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'.

 

[Minigiant]

The biggest point seemed to be WotC's lack of diversity in hiring (before the announcement about the cards and the talk about that took over).

I thought I put that in there too. Oops.

People of colour exist in the game as part of the existing player character races. In later editions we moved well past the idea that the humanoid races had to be white caucasian for good reason. This is shown in the art, both official and unofficial. As a player I get to choose the colour of my skin whether human, dwarf, elf, tiefling or dragonborn. Grand Duke Uldur Ravenguard can have dark skin without having to be from Chult!

So at the same time to claim that Orcs or gnolls are analogous of people of colour is a really dangerous and very disingenuous position when the game isn’t taking us there. Making the association may be meant well but it’s actually pretty darn offensive. I don’t believe 5e does make this association not. If people are making African or Caribbean analogous regions and populating them with orcs it in their home games they should stop, but thats on them. Just so long as the idea isn’t coming from the community or our products. Please correct me if I’m wrong and these settings or adventures are popping up all over DMguild?

I'mnot saying that D&D hasn't made great strides in the matter. 5e has pushed Nayeli Goldflower as black female hero. Orcs and gnolls have more generic leather clothing that hint to n real world peoples. The base human and wizard pictures are both darkskinned. 5e is raather good on darkskinned represnetation.

Like Isaid earlier that partofthis could be very recent blowback from the MTG side of WOTC with their issues with representation with black pros and staff. A little anxiety that their diversity pushes in D&D weren't seen.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Actually now that you mention class restrictions you made me realize that the only true racist leftover is that druids still freaking can't use metal shields and armor!!!

That's not racism.

We just don't want those poor druids to explode. I mean, my last party went through druids like they were drummers in Spinal Tap!

"Hey, that chain mail looks cool .... BOOM!"

 

[Cadence]

There are already. Humans. Or Drow. Because "characters" become heroes, not races.

All the playable races are also villains. Even halflings.

I had no idea the base Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Half-orcs and Human didn't even have entries as monster types in the main part of the MM anymore.

The Duergar, Drow, Svifneblin, and Orcs do. They all have gray or darker skin (inspite of me picturing things living underground usually becoming paler, and the base Dwarf, Elf, and Gnome pictures in the PhB being white) and 3 of the 4 are expressly evil.

 

[Aldarc]

Saying one should be able to redeem an orc, in that context, is much like saying that the wizards should be able to redeem the Ring and use its powers for good. But that's Middle-Earth.

Except the possible redemption of the orcs was a problematic issue that the highly pious JRR Tolkien was grappling with outside of his works.

 

[Envisioner]

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.

"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." - George Orwell, 1984

It's extremely dangerous to let people go around censoring artistic history for ANY reason.

 

[Olrox17]

Well, let us see if we can help increase your understanding, then.

That...sounds like the opening to a very inflammatory post. I hope I'm wrong.

Narration is not morally neutral just because it is "fantasy".

No, of course not. Fantasy is not a label you can slap on at will to avoid all criticism.

We don't just tell stories to "escape".

Ah, but yes, yes we do. It's called escapism. It's a thing.

Stories are the major way we communicate the basic moral and ethical values of our culture.

Stories are also that. Often, even. Not always. Not every story is about preaching morals.
I love Metal Gear Solid, and that videogame is as preachy as they can get. I also love Dark Souls, a rich fantasy world with no moral message whatsoever.

The narration of, "there are entire cultures that are entirely bad," may have seemed okay in the past. It isn't any more. There is no narrative need to connect conflict or alliance with your protagonists with race. "All people who look a certain way are enemies," is not the kind of narrative they want to accidentally support any more.

I see, go on...

When you create a race that has too many points of similarity to how a group of real world people are also often depicted, then you do offend people.
The Xenomorph is dissimilar enough from the depiction of any real-world peoples that it does not offend. Vampires are not limited to being of any one racial or demographic group.

Ah, so the problem isn't really about "All people who look a certain way are enemies". Conveying that notion is allowed, but only if those "people" are "dissimilar enough from the depiction of any real-world peoples".

So, people are getting offended because they think that evil orcs and drow look too similar to real life ethnicities? Huh. I've never seen a living person that looks like an orc or drow, cosplayers notwithstanding.
Why, is it because drow have dark skin? That's enough to draw a strong comparison? Cmon now...Warhammer dark elves are very pale, and they're just as evil as their D&D counterparts. There's plenty of pale skinned evil monsters. It can't possibly be about this.

Make a werewolf race that, in human form has bronze skin, and tends to wear lots of feathers and fringed suede, and has a nomadic tribal social structure of people who live in conical hide tents... and maybe you have an issue.

