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'.

 

[TheSword]

No, but it does mean that the importance they do have is subjective, arbitrary and dependent on the author, and the interpretation.

You're free to tell me 'Culture X is better than Culture Y' for example. And Im free to disagree with you. And we're both correct. What is important to you, may not be to me, and may not in fact be important at all.

Also be a little wary of trying to attribute inherent strengths and weaknesses to 'cultures'. The next step on that path is asserting the inherent superiority of one 'culture' over another 'culture' and then you're in some pretty messed up territory.

Personally, I would rather that stuff be left out of my games. I dont want to read about [not African people] or [not European peoples] or whomever having certain 'traits' that are inherent to those peoples, cultures or ethnicities, with the implication that some of those peoples are superior to others.

All it does is show the authors racial or cultural bias, and is almost always reflective of real world prejudice (either intentionally as in RaHoWa, or innocently as in Birthright).

Yet again different is not better. You're assuming that the Anuireans getting +1 Wis is better than getting +1 Str. Which in AD&D was almost certainly not true.

Luckily in game design we can try and balance things to be fair and try and make all options equally appealing.

I honestly don't giving think stat bonuses is any different to saying people from the Dales are proficient with longbows and can have the Steadfast feat as was the case in 3e. Particularly when all players choose their stats with a points system as standard and therefore top scores only represent outliers anyway. As I said I would avoid penalties, mainly because theyre not fun. Opportunity cost is a more reasonable way of doing it.

 

[Oofta]

I've also largely removed alignment from my games.

That said, why isn't it ok for a sentient fantasy species (like orc) to be inherently predisposed to taking resources, food, goods, money, etc from other sentient species by force, of which is essentially considered "evil" by most people's definition?

I've read through most of this thread and my main takeaway is that it seems it's being argued that if a creature is sentient, it will only resort to "evil" acts if it's suffered great physical, mental, or emotional trauma or has a mental illness.

While I agree that is largely true in humans (the nature vs. nurture argument, although there are theories that some people are predisposed to "evil" from birth), I'm trying to understand why that can't be the case in a fantasy game, never mind that it's been the case in mythology and literature for thousands of years?

I ask these questions not to antagonize - I'm trying to understand the core issue here.

My take? It's a game. More important, it's a common trope in games (not just D&D) that orcs are evil monsters who are vaguely humanoid. Orcs are not humans in rubber masks, they are a different species altogether and were created for the sole purpose of war and destruction.

Others seem to believe* that orcs really represent humans from a different culture or who look different than the viewer. They represent the dangerous "other", which in our times is represented by having a different religion, culture or skin tone. Orcs are stand-ins for any outsider and calling someone from a different tribe being described as evil solely because they are different is wrong.

A few people profess the belief all morality is relative.

Of course there are still others that fall somewhere in between all of the above.

*Not that there are no monolithic groups here, nor am I presenting a nuanced or detailed depiction.

 

[Olrox17]

I'm sorry, no, that isn't true, not when we're talking about something like an RPG. What's put in is a choice. What's left out is a choice.

Leaving out views politics you find uncomfortable is the designer siding with a possibly fictitious past where "people didn't care about this stuff." (People always cared about all of this stuff. They just didn't have the power to make it part of the mainstream conversation.)

But if you want a D&D game that doesn't reflect the 2020s, there's 40 years of stuff you can roll back the clock to.

Just to understand your position better, are you also one of the people who believe LotR is a veiled metaphor for the Cold War, or perhaps an outlet for JRR Tolkien to vent his supposed racist ideas?
Because, if so, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

I firmly believe that a fantasy author can build a world and never care or think about current politics while doing it. I know, because I did it myself once or twice.

 

[Morrus]

I'm trying to express why this one bothers me - and I don't know if its the (meta)physics of it, knowing about weight classes in combat sports, or too much of the fantasy literature I've read going the other way, or what.

Can they also choose to be a 7' tall Halfling? Can they be a Halfling that's a foot and a half taller with dark vision and stone cunning and resilience? If yes, why even have separate races or anything. If no, why are those different than physical ability score modifiers?

Lots of games use descriptive rather than proscriptive approaches to a character’s identity. If you want a big strong minotaur you load Strength; if you want a nimble little halfling you load Dex. You describe the character however you like.

Sure. That’s too far for D&D. That would take the game far away from its existing structure. But all we’re talking here is eliminating Int penalties for orcs, and not mandating that they be evil. If somebody wants to play a clever, good orc, let them!

