Warning: The following article contains mentions/discussions of racism, images that may contain mature language, and mentions of abuse.

On June 17th, 2020, Wizards of the Coast released a long-awaited announcement about their plans to improve their record and content when it comes to diversity and specifically race, in the content they produce. When I say long-awaited, I mean this has been in the works for six years and has been asked for over a longer period still.

There’s a lot I love about Dungeons & Dragons. I love its promises of escapism. I love its interactive play and how much is left to the whims of the dice. I love creating characters that have stories to tell and telling them. I love the social element and I am itching to eventually get back to sitting around a table with some friends.

There’s also a lot that has left me dissatisfied and dismayed in the published content and I am far from the only one. Voices of color, more importantly, in our tabletop RPG community have been deeply hurt and asking for change for a long time. A lot does need to be changed and Wizards of the Coast has taken the first step, at long last, toward a new approach.

Indeed, Wizards of the Coast has rather pointedly, and repeatedly, missed the mark in a good amount of its published content. There is deeply concerning anti-black and anti-indigenous language and intensely uncomfortable exoticism in adventure modules like Tomb of Annihilation. Curse of Strahd leans into worrying antiziganist stereotypes with its depictions of the Vistani ethnic group.

Elsewhere, the continuing, essentialist depiction of certain peoples — mostly drow, orcs, and goblinoids — as variously but always evil in ways that have been couched in anti-black and anti-Semitic descriptors has been a topic of conversation for a long time now.

Until fairly recently, these criticisms and requests for an overhaul seemed often met with silence, at least on the public front. I can’t speak to what was happening in conversations behind closed doors at Wizards of the Coast but a general lack of responsiveness to the conversations that were happening outside was, to say the least, deeply troubling.

This first step has looked toward attempting to rectify several of the lingering problems Dungeons & Dragons players have been pointing out for years and, when met with little or no response, developing solutions themselves.

Wizards of the Coast has, in large part through recent releases of Eberron: Rising from the Last War as well as Critical Role’s Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, taken some steps toward retooling its depictions of orcs and dark elves. These are taken in the name of ensuring that future depictions of orcs and drow are “just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples.”

Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd are also being overhauled to rectify racially insensitive text and harmful stereotypes. These reprints should be available in the coming months.

Wizards of the Coast has also vowed to review its other published material for such content as each book comes up for a reprint. In order to write the Vistani more carefully in two forthcoming books, Wizards has reached out to a Romani consultant and are seeking to incorporate sensitivity readers more extensively into their writing process.

Finally, Wizards of the Coast is “proactively seeking” to diversify its hiring practices, aiming to have its content creators look more like the reality of the Dungeons & Dragons community — though it should be noted that, at present, most of that energy seems to be aimed toward freelance positions and one-off contributions. This announcement has been met with mixed responses.

Many are positive. B. Dave Walters, a content creator for Dungeons & Dragons, cast member of several tabletop RPG live streams, and partner to Level-Up Dice responded warmly, citing his involvement in the process leading up to the announcement. Ajit George, TEDx speaker and long-time activist for children’s education, feminism, and diversity and inclusion in the workplace, greatly looks forward to what’s coming next.

Other comments on Jeremy Crawford’s Twitter post relating to the announcement don’t hesitate to point out that this has been a problem for a lot longer than the six years mentioned in the announcement itself, but are deeply thankful for finally seeing some kind of headway.

Predictably, there are white people in the Dungeons & Dragons community who seem to be rather insistently missing the point, complaining that “I don’t think DnD should ever get political” or that Wizards of the Coast has succumbed to excessive “political correctness.” Others have — with good intent, but nonetheless terrible timing — spammed the Twitter replies with demands to #FireMikeMearls over his complicity in and enabling of abuse and harassment by Zak Smith, a former playtester and consultant hired by Wizards of the Coast.

Ajit George responded unequivocally to these reactions, asking that “If you’re white & you’re screaming ‘#FireMikeMearls‘ in all your responses to this post, can you please take a seat for five seconds?” and pointing out that “This statement specifically addressing racism in D&D is historic, something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. Let POCs have their moment.”

There are, doubtless, lingering concerns that this announcement is lukewarm and doesn’t go far enough. The vow to diversify hiring practices may certainly leave something to be desired if it means only hiring BIPOC writers and artists on a freelance basis. These concerns are by no means without merit. There’s carefully couched PR language and certain dodged commitments in the announcement that worry me greatly, too.

However, it’s a long-awaited, very necessary first step in a promising direction and I look cautiously forward to seeing Wizards of the Coast held to their word.

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