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]

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.

By 'your' and 'you' I meant the leaders the Americans had back then, using propaganda to the American people back then.

 

[MGibster]

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.

I think most Americans find the prejudice the Roma face in Europe to be confusing. Here in the states, there are fewer than 1,000,000 people of Romani decent and while that sounds like a lot it's only .3% of our population. When the Roma immigrated to the US they were typically classified according to whatever larger group they arrived with. i.e. If they were from Italy they were classified as Italians and if from Slovakia they were Slovakian. You could stand a Spaniard and a Romani side-by-side and most of us wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

[MGibster]

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

It's "our" past in the sense that it shaped the cultural milieu were were inculcated into. But my inner pedant can't help but admire this hill you've taken a stand on. Very bold. Very brave.

 

[Cadence]

Even though it was a real thing that happened, no living person has been affected by it.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but how have people alive today not been affected by the Atlantic slave trade?

Inheritance of wealth, wealth growing over time, and the effect of parents wealth on children are a thing. There are millions of people alive today whose families haven't had the same opportunities to build up wealth or political capital that hundreds of millions of others have had, because of the slave trade and it's aftermath. It's kind of like one group having disadvantage on the starting wealth and the other not.

Of course at some point there might be enough time that that evens out. But following slavery, after the brief period of reconstruction, we got to the period of killing the lawfully elected former slaves and those who voted for them, putting in poll taxes, lynchings, and segregation. It wasn't until the early 1960s that many universities integrated and even then for the first year the African American students were tormented mercilessly by legions of their white classmates. The voting rights act wasn't until 1965. Redlining wasn't made illegal until 1968. That's not ancient history. That's probably in the lifetime of some people posting here, and certainly something the parents of numerous people posting here from the states can remember.

 

[Asisreo]

Even though it was a real thing that happened, no living person has been affected by it. The people living in the world today have only ever experienced it through secondhand accounts.

We've all been affected by it. Not just african americans, not just slave owners. We aren't responsible for what happened but it made a major change to how we live today.

If you follow the money, so many things benefitted and prospered from the Slave Trade that you probably have something in your house who's company may have benefitted from a slave. I know I do. It's hard to escape it at all. It was one of the most lucrative economies in history, of course most money is dirtied by it.

There's a hard truth in America:
Being an African-American limits you and your options. If you want to succeed as an African American, you have to either risk your life through the military, be an entertainer, have a company hire you for diversity, or turn to crime. You can go to college, but unless your parents were any of those mentioned above, you're probably not going to be there for long. And if you're lucky enough for your parents to have enough money to get you to a decent college, you'll still be judged or hired by the color of your skin, not the merits of your achievements. Not only that, but mass incarceration is always at your back.

Want to smoke weed, everyone's doing it in college, right? Well, you can't without worrying about being put in jail or even prison since possessing it is a crime.

I'm not kidding when I say: Ages ago, a friend was caught with Marijuana at school. They had it confiscated and was given a warning and lecture about drug-use and stuff. 2 weeks after, someone in my class got put in jail for possessing even less Marijuana than my friend had, and he didn't even bring it to school. It was one of the first visible displays of Racism that I've seen. And I'm still seeing this crap to this day.

 

[BB Shockwave]

I am curious why exactly Drow and Orcs are the races that are supposedly the most "racially profiled" in the Realms?
What about Goblins? Heck, what about Gnolls? I was actually quite annoyed about the 5E portrayal of Gnolls, where now they are demon-spawn of Yeenoghu, created from hyenas who feast on the remains of the Demon Lord's victims. So Gnolls, unlike the other races who could have been Neutral or Good before as even the sourcebooks detail it, are literally "Always Chaotic Evil"...

Also, guess it is only a matter of time before Lolth is removed too because an all-female all-evil priesthood ruling over Drow who constantly backstab and vie for power is a misogynist depiction of women? Or maybe they won't, because removing females in power from canon IS misogynist? I don't envy the people in charge at WotC. No decision they make will be the right one. There is no pleasing this particular crowd.

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.

Great, isn't this the first step in going straight back to 4E where anyone could be anything? "You wanna play a chaotic evil paladin, sure you can!" - "You wanna be able to heal yourself magically despite being a fighter, sure you can!" - "Heck who cares about morality and impactful decisions, let's just make 80% of our creatures Unaligned!"
So now we are gonna go back to muscled Elf barbarians and brainy Half-Orc wizards, because "equality". They are forgetting that you could do this before too, and the reason it was interesting was that you were playing AGAINST TYPE. There was a challenge.
If Drow are no longer a scary evil race who shun the light... there will be no draw (pardon the pun) in playing them, since they will be commonplace everywhere on the surface. It's the same thing 4E did with Tieflings, if looking like a Demon or Devil has no negative impact on your character's interactions... what's the point of being one? You are then just playing yet another boring human.
It was these sorts of interesting interactions that made even non-D&D games like Dragon Age Origins so great to play. You were a wizard, people feared and shunned you. You were an Elf, people looked down on you and treated you like a second class citizen, but other Elves treated you with respect... unless they were Wild Elves and you were a City Elf, in which case they didn't! You were a Dwarf Noble or a Commoner, you got very different reactions from the rather caste-based Dwarves. It made the game extremely replayeable.

