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'.

 

[Jacqual]

When this discussion first started I was thinking what will this all entail with the books and lore as written and how will that effect my game. Then I really started my thoughts on it, and I have come to the conclusion that it will more then likely improve the game and the way the game is played. These so called evil races can be influenced by the gods they worship, the hardest part is getting all of the players to not compare these with real world peoples. An evil humanoid clan probably do not do any farming they could be hunters, but would raid farms for produce and such. The armor they wear would be crude or stolen/captured from other races. This can be a great turning point in the game(s) we love playing. I don't even know if I am saying this right as, yes english is my only language but I am no creative writer. I do believe that this will make the game more inclusive which I myself have always had just for the reason "More players, is more playing and better stories" I know what was written by Tolkien was wrong and racist, but that was common back then and we being a much more modern people need to remember the past so we can strive to be better people with open minds and hearts. We can make corrections on the past to improve the future for everyone. So much has been said in this forum that is working towards that better future and so many here have been a part of that. I am proud of what we have been doing in here together, if we can just do this in everything we do we will start a change that will become stronger and better for all.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Aware of that. Hence I added the quotation marks. I felt like it was the only word that fit the context, but I knew it was somewhat unsavory, so I wanted to be clear that I was using it to quote the word, not to call anyone the word.

And on the art side, I get what you're getting at, but IMO it's very vague and not even close to a direct parallel. I think it'd be hard to see this if you weren't actively looking for it.

We'll have to agree to disagree. As someone with Japanese ancestry, from my perspective the look seemed pretty clearly inspired by Japanese warring states period (as opposed for example English, French, Maori, Zulu, Aztec, Gupta, etc).

 

[Eyes of Nine]

93 pages. 93.

The majority written by two camps composed of seven people who disagree with one another.

If only 93 pages were used to write about 93 different types of orcs.

Tangential to this - I'm inspired to write a 1st level adventure where the PCs come upon a peaceful farming/fishing/mild trading village composed of many humanoid folk - mostly goblins, kobolds, orcs. And they are being predated upon by a bandit group made up of dwarves, elves, and humans.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So, people have been saying that it's a problem that Frost Giants are based on Nordic people, right? I don't see a problem with this. I am descended from Vikings, my father's side of my family fled to America from Norway because of religion. I am white, and know quite a bit about nordic culture. So, I don't have a problem with Frost Giants, which are an inherently evil monster race, being depicted as they are. They make good villains, look cool, and are useful in campaigns.

Now, why this is not the same as saying it's okay to have Orcs all be evil is because of how Norse people and Black people have been treated differently through the years. Black people are still killed and attacked just because they are black. I have never been attacked or murdered because I am descended from a race of people who liked pillaging and conquering others. It's like how Italians aren't persecuted because the Roman Empire was very bad to other people. I am not discriminated against because of my being descended from Norse people, so I'm not sensitive to Frost Giants being similar to Vikings, and also being stupid tall people who like raiding and enslaving others. Now, black people are sensitive to having Orcs or Drow being depicted the way they are because of their being persecuted. Same with the Romani people being persecuted and their sensitivity to the depictions of Vistani.

It's not wrong to have Norse-based giants be tall, blundering, evil, racist idiots, because that's not going to offend anyone except white supremacists. It is wrong to have the current depictions of Orcs, Drow, Vistani, Hobgoblins, and other races that are based on real life races that have been discriminated against in recent years.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Tangential to this - I'm inspired to write a 1st level adventure where the PCs come upon a peaceful farming/fishing/mild trading village composed of many humanoid folk - mostly goblins, kobolds, orcs. And they are being predated upon by a bandit group made up of dwarves, elves, and humans.

I have a premise for your module.

Taken straight from SKT (I'm not kidding):

Iceshield Lands
''Where a branch of the Dessarin Valley meets the western High Forest are rolling grass-covered hills recently claimed by the orcs of the Iceshield tribe. They dwell in crude lodges made from timber cut from the forest. Elves and centaurs regularly emerge from the High Forest to attack and set fire to these lodges, but the orcs keep cutting down trees and rebuilding them. ''

 

[Zardnaar]

I think this is a complex issue, with a lot of history both good and bad. I'm not just talking about just the two threads that now have thousands of posts (and similar ones), but also why we have had evil races in a game like D&D. From the inception of the game we've had monsters, why is it okay for some monsters to be evil but not others and so on.

