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'.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

35. Profiles have ages.
Do not goddamn dare defend racism.

Bing

You have unlocked the "Use the word Goddamn in 50 posts to emphasize how much you care" achievement.

50 points

 

[Doug McCrae]

Except that at several points I have also said that this adoption of racist rhetoric was likely unintentional and subliminal. There are tropes and ideologies that seem benign to us because they were wrapped up in nostalgia that we only recognize as harmful with retrospection and a critical eye. For example, though I enjoyed reading my dad’s John Carter of Mars books as a kid, it was quite the awakening when I recognized how a lot of the stories were coded with racist and colonialist undertones. But if one were not to recognize those undertones and then adopt these tropes in your own fiction, then that still perpetuates those racist undertones. That is likely how it happened in D&D. It was likely not adopted with any intent of racism, but benign racism is still racism.

You're really on to something with this imo. In addition to Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs as the other main route by which colonialist and racist portrayals of non-white people get transformed into non-human monsters and then make their way into D&D.

I've only read Princess of Mars and it was a long time ago, so I can't say anything about the specifics.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Many religions in human history engaged in human sacrifice, cannibalism of family and enemies, enslavement of enemies and many more activities that would be considered today to be immoral, but were not immoral to those societies.



Sure, and by more and more cultures as time went on and we approached modern history. As more and more of them got the word out, sharing those ideas, morality changed. Even now in present time there are isolated cultures who see nothing wrong with cannibalism. Not just nothing wrong with it, but that it's moral and good to keep your ancestors with you by eating them. That it's moral and good to eat your enemies and gain their strength.

Granted. And many of those cultures, notably, did not expressly follow the golden rule. Some did, though. But it does not follow that their subjective takes on cannibalism, sacrifice or slavery were moral.

We can note, for instance, that many of those cultures prefaced those practices on the premise that their victims were less than human, little better than animals. Dehumanizing their victims thus allowed them to treat other people in ways they would not consider moral for “real“ people.

Knowing as we do that their victims WERE humans, we can fairly judge this hypocrisy for what it is.

Others simply handwaved away the obvious conflict between their professed ethos/religion/philosophy and the various methods they had of reducing humans to livestock. Worse, some twisted their beliefs to justify mistreating their fellow man. IOW, there was fiction-based hypocrisy built into their practices.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The reason the question of who counts as a "person" is so important is that, once you count as a person to somebody, their moral intuitions toward you are basically similar regardless of culture or religion: we'd be hard-pressed to find a society where one can lie to, steal from, or injure a fellow-citizen without some sort of strong justification. What constitutes justification may vary wildly, but the basic fact that these acts start with negative moral valence and require justification is something a lot of people take for granted, and if we're looking for human moral universals, we shouldn't. Unfortunately, the same moral intuitions seldom apply to nonpersons, members of the outgroup. Which is why the sorts of mass violence we're talking about in this thread -- conquest, slavery, genocide -- are invariably directed in that direction.

This is a simplification, of course. The line between person and nonperson isn't a bright one; there's a lot of blur at that border. Nevertheless, moving the line to encompass more of humanity does a hell of a lot of work in making people behave better, even before addressing any of their particular moral beliefs.

One of the common first steps in committing atrocities is dehumanizing or demonizing the Other. Once you’ve successfully done that, all evils are permitted, justified and expected.

That’s part of why slurs and stereotypes exist.

 

[Aldarc]

And your response just leads back to my question above.

"So any pretend race regardless of description cannot hate any other pretend races?"

Somebody on Earth would write all hate of other races in D&D. So yes, @Aldarc someone(more than one here) is arguing that.

I don't think that you are representing @PsyzhranV2's argument well or with much good faith here, Max. Because I don't think that he is arguing what you think that he is arguing. PsyzhranV2 is not arguing that racism cannot exist as part of the in-game constructs of the fiction, but, they are arguing that the in-game fiction does not absolve it of its use of harmful racist rhetoric as part of the game's fiction. Racism can exist, but there is not exactly nuance in how the player and GM books depict orcs with the same racist rhetoric that is regularly employed by white supremacists against ethnic minorities.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think that you are representing @PsyzhranV2's argument well or with much good faith here, Max. Because I don't think that he is arguing what you think that he is arguing. PsyzhranV2 is not arguing that racism cannot exist as part of the in-game constructs of the fiction, but, they are arguing that the in-game fiction does not absolve it of its use of harmful racist rhetoric as part of the game's fiction. Racism can exist, but there is not exactly nuance in how the player and GM books depict orcs with the same racist rhetoric that is regularly employed by white supremacists against ethnic minorities.

Bingo!

 

[Aldarc]

Reading 5e orcs I don't see any hate that would be associated with a real people. Gruumsh told orcs to destroy all the other races. They hate elves. They savagely invade nearby settlements. They like to kill.

Where is that similar to any real world culture?

Have you bothered actively reading the thread or not? Because this is answered plenty of times almost ad nauseum.

This is the 5e description.

"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks."

Viking pig people.

