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.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I see what you're trying to do with your description, and I don't necessarily disagree with your intent, but I have a complaint. Your description for the orc remind me of the historical mongols more than the official one, which is something I think we are trying to avoid. I mean, "great orc empires that stretch across the horizon", accompanied by nomadic tribes of raiders? Sounds a lot like Temujin's empire, the Golden Horde and the Ilkhnate.

Yes, well, what you quoted was the result of moderately long discussion. To be brief:

• the way orcs are described (bloodthirsty savages) has been used in history to describe people of all colors and cultures (gauls, germans, huns, vandals, goths, saxons, berbers, africans, mongols, turks, it's a long list);
• because of that, I argued that description not to be racist, per se, but rather a common human trope for the "scary invader", nowadays used by idiot racists in idiotic ways;
• when applied to a fantasy race, that trope isn't offensive
• I believe that blacklisting something (in this case, the fantasy use of the "scary invader" trope), just because idiots are appropriating it and mishandling it, can be counterproductive.

See the "Pepe the frog" example, a harmless meme that ended up being banned because some extremists used it. The end result was widespread hate towards the censors, and a degree of undeserved sympathy towards the extremists.

Yeah I agree my orc wasn't perfect. That's why I think WotC is hiring "sensitivity readers," in order to pick out tropes, stereotypes, and biases I might not be aware of from my perspective. But you agree it's a start?

Is there a way to keep the "scary invader" trope without it being tied to a race? For example, what if Raider was an entry in the Monster Manual, and under it you had Orc Raider, Dwarf Raider, Lizardfolk Raider, etc. You may then be describing a band of orcs who are scary invaders without saying all orcs are scary invaders.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Yeah I agree my orc wasn't perfect. That's why I think WotC is hiring "sensitivity readers," in order to pick out tropes, stereotypes, and biases I might not be aware of from my perspective. But you agree it's a start?

Is there a way to keep the "scary invader" trope without it being tied to a race? For example, what if Raider was an entry in the Monster Manual, and under it you had Orc Raider, Dwarf Raider, Lizardfolk Raider, etc. You may then be describing a band of orcs who are scary invaders without saying all orcs are scary invaders.

In your opinion, should all creatures be re-written like the orcs and drow? Even Gnolls? Or only races which are possible candidates for PCs?

 

[Cadence]

In your opinion, should all creatures be re-written like the orcs and drow? Even Gnolls? Or only races which are possible candidates for PCs?

Gnolls can't be PCs? Are Gnolls humanoids or Monstrosities? I don't think those questions work for everything, but they might for the ones that clearly aren't that close to human.

 

[Umbran]

• when applied to a fantasy race, that trope isn't offensive

How often do we have to go into this? Folks who are not the subject of abuse don't get to tell those who are what is offensive. Your declaration of this does not make it true.

• I believe that blacklisting something (in this case, the fantasy use of the "scary invader" trope), just because idiots are appropriating it and mishandling it, can be counterproductive.

From what we know, this does not match what WotC will be doing.

Specifically, you can have scary invaders all you want. They just won't be setting up entire humanoid species to ONLY BE scary invaders in their books.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I thought of another way to try to express this, for those who are genuinely trying to understand what is going on.

Imagine if there were an official adventure in which, let's say aarakocra, live in the city, but kind of as 2nd class citizens. As part of a quest, the patron tells the heroes, "And if you come across any aarakocra who ask what you're doing, just threaten to call the city watch and say, 'Hey some aarakocra are threatening my life.' They'll know that even if they haven't done anything wrong, things will probably go poorly for them with the watch...'cause they're aarakocra, right? So they'll back down. "

No I'm not saying, and I don't think anybody is saying, that aarakocra are either meant to resemble a certain group of real people, or even accidentally resemble a group of real people.

But can you see why, given recent news, some players would be deeply, deeply uncomfortable...given recent news...about this scenario? And even though some players, even many players, might be fine with it, WotC itself just shouldn't touch that one with a ten foot pole?

And I don't think they even have to be humanoid for this to hold. They could be flumphs, or talking bears, or hyperintelligent shades of blue. What matters is that: a) they are considered to be inferior to humans, and b) the way that sense of superiority is expressed has parallels to how it gets expressed in the real world.

If you're still with me, I just want you to imagine that it's possible that language that describes an entire species as brutal, ugly, primitive, irredeemably evil, unintelligent, sub-human can evoke a very similar reaction from people who are still treated as 2nd class citizens because their ancestors lived in a world in which that same language was used to justify enslaving them.

 

[BookTenTiger]

In your opinion, should all creatures be re-written like the orcs and drow? Even Gnolls? Or only races which are possible candidates for PCs?

Good question, and one I'm definitely mulling over.

As I said before, there's really no clear line. I think for certain races in the Monster Manual it's pretty obvious, such as drow and orcs. But Gnoll seems to be right on that line, right?

I am not the head of the D&D creative team (though that's what my mom thought my job would be when I was a kid). I'm an elementary school teacher.

But here's what I'd do with gnolls, just for fun:

I would have Humanoid gnolls and Fiendish gnolls.

Humanoid gnolls don't have a stat block, instead you find them in the Monster Manual under Raider, Mystic, etc.

Fiendish gnolls, however, have been corrupted by their evil gods. They ARE monsters. In the MM I would list story ideas that would set up the Fiendish gnolls to be antagonists.

