D&D 5E WotC's Jeremy Crawford on D&D Races Going Forward

On Twitter, Jeremy Crawford discussed the treatment of orcs, Vistani, drow and others in D&D, and how WotC plans to treat the idea of 'race' in D&D going forward. In recent products (Eberron and Wildemount), the mandatory evil alignment was dropped from orcs, as was the Intelligence penalty.

@ThinkingDM Look at the treatment orcs received in Eberron and Exandria. Dropped the Intelligence debuff and the evil alignment, with a more acceptable narrative. It's a start, but there's a fair argument for gutting the entire race system.

The orcs of Eberron and Wildemount reflect where our hearts are and indicate where we’re heading.

@vorpaldicepress I hate to be "that guy", but what about Drow, Vistani, and the other troublesome races and cultures in Forgotten Realms (like the Gur, another Roma-inspired race)? Things don't change over night, but are these on the radar?

The drow, Vistani, and many other folk in the game are on our radar. The same spirit that motivated our portrayal of orcs in Eberron is animating our work on all these peoples.

@MileyMan1066 Good. These problems need to be addressed. The variant features UA could have a sequel that includes notes that could rectify some of the problems and help move 5e in a better direction.

Addressing these issues is vital to us. Eberron and Wildemount are the first of multiple books that will face these issues head on and will do so from multiple angles.

@mbriddell I'm happy to hear that you are taking a serious look at this. Do you feel that you can achieve this within the context of Forgotten Realms, given how establised that world's lore is, or would you need to establish a new setting to do this?

Thankfully, the core setting of D&D is the multiverse, with its multitude of worlds. We can tell so many different stories, with different perspectives, in each world. And when we return to a world like FR, stories can evolve. In short, even the older worlds can improve.

@SlyFlourish I could see gnolls being treated differently in other worlds, particularly when they’re a playable race. The idea that they’re spawned hyenas who fed on demon-touched rotten meat feels like they’re in a different class than drow, orcs, goblins and the like. Same with minotaurs.

Internally, we feel that the gnolls in the MM are mistyped. Given their story, they should be fiends, not humanoids. In contrast, the gnolls of Eberron are humanoids, a people with moral and cultural expansiveness.

@MikeyMan1066 I agree. Any creature with the Humanoid type should have the full capacity to be any alignmnet, i.e., they should have free will and souls. Gnolls... the way they are described, do not. Having them be minor demons would clear a lot of this up.

You just described our team's perspective exactly.

As a side-note, the term 'race' is starting to fall out of favor in tabletop RPGs (Pathfinder has "ancestry", and other games use terms like "heritage"); while he doesn't comment on that specifically, he doesn't use the word 'race' and instead refers to 'folks' and 'peoples'.

 

[Envisioner]

I guess if we can't have inherently evil two legged humanoids, why can we have inherently evil aberrations? Or devils? Or demons? Or giants?

My answer to that is that humanoids have a basically humanlike brain which gives them the ability to think and make decisions and develop a system of morality, but other creature types may not. Aberrations are fundamentally alien monstrosities (dammit 5E, that was a perfectly cromulent word before!), who may hail from other dimensions with different physical laws; they think in fashions we can't even begin to relate to. Fiends are literally manifestations of the very concept of Evil itself; they probably don't have anything even vaguely resembling free will. Giants I would put as being little different than humans, but chromatic dragons IMO are quite probably the "reptile brain" made manifest, and can't comprehend morality because they literally don't have a cortex in their minds which can process the idea of "other beings have a right to exist", any more than a 2-year-old can. (By the way, that's one of the reasons why I hold that humans are inherently more evil than good; babies have to be taught not to be selfish, and our culture IMO is doing an increasingly worse and worse job of teaching them to stop being creatures of pure Freudian Id, give them the capacity to step outside their own desires and accept a place in the world which doesn't revolve around them.) Metallic dragons are a harder thing to figure out IMO; the mythology which indicates that the dragon god Io was bisected and thus became Bahamut and Tiamat might be useful here, indicating that the brain was cleaved into upper and lower segments and that they now are literally incapable of being selfish or selfless, depending on which kind they are (although personally I wouldn't use that myth myself, because I don't like the idea of dragon gods; maybe that's why I struggle with the metallics' nature).

 

[Dire Bare]

Make me smarter, because I don't agree......if we remove all species differences in terms of attributes, and only an individual's culture and upbringing makes them different (or having fur vs skin), how are they different? They are just humans that look different at that point, and aren't actually different species. If by the rules there are no differences other than teeth or eyes or skin......then isn't it just their appearance that is different, and aren't they humans then?

The orc thing confuses me, and I admit that might be my lens on life......but you seem to be arguing we can't have an inherently/generally evil species.

I guess if we can't have inherently evil two legged humanoids, why can we have inherently evil aberrations? Or devils? Or demons? Or giants?

There are no differences between European culture and African culture other than skin color?

