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.

 

[Cadence]

idk how can a sapient species have society and yet somehow can't manage to form things like cities?

How many thousands of years did it take any humans on the planet to do it? First city in 4500 BC, so somewhere over 200,000 years of being Homo sapiens?

{Edit to fix dates.}

 

[Oofta]

Is the default assumption from the MM that orcs (or goblins or trolls or hill giants) are evil the issue or is it the wording and artwork?

Because if it's the former I simply disagree. I have no problem with orcs being evil. Or the Borg for that matter. If they aren't evil, what purpose do they serve in the fiction?

If it's the latter, if it's the words used and the imagery, then I agree some things should be changed and could be improved.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If we bar the Orcs from ever suffering any set backs in their Kingdom because it suffers from real world connotations would make for boring story telling.

This is a strawman. No one is saying that it's bad for orcs to ever have setbacks. What I am indicating is that it's bad for the only example in the most well known and effectively default setting of dnd of orcs succeeding at nationbuilding to subsequently be unable to hold together.
If there were other orc nations, city states, or other stable civilizations (yes, including tribal states that aren't just a choatic mess, nomad civilizations, etc) then the Kindgom of Many Arrows falling would be fine. But it isn't. It's a message that orcs aren't actually what Salvatore was painting them as in the relevant books, but isntead they are what the old sourcebooks paint them as, and a successful nation state was a fluke that was never going to last.

It also decreases the stories that can be told about orcs in FR. You cannot be an orc who comes from a stable orc nation in FR. You cannot tell a story about Waterdeep renegotiating a trade deal with Many Arrows and old school cultists of Gruumsh and/or anti-orc radiacals and/or Zhents trying to sabotage those negotiations by framing orcs for a string of murders. etc.

you are suddenly admitting a fault that you don't have.

So what? If you've caused harm, intentionally or not, you caused the harm. Apologising for it isn't some weakness, it's the right thing to do.

Maybe.

From the WoTC words: 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.

Goodbye.

That quote doesn't say what you seem to think it says.

Being a good person isn't just about what you are obligated to do. Every act of true charity ever done was about doing something you weren't obligated to do.

Being a good person and being nice to people who are acting unethically are entirely unrelated. Being nice in the face of bad behavior doesn't make you ethically better than somehow who responds "rudely" to that behavior.

The easier example to parse for most people, IME, is wrt a minor act of violence like punching someone. Punching someone for no reason is bad. Punching someone who is punching another person for no reason is, at worst, neutral on a moral scale. Walking away from someone trying to punch you is also neutral. Walking away when someone else is being punched when you have the ability to stop that by punching the attacker is morally negative.

Responding to violence with pacifism isn't morally superior to responding to violence with active (ie, violent) self defense.

Likewise, responding to incivility with active civility isn't morally superior to responding to it with equal hostility, or simply by pointing out their bad behavior and moving on.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Is the default assumption from the MM that orcs (or goblins or trolls or hill giants) are evil the issue or is it the wording and artwork?

Because if it's the former I simply disagree. I have no problem with orcs being evil. Or the Borg for that matter. If they aren't evil, what purpose do they serve in the fiction?

If it's the latter, if it's the words used and the imagery, then I agree some things should be changed and could be improved.

As we have been saying for days now, it's a combination of orcs always/nearly always being evil as a default part of the game, and the wording of their descriptions even when describing PC orcs. Both are bad.

And changing both doesn't interfere with your refusal to see any place for them outside of "the dark lord's horde of minions" or whatever, by which I mean your ability to use them however you want in your games.

Hell, you could use orcs that way in a 4e forgotten realms game that sticks to the canon. They just wouldn't be the only orcs in the world.

 

[Umbran]

Fatal. I was accused of using an emotionally charged word (capitulation) in another thread by a moderator.

You state that as if the context in which you used the word was not relevant. It was very relevant.

Also note that while I happen to be a moderator, not everything I write is as a moderator. I have personal opinions that do not apply to moderation.

The objection I have is in not removing the trope that currently exists...

Problem: The trope that exists is, "orcs are evil by nature." Having a significant number of orcs not evil by nature negates the current trope. They are mutually exclusive.

 

[Oofta]

As we have been saying for days now, it's a combination of orcs always/nearly always being evil as a default part of the game, and the wording of their descriptions even when describing PC orcs. Both are bad.

And changing both doesn't interfere with your refusal to see any place for them outside of "the dark lord's horde of minions" or whatever, by which I mean your ability to use them however you want in your games.

Hell, you could use orcs that way in a 4e forgotten realms game that sticks to the canon. They just wouldn't be the only orcs in the world.

But why are orcs always the evil minion fodder unless they're somehow disposed to being evil? If they are wired to be evil, what difference does the degree of evil matter? If their nature is to be more evil* than humans, don't we have the same problem?

*Evil/angry/prone to violence whatever.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

There's a scene where The Dread Pirate Roberts rescues Princess Buttercup, and I forget exactly what she says but she accuses him of lying or being insincere or something like that. He pulls his hand back as if to strike her, and she flinches, expecting a blow. He says, "That's TWICE you've said that. DON'T do it again." (Or something like that...I'm paraphrasing.)