But overall, I would make sure to avoid lazy tropes, and I would check in with people from different backgrounds to make sure my own subconscious biases are not negatively effecting the game.

Anyways, that's how I might go about it. What would you do?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Good question, and one I'm definitely mulling over.

As I said before, there's really no clear line. I think for certain races in the Monster Manual it's pretty obvious, such as drow and orcs. But Gnoll seems to be right on that line, right?

I am not the head of the D&D creative team (though that's what my mom thought my job would be when I was a kid). I'm an elementary school teacher.

But here's what I'd do with gnolls, just for fun:

I would have Humanoid gnolls and Fiendish gnolls.

Humanoid gnolls don't have a stat block, instead you find them in the Monster Manual under Raider, Mystic, etc.

Fiendish gnolls, however, have been corrupted by their evil gods. They ARE monsters. In the MM I would list story ideas that would set up the Fiendish gnolls to be antagonists.

But overall, I would make sure to avoid lazy tropes, and I would check in with people from different backgrounds to make sure my own subconscious biases are not negatively effecting the game.

Anyways, that's how I might go about it. What would you do?

I’ll add that the difficulty of doing this consistently, and the likelihood that cases can be contrived that seem to suggest a paradox, in no way undermines the validity of the effort.

 

[ZeshinX]

I thought of another way to try to express this, for those who are genuinely trying to understand what is going on.

Imagine if there were an official adventure in which, let's say aarakocra, live in the city, but kind of as 2nd class citizens. As part of a quest, the patron tells the heroes, "And if you come across any aarakocra who ask what you're doing, just threaten to call the city watch and say, 'Hey some aarakocra are threatening my life.' They'll know that even if they haven't done anything wrong, things will probably go poorly for them with the watch...'cause they're aarakocra, right? So they'll back down. "

No I'm not saying, and I don't think anybody is saying, that aarakocra are either meant to resemble a certain group of real people, or even accidentally resemble a group of real people.

But can you see why, given recent news, some players would be deeply, deeply uncomfortable...given recent news...about this scenario? And even though some players, even many players, might be fine with it, WotC itself just shouldn't touch that one with a ten foot pole?

And I don't think they even have to be humanoid for this to hold. They could be flumphs, or talking bears, or hyperintelligent shades of blue. What matters is that: a) they are considered to be inferior to humans, and b) the way that sense of superiority is expressed has parallels to how it gets expressed in the real world.

If you're still with me, I just want you to imagine that it's possible that language that describes an entire species as brutal, ugly, primitive, irredeemably evil, unintelligent, sub-human can evoke a very similar reaction from people who are still treated as 2nd class citizens because their ancestors lived in a world in which that same language was used to justify enslaving them.

Makes absolute sense to me and I do indeed agree with all points you raise. I also see an opportunity to explore better ways to resolve such a scenario. A learning experience, an opportunity to enact and promote less to non-predjudiced view of the aarakocra, to set a better example for the city watch, etc.

I don't know if avoiding that situation altogether would be better or worse. It feels like it would be worse, since lost is the opportunity to present potentially better solutions to the situation, and how those solutions could start a larger conversation of "if we treated the aarakocra this way....we should examine how we view others whom we may also be treating this way."

If whatever changes are pending do indeed offer such situations, then I'm all for them. Indeed I think they should hurry them along. If said changes merely remove the opportunity to explore such scenarios, then we're all lesser for it (I don't think that'll happen with these changes honestly, but that is what avoidance ultimately promotes).

There are times when avoidance is best, no doubt about it.

There is also the flip side, that people will miss such opportunities and squander or take advantage of such things...but that is the inherent risk of just being a part of it.

 

[Olrox17]

Yeah I agree my orc wasn't perfect. That's why I think WotC is hiring "sensitivity readers," in order to pick out tropes, stereotypes, and biases I might not be aware of from my perspective. But you agree it's a start?

Is there a way to keep the "scary invader" trope without it being tied to a race? For example, what if Raider was an entry in the Monster Manual, and under it you had Orc Raider, Dwarf Raider, Lizardfolk Raider, etc. You may then be describing a band of orcs who are scary invaders without saying all orcs are scary invaders.

Sure, it's a start. Personally, I would go the Warcraft way:
Orcs were just a race of people. Perhaps they had some innate anger issues, compared to other humanoids, but nothing serious, they could be of any alignment.
Then one day, 95% orcs were tricked by their corrupt leaders into making a blood pact with demons. They became super strong, but also chaotic evil.
Many decades of bloody wars later, a sizable portion of the orcs were able to unshackle themselves from the blood pact, and went back to their original ways...mostly. Many of them were scarred for life by what they did and experienced in their time as basically demons.

Substitute "demons" with Gruumsh. Orcs tribes that are under the iron fisted influence of Gruumsh, are your classic old school chaotic evil orcs. Those that manage to distance themselves from it, are free willed.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I want to add one more thing, then I'm going to take a break for a while.

I joined with this debate with a strong intuitive sense that I agreed with WotC, but hadn't applied any rigorous thinking to it. Although I don't think anybody has been persuaded to change their minds in this thread, in either direction, participating in it has caused me to think deeply about the why, and I feel my own understanding has increased as a result.

So I've got that going for me. Which ish nishe.