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.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I don't think you paid much attention to the entire story about Dread Pirate Roberts. DPR is known throughout the world as being a merciless evil being who leaves no victim alive, and who killed Buttercup's beloved Westley. It shocked you that one of the most evil men in the world almost smacked a female captive?

It all being a ruse, of course, meant that even though Buttercup didn't know at the time, DPR was really Westley, who wouldn't harm her at all.

Your response, and the two likes it got, sadden me.

It normalizes violence against women. I’m discouraged that isn’t more obvious.

 

[Anathema]

It's hard for D&D to be inclusive to dark skinned ethnicies in real life when the dark skinned people in D&D are generalized as having moral failings or evil tendencies---the exact same things said by white people towards dark skinned peoples for the past 500 years.

Only they are not, how do you come to this conclusion? Open your Player's Handbook for 5th Edition and look at the PEOPLE called "Human". Look what Wizards of the Coast used as the standard depiction of a human being. Is this a statement of the evilness of black people? Or is it - quite the contrary - a beautiful statement that "human" is not your stereotypical white male?

Look at the description of Half-Orcs: "Half-Orcs are not inherently evil, but evil lurks within them" - the same which can be said about humans, and practically about any sort of PEOPLE. Orcs are humanoids, true, but they are in the entirety of their fantastical and historical background not identified as less monstrous than trolls, giants, dragons or whatever "monster" - plus they are not a player race. ===> But what is even better: Look at the Paladin. You (as in: you as a privileged, white male from a western country, or you as a restless warrior for the termination of racism in fantasy worlds) would guess it is a white male in a shiny armor wielding a greatsword, right? Eeeh, wrong. It is a farrucking Half-Orc (or Orc, I can't tell the difference, really - was that racist?) and not some white dude with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Let's get a little bit into the drow and their fantastical history: In the beginning - if I recall correctly from the Grand History of the Realms - they had dark hair, dark brown skin and dark eyes. After the dark elf kingdoms were attacked (UNJUSTIFIED BTW.) by the Sun Elves (so the "white" elves are the bad ones here), they summoned a demon's powers and were tricked by Lolth who was behind the demon the whole time. They were banned from the surface world after millennia of wars (called the Crown Wars) and transformed from "Dark Elves" to "Drow" with OBSIDIAN (pitch black) skin and white hair. Why? Because they followed the dark and violent way of Lolth and lost the Crown Wars. Not because they were inherently or naturally evil, the Grand History of the Realms and The Drow of the Underdark said that real loud and clear, but because they - in the context of the fake history surrounding them - CHOSE to search help from evil in a conflict and were punished for it. They did not choose a demon's or a dark goddess' help because they were inherently loving to be evil hatemongers, but because they were driven to search help from evil beings and got corrupted. And even their skin-tone was changed from something a real life person could relate to, to something that just is not a human skin-color (obsidian, dark grey, grey with shades of blue etc.).

Even in the background information in the Player's handbook it is stated that Drizzt "rejected his HERITAGE" not his NATURE. Another funny thing: Drow in Lolth worshipping or other Underdark societies believe that the other ra..PEOPLE are INFERIOR to them. And why not? Drow are depicted as more powerful than elves, in some cases more beautiful. So basically THEY have racism printed on their foreheads and because of their racist behavior are being looked upon with prejudice from the surface dwellers - all of them, even those humans with dark skin who in no way feel like those drow were in any way related to them. Which makes it also hard for the followers of Eilistraee. Did we really all forget that there is a whole drow religion that is devoted to good? And why is only Drizzt always depicted as "the one good drow". What about Liriel Baenre? What about Qilue Veladorn?

What I am trying to say is: Cool down. WotC did already - in my opinion - everything to make sure that the color of the skin is not a factor to determine one player "race"'s alignment. So I really do not see the urgency of this action, as it is clearly that if you are a rational person, you will see that neither drow nor half-orcs are "evil by nature" because of their "race" or even worse their "skin tone". Drow were corrupted and half-orcs are a cross-breed between the monstrous spawn of the evil god Gruumsh and humans (no matter their skin color). The whole thing seems a little bit like impulsive action or actionism to me, because of recent events. Sometimes an orc is just an orc and me as a white male from Germany did not one second think about orcs or drow as depictions of dark-skinned human beings that serve my (non existing) racial prejudices.

Relax.

 

[Nickolaidas]

idk some humans live in swamps. they take advantage of their environment and don't build structures like you might see in your typical human city.

why should humans build castles and cities when they can climb trees and use camouflage when underwater in order to surprise prey? why should they build castle walls for defense when trees and heavy vegetation provide ample cover from enemy projectiles and siege engines? (spoilers: they kinda don't).

why might saying a group of people are only ever inclined to a "primitive" lifestyle be viewed as racist and problematic?

Which do you think is easier for a cat to do? Use a ladder, or climb a tree?

Lizardfolk can hold their breath for 15 minutes. Lying in wait underwater is much easier and effective for them than it is for a human. Using their skin as camouflage in folliage is much easier for them than it is for humans. The fact that they can use nature to their advantage a lot more effective than humans do is a solid way to explain why lizardfolk stayed primitive - because they didn't feel the need to protect themselves from their environment the same way humans did. Humans built structures to conquer their environment and shield themselves from threats, while lizardfolk simply used it as if it was an extension of their will.

