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"Alternative lifestyles" in your campaign world
- Thread starter boxstop7
- Start date
WayneLigon
Adventurer
I haven't really given it a great deal of thought in the Ashara campaign; the action occurs for the most part in one large cosmopolitan trade city, so if you look hard enough you can find anything or any combination of things you can think of. I usually tell my players 'On the question of 'does Khadra have x', the answer is probably 'yes''.
Khadrans simply don't care, nor view it as anything unusual or worthy of comment except in the case of dynastic politics. Then things could get ugly if a son, expected to produce an heir, insists on being exclusively homosexual. If nothing else, eventually they'd have him Charmed or slip him a love potion so he could 'do his duty'.
I haven't given a great deal of thought to the rest of the world, and their attitudes on it.
Khadrans simply don't care, nor view it as anything unusual or worthy of comment except in the case of dynastic politics. Then things could get ugly if a son, expected to produce an heir, insists on being exclusively homosexual. If nothing else, eventually they'd have him Charmed or slip him a love potion so he could 'do his duty'.
I haven't given a great deal of thought to the rest of the world, and their attitudes on it.
SSS-Druid
First Post
I had queer dwarves in the home-grown campaign setting I used to run, too.
See, the highly uneven ratio of males-to-females among dwarves meant that while the females of the race were often given little choice in marriage, the males often paired off with another male who shared his profession, leading to "forgemates" (among craftsmen) and "shieldmates" (among adventurers and defenders of the citadel).
This led to a number of interesting stories, notably the female dwarf PC who fled her home because she fell in love with another dwarven woman, but her love gave in to her family's pressure to marry, so the PC fled the citadel in grief. The other, perhaps most interesting PC was the dwarven male who'd not only lost his shieldmate to marauding humanoid tribes, but was appalled at the way some humans treated the paired forgemates of their cities, and was the first to raise an axe in defense of such beleaguered lovers. This was one of the coolest PCs I've ever had in a D&D game, played by a quite thorougly straight guy.
See, the highly uneven ratio of males-to-females among dwarves meant that while the females of the race were often given little choice in marriage, the males often paired off with another male who shared his profession, leading to "forgemates" (among craftsmen) and "shieldmates" (among adventurers and defenders of the citadel).
This led to a number of interesting stories, notably the female dwarf PC who fled her home because she fell in love with another dwarven woman, but her love gave in to her family's pressure to marry, so the PC fled the citadel in grief. The other, perhaps most interesting PC was the dwarven male who'd not only lost his shieldmate to marauding humanoid tribes, but was appalled at the way some humans treated the paired forgemates of their cities, and was the first to raise an axe in defense of such beleaguered lovers. This was one of the coolest PCs I've ever had in a D&D game, played by a quite thorougly straight guy.
Tsyr
Explorer
Azure Trance said:
Normaly, they are re-incarnated as adults. It's a very fey thing... Every 300 years or so, an elf begins to feel the need to leave the elven community he is in... and just wanders away one day, unobstrusivly, walks a few miles away, and goes to sleep. They are covered with leaves (which seem to fall perfectly upon them), and are undisturbed by predators (which seem to not notice them). Their current body dies. A couple weeks later, they wake up, in a different "body", younger this time. Not quite a child though, the elven equivilant to about 18-20.
Every few re-incarnations, elves willingly choose to loose their memories and be reincarnated from the infant stage onward. Their core personality remains the same, but it refreshes their mind. It's the only thing that keeps them sane, considering that otherwise high elves have an immortal soul. An elf can choose to not do that, of course, but it's not smart. Eventualy the elf will go insane after 3 or 4 reincarnations without a refresh. Certain meditations and such can help delay it... a few elves have managed to go 6 or 7 cycles... but it always catches up to them eventualy. An elf that fails to purge his soul will slowly go insane in a most unique fashion: Time will cease to have meaning for an the elf. An elf in such a state might walk off a cliff because at one time he remembers a bridge there, or burn to death in a fire that he doesn't feel because he is lost in another time.
Azure Trance said:For Dwarves, I could see plausible (within fantasy limits
Dwarves don't have the huge imbalance in my world, it's closer to the human norm. Dwarves are too utilitarian minded to approve of same-sex relationships.
I keep meaning to post a write-up of the races on my world...