Going even further back it gets into tribalism, humanity's struggle for survival over the last several millennia, why we fear the "other" and so on. But even looking back at that last sentence ... I dunno. It's not a simple topic and personally I want to keep this forum about the game. Maybe that's not possible.

So it's easy for anyone to throw out one-liners or say "if you don't agree you're wrong". To put it another way, just because I respect and understand other people's opinions, that does not mean I agree.

But I think it's okay to disagree about the role of fictional creatures that do not and can not exist. Feel free to disagree.

It's because the game basically us about beating up things and taking their stuff.

Easier to do that if they're evil.

Game is still like that. The classes revolve around combat. The treasure tables etc are there for a reason.

Someone gonna get beaten up and have their stuff looted.

That's basically D&D. I wouldn't tie any real world culture to the d&d races but I also wouldn't project stereotpyes from the real world onto Orcs or whatever.

Drow are a problem on multiple levels. It's why they get banned so much.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

So, people have been saying that it's a problem that Frost Giants are based on Nordic people, right? I don't see a problem with this. I am descended from Vikings, my father's side of my family fled to America from Norway because of religion. I am white, and know quite a bit about nordic culture. So, I don't have a problem with Frost Giants, which are an inherently evil monster race, being depicted as they are. They make good villains, look cool, and are useful in campaigns.

Now, why this is not the same as saying it's okay to have Orcs all be evil is because of how Norse people and Black people have been treated differently through the years. Black people are still killed and attacked just because they are black. I have never been attacked or murdered because I am descended from a race of people who liked pillaging and conquering others. It's like how Italians aren't persecuted because the Roman Empire was very bad to other people. I am not discriminated against because of my being descended from Norse people, so I'm not sensitive to Frost Giants being similar to Vikings, and also being stupid tall people who like raiding and enslaving others. Now, black people are sensitive to having Orcs or Drow being depicted the way they are because of their being persecuted. Same with the Romani people being persecuted and their sensitivity to the depictions of Vistani.

It's not wrong to have Norse-based giants be tall, blundering, evil, racist idiots, because that's not going to offend anyone except white supremacists. It is wrong to have the current depictions of Orcs, Drow, Vistani, Hobgoblins, and other races that are based on real life races that have been discriminated against in recent years.

Now that it has been brought up though, it actually would be nice to see more non-warfare life of the Frost Giants. All we see are "RAIDS!" when real life Vikings actually did settle and support their families.

 

[Lanefan]

Tangential to this - I'm inspired to write a 1st level adventure where the PCs come upon a peaceful farming/fishing/mild trading village composed of many humanoid folk - mostly goblins, kobolds, orcs. And they are being predated upon by a bandit group made up of dwarves, elves, and humans.

This would look much different in a game where kobolds, orcs etc. are allowed as PCs (thus all that happens is the normal good-bad situation is reversed) than one in which they are not, and the human-elf-dwarf PCs have to choose between opposing their own peoples or becoming just as bad as they.

Which leads me to a broader question: once or twice in this endless mess of a thread it's been brought up (theoretically? factually? not sure) that part of what's driving this is a push by some in WotC to make 'monster' races such as orcs, goblins, etc. more easily playable as PCs. Is this in fact the case?

Because if it is, WotC have taken the known problems that already existed (e.g. the easy-to-trace connections between depictions of orcs and Blacks) and added a bunch of problems of their own making.

Wouldn't it be far simpler to 1) change the depictions of orcs and other problematic beings or cultures such that they're nowhere near as identifyable with any current real-world cultures, 2) keep 'em evil as all-get-out in general, and 3) make it very clear these are not intended to be player characters - ever.

 

[TheSword]

The picture of a 5e hobgoblin has samurai armour and helmet, a topknot and a two sword combo, one long, one short. Hobgoblins have also been depicted as having con banners on their back. They are undoubtably drawing Inspiration from Japanese samurai.

I guess it’s problematic that the only Japanese based culture is monolithically evil and conquering. If there were other cultures based on the same that were well researched, accurately portrayed and offered an alternative viewpoint then the hobgoblins wouldn’t be so anachronistic.

One person in a thread on another site, said to me that he reason that the 5e portrayal of HGs was fine was because they stole their armour from other civilizations. When I asked which civilization in d&d had Japanese style armour he said, “the monks”. I couldn’t tell whether he was being dumb or telling a very funny joke.

 

[Eric V]

It's because the game basically us about beating up things and taking their stuff.


Someone gonna get beaten up and have their stuff looted.

So...colonialism. The game is about colonialism.