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'.

 

[Doug McCrae]

@Mercurius I'm going to set aside the issue of punches (and degrees), as I think it's something of a tangent. Suffice to say I'm a human being that cares about more or less the same things all human beings do.

I think the real issue here is that we simply prefer somewhat different styles of expression. I like relatively short posts (but nonetheless I do try very hard to say things that are true). From your perspective these are lacking in "nuance". I could, for example, in my post #2032 upthread have mentioned that the Gondorian men of Lossarnach are described as "swart". I chose not to because it wasn't necessary to make the point I wanted to make.

 

[Mercurius]

So, you think wotc read an article and change the course of how the present orcs?

Really!?


You don’t think they used their immense social platform to figure out what gamers of color thought of the issue?

Also, the issue has been soemthing gamers of color have been telling wotc for as long as they’ve owned D&D , and the specific passage in Volos since that book was released.

No one is basing their position on an article.

Fair enough. I'm very leery about making any demographic--including "gamers of color"--into one monolithic group. When you say that "gamers of color have been telling WotC..." it says nothing about how many or what percentage. Numbers matter.

By way of an intentionally absurd hypothetical, if a group of Italians hit the streets with signs reading "Pizza is cultural appropriation! Stop making pizza unless you're Italian!" and the vast majority of Italians are like, "huh?" it doesn't seem to be a meaningful statement of protest.

EDIT: This does not mean that I think any changes aren't warranted, mind you. I just think that--as I've said in various ways throughout my participation in this thread--that any changes should not only take into account inclusivity, but also D&D heritage. There are ways to do this that preserve the essential lore of drow, that keep orcs as orcish, while also de-coupling them from blatant racial stereotyping (I won't comment on the Vistani because my knowledge of them is limited).

 

[Mercurius]

@Mercurius I'm going to set aside the issue of punches (and degrees), as I think it's something of a tangent. Suffice to say I'm a human being that cares about more or less the same things all human beings do.

I think the real issue here is that we simply prefer somewhat different styles of expression. I like relatively short posts (but nonetheless I do try very hard to say things that are true). From your perspective these are lacking in "nuance". I could, for example, in my post #2032 upthread have mentioned that the Gondorian men of Lossarnach are described as "swart". I chose not to because it wasn't necessary to make the point I wanted to make.

If you're going to say "LotR is a racist text" then it isn't a tangent. Actually, I'd say its crucial - not only to Tolkien but D&D. To what degree is it racist? And how do we apply those criteria across the board? The amount of lead in water matters. Or we could take the recent example of Covid-19: viral load seems to be a major factor.

Is that succinct enough?

 

[Doug McCrae]

If you're going to say "LotR is a racist text" then it isn't a tangent. Actually, I'd say its crucial - not only to Tolkien but D&D. To what degree is it racist? And how do we apply those criteria across the board?

I think that was clear in my post #2032. I said why I think the text is racist, gave quite a lot of examples from it and said that the full quotations can be found in an earlier post.

 

[Weiley31]

Likewise with the Drow, in my games, nobody likes the Drow because everybody is familiar with their CE nature. The thing is, all of that crap is mostly Lolth's fault (cuz it's Lolth and nobody likes her either) and all the insanity that make up the Drow life in the Underdark.

But, on tht note, any Drow that forsakes that, can change/be redeemable. Drizzit shows it's possible. Imagine a Drow somehow becoming a Bladesinger? That would throw most elves off. Yet acheiving that goal would show to other Elves that it's totally possible for Drow to overcome their image/CE nature.

Likewise with the Gnolls, while 5E shows them as demon monsters, I still allow Gnolls to overcome that and be more like their 4E/Eberron depiction. Orcs as well can be seen in a different light. It may not be as smooth of a transition, but still possible.

 

[Mercurius]

I think that was clear in my post #2032. I said why I think the text is racist, gave quite a lot of examples from it and said that the full quotations can be found in an earlier post.

But you don't seem to want to acknowledge the matter of degree, or at least don't see it as important - though I've tried to point out why it is rather important, using an analogy that you provided (punches vs. WWII). Some of the connections you've made in that post are arguably quite tenuous, and I have acknowledged Tolkien's Eurocentric bias. But I think historical context and degree are rather important factors. If we judge everything by a specific contemporary ideological lens, we'll see everything through that lens (which will itself eventually evolve and change).

 

[Derren]

But you don't seem to want to acknowledge the matter of degree, or at least don't see it as important - though I've tried to point out why it is rather important, using an analogy that you provided (punches vs. WWII). Some of the connections you've made in that post are arguably quite tenuous, and I have acknowledged Tolkien's Eurocentric bias. But I think historical context and degree are rather important factors. If we judge everything by a specific contemporary ideological lens, we'll see everything through that lens (which will itself eventually evolve and change).

In the current climate "degrees" don't seem to exist anymore.

 

[Tallifer]

I do not accept that Tolkien or his works were racist. This podcast provides good analysis:

Race, Tolkien, and Middle-earth (Prancing Pony podcast)

 

[Markh3rd]

This isn't D&D, but that terrible movie Bright went ahead and did this;

View attachment 123075

In D&D orcs are made as a tribal, raiding group. I wouldn't say there is a specific ethnic group analogy, but they are considered the "barbarians at the gates" of the European-inspired Sword Coast. Which inevitably makes the orcs stand-ins for the "not-Europeans," meaning indigenous tribes, mongols, Africans, whatever.

"The Goths were divided into two major branches: ⁸the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. The Visigoths took over much of Western Europe and battled Rome constantly in the late 300's. Under their leader Alaric I, the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410."

Those were the barbarian hordes that sacked Rome.

"The barbarians were starting to take over parts of the Roman empire. To the Romans, anyone who was not a citizen of Rome or who did not speak Latin was a barbarian. In Europe there were five major barbarian tribes - the Huns, Franks, Vandals, Saxons, and Visigoths (Goths) - and all of them hated Rome."

African isn't mentioned. Which is why in all my recollections I cannot remember from Basic D&D onward (until very recently when games like WoW and shows like Bright especially) tried tying their version of Orcs to an African ethnicity.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Likewise with the Gnolls, while 5E shows them as demon monsters, I still allow Gnolls to overcome that and be more like their 4E/Eberron depiction. Orcs as well can be seen in a different light. It may not be as smooth of a transition, but still possible.

So, instead of having demonic-blood gnolls governed by their hyena blood attacking a caravan, you have free-willed gnolls attacking a caravan. Does this change how players react to the plundering gnolls in your group?