I wonder if one of these books that will include the Vistani will be a setting book that just happens to be for their original home world, from before they wandered into the Mists and into Barovia. I have also always assumed that the original Vistani were not the stereotype and cringe that the Barovian Vistani became over the years.

Ravenloft was mostly based on the Hammer horror movies and gothic novels. The same way Strahd is essentially D&D's version of Dracula, so were the Vistani based on the stereotypical Gypsie servants of Dracula in those books and movies.

 

[Raduin711]

Also, guess it is only a matter of time before Lolth is removed too because an all-female all-evil priesthood ruling over Drow who constantly backstab and vie for power is a misogynist depiction of women? Or maybe they won't, because removing females in power from canon IS misogynist? I don't envy the people in charge at WotC. No decision they make will be the right one. There is no pleasing this particular crowd.

And the strawman fell down the slippery slope.

 

[BB Shockwave]

And the strawman fell down the slippery slope.

Care to elaborate? 'cause I can't see how that would NOT be the next step they take. It's logical.
And just after we got a great insight into Drow and how Lolth betrayed Correllon in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

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.

What the heck are sensitivity readers? Is this basically a new form of censorship, except done to prevent anyone from being offended by an accidental remark?

 

[Raduin711]

Care to elaborate? 'cause I can't see how that would NOT be the next step they take. It's logical.
And just after we got a great insight into Drow and how Lolth betrayed Correllon in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.


What the heck are sensitivity readers? Is this basically a new form of censorship, except done to prevent anyone from being offended by an accidental remark?

It's a strawman because you are presenting a version of the opposing argument that is easy for you to knock down. "There is no pleasing this particular crowd." Not to mention that this isn't a good faith presentation of their position.

It's a slippery slope because you are assuming that changing how WOTC presents orcs will result in (checks notes) the removal of Lolth from D&D.

 

[BB Shockwave]

THIS is what matters the most. You can pat yourself on the back for not offending cultures X, Y, and Z all you want in a fantasy setting by mildly changing the text in a handful of books in a world where you murder dragons based on the color of their scales and obliterate other sentient humanoids for a cash reward. None of it matters unless you're actually doing something in the real world.

D&D is a fantasy world. It isn't real. Odds are, you're going to offend anyone who associates in the slightest with orcs (violent cultures that perhaps are misunderstood because orcs just need a hug), goblins (slightly less violent cultures with trickster features who also need a hug to switch to good), beholders (intellectual but malevolent cultures who need a hug), evil dragons (I'm colored red so I'm evil but dammit, if I had a hug I'd be not evil), mind flayers (intellectual but malevolent cultures who need a hug but probably will still eat your brains), cultists (of all kinds and pseudo-religions and who are you to tell me my religion is wrong), drow (I was born evil but I'm choosing to be awesome like Drizz't, and if you just gave me a hug), duergar (we don't have a literary hero yet like Drow, but essentially we're like Drizz't, and F-U for not giving little people their due with a literary anti-hero like Drizz't you racist bastards), demons (I've repented my ways, don't I get a second chance you unforgiving bastards), devils (same thing), and pretty much anything because D&D is going to offend some culture. Fantasy is built upon stereotypes of what good and evil act like.

I'd rather WOTC bring in fresh perspectives to adventures and diversify its settings than try to solve real-world racism in-game by opting to change your ability scores. Haven't we had enough discussions started over solving matters in-table rather than off-table?

Great post. Indeed, why don't Duergar or Goblins get a hero character like Drizzt? Duergar are basically victims of the Illithid, same as the Gith, and feel (arguably rightfully) betrayed by their pantheon.
At least Beholders are kinda "humanized" with Xanathar who while still being basically a James Bond villain, is someone you can have a work relationship with (even if he tends to disintegrate people whom he gets paranoid about). Plus there are Spectators, who are not evil and rather curious and friendly.
I think it was Eberron that tried the whole "Dragons can be any alignment" thing regardless of being Chromatic or Metallic. I have not read enough of it to see if it worked. They also made Drow worship a scorpion god and live on the surface, though I am not sure if that made them any less evil.