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.

 

[Sadras]

Glen Cook's Tun Faire (the Garrett PI series) has a boatload of races and (for the first 9 books anyway) feels pretty fantasy to me, and something I might try some time. I like at least the option (and this thread made me pull it off the shelf and start rereading it yet again the other day).

Sure, for a specific setting I can get behind, but to just have a blanket rule that any and every type of people need to have good guys is just sanitising the D& setting and does nothing for racism.

 

[Panda-s1]

For one, I do not want my medieval city crawling with 50 races because hey we need good guys in EVERY race.
It then turns into the Star Wars Cantina, or a Galactic Senate or a Federation Meeting. It becomes sci-fi and less D&D.

We already have a city for everyone/everything. Sigil.

you don't need to? you can have a human city, an elf city, a goblin city etc., though I'm pretty sure even in AD&D Gygax laid out rules for populating cities, and that included some percentage of "evil" races. also I think some big cities in FR are just like that already.
there are also "evil races" in Star Wars, like the hutts, or the sith, so I'm not sure Star Wars is the best example to go with here.


also you replied before I made my edit so I'll post it here:

EDIT: actually wait, now that I think about it "evil race" is the general idea that people here are arguing against. I know the focus has been on orcs and drow and how they're presented in D&D, but at least myself personally kinda find it boring at best if every sentient humanoid wasn't afforded the idea of free will and independent thought.

not sure why "not all goblins are evil" is some sort of big reveal to you either, other fantasy games like Warcraft and Iron Kingdoms have already had non-evil goblins for years now, and in the case of MTG decades.

 

[Oofta]

IMHO if every race can have any ability score modification, any training, any alignment then race becomes just a costume. Race becomes irrelevant, there's no reason to not just make everyone human. Or, well a sub-race of elf anyway.

Having iconic races and monsters as a default is one of those things that make D&D easy to grasp.

 

[Sadras]

EDIT: actually wait, now that I think about it "evil race" is the general idea that people here are arguing against. I know the focus has been on orcs and drow and how they're presented in D&D, but at least myself personally kinda find it boring at best if every sentient humanoid wasn't afforded the idea of free will and independent thought.

I can respect that as your position in all this.
I'm disappointed with others who are specifically pushing for a change in orcs, drow, vistani but are not willing to comment or critique.
Alas that is what happens in these discussions.

not sure why "not all goblins are evil" is some sort of big reveal to you either, other fantasy games like Warcraft, MTG, and Iron Kingdoms have already had non-evil goblins for years now, in the case of MTG decades.

I'd like to have some "evil races" and leave specific settings (published and homebrewed) to turn things on their head.

 

[Panda-s1]

I can respect that as your position in all this.
I'm disappointed with others who are specifically pushing for a change in orcs, drow, vistani but are not willing to comment or critique.
Alas that is what happens in these discussions.

??? I mean I too am pushing for change in orcs, drow and vistani, but I believe the focus on those are out of very specific real world parallels (esp. the vistani). I just feel it's a bigger picture issue with focus on some specific examples. goblins are still humanoids with free thought but are still described as gross and ugly and evil.

I'd like to have "evil races" and leave specific settings (published and homebrewed) to turn things on their head.

wait, if that's what you want then wouldn't it make more sense if all races be presented as neutral and have specific settings decide who is good and evil? you can still take this theoretical MM and make all the orcs evil in your own setting if you want.

 

[Charlaquin]

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 reminds 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 Ilkhanate.

Which clearly illustrates why merely resembling a real-world racial/ethnic group is not the problem. The problem is limiting the depiction of orcs (or whatever race) to the same narrow set of negative characteristics that have historically been applied to oppressed groups of people by their oppressors.

 

[Panda-s1]

IMHO if every race can have any ability score modification, any training, any alignment then race becomes just a costume. Race becomes irrelevant, there's no reason to not just make everyone human. Or, well a sub-race of elf anyway.

