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.

 

[Nickolaidas]

What’s this got to do with the topic?

Weren't we talking about how creature descriptions ring racist bells to some people? How does it not got anything to do with the topic?

 

[Charlaquin]

Weren't we talking about how creature descriptions ring racist bells to some people?

You’ve been told repeatedly that this isn’t the problem.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Weren't we talking about how creature descriptions ring racist bells to some people? How does it not got anything to do with the topic?

WotC only recently started a mass push to get the books translated into several other languages for sale in non-English speaking countries. I would not be surprised at all if some of this comes from how the iffy English words and phrases translated into something even more offensive in other languages.

And regardless of who is hearing bells, Black and Jewish and Roma peoples are treated poorly or persecuted in a lot more of the world than just the US, so eliminating any real or perceived comparisons is only a good thing.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Yeah, in retrospect that post did not at all come off the way I meant it to, and I do apologize. This thread moves fast, I was skimming, and posted without fully understanding the context of the conversation thread I was chiming in to. It was certainly not my intention to suggest that Muslims in general have grown more conservative since the 90s, nor any Muslims specifically, and it’s not something I believe - I admit I don’t really know much about Muslim religion or culture at all. Of course, I am a strong believer that effects matter more than intent, so if anyone was hurt by what I said, I apologize, and if there is anything I can do to try and make up for it, please let me know. I’d be happy to edit the post, if that would help.

It was my post you originally replied to. It's all good, although the frequency this has happened to me (oddly challenging post for no apparent reason or cause that sometimes even back up what you were saying) in the past few days is why I am no longer discussing anything having to do with orcs or racism.

It's a shame, I think it's an interesting discussion. Maybe one best left for sitting around a table, though.

I appreciate the apology, have no need for editing, and wish you the best in this discussion.

If you want to learn something fascinating....look online for pictures of Iran before and after 1979. You can see a very clear division of what moderate and conservative Muslim communities would look like with a huge change happening in just one year.

 

[Bohandas]

Honestly? Not for me.

I have played BECMI, a little of 3rd Ed, and 5th Ed. Both as a player and as a DM. I have never read somewhere in the rules that orcs were an inferior or stupid race. They were always labeled as a menace to humanoid societies (humans, dwarves and elves).

I didn't live in America, and certainly not in colonial times, so I don't know how black people were described as, nor what was the reason for enslaving them.

Yeah.

My personal impression was always

It was definitely the darkest part of your history, and I'm sure your leaders did their best at propaganda to portray the slavery of black people as something which shouldn't give you any feelings of guilt.

This thinking, on the other hand, troubles me.

None of our leaders had anything to do with it. We weren't born yet. I didn't vote for them. The oldest living american was born 50 years after slavery ended.

Furthermore I'm sure there's a lot of Americans where even if you look at their their ancestors their family didn't even come to the USA until after the civil war was over. So even if we take "you" to mean "you and all your ancestors" it still doesn't apply to many. For example, my ancestors were all still in Italy until the early 20th century..

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

None of our leaders had anything to do with it. We weren't born yet. I didn't vote for them. The oldest living American was born 50 years after slavery ended.

Furthermore I'm sure there's a lot of Americans where even if you look at their their ancestors their family didn't even come to the USA until after the civil war was over. So even if we take "you" to mean "you and all your ancestors" it still doesn't apply to many. For example, my ancestors were all still in Italy until the early 20th century.

I am in Virginia and some of my ancestors came to America before the US was a country and some fought in the Revolutionary War. My family still has about 300 acres and a farmhouse that they owned since before the Civil War. I also have French Huguenot and Scots-Irish ancestors. I think my family just has a thing for rebelling. lol

 

[Panda-s1]

I didn't live in America, and certainly not in colonial times, so I don't know how black people were described as, nor what was the reason for enslaving them. It was definitely the darkest part of your history, and I'm sure your leaders did their best at propaganda to portray the slavery of black people as something which shouldn't give you any feelings of guilt.

This is clearly a sensitive topic to a lot of you (as it should be), and I do not intend to trivialize it in the slightest. I really don't.

But you must also realize that not everyone was born in America. Not everyone has a history with racism and therefore not everyone reads the orc description in the same way some Americans do. Not everyone gets sensitive vibes when reading that orcs are savages who live in tribes. For those people orcs being savages living in tribes is not insulting - it's lore, simple as that. And when other players come and wish to change the lore for reasons those other people do not understand, debates begin.

But I guess ... D&D is a really old game. And as all really old things, notions, ideas ... it needs to change. Get with the times.

But I can't help but be amazed with how much American culture has changed in the past couple of decades. I don't see any changes in the culture of my country, but I see tremendous changes in yours, mainly via pop culture.

look idk what country you come from, but it's not just America, black peoplearound the world have to deal with racism in some form (as do other minorities, of course). maybe you've seen that one video John Boyega making an impassioned speech to protesters recently. he's born and raised in London, but still faces prejudice because of his race in Britain.

again I don't know what country you live in, but I do suggest looking into racism or any other bigotry that might be in your country's history. or even right now. it's a bigger problem than you might think.

That's literally how BECMI edition rolled, back in the day. There were no moral conundrums. It was all about going to place X and kill monster Y.