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Kahuna Burger
First Post
Tsyr said:
people keep saying this sort of thing, and without becoming too political... are there no orphans in your world? Are there no sisters who lose their husbands durring pregnancy and would rather give the child over to a stable couple than raise it on their own? Are there no dangerous lives carving out a new life for future settling followers, but to harsh now to raise an infant in? Is there no kin selection?
And to be a tiny bit snide, I do hope that those same "utilitarian" cultures frown just as strongly on the unnatural idea of celibate priests and palidans as they do homosexuality....
Kahuna Burger
Tsyr
Explorer
Kahuna Burger said:
people keep saying this sort of thing, and without becoming too political... are there no orphans in your world? Are there no sisters who lose their husbands durring pregnancy and would rather give the child over to a stable couple than raise it on their own? Are there no dangerous lives carving out a new life for future settling followers, but to harsh now to raise an infant in? Is there no kin selection?
And to be a tiny bit snide, I do hope that those same "utilitarian" cultures frown just as strongly on the unnatural idea of celibate priests and palidans as they do homosexuality....
Kahuna Burger
Orphens? Tons of them. Dwarves die often. They go to a relative to be raised.
Emotions has very little to do with dwarves. A child, if it has no family, is raised by "the state", for lack of a better term. This isn't something that's even a choice for dwarves.
And yes, they do frown on celibate anything.
Kahuna Burger
First Post
Celebrim said:
you then go on with a bunch of examples of single religion cultures with multiple gods. Let me go into more detail. The gods of D&D (as far as I can tell) are not a pantheon, as in the other polytheistic religions you have pointed out. They are seperate gods, some of seperate races, rarely with any "familial" relationship or heirarchy between them whose varied believers coexist in large numbers. This is not something you are going to find most places in history, and in fact is closest to a modern multicultural society. Throw in the fact that we have different races, half breeds between the races....
no, not really. You're the one I see putting focus on those irrelevant factors. You may accuse us of "modern politics" but when it comes down to it, modern politics dressed up in earth history are no more relevant. The D&D cosmology is not the same as any we have had. In order for homosexuality to be a "out of group" taboo (antiabortion religious groups) vs an 'in group' taboo (jewish kosher law) you must assume either that all religions oppose it (which is you making a judgement that it is bad) or that the D&D world is at some sort of constant religious war (which has never been supported by the base setting.)
In the highly multicultural setting which I have expereinced, taboos either die under the pressure of evidence that they aren't neccassary, or (more often) become personal taboos with no attempt to enforce on others, OR the person holding the taboos becomes very bitter and negitive. This is the way I would play a setting as fundementally multicultural as the D&D fantasy.
Kahuna Burger
Zappo
Explorer
I've had a very weird adventure once which involved a lesbian girl (of the "would like to be male" variety) and a rich and bored bisexual human male who wanted to try something different. He paid a psion to Mind Exchange them... The adventure got more complex from there. The players didn't seem to mind and played as usual.
Celebrim
Legend
KB: And you are free to do that, but it isn't the logical necessity of the situation.
Moreover it is certainly a shaky assumption to assume that all campaigns have the same cosmology, and I should point out that even Greyhawk has large areas which don't adhere to your multicultural idea.
Assuming that at least some of the gods are rivals, why don't alliances (pantheons) form? Why do you not consider the group of gods favoring one race or another a pantheon which is the rival of other pantheons? If there are multiple gods over the sphere of say fire, why would one want to discourage the worship of another and monopolize fire worship in a particular area? If the ruling class of any area holds to some set of ideas, why wouldn't they want to outlaw opposing ideologies (good, evil, law, ect.)? If the gods of any area hold to a some set of ideas, why wouldn't they want to outlaw opposing ideologies? Why are gods of diverse opinions forming friendly concensuses? Why would their be evidence taboo's aren't necessary, given that they could literally be divinely enforced? Why wouldn't populaces form for historical reasons who worshiped only a small subset of Gods and refused the worship of others?
"Oh great Diana, if you will only save us from the ravenous maw of Xxichex, then we shall erect a great temple in your honor and make a great sacrifice and our children shall worship no other, nor offer sacrifices to no other, unto the thousandth generation, shall your name be venerated in Velidia..."
These are not 'irrelevant factors'. To me they are the natural result of assuming societies to be diverse and complex, and it takes an equally complex and special explanation to just write them off.
