D&D 5E Should the next edition of D&D promote more equality?

[Warbringer]

Failing that, there's college courses that teach these things better than some goob on a message board can.

Dude, lead by example, you're supposed to be a moderator

 

[Warbringer]

Translation: "I like the status quo just fine. Male heroes and male pronouns should stay the default because that's just how it's supposed to be. I don't want to make any effort to be inclusive of women in this hobby. Oh, and no women seem to want to play this game with me. I wonder why that is?"

I think it was Blue Rose that went female gender focused, and made no impact on readability. Personally, I'm a fan of change the pronoun use to gender inclusive versus the expected norm; thus is "he" is neutral and you want to include women use "she" instead. But, please oh please, no pronoun shifting...

The alternative is build persona and talk about the rules in relation to those persona

 

[TanithT]

Right, like I said, it was more for the purposes of the example. Like, "Assume this is true (because it likely is true enough)".

Well, that's the thing. I don't honestly think it is true. The demographics of RPG sales aren't that heavily concentrated at this point, to the best of my understanding, on the very young crowd. The stereotype of most D&D players being nerdy teenage boys whose dating life consists of staring at the succubus in the Monster Manual is a wee bit outdated.

Does sex still sell? Sure, but the demographic of female players is not an insignificant one, and what you definitely don't have numbers on is how many sales you DON'T make to women because you put gratuitously stupid cheesecake on the cover.

Note the 'gratuitously stupid' part. You can sell images of attractive women to women as well as to men, but it's a much tougher sell if your direction of gaze panders to heterosexual male appreciation at the expense of female admiration. Eg, she's doing something stupid that a male wouldn't and shouldn't do under the same circumstances, just to be shown as more sexually appealing.

Ultimately WotC has to make a decision as to what demographic they want to aim for, and teenage boys are not the ones with the most disposable income.

 

[Obryn]

Nobody's gonna die over a few pronouns or hurt sensibilities.

It's weird that you flipped "inclusiveness" around to "not offending people," because those are two different (related, but different) goals.

Otherwise, I was just thinking, "Wow, I haven't seen any really terrible posts on this thread yet!" and was briefly optimistic about the hobby. Ah, well.

-O

 

[I'm A Banana]

Dude, lead by example, you're supposed to be a moderator

What, you want me to personally educate everyone who comes along and is unaware of basic marketing and gender issues used in a hypothetical manner to illustrate another point? Man, we'd be here all week. Got other stuff to do. I've got a child to feed somewhere underneath all of my gaming books, and it's gone without food now far too long to dig itself out. SOMEONE's gonna need to get a shovel.

We live in the age of information, anyone can access Wikipedia, and I am going to be a lot more rambly and sloppy in some casual message board conversation than would do the topic justice. I pity the fool that relies on me for their education.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Go out of its way to promote equality? Well, how about just doing it, without thinking about it?
If you have to put tons of effort into it, chances are it will seem as false and hollow as a corporate propaganda piece.

 

[TanithT]

What, you want me to personally educate everyone who comes along and is unaware of basic marketing and gender issues used in a hypothetical manner to illustrate another point?

An education is not what is required. Backing up numbers and statistics that you cite with 'great confidence' as the basis for your argument is all that is being requested. This is not an unreasonable request.

 

[Warbringer]

What, you want me to personally educate everyone who comes along and is unaware of basic marketing and gender issues used in a hypothetical manner to illustrate another point? Man, we'd be here all week. Got other stuff to do. I've got a child to feed somewhere underneath all of my gaming books, and it's gone without food now far too long to dig itself out. SOMEONE's gonna need to get a shovel.

We live in the age of information, anyone can access Wikipedia, and I am going to be a lot more rambly and sloppy in some casual message board conversation than would do the topic justice. I pity the fool that relies on me for their education.

KM, personally I enjoy most of your posts, they're usually insightful and informed, I'm just disappointed when I see you reducing arguments to insults against other posters - and yes "goob" is derogatory when it comes from a moderator.

Now, nowhere near the levels some of the more posters here reach (you know who you are)

..

 

[Warbringer]

Otherwise, I was just thinking, "Wow, I haven't seen any really terrible posts on this thread yet!" and was briefly optimistic about the hobby. Ah, well.

-O

Over 100 posts in; not too shabby

 

[TanithT]

KM, personally I enjoy most of your posts, they're usually insightful and informed, I'm just disappointed when I see you reducing arguments to insults against other posters - and yes "goob" is derogatory when it comes from a moderator.

In context, it actually reads as a reference to *himself* as "some goob on a message board".

Still doesn't excuse the bad argument technique of citing big, authoritative numbers as justification for an argument, and dismissing requests for an actual cite by claiming that everyone should 'just know' these things, and if you don't agree with him, clearly you know nothing about marketing and just need a basic education.

The fact that I do have a reasonably solid education in business administration, marketing is why I'm asking for cites in the first place, though. There are a lot of serious questions as to what the RPG industry demographics actually are at this point and what is likely to influence them, and what actually happens when you don't pander to the presumed horny teenage boy gamer stereotype, nor the all white, all cisgender, all heterosexual male gamer stereotype.

I think Paizo has shown pretty definitively that good things happen. Will WotC follow suit, or not? And can we have a serious conversation without dismissing legitimate requests for cites when numbers are thrown around?