It is one sentence from the 5e description, Max. Plus, this invites the question why the 5e art team did not get this memo.

 

[Mercurius]

You're really on to something with this imo. In addition to Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs as the other main route by which colonialist and racist portrayals of non-white people get transformed into non-human monsters and then make their way into D&D.

I've only read Princess of Mars and it was a long time ago, so I can't say anything about the specifics.

Don't forget Tolkien's origin story of orcs, that they were essentially genetic modifications (or perversions) from elves by Morgoth. While I respect Tolkien's dislike of allegory, I think it is safe to say that elves represent a kind of archetype of beauty and harmony, in a way synonymous with "un-fallen humanity" - humanity as it might have existed in a Golden Age, before the Fall (to use archetypes of world mythology). Morgoth, as the Adversary and representation of egotism, sought to subvert Iluvatar's divine plan - this is presented in the first page or two of The Silmarillion. He brought incongruous and divergent elements into the Song of the Ainur, seeking to create his own version.

I think the root idea of orcs in Tolkien's work is a expression of this disharmony, of unnaturalness from a divine or natural order. Now of course we can argue with this philosophically, and say that since everything is the result of nature, everything is "natural." But some elements of nature--say, plastic or pollution--are more disharmonious and poison the whole.

Taken on their own merit, there is nothing inflammatory to this idea. The world is filled with (almost entirely) human-created disharmonies, because we--as humans--are "tainted by Morgoth." In other words, we all have a little bit of Morgoth in us. This morphs into one of the underlying themes of The Lord of the Rings, and why Gandalf and Galadriel refused to take the One Ring. They understood (or believed) that the problem was power itself, or power over others. "At first I would use the Ring for good..." This relates, I think, to Tolkien's general distaste for industry, as a representation of "Morgothian" control and disharmony with nature.

My point in expressing this is to remind us that any narratives or interpretations we make--including my own--are "after the fact." My preferred (but not only) hermeneutic with regards to literary texts is more psychological and archetypal, so that is what I'll mostly see when I put on that lens of perception. Other lenses produce different narratives. But the narrative itself is not the text; the map is not the territory; the world is not our intepretation of it. Tolkien was very clear that he mostly (if not entirely) was concerned with the story itself, the dynamics within the secondary world. They were not his way to "get across a point," or to explore contemporary socio-cultural dynamics. Inevitably some of that leaked in, as he was influenced by world events (how could he--we--not be?). And, to be honest, I don't know if I entirely believed his "story-only" declarations, but I do think it was his primary concern.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Reading 5e orcs I don't see any hate that would be associated with a real people. Gruumsh told orcs to destroy all the other races. They hate elves. They savagely invade nearby settlements. They like to kill.

Where is that similar to any real world culture?

It's not; no culture is actually like this. It does however, sound a lot like the description of certain real-life groups that real-life racists describe.

Take for example, a quote by President Andrew Jackson on Native Americans;

“They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.”

And Chief Justice John Marshall;

“The tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were fierce savages, whose occupations was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiefly from the forest… That law which regulates, and ought to regulate in general, the relations between the conqueror and conquered was incapable of application to a people under such circumstances… Discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest.”

Nice Day for a Genocide: Shocking Quotes on Indians by U.S. Leaders, Pt. 2

These quotes about Indians from American leaders span from 1823 to 1889.

indiancountrytoday.com

Do real-life orcs exist (or ever did)? No. But did real people treat real-life races like how orcs are treated? Yes.

 

[Mercurius]

I will say this to all the folks who say, "Well, I don't see it as racist, so WotC should not do anything.":

If you're not the one experiencing the racism, why do you expect that 1) you'd be the best qualified to identify it, and 2) your opinion of whether it is actually happening matters?

Denying the experience of abused folks is at the least unkind. At the worst, it is gaslighting.

This is an important point that has been brought up in various ways, though I don't agree with your characterization of those of us who aren't seeing (as much) racism in D&D tropes. It is an over-simplification and ignores any of the subtleties that may have presented. It isn't either you see it or you don't, and if you don't you're ignoring the experience of abused folks and gaslighting. Some people may be doing that, but a lot aren't, and to characterize everyone in this way--as you do in this post, at least (whether intentionally or not, I'm guessing not)--ignores important variations and subtleties.

These discussions tend to become highly charged and polarized, as you know, which does away with any nuance and prevents real and meaningful discourse (thus the "D&D Heritage and Inclusivity" thread...which mostly failed, but not entirely, and seems to have morphed away from this in the most recent page or two...fingers crossed!).

But what I'm concerned with is the slippery slope. I don't see this as being recognized or addressed in any meaningful way by those who are, to reverse the over-simplisitic characterization, "seeing racism everywhere" (I realize that no one is doing that, but you take my point). Where do you draw the line? If a single person complains, should what they complain about be changed? Or is there a certain number? And to what degree?

As I've repeatedly said, I am most definitely not advocating for no change--I do believe that some changes are warranted and beneficial (if only to minimize these threads --and I agree that certain things are problematic and should be addressed. But how they are addressed is important, and the slippery slope is a real concern.