it'd merely be the nasty kind of Lawful). The obsession with violent, expansionist conquest (to the literal ends of the earth)

As for you being "offended", I'm British. So you claiming to be "offended" because I'm criticising a culture that existed in the general area you live in, and died out well over a thousand years ago seems pretty bloody silly, when I'm from a culture, that, up until sometime in the 20th century, was trying to ape them, and was perhaps even worse in many regarded, and which I would absolutely accept and agree with criticism of. What, should I be offended because someone notes how massively horrific the British Empire was? I'm not. That's factual. And Rome was utterly horrific too. The British Empire circa 1700s would be a good starting point for an evil imperial culture or species in a slightly more modern D&D setting.



Dude... He was talking about appearance. Are you saying that it's okay to make racist comments on appearance because a group of people are distantly descended from people who killed a lot of people? Seriously? Because that is literally the logic you're using. No-one if defending Ghengis Khan mate, people are saying "comparing actual humans to orcs, in appearance, is not cool".

I'm also confused by you differentiating the Gauls, Britons and Celts though - the Gauls and the Britons are both kinds of Celts, if we're using that term.

I have to agree, for me, what the ancient Romans said about themselves can shocking, bewildering, appalling.

For me, the WTF moment was when groups of slaves were being murdered for entertainment in the Colosseum. They rebelled, got the upper hand, and killed the soldiers that were murdering them. Then the Romans (the emperor if I recall correctly) accused these slaves of being cruel and lacking mercy! Exactly what did the ancient Romans think the word "mercy" meant?



That said, there are ethnic groups with long memories, such as Jews, who remember ancient Romans as "the bad guys". If D&D decided to make Romans monolithically Evil, it can fall into the problem of reallife racism (against Romans, against Catholics, etcetera).

WotC announced they will be removing "monolithic Evil" from every ethnicity within D&D, and making every ethnicity more nuanced and with freewill. Surely this is the wiser solution when presenting images that borrow features from reallife cultures.

 

[Inchoroi]

I would actually!

Sent!

 

[Haldrik]

I think you're confused. "offending real world cultures" isn't the issue, particularly not violent slave-powered empires which have been dead for 1000+ years (I mean man what?). Perpetuating negative stereotypes and tropes about people of various ethnicities in this time, and this place, is the issue.

While I generally enjoy and agree with you comments in this thread, I take exception with the quote above.

Being racist against ancient ethnic groups is just as silly (ignorant) as being racist against contemporary ethnic groups.

I feel as a historian, you should know better.

(Despite the fact that I share your appallment with some of that Roman material.)

 

[Zardnaar]

I have to agree, for me, what the ancient Romans said about themselves can shocking, bewildering, appalling.

For me, the WTF moment was when groups of slaves were being murdered for entertainment in the Colosseum. They rebelled, got the upper hand, and killed the soldiers that were murdering them. Then the Romans (the emperor if I recall correctly) accused these slaves of being cruel and lacking mercy! Exactly what did the ancient Romans think the word "mercy" meant?



That said, there are ethnic groups with long memories, such as Jews, who remember ancient Romans as "the bad guys". If D&D decided to make Romans monolithically Evil, it can fall into the problem of reallife racism (against Romans, against Catholics, etcetera).

WotC announced they will be removing "monolithic Evil" from every ethnicity within D&D, and making every ethnicity more nuanced and with freewill. Surely this is the wiser solution when presenting images that borrow features from reallife cultures.

Might also be the 1st century AD is reasonably well documented because of the Romans.

Archeology has confirmed their claims about human sacrifice.

Slavery was present on virtually every continent with humans.

Persians had various of killing people in a variety of ways.

Slave trade dates from around 1500BC at least.

Chinese castrated their slaves so they couldn't breed.

There are afro Pakistanis. Slave trade was well documented out of Zanzibar.

Crimean Khanate was a slave state. Depopulated parts if what's now Ukraine.

Northern European practiced human sacrifice or capitol punishment by strangulation and dumped the bodies in bogs.

Vikings in Russia practiced human sacrifice at funerals, documented by the Arabs confirmed by archeology.

Slavery was almost the default it seemed.

Aztecs, Mayan human sacrifice and slavery.

As I said in not that convinced the Romans were much worse than their contemporaries. They documented it and enough if their records survived (and we're accurate enough)to give us an idea of what happened.

There's no history books surviving pre Herodotus iurc. The ones that have aren't complete and reflect the bias if their authors but better than nothing.

 

[InnocentPope]

For me, the WTF moment was when groups of slaves were being murdered for entertainment in the Colosseum. They rebelled, got the upper hand, and killed the soldiers that were murdering them. Then the Romans (the emperor if I recall correctly) accused these slaves of being cruel and lacking mercy! Exactly what did the ancient Romans think the word "mercy" meant?

Perhaps the soldiers had been planning to kill the slaves with one quick stab through the base of the brainstem that instantly ended their lives with a minimum of pain, and the slaves instead disemboweled the slaves and left them to bleed out slowly in puddles of their not-yet-excreted excrement and viscera.

Probably not, since this is Romans we're talking about.

But, y'know, in theory, that's how a statement like that could have made sense. There are definitely cases where death can be merciful, particularly if your life takes place in pre-medieval times, when a tiny scratch on your foot was likely to end with you losing your whole leg to gangrene.