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]

if Wotc think that they can do something I wont oppose.
removing ability score bonus from races is a good idea.

making a cleanup on cultural reference can help, but they will surely miss some, and add some others unwillingly later.

but still, dm and players will continue to use cultural and historical tropes and stereotypes.

But if the books that WotC produces have fewer cultural and historical tropes and stereotypes, fewer new players will use them, right?

 

[Charlaquin]

I have read a lot of recent advice on sensitivity that asks us to focus on the impact, not the intent, of our actions or statements. That creates a much broader range of content considered ill advised.

What attributes do you want to assign to a people or folk? It seems like ability score bonuses are not a good idea. What about things tied to the size of a people or folk, like the goliath's advantage on athletics checks, a speed reduction from small people, etc... Vision? Is the idea that a human variant gets a feat inherently giving them a superiority over other folk or people?

For me, the line is, does the bonus push the race towards playing certain classes over others? Then it’s reinforcing the idea of certain races being inherently suited to certain tasks. Would the bonus be useful to a character of any class? Then it’s probably fine.

Now, some bonuses that’s easy to determine. Ability score adjustments obviously favor certain classes over others. But some bonuses it’s a little harder to make that determination. Does the wood elves’ Mask of the Wild push them towards being rogues? Maybe, kinda, but on the other hand any class could benefit from having more conditions under which they can hide.

Size-based bonuses like higher carrying capacity Powerful Build and lower speed for Small size are tricky. My feeling is that those are acceptable because they reflect a physical disparity that obviously goes beyond the human range of body types and they don’t particularly push towards any particular class. But, as I don’t belong to a group that faces discrimination for being perceived as larger or smaller than average, I’m probably not the best person to make that call.

 

[Sunsword]

I guess all of the "Activists" online can pat themselves on the back as they "won a blow for civil rights". I continue to believe that People of Color have more pressing needs to fix, like not being murdered by the Police, but hey Geeks can feel good because they used their privilege to alter fictional cultures for a game of make-believe with rules, dice, and math. I wonder if any of those "Activists" have read R.A. Salvatore's long-running saga about Drow?

 

[Sunsword]

But if the books that WotC produces have fewer cultural and historical tropes and stereotypes, fewer new players will use them, right?

It's not like any other fantasy franchises, like say World of Warcraft or Dragon Age rely on cultural tropes...oh, wait.

 

[Stilvan]

I'm of mixed feelings about this but I thought the press release was exceptionally well put together. There was nothing offensive about their intent or actions to me personally. I just worry about where this train could bring us because if we're honest there are a lot of 'problematic' elements in any game of D&D.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I personally don't have an issue with orcs being evil because they are not human, they are a race created for the sole purpose of destruction. From a game perspective they're a convenient bad guy.

Yup. That's also why I think it would be better to have them as Monstrosities instead of humanoids, just like Medusas, Merfolk and Yuan-ti, if we are to keep the Tolkien-Orc. Hell, they are in the Monstrous race section of Volo's! They have all the prerequisite, from their Volo's lore, to be Monstrosities.

• Created by and bound to a dark power
• One goal: destruction
• Experimented on to further increases predisposition (Orog, Neo-Orog)
• Decadent culture

MM's description:
''Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense-frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owlbears), and others are the product of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don't fit into any other type. ''

I'd do the same for Kobolds, Gnolls and Goblinoids (which is such a large category that it should be its own thing)

Then you could have the player version of them without the alignment part for those above-mentioned peoples which escaped their dark fate and overcome their tragic disposition as playable folks that could also be used for NPC with the (any race) tag.

 

[Sunsword]

That's another great side effect of the recent discussions: the toxic members who drape themselves in their old-school illusions and chose to stick to their regressive ideologies as the hill to die on are all rage quiting in a tantrum. Good riddance, I say, communities need less negativity and hate!

Or...y'know...its a game of make-believe and...well...Orcs, Gnolls, Drow are merely the "bad guys" or "monsters" in a game that relies on imagination.

What this does is paint people who play and use the traditional monsters...thats what they as "toxic" or that they have "regressive ideologies" when they just like playing a social game descended from a wargame. You are already stereotyping anyone who doesn't see the GAME as you do. So, in effect, YOU are GATEKEEPING. We do need less negativity and hate and that includes you.

 

[Morrus]

I guess all of the "Activists" online can pat themselves on the back as they "won a blow for civil rights". I continue to believe that People of Color have more pressing needs to fix, like not being murdered by the Police, but hey Geeks can feel good because they used their privilege to alter fictional cultures for a game of make-believe with rules, dice, and math. I wonder if any of those "Activists" have read R.A. Salvatore's long-running saga about Drow?

This is pretty ignorant. And pretty snide.

People of Colour made a small incremental step in achieving representation in the fiction they read and play.

They (and by "they" I mean "most decent people") are also advocating for police reform in the US. They can do two things at once! Nifty, eh?

 

[Charlaquin]

Sixth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons incoming.

Honestly, instead of knew jerk reactions that produce two competing products, the original 1st Printing of 5th Edition Players Hand Book with the word "race" and a later reprinting with the word "people" just announcing a 6th Edition and the new direction is so much neater.

Now, the 5th Edition product line will be like the mess with The Forgotten Realms of 3rd Edition with the Core Forgotten Realms book using D&D 3e rules, but later Forgotten Realms supplements using D&D 3.5e rules.

Very messy, this direction. Announce 6th Edition for a nice clean break with the past.

I’d be so up for that, but there’s no way WotC’s going to walk away from this edition while it’s still selling gangbusters.

 

[Vexorg]

I see this argument frequently, and I want to address it.

You are absolutely right that individual groups can do a lot at their tables to address and combat the negative racial stereotypes in D&D.

However, racism is a systemic problem, in that it is built into the systems we use, including D&D.

This means that WotC has not just the obligation, but the opportunity, to address racial stereotyping at a much larger scale. If they can set the default of D&D to be more inclusive and less lazy in assigning who is evil and how we are told they are evil, then they should.

Racism is a systemic problem in which system, exactly?

I am ignorant to how things are in the rest of the world (ENWorld is a British website) but in the country where I live, racism is not systemic to U.S. culture or U.S. law. It was in the past, but that ended. If you are saying that racism is systemic the human nature, maybe I agree with you.

I also agree that WotC has the opportunity to address racism in D&D products, but I don't agree that they have an obligation to. And I don't believe that addressing racism will automatically make the game better.