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.

 

[ZeshinX]

What other initiatives are you thinking of?

None specifically. Simply that what begins nobly and righteous oft times takes on a life of its own or becomes distracted, and loses its way, eventually becoming what it was never meant to be, and possibly undermining the great change it was attempting to make.

I'm not remotely suggesting these changes to D&D not be done. Far from it. I look forward to what comes of them. It's the risk of these changes losing their way in regards to its intent, and what possible ramifications they may have.

Is it a reason to not do them? No, certainly not.

 

[slygeek]

I always thought the depiction of the drow in the Forgotten Realms was its most unique aspect. They are a very flavourable race, despite that they are by-and large evil. R.A Salvatore's books on the drow are spectacular. AD&D 2E Menzoberranzan remains one of my favorite D&D works. I don't see how you can change the race without completely trashing the lore.

I am open with dark elves being depicted different in other settings though. Or how about this, CREATE NEW RACES lol (sorry people/cultures). The fact that we keep regurgitating the same old elves, dwarves and orcs with the same look and feel is incredibly un-creative.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Although my typos on this message board may make it hard to believe, I write professionally. Although I may chafe at editors and even curse some of their names, the truth is, on balance, it's much better to have several layers of editing, especially by people with different sorts of expertise, than not. I don't know any professional writer worth handing money over to who feels differently.

 

[Gradine]

Sensitivity readers aren't some new, untested concept, either. They've been around for quite some time, especially in genre fiction (and particularly within YA). Many published authors swear by them

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I always thought the depiction of the drow in the Forgotten Realms was its most unique aspect. They are a very flavourable race, despite that they are by-and large evil. R.A Salvatore's books on the drow are spectacular. AD&D 2E Menzoberranzan remains one of my favorite D&D works. I don't see how you can change the race without completely trashing the lore.

Make that culture just be specific to Menzoberranzan and the other cities he's depicted, while making explicit what should have always been implicit -- that the next city over or the next section of the Underdark might have drow cultures that are completely different.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

As I've pointed in the other thread, I think these are mainly positive changes going forward. I'm more skeptical about the moral and cultural complexity of traditionally villainous races, though. And I'm even more skeptical about how to advance these objectives in a game with a framework that makes it very difficult (or just not very fun or mechanically engaging, really) to solve any conflict without using lethal violence. Heck, the current edition doesn't even have a set of real rules for subdual damage. You can knock a creature out instead of outright killing it when you deal the last points of damage in melee, but that's it.

Considering that they're also moving away from abilities that can remove someone else's agency (just see the whole Love Domain controversy) and that JC makes it clear that their Unearthed Arcana audience wants the game to keep playing as it plays now (just see the whole psionic die controversy), I'm at least curious about where D&D will be in the future, even if most of these changes can't really change how we choose to play/build our settings at home.

 

[Rygar]

If D&D survived the loss of THAC0, I think we can survive this.

Now keep in mind WotC has not said that there will not be evil drow or orcs. That would be as silly as removing evil humans. What is it about having a more nuanced depiction of drow and orcs that you think would alienate D&D players?

It won't. WOTC, at least as it is today, is on its way out rather rapidly.

WOTC survives on Magic the Gathering. D&D is inconsequential compared to it. Mtg needs game stores to survive. People are not going back to game stores right away after COVID. Parents aren't taking their teens or younger to go play Mtg with a group of people who are infamous for poor hygiene under good circumstances, during a plague or right after. Same thing with D&D. Game stores are going to fold in droves.

Second, they have a politics problem. You cannot sell bibles to atheists. You cannot sell left wing politics to conservatives or a fairly decent chunk of moderates. Since WOTC is using their games to promote their politics, they're alienating customers. As we approach November, WOTC is going to get a lot worse. Remember, WOTC let one of their players deface their cards (Should be a game loss by the rules) and demonize an artist who'd been with them for decades on video to publicize their politics, they're not making it through November without using their products to push their staff's beliefs.

They'll alienate conservatives in droves, and depending on how tired of it moderates are, they'll alienate them too. So of the market they have left post-COVID, they're taking a hit of a 33% drop in customers guaranteed and potentially a 66% drop (Figuring equal thirds, which is fairly close). WOTC cannot survive drops that substantial, especially on top of COVID drops.

Remember, Mtg and D&D are group games. You need a certain number of people to play them. Below that threshold, you lose the whole group. Losing 1 person can mean losing 8 people for magic as an example. So if you have a group of 7 left wing Magic players and 1 conservative, you'll lose all 8 when the conservative is tired of WOTC's politicking.

Hasbro will respond at that point. They're not going to tolerate drops that substantial. They'll either replace the WOTC leadership team, which will result in a new edition for D&D to separate it from the politics that characterize it now, or they'll sell off WOTC while they can still get some value from it.

No matter what, at this time next year, we'll be looking at a very different WOTC and likely a very different edition of D&D.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Having orcs always be evil means I've broadcast that these are bad guys. Orcs are green in my campaign for a reason. I would hope there's no reason to believe they represent any particular real world ethnicity.

I'm not dissing your GMing style in any way. I understand what you're doing. On the other hand, I code enemies as villains through their actions and attitudes.

 

[MGibster]

Two new people meet to discuss another work of art. One is white, who says the work is not racist. The second person is not white, and says the work is racist, directed at them. Who is correct? The second person. There isn't a debate. Their living experience is better evidence that the first person's.

When Lorde's "Royals" was popular here in the United States, a blogger took exception to the lyrics declaring them to be racist. If you're unfamiliar with the song, the narrator rejects the trappings of wealth like Cristal, expensive cars, diamonds, etc., etc. and Batetti Flores interpreted this as a racist attack on black people. A native of New Zealand, Lorde says the song is about rejecting the consumerist lifestyle presented in the pop songs that dominate the charts even in her native country.

Who was right? Is it Flores because she's the one with the living experience? We could say yes but that leads us in another uncomfortable direction. Why should Flores' American centric point of view be held in higher consideration that Lorde's New Zealand perspective? There are times when it's quite clear that something is racist. But when we create an environment that embraces diversity there's going to be some disagreement in areas where the lines aren't so clear.

Now I am sure people can concoct an elaborate corner case in an attempt to refute the second part of my little parable, but let's pause a moment and ask ourselves, why do so? Why work so hard, mentally, to give people a pass when all that is really needed is to stop, listen to an aggrieved party, and actually believe them, at least on some level.

You don't have to go far to concoct elaborate corner cases. I brought one up quite easily and we can find another quite easily. See the debacle surrounding the Boston Museum of Fine Art's kimono event . The museum didn't think the event was racist, some Americans protested saying it was racist, and the Japanese didn't understand what the hubub was all about and thought it was some anti-Japanese protest.

 

[Gradine]

"Get woke, go broke", essentially

You know, for all the times we hear about this, we've still yet to hear about it at all in practice. Hell, we've been hearing about it regarding 5e since before the edition came out.