I'm speaking broadly, of course, as there is no single "European" culture or "African" culture. And I certainly don't mean to imply that there are "mechanical" differences (in-game terms) between Europeans and Africans.

But cultural differences without mechanical stat adjustments are no differences at all? I guess you're right, we're just going to have to disagree on this one.

 

[TheSword]

This is D&D!

I want more identifiably gay characters from WotC products.

It is appropriate in a thread about removing stereotypes. Including the stereotype that all D&D characters are straight!

My understanding was that there are at least one identifiably gay NPC in every campaign?

 

[Haldrik]

My understanding was that there are at least one identifiably gay NPC in every campaign?

gay and transgender are different.

There should be multiple examples of each.

 

[Umbran]

In the original Norse Eddas, Heimdall was very specifically described as "the whitest of the gods".

Beware translation errors! The English word "whitest" does not exist in the original Norse texts. Reasonable translations include "whitest of the gods", but also "brightest of the Aesir" and "the most glittering of gods".

In Norse texts, what we often refer to as "white" and "dark" are not necessarily references to physical color at all, but can be statements on spiritual standing in the great scheme of things. Norse "dark elves" are not necessarily dark of skin, but instead are dark of heart.

We, now, are very hung up on skin color. Don't assume all cultures of the past were.

 

[Xaelvaen]

At the very least, for those who don't wish to deal with the changes to races being approached by WoTC, you can choose to ignore it. If you still want the Good/Evil racial archetype in your games, it can still be done. If 5E has taught us nothing else, let it teach us this - it's still your game.

All the old content is cheap, buy it before they change that too, if you want the classic lore before the PC alterations.

 

[Zaukrie]

There are no differences between European culture and African culture other than skin color?

I'm speaking broadly, of course, as there is no single "European" culture or "African" culture. And I certainly don't mean to imply that there are "mechanical" differences (in-game terms) between Europeans and Africans.

But cultural differences without mechanical stat adjustments are no differences at all? I guess you're right, we're just going to have to disagree on this one.

I didn't say culture at all. Not once in that post.......I am not talking about culture. I thought that was clear. I hope now it is. There are huge differences in culture that will manifest in differences in attributes. That wasn't my question.......

If all humanoids have the same racial stats and abilities, and only their appearance marks them as different, aren't they just humans at that point?

 

[Envisioner]

Good information, Umbran! You're probably right, but I still like my theory that it was Loki trolling.

 

[Dire Bare]

Isn't there a more fundamental question or two? What purpose does good and evil serve in the game and why do we need evil monsters?

Personally I don't really care whether there is clear good and evil in the real world. There are no real world evil species that we know of. But I do think that evil monsters serve a purpose in a game if you want them to.

Want everything to be moral gray with no right or wrong? Go for it. Personally? I'd rather know that vampires are blood-sucking monsters that need to have a stake put through their heart. That the only reason they sparkle in the sun is because they're about to explode.

Because end of the day the world is stressful enough and as a player and DM I don't want to worry about whether monster X is really just misunderstood innocent defending their home.

Sometimes I just want to play a game where I'm the good guy kicking the ass of the bad guy and I play Doom. Most of the time I want my D&D game to be the same way. If I want moral quandaries it will come about because of opposing human/"non-monster" races goals and desires.

Is that realistic? Maybe not. It's a game, it doesn't need to be realistic.

I don't think anybody is suggesting removing the concepts of good and evil from D&D. Just from labeling certain sentient creatures as inherently good or evil. Any individual, or organization of individuals, could certainly still choose to behave in an evil manner.

If orcs are no longer inherently evil . . . . does that mean we have to give up evil cultists, evil conquering hordes, or evil murdering assassins? No, it just means we have to be a bit more mindful and careful about how we build our evil antagonists to avoid racist stereotypes and thinking. And to forgive ourselves for trying and not always succeeding, as racist thinking is often subtle and culturally-embedded IRL.

 

[Flamestrike]

Firstly the human variants are described as cultures not ethnicities or races.

They (culture/ race/ ethnicity) are basically the same thing. Race (among humans) is a social construct. Biological race does not exist.

You dont see a problem with a rule or assumption of: [culture/ ethnic group X] is [predominantly peoples of skin colour Y] and those people have the following inherent traits [bonus or penalty to Intelligence, favoured class barbarian or noble, propensity for particular alignments and behaviours etc]?

I would absolutely have zero hesitation in calling such a rule racist in the extreme.

Birthright literally had people of who tend to look and dress and speak and culturally resemble Western Germanic Europeans being inherently wiser and more civilised and than people that looked, and dressed, and spoke and culturally resembled people of Slavic/ Russian origin (who copped an inherent penalty to Intelligence, and tended to be barbarians).

No Godwin here, but that's literally the identical justification for Lebenstraum and the ethnic cleansing of Russia used by Hitler.

I've seen worse racism creep into games before. But that was right up there.