I'm pretty sure BECMI was a little more morally complex than people remember. I'm also entirely certain your average player starting on BECMI was too young to care about any moral conundrums anyway. I wasn't alive back then, but I'm honestly of the opinion there was a huge tonal shift in D&D around the time BECMI came out precisely because of the audience that played it and not the system itself.

Again, I didn't ask you to agree. You seemed genuinely perplexed by how someone might disagree with your opinion. I offered one possible reason. Understanding where someone is coming from isn't the same as agreeing with them.

that's not it, it's wildly inconsistent. all sorts of complex ideas and systems get mentioned in D&D by their actual name. systems of government, religious concepts, alchemy, even actual real world science gets brought up in D&D, but suddenly it's not "racism" because it's not based on real world people?? it's not like I don't know players who call it racism when it's in D&D, I certainly do, I'm just startled that there are people who make an exception for racism.

 

[MGibster]

None of our leaders had anything to do with it. We weren't born yet. I didn't vote for them. The oldest living american was born 50 years after slavery ended.

While I don't believe white people should feel guilty for the past, our past does matter. We all need to recognize events in the past which have led us to where we are today. Even if your ancestors weren't in the United States at the time these events occurred they are still part of our collective national history.

 

[Cadence]

Game: "Orcs bad. Go kill, be hero."
12-13 year old kids: "YAY!!"

That’s really, really not a narrative I would want my kids engaging with for fun (if I had kids). What a terrible message to send to children.

I don't know how old you are, but that was the message I got when I played the BECMI D&D (Black Box) version, 25 years ago.

That's literally how BECMI edition rolled, back in the day. There were no moral conundrums. It was all about going to place X and kill monster Y.

I'm pretty sure BECMI was a little more morally complex than people remember. I'm also entirely certain your average player starting on BECMI was too young to care about any moral conundrums anyway. I

How much does it change things if the kids in question only had Moldvay Basic and B2, which means pretty much none of the things discussed earlier in this thread were there?

Orcs, like most monsters, were "Alignment: Chaotic" to the last individual and the rules reminded the DM that they "should be careful to play the alignment of each monster correctly." Where "Chaotic behavior is usually the same as behavior that could be called 'evil'". And Chaos was a real threat, as in the Keep on the Borderlands: "The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populate, rape its riches and steal its treasures." And if you didn't the forces of chaos "would otherwise overwhelm the land."

Orcs in particular "have bad tempers and do not like other living things; they will often kill something for their own amusement." There was no picture of them in the book and the description was "Orcs are ugly human-like creatures who look like a combination of animal and man." I don't even know if we got a particular picture in our head when we first encountered them. They weren't called humanoids and there were no half-orcs. They were simply monsters that were forces of Chaos (Evil). There's nothing to distinguish them in a moral sense from the Doppelanger (whose favorite thing is to kill the original person and infiltrate the party), Gnoll ("human-like hyena"), or Troglodyte ("human like-reptile" that "hate most other creatures, and will try to kill anyone they meet")

The orcs, gnolls, and trogolodytes weren't grouped with humans. On the other hand, the demi-humans (elves, dwarves, or halflings) "are cousin species to humans" and could be PCs or NPCs and thus of any alignment.

And, even so, the adventurers were called to be morally better and not simply kill all the chaotic monsters no matter what. In the basic book's sample combat: The Hobogoblins fail a morale check and offer to tell the party information if they don't kill them. The party accepts - one neutral character wants to still kill them because it's bad to leave an enemy behind, another neutral character says they're probably too terrified to do anything but they won't stop the first from killing them, but the lawful characters is shocked by this and says they need to keep their word and that her god would never let her heal someone who killed helpless prisoners. The first neutral character calms down and says they were just angry because of the great pain from her wounds. And the XP system would have reward leaving them alive just as much as killing, since you can also gain them by overcoming (instead of killing) the monsters using magic, fighting, or wits.

So, what's the point...

It feels like there could have been a way to have a game in which just going and killing the things that are now called humanoids (if they didn't surrender) was, at least relatively, uncontentious.

But the world of D&D wasn't just Moldvay Basic and B2 even back then, and it's moved well past now. And we're in the later editions and we've read the literature that inspired them. A lot of the monsters are humanoids; individuals among them can be good and be NPCs or PCs (like the demi-humans of old); there are half-orcs as a base PC race; their societies have been described using the language used in real life to justify genocide against real groups of people; in some cases their appearances have been taken from groups of real people instead of just a vague unhelpful throwaway sentence with no picture; and the plots have expanded to conquering their land in full colonial pillaging style in some places.

And so it isn't fine to just fine to go on like all the now-humanoids are just Chaotic sources of XP that need killing.

[Apologies for the ramble, 11 year old me needed to talk to 40+ year-old-me, about running the first campaign for my son and his friends soon].

 

[Bohandas]

While I don't believe white people should feel guilty for the past, our past does matter. We all need to recognize events in the past which have led us to where we are today. Even if your ancestors weren't in the United States at the time these events occurred they are still part of our collective national history.

Again, it's not "our" past. MY past doesn't go back earlier than the 1980's.