The fact that you simply swapped species trying to prove that humans=lizardfolk (when they clearly aren't) shows how little you understand the creatures TSR & WotC have created. Lizardfolk aren't humans, and if they (WotC) (theoretically) retcon them to be like humans in order to not offend people who would view their tribalism as something offensive would be wrong, imo.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Your response, and the two likes it got, sadden me.

It normalizes violence against women. I’m discouraged that isn’t more obvious.

Is violence against men OK, like the swordfights and poisoning? How about animals, like the ROUS?

 

[Mirtek]

idk some humans live in swamps. they take advantage of their environment and don't build structures like you might see in your typical human city.

why should humans build castles and cities when they can climb trees and use camouflage when underwater in order to surprise prey? why should they build castle walls for defense when trees and heavy vegetation provide ample cover from enemy projectiles and siege engines? (spoilers: they kinda don't).

why might saying a group of people are only ever inclined to a "primitive" lifestyle be viewed as racist and problematic?

so then what's stopping lizardfolk from making cities? or orcs? did humans exist that much longer in your average fantasy setting?

Now we're getting again to close to RL, but since that is the question, the asnwer is that these humans in those situations don't do this things. Even today they do not do them.

It's not that lets say the inhabitants of sentinal island may be xenophobic, but otherwise are just as eagerly awaiting their society's next gen console like we're waiting for the PS5

 

[Greg Benage]

How many thousands of years did it take any humans on the planet to do it? First city in 4500 BC, so somewhere over 200,000 years of being Homo sapiens?

Yeah, but I don't think you want to paint whole humanoid species (I hope we can all agree that the term "race" has to go) as being less developed, more primitive, less effective city-builders, etc. Maybe you make all your cities multicultural, inclusive of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, etc., but someone still built them, and some of them damn-well better have been built by bugbears, because otherwise they're a harmful stereotype of mud-hut-dwelling primitives.

I'm not kidding or trolling, BTW, though I understand if it comes off that way and apologize in advance for it. Seriously, how can you revise orcs to be a fully realized culture that isn't rooted in harmful stereotypes and then ALSO say, "Well, but they don't have agriculture or international trade or cities on the scale of Waterdeep because they're more technologically and socially primitive and prefer raiding"? How is that less problematic than what we have now?

I'm not at all convinced that there's room in most fantasy worlds for all these fully realized and equally "advanced" civilizations, and I don't see how you can make them developmentally unequal without being grossly problematic. Maybe you can only really have a world such as Eberron (though it will need a lot of work, too) which is far more urbanized than most fantasy worlds.*

I'm going further down the rabbit hole, but I really do think the rabbit hole is deep, and that's why I think it's the wrong move to make all these species fully realized human-like civilizations. I think they'll do it half-assed because doing otherwise would radically alter their IP, and then we're left with ubiquitous problematic elements anyway. You know, these are the same guys that had us looting the sacred spaces of the Uthgart people, still "barbaric" for whatever reason, to save the world a couple years ago, and the Uthgart are actual humans!

I'd at least explore the idea that Gruumsh went ahead and successfully created a species of evil raiders and pillagers in his own image. He didn't attempt to do that and instead accidentally create a fully realized civilization just like those of humans and elves. I'd explore whether I couldn't excise all the problematic depictions (e.g. "low foreheads") and change their creature type to "Monstrosity" or "Fiend" or even some completely new type. Because otherwise, I think it's going to be a mess that doesn't correct a problem that absolutely DOES need correction.

* Did they fix the map scale and city populations in the Eberron re-release?

 

[Nickolaidas]

It's not that lets say the inhabitants of sentinal island may be xenophobic, but otherwise are just as eagerly awaiting their society's next gen console like we're waiting for the PS5

My body is ready, btw.

 

[MGibster]

Your response, and the two likes it got, sadden me.

It normalizes violence against women. I’m discouraged that isn’t more obvious.

I think this must be one of those eye of the beholder type situations. I saw a villain engaging in villainous behavior. It wasn't presented as a lighthearted fun scene but a reinforcement that the DPR was a bad dude.

 

[Panda-s1]

Which do you think is easier for a cat to do? Use a ladder, or climb a tree?

Lizardfolk can hold their breath for 15 minutes. Lying in wait underwater is much easier and effective for them than it is for a human. Using their skin as camouflage in folliage is much easier for them than it is for humans. The fact that they can use nature to their advantage a lot more effective than humans do is a solid way to explain why lizardfolk stayed primitive - because they didn't feel the need to protect themselves from their environment the same way humans did. Humans built structures to conquer their environment and shield themselves from threats, while lizardfolk simply used it as if it was an extension of their will.

The fact that you simply swapped species trying to prove that humans=lizardfolk (when they clearly aren't) shows how little you understand the creatures TSR & WotC have created. Lizardfolk aren't humans, and if they (WotC) (theoretically) retcon them to be like humans in order to not offend people who would view their tribalism as something offensive would be wrong, imo.

no, you're missing the point, why do humans need to make cities when they don't need them? why can't lizardfolk make cities that take advantage of their abilities? it's weird to just say they're "primitive" and worse to call them "content".

 

[Oofta]

Your response, and the two likes it got, sadden me.

It normalizes violence against women. I’m discouraged that isn’t more obvious.

So violence instigated by the bad guy can never be depicted? [EDIT] As @MGibster Villains can't be villainous?