Having iconic races and monsters as a default is one of those things that make D&D easy to grasp.

uh, those races still have histories and cultures, and even in D&D as it is humans can't just have kids with dwarves (also sure this is the case with elves and orcs, but not either of them with humans).

I play Final Fantasy XIV. it's a very popular mmorpg, but unlike WoW there's no mechanical difference between player races (actually there are some stat differences, but they're so small they're functionally irrelevant). I used to also think it was pointless to have different races. but for starters your appearance is vastly different depending on what race you choose for your character. more importantly the races do have their own cultures, and while it doesn't factor too much into the main plot, there is a lot of lore for each race and it does pop up in things like sidequests.

also for people who RP in this game your race determines a lot about your character, where they came from, what their outlook on life is, how they get along with other people in the world. I don't RP in ff14, but I really sure all of you are RP'ing when playing D&D. even if there's no statistical benefit for choosing a race, I don't think it's just simply a "costume" without it.

 

[Sadras]

??? I mean I too am pushing for change in orcs, drow and vistani, but I believe the focus on those are out of very specific real world parallels (esp. the vistani). I just feel it's a bigger picture issue with focus on some specific examples. goblins are still humanoids with free thought but are still described as gross and ugly and evil.

There are those who push for a change in ONLY those 3 groups for the very specific RW parallels they believe exist.
There are those who push like yourself a change in all humanoids and possibly more, I do not know.

wait, if that's what you want then wouldn't it make more sense if all races be presented as neutral and have specific settings decide who is good and evil? you can still take this theoretical MM and make all the orcs evil in your own setting if you want.

The way WotC has dealt with 5e and as FR is their base setting - any changes to lore may/will adjust FR.

 

[Oofta]

uh, those races still have histories and cultures, and even in D&D as it is humans can't just have kids with dwarves (also sure this is the case with elves and orcs, but not either of them with humans).

I play Final Fantasy XIV. it's a very popular mmorpg, but unlike WoW there's no mechanical difference between player races (actually there are some stat differences, but they're so small they're functionally irrelevant). I used to also think it was pointless to have different races. but for starters your appearance is vastly different depending on what race you choose for your character. more importantly the races do have their own cultures, and while it doesn't factor too much into the main plot, there is a lot of lore for each race and it does pop up in things like sidequests.

also for people who RP in this game your race determines a lot about your character, where they came from, what their outlook on life is, how they get along with other people in the world. I don't RP in ff14, but I really sure all of you are RP'ing when playing D&D. even if there's no statistical benefit for choosing a race, I don't think it's just simply a "costume" without it.

How many campaigns really make a big difference about different cultures? How do you distinguish between cultures when you have more than a dozen races? Why would different campaigns have culture clones?

If I go into a campaign someone else is running and they are using default rules, I know something about my character based solely on race. Lore and cultural background will vary but I know a hill dwarf is a bit stronger, resistant to poison, can see in the dark and so on. In general I know they tend more towards tradition and law being the best way to live harmoniously.

I think that's a benefit, it also let's me play against type when I want to do so. YMMV, I just think the alternative is bland and gray.

 

[Mercurius]

Which clearly illustrates why merely resembling a real-world racial/ethnic group is not the problem. The problem is limiting the depiction of orcs (or whatever race) to the same narrow set of negative characteristics that have historically been applied to oppressed groups of people by their oppressors.

What do you think about this solution? In future products--including a hypothetical revised PHB and MM--there was text something like the following:

"In fantasy literature and D&D history, orcs have largely been presented as brutish and evil [et al], but other variations are possible that emphasize a greater range of behavior and qualities. Here are examples of different ways that orcs can be incorporated into your campaign..."

Then what follows are a range of different orcs, from the traditional all-evil D&D orcs to more nuanced and multi-faceted.

Or something like that. Meaning, not getting rid of traditional orcs, but folding them into a wider range of possibilities.