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'.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Since it actually does mean "bleak guy" , as explained to me by my ex wife who is form Latin America, it is absolutely the same and according to her also absolutely meant to be a stereotype insult.
I do not know where your lengthy explanation comes from, but I prefer to trust the words of a person who grew up there.

What my explanation means is that white dudes rule the world. Even if your feelings get hurt, it's nothing like a racial slur directed at someone you have more power than.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You know what this is making me imagine? Take orcs from Eberron or Scarred Lands or wherever, ones that are part of the playable races, and have them run into orcs like those from Greyhawk or wherever.

Imagine the sheer weirdness on both sides as they possibly see some sort of perversion of what they are.

Could be an interesting bit of roleplaying I imagine.

World of Warcraft did this a few expansions ago and it was fun.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

WOTC wants to keep Orcs and Drow dark skinned so they don't want to associate one of the iconic darkskinned races as brutish dumb monsters and the other as sexist evil backstabbers during a time of increased visblility to African Americans.

Wouldn't it be much easier (and better) to make them not dark-skinned anymore and have dark-skinned races that are actually heroic? Good villains are not that easy to come by; green orcs and pale-skinned Underdark dwellers, on the other hand, are totally a thing. Gold dwarves are dark-skinned, as are copper elves, and many human ethnicities. It would be more about making those characters prominent in a wider range of stories, you don't even need to invent new humanoids.

The issue is giving "bad guy monsters" real life people inspirations. That stuff doesn't fly anymore. You can't make orcs always evil savage monsters and dress them up as psuedo Britons, Mongols, or Congo people.

I'll quote here just to point that "dark-skinned and inspired by real-world Mongols but some of them are as smart as a high elf and capable of doing good" is not a huge improvement. Not making those characters akin to real-world humans, physically or culturally, is a much more relevant issue than putting nuance on their villainous attitude.

 

[Weiley31]

4E at one point had an article about playing gnoll PCs and a description of a gnoll society that rejected Yeenoghu for an animistic religion.

5E threw that out and said that gnolls were created from hyenas eating demon flesh and reproduce by murder

Nobody says you still can't have 4E Gnolls Lore in your 5E games. Especially with Exploring Eberron coming out soon with non pure evil Gnolls rules in it.

 

[generic]

I'll quote here just to point that "dark-skinned and inspired by real-world Mongols but some of them are as smart as a high elf and capable of doing good" is not a huge improvement. Not making those characters akin to real-world humans, physically or culturally, is a much more relevant issue than putting nuance on their villainous attitude.

Especially because Orcs aren't going to cease to be "monsters". Now they'll be "clever mongols" instead of "stupid mongols", not exactly an improvement.

 

[FXR]

I'm pretty sure we can move onto a new version of D&D where orcs are not written as an entirely savage and evil race and instead... some are and some aren't, based upon what they believe, rather than what is ingrained.

An even better alternative would be to stop trying to create some universal description of orcs which apply to all worlds (or, in case of large worlds, to all regions). it would help to lessen stereotypes while still providing a common ground to help players picture how orcs fit in the big picture.

I'm not against presenting orcs in world A as raiders. Perhaps, they raid because they are latecomers and there was no available land for them. Perhaps, the orcs hate it, but feel they have to because their god is held hostage by a demon prince who use the orcs to collect tribute.

However, don't picture orcs in all words as such. It's lazy, unimaginative and boring. In world B, orcs might be mostly sailors and mariners, except those in region X which are renowned builders of religious buildings and siege engineers.

 

[Minigiant]

Oh, ok. That I had no idea about.

Yeah, the nerdy section of Black Twitter went off on MTG for this last week. That and the Teferi thing.

Hubris and pride generally.

They assume the kind of logic Hellditch is using in this thread and embark on militant crusades against evil resulting jn them becoming the very monsters they once opposed.

That's the reason behind the Erinyes, Azazwl and some other fallen Angels falls from grace.

It's much easier for a good person to fall to evil than an evil person to ascend and redeem themselves.

Magic is not even implied in the passage you're quoting. Jusr a statement about rarity with the implication that it's easier to fall than it is to be redeemed.

That could make sense. I gotta stop defaulting to "a wizard did it'

Wouldn't it be much easier (and better) to make them not dark-skinned anymore and have dark-skinned races that are actually heroic? Good villains are not that easy to come by; green orcs and pale-skinned Underdark dwellers, on the other hand, are totally a thing. Gold dwarves are dark-skinned, as are copper elves, and many human ethnicities. It would be more about making those characters prominent in a wider range of stories, you don't even need to invent new humanoids.

For some reason, modern entertainment companies will try everything else first before trying the easiest solution.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

However... if the people who design and write this game called Dungeons & Dragons feel as though the people who are making these statements have a point... then they might very well go ahead and make changes to the game because they think it's the right thing to do

To think that is the right thing to do is not sufficient to make right the thing you do.

Back in topic: You can find auto-censorship a legit thing to do, but to argue with an idiot is the best way to look similar to him. If a thing is not offending not racist, I cannot feel myself trapped to adhere to every potential (not even real) complain that could be come from any idiot around with the paranoia against racist positions.
What if Atlantic Records choose to burn every copy of Led Zeppelin IV because of some idiots that say that Stairway to Heaven contains satanic messages? And let me say, even if this would be true, who cares? Artistic expression cannot be confined in stereotyped cultural paths.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Dark skinned races are always stupid, evil or both. Fair skinned races are usually beautiful and smart or both.

Even Tolkien wasn't immune from this bias. Heck leaving aside the Orc v Arayan elves argument, the Dunedain and Rohorrim were fair skinned noble good guys while the Dark skinned men from the east rode elephants and worshipped Saurom.

So we have to modify LOTR retiring all the copies already printed? You are trying to save the world from it's stupidity erasing words from the dictionary, but less words means more stupidity.

 

[Lieslo]

There are so many potentially problematic races. How about the Ordning for example. Giants are literally separated by racial qualities with hill giant's being at the bottom due to their racially prescribed low intelligence. Are we not going to have any racial characteristics?