 

[Minigiant]

While I agree that is largely true in humans (the nature vs. nurture argument, although there are theories that some people are predisposed to "evil" from birth), I'm trying to understand why they can't be the case in a fantasy game, never mind that it's been the case in mtyhology and literature for thousands of years?

I ask these questions not to antagonize - I'm trying to understand the core issue here.

Why? Because of different styles of DMs, settings, and tables.

For example, there is an always evil creature in my world. However they are simiiar to humaniods in body, 5foot tall, two arms two legs, a single head and standard organs. These brutes go around staying and destroying.

However there aren't many of them. The don't build settlement needed to grow populations matching the civilized folk. So when my group was called to a lord to hunt their leader down, the group leader state "You have more men than they do, my lord. Shouldn't your garrison slaughter them instead of the six of us?"

Of course I had a magical excuse ready but thats the point. An always evil race is a logistical and lore nightmare if youdon't have an excuse. It's the "Underdark makes no sense. Why aren't they all dead?" problem. You have to make excuse for a purely antisocial apathetic society. And some settings have dozens of them. And if you do, you between not take inspiration of real life people.

 

[Zarithar]

At £8.99 a month Netflix is pretty Ubiquitous here in the UK. Apologies if I offended you.

That's around the price of an upsized value meal from the fast food joint of your choice. Pretty damned reasonable and inexpensive for a whole month of entertainment... If that offended anyone then just. Wow.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

The people of ancient Babylon really didn't care about this stuff. They were too busy working 12-hour days 7 days a week to grow food so they didn't starve to death. If another culture came rolling in and tried to take what little they had, they didn't waste any time questioning the morality of killing those invaders in order to preserve their way of life. Our capacity for hand-wringing and personal second-guessing is a tremendous luxury afforded by our incredibly prosperous modern lifestyle.

Wait what are you talking about. Babylonia was a trade culture that had political structures, and human beings living there that rebelled against problems that arose. They weren’t just a civilization of “ammoral wake up farm die” people. They had political alliances with nearby civilizations, ones they had differences with.

 

[Morrus]

When I run a game....there is no sexuality to any character because sexy time isn't an option we explore.

You never meet a married couple? Not even the King and Queen? A couple who run an inn? Somebody’s parents?

 

[Flamestrike]

Cool, but are you a 12 year old who's starting to have a tickle in the back of his mind that he may not be like the characters he sees depicted in fiction and is wondering if he's "wrong?"

Seeing himself in the media, including game worlds, tells him that he's not.

If it doesn't matter to you, then it can slide right past you, without you being inconvenienced at all.

Terry K Amthor (who in real life is homosexual I believe) copped a lot of flak back in the day for the inclusion of a homosexual pre-generated PC (designed to be played in game) that was openly homosexual.

It was for Rolemaster (and his setting of Shadow World).

The PC was a Healer, and in that system Healers heal by sympathetic healing (they take on the wounds of the injured themselves, and then heal them subconsciously). Due to the prejudice this dude got growing up (Homosexuality was condemned in his human culture) he found that his powers had a mental 'block' and only worked on women (from memory).

One of the other pre-gens was an Elf, and in elven society Homosexuality was a non issue (and it was explored how the Healers powers worked on the Elf just fine). I believe another PC was written as being prejudiced towards homosexuality (a Priest from memory) and another PC was a repressed bisexual., and possible romantic interest for the Healer PC.

The backstory gave some pointers for players for dealing with some of these issues.

Quite a lot of the backstory of many of the pre-gens dealt with their views towards gender, sexuality and race.

It wasnt written as something central to the characters, but relevant to their interactions with each other, more as a sidenote to larger motivations, political views, backgrounds and morals.

I found it bold and refreshing at the time in a game where PCs were not defined simply by alignments (Rolemaster doesnt have those) but by more complex human desires, ambitions and reasoning.

It's worth a read now to see just how ahead of the curve Amthor was. This campaign was written in the late 20th century from memory, when LGBTI characters simply did not exist in RPG's at all. To place one as a central Pre-Gen PC (and be prepared to explore issues of prejudice and the effects thereof) was a bold move at the time.

 

[Haldrik]

When I run a game....there is no sexuality to any character because sexy time isn't an option we explore.

This is what happens in a hack-and-slash game of D&D where narrative is unimportant.

An unintended consequence of this approach is that it ERASES gay people from existence.

It is highly problematic.

It is worthwhile to present other ways of making gay couples more visibly identifiable. In any context that has two spouses or two partners, make one in ten of these couples same-sex.