And while there may be answers to all these things, another DM can answer them completely differently. I just think you have chosen to make your game world multi-cultural for personal reasons, and I don't really feel like discussing the personal reasons why people do things.
Moreover it is certainly a shaky assumption to assume that all campaigns have the same cosmology, and I should point out that even Greyhawk has large areas which don't adhere to your multicultural idea.
Assuming that at least some of the gods are rivals, why don't alliances (pantheons) form? Why do you not consider the group of gods favoring one race or another a pantheon which is the rival of other pantheons? If there are multiple gods over the sphere of say fire, why would one want to discourage the worship of another and monopolize fire worship in a particular area? If the ruling class of any area holds to some set of ideas, why wouldn't they want to outlaw opposing ideologies (good, evil, law, ect.)? If the gods of any area hold to a some set of ideas, why wouldn't they want to outlaw opposing ideologies? Why are gods of diverse opinions forming friendly concensuses? Why would their be evidence taboo's aren't necessary, given that they could literally be divinely enforced? Why wouldn't populaces form for historical reasons who worshiped only a small subset of Gods and refused the worship of others?
"Oh great Diana, if you will only save us from the ravenous maw of Xxichex, then we shall erect a great temple in your honor and make a great sacrifice and our children shall worship no other, nor offer sacrifices to no other, unto the thousandth generation, shall your name be venerated in Velidia..."
These are not 'irrelevant factors'. To me they are the natural result of assuming societies to be diverse and complex, and it takes an equally complex and special explanation to just write them off.
And while there may be answers to all these things, another DM can answer them completely differently. I just think you have chosen to make your game world multi-cultural for personal reasons, and I don't really feel like discussing the personal reasons why people do things.
Well, I've found the discussion to be baffling but I have something to say related to the topic so I thought I'd post.
What we are talking about is something to do with you campaign world. Clearly, this issue has nothing to do with the rules of the game. All that we can address is how cultures in game might relate to homosexuality. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts:
1. Unfortunately, D&D, except for a few superficial material things is set in a modern culture. The D&D rules, though written for something that looks like a medieval society at first glance, clearly describe a modern culture populated by modern people with modern ideas. So, if you're really _in_ Faerun or Greyhawk, my advice would be to play homosexuality EXACTLY the way it would be played in the modern world.
2. If you setting is actually medieval or antique, you have a few more interesting options:
(a) you can decouple sex and gender so that homosexuals are slotted into the gender opposite to their sex
(b) you can run a medieval public secret model where there's technically a severe penalty for homosexuality but in fact, it's a severe penalty for flaunting ones sexuality; thus, gay people in society are chaneled into roles and organizations that everyone knows are gay but no one acknowledges as such -- merchant marines, pirates and monks
3. In my most recent campaign, I decided to make all Paladins gay -- only gay men of lawful good alignment are ever called. Our one gay player who chose to play a Paladin under this model is having a wonderful time -- and I'm giving him license to write up how the Paladin order works in our world as kind of a counterpoint to the gay subculture in my city which my friend doesn't identify with very well.
What we are talking about is something to do with you campaign world. Clearly, this issue has nothing to do with the rules of the game. All that we can address is how cultures in game might relate to homosexuality. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts:
1. Unfortunately, D&D, except for a few superficial material things is set in a modern culture. The D&D rules, though written for something that looks like a medieval society at first glance, clearly describe a modern culture populated by modern people with modern ideas. So, if you're really _in_ Faerun or Greyhawk, my advice would be to play homosexuality EXACTLY the way it would be played in the modern world.
2. If you setting is actually medieval or antique, you have a few more interesting options:
(a) you can decouple sex and gender so that homosexuals are slotted into the gender opposite to their sex
(b) you can run a medieval public secret model where there's technically a severe penalty for homosexuality but in fact, it's a severe penalty for flaunting ones sexuality; thus, gay people in society are chaneled into roles and organizations that everyone knows are gay but no one acknowledges as such -- merchant marines, pirates and monks
3. In my most recent campaign, I decided to make all Paladins gay -- only gay men of lawful good alignment are ever called. Our one gay player who chose to play a Paladin under this model is having a wonderful time -- and I'm giving him license to write up how the Paladin order works in our world as kind of a counterpoint to the gay subculture in my city which my friend doesn't identify with very well.
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