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.

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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'.

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 PRESS RELEASE


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.
 

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ccs

41st lv DM
If I could challenge you on this, what about the current state of D&D do you think is spurring WotC to take action and make changes?

Honestly? Nothing.
This stuff isn't anything WotC (& TSR before them) hasn't heard about literally for decades. They could've changed it at any time. Ideally when an edition flips.... You know, new edition. New approach.
They didn't.
The people in charge 5e-wise? They are the same people in charge today as yesterday when Volos, CoS, & Abyss were released.
They could've changed it then. What better times than when the Drow, Vistani & PC playable orcs make their big 5e debuts? New edition, New approach.
They didn't.
They took our $$ & crowed about how amazing well D&D was doing saleswise.

Perhaps it was because the police stood on Floyd's neck & murdered him live on our Twitter feeds?
As terrible that is? How's it any different than whats been going on the year before that? Two years ago? Three? Etc.
After any one of these tragedies/murders Wizards could have said "We're changing our approach concerning ______".
They didn't.
They took our $$, crowed about how well D&D was doing & patted themselves on the back.

If all was going according to plan this sequence would be repeating in regards to the Theros book.

So what changed?
Well, now out in the real world theres currently world wide mass protests, riots, looting, burning, further murders of both PoC & police, and various companies coming under fire (some rightly, some wrongly) concerning racism.
The last part, about companies, is the important factor here.
This isn't about any of us. Its not about how orcs/Drow/Vistani are presented (they've proven they're OK with that. Or at least werent worried about it). June ?? 2020 was not the day the scales fell off thier eyes & they had an epiphany. Nope, this is all $. Its about WotC attempting not be attacked (figuratively or literally) - losing $.
And I understand. Right now virtually every company is diving for a foxhole. So NOW you're seeing them say something concerning orcs/driw/Vistani.... because its become important to their bottom line.
 

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Gradine

🏳️‍⚧️ (she/her) 🇵🇸
Honestly? Nothing.
This stuff isn't anything WotC (& TSR before them) hasn't heard about literally for decades. They could've changed it at any time. Ideally when an edition flips.... You know, new edition. New approach.
They didn't.
The people in charge 5e-wise? They are the same people in charge today as yesterday when Volos, CoS, & Abyss were released.
They could've changed it then. What better times than when the Drow, Vistani & PC playable orcs make their big 5e debuts? New edition, New approach.
They didn't.
They took our $$ & crowed about how amazing well D&D was doing saleswise.

Perhaps it was because the police stood on Floyd's neck & murdered him live on our Twitter feeds?
As terrible that is? How's it any different than whats been going on the year before that? Two years ago? Three? Etc.
After any one of these tragedies/murders Wizards could have said "We're changing our approach concerning ______".
They didn't.
They took our $$, crowed about how well D&D was doing & patted themselves on the back.

If all was going according to plan this sequence would be repeating in regards to the Theros book.

So what changed?
Well, now out in the real world theres currently world wide mass protests, riots, looting, burning, further murders of both PoC & police, and various companies coming under fire (some rightly, some wrongly) concerning racism.
The last part, about companies, is the important factor here.
This isn't about any of us. Its not about how orcs/Drow/Vistani are presented (they've proven they're OK with that. Or at least werent worried about it). June ?? 2020 was not the day the scales fell off thier eyes & they had an epiphany. Nope, this is all $. Its about WotC attempting not be attacked (figuratively or literally) - losing $.
And I understand. Right now virtually every company is diving for a foxhole. So NOW you're seeing them say something concerning orcs/driw/Vistani.... because its become important to their bottom line.

It has been noted before, but many of the things they announced had been in the works for quite some time (well before the current troubles began)
 

Zardnaar

Legend
See? It's not just WotC?



(Yes...it's the Onion. But, seriously, it's hard to tell these days.)

It's not the imagery that's the problem.

You look at that or Uncle Ben's rice and think what's the big deal?

It's the name Aunty and Uncle were used as they didn't want to use the Mr/Mrs titles back in the South.
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
I heard no one rooting to change the calishite empire, a clear reference to arabic countries.

So, that's not good either.

But, the argument you are forming here is "whataboutism" (aka the tu quoque logical fallacy).

Our failure to be absolutely comprehensive does not make our approach incorrect. It is perhaps incomplete, but you have to start somewhere.
 

Warpiglet

Adventurer
I think you hit the nail on the head.

