Races and classes have been the central aspects of character creation since the beginning of Dungeons & Dragons – well, not quite the beginning, since Elf used to be a class in original D&D. However, , it looks like Wizards of the Coast will be moving toward less drastic racial mechanics, especially in regard to races tradition🌄ally considered “monster races.”
Crawford pointed out the differences between the orcs found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and those found in the Exandria and Eberron s𒉰ettings, saying that the latter reflects the direction that the D&D team is headed in regard to monsters. The Exandria and Eberron orcs lack the -2 penalty to Intelligence and the required evil alignment. This reflects the fact that in these settings orcs are mostly considered another type of people – with all the varieties in personality and t♔emperament that come with that – rather than fodder for player characters to fight.
While orcs are perhaps the most obvious due to their mechanical debuff in the Forgotten Re🔯alms, Crawford says that “the drow, Vistani, and many other folks” m♛ay be similarly reworked. Some races may have setting-specific differences; for instance, Crawford believes that Forgotten Realms gnolls should be fiends, given their demonic backstory, but that the gnolls of Eberron are humanoids with “moral and cultural expansiveness.”
It is worth noting that this comes on the heels of a Twitter discussion on the, initially spawned by a screenshot of the✨ description of orcs in Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Tolkien initially p𓆏ortrayed orcs as caricatures of Mongolians, and orcs have been racial stereotypes of other races over and over (see World of Warcraft or Bright). Dungeons & Dragons is not immune to this – even outside of the orc issue, races like the Vistani appear as Romani stereotypes.
Even more worrying than individual racial stereotypes is the use of biological determinalism – the idea that orcs are naturally “savage” and even when “domesticated” lack the capacity to care that other races do. The idea that a race of people with free will and the capacity to ✃make decisions are naturally inclined toward evil or low intelligence is central to real-world racism, and it is a good sign that Wizards of the Coast is adding ওmore nuance to D&D races.