I would have an issue with that. Mostly, because of serious lack of creativity, but I get your point.

Replace, "politically correct," with "respectful of the feelings of many people," we see how this is false. There is need for a product trying to sell to larger and larger audiences to be respectful of more people.

D&D is doing better than ever, right now, with all the comically evil orcs and drow. The need for that product is, at the very least, debatable.

 

[TheSword]

When you create a race that has too many points of similarity to how a group of real world people are also often depicted, then you do offend people.

I agree with everything you said.

I think it’s worth considering this one point. Just because someone is offended it doesn’t make them right.

On the internet opinions generally fall on a spectrum with opinions rabidly on either side. There is debate and somehow we need to find a fair but reasonable way forward.

 

[Gradine]

So here's the thing:

The problem with very very always evil rampaging Orcs isn't necessarily that they (a) have an Int penalty, (b) they're referred to as a "race", or (c) they can be identifiably linked to a real-life race. Though these things can and have been problematic.

Here's the big issue:

Look, over there! There's a group of humanoids that theoretically have intelligence, culture, and free will. They're also irredeemably evil to the last; go and slaughter them all! That'll make you great heroes!

It's the mindset that we should treat the wholesale slaughter of living breathing people as unequivocally good. It's not just a problematic mindset; it's dangerous

 

[Olrox17]

I've never met anyone since 1994 who didn't think the "card with pointy hoods" was blatantly supposed to be the KKK. The card is called "Invoke Prejudice", and the artist is something in the Neo-Nazi/White-Supremacist assortment. And the company kept ignoring it when it was given (apparently legitimately by accident) 1488 (which has a supremacist meaning that pops up on google) as it's index number in the data base. Kind of feels more insulting or offensive than just insensitive.

There was another card banned that did "destroy all black creatures", but they left in a bunch of other cards that destroyed or exiled or gave protection from black creatures (just like there are for all colors). I'm not saying if it was a good or bad call to get rid of it, but it had a name "Cleanse" that had no other modifiers with it (to stop it from going with "Ethnic Cleansing") and a dark skinned being being blown away in the art.

Hyperbole is funny, but it would be nice to at least have a bit more of the details before jumping to it.

You're perfectly right about "Invoke Prejudice". That's why I agreed with its removal.
About Cleanse, the creatures being destroyed are obviously undead, zombies and such, the dark skinned creature you mention is actually a red skinned demon with horns and claws. Cmon now.

 

[kudolink]

We don't just tell stories to "escape".

Oh yeah we do. Continuously. In every media. Since long time.

Stories are the major way we communicate the basic moral and ethical values of our culture.

That was probably true when we were walking on four limbs. Then we started to kill each other and the winners got to write the stories, and it became big part of the actual problem with the white-washed, white-centric history we are tought in our schools.
So I also challenge the quality of this basic morals and ethics, and for sure I challenge our culture for still allowing racism in 2020 (and poverty. And famine.
And war).

The narration of, "there are entire cultures that are entirely bad," may have seemed okay in the past. It isn't any more. There is no narrative need to connect conflict or alliance with your protagonists with race. "All people who look a certain way are enemies," is not the kind of narrative they want to accidentally support any more.

There is a narrative need of telling a fantasy story that is fantasy because it's not real. Ruling out fantasies is the wet dream of any totalitarian dictatorship. You want to delete horror movies. You want to delete thriller books. Only controlled, allowed fantasies from now on.

When you create a race that has too many points of similarity to how a group of real world people are also often depicted, then you do offend people.

No, people takes offence. It's different. And people takes offence because they think they are so important that the world should revolve around them and their measure.
Because a world of make-believe never damaged anyone. Real world practical privileges damage people: the N-word doesn't kill (in fact it's widely used between black people), modern slavery does.

The Xenomorph is dissimilar enough from the depiction of any real-world peoples that it does not offend. Vampires are not limited to being of any one racial or demographic group.

Make a werewolf race that, in human form has bronze skin, and tends to wear lots of feathers and fringed suede, and has a nomadic tribal social structure of people who live in conical hide tents... and maybe you have an issue.

So we add a tail or a noose to everyone and we end the discussion?
I explained why this argument is, again, wrong, by inviting you to play Carburators&Circuits.

Replace, "politically correct," with "respectful of the feelings of many people," we see how this is false. There is need for a product trying to sell to larger and larger audiences to be respectful of more people.

Yeah, a respectful game that has one of its three pillars in combat and violence and appropriation of treasures from others.
Do you hear the ridiculousness of the whole point?


But I understand... it's been a long time since the last big step forward that humanity took - changing Minesweeper into Flower Field: how many wars we stopped by changing that narrative!