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.

 

[Olrox17]

Yes! YES! YES!!!!!!

Now you're getting it.

First, the reason "we" keep shifting the real-world group we're discussing...africans, native americans, mongols, etc...is that the language used to describe orcs (savage, unintelligent, rapidly breeding, ugly, irrational, etc.) is the language that has been used for centuries by subjugators to de-humanize people and rationalize killing them. As @Olrox17 noted, the Romans said the same thing about the Germanic people who were sacking Rome.

So it's not that orcs are meant, by anybody, to represent one of these groups. It's that in attempting to portray orcs as less-than-human "others" that heroes should eradicate it's almost unavoidable that we use language and imagery that has been used to justify slavery, colonization, and genocide.

(To address Olrox17's point: maybe some day a sense of security and the passage of time will render this language as inoffensive to everybody as it currently is to those of Northern European descent who can laugh off, or even take pride in, being called barbarians. I hope so.)

I think I have been "getting it" for a while. It, being your (and several other posters') point.
Humans, in general, are not that creative. There are exceptions, sure, but the fact that several different cultures, often very distant from each other (both in time and space), have called the "uncivilized" other, the enemy at the gate, similar names, is telling.

The bloodthirsty, screaming, pillaging barbarian is a common human trope, it belongs to the entire human race. In fantasy literature, this trope ended up being personified in the orc race. That's hardly surprising: it's an image burned into our collective consciousness.

Of course, using this trope to describe any human group (race, culture whatever it is) is bad and wrong.
Using it to describe a fantasy, made-up race, however, isn't.

I also hope that, someday, the passage of time will render this language inoffensive to everybody, as it should be! No race or culture should feel offended by barbaric orcs, because no RL race or culture is like that, anywhere. Some racists idiots might say otherwise, they might weaponize that language to target a group, but frankly? Screw them!

 

[Guest 6801328]

And yet I don't feel in any way discriminated by the description of orcs even though I also belong to a group of people who once were described as backward savages which, as you pointed out, applies to pretty much every culture in the world at one point or the other.
If your goal is to remove all "bad words" from the game then in the end you would not have a game left as negative emotions and with it words are part of humanity and you can't have any believable society, much less a game that needs antagonists, without them. Maybe as some dystopia police state but that itself would also be negative and probably derogatory to North Koreans.
It also raises the question if you really intend to do a complete removal of all negativity then why only stop with racism, no matter how far fetched, and not include all the other negative aspects in D&D you know the plunder, murder, etc.

Yes, my ancestors also took some of this abuse, and the language doesn’t offend me, either. Then again, whatever my ancestors suffered no longer exists, and I’m about as privileged as they come.

So if people who are in a worse spot (did you read the Ishmael Reed essay I linked) tell me that something is deeply hurtful, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

As for dragonborn, I never mentioned them. What I did mention was dragons because the same logic how people supposedly see a link between orcs and - someone - applies to them.
Greedy, wealthy, sit on their money, control thing from the shadow (well, some dragons in D&D do that). Thats pretty much the stereotypical and derogatory description of jews. They can also breed with humans, so the same reasoning why orcs are related to humans exist too.
So if you are serious with removing descriptions which mimic the ones used in real life as derogatory terms you would need to change dragons too. Do you think this must be done? And if not, why?

If members of a disadvantaged group want to explain why the portrayal of dragons is a problem for them, I’m listening.

 

[DEFCON 1]

WotC can and do change what they want. It would be nice if they are open about why they are doing it. In this case marketing to exploit the current events for a quick and cheap PR boost and not invent some far fetched racism reason.

In other words, if they're going to do what they want, you think it'd be nice if they threw YOU a bone and patted you on the back while doing it. Because I guess you need to get something out of this exchange? If you don't get what you want, at least an "Attaboy!" would make the medicine go down easier? Okay. Well, good luck with that!

 

[Guest 6801328]

Some racists idiots might say otherwise, they might weaponize that language to target a group, but frankly? Screw them!

Might?

They still are.

And, sure, I can say screw ‘em. They’re not targeting and terrorizing me.

Other people don’t really have that option.

 

[Sadras]

Second, regarding your question about dragons and dragonborn: I don't know. I haven't heard anybody saying those depictions are hurtful to them. I'm guessing it's because being intelligent and charismatic and clever (with really long reproductive cycles) isn't typically how oppressors described the oppressed. Is there a group that you think should be offended by the depiction of dragonborn?

Probably the globalist elites, the billionaires, pretty sure you know the ones I'm referring to

EDIT: I've been sitting on that for a while, needed to get it out. So thank you!

 

[Olrox17]

Might?

They still are.

And, sure, I can say screw ‘em. They’re not targeting and terrorizing me.

Other people don’t really have that option.

And by all means, they should be stopped and ostracized.
But I don't think that (generally speaking) blacklisting speech that racists groups, in their limitless idiocy, decided to appropriate for "fun", is going to help. It's just going to give them more symbols, more stuff to "own". Also allowing them to get sympathy because censorship is bad.

It's a counter-productive method.

 

[Sadras]

But I don't think that (generally speaking) blacklisting speech that racists groups, in their limitless idiocy, decided to appropriate for fun, is going to help. It's just going to give them more symbols, more stuff to "own". Also allowing them to get sympathy because censorship is bad.

Bolded for emphasis - as this reminded me of something.

Trevor Noah (a PoC from South Africa for those that do not know him) in one of his standups before moving to the states came up with an idea which I thought was pretty good.

Now disclaimer - in SA we have a banned word which starts with the letter K, just like USA's n-word.

So Trevor suggested that in order to destroy the power we give to that word, we should have a K-day.
Where everyone calls everyone the K-word or uses as an adjective. So Hello K, how are you today. Man I'm so K-ed up. It was a method to reclaim the word, we rebrand it in a positive way, and we remove the stigma attached to it. I thought the idea was pretty novel. Still do.

 

[Guest 6801328]

And by all means, they should be stopped and ostracized.

That sounds nice and simple doesn’t it.

And yet you are opposed to modifying a make-believe game about dragons and elves.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Probably the globalist elites, the billionaires, pretty sure you know the ones I'm referring to

EDIT: I've been sitting on that for a while, needed to get it out. So thank you!

It’s actually a good point. That is who most resembles dragons.

But billionaires haven’t been colonized, enslaved, and wantonly murdered by the state*, so they don’t need protection. I mean, it’s still low-class to mock people, but whatever.

*Much to the dismay of some.

 

[Lem23]

It’s actually a good point. That is who most resembles dragons.

But billionaires haven’t been colonized, enslaved, and wantonly murdered by the state*, so they don’t need protection. I mean, it’s still low-class to mock people, but whatever.

*Much to the dismay of some.

She doesn't mean billionarires per se. Look at the rest of it - billionaires, globalists. I'm surprised she didn't add bankers to the usual tropes for anti-semitic crap. Especially with the added line "I think you know the ones I'm referring to " there. Following that up with "much like dragons, they may need to be slayed" is beyond the pale.