Flip this: why did people start cities? Why do we build?

We do it for survival. I would imagine lizard folk however do just fine finding food in the swamp. They can hold their breath and dive. Their endurance and semi aquatic nature means that they don’t need giant fields of wheat and the means to distribute crops.

Their natural armor and bite means many tools are complementary but not necessary.

Generation after generation they’re so successful in small groups, why change?

They are ahead of the city builders...in their habitat.

Maybe it isn't that they "can't manage" it? Maybe they don't want to manage it.

Consider - when playing D&D, you recognize that gathering your party in a tight clump means you are very vulnerable to a fireball or lightning bolt. In a world with, say, dragons, there may be a cultural equivalent - if your settlement gets too large, monsters find it to be a tasty morsel, and come and kill you! Perhaps the society is better served by being more spread out.

Or, maybe their social structures are different. Or maybe the plants in the area are not suitable for agricultural development, so that you can't build the excess food supply necessary to support a city. Or maybe their territory is poor in workable metals, so they can't get past stone age technology. Or, or, or...

We did cities. Doesn't mean everyone has to. And our first cities were perhaps 5000 years ago, but, depending how you want to count, our species is hundreds of thousands of years old. So, we've had cities for perhaps 2.5% of our existence. If someone stopped by a mere hair earlier on the geologic timescale, you'd not see a metal tool anywhere on the planet. So, maybe your game is a hair earlier on their timescale.

And really, cities are not the end-all, be-all of what it means to be a sentient species. Neither are any other particular technologies. In fact, the very idea that there's a linear "advancement" is about as inaccurate as saying that humans are "more evolved" than gorillas.
 

Zardnaar

Legend
I think you hit the nail on the head.

Flip this: why did people start cities? Why do we build?

We do it for survival. I would imagine lizard folk however do just fine finding food in the swamp. They can hold their breath and dive. Their endurance and semi aquatic nature means that they don’t need giant fields of wheat and the means to distribute crops.

Their natural armor and bite means many tools are complementary but not necessary.

Generation after generation they’re so successful in small groups, why change?

They are ahead of the city builders...in their habitat.

Beats me why you can't imagine lizard men in cities.

The world of Titan from the old fighting fantasy books has the Lizardmen as a major empire.

Dark Elves were demon worshippers but not matriarchal BDSM lolthites.
 

Warpiglet

Adventurer
Certainly. But some have asked why they don’t. I think that is easy to imagine too.


Beats me why you can't imagine lizard men in cities.

The world of Titan from the old fighting fantasy books has the Lizardmen as a major empire.

Dark Elves were demon worshippers but not matriarchal BDSM lolthites.
 

Remathilis

Legend
Places, mostly.

Ya know, like halflings, or gnomes, or dwarves, or anyone else. Maybe in FR good orcs spread out amongst the various other peoples, and only keep small enclaves in hard to reach places for their own. Maybe there are more types of tribes in the north than we've seen before.

"There are good orcs, just off camera" doesn't sound like any meaningful change if orcs are still going to be viewed as a primarily cannon fodder henchmen.

Again, I'm trying to figure out how many "evil" orcs constitute a problem. If you stop using racist language but continue to use orcs to be grunt stock, has anything really changed? Is it enough to say "there are good orcs too, you just never meet them." ? What has to be done to settings like FR or GH to make them compatible with this changing attitude?

If we agree that the language and concept of "always evil" humanoids is bad and racist, what should actually be done to the game settings that already exist about to live up to that vision?
 

Staffan

Legend
And yet they are the same attributes used to describe all others all over the world all throughout history.
When the barbarians, heathens were attacking the Greeks, Romans or Byzantine Empire the same were said about them.

It is a medieval / fantasy trope that has resonated throughout humanity's timeline.
And one we could do without. I mean, a standard thing back in the day was the high-level character being granted title to some land on the edge of "civilization" and then being expected to recruit some troops, build a keep, and clear out the monsters in the area. That's the background to things like the Keep on the Borderlands. The parallels to American "Manifest Destiny" are... not comfortable.
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
"There are good orcs, just off camera" doesn't sound like any meaningful change if orcs are still going to be viewed as a primarily cannon fodder henchmen.
I'm not beholden to things I didn't say.

What I did say was that you can just add good and neutral orcs to FR without changing any established borders. That has nothing to do with them being "off camera". It certainly doesn't mean orcs are still primarily cannon fodder.
 

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