An Alternative to Removing Orcs and Drow from D&D’s Monster Manual

The three core books are out and It’s a good time to reflect on what 2024’s revision of 5E means for our hobby. But first, let’s address the topic of orcs and drow being removed from the MM.

Under Pressure and an Admirable Goal

This article is my commentary, and my hopes for a better path forward, but it isn’t about casting blame. Wizards of the Coast has a spotlight on it unlike any other RPG company. A wrong move can inflict disproportionate harm to itself and the hobby. When it comes to bold experiments, smaller companies can be in a better place to make them, and Wizards can be effective by watching these experiments and carrying out a more measured, but still important, improvement. So, I get it. While I very much want progress, I don’t expect WotC to magically get everything right and lead on every issue.

The 2025 MM for the 2024 revision of 5E removes various monsters that appeared in 2014, including orcs, drow, duergar, and deep gnomes. Their removal reflects the hobby changing how it looks at these creatures (particularly orcs and drow). Our hobby has stopped favoring stories where species have complex vast cultures but are universally evil (and with painting individuals like Drizzt and King Obould as extraordinary exceptions).

This is to be expected. A shift in how we tell stories has been taking place since the birth of RPGs, themselves a shift in storytelling from war gaming. As we get deeper into great stories (and as we examine our real world history and errors), painting an entire species with a single brush falls short. Back in the ‘80s when I played in middle school, we didn’t have a great care for what differentiated gnolls, bugbears, orcs, or most other foes. We barely cared about our own characters’ stories, and the monsters felt like slight variations on bags of hit points and damage. Our DMs, good as they were, seldom provided any foes with personality, aspirations, motives, or culture.

If we consider how our hobby has helped tell better adventure stories, and better character stories, we can see strong improvement. Even early adventures have glimpses of change, and the (D&D Basic) 1991 Rules Cyclopedia deserves a special mention for its focus on diversity. Recent editions have tried to tell better stories that resonate with a wider audience. This is great, and is likely a key reason for 5E’s success.

Stumbling on Monsters

It is thus a shame that, on monsters, our hobby stumbles. This isn’t just a WotC problem. Most RPGs provide insufficient advice on how to tell a monster’s story, how to give monsters goals and motives that will come across in play, and how to handle the intricacies of conflict in a way that will create the rewarding play to which the audience now aspires. And, also, when to totally go for murdering everything in the dungeon, if that will be fun for the group. In general, the topic gets a pass.

And that’s what the revised Monster Manual does. It passes. It says “these are not monsters,” but it doesn’t tell us why. It doesn’t address their lore, what to do with these species, or even what to do with other humanoids that weren’t present in the 2014 MM, such as elves and other player species. If I want my party to encounter a patrol of elves in the woods, what should I do? Where do I find this guidance? Where do I find the stat blocks, or how can I create my own?

The revised MM provides a table of “Monster Conversions,” but it falls short. A Drow is not a Priest Acolyte (the latter lacks darkvision and their spells include the not-at-all-Drow spells of Light, Bless, and Healing Word). The other conversions are similarly lackluster. A Scout as a stand-in for a Deep Gnome? Please. In the art above from the Player’s Handbook, what would a new player see? There are no PH appearance descriptions for Drow, Wood Elves, or High Elves. (To be clear, the art is awesome and I have no issue with the art itself.)

But it isn’t about stat block conversions. Sure, having templates or something else would structurally help, but the real problem is Wizards has punted on dealing with the issue. They’ve made arbitrary choices without providing any real path forward for anyone. The orc and drow are gone… but if these were removed because they shouldn’t be murdered, then apparently you can murder Aarakocra, Lizardfolk, Goblins (now chaotic neutral instead of neutral evil), Kobolds, Merfolk, and others. And maybe it’s supposed to be about setting, but that falls short too – aren’t lizardfolk about the setting?

Omission does not guide a new DM towards telling great stories. Finding an FR book with evil drow or an Eberron book with good gnolls doesn’t magically show a DM how to tell stories (though the latter may help). (It’s especially difficult when the PH tells us so little about, say, Orcs. Read the 2024 PH’s description of Orcs and try to figure out what Gruumsh is like or what Orcs are like, then take in that bizarre South-American-vaquero art and tell me what an Orc is. I have no idea what an Orc is in 2024. Drow are also a puzzle in 2024 – do they have dark skin? What does it mean to be a Drow if I may or may not be “shaped by” the Underdark?)

Facing the Challenge

What might work? Clear instructions in all three core books.

The PH should let players know to expect diverse peoples and that any individual monster may differ from the last one they met. D&D is a great game in this era especially because we can be surprised by so many types of stories. We can talk about the generic setting (pick FR or another one) and describe the history and why of it and how things are changing. We can then let players know to check with their DM, because each setting and even parts of settings are very different. And, your individual can be whatever you want. If we no longer like FR’s history… hey, let’s change it. Not stating what it is, or not addressing what the default is, ends up with nothing of value.

The DMG should help us craft great stories. It should tell us how to create nuanced settings, how to give monsters goals and motives, how to communicate these to the players during play, and how to make play more fun and engaging because of this.

The MM should provide the creatures we expect to find in the world, including halflings and elves and orcs and drow, and to also help us understand the general nature of those creatures in the default D&D setting. And it should note that even in a default setting there is variance. The elves of Faerun are many, with all the cultural complexity of people in our world and perhaps more (because magic!). If the setting of Faerun is problematic, change that. But if we can tell DMs the default for lizardfolk and hobgoblins, we can do so for orcs and elves.

I grew up in Colombia. You might guess I like listening to salsa (I do), that I play soccer (I don’t), and that I enjoy cooking arepas (I do). It’s fine to have some default cultural assumptions, so long as we also understand and expect variance. When we encounter a patrol of elves in a forest we may expect them to be protective of the land, so we approach with caution. We may be even more wary if it is a patrol of orcs. But the game is better if all three core books teach us to expect variance. That patrol of gnomes? That might be the real danger, and the game all the more fun for it.

(If you enjoy this topic, you may enjoy Forge of Foes, where we discuss this and related topics and provide actionable advice. Forge of Foes also contains lots of cool advice for creating engaging encounters and building and modifying monsters.)