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'.

 

[Morrus]

Heh, now I dont know what you are saying.

I want to say, that representing other cultures includes representing other cultures (including the folklore from other cultures).

D&D is bigger than the worldviews of Tolkien and Shakespeare.

That's really not the topic at hand. It's not about representing other cultures (we do that plenty, albeit badly). The topic is representing the player base (people of colour, LBGTQ, etc.) in D&D products. I'm not sure how you could miss that.

 

[Haldrik]

That's really not the topic at hand. It's not about representing other cultures (we do that plenty, albeit badly). The topic is representing the player base (people of colour, LBGTQ, etc.) in D&D products. I'm not sure how you could miss that.

Representing the player base (people of other cultures and subcultures, etcetera) in D&D products.

Not everyone is English.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

So being able to customize origins, not only helps representing literal humans of other cultures but helps soften the misinterpretations about or the appropriation of other cultures.

As someone who strongly believes that nonhuman races are interesting just as long as they allow us to have some fixed stereotypes in the game*, I must say this is the first time I read a really sound argument that may well have changed my opinion on the subject. Kudos, sir.


* I once told a friend: if you want to play a dwarf who is well-shaved, ascetic, and deadly with a bow, you don't want to play a dwarf, you want to play a short human.

 

[Morrus]

Representing the player base (people of other cultures and subcultures, etcetera) in D&D products.

This thread is, clearly, in the context of Black Lives Matter. Other issues of culture may apply but those are not the context of this thread.

 

[Cadence]

This thread is, clearly, in the context of Black Lives Matter. Other issues of culture may apply but those are not the context of this thread.

It feels like they're part of it? Or are all of the things about how Hobogoblins have been portrayed, and using a sterotype of the Roma, and some of the problems of ability scores in general (a majority of this thread?) on topic for some other reason?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

That's really not the topic at hand. It's not about representing other cultures (we do that plenty, albeit badly). The topic is representing the player base (people of colour, LBGTQ, etc.) in D&D products. I'm not sure how you could miss that.

I'd say the topic is quite the contrary. The original outcry was against how orcs and drows were portrayed given that they were designed/interpreted to be representation of African Americans. Therefore the "always evil" depiction of them was deemed offensive. The answer is not to increase representation of the player base in the game but REMOVAL of representation of the player base. Do not try to make orcs or drow sympathetic and likeable, that would only aknowledge that they were, indeed, representing the African Americans and they woudl still be doing that. Racists everywhere could say "Orcs are /insert dismissive term for African Americans/ except they are great poets". Or worse "except that a few can turn out good". As long as you try to represent the player base (ie, real life humans) into your fantasy, you're going to do more harm than good. Represent humans as humans, and have other creatures be alien (in the sense of weird) enough to clearly dissociate them from any potential player base (including WASPs).

 

[Morrus]

I'd say the topic is quite the contrary. The original outcry was against how orcs and drows were portrayed given that they were designed/interpreted to be representation of African Americans. Therefore the "always evil" depiction of them was deemed offensive. The answer is not to increase representation of the player base in the game but REMOVAL of representation of the player base. Do not try to make orcs or drow sympathetic and likeable, that would only aknowledge that they were, indeed, representing the African Americans and they woudl still be doing that. Racists everywhere could say "Orcs are /insert dismissive term for African Americans/ except they are great poets". Or worse "except that a few can turn out good". As long as you try to represent the player base (ie, real life humans) into your fantasy, you're going to do more harm than good. Represent humans as humans, and have other creatures be alien (in the sense of weird) enough to clearly dissociate them from any potential player base (including white American males).

I have no idea what any of that means.

 

[InnocentPope]

I have no idea what any of that means.

If I read his post correctly, he was saying that even if you make Orcs a race of deeply spiritual philosophers, people are still going to look at Orcs and say "Orcs are just like black people, except that they're deeply spiritual philosophers", and it would be better to change Orcs so that they are not even remotely like people of any variety whatsoever.

 

[Hoffmand]

I agree representation is a goal.

And part of inclusivity includes not every elf being an English elf. But the concepts of elf from elsewhere are also welcome.

It is a more regional example of the same principle. Not everything in D&D needs to be European. Neither does everything need to be English (Shakespeare, Tolkien).

I happen to care about the elf. But other people from other ethnicities will similarly care about how their folklore gets represented as well.

Why? We modify and alter our own folklore and mythologies quite frequently and radically.

 

[Olrox17]

Presumably you're talking about Mussolini? I was aware he enjoyed Roman iconography, and the Fasces and so on, but not really conscious that he actually renamed Italy to "The Roman Empire". That's absolutely bananas. I have to admit I'm more of an ancient history buff (A-level, degree), and whilst we covered WW2 in a lot of detail, Mussolini and his lot didn't get much. I'm looking at the wikipedia entry for the Kingdom of Italy though, and I can't see any actual renaming to "The Roman Empire", so is that true, or are you just referring to him acting like it was?

You're right to put "revival" in hate quotes though, it was absolute bollocks that was just iconography and not much else.

Yeah, I put revival in quotes for that exact reason. It was nothing but ridiculous posturing and empty vanity.
There is surprisingly little in the english language that I could find. Just small references here and there.
There is something on the wikipedia page for roman empire though, in the english version "Further Roman imperialism was claimed by fascist ideology, particularly by the Italian Empire and Nazi Germany". The italian version of the page elaborates more.

I genuinely don't. I'm surprised but sad to hear that happens. What nationalities use it to mock you? Because I'm going to go ahead and guess isn't British people. British people have super-racist terms for Italian (and Spanish) people, but none of them relate to what, the Fascists?

That's what we call Mussolini's party in English - The National Fascist Party - but almost no-one in Britain knows that. British people typically know that Mussolini lead "the fascists", but we associate that term with a multitude of parties across Europe. I you challenge random typical Brits to name Mussolini's party, most won't be able to, and the closest anyone who isn't a WW2 buff will likely get is "Ummmm maybe it has Fascist in the name?". It certainly doesn't have "Rome" or "Roman" in the name?

So I'm bit confused about what you deal is here. We don't call the Romans "fascists" (even though the fasces itself is a bit of Roman iconography - but most often seen all over US courts and buildings).

Yeah, fascist is the term. As you noticed, the term seems to have taken a life on its own in the anglosphere, so it's no longer really connected to Mussolini's party for most english speaking people, it's mostly used as a generic term for an antidemocratic person.
I've heard the term being used in a mocking manner mostly by french people (I seem remember a french comedian from the 90s having fun with it).

And no, I didn't mean to say that Romans are called fascists anywhere. What I meant, is that for the average italian there are some connections between the fascist regime and the roman empire, the most famous one being the "roman salute", that was appropriated by the fascists, and still used by modern wannabe fascists (yes, they exist, kinda like neo-nazis).

Roman imagery being accosted to a lawful evil race could be perceived negatively by some italians, in theory. In practice, I think the likelihood of that happening would be pretty low. Well, unless the D&D artists happened to produce an art piece with hobgoblins doing the roman salute. That would 100% spark a huge controversy, instantly!