I was...stunned. There were some other examples. I thought, "Whoah...how did I never see the misogyny in this movie!?!!?"

I don't think you paid much attention to the entire story about Dread Pirate Roberts. DPR is known throughout the world as being a merciless evil being who leaves no victim alive, and who killed Buttercup's beloved Westley. It shocked you that one of the most evil men in the world almost smacked a female captive?

It all being a ruse, of course, meant that even though Buttercup didn't know at the time, DPR was really Westley, who wouldn't harm her at all.

 

[MGibster]

There's a scene where The Dread Pirate Roberts rescues Princess Buttercup, and I forget exactly what she says but she accuses him of lying or being insincere or something like that. He pulls his hand back as if to strike her, and she flinches, expecting a blow. He says, "That's TWICE you've said that. DON'T do it again." (Or something like that...I'm paraphrasing.)

I was...stunned. There were some other examples. I thought, "Whoah...how did I never see the misogyny in this movie!?!!?"

That's a pretty low bar for misogyny I think. Westley was playing the character of The Dread Pirates Roberts, a loathsome villain known for thieving and murdering his way across the high seas, but of course it's all just a charade. There hasn't been a Dread Pirate Roberts for years but Westley and many predecessors just put on an act because it makes it easier to engage in piratical activities. Westley was never going to hit Buttercup but as he was in character he had to play the part of a dastardly cad who would.

 

[Warpiglet]

I think (hope) anyone in this discussion cares about the hobby. And before that, hopefully they were taught to care about others and don’t suffer from some sort of antisocial personality disorder or true sociopathy. I suspect that is unlikely.

However, your concerns have some merit. The question is: where does it stop? And secondarily, how does it change the game.

At some point offending or triggering others is unavoidable. In a game in which violence is all but universal we have to be realistic.

A victim of real life-endangering violence (me—and I am one irl!) would be doing the game a disservice by asking others to edit it out of their game world’s lore. If maces and swords freak me out, I need to be the one to adjust and separate real from pretend.

Parents have alcohol problems? Maybe they can take pints of ale out of the PHB. And the yawning portal is a drinking establishment. What about all the substance use disordered players? Can’t make them feel funny.

And what about slavery? Evil (evil!) groups take slaves, right? So no more villainous behavior in the game fiction. Slavery was/a historical reality in many real nations.

So the objections to wholesale elimination of parts of game lore are really about fear that the game will become watered down and no longer recreation of tales and movies people associate with fiction.

Then there is a practical matter. How many people have really been offended by orcs? I don’t know. I doubt it’s many. If I guesses I would say the most vocal critics are white males who are “privileged” but it’s an educated guess only.

After looking at both side of the issue and track record of WOTC, I am cautiously optimistic.

Crawford talked about “many worlds” to play in. And some different takes on orcs and drow have already occurred in different settings.

I am starting to trust WOTC in their implementation and hope I am not misguided. I hope they let traditionalists have what is valued and familiar while offering different takes on humanoids in other publications if people want it.

I don’t suspect (hope?) they are going to rewrite the monster manual and change all the fluff. I just suspect they will offer other worlds one can choose if desired.

And if they do start “sanitizing” things so to speak I can only sigh and wonder wtf? Why can’t we have fun things?

I have not played in games that make everything some moral quandry. Kill and take loot is the origin of the game and is not a dirty word. We have more nuance in our games but who am I to judge?

I don't disagree with this.

I just don't want entire species in D&D to change their behaviors, eco-systems and habitats because people feel insulted by the lifestyle of a fictional creature.

If people said that PoC are tribal creatures, they are a-holes for saying it, I'm not defending statements like these, no exceptions.

But I don't want the lore of the game I love to change simply because an a-hole said something stupid.

Anyway, I think I should refrain from saying anything else until I actually read the changes WotC will make to the races/species/ancestries/whatever.

 

[Panda-s1]

I don't know ... because they live in swamps? Because they take advantage of their environment in a different way than humans do, have different abilities than humans and therefore do not need to build structures like humans do? Because it makes them unique by not doing so than yet ANOTHER castle-building humanoid species?

Why should lizardfolk build castles and cities when they can easily climb trees and have camouflage when underwater in order to surprise prey? Why should they build castle walls for defense when trees and heavy vegetation provide ample cover from enemy projectiles and siege engines?

Why is a primitive yet equally effective lifestyle viewed as racist and problematic?

idk some humans live in swamps. they take advantage of their environment and don't build structures like you might see in your typical human city.

why should humans build castles and cities when they can climb trees and use camouflage when underwater in order to surprise prey? why should they build castle walls for defense when trees and heavy vegetation provide ample cover from enemy projectiles and siege engines? (spoilers: they kinda don't).

why might saying a group of people are only ever inclined to a "primitive" lifestyle be viewed as racist and problematic?

How many thousands of years did it take any humans on the planet to do it? First city in 4500 BC, so somewhere over 200,000 years of being Homo sapiens?

{Edit to fix dates.}

so then what's stopping lizardfolk from making cities? or orcs? did humans exist that much longer in your average fantasy setting?