The idea of race has been faraway from Dungeons & Dragons’ new Participant’s Handbook (2024). The favored role-playing sport now makes use of the extra scientific idea of species as a substitute. It’s one thing that has been within the works for years now, one among many modifications to the character creation part within the newly revised PHB, which has been formed by gamers’ character creation knowledge, the industrial success of Baldur’s Gate 3, and using sensitivity readers throughout manufacturing. Builders at Wizards of the Coast inform Polygon they’re not carried out but, and people guidelines will proceed to evolve because it releases extra setting books highlighting totally different components of the sport’s multiverse within the years to return.
The linguistic shift to describing elves, dwarves, and people as totally different species moderately than totally different races was formally introduced in late 2022. That’s the identical 12 months that Wizards printed Spelljammer: Adventures in House, a extremely anticipated reboot of a Eighties-era setting. Sadly, that guide contained textual content and pictures describing a gaggle of primate-like creatures that many considered as reinforcing dangerous stereotypes. The incident led Wizards to difficulty an apology, a promise to change digital copies and future printings of the module, and an announcement that outdoors cultural consultants would assessment each phrase, illustration, and map earlier than publication to keep away from future missteps.
A kind of consultants engaged on the brand new Participant’s Handbook was James Mendez Hodes, who wrote a pair of articles in 2019 criticizing D&D for perpetuating racist stereotypes. In his work, Hodes clearly laid out how these stereotypes date again to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, portraying orcs as savage and monstrous. He just lately shared a picture of his title within the guide’s credit, saying playfully that “each time you play D&D and nobody is racist, it was me. You’re welcome.”
Dungeons & Dragons lead designer Jeremy Crawford advised Polygon that the change to Wizards’ course of has been a welcome one.
“We seek the advice of with these professionals early on within the course of, then halfway by way of the method, then once more later within the course of, ensuring that we’re bringing pleasure and never unwelcome surprises in how one thing is introduced, and I believe that has been a really fruitful collaboration,” he stated.
That is the primary Participant’s Handbook within the sport’s 50-year historical past to incorporate guidelines for enjoying as orcs, with the fifth version mechanics for enjoying them beforehand relegated to Volo’s Information to Monsters and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. Whereas 2016’s Volo’s described them as “savage,” “aggressive,” and “primal,” the Participant’s Handbook (2024) makes use of the revised 2022 talents from Monsters of the Multiverse to painting them as a troublesome and decided folks given items by the god Gruumsh to assist them wander the world.
“Orcs over the sport’s historical past have migrated from the monster aspect of the sport to being playable folks, and we wished to ensure their story mirrored that migration,” Crawford stated. “Somewhat than having type of a villainous tinge, which they’d initially half a century in the past, we actually emphasize participant alternative in your character’s persona and ethical outlook.”
That very same shift has taken place with drow, the dark-skinned elves which have primarily been portrayed prior to now as evil. The Participant’s Handbook (2024) depicts elves as formed by the setting in ways in which imbue them with magic and alter their look, with wooden elves typically having inexperienced pores and skin and feeling at residence in forests whereas excessive elves wield the magics of the Feywild. Drow are described as being marked by the Underdark with out essentially being aligned with the evil deity Lolth within the new PHB, which additionally attracts consideration to the rainforest-dwelling drow discovered within the Eberron marketing campaign setting.
Lacking from the brand new PHB are half-elves and half-orcs, although they will nonetheless be performed with the 2014 guidelines together with legacy subclasses. Of their place, the angelic aasimar and hulking goliaths have been welcomed into the fold as core playable characters. The basic Tolkien alliance of people, elves, dwarves, and halflings was considered as important to the sport’s custom, however within the new PHB, different decisions had been made primarily based on finding out a long time of statistics gleaned from gamers’ selections in character creation and from contemplating elements of the D&D settings the designers wished to emphasise.
Dragonborn have been a core character choice since 4th version, permitting gamers to connect with D&D’s namesake monsters. However as books like Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants and the journey Storm King’s Thunder have aimed to make giants simply as iconic, goliaths are serving the identical function by letting characters hint their ancestry to giantkind. Tieflings had been additionally a core character choice in 4th version and the 2014 model of the PHB, and the sport designers felt it was time to offer their celestial cousins the identical prominence.
“It didn’t harm that aasimar featured prominently in Baldur’s Gate 3, and that sport did a great job of exhibiting how superior aasimar and tieflings are,” Crawford stated.
The brand new PHB builds on the principles first introduced within the 2020 guide Tasha’s Cauldron of Every little thing, stripping away the organic determinism baked into tying a participant character’s stats to their species. As a substitute, capacity rating boosts at the moment are assigned by a personality’s background, like farmer or acolyte. Species descriptions are a lot shorter than they had been within the Participant’s Handbook (2014), however gamers can look forward to finding extra info in future books, such because the unnamed Forgotten Realms participant information being launched in late 2025.
“We really feel that exact marketing campaign settings are the very best locations for us to dig into the tales of varied peoples as a result of there may be a lot variance from one world to a different,” Crawford stated. “We discover it’s greatest for the Participant’s Handbook to have a light-weight contact and principally simply say what’s typically true for the multiverse, after which go away the nitty-gritty particulars to specific settings the place they will actually dive into the story of this specific group of individuals on this world and this tradition relative to a different tradition.”