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'.

 

[Olrox17]

You're so very close to the point, which is that humanity has insisted other cultures/societies/races are evil savages who deserve to be wiped out to the last, throughout basically all of our history, up to and including present day. It's not that orcs are problematic because they stand in for one of these cultures. It's that the game itself rewards that specific mindset by creating cultures/races that are provably evil savages. It reproduces and reinforces a mindset that is incredibly dangerous in the real world. And one that is still way more prevalent that we'd like to believe.

It doesn't matter that orcs are ugly and green and elves and beautiful and pale. It matters that we can recognize that both of these creatures are human enough as to be functionality the same other than for gameplay purposes. The game tells you that living, breathing, thinking, human(enough) people are evil ugly savages who must be destroyed. That's beyond troubling even before we get to the part where the game then rewards you for engaging in genocide and treating it has morally righteous.

This doesn't mean that there can't be orc marauders and reavers who need to be put down (I mean we do this with human bandits and pirates etc too) because this is heroic fantasy and we deal with obvious problems with violence, but establishing in the game rules that every single member of this free-willed human-eqsue species is irredeemably evil and must be killed for goodness is a whole other step entirely, and WotC deciding to reconsider this is an awesome step in the right direction.

In many D&D settings, the traits of non-human races are dictated (or highly influenced) by their respective gods. Tangibly real, powerful, meddling gods.
Drow society is what it is because Lolth messes with it quite frequently. Orc "society" is chaotic and destructive because Gruumsh wills it to be so.

This "awesome step" you mention, would require butchering much of the existing setting lore for several settings. A lot of retconning. I do not wish that to happen.

What WotC COULD do, is making a new setting, a setting where those changes make sense, where the entire worldbuilding is done according to those changes, and not in spite of them. If people really dig the concept, it'll sell like hot cakes.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

"You're so very close to the point, which is that humanity has insisted other cultures/societies/races are evil savages who deserve to be wiped out to the last, throughout basically all of our history, up to and including present day. It's not that orcs are problematic because they stand in for one of these cultures. It's that the game itself rewards that specific mindset by creating cultures/races that are provably evil savages. It reproduces and reinforces a mindset that is incredibly dangerous in the real world."

Yeah, but all those real-world historical reasons were naughty word lies to demonize real people and justify exploitation.

In the fiction of D&D, malevolent supernatural entities exist that create agents in the mortal world as extensions of their will. If I recall correctly, I believe one of the YouTube videos the D&D team put out in the last year or so specifically mentioned orcs in Eberron act differently because they are beyond the reach of Gruumsh and free of his malign will over them. Orcs are only inherently evil when Gruumsh is subverting their free will, as he intended for them.

EDIT: I guess then you could make the case that killing orcs is bad because they're effectively under mind control.

 

[Helldritch]

You're so very close to the point, which is that humanity has insisted other cultures/societies/races are evil savages who deserve to be wiped out to the last, throughout basically all of our history, up to and including present day. It's not that orcs are problematic because they stand in for one of these cultures. It's that the game itself rewards that specific mindset by creating cultures/races that are provably evil savages. It reproduces and reinforces a mindset that is incredibly dangerous in the real world. And one that is still way more prevalent that we'd like to believe.

From what I read on my post, I do not defend these actions in real life. I even said it quite clearly. You read what you want to read. I clearly said that orcs are not related to real life people. They never were and never will. If you want to equate them to people in the real world that is your choice, not mine. You put intentions in a game where there is none. This is fantasy, make believe. Whenever I use real world examples, it is to show that if it can happen in our world, it will definitively happen in a fantasy one.

If evil races are not your cup of tea, I strongly suggest to use a Hyperborean style world. Take the world of Xoth. It is high sorcery and quite close to the Conan style. No evil orcs. All areas filled with shades of grey.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I had no knowledge of orcs and demons other than their entry in the MM I wouldn't know the difference.

But you do have knowledge. And so do all the other people talking about it. So you can't put your head in the sand and expect everybody else to as well.

 

[Warren Ellis]

In the fiction of D&D, malevolent supernatural entities exist that create agents in the mortal world as extensions of their will. If I recall correctly, I believe one of the YouTube videos the D&D team put out in the last year or so specifically mentioned orcs in Eberron act differently because they are beyond the reach of Gruumsh and free of his malign will over them. Orcs are only inherently evil when Gruumsh is subverting their free will, as he intended for them.

Whwt happens if orcs are worshipping alternate gods in their home settings and they run into Gruumsh orcs then? Might they have resistance against his corruption due to their worship of other deities protecting their minds or souls or whatever?

 

[DEFCON 1]

You read what you want to read. I clearly said that orcs are not related to real life people. They never were and never will. If you want to equate them to people in the real world that is your choice, not mine. You put intentions in a game where there is none. This is fantasy, make believe.

That's fine. You can believe whatever you want to believe. Only problem is... the folks at WotC don't agree and thus you're going to be stuck with whatever THEY choose to believe and the changes they make accordingly. And there's not much you can do about it.

 

[Helldritch]

In many D&D settings, the traits of non-human races are dictated (or highly influenced) by their respective gods. Tangibly real, powerful, meddling gods.
Drow society is what it is because Lolth messes with it quite frequently. Orc "society" is chaotic and destructive because Gruumsh wills it to be so.

This "awesome step" you mention, would require butchering much of the existing setting lore for several settings. A lot of retconning. I do not wish that to happen.

What WotC COULD do, is making a new setting, a setting where those changes make sense, where the entire worldbuilding is done according to those changes, and not in spite of them. If people really dig the concept, it'll sell like hot cakes.

I bet that it would not sell at all. Such a world would be bland and boring. If I want a sword and sorcery game, every one in it will be humans and they will either fight other humans or monsters/demons just like Conan does. If you have multiple races, you must then have evil races. Otherwise, what is the point?

 

[Olrox17]

Whwt happens if orcs are worshipping alternate gods in their home settings and they run into Gruumsh orcs then? Might they have resistance against his corruption due to their worship of other deities protecting their minds or souls or whatever?

Sounds like a terrific campaign idea.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I don't want to negate the influence of subconscious in writing stories or creating worlds. If you want, you can see discrimination and racism in everything. We can analyze with tranquillity every written fiction and decide without problems to correct this and that if we sincerely find it offensive or lacking of taste. But there must be a limit of reasonableness, a minimum quota of objectivity.

Personally I recall reading multiple takes that media with evil extraterrestrial invaders is inherently problematic, probably most recently with the villainous King Ghidorah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The reasoning being that depicting an alien as evil reinforces prejudices against immigrants (the fact that said evil alien is also a colossal three headed dragon was apparently irrelevant).

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Yeah, but all those real-world historical reasons were naughty word lies to demonize real people and justify exploitation.

In the fiction of D&D, malevolent supernatural entities exist that create agents in the mortal world as extensions of their will. If I recall correctly, I believe one of the YouTube videos the D&D team put out in the last year or so specifically mentioned orcs in Eberron act differently because they are beyond the reach of Gruumsh and free of his malign will over them. Orcs are only inherently evil when Gruumsh is subverting their free will, as he intended for them.

So then the question becomes: why did the author(s) make that creative decision? Is it a good one? If not, how can it be changed or reframed?

Another reminder that diegetic arguments do not negate thematic textual criticism. Thermian arguments by their very nature exist on shaky rhetorical ground.